The Smiler - General Discussion

[Danny]

This is what they say about the 'infinity coaster'

Info
Existing Models
Unlimited fun combined with plus innovative technology? That’s Gerstlauer’s Infinity Coaster.

The vehicles of the Infinity Coaster feel infinite and quite spacious. The versatile coaster is available with individual cars for 8 riders as well as with trains holding up to 32 riders. Choosing a train doesn’t change the experience, however.  The train concept is designed to navigate small radii, too! The new seat concept is fantastic!  The open and high seat positing which offers lots of space and comfort for the riders – including floorless coaster feeling!

With all the excitement we still keep in mind rider’s safety. Our newly designed T-lap bars lock hydraulically and can be adjusted infinitely. This enables even children with a body height of only 1.25m to experience the Infinity Coaster. Besides an automatic opening of the T-lap bars the Infinity Coaster features automatic closing of the lap bars, too. The automatic closing provides time saving during the process of dispatch. By request the coaster cars are available with over the shoulder restraints.

The Infinity Coaster is designed to master the endless number of your layout ideas. Thanks to carrying wheels with very big diameter the cars accelerate easily up to velocities of 130km/h and more. Therefor the spring-mounted steering provides high flexibility and riding comfort.

The Infinity Coaster is available with chain lift as well as with LSM-Launch – or both! The chain lift is avaible with lift hills of differnet angles. Likewise our 90° lift is navigable for trains composed of maximum 4 rows (16 riders). A new feature of our lift system is the magnetic, silent, safety chain dog system that lowers the vehicles backwards in case of a power loss. That ensures a quick, safe and comfortable evacuation of the riders in case of emergency right at the bottom of the lift hill.

The Infinity Coaster. The next-generation rollercoaster by Gerstlauer Amusement Rides.

[Stern John]

Went yesterday and despite the short notice of "planned maintenance" yesterday we managed to get tickets to come back any day next year for £10 and got our parking validated.
A small token gesture despite us coming twice this year to ride The Smiler, taking time off work and booking accomodation to find it SBNO!
Whatever way you look at it, it really is terrible for any brand new ride to have this amount of downtime in it's opening season, I would say up to 50% of the season?
I can't think of another ride in this country that has had that much downtime in my lifetime, even managed to get on Air in it's first season and that was completely groundbreaking new technology.
Smiler has been a cock-up from design to execution, it's starting to look dreadful already and will certainly not last as long as the likes of Nemesis without a major overhaul.
/Rant

[Balb0wa]

50% of the season? id say 10% if that. All new rides have teething problems.

[Stern John]

The park is open for 8 months, it was closed for the first 3 despite originally meant to be opening in March and has had severe downtime ever since. It's definately closer to 50%.
Also ALL new rides don't have teething problems, Nemesis opened on time and ran like a dream desptie being incredibly ambitious and technically challenging.
The fault of all this lies squarely with the rides designers/manufacturer and their shoddy calculations.

[Lucieloo]

I think what you got from Alton despite them displaying it would be closed on those dates was actually quite good. They could have quite easily said "tough you were told".

I really dont understand why people cannot accept this is unfortunate but not Altons fault. They have lost money too with all the refunding/money off's/parking revalidated things they have done.

Sorry I'm sure I'll get something back off this but if it was a normal steel coaster then I can understand the rants but this is a ground breaker, you cannot expect them to know exactly what problems it will have until it is in use. Then they learn from it, get it fixed or replaced and on they go.

Ive only been once this year and been lucky to ride it twice, sadly when going for the 3rd time (having purchsed fast tracks) it broke down. It was sad, but I didn't go on a full scale rant about it, it happens.

I really think people need to focus back on the ride and how good it is.

[Stern John]

I'd love to focus on how good a ride it is!
You can't really empathise with my point of view as you have been on it.
I went for the first time on "opening day" in May when it was no-where near finished and we were only told the night before.
They only advertised the ride as closed on 17/9 last Friday which was too late for any of us to change our work or accomodation.
The communication throughout this debacle has been a complete joke and it's something who the lucky ones who turned up and got on The Smiler fail to understand.
I feel I'm entitled to rant about it, as I'm sure the Merlin bosses are doing to the manufacturers.

[DeanGaryCox]

so what did they actually do on the two days of 'planned' maintenance when it was closed monday and tuesday?

[Stern John]

There was about 7 members of staff stood near the entrance stood around chatting and not much else going on.

[clarkerm]

Had my first ride yesterday...what a disappointment. Was in row 3 and it was so rough, painful in fact at several points, especially th exit of the cobra roll. Unbelievable that the ride is only a few months old.

[Jack]

Had my first ride yesterday...what a disappointment. Was in row 3 and it was so rough, painful in fact at several points, especially th exit of the cobra roll. Unbelievable that the ride is only a few months old.

it's made by Gerstlauer, that may be a contributing factor

[Danny]

I can't believe the smiler could have had lap bars would've been amazing!

[JAMMYD777]

Rode it twice more today. Row 1 and Row 4 (I forgot to look at the train numbers). Row 4 is definitely more rattly however I was surprised at how smooth it was compared to some reviews. The jolts are still quite painful on the shoulders but I was happy to see The Giggler working again. I also observed the support on the exit of the cobra roll and boy does it move. More so than it should be I believe. All other track movements though seemed normal today. In regards to the inside section and what has been done, firstly the strobe is now working again (or switched on) but no mist, and there are still and awful lot of sandbags in there and what looked like bricks.

[clarkerm]

Had my first ride yesterday...what a disappointment. Was in row 3 and it was so rough, painful in fact at several points, especially th exit of the cobra roll. Unbelievable that the ride is only a few months old.

it's made by Gerstlauer, that may be a contributing factor

Yeah I know...but still!

[Scooby252]

Hello there ,I'm planning to go to alton towers midweek in mid October but because of certain reasons I can't arrive at alton towers until 11.30am and not fond of waiting more than 45 minutes for the smiler riding together would anyone recommend me to purchase a fast pass from their website ? . Looking at the current ride times if it's dry they still go up to 90 to 100 minutes at around midday but in 3 weeks time I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated thanks people .

[Kirsty25]

Hello there ,I'm planning to go to alton towers midweek in mid October but because of certain reasons I can't arrive at alton towers until 11.30am and not fond of waiting more than 45 minutes for the smiler riding together would anyone recommend me to purchase a fast pass from their website ? . Looking at the current ride times if it's dry they still go up to 90 to 100 minutes at around midday but in 3 weeks time I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated thanks people .

Assuming you mean around the 10th of October, I would guess the queues could be worse than I would guess for those wanting to enjoy the park without the rush and extra busy that scarefest will bring. The longest I queued the other Sunday (when Lidl had a family day there) for the Smiler was an hour mid afternoon, then an hour at the end of the day so my guess would be around an hour.

[Scooby252]

Assuming you mean around the 10th of October, I would guess the queues could be worse than I would guess for those wanting to enjoy the park without the rush and extra busy that scarefest will bring. The longest I queued the other Sunday (when Lidl had a family day there) for the Smiler was an hour mid afternoon, then an hour at the end of the day so my guess would be around an hour.

Thankyou for that , £6 online for a fast track so looks like I will go down that route. Wish they would bring back that system where you could collect a time ticket nearby a ride and go back at that given time. It's a similar thing now but only we all have to pay .

[themealgang]

On a completely different note, The Smiler now has a technical name/ coaster style! Gerstlauer have named it the 'Infinity Coaster'. Interesting. Wonder how many more of these will be built!

http://www.gerstlauer-rides.de/referenc ... ler-en-US/

[Jack]

On a completely different note, The Smiler now has a technical name/ coaster style! Gerstlauer have named it the 'Infinity Coaster'. Interesting. Wonder how many more of these will be built!

http://www.gerstlauer-rides.de/referenc ... ler-en-US/

Been mentioned above

[mikesalt]

With regard to the article above, has anyone noticed the typographical errors?

"‘The Smiler’ is topped off by "

If they paid the same level of attention to the ground works as they did in this paragraph I think that explains a lot.

[TheOutpatient]

I think that's just because they are German