After calming down somewhat from the absolute incredibleness of MegaFobia, I was quite looking forward to Alton Towers, which is definitely a "major" theme park and quite large at that. The park is famous for having a real castle at the center ("centre") of the park. You can walk through some of the rooms and the quite nice cathedral. There is also a gift shop housed inside.
The park also boasts some formal gardens, also quite large. While in the gardens you can barely tell that you are in an amusement park, with only the sky ride gondolas really giving it away. I would have liked to explore the gardens and castle for more than the 3/4 hour I had for both of them.
Alton Towers is HUGE! We arrived a little before 9am for a scheduled 9am ERT on Nemesis. Nemesis is, of course, located at the very back of the park quite far from the main entrance. Even with my super New-York-style speedwalking it took about *20* minutes to get to Nemesis! This is definitely a park where you have to plan your day so that you don't spend too much time walking from one place to another.
We arrived at Nemesis and (since I was one of the faster walkers) I was able to get two rides on the machine before the majority of the ACE'rs showed up. We had about 1/2 hour of "pure" ERT, and then about 20 minutes of ERT with some members of the general public (those who were staying at Alton Towers' Hotel) mixed in. I was lucky in that I was able to stay on the train for about 4-5 continuous rides while they emptied the queues of the Hotel-staying public before letting the waiting hordes into the station. So I got about 10 rides total. Not too bad.
The Nemesis is already famed for its station and queue theming, in which the station and coaster form a huge "alien", with the track forming the tentacles/legs of the alien. All the water around the station are dyed red, which gives great effect in standing pools but turns cotton-candy pink in waterfalls. The whole thing sits in an excavated stone quarry due to the restriction that the ride should not extend above the treeline. This allows the ride to go in narrow passageways and dip underground. In addition, the ride goes quite close to the queues leading to the excitement of the waiting 'victims'.
My impression? First let me mention that I enjoy Batman: The Ride a bit more than Raptor due to the sheer intensity and disorientation that the elements give you. Raptor to me seems much slower in pacing. I was prepared to dislike Nemesis due to the shortness of the ride and still have Batman be my top inverted coaster (no, I haven't ridden Montu yet). The coaster once again lived up to its hype. To me it is every bit as intense as Batman and then some. The best additions to me are the various high-G-force curves between each element, adding to the disorientation. One incline lets you "climb up a rock waterfall" while the final corkscrew is hidden from view, coming up after a tunnelled section. A very nice ride!
After our ride time on Nemesis we started to explore the other coasters and rides in the park. "Thunderlooper" is a Schwartzkopf shuttle loop, launched by counterweight. It was OK, though I prefer the ones that are launched via flywheel (like Montezooma's Revenge in Knott's Berry Farm) due to the more sever acceleration.
The New Beast is a Schwartzkopf Jumbo Jet, running *5* trains to keep the lines down.
Their "Runaway Mine Train" was an interesting ride. It is powered, but there are sections where the speed is clearly dominated by gravity. There is a very nice downward helix followed by "The Cool Part" -- a tunneled section where you ride alongside the rapids ride (and you can wave to the rapids riders).
The park has a ride called the "Energizer" which I found amusing but not too great. Imagine a "Top Spin" where the passengers face sideways (that is, looking towards one of the two towers). The motion causes the passenger platform to have severe side-to-side swings, but does not cause them to go upside down. It was unique.
The "Black Hole" is a Jet Star II in the dark. However, the dark part was VERY well done. The circular lift is accompanied by a musical score (outer-space-awe-inspiring-theme) which adds to the tension. There are different lighing effects. It works quite well.
Alton Towers has a VERY well done dark ride, the Haunted House. The queue goes through a graveyard with many humourous epitaphs. Then you go into a tilted room with a nicely-done holographic movie and several "phantom" things (like a book with self-turning pages, and a self-rocking horse). You then board a car holding four passengers and you go at varying speeds through the dark ride with things popping out at you. The interesting thing is that the ride is LONG! About twice as long as you might expect.
After an exhausting day (with LOTS of walking) we headed back to the bus and then began our drive to Blackpool.
Somebody made the inane decision that the buses would go to Blackpool so that people could go on rides for an hour before the buses departed for the hotel. This meant that you couldn't eat a decent dinner if you wanted to due to the 1-hour limit, and things tended to close later. So my friends and I went to a nearby "fancy" restaurant to try to do dinner in under an hour. Well, with downright slow and nasty service we had a very rushed (but tasty) dinner and got back to the bus with no time to spare.
We stayed at the "Norbreck Castle Hotel". I had thought that this would be an actual castle that had been converted to a hotel. No such luck, it was just a large, old hotel which had castle-like turrets on it. It was built in the mid-1800's and had some very nice public rooms, but the actual bedrooms were small and old-fashioned. Not to mention really bad water pressure.
What an itinerary! We were to visit *three* different parks and board the buses *four* times during the day.
We started the morning with *NO* hot water in the room. Not the most pleasant way to start the busy day, but I managed to find my way to breakfast just fine. We arrived at the Blackpool PB in time for our 9am-10am ERT on Pepsi Max: The Big One megacoaster. Once again, the reports I had heard were completely true: The first drop (about 200 feet tall) is quite amazing (very steep, with a 90-degree right turn that whips you out of your seat). The rest of the ride is fast but completely boring. I went on 4 rides on The Big One and then we got on the buses (2nd of 4) to head towards Southport.
Pleasureland is a relatively small park, featuring one coaster which was given the "ACE Classic" designation during this day (the Cyclone), a standard "Wildcat", and a "Big Apple" kiddie coaster.
"The Cyclone" is a deceptively small coaster, with a pretty short lift hill. However, this ride holds at least three intense "train yanked from underneath you" moments of quality AIRTIME. In addition, the first car of one of the trains is backwards, adding extra excitement. In my case, the excitement is in the form of at least two intense "camera bag banging against my face" moments of quality AIRTIME. :-) I got about 5 or 6 rides in during ERT.
We were treated to a very nice lunch, and then a few of us went to explore the park. We came upon the Fun House. As someone remarked, "We all entered the Fun House at age 12 and immediately reverted to age 11".
Ah, the Fun House. I think this place was the closest I have experienced to the "Golden Era" of funhouses which probably started in Coney Island in the late 1800's and lasted through to maybe the 1950's. Yes, this was the REAL Fun House, the kind where if you were stupid you could get hurt, and if not you could have an amazing time. The kind of place that the litigous United States have effectively prevented from every coming back into existance on our soil.
The highlight of this Fun House was "The Turntable". You've probably seen this device in old Black-and-white footage of Coney Island. This is a wooden-laminated slightly-domed circle, about 8 feet in diameter, which is motor driven and can turn at high speeds. This is surrounded by a non-moving wooden circular platform of perhaps 16-20 feet in diameter, at the perimeter of which are walls with foam padding.
The goal is this: as many people as possible get onto the center platform and sit. Usually someone is at dead-center, others around him/her may link arms, others are just along for the ride. The platform starts to spin and very shortly centrifigal force will fling the other persons off the turntable and towards the outer padding. The turntable keeps gaining speed and at some point usually everyone (save the person at absolute center) will be flung off. The wheel stops, and the process repeats.
Imagine the sight of about 20 grown adults doing this for, say, 45 minutes straght! We were having an amazing time, and if you're ever in Southport you shouldn't miss this throwback to days of old.
"The Waltzer". It had been mentioned to us that the Waltzer at Southport was the best in the land, so Cheri Stead and I had to find out if this was true! Once again, think of a Waltzer as a Tilt-a-Whirl with the cars moving in circles of a smaller radius and a person riding on the platform spinning your car to 'help' it along.
Well, the person spinning the car at Southport was an expert. He knew exactly when to give the car a 'push' and how much effort so that the car would spin at maximum neck-straining speed. Our first ride was quite intense, with us laughing hysterically as the spinning got faster and faster. The operator had to cover 2 or 3 other people riding, so we sometimes slowed down.
Then we decided to have another ride. Big mistake. The operator was dumbfounded that we wanted to go again, and I think he took it as his personal challange to break our spirits with absolutely maniacal spinning. In addition, we were the only two people on the ride, so he devoted his efforts *full time* to making us spin incessantly and at very high speeds. This is definitely the fastest I've ever spun on ANY spinning ride, and gave us the Waltzer ride to end all Waltzer rides.
We also went on a few other rides: A Helter-Skelter (spiral slide) with a "whirlpool" finish at the bottom. A crooked walk-through haunted house. A "Haunted Swing" ride (enclosed room where you sit on a swing while the motorized room spins vertically around you). And a unique "Whip in the dark" where you have a foot-pedal which controls the whipping action.
On the bus at 3pm for our drive to Gulliver's world.
This is a kiddie-oriented park and we only had one hour to ride. They have a new wooden coaster called the "Antelope". A fun, but very mild ride of coarse. We then found a "mine train" circular Dragon coaster which gave pleasant lateral G-forces. We went on a Teacups ride where the platform moved very slowly but the cups were well-greased: major spin action. Lastly there was a "pedal-it-yourself" monorail, where two people can sit and bicycle themselves around an elevated track. This was an EXHAUSTING ride and the course was much longer than you would like. Quite a workout!
We then got on the bus for our trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. We had from about 6pm until 10pm to ride, but I'll cover the specifics in the next installment of this report tomorrow.
