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We've had top 10 coaster counts, we've had park counts, but what about your top 10 roller coaster manufacturers? I'll start with my current list, bearing in mind I haven’t yet visited many non-UK parks and am yet to ride an RMC (hence me not being able to judge them); 5. Intamin - They've produced some shockers and I'm not generally a huge fan of the UK collection we have, but they've also brought us some incredible rides such as Taron, and I'm sure with various ventures this year I'll get to ride some of their better rides. 4. Mack Rides - Their rich family values and innovative technology make them a special company, who have produced some of the most globally-recognised and comfortable coasters of modern times. They've started new design trends, but (from my experience) their coasters are a little to "polite" for my personal taste. 3. B&M - Some of their coasters are incredible, some I find fairly dull, but in terms of quality and durability they're second-to-none. 2. Great Coasters International – Just amazing. They've taken the classic concept of a wooden coaster and completely reinvented it with modern technology, from the insane fast turns of Troy to frantic bunny-hops on Joris, they push the capabilities of a wooden coaster to its absolute limits and it’s fantastic. 1. Arrow Dynamics - Just an absolutely incredible company with a fascinating history. Sure, they had their shortfalls; plenty of them. But this is the company that invented the modern steel coaster - the company that started log flumes, hyper coasters and so many other coaster/ride types that we now take for granted. I sometimes wonder where the industry would be today if Arrow hadn't existed. Considering the huge amount of concepts they introduced, and the fact that many employees from Arrow went on to work in other, or in some cases, started their own company, they truly left a huge legacy behind. I love the quirkiness and awkwardness of some of their coasters, which is probably quite telling of why I hold The Big One in such high regard, and the work Arrow did set the stage for the future of the industry in so many ways.

I'm at the Pleasure Beach right now with @Kerfuffle and this is his first visit to the park too...... I feel so sorry for him currently. Saying today has been horrendous is a massive understatement. Driving 6 friggin hours for a park with less than 50% of rides open is the biggest mistake I've made since declaring DBGT was the "best dark ride in the country" when it had just opened. Anyone fancy a 2 hour queue for Big One on 1 train; engineers giving up on reopening Icon; Valhalla operating like a Windows 98 system and a Vekoma SLC being the most reliable ride at the park for the day?

When did going to Blackpool for February half term and getting smashed in Wetherspoons become a thing? Has that just completely passed me by and I'm only becoming aware of it because of Icon..

Frontierland at DLP in the fog.

There's an interesting article from around the same time: http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/index.cfm?pagetype=features&codeID=33238&fbclid=IwAR3C6Mzr4fAfBT_8txXPcIUw7tLnL-4HFgodWcvBO0f8ryr-PuAbM5GmOi8 There's a lot to pick out from it which I think gives some very interesting insight... It's obvious of course that a park wants fans on its side. Of course, 'fans' can mean much more than 'enthusiasts' - anyone who's a passholder is technically a fan. Hence the silly "Annual Passholder facts", which say passholders are more intelligent, more polite and whatever else. Anything to try and make a passholder smile and go 'heh, cool' or something like that. In turn, it sets a tone that the account has this 'banterous' side to them, making people more inclined to share in that banter and post positively. Except, that's not how it's worked. It comes across as the park trying to hard. Like that uncle at parties who says buzzwords like "yolo" and "yeet" and thinks he's cool. It'll make some people smile, but it's not what people want from a theme park account. They want an upbeat tone, information and interesting facts. 99% of the time a 15-minutes of fame meme won't do the job with getting people on board in supporting the brand. And it's not like there's people being clueless that the social media reflects the brand - the park are well aware it affects the perception of the brand. But either they don't realise it's not enriching the brand, or they're too stubborn to change their mind. Maybe they'll argue it is working, but enthusiasts in their ivory towers of wisdom are too narrow-minded to see. Maybe it's like a Trump/Brexit thing, where we're just surrounded by so many people who share the same opinion that we're blind to the strength of those who think the social media presence is brilliant. But it's not. Crudely speaking, social media ultimately comes down to interactions and getting people talking. You look at the numbers the park's posts are getting - they're not good. And the majority of people aren't going to be talking about it like enthusiasts are.. You only have to look at how they've handled the Logger's Leap to see that this is a theory they do not follow. They shut the ride quietly, gave a vague, non-committing statement, and just swept it aside ever since. People hound the park constantly, both during on and off season, and go nowhere. They've dug themselves into a hole that they can't get out of. And yes, Loggers is a weird one. I'm very much under the impression to closure of it was a decision they didn't want to make, and was only planned to be temporary. There had been plenty of plans and ideas for its reopening. I don't think the park lied when they were saying 'they hope it returns soon' - I genuinely believe that was their plan at one stage or another, but plans changed. But this is the issue when you hide behind vague buzzwords and try to be clever about it, you lose all integrity when something goes wrong behind the scenes, since you have nothing to fall back on for a public statement. Is this what social media should be about though? Do I really care if Jack visited the park for the 15th time this season with a camera pointed at him the whole time, and he had a good day because he knows all the tricks of how to do the park and the rubbish rides to avoid? Do I care that Sally from Kent, with her 200 followers, visited the park for the first time and wrote a blog saying how wonderful Stealth is? Not really. It's good to do this sort of stuff, but sparingly. People want an upbeat tone, information and interesting facts - this is rarely achieved through influences. All well and good saying this, but Thorpe in particular are terrible for this. The amount of unanswered questions that fly past on a daily basis, the copy and paste responses make it feel like they don't care, don't read responses and just reflects badly on the brand. I know this is a distinction between the marketing team (who craft the original tweets) and the guest services team (who are in charge of responding to general queries), but if there's this disconnect in philosophies between the two teams (one saying that taking the time to respond to comments is important, the other not doing this effectively), then that speaks volumes about the park. The park's brand is just ruined at the moment. Can anyone answer, positively, what Thorpe Park is at the moment? Who do they target? How will I feel after a day out there? Why should I go there? So far, all the social media side of things is doing is making me think they're a park desperate for attention and wanting to be "down with the kids". And it really shows. And what's worse, is this has been done before. Thorpe went through the terrible meme phase in 2013/4, back when they were changing target market. The new island brand was working and masking the issues they had there, but the social media side felt desperate. But back then, social media wasn't as critical to a brand, and they managed to salvage it. But they haven't learnt from their mistakes, clearly. Admittedly, they're not doing everything wrong. The Thorpe Park blog, with weekly entries, is nice, and the winter updates have been good. Yet both of those things always seem to miss the mark a bit, and are only 'good', rather than 'great'. They can get the tone of voice and personality right, they've had some good funny moments in the past. But these are exceptions. More often than not, it feels like they're shooting themselves in the foot, really don't care or just trying to troll followers for the lolz. I want to make it clear I'm not trying to attack particular people. Yes, this post has been related to a particular article written by one particular person who works at Thorpe, and I'm being critical of it. But that's simply one person reflecting the ideals and value of the park and its brand. It's not something that one person has thought of, and it's gone through. This is a collection of people, making a collection of mistakes, and it's there for their whole following to see. The park is stagnating with investments, the brand is going round in circles and the social media accounts are slowly becoming a laughing stock. It needs sorting out. I'll finish off with a quote from the article, in case anyone tries the 'if you hate it so much, why are you here' line...