Tag: Fireworks

Blog, Reviews

Alton Towers – Fireworks!

Loops&Lapbars

Our final visit for the 2022 season was, of course, to the Alton Towers Fireworks Spectacular!

I was very excited for this display as I’d read that it was a celebration of the big 7 coasters and though they did a similar thing last year, I really enjoyed it!

The show starts off, a little prematurely I might add, with a drone display. The lights go out all across the park and just before 7pm when the fireworks where due to start, the drones began and I wasn’t ready for them!

Misty night for the Firworks!

The drone preshow was good, though leaned into the demonstration of what drones can do, rather than a display that matched up with the theme of the fireworks. for example they drew out a version of the Towers, and a rollercoaster and moving train and such, but not specific ride logos or links to anything else from the park.

They also showed a 3D cube and spiral which was great to see, it really was, but it felt like they were showing off the drones as apposed to using them to further the fireworks story.

As for the fireworks, they were much longer than Legoland’s, clocking in at around 30 minutes. They were well choreographed and timed to the music great, as Legoland’s were.

As I mentioned earlier they were a celebration of the big 7 coasters, Nemesis, Th13teen, Rita, Galactica, Oblivion, Wicker Man and The Smiler.

Each segment had its own theme to it, such as Nemesis being a bit harder and more serious, where The Smilers was upbeat and a little silly.

The star of the show was actually Oblivion as it played music that fit on with Oblivions theme and the show was just spectacular to see, especially the laser and lights.

I feel that Nemesis was done alright but could have been so much better. They also did Nemesis first and I feel it should have gone last, you know saving the best until last and all that.

I didn’t really like Rita’s section as it felt a bit out of place. I know Rita I’d supposed to be a drag racer and even had an opening featuring drag queens but I didn’t really enjoy the music featured here.

Rita should be classic 80s rock, big and bombastic, but they went with Abba and Kylie Minogue. They were remixed versions too. Shame really but it can’t all be perfect!

It was also nice to see Galactica get a mention and a decent segment too. Very predictable space themed tracks though, which leads me onto the the lack of each attractions own themes or voice lines. Rita has the ‘You must escape’ and Oblivion has ‘Don’t look down’, Galactica and The Smiler both have excellent scores and none of these were utilised which in my own opinion, was a missed opportunity.

The show finished with a quite emotional part paying homage to the Towers themselves and the music and fireworks used were very well done. The climax was of course set to In the Hall of the Mountain King as usual and I felt the final barrage of fireworks was a bit of let down. I love it when the sky is filled with lights and colour, and the finale here didn’t really do that unfortunately!

Though I’ve been critical and I might sound a little negative, it was still arguably the second best display I’ve ever seen. 2021s display was so good that I think it’ll take some topping!

Once the fireworks had finished we headed off towards Nemesis as this would be our final ride of the beast until 2024.

I feel like we missed out massively as we went on Saturday the 5th but Sunday the 6th had so much more going on around Forbidden Valley. I wish I could have been there to see that but what will be will be!

Our final ride on Nemesis was great, the queue wasn’t anything like as long as the 75 minutes advertised and the only negative was that the camera didn’t flash for our ride so we missed out on our final on ride photo. There was a lot of mist around the park after the fireworks so I assume that was causing the sensors to go amiss! The mist also caused my DSLR to fog up and meant that most of the photos I took ended up looking terrible so apologies for the image quality!

I’ve written a dedicated blog for the sending off of Nemesis 1.0 and I’m also working on a video for it too, I’ll link it here when it’s done, but you can watch the fireworks here!

We had another great day at Alton Towers and though our season is now over, I’ve got loads of stuff still to talk about to keep me busy until March next year!

Blog, Reviews

Legoland – Fireworks!

Loops&Lapbars

For our final weekend of the season we decided on a trip to Legoland and Alton Towers to see both of their fireworks displays. I’ll go into Alton Towers’ display in a following blog but for now, here’s my thoughts on Legoland.

The park wasn’t that busy throughout the day, only really getting busier closer to the fireworks which were due to start at 6pm.

I’d decided that the best place to watch was Heartlake City, stood right next to the barriers to the side of the seating area. I’d asked around the park for ideas as to where might be best but there were many different answers and to be fair, we got an excellent show stood here.

I would have thought that being stood right at the top of the hill would have given some great views, but there was a sign up saying that that wasn’t a fireworks viewing area so we settled on Heartlake.

We stood right here!

The show itself wasn’t like Alton Towers who have stories to theirs, but more like a standard display. The fireworks were launched to a selection of popular music tracks and there was something for everyone.

There was also a large fire ball generator that would fire every so often in line with the fireworks. Everything was going great until around 11 minutes when they stopped. That was the end of the show!

I was honestly quite disappointed with this as I’ve been to local displays that lasted twice as long and cost 10% of the price Legoland charged. As passholders it was only £20 additional for the fireworks but the length left a lot to be desired!

They were good though, well timed to the music and a good variety of different types and colours. If it had been around 20 minutes, I would have enjoyed it much more though!

Besides the fireworks, we had a great day getting around all the attractions and I finally have an understanding of how the Ninjago ride works.

I was always under the impression that you use both hands to get as many shots off as possible but it seems you can do just as well and feel like you’re doing well by using one hand only. We got a ride at the very end of the day where we were the only ones on and it gave me time to play about with the system and it definitely works better with one hand.

I very briefly managed to show up on the daily leaders scoreboard as the Ice Ninja, which was promptly replaced but I still managed to see myself there, and to be honest, I didn’t even know the high score section was there until I looked properly!

Plenty of room for improvement with my score!

Laser raiders was another ride we did a lot of as I’ve found out there’s a secret on the ride that gives you a large score for finding it. I’ve no idea where it is but each subsequent reride I’ll be looking for it to say I’ve shot it!

We also managed to get on a night ride on The Dragon, an attraction I was looking forward to at night because it has a large outdoor section that I was hoping would be pitch black. Unfortunately they have installed generators to power light banks outside so it did take away from the night ride but it was definitely better than a day time ride.

Overall we had a great time at Legoland, though the fireworks were a little short for what we were expecting, the display was good and the rest of the day was excellent too!

If you are interested you can watch the recording I did here!

Blog, Reviews

Fireworks Spectacular – Alton Towers

Loops&Lapbars

Our final visit for the 2021 season was Alton Towers for their Firework Spectacular event. Our intention was to ride as many rides as we could before the fireworks closed most of them at 5pm, then head to the lawns for a good spot.

Our day started like most at Towers, getting onto Wicker man first before the queues became too long, then onto Battle Galleons as there wasn’t a queue and next to Rita. We were intending to ride Th13teen, but due to the new rules, it can’t run in the rain. There was a bit of mist about, which I assume was why it was closed earlier on in the day but we never actually got any rain all day. It did open later but we were always miles away from it!

Next we went on Roller Disco, one of the Retro Squad rides that were brought in to relieve queues on other rides. Roller Disco is probably the weaker of the Retro Squad as it didn’t have much force or spinning to it. I’m not normally a fan of Waltzers due to the stop/start nature of the spinning but even I would have liked a little more!

Next was Gangsta Granny: The Ride, which was fine once again, and even with this being our third ride, I still noticed new fart jokes in there!

After checking our photos for Gangsta Granny, we headed to The Burger Kitchen for some dinner, which was nice. Chips could have done with cooking a bit longer, but it was nice enough. I think they could have done with opening up the whole restaurant for seating though as it was very cramped!

Our next visit was X-Sector for rides on Mixtape and Oblivion. The Smiler was still down so I couldn’t get a final ride of the season today, and through out our visit neither of us saw any action at all from the ride. Hopefully it’ll be back next year!

Mixtape is arguably the best Retro Squad ride, at least for Tracy and myself as it is a really fun, decently forceful ride! Even though the soundtrack to all three is the same, I think it fits Mixtape the best.

We then headed to Spinball Whizzer, Runaway Mine Train, Duel and finally Funk n’ Fly. Funk n’ Fly is only the second Super Trooper that I’ve ridden and this one’s sequence was the best. When it initially tilted, it felt just like Clarence Pier’s one, but when it went the other way, it did so with enough speed to properly shake the gondolas which was a thill and certainly woke us up!

With our last ride done before the fireworks, we headed to Towers Street. Festivities started at 5pm warming everyone up until the show at 7pm. All in, the were about 16,000 people in attendance for the fireworks, and looking around, you’d think there were a lot more!

As for the show, it went through the history of the park, starting in the 1850s when Alton Towers was finished, then onto 1980 when the park first opened as a theme park. Many of the rides get their own segments such as Nemesis, Oblivion and The Smiler, others were absent, most notably Galactica which didn’t get a mention at all. Maybe it really is curtains for Galactica?

The display featured dot matrix screens, fire and smoke, excellent audio, as well as many lasers that filled the sky above us, and of course many fireworks too!

The whole show lasted around 26 minutes and was a fantastic way to celebrate the 40th anniversary and round off the 2021 season. Last year was Alton Towers’ 40th anniversary but due to the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic, the fireworks were called off. I am so glad they managed to get them in this year, and even though we grumbled at having to pay £20 on top of our annual passes, we thought it was well worth it in the end!

Those involved should be very pleased with themselves for bringing together all those elements and making it work so incredibly well! Even Tracy said that it gave Disney’s fireworks a run for their money! Let’s hope we can see more of this going forward!

For those who didn’t go and wanted to see it, I recorded the whole show and it’s on my brand new YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHbpfNFvoh0

Please give it a watch whenever you’ve got time!

After the show, we caught up with Theme Park Worldwide again, and this time managed a photo and met Charlotte too! They’re both lovely, and hope to see more of them on our travels!

Thanks to Tracy for taking this photo of Theme Park Worldwide and myself!

To round off our day, and the season, we had a ride on Galactica, the last of the big coasters we’ve yet to have a night ride on. It rode as well as it ever has and even though I think it’s day are numbered, I look forward to more rides in the 2022 season and beyond!