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Dan9

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Why did they bother deconstructing The Sanctuary?

The Towers are barely open so it was a bit pointless.

I think it's more a case of The Towers need to be open as ruins, due to local council agreements or something, regardless of the popularity and longevity of the opening.

Happy to see Sanctuary return, though I do hope TotT gets a major revamp this season, really didn't do anything for me last season. Would like to see CoS return, as I enjoyed it, but at the same time, it would be nice to get a completely new maze, and I can't see another maze added to the line up. My personal preference would be to see CoS stay one more season, and have this season be a complete reva,p of TotT.

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I think it's more a case of The Towers need to be open as ruins, due to local council agreements or something, regardless of the popularity and longevity of the opening.

Happy to see Sanctuary return, though I do hope TotT gets a major revamp this season, really didn't do anything for me last season. Would like to see CoS return, as I enjoyed it, but at the same time, it would be nice to get a completely new maze, and I can't see another maze added to the line up. My personal preference would be to see CoS stay one more season, and have this season be a complete reva,p of TotT.

Ok fair enough.

I would like to see Terror of the Towers receive a revamp - although I quite enjoyed it last year, probably because I hadn't done it before.

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How would you improve it? Other than slight lulls/inconsistency between goes (which is largely unavoidable in a live action maze type attraction) I can't think of much that could be better. Love that maze.

As with most Merlin mazes, I think that it would really benefit from a few triggered effects (such as hanging bodies moving or something of the sort) because they are, in some ways, scarier than actors.

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How would you improve it? Other than slight lulls/inconsistency between goes (which is largely unavoidable in a live action maze type attraction) I can't think of much that could be better. Love that maze.

I don't know if I caught it at a bad time (and I did visit during the Preview Weekend last season; thought that shouldn't be an excuse), but I found it a bit boring at times (especially at the beginning), with long sections of nothing happening and a few story line inconsistencies. And, most importantly, the scares weren't anything special. Carnival and Sanctuary are a lot better, and I'd happily say Se7en and Experiment 10 (well, in 2011) were more enjoyable and scary as well.

The trouble I have with criticizing it is I can't answer the question of how to improve it. Nothing in the maze feels unnecessary; it is obviously well thought out and is executed pretty well. But, to me, it just doesn't 'do' anything for me. Maybe the actors need re-positioning a bit and just the odd tweak here and there may improve it massively to me? Maybe I just caught it at the wrong time and the problems I had were ironed away?

So yeah, would love to see it revamped, but would also love to try it again, and see if I was just unlucky.

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Can't find a topic for Enterprise... but was there today and maintenance staff were removing the carriage/carts off the enterprise wheel - doesn't look good! I have pictures but not sure how to put them on here?

At the top of where you write your posts, there's a button that looks like a painting (just underneath the smily face), which should say 'Image' when you hover over it. Click it an copy the image url of your photos (add them to Photobucket or Flickr or something if you haven't done that!) into the box that pops up and that's it! :)

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  • 1 month later...

Towers Street have confirmed on their website that the Early ride time line up has changed here is what they wrote:

Early Ride Time; where hotel guests, annual pass holders and pre-booked tickets get an extra hour on selected rides from 9am until 10am, has been a staple of the resorts line-up for many years, and has gone through many changes. Today Alton Towers have announced a new set of changes to the line-up, removing Th13teen and Hex and replacing them with Duel and Blade.

Th13teen has long suffered during ERT due to the fact it requires 18 riders before it can be dispatched, often resulting in long waits to ride using up guests time in the ERT window. The new line-up moves all of the ERT offering to the left side of the park, and it is at this time un-clear whether non-ERT guests will be allowed into this section of the park until 10am. If the area is restricted to ERT guests only, this would alleviate the problem of non-ERT guests being sometimes allowed on the operating rides before 10am, something that has been noted at times in the current system.

Along with these changes, the Woodland Walk from the hotels to the theme park will be opening from 8:30 every morning. This will encourage guests to use it for ERT as it enters the park in Forbidden Valley. Previously the walk did not open until 10am and thus could not be used for ERT.

The new ERT line-up is as follows and will begin running sometime in August we understand:

Nemesis

Runaway Mine Train

Sharkbait Reef

Duel

Blade

Heave Ho

Marauders Mayhem

(Note: ERT does not operate during the Scarefest and Fireworks events)

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10 years ago you only had Air on ERT...

Or Nemesis if you were really lucky...

And you got a themed guide pick everyone up from the hotel lobby (Back when it was Nemesis and my first visit to Towers in 2001, a bloke in hard hat and hi-vis would run into the lobby screaming and promoting the story of Nemesis <3)...

Sigh...

I guess that having Air and Nemesis would be extremely unlikely to be both open and ready for 9am, especially with staff requirements... Sub Terra would be a definite candidate off the list just for staffing alone since it needs 60 people to run it...

They might look into Air opening as well, but for now, let's settle for whoring Runaway Train still <3

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Most certainly had both on a good few of my visits back in the day, around Airs first few seasons.

In the space of one season lose 2 major coasters (and Hex) and replace them with a poor pirate ship (for my money the worst 'big' ride in the park. I don't know how they managed to make blade so forceless, it's actually quite an achievement) and a haunted house that last saw a queue in about 1998 is not much of a fair deal.

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This is all Intamin's fault. Had Rita's cable not snapped we wouldn't have got 13 as a replacement. Had 13 not had a stupid rule about the number of riders and being down the last few days it would have been a good replacement. Wretched Intamin!

Fingers crossed they return Oblivion to the list for next year.

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This is all Intamin's fault. Had Rita's cable not snapped we wouldn't have got 13 as a replacement. Had 13 not had a stupid rule about the number of riders and being down the last few days it would have been a good replacement. Wretched Intamin!

Fingers crossed they return Oblivion to the list for next year.

Love how we blame Intamin.. There are plenty of Launch coasters out there which cables havent snapped ;)

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I do agree another main ride needs to be included in the ERT lineup, unless they really are going to only give the benefit to hotel guests, as with the lineup being aimed more at families and the walkway to forbidden valley from the hotels being reopened, and keeping all of it in one side of the park, I can understand - although if people who have booked online get ERT as well which I guess a lot of people do then it's only fair they include another major ride like air!

I find it amusing how alton towers still have the oblivion image on their ERT page! :lol:

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