Alton Towers

cee
cee Posts: 4,553
edited June 2009 in The Crudcatcher
I was at Alton Towers on Friday....

Great Fun!

Got fasttrack tickets, so didn't have much time in queues and got to ride all of the big 'coasters...

Air was the most fun....followed by nemesis....

oblivion wasn't exactly good fun....getting off was the best part..but what a buzz...

and rita queen of speed confused my brain the most....I am still struggling to describe the sensation of speed....0-100 in 2.5 seconds..whooooooooooooosh!
Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

H.G. Wells.

Comments

  • Big Shoes
    Big Shoes Posts: 131
    Alton Towers is great, personally i thought Air was the most dissapointing, slow and no thrills. Nemesis is still the best ride there.
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  • Andy
    Andy Posts: 8,207
    Alton Towers is simply overpriced and overrated. It's far better to go in may when its still quiet and you can get on all the rides without fast track as well.
  • cee
    cee Posts: 4,553
    we got 1/2 price entry with mastercard vouchers...so did make it a bit better price wise....including fasttrack it was about the same price as a normal ticket.
    Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

    H.G. Wells.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Not been for ages now - last time I went the ThunderLooper was still there, my favourite ride! Nemesis had just opened, and the Balck Hole, Beast and Corksrew were still alive.

    You can just see the looper in the background here:

    d6bdbd19.jpg

    Dwarfed nemesis, but obviously a bit more to the latter!
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  • rich_teague
    rich_teague Posts: 121
    Thorpe Park > Alton Towers.
    <hr noshade size="1"><center> <font color="black">Needs</font id="black"> <font color="black">More</font id="black"> <font color="black">Speed</font id="black"></center>
  • cee
    cee Posts: 4,553
    supersonic

    yeah...last time I was there i remember the corkscrew....around 1990.....ish
    Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

    H.G. Wells.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Basic, but fun! I think they only killed it off a couple of years ago.
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  • cee
    cee Posts: 4,553
    rich_teague wrote:
    Thorpe Park > Alton Towers.

    and also double the distance from where i live...

    what is better about it....I looked at the site and the only ride I though that looked more biggerrer and betterrerr was Saw...
    Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

    H.G. Wells.
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    I think the problem with Alton is that they have a height limit for the ride structures, which is why the looper had to go (and Nemesis and Oblivion) are built into pits. Otherwise I thjink we'd have seen a tuly huge coaster of the likes of the Big One.

    Saying that, the new ride for 2010 looks interesting - google secret weaopn six.
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  • BlackSpur
    BlackSpur Posts: 4,228
    The big American theme parks blow anything in the UK away. I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain about 3 years ago. Whereas Alton has maybe 4 "big" rides, Six Flags has more like a dozen. We went a couple of weeks after Spring Break and the place was dead, the longest we queued was 10 minutes :)
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  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Big rides are all well and good, but the makers these days are trying to add new thrills - Nemesis is still rates as one of the top rides in the world, yet has a first drop of 40 feet llol.
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  • cee
    cee Posts: 4,553
    i saw an interesting programme on tv about a year ago....about designing rollercoasters....

    they reckoned that they are now at the edge of how adding speed makes the ride more thrilly....

    apparently getting a coaster right is quite an art form....a mix between the physics of thrill, through the psychological and theatrical aspects of it....right through to the flow of the ride...

    very cool....

    i quite enjoyed the spinball whizzer thing...a coaster that spins round as it runs along the track..not massive or anything, but never seen that before...great fun!
    Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I believe in the future of the human race.

    H.G. Wells.
  • Andy
    Andy Posts: 8,207
    The spinball whizzer is often one of the busiest rides there, purely because it's the first one people see as they enter!
  • KnightofCydonia
    KnightofCydonia Posts: 957
    supersonic wrote:
    Basic, but fun! I think they only killed it off a couple of years ago.

    about 18 months ago I think. I loved it, one of the first ones I went on, and when you got to the top of the lift and could see over the treetops for miles it was really good fun.
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  • The Northern Monkey
    The Northern Monkey Posts: 19,174
    cee wrote:
    rich_teague wrote:
    Thorpe Park > Alton Towers.

    and also double the distance from where i live...

    what is better about it....I looked at the site and the only ride I though that looked more biggerrer and betterrerr was Saw...

    Thorpe Park is pretty pants compared to Alton.... its a bit "Blackpool Pleasure Beach" chav central and the atmosphere is terrible.

    Got my free Alton towers tickets from the Sun for the 3rd year running now :)
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  • docker0141
    docker0141 Posts: 605
    air was my favourite ride.

    when we went the second time we went straight to air so that its quiet because all the other people hadnt worked there way round to that end of the park yet, got about 6 shots of it before there was a big que :D
  • stev68
    stev68 Posts: 109
    Was in sunny dorset last week,took the kids to paultons park was a real hoot hoot lol,they got a new ride called edge and its mad as fook like a giant spinning jaffa cake,and it was dead, all the kids were at school mine were skiving lol,ps i think thorpe park has come on leaps an bounds love stealth,but if ya want the shat scared out of ya try kingda ka,makes stealth look like a matchstick model lol. :shock:
    Told ya itll hurt!
  • stuart_c-2
    stuart_c-2 Posts: 805
    cee wrote:

    what is better about it....I looked at the site and the only ride I though that looked more biggerrer and betterrerr was Saw...

    Stealth is the biggy at Thorpe Park. Saw is new and is good for the shock factor, but Stealth gives the buzz. I think it's better than Rita at Alton Towers.

    SuperS, I remember the thunder looper and the black hole. Thunder was cool.

    1 ride at Thorpe that often get's underestimated is Detonator. All it does is lift you 100ft in the air and then drops you straight down, but you come right out the seat as you go. Everytime Ive been you see everyone getting on it thinking it's nothing, all laughing and joking. You shold see their faces when they come back down.....
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  • GTi-R23
    GTi-R23 Posts: 175
    +1 for whoever said the Thunderlooper was the best ride they had, used to hammer that back in the day.

    And Rita is 0-100km/h (~62mph) in under 3 seconds, so isn't quite as impressive as it sounds, still good fun though.

    Oblivion is the best ride there at the moment, but it is definitely a rip-off if you pay full price and go in the middle of summer when it's heaving.
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