All Activity

Thank you for the update, hopefully they fix it soon (and hopefully fix the second return motor to up the catch car return speed) maybe go on some of the rides in close vicinity like Swarm or Detonator to get a good view of whats going on. I am in contact with Zone 3 staff so I shall ask what's going on 😁

It looks like they've been having issues with the catch car. Which would probably explain why the launch failed several times. And of no trains are on the track would definitely back that concept up. I'm remaining hopeful that they manage to source another catch car if not replace what is broken. But given Stealth's accelerator model is ageing and is very rare now, parts are really hard to come by. The park will have to approach a manufacturer to get a part custom made which is a long old process unfortunately. During the Intamin event last year at the park, Intamin did say they would be happy to support the park in maintaining Stealth should they want to keep her running. Which I assume would be the same case for Rita at Alton Towers. Merlin own and maintain these accelerator models very well so no doubt they will have the best contacts for support and parts suppliers. There engineers will know the ins and outs of them too. It's just an expensive ordeal for them.

Yeah this isn't looking good at all. We might be looking at a prolonged closure

No one batching on Inferno today so just queueing as normal inside the station.

Closed all day again today, no train on the track, a sign in the plaza and a member of staff letting people know, but that’s it 😭

Thanks for this Jax, I will keep an eye on the ride activity. It's a shame she's such a complex ride but nevertheless the engineering team do an amazing job trying to get her back. Must be a hard job for them

Not sure when this was updated, but they’ve scrapped the two closed Wednesdays in May and will now be open 10–5, which is good to see. They’ll still be closed next Wednesday 29th, but after that they’ll be open every day until September.

Operator was clearly just feeling generous, unless they run 5 laps as standard now. But they do usually adjust laps based on queue time.

The only time I've seen that was during Covid times, which I imagine was to prevent too many people being 'indoors' at once. I've seen a few people mention this recently so don't think it was a one off either. Very strange. I'm going tomorrow afternoon so will check out what they're doing.

When I saw them doing it they were slightly closer to the balcony, so actually allowed to over see the rows more easily.

Never seen that before, and it hasn't been like that all of this year. Could just be because the weather was nice and staff wanted to more be outside. Could be they're trying it there to advise people of potentially long waits for front row (it holds a lot of people). Could be a security thing. Will be interesting to see if they carry on doing that; it's certainly a bit further away from the rows so harder to see

It had an emergency stop halfway through launching the other day, and I don't think its fully recovered. Delayed opening on Sunday and didn't open Monday, yesterday or today as of yet..

It looks like Stealth has been having a few issues recently. It's not looking great. Hopefully it isn't too bad and the engineers have her fixed soon enough.

I’ve literally never waited for it, and last Monday was the first time I’ve ever waited even one cycle for it, yet it was doing 5 laps…

The operator can control the amount of laps, so it usually runs between 2-5 laps. 3 laps is pretty standard, 2 when its very busy and then 5 when its quiet. I've personally not seen more than 5. Odd they were doing 5 laps if it was busy though 🤣

Apologies for bumping an older thread, but after a recent ride, I was wondering; has Flying Fish always run 5 laps? On my ride last Monday, the train went around 5 times, which I swear it didn’t before… I could have sworn it only did the regular 2 laps before! Is this a new thing for 2026, or was this a one-off? Or am I just misremembering previous rides (I don’t go on it very often)? The queue was, if anything, longer than usual, so I’d be surprised if it was a bonus due to a quiet day!

Colossus getting a higher throughput than Hyperia I do hope they consider throughput for their next big coaster. No matter how hard the staff work you can't really achieve a high throughput on it and when its the most popular ride on park, with a huge RAP and Fasttrack allocation it struggles on the busy days.

If anyone’s interested, I have a few throughput timings and insights from my Thorpe visit last Monday: Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains) - 786pph (2 trains, average of 4, 13th April 2026) Hyperia (Theoretical: 1,050pph on 2 trains) - 770pph (2 trains, average of 4, 13th April 2026), 763pph (2 trains, average of 10, 13th April 2026) Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 1,023pph (2 trains, average of 6, 13th April 2026) Saw: The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars) - 854pph (unknown number of cars, average of 8, 13th April 2026) Stealth (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 2 trains) - 827pph (2 trains, average of 9, 13th April 2026), 860pph (2 trains, average of 6, 13th April 2026) The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains) - 946pph (2 trains, average of 10, 13th April 2026), 1,022pph (2 trains, average of 5, 13th April 2026) Overall, then, I would have said ops were pretty good, but perhaps not as high-end as I have seen in a couple of cases. Colossus was doing pretty well in my brief snapshot by that ride’s standards, and Saw was smashing it! Inferno and Hyperia were also doing well. Some others were still good, but perhaps not as high as I have seen. For example, Stealth, consistently attaining slightly below 90s between dispatches, seemed somewhat slower than on my last visit back in September, where the staff were pumping out trains at a rate of knots and attaining nearly 1,000pph. Swarm also seemed slightly less consistent. That is me being persnickety, though; operations were generally good, and ride availability was also strong throughout the day! One thing I did notice is that Inferno was batching at the station entrance, which I found a bit odd… I wonder why they’ve changed this for 2026?

Tidal wave is open today for the first time this season!

Yes, I saw that he has now announced his new role as 'VP of Hotel Operations & Global Performance' Does anyone know who has stepped into the VP role at Thorpe, or are they currently recruiting for it?

Shuffles around at that level aren't all that uncommon. I believe the previous VP of Legoland Windsor has moved to a broader role within Merlin. Obviously we don't know the exact day-to-day responsibilities of the VP / Divisional Director roles of the parks, but as has been mentioned, the past few years with Neil in charge have seen lots of positives with operations and general improvements. Thorpe has, for the last couple of years as a minimum, been generally considered the best operated Merlin UK park, with the best reliability, best food, best Halloween event and just in general doing well given the relative tight purse strings from Merlin above. That certainly won't be down to one person, but things like that happen when you've got good leadership in place.

the painted visuals of the façade promise so much, tantalising the unknown. Click-click-click-click-click BANG through the crash doors! Plunged into darkness. A skeleton lunges at the car out of the darkness. Click-click-click-click-click YUCK there’s something on my face a siren wails causing me to sit up abruptly. We hurtle towards another car; oh, wait, it’s just a mirror. Click-click-click-click-click a witch cackles as we pass on by, and a spider drops from the ceiling. Click-click-click-click-click a ghoul hurtles from above us, brushing the tips of our hair, and we CRASH and BANG through a door into the blinding light of daytime once again. We are discombobulated, bewildered and perhaps changed forever. We will none of us ever be the same again after riding on the GHOST TRAIN.

Paw Patrol announced to be opening on the 3rd May. And the 2027 coaster has started to be delivered... Chessington is going to feel like a new park next year! Looking forward to having a multi dimension coaster in the UK and its great to see Chessington finally get a lot of investment

Perhaps one train meant the fast track wasn't so fast. Why when it's on one train, must it vallet into the station so slowly from the break run? Surely the computer could speed it up.

A joy to see and I hope it works out well for them. Already seems better advertised than the last set of 9pm closes. It's not out the realm of possibility that they'd make a big deal of the space if it's open, putting extra things on there, etc. And that feels roughly when it might be ready.