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lovingbothLet's see if I can get my review of Air in first :)
I hadn't been to Alton Towers since the early 80s - at that point, it had a few small rides, but on a 'pay as you ride' basis. It's very different now - most of it is now rides, rides, rides.
Let's review the rides I did yesterday in reverse order...
Enterprise is a series of small cabins that end up being spun quickly around vertically. Very short queue, quite fun, leaves you feeling a bit dizzy. 3/5.
Submission is a pair of platforms that are slowly rotated as they go around vertically. Very short queue, fun. 4/5.
Oblivion is one of the park's big rides. A 'high vertical drop into a dark tunnel' coaster. And that's it - you stop at the edge, tilted over, get told not to look down and then whee... down you go. You're soon out of the tunnel, around a bend at speed, and that's it. Ride time from the edge: about 10 seconds. Long queue (45 mins) but one of the best 'I really shouldn't have gone on this' moments on any ride anywhere as you approach the edge. 4.5/5
Nemisis was the headline ride until Air. A suspended coaster - your legs dangle close to a succession of rocks and blood-red pools and waterfalls. A couple of barrel rolls and a loop. Minimal queue time with the virtual queue tickets still available when I got there. When it was over, about 45 seconds later, I tried to sneak back onto a vacant seat but picked one that someone was coming back to after depositing their bags. Rats. Because this one is fun... especially if you've spotted earlier just how much one support wobbles! 5/5
Black Hole is an in-the-dark coaster. It's inside a dome and once you're going, you climb inside the edge of the dome in a spiral. Hmm, I can't see any drop? Where is it? Ah, it's a fake wall and down and up and down and up and... you go. Not the best in-the-dark, but worth the 15 min queue. 3.5/5
Hex is a good rotating room illusion. Neat, no queue. 4/5.
Corkscrew is a medium size metal coaster that looks like a wooden one - some of the smallest supports ever - but includes a double barrel roll. Short queue, quite fun. 3.5/5
Air. Ah, the new headline ride. Uniquely, you ride in 'Superman' position. An hour after opening time, all the virtual queue tickets had gone (gasp!) so it was 'face the queue time'. Now, I don't like queuing at theme parks, so it was with heavy heart that I faced a 50 minute wait.
Doing some BiCon stuff made it pass not too badly, along with chatting to some students (end of term = much busier than I was expecting for a Monday in school term time...) Note to self - next time take a long stick to turn off the Cadbury's Heroes advertising along the way.
So onto the ride.There's a separate queue for the four front 'seats', but that would have meant waiting another 15 mins at a guess, so I went for what's usually the best place on a gravity powered coaster, the rear.
OK, in the seat, strapped in, the floor drops away and you're rotated into a horizontal position. Up the drop, down, a couple of rolls, a tunnel, a few dips and turns... and was that it???
I think the problem is that, for once, you really do want to be in the front - everyone else sees the soles of the person in front of them. It's also a slow coaster - I'd be interested to discover the top speed - and the only good point is the ride position.
It's... OK I suppose. But it's a sign of how disappointed I was that there was the opportunity to sneak on with the next lot out... and I didn't take it.
By the time I got off, the queue time was 120 minutes and stayed within ten minutes of that for the rest of the day. Utterly insane. Next time, I'm going at opening time, doing it once at the front, and then getting a virtual queue ticket to sell later in the day... Someone will pay to avoid two hours of queuing.
Rides I didn't do... the log flume (much lower than ones elsewhere) or the river ride (one good section) or the mine train (small coaster) as all of them had 30 min queues. Ripsaw is like Rameses at Chessington, except everyone gets wet, and every park has a swinging boat ride like The Blade.
So... what did H-L et al think?
I hadn't been to Alton Towers since the early 80s - at that point, it had a few small rides, but on a 'pay as you ride' basis. It's very different now - most of it is now rides, rides, rides.
Let's review the rides I did yesterday in reverse order...
Enterprise is a series of small cabins that end up being spun quickly around vertically. Very short queue, quite fun, leaves you feeling a bit dizzy. 3/5.
Submission is a pair of platforms that are slowly rotated as they go around vertically. Very short queue, fun. 4/5.
Oblivion is one of the park's big rides. A 'high vertical drop into a dark tunnel' coaster. And that's it - you stop at the edge, tilted over, get told not to look down and then whee... down you go. You're soon out of the tunnel, around a bend at speed, and that's it. Ride time from the edge: about 10 seconds. Long queue (45 mins) but one of the best 'I really shouldn't have gone on this' moments on any ride anywhere as you approach the edge. 4.5/5
Nemisis was the headline ride until Air. A suspended coaster - your legs dangle close to a succession of rocks and blood-red pools and waterfalls. A couple of barrel rolls and a loop. Minimal queue time with the virtual queue tickets still available when I got there. When it was over, about 45 seconds later, I tried to sneak back onto a vacant seat but picked one that someone was coming back to after depositing their bags. Rats. Because this one is fun... especially if you've spotted earlier just how much one support wobbles! 5/5
Black Hole is an in-the-dark coaster. It's inside a dome and once you're going, you climb inside the edge of the dome in a spiral. Hmm, I can't see any drop? Where is it? Ah, it's a fake wall and down and up and down and up and... you go. Not the best in-the-dark, but worth the 15 min queue. 3.5/5
Hex is a good rotating room illusion. Neat, no queue. 4/5.
Corkscrew is a medium size metal coaster that looks like a wooden one - some of the smallest supports ever - but includes a double barrel roll. Short queue, quite fun. 3.5/5
Air. Ah, the new headline ride. Uniquely, you ride in 'Superman' position. An hour after opening time, all the virtual queue tickets had gone (gasp!) so it was 'face the queue time'. Now, I don't like queuing at theme parks, so it was with heavy heart that I faced a 50 minute wait.
Doing some BiCon stuff made it pass not too badly, along with chatting to some students (end of term = much busier than I was expecting for a Monday in school term time...) Note to self - next time take a long stick to turn off the Cadbury's Heroes advertising along the way.
So onto the ride.There's a separate queue for the four front 'seats', but that would have meant waiting another 15 mins at a guess, so I went for what's usually the best place on a gravity powered coaster, the rear.
OK, in the seat, strapped in, the floor drops away and you're rotated into a horizontal position. Up the drop, down, a couple of rolls, a tunnel, a few dips and turns... and was that it???
I think the problem is that, for once, you really do want to be in the front - everyone else sees the soles of the person in front of them. It's also a slow coaster - I'd be interested to discover the top speed - and the only good point is the ride position.
It's... OK I suppose. But it's a sign of how disappointed I was that there was the opportunity to sneak on with the next lot out... and I didn't take it.
By the time I got off, the queue time was 120 minutes and stayed within ten minutes of that for the rest of the day. Utterly insane. Next time, I'm going at opening time, doing it once at the front, and then getting a virtual queue ticket to sell later in the day... Someone will pay to avoid two hours of queuing.
Rides I didn't do... the log flume (much lower than ones elsewhere) or the river ride (one good section) or the mine train (small coaster) as all of them had 30 min queues. Ripsaw is like Rameses at Chessington, except everyone gets wet, and every park has a swinging boat ride like The Blade.
So... what did H-L et al think?
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Black Hole
Date: 2002-06-25 09:25 am (UTC)Re: Black Hole
Date: 2002-06-25 01:57 pm (UTC)I've only been doing rides for the past three or four years, but I've done Quite A Few in that time and IMHO, there are no rides worth queuing that long for.
Mind you, I have found one I'd queue an hour for. Details soon in Coasters 4.
just chipping in...
Date: 2002-06-25 11:35 am (UTC)i thought nemesis was absolutely fanfuckingtastic. then again, this was the first time i'd been to a theme park since about 1996, and nemesis was the first ride we did when we got there. i screamed so loud, apparently i even managed to deafen the people behind me *grin* managed to have several rides, as we went before the schools broke up and in the middle of the week to boot.
the black hole wasn't terribly thrilling, but was good fun. wasn't as dark as i expected it to be, though, which was a bit disappointing.
Hex was sooooo cool. i'm scared of the dark, and... *frowns* i can't really explain it, but the intro video thing managed to combine almost every one of my fears in one go, so that by the time they let you in to sit on the benches, i was quite seriously wondering what i'd let myself in for. and i shrieked and squealed the whole way through the tilting room, completely baffled and therefore rather alarmed and wondering what the hell was going on. i finally twigged just as the ride was ending. *grin* a total mindfuck, and a very, very good one. i wanted to go again, but the queue was kinda sucky.
corkscrew we did soon after nemesis, so it kind of fell a bit flat - i'm short and the shoulder pad things that hold you down were right up by my ears, and i kept bashing my head against them. ouch. was still kind of fun, in a quieter kind of way, and barrel rolls are always fun.
we didn't go on air - the queue time was the longest in the park, and we figured it looked like nemesis but slower and with less maneuvers. am glad to hear we'd judged that correctly :-)
i want to go back, for nemesis. that's pretty much it - if i could nemesis three times or more in one day, no matter what else i did, i'd consider it a huge success. i absolutely love that ride. oh yes.
Re: just chipping in...
Date: 2002-06-25 01:43 pm (UTC)I looked down at the top of Oblivion - it's why they tell you not to :) I was on the side, and as we got towards the drop, I noticed a control box complete with a big red panic button coming close by. I did seriously wonder if I could reach it.
Huge fun, he says... afterwards.
If I were in charge there, I'd give each ride position a 'change of mind' button they could press if they wanted to stop and walk down the stairs. Then send them over anyway... displaying the wimp factor to the queue.
I'd missed the Hex-alike at Eftling (a Netherlands theme park) so it was good to do this one.
Some people on with me liked Air, but it really is not that great.