Alton Towers - 8/11

coastergraham · Alton Towers - 8/11

PARK OPENING HOURS

10-4

WHO WENT

Me
Caroline
My Mum

Today was a day of contrast, from beyond your wildest dreams to going through a nightmare.

First of all the nightmare, on our way back from Alton Towers the car started to lose power around Cheadle, so after stopping and checking and finding no obvious problem it became a job for the AA. Sadly it looks like being a very expensive repair job as they think the catalytic converter has collapsed.

Anyhow enough of the misery and onto Alton Towers. Only one word can describe today - Perfection!!

The park was not open to the public today, but was open to hotel guests, various scout groups and annual pass holders of which we fall into.

The park was possibly the quietest I have ever seen it, pretty much every single ride of the day was a walkon. What made it more incredible was that most rides ran high capacity!!

RIDE COUNT

Spinball Wizzer - 2
Rita - 5
Corkscrew - 6
Oblivion - 5
Air - 1
Nemesis - 22

TOTAL RIDES = 41!!

HIGHLIGHTS

- Amazing ride count in just 6 hours
- Great operation of rides by staff
- 2 trains on Nemesis when one was really too much
- Did I really only wait 3 minutes to go on Air?
- Most rides being a walkon
- The weather, it was a rotten forecast but thankfully it did not rain at all during the day.

LOWLIGHTS

- Ride close time, so much fun was being had. If only it could have gone on and on.
- What happened to the car.

frosty

Great news about Alton - real sorry about the problem with the car, especially if it is the Cat Sad

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Had a fantastic time at Alton today was a mixed day aof happy and sad. Limited edition certificates and t-shirts were there for the fans to grab and a limited edition poster 1 of 500 posters made. The weather wasent its best but everyone was still in high spirits. Like everyone said all rides were walk on spinball being bout 10 mins. A walk under the ride was great to see and great to get plenty of photos. A fantatstic day and what a way to see this great ride go. Pictures online tomos.

RIP Corckscrew 1980-2008

nemesis scribe

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nemesis scribe

Coaster Toaster

What a great day it was dispite the rain it didnt get anyone spirits down who went.

Park Opening Hours: 10am - 4pm
People in our group:
Me
Amy
Rich
Jess
Chris
Lee
Andy
Mary

Me, rich etc arrived at the park about 9:20 ish and waited for the monorail to open which we got the 1st train of the day to the enterance.

As it got closer to 10 more and more people were turning up and it soon became obvious it was going to be an enthusiasts day out with diffrent clubs being there and web sites.

Around 9:45 lee turned up and chris had already joined us at this stage.

About 5 minutes before we were let in it started to rain quite heavily so our 1st stop when we were let into the park was the room above the towers resturant which was all dedicated to the corkscrew with old merchandice and photos which were all really nice to see.

After we had bought our tshirts and posters we then headed over to ugland we ended up being the 1st lot of public to go behind the scenes under the corkscrew but it was to heavey to get any decent pics and we didnt want to ruin our equipment.
Around 10:30 we then headed to have a nice soggy ride on the corkscrew which me and amy got front row with everyone else sitting behind us. This was nice due to the factor today was the 1st time id taken a your day wrist band to see what it all looked like at the end of the day.

After our ride we went and got our cirtificates for being some of the last people to ever ride it. Chris also bought his 1st on ride photo.

We then headed over for a ride on rita which was walk on so me and amy took the chance for another front row and waited 5 trains which was really good. The ride itself seemed to be runnign very well with a fair bit of airtime.

As the rain had stopped by this now and that some people in our group didnt get to go under the corkscrew we queued up for this again and were let in a few mins after the 2 mins silence whch alton held for the wars. This was really good of the park to do this as they stopped all the rides and the park went silent apart from the ugland music which still played.

From here we had our group photo in the area and then it was time for some fun on oblivion again we walked on to it apart from a few mins wait but the lady deciding what row we went to was SO rude to us about everything and there was no need for it but still we had a nice ride and a good laugh for the your day cameras.

Then it was time for go for a spin on spinball where we waited around 20 mins i think as this took us to just after 12. From here we went for a nice walk through the haunted hollow to gloomey wood and onward to lunch at the fish and chips place next to nemesis and rip saw.

This time around the food was spot on and actually tasted nice comapred to last time i went there. after we were all filled up on junk food we headed over to air where again we basically walked on and the video on here for your day turned out great as a few of us were in row 2 and the rest of us in th eback row.

Then it was time for nemesis and 1st ride we went row 4 and 5 i think and i thought it seemed pretty slow compared to normal so due to the lack of queue we all went around agian and all queued for the fornt row and what a totally diffrent ride it was this time it was back to being its old self and was pulling the Gs.

While some people headed off to the loos some went for a ride on blade and then another go on nemesis. From here it was onward to duel where i happened to make a group of girls jump by me jumping on the floor which obviously created a rather loud bang.

The ride itself was just plain old duel which i gave up half way through and had the last half as the haunted house.

There was a rather long walk from gloomey wood to go and ride the t cups where rich decided as it was the end of the year he was going to go and ride with me.

I think he soon regretted this as he curled up in his coat hangin out the tea cup and people said he was looking rather close to throwing up. We decided to give heave ho a miss as no one really felt up to riding it. So i went off to see how the your day thing turned out wilst everyone went back above the resturant.

The your day video turned out well on most of them did, rita on the front row was pointless getting and so was nemesis as it didnt record our second go on the front row which would have been cool to have but oh well theres always another year.

Around 3 ish we headed over to corkscrew for the last half hour of so and got in 2 rides for the last time ever on it. Then we hung around to see the last riders ever go around and then we got approached to do an interview so me, lee and obviously rich as well lol. Again it was raining from 3 but all were in really good spirits and it was great to see everyone having such a great time,

It was then time to say our good byes for the final time of the coaster season and then the dreaded drive home which was very nasty with hard rain the whole journey home meaning loads of surface water and light flooding in places on the motorway.

Highlights:
Everyone in such great spirits etc
There for the last day of the corkscrew
Having loads of good laughs
Most of the ride staff being great

Lowlights:
The drive home
The oblivion member of staff
Saying good bye to the corkscrew

Ride count:
Corkscrew: 3 (front, back and middle)
Rita: 1
Oblivion: 1
Spinball: 1
Air: 1
Nemesis: 2
Duel: 1
Tea cups: 1

Thought id do a nice decent trip report for once lol

Cheers all for such a great day

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Wow good trip report there mate if only everyone else did trip reports like that Laughing

stevencaine

Great trip report it sounds like it was a good day despite the weather Crying or Very sad

surprised you only done three goes on the corkscrew some great photos on face-book
Rich doing another interview Wink

Boo

What a day!!!
Was a really great day as everyone seemed to be out there to support Corkscrew with lots of different clubs saying their goodbyes!

Had a good few rides on Corky and got the free certificate!
Had fun on other rides waving to the yourday cameras for Dan's DVD! The que-lines were short so got onto rides quickly and had good riding!!!

At the end of the day we all said goodbye to Corkscrew which was quite sad!!
But was good to ride it for the last time!!

Would like to thank Dan, Jess, Rich, Chris, Lee, Andy and Mary for the great day, was a really good!!

Amy

stealth fan

I can only reflect on what other people have said who went on this emotional day.
I had totally forgot how good Corkscrew was at the back, and on the very last ride I shared the front row with Lee.
The other rides that were open were great to get back on for the last time in the season, especially Nemesis and Oblivion, apart, as before mentioned the rather gobby ride host at the entrance to the station itself.
I actually managed to film and take pics in the rain without my camera messing up. A tribute video can be found on my youtube channel. Link below in my signiture.