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WTF Merlin?

Trax said:
Official statement is a scheduled maintenance, but this is on purpose since the terrible incident in 2015. I guess the park is afraid of any kind of negative publicity if they are honest with such a troublesome ride.
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Perfectly understandable - I rarely ride the thing to be honest, but rely on it to keep the crowds away from the rides I prefer ;)

EVERY coaster bar RMT, Octonauts and Galactica had issues at some point today, so I can see why people who'd paid full price and rarely visit were a little naffed off - but I was there for atmosphere and Halloween stuff, so I didn't really mind. In fact, I've had an awesome afternoon & evening :)
 
Smiler is still down, supposedly they are waiting on a part from Gerstlauer, but it has been down for quite a while now.

Also afaik, Thirteen is no longer allowed to operate in the rain/if the tracks are wet, following the little incident a few weeks ago. So expect it to be down quite a bit more often nowadays, probably the most unreliable ride in the park now.
 
People always say Intamin are the best manufacturer while glossing over the fact that they built a kids rollercoaster that can’t run in the rain.

Is this still to do with the train overspeeding into the second lift? I mean I’m not an engineer or anything, but surely that seems like a relatively easy thing to fix? Anything seems better than trimming the first drop and not running it in the rain??
 
I was under the impression that 13 had different wheels and/or brakes that had to used when the park expect wetter/colder conditions as standard, and that the park currently don't have those parts, hence why it's not running at the moment? Obviously I don't know the ins and outs of such a rule, but it's something which sounds plausible to me.

If it's not the case, and the ride is no longer running in the rain, then I would have thought that's an internal decision made by the park, rather than something from Intamin?
 
What was the incident on Th13teen?

How did Intamin mess that small outdoor section up so badly? It’s crazy.
 
spicy said:
What was the incident on Th13teen?

How did Intamin mess that small outdoor section up so badly? It’s crazy.
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The incident was that a train was supposedly starting to go up the lift hill, but then disengaged at the bottom and rolled back towards the station, lightly bumping the train behind it.
 
Crazycoaster said:
People always say Intamin are the best manufacturer while glossing over the fact that they built a kids rollercoaster that can’t run in the rain.

Is this still to do with the train overspeeding into the second lift? I mean I’m not an engineer or anything, but surely that seems like a relatively easy thing to fix? Anything seems better than trimming the first drop and not running it in the rain??
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Thirteen has a tendency to slip down the llift in heavy rain.

I hope Alton don't buy a prototype next lol. Even Wickerman used a new computer system which caused all the block issues when running with three trains.
 
Well that’s pretty serious and lucky it slipped at the beginning of the lift hill.

If it somehow slipped down from high up the lift hill it would be hitting the train in the station with more than a slight bump.
 
Alton looking strong today 🙈


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^
Provided WM wasn't down for too long, that's not disastrous, but I do think they should be making it clearer that Smiler is in all likelihood unavailable for the rest of the season - at least gets the disappointment out of the way before guests are already on park. I warned a family in the monorail station that it was closed on my last visit and thought I was going to get something thrown at me!!

Still, with perhaps the two 'must do' attractions down, that's quite clearly done horrific things to the queues elsewhere on park. At least Thirteen looks to have been up and running most of this week :)
 
Nitefly said:
Alton looking strong today 🙈


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just been today, waiting for Rita was a nightmare but well worth it in the dark.
and yes unfortunately its very lightly that The Smiler will be closed till next season.
Wicker Man did open after about 16:00
 
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Unusual for a fanboy like me to criticise my home park... But I was at Towers on Monday with 9 none enthusiast friends... Sadly the park let them down massively!!! We got 2 coasters and 4 mazes done in 12 hours on park (11 hours of operation!)

Constant breakdowns, queues of over 2 hours, long waits for everything except the outside traders on the green... Crowds were bordering on the completely unbearable side...

If they're going to regularly attract crowds of this size again, they need more fillers, and FAST!

Fair play to them for attracting customers on this scale again, but they won't return on that showing!!!

Edited to add... I do multiple scarefest visits every year, I've never seen anything like I'm seeing recently, not even close... It's like bonfire night EVERY DAY right now!!!
 
That's crazy, after my visit recently I remarked that the temporary flats have done wonders to suck up some crowds and should absolutely be replaced with permanent (and themed) versions of themselves, but the park still has serious issues when the big rides are down, add in the fact that the Rapids are closed as well. It needs something else to eat capacity and spread out the crowds, like another flat to accompany Duel.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the retrosquad ended up being an attempt to try and increase the park's capacity. Which from a business standpoint (probably) makes sense.
 
Tonkso said:
That's crazy, after my visit recently I remarked that the temporary flats have done wonders to suck up some crowds and should absolutely be replaced with permanent (and themed) versions of themselves, but the park still has serious issues when the big rides are down, add in the fact that the Rapids are closed as well. It needs something else to eat capacity and spread out the crowds, like another flat to accompany Duel.
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It's scary to think what it would have been like without them!!! They had reasonable queues too (I'd be lying if I put a figure on it, as I can't remember, and never got to them)

The problem is Smiler being down... Once other rides break too, if only for an hour, it causes mayhem... Then when multiple coasters are down.... Well!!!!
 
Ohh forgot to mention, whilst we're talking about capacity, the park is not operating at capacity, it's operating over capacity!!!

They have openly announced that they're fully sold out, max capacity, paid tickets, pass pre books, everything...

And yet you're able to enter with a pass and no pre book, as nobody was on the gate checking them ;)
 
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