Tag: B&M

Slammer and other devices

itemprop="discussionURL"1

Preface

Somehow everything went wrong that day, in the night there were two fire alarms, one at 2 am, the other at 5 am, the trip to London Victoria had a delay of 20 minutes due to the traffic situation and then I also bought the wrong ticket at the vending machine and in Thorpe Park there was nothing going as usual. In fact, this statement might sound negative, but in the case of Thorpe Park it is to be understood positively. Except for X, which is supposed to open sometime during spring, everything – even Slammer – was running, although thanks to the temperatures most of the rides didn’t start until noon. The rush that day, although the weather was better than it had been for weeks, was kept within limits.

Thorpe Park

The real reason to go in the park was not to ride The Swarm backwards, or to finally ride something after a long time, but of a different nature. It was rather a meeting with two people, who had their start for a small England tour in the park. While Jan knew the park from his previous stays in Great Britain, Patrick visited a new park and therefore it was refreshing to get his impressions of the park.

Stealth

Because of the long coach ride, the following train ride and the short night, I had to take something to wake up, therefore the launch coaster Stealth, which was in test runs at the moment, was the perfect choice. Shortly after, people were already riding and the initially long queue became shorter and shorter, so that even the first row was taken along, despite the one train in service. It’s quite something. when you have a free view of the top hat, which is erected in front of you.

The launch dragged off quite neatly and the top of the main element of the layout let you glide out of your seat before heading for the bottom. The braking on the hill is a lot softer than in the back rows and even this element, which could have been a straight line, is not really disturbing anymore. If you sit in the back of the train, the airtime during the top hat is completely missing, but the drop from the quite airy height is a bit more intense.

Slammer

While there is a chance of about 75% for Stealth, there is only a chance of 2:4 for Slammer. These numbers are not verifiable at all, but they are covered by our experience. Slammer, as we know, is not a ride that runs absolutely reliable when it is running and so it can happen that the whole soundtrack – which by the way is the same as the Colossus roller coaster – has been played once, so a time span of 10 minutes has been reached. Since Slammer has a huge capacity anyway, you will never have to wait too long on empty days. There is no question that one should wait for a ride on the meanwhile unique ride.

What S&S Power, now S&S Worldwide, had in mind for the Sky Swat Slammer can hardly be described because of the megalomania. But the fact that the Slammer was advertised as a family ride contradicts all logic – just like the classic funfair ride Devil Rock. The ride is insane, especially since you accelerate upside down to the high speed of the ride and also brake later on in the same manner. The ride over the top is much more fun than the ride down, which is also true for The Swarm.

The Swarm

The Bollinger and Mabillard Wing Coaster has received two significant changes this year, both of which have an impact on the ride. The first novelty you will encounter, should there be no train on the track, is the new billboard, which will benefit the weaker left side of the train. The second novelty you will encounter at the entrance, where the cue for the first row has now given way to the cue for the last two rows, which have been going backwards since the start of the season.

These changes have a reason, of course, because compared to individual opinions, The Swarm has not been the success Merlin had hoped for. Furthermore, without the changes to X:\ No Way Out, there would be no novelty to offer in a park which has been able to present a novelty every year.

Without the newly installed billboard, one notices very little or even nothing of the alleged close calls. The ride itself creeps partly through the elements, but towards the end of the ride it can still feel stronger centrifugal forces and thus be enjoyed. While the already solid ride on the right side is only caught once by the new design element, the left side is also positively affected by a broken corner of the right side before the last turn. In fact, the ride on both sides has become more even, whereas the ride over the top in the first inversion is still much stronger.

Experiencing this element backwards is one of the strangest experiences on a roller coaster and is also the prelude to a funny ride. In fact, it’s hard to classify the experience somehow, which is why the ride forward should be preferred, because you don’t really experience any of the theme and the supposedly existing close calls. When you get on the last row you can clearly see the track, but the second last row is also fine, as the view is not that important. The last two inversions surprise you in a positive way, the rest is just fun. It is therefore a significantly different riding experience and can hardly be compared to the original ride on The Swarm. Whether this change is needed is written in the stars, but it is something different and for me it is the highlight of Thorpe Park at the moment.

Tidal Wave

A ride on the probably most beautiful Shoot the Chutes of the company O.D.Hopkins, which meanwhile belongs to WhiteWaterWest, can be one of the probably most idiotic actions you can do during a park visit in the rather cold spring temperatures of this year. Of course, this train of thought only came to mind during the ascent of the lift to Tidal Wave. Unfortunately, the following visit to the Pizza Hut Buffet was not enough to dry us again.

Colossus

After this break, Colossus was running with manned cars, which is why there was a longer queue at the ride and you had to walk through the extended queue area. The ride in the front row is still very much fun on Colossus and leaves you halfway untouched in the first three inversions. The four Heartlinerolls were run through at a remarkable speed and the last roll is still a lot of pleasure.

Interestingly enough, the station finally gave a live demonstration of how cue jumpers are handled. As known, the pushing forward in all explanations belongs to something that is only very unwillingly seen in the United Kingdom, that is why the penalties are quite high; thus, at Thorpe Park, one is thrown out of the park without any chance of a refund of the entrance fee. This was explained afterwards also again by the staff of the ride, whereupon this got applause.

Saw – the Ride

Where Saw – the Ride could show a long queue in the first hours, this was hardly present towards the end of the opening hours. The first part of the ride offers the well-known riding fun, but the second part of the ride turns out to be much more positive than in the last years. Luckily, we further race down the track and are torn out of our seats during the camelback, before we rush towards the Dive Loop after the block brake. The smoothness of the ride, which had been constantly smashing against the stirrups before, has been improved to such an extent that this no longer happens. There is a strange jerking in the vertical direction, but it’s not that bad.

Closing Words

With a few rides on Nemesis Inferno, which had transported the blood into our legs in a wonderful way, the visiting day came to an end. Traditionally, there was no crowd in the last hour before closing time. However, if you arrive by the Thorpe Park Express Bus from Staines, you should not leave the park before closing time. By the time the bus finally got going, half an hour had been passed so that some possible train connections and the coach back to Portsmouth were missed. Well, the rides on Slammer were worth it!

 

What is your opinion about Slammer at Thorpe Park?  Just write it in the comment field below the report or visit our social media channels:

 

          

Thorpe Park

Nemesis Inferno in the rain

itemprop="discussionURL"1

Preface

If you can’t think of anything better on a Sunday than to drive to Thorpe Park and skilfully ignore any weather forecast and let yourself be dazzled by the sunshine on Saturday, it can happen that the English weather shows its supposedly typical side and thus makes for a very wet visit. What do you do for a ride on Nemesis Inferno…

The Island like no other

When you enter Thorpe Park, you still have that unique feeling of being immersed in a completely different world – something that amusement parks usually don’t manage to do. However, since this year, the view from the bridge is a bit clouded, because while the left side shows an idyllic panorama, the view on the right side is no longer dominated by Tidal Wave and Stealth, but disturbed by the rather unfavorable angle on The Swarm.

Storm Surge

Although it had been raining all the time, the novelty from last year was particularly popular. The queue of the Storm Surge round boat slide was well filled until the afternoon, which is certainly not only due to the low capacity of the installation. The ride in the smaller version of the Spinning Rapids Ride by WhiteWaterWest is gentle and, due to the tight curve radii and the resulting frequency of the brake mats, hardly gives you a noticeable spin – as you can experience for example in the Rio Dorado of Hansa Park. As with other installations of this type, the ride only gets you wet with a lot of luck, if only there weren’t the water jets and water cannons at the end of the ride. While the former helped the guests to cool down in the Cypress Gardens amusement park in Florida, this is of course not enough in the comparatively cold Surrey. Therefore some water cannons were provided for the park guests, which have a rather high range. If one should not be shot straight frontally with these, the degree of wetness is quite pleasant. The circumstance that the never visited toddler area of Thorpe Park was torn down was welcome.

Tidal Wave

Probably the most popular attraction of the day is located only a few meters away from Storm Surge’s entrance, a prankster who thinks of the indoor roller coaster X:\ No Way Out. Of course it’s the great Shoot the Chutes ride Tidal Wave by O.D. Hopkins, which now even soaks its already superficially soaked passengers’ underwear. The results showed after the ride in the full body dryers confirm this thesis clearly.

X:\ No Way Out

The Vekoma Enigma roller coaster X:\ No Way Out had a breakdown in the early morning, but since the guests of Thorpe Park were left waiting in the rain in front of the ride, instead of waiting in the anyway way too long covered queue, more and more people joined the line, which is a rather rare sight on a roller coaster like X:\ No Way Out. The world’s longest and probably only backwards running dark roller coaster is an often underestimated roller coaster, which may be due to the family-friendly ride of the ride. Unfortunately, since the installation of a light effect above one of the block areas it is much too bright to use the darkness of the hall as an advantage. Now, the ride still goes haphazardly through the hall, but instead you can see the track next to you and which one you have already completed. The computer virus theme is still very odd, but it’s what makes this roller coaster so special; however, it would be immensely helpful to introduce a soundtrack within the whole layout.

Nemesis Inferno

Not far from the brilliantly staged fishing village of Amity Cove, things are a little more tropical, or rather more fiery. Inside a volcano is the station to Nemesis Inferno, the younger brother of the roller coaster Nemesis from the sister park Alton Towers. Luckily, both coasters are completely different and share the same type of ride, apart from the preference for more special layouts. After the first drop on Nemesis Inferno, you complete a swinging S-curve combination through a tunnel, usually in combination with a fog effect, before hooking into the lift. This is followed by the steep curve drop with looping and zero-g roll following, which are very intensively ridden. A curve follows before you see yourself upside down again in a corkscrew. Untypical for this type of track, another curve is followed by the second part of the Interlocking Corkscrew, which pulls you along nicely at the back of the train. Further curves and a helix follow until you are standing happily in the brakes of Nemesis Inferno.

It is the one big difference that makes Nemesis Inferno better than the first Inverted Coaster on European soil. Here you don’t get the feeling that the track could have been even longer, here you don’t do two slower turns that both end in an inversion and here you don’t advertise to be the most intense coaster in the world, which wasn’t the case at the opening. Nemesis is a good ride with a huge fan community, a unique layout that makes good use of the limitations of the environment, only the experience in all its attributed intensity is not as satisfying as it is on Nemesis Inferno.

Detonator

Thematically to the Inverted Coaster Nemesis Inferno belongs in close proximity the Fabbri Mega Drop Detonator, which does not have the traditional arrangement of the seats, but has designed them in a circular pattern. The ride in a Fabbri tower is outstanding, because a spring is tensioned when the car is lifted, whereupon noticeably higher negative G-forces are generated when releasing the Detonator. Strangely enough the deceleration was unexpectedly smooth.

Slammer and Samurai

Another interesting ride in the area around the Inverted Coaster Nemesis Inferno is the S&S Power Sky Swat Slammer. As luck would have it, the ride is currently closed and will probably not open again until Halloween. Since this was also announced on the website, the loss of a ride is not as shocking as it was in May 2010; if you have already enjoyed a Sky Swat ride once, you would like to repeat it. A few metres further on, one could see the Mondial Top Scan Samurai partly dismantled lying around in the way, practically set in a way that it was also not possible to make a trip in the railway of Thorpe Park. According to speculations, the ride is supposed to be renovated and repainted.

Saw – The Ride

Saw – The Ride has turned to the good again after its disastrous second year, at least as far as the speed of the ride and the condition of the stirrups are concerned. The cars, completely intact, are once again racing down the track, so that the inequalities during the ride are hardly noticeable. The biggest crime at the roller coaster still remains, the fast-pass queue still exists and generally makes the waiting time in the stand-by line feel a lot slower. It’s more convenient if a queue is moving and doesn’t stand still for minutes just because the other side is currently being let into the building. In this respect and for the sake of the ambience, which was destroyed by the division in front of and on the stairs, one wishes the old system back.

Colossus

The 10 inversions roller coaster Colossus, which besides its name also shares the soundtrack with Colossos from Heide-Park, is a prime example for the design of a roller coaster, because the way the paths run here, especially the queue, is simply breathtakingly beautiful; as long as you can see over the blue painted tunnels.  The ride in the ride built by Intamin is also very borderline in the first three inversions, everything that follows from the two wonderful corkscrews, over the four consecutive heartlinerolls to the final, but directionally reversed roll, is just lovely or, as with the last roll, just outstanding. What Intamin has created with this inversion is simply perfect.

Flying Fish

On the way to the novelty of the year you will pass a powered coaster by the manufacturer Mack Rides called Flying Fish. Previously located in a cul-de-sac, visitors willing to ride now frequently pass by, but this does not mean that the queue gets packed – the train only runs more often. Due to the wide wagons, Flying Fish offers an unusual and strange riding experience on a powered coaster of this kind. Although one also has the feeling in the normal trains to hit the supports as soon as one raises the arms, it seems to be more distinctive in this train.

The Swarm

Strangely enough, the close calls at the Bollinger and Mabillard roller coaster next door don’t create this feeling and in general it is hard to say if and where it triggers feelings at all. The left side of the train experiences a very weak ride at The Swarm, while the passengers on the right side experience a very solid roller coaster ride. Above all, it is a much more impressive experience to ride over the top than underneath to experience the first inversion and simultaneous first drop. The following inversions are all more intense on the right side and even the Inclined Loop is much more fun due to the inner radius.

Hardly any other roller coaster made the classification as difficult as The Swarm. While the left side is even weaker, the right side with the ride experience is very nice, but nothing more. It complements the portfolio of Thorpe Park and makes sure that a few more people come to this part of the park, also the park doesn’t seem so small anymore due to the expansion.

Rumba Rapids

Due to the rather bad weather, most of the rides were left behind, also the Intamin Accelerator roller coaster Stealth was closed. But since the ride programs at all flat rides are hardly worth mentioning, which by the way also applies to the oversized compressed air swing Rush from S&S Power, this is not necessarily a tragedy. Apart from Storm Surge and the Rumba Rapids, a rafting ride with a level of wetness where you get off drier than you got on at the end of the ride, no water ride was visited. Regarding the Rumba Rapids, it should be mentioned that the installation not only has potential, but also convinces with the existing soundtrack. Although this facility is as wet as most other European rafting rides, it is nicely laid out.

Conclusion Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park is quite a nice amusement park. The park’s clientele is generally young, so there are some families to be found around here, but without small children – they are better off within 15 miles of the amusement parks Chessington World of Adventures and Legoland Windsor anyway. Its reputation as a thrill capital naturally attracts a group of visitors that don’t like to be seen in a park, but in general all visitors were able to behave themselves. The oh-so “grubby” park map with its hidden details is not as disgusting as many people think – it rather reminds of some of the details you can find in the Miniatur Wunderland. Of course, one can argue about the style and maybe a serious appearance would be better, but that’s just the way it is in Great Britain.

 

What is your opinion about Nemesis Inferno at Thorpe Park?  Just write it in the comment field below the report or visit our social media channels:

 

          

Thorpe Park

A weekend in England’s best theme park

itemprop="discussionURL"1

Alton Towers

Situated in the middle of a quite hilly and at the same time beautiful region, out in the middle of nowhere, you will find the most significant theme park in England: Alton Towers. Around the ruins of the old castle and its gardens, an amusement park has been developed over the last three decades, which you simply have to see.

In contrast to comparable amusement parks like the Efteling or the Europa-Park, Alton Towers unfortunately does not show its splendour at the entrance, which simply does not want to fit into the overall concept due to its simple design. Even the upgrading of the forecourt by the corkscrews of the former Vekoma roller coaster Corkscrew doesn’t manage to increase the visitors’ anticipation.

Tour of the park

By entering the park, one is relatively soon confronted with the question in which direction one should go. This is further intensified by the early entry, since there are only a handful of attractions that are ready to ride at this time of day.

Following the way to the left, it is possible to get to the Forbidden Valley and/or to visit the Cloud Cuckoo Land in a very fast way, provided that the SkyRide – thus the gondola lift in Alton Towers – is running. If one has the pleasure to stand in front of a closed station, it is recommendable to follow the way further to the area Mutiny Bay.

Battle Galleons

The Battle Galleons can also be found in a slightly modified form at the German amusement park Heide-Park in Soltau. Even the music is the same. The level of wetness is quite high even though the weather was rather cold.

Sharkbait Reef

The other rides in this area are very family-friendly. In addition to a Zierer Kontiki, you can also ride a teacup train with cups in the form of powder kegs. But also the pirate show and the Sea Life Centre Sharkbait Reef can be found here. Luckily the aquarium is not as small as the versions from the Legoland theme parks or some German centres. The choice and number of species can be compared to the version from Chessington World of Adventures, but luckily it doesn’t share the tent look with it.

The Flume

Alton Towers has managed to create one of the most original themes for a water attraction with The Flume. It is all about bathing, which is very much in keeping with the wetness of the ride. Squeaking ducks and a more than brilliant soundtrack complete the installation, which unfortunately is in need of a lot of renovation. The ride itself starts relatively unspectacular, considering the fact that after the first drop down you curve around in a forest for a few meters. After climbing up the second lift hill you find yourself in the middle of a house, where the second shot is taken in complete darkness. After having met the huge duckling, one leaves the house wonderfully soaked. A further lift hill brings you to the height of the final shot, which fills the bathtub again with the intended amount of water. If one is still dehydrated, the showers at the end of the ride will help.

Congo River Rapids

In contrast to The Flume, the Congo River Rapids are much drier. Unlike Drayton Manor’s Splash Canyon, there is not even the slightest chance of getting wet. The layout was also designed more for capacity, after all there is no possibility to overtake the boats. Creatively the rafting offers a nice station, but unfortunately that’ s it. However, the interaction with the small roller coaster Runaway Mine Train is absolutely worth mentioning.

Runaway Mine Train

The Powered Coaster Runaway Mine Train is a very special ride from Mack. After the first helix the train gains not only height but also speed and after a few hills it goes down a steep curve. Two helices follow and the tunnel where you interact with the rapid ride before you speed through the station after a small curve and start the second round. The atmosphere created by the staff and the mutual cheering between the passengers of the passing rafts and the train passengers is just wonderful.

Duel

Just as atmospheric, but a lot darker is the ghost train Duel. An interactive dark ride in which zombies have taken over the house of a scientist who has experimented a little too much with death. The ride itself is based on the Haunted House dark ride, which has been spiced up with some changes.  Especially worth mentioning is the ride system that helps you to make your way through the quite large show building, because it is especially the single cars that create an eerily beautiful and most of all creepy atmosphere. The effects that are triggered during the ride are ingenious and even manage to scare you out of your wits, which is even intensified by the focus on the targets. Duel offers a ghost train experience of the special kind, which doesn’t take itself too serious and can convince without looking cheesy. The accompanying music underlines this aspect excellently. The only weak point of the layout are the guns themselves, which are not easy to hold in the long run and distract from the great atmosphere with their noises, but otherwise this ride is definitely one of the best of its kind.

Nemesis

Passing last year’s novelty Nemesis Sub-Terra, an indoor freefall from ABC-Rides, which was only running sporadically or not at all due to work during the visiting days, we now head to the roller coaster which every student from Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein knows from their English textbook since many years, namely the B&M Inverted Coaster Nemesis.

The journey begins with a comparably rather small lifthill, from which one is released in a lively manner. Quite untypically, a corkscrew inversion follows, which you would expect towards the end of the ride. The exit from this element leads into a helix, which can be described as bloody intense, as it pumps the blood into your feet like no other coaster. Thereupon you are turned upside down for the second time in a zero-g roll, only to make a rather boring turn towards the looping afterwards. This loop is luckily done the way a loop should be done and ends in the last inversion after another turn. Shortly after that the brake run is reached. Overall, Nemesis is a good and above all smooth ride, which is very entertaining.

Air

Only a few meters away from Nemesis, Alton Towers can call a prototype its own, which is quite airy. It should be noted that Air is not the first Flying Coaster out there but the manufacturer’s first installation.

As soon as you have left the fluffy waiting time, in a rather bare and boring waiting area behind you, you are introduced to your row of seats and the airy experience can begin. After one is dazzled by a light on the floor in front of the lift, it already goes upwards, but with a little stop in the lift, so that one can still wave to some people who have placed themselves curiously under it. The first descent brings you a little closer to the ground before you are turned on your back and stay that way for quite a long passage. The feeling is very surreal and therefore simply ingenious, especially if you think you are quite close to the trees during your first ride. One turn further on you do a complete roll before you get quite close to the stones in the last curves and turns. Overall, Air is a wonderfully intensive ride with little floating airtime moments, great close calls and a fantastic setting. If you have the pleasure to fly in the first row you will surely appreciate the ride, but also the other rows will offer the same airy riding pleasure, even if the visibility is a bit limited.

Blade and Ripsaw

The Blade and Ripsaw attractions complete the Forbidden Valley named area. Where the Blade swing ship, apart from its appearance and location in the valley of the former Thunder Looper roller coaster, a Schwarzkopf shuttle loop, offers few special features, Ripsaw can use its full potential. The Top Spin by HUSS is probably one of the best known representatives of its kind, but this is not due to its ride programs. Ripsaw usually makes you wet and this even outshines the Rameses Revenge from Chessington World of Adventures. Unfortunately, on the day of our visit there was hardly any playing with the water fountains, so that we went out of the ride wet, but not soaking wet.

The Gardens

If one has the pleasure to do without the cable car, one can now either walk around the gardens or through them in order to get to the other side of the park. From many sources one hears that a crossing of the gardens is time consuming and that one can get easily lost if one does not follow the signpostings anymore. That these sources are wrong can be clearly seen, as long as one has done the rather short distance by cable car. The gardens themselves are arranged in a valley and can be crossed in a short time, as long as one does not shy away from the descent and ascent. Even if one has a closer look to the gardens, one does not need much time to see everything, getting lost is quite impossible.

Hex the Legend of the Towers

Another interesting attraction is located in one of the side wings of the Towers, the old castle ruins of the Alton Towers theme park. With Hex the Legend of the Towers Vekoma has delivered a masterpiece of a witches’ swing which fascinates visitors with its storyline. The story isn’t far-fetched, after all it’s basically just a spiced-up version of a local legend. The curse that led to Chained Oak is in the center of the story, only the end, where the Earl of Shrewsbury experimented on the first fallen branch of the oak tree in a well hidden laboratory, is new. The musical background, which is the leitmotif of the attraction, is simply brilliant, as is the atmosphere created by the high-quality pre-shows.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

After leaving Hex you will find yourself in the courtyard of the old building. A few meters further on you can visit Cloud Cuckoo Land, probably the weakest area in Alton Towers. Here you will find the park’s 4D cinema, the wave swinger Twirling Toadstool and the dark ride Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as some attractions for younger children.

The dark ride brings the modern fairy tale of Roald Dahl closer to the visitors and is divided into two ride sections. On the first section, you accompany Charlie and the children on their boat trip through the chocolate factory, which gradually falls victim to their spoiled behaviour. When only Charlie is left, the journey continues in an elevator, which is one of the best simulations you can experience despite the animated characters and landscape. The experience itself corresponds to the original and is quite convincing.

Ice Age 4D

This year, the 4D cinema will be showing the film Ice Age 4D, where you can watch a bad recording of the probably best Ice Age (Ice Age 3 – Dawn of the Dinosaurs) film to date. The story has been shortened to the basics – where a few effects could be added – which unfortunately fell victim to the cheap jokes that make up this movie. The recording itself is therefore a bad joke. For Alton Towers itself, the movie might be an enrichment, but one could have done without it.

Th13teen

Located in the Dark Forest, Th13teen is the newest roller coaster of the park. Marketed as the ultimate, yet most terrifying roller coaster, the ride, built by Intamin, is an ideal family roller coaster, which manages to scare even the youngest passengers.

The ride itself starts relatively fast before it goes up the lift. The following descent manages to build up a good amount of speed, but the integrated trim brake is a little bit annoying, as the deceleration is noticeable and the turns are only passed somewhat faster instead of having a very pronounced airtime. As soon as you have conquered the second lift you enter the crypt only to crash through the floor. This is the first time that a freefall element has been installed in a roller coaster, which is quite convincing despite the low height. After the fall the ride continues backwards in form of an oversized, but at the same time simply ingenious Bayernkurve back out of the crypt. In the end, friction wheels accelerate you towards the station in a suprisingly fast fashion.

Rita Queen of Speed

The neighboring roller coaster Rita Queen of Speed was renamed Rita as a result of the reorganization of the area and now features a distinctly gloomy look. An aura like the one of Stephen King’s Christine now surrounds the trains of the ride, which now serve as escape cars. But what you are fleeing from is completely irrelevant, but de facto you should flee.

The layout itself serves as a model for the catapult launch coaster Desert Race from Heide-Park Soltau, but differs in some details. The launch track is not only longer, but also leads into the first turn a bit more leisurely. The following hills offer wonderful airtime before the brakes are reached. Compared to the sister coaster Rita seems a bit more leisurely, but due to the paths underneath the layout it is at least more convincing in terms of design. As the queues at the ride fill up very fast, it is recommended to ride the ride as early as possible or to get a fast pass instead.

Oblivion

On the other side of the towers is the X-Sector, a themed area around the Oblivion roller coaster. The world’s first Dive Coaster offers a very special kind of free fall experience, after all, the hole is waiting for you. The rest of the track is relatively irrelevant, even though the turnaround with a 90° bank is a nice one to ride. Oblivion is basically all about the fall, and despite the comparatively short stop, it is extremely convincing and also quite refreshing. Unfortunately, the appearance of the ride is massively clouded by the exit, as you first have to make your way through an arcade.

Enterprise and Submission

The other attractions in this area are a HUSS Enterprise and a Chance Double Inverter. The Enterprise has been placed really ingeniously and can actually have a 90° inclination, which is not noticeable from a technical point of view, but visually unusual. The inverter named Submission is a very special ride for Europe, after all, there is only a second other installation in Walibi Rhône-Alpes in France. Technically, the ride is quite curious, but it is a nice ride. The further inside you sit, the more distinctive is the feeling of the ride with its strange ride cycle.

Riverbank Eye Spy

Close to the entrance are the three themed areas Adventure Land, Storybook Land and Old MacDonald’s Farmyard. These three areas can be described as the better children’s areas in Alton Towers, after all you can find some interesting and beautifully designed attractions. Besides a merry-go-round and a tractor ride, you can also try out Mack’s canal ride Riverbank Eye Spy at Old MacDonald’s Farm. This ride offers an unusual feature and can therefore be seen as an interactive dark ride, although unfortunately not every button actually works. The Squirrel Nutty Ride in Storybookland is a beautiful high-level ride with a rather strange layout in places. As with Air, you should pay attention on your head when entering the ride.

Sonic Spinball

The last roller coaster in Alton Towers is dedicated to the Knight of the Wind. Originally opened as Spinball Whizzer, the ride is now entirely devoted to Sega’s video game hero Sonic the Hedgehog, which is very popular in England. Also thematically the choice is quite reasonable and understandable, after all many Sonic titles have a connection to the pinball theme. Unfortunately, the design of Sonic Spinball is kept very minimalistic and the music can only be heard in the entrance area of the ride. It’s a pity, after all, the titles of Crush40 and Co. are simply brilliant.

The ride on the huge pinball machine keeps its promise and offers a ride that can only be trumped by Dragon’s Fury of Chessington World of Adventures. The part in front of the lifthill is to be seen as relatively bizarre, as it brings the cars into an unconservative starting position in front of the lift. The rest of the ride is fast and sometimes quite abrupt, which is especially good for the part after the big Immelman Turn. Surprisingly, the clearance of the ride is very fast, which invites one to several rides in a row.

Pictures Alton Towers

Conclusion Alton Towers

Alton Towers is one of the best European amusement parks and can convince by its beautiful location. The distances you cover during your day in Alton Towers are not as long as a visit to the Efteling theme park in the Netherlands, but this might be an advantage. Next year, SW7 will fortunately upgrade the X-Sector and another visit to the park is a must do.

 

What is your opinion about Theme Park Alton Towers?  Just write it in the comment field below the report or visit our social media channels:

 

          

Alton Towers