General Discussion

Whoever you are, we know you have an unpopular opinion. More or less every enthusiast does. So this topic is a chance to confess your opinions that many other enthusiasts will disagree with. Chances are, disagreements will occur but that's all part of the fun and you do have to accept that everyone has their own opinions. I'll give some of my unpopular opinions: I think Kingda Ka is better than El Toro. I actually enjoy Intamin Zacspins (basing it off my experience on Inferno). So far, I don't hate SLCs (this could change though, as the SLCs I've ridden aren't said to be that bad). I think G-Force is a fun ride. Space …

Genuinely thought we had a Vekoma thread somewhere, but clearly not.. But it's fine, we need one... During this week's IAAPA, Vekoma are revealing 4 new generations of some of their coasters. Flying coaster is one of them (see Phantasialand), another one is the upgraded version of their SLC... Called the Suspended Thrill Coaster (STC), the new off-the-shelf model features two inversions and a significantly different layout. The last "new" SLC is set to open in China sometime over the next year or so I believe. After that, the STC takes over as the only off-the-shelf suspended model Vekoma will sell. Given that Ma…

Hi everyone, Hope you don't mind me posting this. I've been a 'lurker' here a good number of years, a year or so ago I posted an interview I'd conducted with John Wardley as part of my TV Production course. Since then I've been working in the "real world", I'm currently researching for an upcoming Channel 5 series featuring user generated content. We're currently looking for videos people have shot of 'angry' or annoyed people at theme parks or other leisure places. This is a fantastic example, except the quality is far too poor to be used: Queue jumper on Colossus: So things like queue jumpers, arguments, people annoyed about being stuck on a broken down ride etc …

So today Mack rides announced they have been testing with Oculus Rif on rides Blue Fire and Pegasus in Europa-Park. Is this a future in theme parks or is it just going to stay a test? Looks awesome, I would love to try it.

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

Twenty-five years ago, Thorpe Park was a completely different place to today. It was a much more family-oriented park with no inverting rides, only two roller coasters and more in the way of gentle rides and educational experiences. Chessington on the other hand had more in the way of intense rides at the time with Vampire, Rameses Revenge, Rodeo and the newly opened Rattlesnake. The latter was definitely considered to be the most thrilling of the Surrey theme parks throughout the ‘90s. 1998 was the year Tussauds Group purchased Thorpe, although I have been wondering whether they always had vision to swap the target audiences of Chessington with Thorpe, and wh…

Found an interesting YouTube channel by Disney Imagineering. Latest video here: We Call It Imagineering | Let's Ride

Hi guys. We all have our favourite coasters, those rides that we rank really highly; for me, rides that come to mind in this category include phenomenal coasters like Mako, VelociCoaster, Silver Star, Hagrid's and Iron Gwazi, amongst others! Often, there will be a common thread running through our favourite coasters in terms of certain attributes they share to some degree. With this in mind, I'd be interested to know; what do you generally favour in a coaster? What makes a coaster good for you? What kind of coaster elements and attributes really tick your boxes? Personally, I'm going to answer this through both an analytical and instinctive lens. L…

Hi guys. Some on here have been theme park enthusiasts for a very long time, and over a period of multiple years, you’re bound to learn a thing or two. Whether you’ve learned what you most enjoy or whether you’ve learned how to get the best out of a park or ride, years of visiting parks is bound to have taught you things and shaped your perspectives in some way. I know it certainly has for me! With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what have you learned in your years as a theme park enthusiast? What have your years of park visiting experience taught you, and what new perspectives have you gained from years of coaster riding and park visiting? I’ll get t…

Guys I wanna know your choices on this!! This could be a close one!

Hi guys. With the recent announcement that Duel at Alton Towers is closing on 6th September, and the ever snowballing rumours about it being rethemed, a lot of discussion has taken place recently about Merlin and dark rides. And rightly or wrongly, Merlin appears to have somewhat of a poor reputation among enthusiasts when it comes to dark rides; most of the ground-up dark rides and dark ride rethemes they’ve done have not been particularly well received at all. So with that in mind, I’d be keen to know; of all the dark ride projects Merlin have undertaken, which is your favourite? I’m including both ground-up dark rides and rethemes here. Personally, I don’t …

Hi guys. In the UK theme park industry, Merlin theme parks are a very dominant force, and this is arguably most apparent in the arena of roller coaster hardware. If you were to ask an average enthusiast what their favourite UK coaster is, there’s a good chance that it would be at a Merlin theme park, and I dare say that most people’s UK top 10s would be relatively saturated with Merlin-operated coasters, with parks like Alton Towers and Thorpe Park in particular arguably having two of the UK’s most revered thrill coaster selections. With this in mind, I’d be intrigued to know; what is your favourite UK coaster not located at a theme park operated by Merlin Entertainments?…

Pick 1/6 for the 3 questions

Hi guys. If you do coaster counting, one means that many enthusiasts tend to resort to in order to up their coaster count is riding kiddie coasters. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that enthusiasts tend to have different mentalities towards riding kiddie coasters and the level of care they have about getting kiddie coaster credits. Some have the mentality of “cred’s a cred”, and will travel very long distances to get the latest big apple or go-gator added to RCDB, while others tend to confine their kiddie coaster riding to when they’re available in larger parks, or even don’t ride kiddie coasters at all in some cases. So my question to you today is; what’s your m…

Hi guys. With Omicron sending countries into lockdown, closing parks in some places and wrecking people’s theme park travel plans, I thought we could do with a little positivity around here this evening! So why don’t we take a journey into a land of dreams? Let’s go to one where COVID preferably doesn’t exist and you have an unlimited pot of money and an unlimited amount of land with which to build your dream theme park. Planning restrictions are also non-existent, so height and noise restrictions are no object either! So my question to you this evening is; if you were given the chance to build the theme park of your dreams, what rides would you put into it? And if you wa…

Share Your First Big Rollercoaster Down Below,Me I'd Like To Share My First 5: 1.Nemesis 2.Air 3.Colossus 4.Nemesis Inferno 5.Does X Count?[if Not Then Saw:The Ride

I have recently been wondering what is in fact classed as an Inversion, because Thorpe Park advertise the Swarms Inclined loop as an Inversion but I do not think it is. Were as Some people count Saw The Ride's Over banked turn after the Immelmann as an inversion but I am not really sure. do you guys think an inversion has to be over a certain amount of degrees like over 135. I have just been wondering.

What do you guys think is the best coaster of each of these types? Inverted coaster Suspended coaster Water ride stand up coaster Flying coaster floorless coaster Eurofighter coaster giga/mega coaster Any type of launched coaster Wing rider coaster Drop tower Any sort of boomerang coaster Woodan coaster Your favorite type of coaster I'm just interested on which rides will score high, and which rides will not. I would probably go with: Oz'lris Big bad wolf Pilgrim's plunge Riddler's revenge Tatsu Kracken Takabisha Millenium force Formula rossa Gatekeeper Lex luthor Aftershock El toro Wooden, eurofighter, and wing rider.

Hey Guys, Just wondering what everyone thinks of theme parks using mobile apps nowadays e.g. Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Legoland etc.. I think a lot of American theme parks use mobile apps as well like Disney and Universal, but anyway.. If anyone has used a theme park mobile app before then let me know, I'm curious to find out how the experience was. Thanks

EDIT: DURING THE HALLOWEEN SEASON

Have a spooktacular time

Hi guys. With all of us being into theme parks, I’m sure most of us know where our nearest theme park is, or our “local park” so to speak. Whether you visit it often or it’s somewhere you don’t really pay much attention to, we all have one. With this in mind, I’d be really interested to know; where is your local park and how often do you visit? Do you pay a lot of attention to your home park, or is it somewhere that you largely ignore? Personally, I live in Gloucestershire, so I’m in the no man’s land of major theme parks better known as the South West of England. As such, my answer might be a tad more complicated than for those of you who are lucky enough to …

Hi guys. 2024 is set to be a pretty big year for UK roller coasters, with four different roller coaster-related projects happening for next year. These are: Hyperia at Thorpe Park, a Mack HyperCoaster that will be the UK’s tallest and fastest roller coaster. Nemesis 2.0 at Alton Towers, the rebirth of the much-loved B&M Inverted Coaster that is widely accepted to be the most revered UK coaster. Drayton Manor’s new coaster, an Intamin lift and launch coaster with spinning trains. Legoland Windsor’s new coaster, a duo of Zierer family shuttle coasters. It’s certainly a big year for UK roller coasters when you look at this motley crew of u…

Hi guys. Over the years, I’m sure that most of us have visited quite a few different theme parks; each year, I personally visit a mixture of old favourites alongside trying to mix the odd new park or two in there as well to enhance my repertoire and increase my coaster and park counts. Trying to visit new parks can sometimes mean that there isn’t enough time to revisit some previously visited parks, however, and as the years rattle on, a park can sometimes get pushed down and down the list until you realise that you haven’t visited in a number of years. With this in mind, my question for you today is; which major theme park have you gone the longest without visiting? Whic…

Hi guys. Here in the UK, we have four Merlin parks: Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington and Legoland Windsor. Operations are a contentious topic surrounding the Merlin parks, particularly as of late; people talk a lot about throughputs, ride availability and the like with regard to these properties. However, there’s arguably some variation between the four properties in terms of many of these metrics, so with this in mind, I’d be keen to know; which Merlin park is best operated, in your view? Which one performs best in terms of metrics like throughputs? Personally, I would put Alton Towers at the top of the pile. But if I were to rank them, I would say the …