This blog is going to be a bit of a chat of how we celebrated national rollercoaster day. I hope you all enjoy and we would love to know how you spent the day or weekend.
Location: Alton Towers;
So we headed to Alton Towers the day after National Rollercoaster day. If you didn’t know Towers was hosting an event for the weekend to celebrate Nemesis 25. That involved free pin badges to the first 250 riders daily, meet & greet with the designer John Wardley and late opening until 7pm specifically for Nemesis. I’m going to order this blog in the way we did the coasters and have a little chat about them.
SW8: Wickerman:
Wickerman the brand new GCI wooden coaster for 2018 which means it’s celebrating a year of operation. We’ve always said how during the soft opening it left us speechless and no other coaster has done that before. Therefore we usually rank it around 2nd place. Unfortunately for us, we had the worst ride we’ve ever had on it early Saturday morning. It wasn’t running at it’s finest it felt very slow, lack of airtime and by the time you knew it was over. The dispatching into pre-show & station was the worst we’ve seen there were too many people at once.
However, we rode it again a lot later in the day and it was much better. For us, though 
I think it now sits lower down in our top 5 list due to the disappointing ride earlier on.
SW4: Oblivion:
It’s simple but super effective. During our ride in the morning, we had the maximum float heading down that drop. It felt a whole world apart to the usual rides we have a lot more forceful but why we aren’t sure. 
SW7: The Smiler:
Yeah, it’s definitely not our favourite on the park and doesn’t come close to a few other coasters. However, it was riding okay just sounding quite rattly but it’s The Smiler there’s not much to say. We did notice that the queue line inside wasn’t been used properly and they were queuing everyone up the stairs and not round the whole pen.
SW6: Thirteen:
It’s within our top 3 coasters at Alton Towers as it’s so underrated and fab. We adore this coaster and the whole aspect of it really. One part we love the most and feel doesn’t get spoken about enough is the first drop, it’s so steep and easily one of the best drops the UK coasters have. 
Rita:
Not part of the SW programme but still a lovely addition to the park line up. Running at its best which is a similar pattern all season so far. We feel it’s definitely more intense than ever especially on the second turn nearby Thirteen. 
Runaway Mine Train:
Who doesn’t love this ultimate classic? Truthfully the op (Lee) really does add to the ride experience and lights so many children’s faces up. The new slow-mo video of the train leaving the station is so cool it’s priced around £8 I believe. But yeah Mine Train is such a guilty pleasure.
SW5: Air / Galactica:
Completely underrated and not spoken about enough coaster. We genuinely love this coaster a lot and rank it pretty high amongst the other coasters in the park. It’s relaxing and pretty chill really. Weirdly enough though my membrane didn’t actually lock in so all the way around it was sagging next to my face. Guys, it does really impact the ride though without it you kind of wobble everywhere lol.
SW3: Nemesis:
Finally, we rode the beast herself during her birthday celebration weekend. 25 years old and riding like it’s brand new and a dream. It offers everything intensity, inversions and none stop fun. Being a part of the weekend will always be an amazing memory for us. During the extra ERT in the evening, we managed around 4-5 ride admittedly could have been more but we embrace this coaster end of each day anyway. 
We just want to say Alton Towers done an amazing job celebrating the rides 25th year. Of course they didn’t have to do anything for it’s birthday yet they did and put on an incredible event for all to enjoy. It was nice walking around the park and hearing the undertone of people talking about nemesis and it’s big birthday. We adore Nemesis and love the fact the park are so proud of it all these years later. It would be incredible if it sticks around for as long as possible and there’s more big birthday to celebrate.
Let’s not forget Alton Towers turns 40 next year…. Wonder what’s to come?
Thank you for reading…
