Wicker Dude, then.
I'll try not to let the operations get in the way toooo much of my thoughts on the actual ride, but honestly that might be tricky. In total, we spent the best part of 5 hours queueing for Wicker Dude yesterday (split over 2 sessions) and only got 1 lap.
For the record, it
was running 3 trains... but you'd never tell. Dispatches were few and far between, with 3 out of every 5 trains going round empty. I'm not even joking - 2 trains with people on, E-stop, 3 trains without. That's what it was like all morning, until it packed up completely at about lunchtime. Exit passes all round, then.
When it did get going again, it was running with rows 8, 9, 10 and 11 roped off for all 3 trains. Brilliant, that's capacity down by another third, and several thousand angry exit pass holders to cater for, as well as the normal queue and the surprisingly huge disabled queue (with remarkarbly few disabled people in it).
I don't want to sound 'disablist', but when every spastic in town decides to bring 18 members of their family to a theme park with them, maybe parks should start limiting the number of 'carers' that each disabled person has accompanying them on the rides? Controversial I know (and also grossly off topic), but someone has to say these things. Can't help thinking I witnessed an awful lot of piss-taking yesterday.
Carers my arse. Freeloaders, more like.
Anyway, back on topic; Wicker Dude (and yes, I am 100% gonna keep on calling it Wicker Dude until the name sticks).
It's actually pretty good.
In many ways it's probably the best coaster Alton Towers have added in 20 years.
In a couple of other ways though, it's just like all the other Merlin turds, but overall I think most people will be 'oohing' and 'aahing' over the good stuff.
It's a really nice looking ride, and even though wooden coasters have been around for 100 years, this actually looks, sounds, rides and even
smells like something new, something different (for Alton).
The ride area and queueline are nicely themed. The soundtrack is creepy and effective. The Wicker Dude statue looks impressive, shrouded in mist and smoke.
Aesthetically at least, the whole package is a definite win.
I quite liked the pre-show - simple, effective and to-the-point, and the loading station is very nicely decorated and lit.
So far so good.
The ride experience then; well, that's actually pretty good too. The first run at the Wicker Dude, from the top of the lift hill down to the statue is excellent. Fast and twisty, with some funky little pops of airtime on the way. The second pass through the Wicker Dude is also lots of fun, speed and excitement are maintained well here, but then we head up to Boring Corner which, as many people have already mentioned, is a bit boring. One reviewer said that this corner provides a bit of a 'breather', a moment to recuperate, but I'm not buying into that. So far we've only had 20 seconds of moderate thrill, a breather is definitely not needed. I just think it's a poorly thought out piece of design, but that's ok because we soon pick up speed again and drop down a hill for the third and final pass through the Wicker Dude, which is good fun.
Then it's an S-bend into the brake run and Boom, job done.
Man, this is one seriously short ride. It's just waaaaay too short. What there is, is pretty good, but there's simply not enough of it.
I'm not an idiot, I don't expect Alton Towers to pull an El Toro out of their ass, but I can't get my head round why they purposely chose to make it so small.
The concept, the hype, the theme, the gigantic flaming effigy, the soundtrack - all of these things deserve a bigger, longer, more substantial ride to go with it.
A tiny bit more height, a slightly larger ride area (having a section pass
over the Rapids ride was a missed opportunity) and another 1000ft of track length and this could have been a contender for best woodie in Europe.
As it stands though, it's just the best woodie in Staffordshire.
Overall though, I think most of you will like it, and if the crowds this weekend are anything to go by, Joe Public is gonna lose his sh*t!
Wardley was probably right - Wicker Dude is gonna reintroduce wooden coasters to the British GP in a way that's going to leave them wanting more, which can only be a good thing.
I'm gonna give it 7 out of 10. Yeah... I liked it.
but I've heard rumors that the reason it's been going down so much is because it's overshooting the first set of brakes. Apparently, this was originally designed to only run two trains, but Merlin insisted on running 3, so the first set of brakes(which was normally meant to be overshot) was hastily made to handle a third.
I don't think it was anything to do with the brakes, the brakes worked fine and I didn't see any trains overshooting anything (and I had a good 5 hours viewing time!). Seemed like more of a restraint problem to me, I overheard several station announcements requesting that ride ops recheck restraints, followed by empty trains being sent round.
In the afternoon, with rows 8 - 11 roped off, the ride certainly didn't E-stop as much as it had been in the morning.
