February Half Term & Pre-season 2011

[siralgenon]

This sounds serious? Have I got the wrong end of the track or did the lift chain break during operation?

[Bote]

Well if so, they'd fixed/replaced it by 2pm, as it was back, and taught, as it was lifted off of the track at the bottom like normal.

Come to think of it though, I reckon I did hear the two hosts say about a chain snapping. It'd also explain them checking the cars, to see if it had damaged them.

It was closed from when I arrived at around 10:30ish though, so wether it did actually operate briefly, or what, I don't know.

[Islander]

:nervious:

Yet more reason for me to steer clear of that [s:2jfp3lms]death trap[/s:2jfp3lms] ride from now on...

Interesting that all B&M's went down at some point, though. Obviously Air = no surprise, but I've only seen Nemesis down once before, and Oblivion never (save for retrieval of cameras off guests on the lift hill). Any ideas what was going on there?

[Terra]

Ah you're lucky. All three times i've been to the Towers in the past 2 years, Oblivion has always gone down whilst in the queue. Admittedly, one time WAS to add another train to the track, but it still took quite a while. The other two times it has been down for about 20 minutes & half an hour. Just as we got to the station, too. Sods law.

[SEALIFE]

If it was that seriouse surley Alton would have updated the website and informed guests that it was unoperational.

Spinball has been down once when I went but re-opened later in the day. We'll have to sit tight and see what tommorow brings for us! or.. whoevers at the Resort!

[Rocket]

If spinball is shut then maybe they could open Rita or Th13teen as when toadstool was shut they opened Charlie,spinball being a main coaster should get a replacement if it is a serious problem.

[SEALIFE]

Thats if they've passed all there saftey checks yet becuase its not saying that they have.. With all the "main" rollercoasters being open I think they'd open a side attraction like you said Charlie possibly.

[krikeymikey]

I visited the park on Monday and Spinball started the day with only 2 or 3 cars running.
The que was 60 minutes from when the gates opened.

Although when I checked back later on they where running 5 cars.

[Bote]

On the Oblivion front, I'm not sure what it was. It could of been an e-stop, as one stopped on the turnaround, and another on the break run. The other shuttle was in the station. Both shuttles were empty though. I don't know if they'd send them around as a test, and a problem had come back up or what, but they instantly played the announcement that it has ceased operation, and all the boards around the park showed it as closed from then until 4pm (Ride Close) It was about 2:30ish it went down.

Nemesis was admittedly only down for a brief period. I believe there was an issue with restraints not locking, or registering. It re-started about 5 minuets later, but train 1, row 5 (I think) remained empty for the rest of the day.

Air, yes we expect downtime, but this was worse than usual. Train 2 started acting up (Don't know why) and they moved it into the other station to try and repair it. They sent it around empty several times to see if they had solved the problem, but I think it re-arose every time.

[jordanc14]

We was in the silver "cages" when oblivion broke down, a fully loaded train stopped halfway up the lift hill for around 5 minutes then when that got restarted they sent around, as mentioned, a couple of empty cars and then one of them stopped on the precipice and it was closed for the rest of the day. As for Spinball, we was walking past and an empty car was testing at around 3:00PM so everybody had a mad dash towards the entrance to find a load of staff saying they were "testing the brakes" but the lift hill theory may be more reliable, I'm not too sure. And air, there was only one train running at first but it got two operational after a few test runs. I heard a member of staff saying they could only use one side of the station because there wasn't enough staff but they were both open later on. It was overall quite a manic day with queues being as follows: (max.)
Air:80 mins
Nemesis:35 mins
Hex:25mins
Oblivion:45 mins
RMT: 45mins
Squirrel Nutty:40 mins (NO JOKE!)

[CoasterCrazyChris]

[quote=""jordanc14""]Squirrel Nutty:40 mins (NO JOKE!)[/quote]

Proves its still the most popular kids rides of them all - and yet it doesn't even have its own page on the AT website!

[thefatone]

Spinball should be open today.

Air train 2 has been having a problem most of the week - well, according to friends visiting anyway.

[siralgenon]

There was only 3 shuttle's on Sonic when I went past on tuesday.

[ryanlovesaltontowers]

Has anyone noticed that the blue/red bumpers around Adventure Land now flash (strobes are inside them) and the 2 in the middle of the helix near the end of the ride play a pinball bumper sound effect when they flash.

[Clolossus]

i can't believe spinball was closed yesterday - maybe that's why the queues were ... quite long. Only got on air once, right at the end, i think it was the 2nd or 3rd to last ride.
queue time supposedly: 45 mins
queue time actually with the short breakdown: 60 mins at least
I was in the queue when oblivion got stuck halfway up the lift hill and was being moaned at to leave it and come back - and when i was dragged away and told "They won't fix it for ages" guess what? it started working and we'd lost our place in the queue! typical. But on the bright side i got on nemesis 6 or 7 times thanks to the single rider queue

[Adam]

[quote=""ryanlovesaltontowers""]Has anyone noticed that the blue/red bumpers around Adventure Land now flash (strobes are inside them) and the 2 in the middle of the helix near the end of the ride play a pinball bumper sound effect when they flash.[/quote]

I noticed this, I assumed they were always supposed to do that but were broken. Pretty cool effect.

[Voke]

[quote=""ryanlovesaltontowers""]Has anyone noticed that the blue/red bumpers around Adventure Land now flash (strobes are inside them) and the 2 in the middle of the helix near the end of the ride play a pinball bumper sound effect when they flash.[/quote]

Yep, I believe they were flashing at the end of last season, and have started again during February Half-Term.

I was on Park today and I can confirm that Sonic Spinball was running with 4 Cars, although it did have a half an hour breakdown just after mid-day. It was at 45 minutes all day

[AstroDan]

[quote=""jordanc14""]We was in the silver "cages" when oblivion broke down, a fully loaded train stopped halfway up the lift hill for around 5 minutes then when that got restarted they sent around, as mentioned, a couple of empty cars and then one of them stopped on the precipice and it was closed for the rest of the day. As for Spinball, we was walking past and an empty car was testing at around 3:00PM so everybody had a mad dash towards the entrance to find a load of staff saying they were "testing the brakes" but the lift hill theory may be more reliable, I'm not too sure. And air, there was only one train running at first but it got two operational after a few test runs. I heard a member of staff saying they could only use one side of the station because there wasn't enough staff but they were both open later on. It was overall quite a manic day with queues being as follows: (max.)
Air:80 mins
Nemesis:35 mins
Hex:25mins
Oblivion:45 mins
RMT: 45mins
Squirrel Nutty:40 mins (NO JOKE!)[/quote]

I don't think Air got to 80 minutes today, certainly not when it was on two craft operation which it was at 10.30am when we rode and RMT only got slightly beyond the entrance - so more 35/40 minutes. Also, Oblivion was never 45!? We went on at 2pm and it was walk on. I don't think Nemesis got past the entrance either, and it's only 20 minutes from there. Hex was out of the entrance though amd Squirrel Nutty was pretty shocking!

Sonic Spinball was on 5 cars when I rode later on in the afternoon.

[Coke]

He posted yesterday (about Thursday) :P

[AstroDan]

My bad! Haha!

Anyway, today yes - the park was quite busy again. The queue at the entrance plaza before 10am was enough to put anyone in a bad mood, having already waited in the queue for the bus service... They really ought to open the park at 9.45am to ease the crowds.

Queue times I saw today:

Air: 40 minutes (out of entrance at one stage - although only in the one queue area)
Nemesis: 20 minutes (to entrance, one area)
RMT: 40 minutes (well out of entrance, in entire queueline)
Sonic Spinball: 60 minutes (according to board - we waited 25 minutes in SRQ)
Oblivion: 10 minutes (we waited 5 minutes)
Hex: 20 minutes (out of entrance to Towers)

It's looking pretty healthy after a slow start last weekend (presume last weekend was quieter due to weather!).