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The World of David Walliams is coming to Alton Towers

JoshC.

Strata Poster
Good IP choice really; relevant and contemporary but has sticking power. Of course questions of if the park should be relying on IPs in the first place, but yeah, good choice.

Glad this has finally been confirmed after Walliams accidentally leaked it like 18 months ago and no one really picked up on it: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reali...simon-cowell-jokes-reinvented-david-walliams/

"Would you like me to cut you in with the Gangsta Granny Alton Towers ride?" David jokes, Simon responding: "Are you serious? Why do you think you got that?"
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Glad this has finally been confirmed after Walliams accidentally leaked it like 18 months ago and no one really picked up on it: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reali...simon-cowell-jokes-reinvented-david-walliams/
Interestingly, I seem to remember that people did pick up on it at the time, but then it fell by the wayside a little and people went instead to other rumours like Paddington Bear.

Should be a really good area; I agree that it's a very good choice of IP, and I think it's nice to see this area of the park get some love! The next question is; I wonder what book each ride will be themed to?
 

CrashCoaster

CF Legend
I like David Williams, should be a nice addition. I hope they add a decent Twirling Toadstool replacement. I'm guessing Frog Hopper will be removed since Peter Rabbit is in CBeebies land.

Bring in the flat rides for next year. Plz.
 

spicy

Giga Poster
I know his children’s books are popular so seems a good fit for that area. That area is screaming out for a decent dark ride though and not sure whatever’s going in the wobble world building will cut it. We shall see.

Is that... a Smiler car mounted off-axis on SLC track?

Think it’s a paper cut out of this stupid Nemesis image -
b5b6e4104ff3b39bec451531f820d3e6.jpg
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I'd personally guess that this will be in the Wobble World building based on last year's construction!

I think that it could be a very good fit for Alton; the fact that the park are calling it the "headline attraction" leads me to believe it could be quite special!
 
I'd personally guess that this will be in the Wobble World building based on last year's construction!

I think that it could be a very good fit for Alton; the fact that the park are calling it the "headline attraction" leads me to believe it could be quite special!
Absolutely agree. I think this looks like a Mack Rides dark ride potentially but it could be the same manufacturer of Ninjago at Legoland Windsor, but of course that has 4 per car, so maybe an upgraded 8 per car
 

Kw6sTheater

Hyper Poster
I'd personally guess that this will be in the Wobble World building based on last year's construction!

I think that it could be a very good fit for Alton; the fact that the park are calling it the "headline attraction" leads me to believe it could be quite special!
I'd predict this to be a smaller scale dark ride. Upon referencing the current building's footprint (roughly 867 square meters), it's larger than the show buildings of Peter Pan's Flight, Alice in Wonderland and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland California.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
I just found two things out about the project. Firstly, TowersTimes has posted a picture of the layout, screenshotted from the making of video:
Not the longest of layouts by any means, but it looks like a pretty nice ride; maybe it could even be trackless based on that rendering?

Secondly, TowersStreet News now has a news article on the ride, including some of the other attractions in the area: https://towersstreet.com/news/2020/alton-towers-unveils-gangsta-granny-the-ride/

These include:
  • Raj's Shop (I assume this is the Toy Shop rethemed)
  • Regal Carousel (I assume this is a rethemed Galloper's Carousel, but I'm not entirely sure which book this is themed to)
  • Raj's Bouncy Bottom Burp (I assume this is Frog Hopper rethemed)
  • There are also more surprises in store according to Alton Towers (maybe a new 4D show?), as well as 4 Gangsta Granny themed rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel.
Sounding really good so far!
 

Georgie-M

Mega Poster
Merlin have released a full press release on the ride. It covers a lot of the info covered by the Towers Street article but in further detail, describing some of the ride's scenes, with riders exploring sewers and racing through the streets of London. Notably, the ride is described as a 4D experience, using special effects, 3D projection mapping and 360° rotating vehicles. Based on the description of the vehicles, along with the promo art and discussions with others on discord servers, I believe the ride system will be the Motion Master 6-seater, a tracked ride system by Garmendale. The design and installation of the first one of these was assisted by Holovis, who designed the pre-show for Wicker Man and employ many former members of Towers Ents team. I could see them being brought in for this too.

Also, looking at the layout from the video, the front of the ride building fits pretty snuggly with that of the existing Wobble World building as expected so I've lined it up best I can with a screenshot from Google Maps:

unknown.png
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Sorry for the double post, but Theme Park Worldwide now has a video online about the ride:
I haven't just put Shawn's video in for the sake of it, however; the main reason that I talk about Shawn's video is because he mentions an interesting point. He says that the ride could potentially get around its short track length by having scenes on both sides, as the ride vehicles have the ability to spin 360 degrees! Therefore, that would make the ride seem longer than it actually is, because you would have a scene on either side of the ride vehicle. This would definitely be a clever way to get around the space restrictions of the building, and it would definitely be possible because from the rendering, the ride vehicles completely hide what's behind you, so it would be possible to obscure the next scene behind the riders while they're watching a different scene, even though they are within very close range of one another!
 
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