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[CW5X]

Don't have time to write a full trip report just now so I'll leave this little video I made with stuff I'd filmed throughout the day. I've been so many times, I didn't mind not rushing between rides to get some nice footage. Of course, it includes the best song from the new Blink-182 album.

 

 

I'll get around to the report tomorrow morning. Need more sleep after the journeys yesterday in the world's least comfortable bus.

[CW5X]

So we left the centre of Falkirk at about 1am on a bus which also stopped in Glasgow for more passengers and headed down the motorway towards Alton Towers which is about 6 hours excluding stops. We got to the park at around 8:15 and headed straight for the entrance which, as usual, didn't open until 9.

Once we got in, we headed straight for the X-sector and the Smiler but that was shut until 10 so we got a few cheeky rides on Oblivion first before we headed into The Smiler's queue. I was a little nervous going on for the first time after the incident but aside from the slightly smelly seat (clearly not the only one who had been nervous :/), it was just the same, exciting ride it always is.

After heading out of the X-Sector, we moved on to Rita which no longer has its Queen of Speed title for some reason. This was actually my first time ever on Rita because I've always been a little unsure of launch rides. It ended up being far more intense than I expected. I knew it wasn't going to be the smoothest ride but it wasn't so bad. There were a couple of bumps near the end but nothing keeping your head back couldn't solve. Unfortunately Th13teen and the flume weren't operating but nothing I hadn't been on before and not things I'd go out of my way to go on.

We did eventually get over to Nemesis and Galactica. Nemesis was epic as always but what I was far more interested to find out was how Air had been transformed with VR and if it was really necessary because I've expressed doubts about the whole thing before. The queue was about 75 minutes when we got in the queue but it was actually about an hour so it could've been worse. In the queue, there was a little station where place your face in-front of a camera which I think, recognises your face so you can see your own photograph of you on the ride. In truth, mine ended up looking completed bewildered by everything because I could not work out what on earth was going on. It might just have been my headset which was faulty because I couldn't get it to focus on the simulation and it didn't fit that well on my head. It guess it was kinda cool seeing all these objects flying by and flipping over but the main problem was that it completely drowned out any experience of the actual ride. I could've had a very similar experience in one of those static motion simulators because it really didn't feel like I was on Air at all which I guess was confirming my fears about the whole VR setup. Still, even though I'd had just about the most out of sync and unfocused experience, I didn't feel sick at all but I know that I would've had a more enjoyable experience just on Air. Maybe I need another VR ride before I can really judge fully.

After that, we really just spent the rest of the day doing whatever. I was filming a bit and Nicholas was spamming Nemesis trying to make a headache go away. Don't know how welll that worked out for him.

Ride count:
Oblivion - 5
Smiler - 1
Spinball Whizzer - 2
Duel - 1
Runaway Minetrain - 1
Rita - 2
River Rapids - 1
Nemesis - 3
Galactica/Air - 1

We got pretty lucky with the weather as well as there only a couple of showers. Given the length of the queues for a lot of the day, I don't think the resort has been too badly hit by the Smiler crash but I don't think it was as busy as it has been although the Saturday is generally a travelling day for people going on holiday at the start of July rather than going there.

[Jogumpie]

How's Smiler these days? I remember it being incredibly (like really incredibly) jolty. The abundance of inversions is great, but it's painful as f*ck.

 

Funny thing is that they opened Lost Gravity at Walibi Holland and its logo and entourage is very Smiler-esque.

[CW5X]

It still is a bit jolty as it always has been but I put my head back and it was ok. My head is always sat right between the restraints so I usually get the worst of the head banging but I'm used to having to deal with it.