The Smiler - your thoughts?

[Rach]

Bam! Done! It takes some serious dedication to do what I've just done to ride this bloody thing! Work was fairly quiet this afternoon and they owed me a couple of hours for staying until a ridiculous time on Friday night! So I took the opportunity today and headed up for a couple of hours. I left work at 2:30, was at the park by 4:20 after catching 2 taxis and a train! And was in the queue for the thing by 4:30 and then on the ride by 6!

Spoilers ahead!

The area
The ride area is impressive. The scale of the ride is seen from the moment you walk under the entrance archway and into the queue line! It's a massive metallic mess of black and yellow! It's in your face, vibrant, noisy and has one of the most catchiest soundtracks going! Ha ha ha ha ha ha
When you get into the queue you have no idea which way to look as it's just a mess going on over your head! You also end up shouting to your friends for the duration of the queue, but I have to say, it really does move!

The station
Is the biggest let down of the whole thing. It's bland and point blank as minimal as they could get away with! I don't understand the weird 3D projection images. The highlight is a man occasionally yelling SMILE down your ear!
The bag drop is in a very stupid place as well.
You then go from being in a dark space to a massive open space with lots of light. I do love the uniform for the staff though! It's fabulous! And hence today I went again in my stripey jeans and smiley top!

The indoor section
I loved the blinding lights that come on as you go down. The drop is powerful and the inversion fun! As furie said you still do feel like you are upside down when you're not! I would say they probably could have done something a little better with the lighting and darkness like making it all flashey and smiley! A bit like in the game tbh!

The first section
So up the lift we go. We were lucky and got one that dueled, but today it did seem like it wasn't quite as well synced as it could've been! Around the drop you go and then it really is just inversion after inversion after inversion! Did I mention inversions at all?
It's fast, it's not the most forceful, but it certainly keeps you smiling as it isn't noticeably rough.
When we stopped on the bottom of the vertical lift you really do feel a little dizzy and not knowing which way is up! A very good thing there!

The second section
Is more or less the same as the first section. Inversion after inversion. You barely notice the Marmaliser as you're just going far too quickly to notice any of it! The airtime hill is fab and then when you think you've avoided the dreaded curse of the Gerstlauer as up until this point it's certainly not rough. The second part of the cobra roll comes along and that's it! Gerstlauer's true colours there! It's rough, it's banging and that continues through the corkscrew and then the last corkscrew as well! It's a little bit violent! I dread to think what this is going to be like by the end of season considering this is only the 3rd day its been open and it's already banging like that!

The end
As you exit up the rainbow stairs (what the significance of this is, I don't know) and through the narrow hypnotising corridors you really are still smiling and complaining about how it nearly rode so well! Those corridors are really what they could've done with the indoor tunnels to make it fab!

Overall
It's a very good solid ride, people are going to love it! I do really like it, but fail to see a really good stand out feature from it! It's a shame about inversion 12, 13 and 14 as that really lets the ride down! But what can you expect from a Gerstlauer really?!
A really good addition to the park but not up there with Nemesis and Oblivion! Does keep you smiling for a while though!

 

[senanl]

So, err...hello! I read CoasterForce a lot and am an avid rider, I don't usually write things on forums and have never written something on here before. I felt compelled to write a review of The Smiler as the ride has really marmalised me in my opinion to not only Alton Towers but Gerstlauer.

On Saturday, I headed straight to The Smiler and was immediately told it's a three hour que - decided to do everything else in the park once before going back and que with supplies. At around 1pm, join the que (told it'll be 1.5 hours).

Firstly, like so many of you I've been desperate to get on the Smiler since the first time I got off Oblivion and thought 'I need MORE than that!'. I've always believed whatever SW7 was going to be, it was going to be built to save Alton Towers for ride enthusiasts. Air / Rita / Thirteen have all been bitterly disappointing, either by being immediately super seeded by a better coaster by the same manufacturer, or just by being plain dull to help Merlin with their boring plan - repositioning Alton Towers as the family friendly one and Thorpe as the thrill one.

Visually, The Smiler is amazing, when you're approaching the X Sector from the front gates you only see the first two drops, but once you turn the corner into it - it's there in all it's glory. A monstrosity of tangled black triangular track. The lack of vertical loop is refreshing, the extended bat wing is beautiful. When both tracks are in use and two trains are going round it's AMAZING, there is a definite sense of weight and power to the trains as they pass round. They feel like heavy metal marbles, rolling on a track that shows great thought put in to it. At the time, it reminded me of the heavy weights of those metallic marbles in the office toy in that old Submission TV advert.

The layout of the que is an interesting one, but ultimately it doesn't work. We queued an hour outside the actual ride entrance, once we were let in it took another hour to get on the ride. At first I was amazed at the que, it's directly underneath the ride and much like what you'd imagine a human sized rat lab test to be like. Certain parts are caged overhead to stop people climbing on to the ride, but as they're quite low - there is nothing to stop people from actually climbing up on to the top of it. One boy even did a chin up on the beginning of the top of the overhead cage- there would have been nothing stopping him pulling himself on top and walking directly next to the track. Even less considered by Wardley and co is the idea of some idiot throwing a penny at a passing car at one of the many pieces of track extremely close to the que at several points. I know he has this thing about the way a que effects you, but one day this will sadly happen and blind someone.

The experience of queuing under the ride is pretty intense and annoying. After 10 minutes you'll be aching to get out of there. The ride soundtrack which you've probably heard a million times on The Smiler app is played constantly. There is a shop half way that divides the que width by half. If a lot of people want to purchase from the shop, then the que stops behind it and from moving forward. The roar of the passing trains is intense. You'll find the QR scanner codes for the app painted on some of the struts. It's a nice touch but none of them worked on my app when I tried. There are some really nice painted visual effects like the words 'Smile. Always' and 'Join Us' that only work at certains angles when you view them. The roar of the train as it passes you is what will really hit you, it's just so close to you, after a few passes you'll understand why the ride operatives are given ear plugs. I don't know whether it's because Saw is so far from the que or because the train is only two rows on it, but I thought this Gerstlauer would be much quieter. The marmaliser does interact with the ride but it's more for the que to notice than the actual riders.

The que inside the station is fairly short, you enter through those medical plastic door hanging things, nice touch. The visual effects inside it are entertaining but not done to an American standard. Bag swap, then up the staircase and straight on to the ride. The station platform is tiny, the lights above it are cool and surgical feeling.

My big gripe will start now, the restraints don't come down enough. There was a huge gap between my shoulders and the top of the restraint. The ones on Saw are snug and great on me. I sat back row left. The first turn into the barrel roll is quick, steeper and more intense than I thought it would be. Once the train stops, you're subjected to the 'hahaha', which is way too loud and goes on for too long. You'll have heard this a million times in the que, it's no longer funny.

Going up the first lift hill, the car was vibrating, I was trying to speak and my voice was warbling so bad. The first drop was more faster, stronger, harder than I imagined, the bottom of the dive loops just as powerful as the first on Saw. I loved the bunny hop and extended bat wing, but after the corkscrew I was ready to leave.
As the ride read 'Half way corrected' (cool touch) my head was throbbing, like a can of coke that's been shook around and put back on the shelf. Climbing the second hill was great, I love the fear of a vertical lift hill breaking. The sea serpent was neither near here nor there, the cobra roll was.. well another pointless inversion-notching cobra roll! and the double corkscrew at the end is over kill.

Getting off I felt rank. I ride a lot of rides and it's the first time my head has ever hurt that bad after getting off one- and this is coming from someone who's done a bunch of Arrow classics over and over and over again. Aside from the second lift hill, there's no give up. It's stats, stats, stats. If anything, I felt like this ride was a new Drachen Fire, trying to do do much for too little money or design consideration. We all blatantly know you'd never get this for the same price by B&M.

While the 360 degree screen on the Marmaliser is cool, it could have been put to much better use - like showing freshly marmalised pictures of the current riders either in real time or from people choosing to do it from the shop. The current video playing nicely done, but nothing you haven't seen from the Oblivion TV feeds before. The actual mechanic arms are useless and cheap/gimmicky. You don't even notice it at all on the ride and ones like 'the flashing light' are laughably bad. It really feels like Wardley and co. said 'What's our best theming?, I know! - Lets do a Nemesis type machine in the centre'. It really cheapens the cold, strange and more secretive feeling Oblivion had set up for the area. I really think they could have done a better job with no marmaliser and just a clever optical paint scheme or plain or strong smoke tunnel. Just simpler, more effective things.

While I still love Alton, it does seems that the days of getting canyons dug out of the ground to house vertical loops, is clearly over. The Smiler is a get as much for your money as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And who's to say Gerstlauer won't build a 15 or 16 looping coaster in China once their contract with them is up? Because of course they will, like Intamin did with Collosus after Monte Mayaka. They're companies, it's inevitable.

So once the shiny newness of it is over, the question is, can I see this a serious repeat ride for me? Will I go o it 12 times in a row like I did with Nemesis? No way. AT needs to stop building world firsts and to just concentrate on building bad ass rides like Nemesis. It's over 20 years old now and still the best ride in the park and personally my favourite themed coaster in the world.

 

[nadroJ]

Well I know you're forced through the shop to exit. It's Merlin

What? There hasn't been an exit through retail Merlin attraction since.................. Wait, no, there has not been one since they took over...?

The last Tussauds one was.... Nemesis Inferno?

Thirteen.

 

[Hutch]

^^ Not bad for your first post my friend :wink:

 

[Ben]

I'd say Air's the best coaster at Alton from a purely objective and critical standpoint.

Do I give a toss if I ride it on a visit, though? No.

Given how much infinately better Air is than Manta and the Superman's (yeah, yeah, yeah, Tatsu is amazing, I hear ya but I don't believe ya!), how well Air is STILL received by the public, how beautiful and well landscaped a ride it is and how that despite not fitting in with the rest of forbidden valley, it's just accepted as a part of the park without question... Not to mention it being a solid ride, I think Air is massively underrated.

If Air was the best coaster from an objective stand point, then surely more people would actually like it?

If we're talking about the coaster that's still the best received at Alton, surely it's Nemesis? Eight years older and still as discussed and ridden as Air. Plus it won that **** little poll they did.

How is it possible better than Manta? Manta literally does the same thing, but better.

Except Maurer. Not ridden a rough Maurer. Granted I've not ridden many, but seriously, who's ridden a rough Maurer? Anyone?

Everyone who has ever been to Drayton Manor?

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

To be fair to G-Force, it's not actually rough, it just has a restraint system that tries to separate the body apart...


And I don't see how a project that cost £18 million can be considered cheap? Especially as there wasn't a prototype element or excessive theming elements bar the Marmaliser... It is literally an idea created because Gerstlauer are the manufacturers? Just because they're not B&M/Intamin? Considering this project was quite clearly a sudden change of ideas from the park (indeed, original plans for SW7 were not in the Black Hole tent), perhaps Gerst were the only company who felt they could take full advantage of the small area and hence the best choice at the time...

Either way, it's GOT to be better than Bakken's Tornado?

 

[furie]

Senanl! Thanks for the post. It's great to see a collection of opinions coming in about this. Was very interesting to read.

Just so you know though, it's queue :lol:

Holy **** ****. Indeed... That demonstrates the importance of this thing single handedly. Though, I wonder, how accurate was "3 hours"? It's hard enough to guesstimate the queue time of an old ride with established staff, let alone something new...?

That was on the boards, but the boards have been reported as being well over all weekend. So it probably wasn't realistic. I'd say the three hours (from what I've heard people say they actually queued) is closer to one and a half to two hours.

Phil your photos are fantastic and thanks for the breakdown... When you say the "public seem to love it", what did you witness?

Cheers!

The people getting off the train in front of me (families, so not goons ) were all really pleased and excited. The usual "wow, that was brilliant Dad!" kind of thing and the dad agreeing.

I was on a train with three rows of random GP (the Towers Street gang had the front row), I was on my own with the normal people and I did the usual break run chat type of thing. The guy next to me was quite dazed, but enjoyed it :lol: The others all did the gathering about excitedly blocking the station exit thing babbling about how much they'd enjoyed it.

Madame_Furie suffered it bad. I didn't, but I'm not going to claim it was smooth

For me, Eurofighter roughness (my experience comes from Speed, Saw, Rage and Mystery Mine... Saw being the worst) is a jarring, rattly, rumble deep in your skull. It's not to do with me physically contacting the restraint, it feels as though the wheels do not make tight enough contact with the track... Or as if the wheels are made of octagons.

Vampire does it too - and Vampire also staggers as if the rear cars are catching up to the front ones. It's weird. On Vampire, it's not such a huge issue, presumably because the flexible swinging cars remove a lot of the impact force of the wheels bouncing around on the track?

I'm just guessing.

That sounds like what Sue experienced. Madame_Furie was like "I didn't find it rough, but I had to put my hands by my ears because they were being bashed and even then it still hurt" :lol:

She also found the ride dull, but thought the theming was excellent. The complete opposite of what I thought :lol:

I dont get this ride, what is the themeing supposed to be?

Lets be perfectly honest here... Which of Tussauds/Merlins themes, which are not Disney ripoffs, do you understand? Because, I'm really not sure I fully comprehend any of them, because there really isn't much to get.

I'm exaggerating slightly.

It does work though. It creates an atmosphere, not doubt. As I say Joey, you'll probably really like the way it comes together as an abstract theme to create that. I don't think it quite steps far enough. It's not like Sub-Terror though where it's meant to tell a story, but it does have that same "not thought out/finished properly" thing Sub-Terror had - but it's less important as Sub-Terror was meant to have a narrative, this doesn't.

My personal thoughts are that Smiler is going to be popular, insanely so, for years to come. It was the right choice for Alton.

Agreed

I'd say Air's the best coaster at Alton from a purely objective and critical standpoint.

If Air was the best coaster from an objective stand point, then surely more people would actually like it?

If we're talking about the coaster that's still the best received at Alton, surely it's Nemesis? Eight years older and still as discussed and ridden as Air. Plus it won that **** little poll they did.

Most visitors do love it. I often hear people on the monorail saying how it's their favourite ride. There's always a long queue (and not just because it constantly breaks down) and I never hear anything beyond enthusiasts about how it's a bad coaster.

They also like Rita, Thirteen and Spinball though

I had this discussion with madame_furie. The problem is that as enthusiasts, you ride so much that you start to lose a lot of the enjoyment from quite basic things. Once you've had a Tatsu experience, then Air is lame. So you need to keep reaching for extremes to get any thrill or enjoyment. That doesn't mean that most once a year visitors don't enjoy the extreme, but the experience it so infrequently that they forget it. Air is enough of a buzz for most people, and liek Jordan, they love the kind of "flying free feeling". I know we see it a lot even with enthusiasts that Nemesis is disliked because it's too intense. I've had a lot of conversations with people who have been on the same train as me and I've come off going "that was **** and force-less" and they have said "I always hated Nemesis, but that was fantastic" :lol: I think that it's the same for a lot of the public visitors too. They want an experience, not just a blast of forces. I think it's probably quite subjective though.

Nemesis won the Alton vote because goon!

And I don't see how a project that cost £18 million can be considered cheap? Especially as there wasn't a prototype element or excessive theming elements bar the Marmaliser... It is literally an idea created because Gerstlauer are the manufacturers? Just because they're not B&M/Intamin? Considering this project was quite clearly a sudden change of ideas from the park (indeed, original plans for SW7 were not in the Black Hole tent), perhaps Gerst were the only company who felt they could take full advantage of the small area and hence the best choice at the time...

It still kind of feels cheap. That's all down to the station though which feels very much like something Drayton Manor would do. The coaster itself is very impressive. You'd never get anyone else cramming so much into such a tiny space. So that part doesn't look cheap, but the extraneous bits do. I think it works, the bright tackiness is fab, but it's not taken to enough of an extreme. Then it would feel very deliberate, but at the moment it feels like they ran out of budget.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Once you've had a Tatsu experience, then Air is lame. So you need to keep reaching for extremes to get any thrill or enjoyment. That doesn't mean that most once a year visitors don't enjoy the extreme, but the experience it so infrequently that they forget it. Air is enough of a buzz for most people, and liek Jordan, they love the kind of "flying free feeling".

I'd like to state that I found Tatsu awful, and prefer Air's experience simply because it doesn't try and tear my body and legs apart...


As for the station aspect, having not seen that yet, I cannot comment, but from an external point of view (entrance permitting, as that IS cheap, and poorly done) the ride and Marmaliser parts certainly aren't cheap... It's sometimes difficult to tell if people are calling the ride itself cheap because it's a Gerstlauer or if the theming is cheap (which in my opinion of the Marmaliser, is anything but)...

 

[marc]

Talking about boards how do Merlin work this out?

Disney give people a band and you give it to the ride ops so they work it out.

Yesterday at Thorpe we noticed the times were way off, and I'm not talking a out a few minutes.

 

[spicy]

perhaps Gerst were the only company who felt they could take full advantage of the small area and hence the best choice at the time...

This.

There's no way B&M/Intamin/Vekoma or maybe other manufacturer could squeeze so much coaster in such a small amount of space.

Gerstlaurer weren't the cheap option, they were the only option if they wanted a coaster of this scale built.

I'm enjoying all the reviews and good to see that most are positive. Personally I love just watching coasters and this looks like one of the most watchable coasters on the planet. Even if it rides rough as hell in 5 or so years, at least it will still look amazing :lol:

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Talking about boards how do Merlin work this out?

Disney give people a band and you give it to the ride ops so they work it out.

Yesterday at Thorpe we noticed the times were way off, and I'm not talking a out a few minutes.

It seems Towers have been giving out cards to some people when they join to be given in upon arrival in the station...

Although queue times are never an exact science, it is quite a regular occurance that they are higher than the actual time... Whether it's down to not updating it or just keeping it bloated to put people off riding (yes, Vampire DOES have a 90 minute queue at 16:55... No the queue is NOT just in the station )...

 

[trav]

Okay so I very rarely post on CF anymore, but seeing as I've just been on The Smiler over the weekend, I thought I'd share my views on it in hopes that it adds to the 'average opinion' and helps build a general consensus.


I stayed in the hotel and went in the park both Saturday and Sunday. One thing that I can safely say is that The Smiler is definitely bringing in the crowds; every coaster apart from Oblivion had around a 1 hour queue for most of the day both days, and then The Smiler was listed as a 3 - 4 hour queue both days, so that is a hell of a lot of people. Plus, the park just generally seemed really busy.

I decided to go first thing on Sunday morning and queue up for it, in hopes it'd be a shorter wait. I was with family, so no enthusiasts or coaster geeks, just people who don't have a clue about what the ride is or what it does, and people who generally would moan about queuing for more than half an hour for anything. But we were there at 9am on Sunday morning, along with hundreds of other people, and then headed to The Smiler as soon as the gates were opened, only at the pace of a brisk walk though, whilst everyone else was literally sprinting past. We started waiting for The Smiler to open around 9:10, in the external extension that Furie showed earlier in the topic, heading towards the tunnel of pee. I noted the amount of people in front of us and thought it'd be around a 25 - 30 minute wait for us when the ride opened, so hopefully we'd be on it at around half 10, as The Smiler isn't included in ERT.

However, they didn't start testing the ride until about 9:50, and I instantly knew this meant it would not open at 10am, if at all. Thankfully at around 10am, they had a couple of staff members going round saying that it would open around 30 minutes late due to a few engineering problems, although one of the guys was telling people just behind us that it would be a 3 hour wait from where they were stood, so I don't think he realised that the main queueline wasn't open yet as the ride wasn't opened, so that was a little bit odd and could have caused people to leave the queueline if I didn't point out to him that the main queue wasn't open yet.

They opened the ride at 10:20, so about 10 minutes earlier than what they were expecting, obviously worked hard to get it up and running as quickly as possible. The first thing I noticed when entering the queue though was the amount of queue... I honestly don't think I've seen a bigger cattlepen in my life, it's like a maze underneath the ride. I would hate to wait for any extended period of time down here because you'd just feel so trapped with the big black fence railings and the coaster above you. Maybe that's the whole point of it, but it just seemed like Cattlepen: The Ride to me at first. Also, you quickly notice how everything around is just concrete; look in front of you - concrete, look to the side of you - concrete, look behind you - concrete. The only place you don't see concrete is if you look up towards the coaster.

The coaster its self is absolutely beautiful though, like seriously stunning. It's so twisted and huge and tightly packed, plus the green hill underneath the lift hill adds so much to the aesthetics, along with the Marmaliser tower. Plus, just watching the trains go round is mesmerising, they seem to take all the inversions so well, and you've got the duelling aspect of it, plus the fact this is all happening just above your head makes it even better.

I honestly didn't think the station looked that bad compared to everyone else in here. It fits in with the X Sector style pretty well, grey/white concrete/stone. Yeah it's just a box, but it looks like some sort of asylum, which also fits in well with the theme of being 'corrected'. Also the yellow doorways stand out against the white/grey of the building, attracting the eye to the main focal points of the building. Plus, why would you want to pay much attention to the building when you've got a big twisted mess above your head?

When you get inside the building, it suddenly gets very dark, with the only light being a few optical illusion walls. They're nothing spectacular but they fit the theme I guess, and considering you're in this room for a maximum of maybe 5 minutes, they pass the time pretty well. You then get to the bag room, which I personally thought had an oddly strange window to pass your bags through for such a big coaster, but maybe that's just me. You then go up the stairs to the station, which is just a big, very white box with yellow railings and batching gates.

It was a simple, but very effective station, adding to that asylum sort of theme again, as it felt very clean and open and light. I also loved the positioning of the console, a big glass window just over the top of the train, so the operator can see everyone, could lead to some very good guest interaction in time. I also liked how many staff on the ride in general; they had 4 people on platform, 3 in bag room, and I counted 6 staff around the queuelines (external and internal), not including the guy in the shop in the queue. Probably so many staff because the lines are so big, but it seemed to mean that operations were moving as quickly as they could be, as we never really stopped moving when in the queue.

Onto the ride itself. The restraints are typical otsrs as expected, although I noticed there was no seatbelt, and this caused panic on a few people because obviously a lot of people are used to having a seatbelt on coasters (Although not on Gerstlauers, I know I know). Nonetheless, the train was dispatched and headed through the first inversion, a pretty disorientating inline, which definitely caught most people by surprise. People seemed to enjoy it though, and I was surprised at how forceful the initial drop out of the station felt. Then we stopped at the bottom of the first lift hill, with some fuzzy sound effects playing that just made my ears hurt, not because of the content but just because it was so loud. The first lift hill is pretty decent because as you go up, people in the queueline right next to it cheer, and you quickly make it to the top.

The first half of the ride is incredibly disorientation, it's just a relentless barrage of inversions, with the one pretty meager airtime hill halfway through. However, I don't see where the claims of roughness are coming from. It may not have been butter smooth, but I didn't notice any sort of headbanging, nor did I feel like I was being forcefully subjected to any sort of torture like other people seem to have hinted at a bit. Anyway, you pull up after the 6 inversions after the first lift hill (And the 1 in the pre-lift section) and you're welcoming the break. I felt a little bit ill it's that disorientating. Then you go up the vertical lift hill to the usual chorus of 'Omg it's going up straight' from everyone, before going on with the second half of the layout. The second half seems to be a little slower I thought, giving you a bit more time to breathe between inversions, so you're not quite as disorientated. The airtime hill in the second half is also much stronger, always a good thing. You go through the final two inversions and turn into the break run thinking very much 'wtf just happened' though, but most people definitely seemed to have a smile on their face, so maybe it's a job well done by Towers.

The exit path is a little bit weird and unnecessary I thought, it seemed to lead you the opposite way of the shop before turning towards the shop again, but the placing of the shop is really good, as when you leave you get the best views of the coaster in my opinion. I'll go onto the actual review now, so if people wanna skip to any point they can go to here -

Thoughts

The ride is aesthetically very pleasing. The black mixed with the yellow of the trains, green of the grass and white of the building is simple but makes it all look very clean and fits in with a sort of asylum theme. The station isn't the most attractive building in the world, but it's not meant to be and I personally believe it fits in X Sector really well. The queueline is horrific though, it's just a huge maze of concrete and railings, with the only salvation being the basic human ability to look upwards and watch the ride.

The layout is very disorientating (About the 20th time I've said that, just to make sure everyone knows - It's disorientating). It's quick, offers a really long ride and made me feel pretty ill overall. If you like being flipped upside down numerous times, and sort of losing the ability to think straight (You know, cos it's so disorientating) then this is definitely the coaster for you. However, I'm much more into rides that do a bit more than inversions, I like negative G's, and lateral G's, and even more extreme positive G's. The ride doesn't really offer much in this sense other than in a few spots of reasonable positives (Although nothing like Nemesis of course) and the one spot of noticeable negatives in the 2nd airtime hill.

For me, it's much more a ride that I'd enjoy going on once every now and then rather than whoring. However, it's so beautiful to look at off-ride that I would happily make the journey over to X Sector even if Oblivion was down for the day just to eat lunch and watch The Smiler going round from behind the railings.

Overall, I'd give The Smiler a solid 7.5/10. It does what it sets out to do really well, although it's not what I primarily look for in a coaster, but to the general public, it's gonna be absolutely huge and so could be a blockbuster success for Towers.


Edit: Oh my days, I did not realised I had written that much, sorry to anyone who actually reads this!

 

[furie]

Thanks Trav, there's a definite feeling coming across of "good fun", which I'm glad about. It's certainly a long way from a brilliant coaster, but it's also nowhere near bad either.

I may be being a little harsh on the station, but it's something that just didn't work for me :lol:

Once you've had a Tatsu experience, then Air is lame. So you need to keep reaching for extremes to get any thrill or enjoyment. That doesn't mean that most once a year visitors don't enjoy the extreme, but the experience it so infrequently that they forget it. Air is enough of a buzz for most people, and like Jordan, they love the kind of "flying free feeling".

I'd like to state that I found Tatsu awful, and prefer Air's experience simply because it doesn't try and tear my body and legs apart...

Sorry, blanketing there

Not just Tatsu, but the extreme air of an Intamin, the floater of a B&M hyper, the high Gs of whatever. Just that we as enthusiasts experience a lot of extreme forces a lot of the time, so it means that we quite often (not all the time, but often) don't notice how the forces/rides on offer from what we'd consider weaker coasters like Air. It's not a deliberate thing, but when entering a vertical loop, we have an idea of what forces to expect kind of thing. It means we're looking for something very different in a ride experience (that isn't just forces, but theme, interaction, etc, etc, etc).

As for the station aspect, having not seen that yet, I cannot comment, but from an external point of view (entrance permitting, as that IS cheap, and poorly done) the ride and Marmaliser parts certainly aren't cheap... It's sometimes difficult to tell if people are calling the ride itself cheap because it's a Gerstlauer or if the theming is cheap (which in my opinion of the Marmaliser, is anything but)...

I know about building materials and stuff working in construction (we did work on Disney Paris hotels and Splash Landings) - I know what the cheapest way to get the job done, and Alton have done it here. If it fits the theme, it's by chance rather than design. It isn't awful, but it's no better than the G-Force building at Drayton say. So yeah, it's kind of cheap.

The manufacturer probably IS cheap, but again, it's the only option that was available to Alton for an impressive project in such a small space. I've no idea what the going rate is for a B&M Floorless these days, but it wouldn't have fit with as many inversions and would have been more expensive no doubt. Gerstlauer haven't done a bad job either - it fits and works so being the cheapest (or a cheaper alternative) is actually pretty irrelevant :lol:

 

[Jordanovichy]

I'd say Air's the best coaster at Alton from a purely objective and critical standpoint.

If Air was the best coaster from an objective stand point, then surely more people would actually like it?

If we're talking about the coaster that's still the best received at Alton, surely it's Nemesis? Eight years older and still as discussed and ridden as Air. Plus it won that **** little poll they did.

Most visitors do love it. I often hear people on the monorail saying how it's their favourite ride. There's always a long queue (and not just because it constantly breaks down) and I never hear anything beyond enthusiasts about how it's a bad coaster.

I would like to add, I had the [strike]horror[/strike] pleasure of taking my sister to Alton Towers on Saturday, naturally she cleared off to do her own thing (which failed as she didn't know what anything was) but she did say she liked Air the most...but this is coming from someone who also says Saw is the best at Thorpe Park...oh dear.

Personally I love just watching coasters and this looks like one of the most watchable coasters on the planet. Even if it rides rough as hell in 5 or so years, at least it will still look amazing :lol:

That's the thing with it. I cannot wait to ride it again, I genuinely can't but it is the same as 'I can't wait to do mrawS again', 'Nemesis again', they are all really enjoyable experiences, but not the best. When I'm older and have done more exciting coasters I am sure Air will lose it's place at my no. 1 coaster. But, this is why I have quoted Spicy (sorry for taking a while to get round to it :lol if you ask me what coaster I most enjoy watching, it's the Smiler (and listening to for that matter). It is a beautiful piece of engineering, it is beautiful, sleek, the duelling is **** amazing, it is a sophisticated mess and just nom. Furie, we have an option to choose our best coaster, can you add an option to say what the coaster is we like to watch most?

 

[Brookes]

Really looking forward to riding the Smiler when I get back home. Guessing I'll probably like it as I'm into inversions and haven't found any Gerstlauers rough at all yet (people seriously think Saw is rough?).

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Well I know you're forced through the shop to exit. It's Merlin

What? There hasn't been an exit through retail Merlin attraction since.................. Wait, no, there has not been one since they took over...?

The last Tussauds one was.... Nemesis Inferno?

Thirteen.

Oh, yeah, that thing. Forgot that exists.

But, I'm still right, it's not a Merlin thing. In fact, they don't do it enough.

So, err...hello! I read CoasterForce a lot and am an avid rider, I don't usually write things on forums and have never written something on here before. I felt compelled to write a review of The Smiler as the ride has really marmalised me in my opinion to not only Alton Towers but Gerstlauer.

Yo! Awesome first post, I hope you stick around and post more.

If Air was the best coaster from an objective stand point, then surely more people would actually like it?

If we're talking about the coaster that's still the best received at Alton, surely it's Nemesis? Eight years older and still as discussed and ridden as Air. Plus it won that **** little poll they did.

Who's "people"? I'm talking GP.

How is it possible better than Manta? Manta literally does the same thing, but better.

No, it doesn't. Both Manta and the Superman's exclude everything about Air that is good and do a bunch of horrible stuff instead. Pretzel loops are not fun. And the flying around on your stomach ain't really very cool, either. Air's backwards dive is INCREDIBLE... Yet NONE of the others have it? Idiocy. Manta is also a pretty grotesque visual layout, especially compared to neighbouring Kraken.

Except Maurer. Not ridden a rough Maurer. Granted I've not ridden many, but seriously, who's ridden a rough Maurer? Anyone?

Everyone who has ever been to Drayton Manor?

You think G-Force is rough?? I'd say it's pretty glass smooth, though I avoid Drayton like the plague because it's a **** hole.

And I don't see how a project that cost £18 million can be considered cheap?

For a coaster of this size? It really is.

Thin about it... They had to excavate the ground, it's got an indoor section, it's got 14 inversions, it's got a large set peice (the spider) and various effects (smoke machines, large screens, etc).

I don't understand how it only cost £18, even though it's just a Gerst.

Every component had to be cheap, else it wouldn't have worked.

I bet they ran over budget though. They must have, what with the delays and stuff.

 

[Ben]

If Air was the best coaster from an objective stand point, then surely more people would actually like it?

If we're talking about the coaster that's still the best received at Alton, surely it's Nemesis? Eight years older and still as discussed and ridden as Air. Plus it won that **** little poll they did.

Who's "people"? I'm talking GP.

As am I. Remember, I don't even like Nemesis, so why would I say that if I didn't actually think it?

How is it possible better than Manta? Manta literally does the same thing, but better.

No, it doesn't. Both Manta and the Superman's exclude everything about Air that is good and do a bunch of horrible stuff instead. Pretzel loops are not fun. And the flying around on your stomach ain't really very cool, either. Air's backwards dive is INCREDIBLE... Yet NONE of the others have it? Idiocy. Manta is also a pretty grotesque visual layout, especially compared to neighbouring Kraken.

None of the others have it because the others are actually flying coasters. How do you not like Pretzel Loops but like that vile bit on your back? Wtffffff. Next you'll be saying the Vekoma ones are better cause they spend all their time on their back. Like your mum.

Except Maurer. Not ridden a rough Maurer. Granted I've not ridden many, but seriously, who's ridden a rough Maurer? Anyone?

Everyone who has ever been to Drayton Manor?

You think G-Force is rough?? I'd say it's pretty glass smooth, though I avoid Drayton like the plague because it's a **** hole.

Oh god yeah, that thing rattles around like anything. If you could breath you would notice it more.

And yeah, it can still be cheap at £18m for its length. The overall cost must be looked at in relevance to the scale of the project when considering cheapness.

 

[marc]

I don't ride air due to that bit on your back, cannot stand the ride tbh. It's slow boring and just does nothing at all, it's the worst flyer I've been on and infact it's probably the worst B&M I've been on.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

I don't ride air due to that bit on your back, cannot stand the ride tbh. It's slow boring and just does nothing at all, it's the worst flyer I've been on and infact it's probably the worst B&M I've been on.

You need to go on some B&M Stand-Ups

 

[marc]

Have done and would rather ride them, honestly I hate air so much.