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These Rapids at parks don't seem to have the same excitement they used to? Have they turned most of the jets off that created a decent ride years ago?

So whilst in Hyperia queue the ride stopped and announcement played stating something like "ride has stopped due to guest's action". Queue was closed and we waited 30 mins whilst security entered ride area. With about an hour left of the day, the queue line then evacuated not to open again. Staff confirmed that people has entered the ride area from outside the park. So my question is, presumably they would have evacuated the queue from the start, or certainly well before 30 minitues if they thought they would not be able to open again. What happened for them to not allow the ride open again? My only thought is that they needed to thoroughly search the whole ride area, when it became apparent that they couldn't be sure how many had entered vs how many they had caught? But does this take 90 minitues?

Samurai and Zodiac have been down for a little while. Hopefully nothing serious. Rumba is now showing as closed from the 1st of Sept until the end of the season. I can understand why due to the high running costs. Maybe it's time to rip it out and use the space for future development.

Rode Tomb Blaster today. It remains bloody dreadful. -Every train had at least one car not in use. One train had two cars not in use. -The 'story' is beyond dull, with the voiceover being one of the worst-sounding, boring and grating things I've ever heard on a theme park -The guns are rubbish -Pacing of the ride feels so off. Partially because of the story they shoehorned in, but also just because the ride system feels like it's on its last legs -Audio is either too quiet or too loud. -Most of the screens in the on ride photo viewpoint were broken (not necessarily turned off, but physically broken). Honestly, of everything that the park are doing, adding and changing, sorting out Tomb Blaster should really have been number 1 priority.

The way SFA is running I don't think half the rides will make it till then even... Stealth's repeated downtime is very different. It had its issue at the start of the season, which was a big unexpected hiccup from winter maintenance. Since then, it's had two, pre-planned, periods of downtime. One of them was for a launch cable replacement, which happens yearly. The other I do not know, but since it was short, pre-planned and stayed on schedule, I don't think is a major concern. Rita has suffered longer, not-planned closures, with no known opening date advertised during those closures. That indicates that those issues are actual problems with the ride which needed fixing / parts replacing. I don't think the two are linked, and it's more coincidence that there's two rides of the same time that have experienced downtime in the same year.

They're all screwed in november then when Six Flags America closes.

The curse is that for every ride that six flags closes, a member of the accelerator family will suffer downtime.

Upon Kingda Ka's passing, it cursed all the accelerator models.

Do we know what’s actually been causing Stealth and Rita’s repeated downtime? It seems odd that they’d both be having such sporadic reliability at the same time. Might the issues be connected in some way?

Thanks for that, they were awaiting test and inspection on Wednesday.

Stealth is back open today 😃

Its just mediocre. Not helped by a number of areas of the park just sat there unused.

Got to be honest, I had my fingers crossed that Rita would close and they'd give the REAL Queen of Speed it's parts... One can hope I guess lol

Thorpe top this for me for reasons similar to the above. Rides are often operated well, especially the likes of Stealth & Hyperia and reliability has been better than from previous years. Towers contrary though has seen a noticeable decline in operations and reliability lately. Some rides like Thirteen still smash it but it’s not like how it was. Chessington is hit and miss, but I’ve seen some poor operations lately, with rides like Rattlesnake operating so badly now and too many rides on low or reduced capacity now. LEGOLAND is ok, but I still find it exaggerated where staff have to say “you’re secure” after checking a simple door or restraint once or even twice. It’s the most safety exaggerated park out there I’ve done!

I must be one of the few people who actually really likes Heide Park. Desert Race has get in the bin and be harvested for Stealth parts though.

Not my fault that place is crap and Desert Race not much better.

Poor Desert Race and Heide Park, both so forgotten about they don't even get considered for a Merlin plague...

Can only have one of Stealth or Rita running at any one time.

Hope this is OK to discuss here on the Stealth thread on the Thorpe Park Mania forum but Stealth is down again from today until Friday for more scheduled maintenance... Please stay with us Sweet Prince xox

Easy winner is Thorpe. Best operated rides, best opening hours and better reliability.

How have the queue times been at Chessington? Perhaps the demand isn't really there this season? (I have no idea) Attendance feels like it's lower in general at Towers and Thorpe this year. Don't know about Lego and Chessington.

I'm assuming that the 5pm closes in October will be changed. Otherwise that's a real cut down. Strange decisions from the higher ups.

It's even weirder given they're currently a whole area down (which you would expect has knock on effects to queue times, so cutting hours would lead to people getting less rides), and that Chessington are getting the most investment out of the Merlin parks currently. You'd expect them to be the crown jewel all round right now. Unless the fact that a third of the park is basically a construction site has reduced visitor numbers drastically, I don't get it.

Chessingtons opening hours for the whole summer holidays (and for the rest of the season) is 5pm. Same with Legoland. Going back, 6pm has always been standard, and for most weekends throughout the season. Infact a few years ago there was even a lot of 7pm closes in the holidays and weekends. Ouch.

The last few years, I'd say Thorpe park by a long way. Best ride availability, best throughputs and best opening hours. Crazy because going back 5+ years or so I would've always said Towers. 1 train ops on off peak days was standard at Thorpe, resulting in long queues even on quiet days.