Attraction Source Forum

I had a weird one where some people were randomly allocated to VR rowsand some weren't in mid August.

nicky.borrill wrote:VR has been available on some of our visits, unavailable on others. One thing I have noticed is that when it was unavailable, much of the ride’s theming was also off, screens, station lighting etc.

It makes the station's atmosphere strange, doesn't it?
I suppose there is no reason to have then on while VR isn't being offered, but it would be nice to see some kind of footage played.

Doublethink wrote:Had the headsets physically been removed or were they still in their pouches?

The headsets just remain in their pouches.

Justin wrote: It makes the station's atmosphere strange, doesn't it?
I suppose there is no reason to have then on while VR isn't being offered, but it would be nice to see some kind of footage played.

Certainly does, makes you realise how important these things can be. On one visit Galactica was in this mode, Smiler’s projectors were all off, and Nemesis’s station was fully lit, with no red/orange lighting. 
BTW Don’t know if it’s already been mentioned in a more relevant place, but Nemesis’s water was back on Tues, and the waterfalls running... although with clear water not red. 

Had a good ride on Galactica yesterday, which was definitely helped by the fact that we cut our waiting time in half by not riding VR and being directed to station 2. 

I rode front row on 13th September and the pouches for the headsets had gone from most of the rows except the back 3 I think.

I love the theme of Galactica, the soundtrack is wonderful, but the VR is too nauseating to ever try again Its a day spoiler for me!

It's been only on the back 3 rows since the beginning of this year

Would be better off with none of the rows having VR to be honest. I'm just here waiting for it to all go!

VR was not available at all yesterday morning, 2 trains running shared between 2 platforms, the 15 minute queue advertised at the time was within the station building itself!

Personally, I do like the rebrand, retheme and refresh, but they really should just call it quits with the VR. I have managed to use it once on a previous visit, personally I felt like I was missing out on the normal view.

I have been wondering if the Galactica theme is just a bit lazy, space travel just feels a bit easy to me, what if you did something along the lines of a trip around the human body, I guess easier to do space if you have to build it around a ride you already have, than to build both track and VR video at the same time.

If not a human body, what about inside the body of the Nemsis creature?

I don't think the human body would have the same appeal as a space theme.

Personally, I would have liked to see it turned to a Phalanx base where civilians join the cause to defeat the Nemesis monster using jet packs.

Personally I would love them to revert it back to air. Keep the portal in some way, bring back the old music and I think itd be great! Doubt it would happen though

I reckon they will just strip the VR off the ride and keep it as Galactica, I doubt they would want to change anything they have recently spent. It would be nice if they added some more physical theming because although there is a stronger presence of space theme with the portal, the rest is weaker.

Justin wrote:I don't think the human body would have the same appeal as a space theme.

Personally, I would have liked to see it turned to a Phalanx base where civilians join the cause to defeat the Nemesis monster using jet packs.

That works too.

I don't know if it means anything, but they were selling off the Galactica branded cardboard VR headsets for 50p in the end of season sales last week.

Oh I hope it does! I'd love to see the VR get done away with. However, it doesn't seem likely, VR was a big selling point for galactica.

The trouble is VR is still demanding queues. Unfortunately, I have seen many occassions where trains have been going around empty with just VR riders on board. The problem now is the queue system. We are now essentially queuing for two different ride experiences in one line. Really it needs two separate queue lines from the entrance.

I agree with Justin, when I went the queue was for the VR seats, and whilst im not Coaster purist, I would say in this example the non VR ride is better.

Allowing anyone who wants to, to ride with VR much earlier in the queue, even if its means putting them down the fastrack, would help, the two days I went, were quiet, and it was the only ride with a massive queue.

Same here, the VR queue was really long, some of our hadn’t done it so we had to join that queue. What made it worse was that there were only 2 rows of VR for the main queue, with the back row being used for the ride access pass holders. 

I would have to say that if there was an equal amount of usable rows between VR and normal, then the normal queue would have been longer. 

The Survey asked multiple questions about the VR experience, possibly suggesting they are making decisions on whether to keep it. Everyone go do the survey and give them your opinions
www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/Alton-Towers-Resort-2018/

Just done it, it seems interesting the questions they have asked regarding Galactica.