The Smiler - General Discussion

Mon Jun 17, 2013 10:32 am

I went on the smiler a week ago now and when i was there the smoke that is suppose to fall from in front of the train was pathetic - it was only a very small amount coming out - have they fixed this yet and if so does it actually go all the way to the floor ?? Just curious

Mon Jun 17, 2013 10:42 am

pittster2013 wrote: Gordon, I think they are from the guest place on towers street. I'm guessing they open with the park.

I'm going tomorrow and after a couple I think, although we are happy to single ride so we may do that instead and save our money.

Does anyone know if the single rider queue is seperate from the main queue and opens when the ride opens?

The single rider queue is a separate queue from the main queue, and it is the same queue those with a disabled pass or fastpass use, before it splits into 3 different queues.

I'm not sure if it opens right from when the ride opens, but you're unable to queue for it like you do for the main queue, during ERT (as far as I'm aware). However, there have been reports that the SRQ gets closed if it becomes too long.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 10:48 am

Thanks Lewis! Our option if we don't get a fastrack I guess.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 10:51 am

Was gonna go again today...smiler showing as closed again on ridetimes??

Mon Jun 17, 2013 11:00 am

hoping to go tomorrow but its pending the smiler being open today and working, so anyone on site today who could confirm how its running and any downtime would be apprechitated - ridetimes as stated show it as closed.

EDIT - now showing 120 minutes on ride times. guessing it opened later than 10am.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 11:24 am

ST-Chris wrote: Was gonna go again today...smiler showing as closed again on ridetimes??

I've just looked on there and it says 120 mins

Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:27 pm

When do the fastracks usually sell out?

Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:35 pm

Gordon I reckon they will be gone by 10am if the park opens at 9.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:39 pm

Just a heads up for anyone who hasn't ridden yet.

I got told I was entering a 2 hour queue and I was on the ride within 50 minutes. The line was constantly moving!

Mon Jun 17, 2013 12:57 pm

pittster2013 wrote: Gordon I reckon they will be gone by 10am if the park opens at 9.

Hopefully not!

I'm going to be using the free sun tickets. So wont get in the park until 10. Unless you can buy them at the ticket office externally

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Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:27 pm

gordon_mfc wrote:
pittster2013 wrote: Gordon I reckon they will be gone by 10am if the park opens at 9.
Hopefully not! I'm going to be using the free sun tickets. So wont get in the park until 10. Unless you can buy them at the ticket office externally

You can still get in the park at 9 with a normal ticket, you just can't ride on anything - as far as I know?

Looks like she is closed again?

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:27 pm

I was at the park yesterday with a group of friends.

We bought 6x fast track for The Smiler from the entrance ticket kiosk at £6 each for 2pm-3pm. They were definitely worth it as we pretty much walked straight onto the ride. The queue at the time was saying 90 mins. I bought them at about 9.45 and they still had later times available.

If I get time later I might post a review, but for now I'll say it's an awesome ride and a fantastic addition to the park, however it doesn't beat Nemesis for me. I was in the far left seat of the front row and didn't think it was too rough or notice the jolts people have been mentioning. It was over a lot quicker than I thought it would be, the first half in particular. I got a good spraying but hardly noticed the other effects. I must say, the station staff were very efficient and we're turning the trains around super quick.

Overall we had a great day and managed 1 ride on everything we wanted to do, (apart from Oblivion of course, but I wasn't expecting it to be open). The longest we queued all day was about 45 minutes for Rita which included a 15-20 minute breakdown.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:28 pm

Looks like she is closed again?

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:34 pm

pittster2013 wrote: Looks like she is closed again?

Says 120min for me

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:35 pm

sully1311 wrote:
pittster2013 wrote: Looks like she is closed again?
Says 120min for me

Just updated, must have been a short downtime or they closed the queue? Maybe they are trying to limit queue times to 120 minutes

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:36 pm

pittster2013 wrote: Looks like she is closed again?

And it's open now.

As much as I appreciate people trying to report what's going on, pointing out every time Ridetimes say it's closed can get a bit annoying, as it could be minor downtime that just so happened to be over the period of time when Ridetimes was updated.

It won't take long for the news of any serious problems, resulting in its closure, to surface, so wait until anything like that comes out before getting too worried, which hopefully won't happen anyway.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 1:41 pm

Sorry, I just noticed it was closed and as it has had its problems I mentioned it - will know better next time.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 6:24 pm

Not sure if it did close or not... if it did, it was very short, because we were just getting into the queue and it was still going round when it was supposedly 'closed' on the Ride Times website.

Anyway, that's my 6th ride on The Smiler now and it was honestly the best yet! Back row, none of the god awful vibrations on my first back row ride a few weeks back, and very smooth (if you exclude the exit from the cobra roll). Really enjoyed that one!

Main Queue was showing 120 minutes for most of today, we actually got on after 140 minutes, after which it showed as 150 minutes on Ride Times.

Mon Jun 17, 2013 7:38 pm

Yo, Rid the smiller again today, returning just after 11 days, some interesting things i noticed..

1- ITS ALOT QUIETER - when you are under it the cars are noticeably much much quieter than they were 11 days ago, im not referring to squeaks or rattles etc, just the general WOOOSH sound if you get me, it was quite strange how completely different it sounded!

2- This time i felt alot more vibrations! had a headache when getting off both times i rode it, i sat at the back then 1 from the back, both felt pretty rough, i found this strange because as it was sounding alot smoother and quieter i thought there would be zero vibrations, but for me at least, i felt it big time!

3- 4 trains were running consistently, it had a tiny bit of downtime but overal ran very very well, its also going up both lift hills a little bit quicker