Got home a few hours ago after an awesome day at Alton Towers yesterday...
This whole thing started as I spotted the Live topic this Tuesday, and thought "how hard could it be??", after some quick questions in the live topic and looking on the internet I managed to make a plan on how it could all work out. Then on Wednesday I was booked and ready to go...
Why even bother to do this when we already plan on going back to the UK next year?? Well the "Alpengeist intensity" topic is a major factor in this, I don't have a log on Nemesis (which have pissed me of a lot, since it's probably the most requested graph from us), which became the reason why I even bothered...
So onto the trip:
Got the SleasyJet flight to Manchester which I had no problem with, same thing with the train to Crewe (one of the worst places I have ever been, almost as bad as
Kiruna, which is a place that have been described as "in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing"...) and arrived at the hotel close to the train station (which was a good thing
, the hotel were pretty nice though).
The next day I got up (in my view) unnecessary early, but hey what wouldn't you do to hang out in a theme park with CF?? A train and bus ride later and I was at Alton, and it was a really nice day! Waited until Hixee showed up with some BOGOF which are full of WIN. Then the day passed by like Hixee described, had a great time meeting a lot of people from CF both new and old and spent a lot of time talking about more or less nothing...
After my 3:rd ride on Nemesis then things started to take a turn for the worse...
Air had serious issues, the bus on the way back to Stoke broke down 5 times (every time someone pressed the stop button), the first train this morning became late after I got on it at Crewe, which almost made me miss the connection to Manchester Airport (the only one I could take to get there on time, or so I thought), when I got there I saw that my flight were late due to it being stuck in Alicante...
Still I got home in one piece, even if an Icelandic volcano had decided to make a re-run of Eyjafjallajökul...
Rides:
Enterprise <3, running great, got a pretty decent ride of this one.
Oblivion, even if the fanta bit ruins the experience a lot, this ride still delivers one of the best thrills in the world.
Thirteen, though that this was a lot better than what everyone was saying, a bit quirky and the drop was great, I don't however approve of the trims in the drop since they are the main reason why this thing is pretty mediocre.
Rita, just like Desert Race, sans ending, but rougher...
Nemesis, got 3 rides, front right, back left, back right. The one in the back right were easily the best of them, a really great coaster that isn't as forceful as most expect...
Rapids, not as wet as some I have been on, but the cold water wasn't pleasant.
Runaway Mine Train, good for a power-coaster.
Duel, nothing spectacular but had a good time still.
Air, not as rough as I remembered it to be, but the section where you lie on your back is just uncomfortable and pointless...
I didn't take any pictures of anything (did that 7 years ago...) but I have some things that some might think is interesting:
Blue = Vertical forces
Red = Acceleration forces
Green = Lateral forces
Much requested on the day, DUEL!!
Oblivion, short and sweet, but actually don't have any extreme forces, -0.2 - ~3.5 g's...
Rita is nearly exactly the same as Desert Race, except for the ending, even if people says otherwise...
The one for Air is a bit hard to read, since the change in position is screwing up the sensor position, Still 2 g's on your back isn't pleasant at all.
Thirteen, the beginning is similar to any other kiddy coaster, but it's nice to see that the main drop is pretty powerful and actually lasts for 1 second.
And now to finish it all of:
NEMESIS (back right), this is something that I have wanted to do since my brother made our first accelerometer (2006), I would say that it pulls around 4.5-4.6 g's in the helix into the zero-g and not the 6+ g's that I have heard some people say. It's actually about as powerful as any other B&M invert, but it's the length of the force in the helix that makes people think it's more powerful than it is...
It's still a great ride though
Thanks, Phil for making it happen, Hixee for the BOGOF and for hangin out, Steph for the Rita que jump
and everyone else for the great time during my visit!!
Until next time...