General Discussion

It was rather interesting to see your replies to favourite Coaster drops so I'm back to ask about the other way of kicking coasters into gear (or keeping them rolling). What is your favourite Coaster launch section? I reluctantly have to award this one to Taron's second launch section. The sound, the sudden and intense kick of acceleration and the way the train shakes like it's falling apart, it's fantastic. I can't really think of any runners up at the moment, however I'll be riding Dodonpa and at least 1 of the Chinese S&S launchers next year so I hope that will change things. Over to you!

The two new lands of the southern parks. Both have the best themeing in their parks. But which is better overall. This can include themeing, quality of ride and shops. FIGHT!!

Attendance figures for parks around the world for last year have been revealed - http://www.teaconnect.org/pdf/TEAAECOM2013.pdf For people interested, the European figures are on Page 27. Merlin park's to feature in the Top 20: -Gardaland; 2.7million (8th) -Alton Towers; 2.5million (9th) -Legoland Windsor; 2.05million (10th) -Thorpe Park; 2million (11th) -Legoland Billund; 1.8million (12th) -Chessington; 1.5million (17th) -Heide Park; 1.4million (19th) Chessington had the biggest jump in attendance, going up over 15% (though I'd be interested how satisfied guests were with their experiences...), and Thorpe rose 11% (I guess that's what happens after a bad year a…

Hey, so I LOVE the Halloween event at Thorpe Park, I have been to theirs now for a couple of years but have never tried out any other parks Halloween events. Which UK Theme Park is the best for Halloween events? I think Thorpe Parks event is amazing and I love how they smoke the park out in the evening and the horror mazes, but can another park out do them? Love to hear your thoughts and opinions :lol:Many thanks, TomW

As we plunge into another full-throttle year of theme parks and attractions, I thought I would bring up the topic of the Merlin drinks capsule. The drinks capsule has been a successful thing for a couple of years now and Merlin annual pass on facebook have said themselves that they will be releasing drinks capsules to chessington and Warwick castle this month. We have had no further update on this since they released the information of a new drinks capsule way in December 2012: It is said that the drinks capsules will now last the entire lifetime of your pass but this has confused many, I believe that if you purchase a capsule in January and your pass expires in June, …

You know I've just realised, we don't have a topic discussing what rides we actually like. Sure we talk about each indiviual ride at Thorpe Park and to a lesser degree Alton Towers and Chessington, but what about all those little rides that you may have ridden that have been virtually ignored.I'll start the ball rolling with five of my favourite non UK Merlin rides. 1. Superman de AceroA lot of discussion about Floorless coasters always centres about the non event of the floorless aspect if you aren't in the front row. Well that mattered so little to me as Superman is one of those perfect rides that is virtually ignored, and yet is absolutely brilliant and my favourite ro…

So I'm not sure if this counts as a game, but here is what you have to do: Pick a ride from each UK Merlin park, and retheme it! You must tell a name, and a back story. You can keep the ride's original name if you want. Here goes: Thorpe Park: Rumba Rapids New name: Rumba Rapids I would retheme Rumba Rapids to fit in a bit more with Nemesis Inferno. Add lots more water effects, and more wave machines throughout the ride. As for the indoor bit, I'd slow it down in there, have orange lights shining on the waterfall, and on the right have a volcano, that also has orange lights on it, and sprays water and mist everywhere, so the orange lights would make it look li…

Hi guys. I don’t know about any of you, but one thing I personally like doing at theme parks is timing ride throughputs and observing the operations on rides. With this in mind, I decided to make a thread for like-minded people who are interested in throughputs and operations to share their throughput timings and operational insights from parks around the world. Whether your timings and operational insights are from Chessington, Europa Park, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, Oakwood or anywhere else in the world, I’d love to hear about them and I’m sure many others would too! My reason for deciding to create this thread is because I have some throughput timings and opera…

Which parks did you visit throughout the 2016 season, and how many times? If you are visiting more parks over the closed season then add them in as you visit. I'll start with: Blackpool Pleasure Beach - 28 Thorpe Park - 10 Alton Towers - 3 Chessington - 2 Oakwood - 1 Drayton Manor - 1 Adventure Island - 1 Lightwater Valley - 1 Flamingo Land - 1 Pleasurewood Hills - 1 Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach - 1 Joyland (yes I'm counting it!) - 1 TOTAL: 51 Overall a good year for me theme park wise, plenty of memorable days spent at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and I visited two new parks in the form of Adventure Island and Flamingo Land.

What's the wackiest/most insane ride you've ever been on or seen? I'll start off with the Chaos Pendle from funtime! It's a booster on steroids! http://www.funtime.com.au/data/index5.htm

After the brief discussion about DBGT's entrance sign a while back, I've been thinking about what my favourite ride signs / logos / entrances are. A couple of mine that spring immediately to mind... Challenge of Tutankhamon, Walibi Belgium. My personal favourite. Chiapas, Phantasialand Tidal Wave Huracan, Bellewaerde DBGT's is pretty decent too So share; what's your favourite?!

the idea is every wednesday night I post 10 questions, you guys answer them.then on the following tuseday I see who did the best and the results are given out on wednesday!this weeks questions will be easy ones.1.what was intamins first ever rollercoaster?2.what is B&M's most popular type of rollercoaster?3.how much did expedition everest at Disneys Animal Kingdom cost in dollars?4.the tallest coaster in the world was once in england, what was this coaster?5.who currently owns the most rollercoasters in one themepark in the world?6.which state is sixflagsmagic mountin in?7.there are two S&S el loco coasters one in england and one in?8.what is the tallest non launc…

Starting a conversation for the best ride documentaries you’ve seen. Great to discover new info on rides you even think you already know and great to watch when there’s nothing on tv! I’ll start off with this Documentary on probably the greatest Huss Top Spin ever built:

Airtime for me is my favourite part of a coaster but here in the UK we're definitely missing a pure airtime machine. However there's a few nice negative G moments sprinkled across the coasters we have. The camelback on Speed definitely takes the crown for me, it's not particularly sustained but what there is is pure ejector. Honourable mentions go to the second speed hill on Smiler, the camelback on Saw and the drop after the first turnaround on Megafobia in the back seat. What do you guys think?

With the Halloween season now in full swing, I thought it'd be a good time to create this topic. What is, or was, your favourite scare maze of all time?

Everyone has that emotion, that plus 1 attraction you've queued an hour for expecting a dull or boring experience, when suddenly mid ride a moment of pure excitement erupts for a few seconds before the ride resumes it's rather bland affair with life... What are your standout moments of awful/dull/average rides? This could be any part of any ride... To start off, the tunnel dive on Vampire and Runaway Train are both memorable moments on bang average rides... Baco's awfulness is at odds with the launch sequence... Most Intamin coasters have that fantastic first drop then meander for ages... Let's try and have some proper discussion eh?

We've been through a period where very few rides at Thorpe Park and Chessington have been removed. From the list of rides in the poll, please select all the rides you have been fortunate to ride before their closures. I have kept this as Chessington and Thorpe Park as there are too many rides at Blackpool and Alton Towers that have been removed.

So IAAPA is upon us and there are some great new rides on display! All photos are coutesy of TPR New El Loco Trains! Model of Thunderbolt by Zamperla, now in red. Mack's new Drop 'N' Splash Train of the New junior GCI woodie going to LEGOLAND FLORIDA! The Lightning Run train of the reopening Kentucky Kingdom! Firechaser Express Train. Goliath Woodie train! Video footage of the just announced tallest, fastest, longest GCI woodie ever, Viper at Wanda Park, Nanching, China! The Smiler, Now an off the shelf gerst model! Just announced the future worlds supposed tallest coaster a Polercoaster 525ft tall. vine of the mack Drop 'N' Splas…

It looks like Merlin and Alton Towers is getting a bit more of a bashing. The Metro has the following. Personally I quite like the Ride Me flashing notebook book. Very funky. http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/22/alton...s-emblazoned-with-the-slogan-ride-me-5258188/ So what do you think? Sorry Link Fixed

I've decided to steal a topic I saw on another forum because I think it's quite interesting and I'd like to know what you guys reckon. What is your favourite drop (including lift if you want) that you have experienced? Mine would be no questioned asked Karnan. The insane, intense, amazing stuff that happens on the lift is only the beginning. When the actual drop comes it's one of the most intense moments I've ever experienced on a coaster. Back row, left seat, ejected so forcefully it hurts as you are twisted to the right and it feels like mere inches from you crashing into the tower structure, life altering! Honorable mentions would go…

hello pals, to cut a long story short but still quite long as this is me, I'm currently carrying out a research project that's basically looking at motion sickness on theme park rides (as well as how and why any treatments work by looking at how they react with the body on a molecular level... did you know the nhs suggests antihistamines to help?? ok I'll stop, I wont bore you with that nonsense) and before I can begin even thinking about trying to write up the dissertation, I need to do my research. for the whole cause and effect aspect of it I need to be able to ramble on about what triggers such adverse symptoms and I'm hoping to contact some parks and pote…

Hi guys what do you think the best water ride in the UK is?? Vote in the poll or comment below if you think it is none of the options in the poll! Thanks guys!

MOD EDIT: Moved to new topic for polls in general as they come round frequently and generate a bit of discussion... So In the Mitch Hawker Polls Nemesis and The Smiler were voted the UK's best coasters rating at #9 and #38 respectively, here was the rest of the UK chart... see if you agree!

The report is out! http://www.teaconnect.org/images/files/TEA_159_241229_160525.pdf Key notes: MK has hit over 20 million, Towers down 25% to just over 1.9 million as Merlin only gain 0.2% overall with Disney gaining 3.something and Universal 11% to go from 40 mill to 44 million guests a year.

Not 100% sure if this is the right place to ask for advice on this so feel free to move if needed. Hi everyone, I'm currently in the stages of planning a theme park trip round Europe for the summer next year to celebrate finishing my A-levels with some of my friends. This is the first big theme park trip that I've planned so I'm not fully sure on how to do things and was thinking that people on here might have some advice for me! Currently we're thinking that the trip will be 3 weeks long, beginning after the last contingency day in the last week of June, and are planning to visit 9 parks (10 if you count Portaventura and Ferrari Land as seperate)…