The Smiler - General Discussion

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
Swarm Chris

Like all of the above, the single ride queue was open all weekend regardless of main queue line size. It was working really well, great management and I saw no issues from guests.

What was interesting was that the mist effect had seemed to turn itself into a rain effect on the queue line. With a good chunk on the route to the single rider/RAP/fastrack split being under a continual moderate mist. Refreshing though, given the weekend's stickiness.
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Mikw
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GregH94 wrote:
Mikw wrote:Any truth that the Single rider queue doesn't operate now idf the queue is less than an hour long?
You’ll be pleased to know that’s a bogus rumor, pretty much everyone’s used it this weekend.

Come to think about it, I don’t think I’ve used the main queue at all this season.
Awesome, thanks

Swarm Chris wrote:Like all of the above, the single ride queue was open all weekend regardless of main queue line size. It was working really well, great management and I saw no issues from guests.

What was interesting was that the mist effect had seemed to turn itself into a rain effect on the queue line. With a good chunk on the route to the single rider/RAP/fastrack split being under a continual moderate mist. Refreshing though, given the weekend's stickiness.
Yes, I noticed that too, was quite a nice refreshing mist and a puddle on the floor.
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4rchman155
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Does anyone know any information about this alternate soundtrack to the ride? I believe it was only ever used once at 0:55 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCKyoMtPNj8 . Does anyone know if this was a one-off thing made for this video or whever it was something else? I cant find any other evidence of the track existing apart from one lone youtube video which just samples the audio from the video I linked. Thanks for any information given by the way.

Dont forget to keep on smiling!
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18Louric
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Hello.

I have been thinking that since the baggage system was changed to being a block of shelves in the station, I’m guessing they'll never go back to using the old system but there is something that could work.

So you know when you are assigned to your row, there is a wall to the right next to the front of the queue/wall next to row 4 and this wall has doors which connects to the line after the ride. Do you think that it would be possible to fit the baggage system there and maybe have it work like Rita’s does? Then they would not be interrupting the throughput of the ride which lets face it is appalling . To think that even though on opening year, the ride's lifts were slower and the stop at half-way point, you were lucky in a way to have duel because usually the train is dispatched too early for one but now they struggle to even get a train to duel because of how long it takes.

I know what you’re thinking, ops in 2014, 15, 16 and 17 were slower anyway with the baggage system. But when they could, they did operate really good, especially 2017. Unfortunately when they operate 3 trains then this won’t make too much difference anyway but when on 4 trains I think my system could be beneficial but i don’t know.
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SilverWisp
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Hi guys,
I'm no expert at rollercoasters, but I do love them! I'm going to Alton Towers next year and I'm wondering if Fastrack is worth it for the Smiler? I'm new to this forum and I just want to know what the average queue times are like in April-May time and if it's worth it to pay to skip the queue. Thanks.
~S.W (SilverWisp) A.K.A MJ
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AltonOperator
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Really depends on the day. Weekdays maybe half an hour? Weekends and school holidays are closer to an hour or two. Smiler currently has Single Rider though so I’d recommend that over buying fasttrack for it.

But at this point any advice is pretty much useless as we don’t know what the park will look like over the next few months or even years. As much as we’d all like to hope that everything will be back to normal, come next year, we can’t know for sure.
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Thanks Jack
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SilverWisp
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Thanks for the advice! We’re just looking at next year at the moment but really, we won’t get back to AT until everything’s pretty much back to normal. I believe that I’m going to be staying in the Smiler suite so I’m pretty sure I’m getting fastrack anyways. Thanks for the single rider queue tip though, as I’m sure I’ll probably re-ride a few times.
~S.W (SilverWisp) A.K.A MJ
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LbranchieAnya
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At the park today, has anyone noticed a loud banging sound as the smiler climbs it’s vertical lift before? Wondering if it’s a new problem or just something I haven’t noticed before.
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Tom170499
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LbranchieAnya wrote:At the park today, has anyone noticed a loud banging sound as the smiler climbs it’s vertical lift before? Wondering if it’s a new problem or just something I haven’t noticed before.
I noticed this over the weekend. It wasn’t doing it for every train but it was for most. It was a very loud bang too
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MattPNE
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Is the Single rider queue still open this season with social distancing etc?
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GregH94
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MattPNE wrote:Is the Single rider queue still open this season with social distancing etc?
It’s currently unavailable due to the fact that it involves filling empty seats by seating strangers with other groups, which is obviously not permitted under current restrictions.


However, there’s no Fastrack either and RAP is still in use on all coasters. 
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MattPNE
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GregH94 wrote:
MattPNE wrote:Is the Single rider queue still open this season with social distancing etc?
It’s currently unavailable due to the fact that it involves filling empty seats by seating strangers with other groups, which is obviously not permitted under current restrictions.


However, there’s no Fastrack either and RAP is still in use on all coasters. 
Ah yes that would make sense
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AlizaBunn
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I'm trying to recreate the Smiler Shop (Buy The Smiler) And I need images of the shop, does anyone have any I could use?
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