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Small family park makes huge 'second in the world to Disney' multinational organisation look like amateurs. This is the most exciting development in the UK as far as I care to remember. This century probably. I adore everything about Paultons.

Today was very good. All the coasters were running multiple trains, the park was quiet and whilst there were some breakdowns/rides closed, for a preview day it seemed very well organised and everything that was open ran like clockwork. Also it was great that Stealth opened! I mean sure, I still don't like a lot of what Thorpe is doing, but it's fantastic that they were able to have every coaster open and running more than one train on the first day of being open to guests, and that they limited numbers rather than over-filling the park. Much better than opening to 10,000 people when you're nowhere near ready. I'm really not a fan of some of the cosmetic changes, the dome looks soulless now compared to how it looked before, the removal of Tidal's bridge is a shame as is Colossus' concrete (though I appreciate the reasons for this). Only real annoyance from an operations perspective was that Derren Brown's Ghost Train had closed with the shop shutters down by 4:40.

I concur with Coaster above, today really was brilliant! For a preview day, I gotta give credit to the park here as I was honestly surprised by how well things were being run and the availability of the attractions for guests, especially when Stealth unexpectedly opened in the early afternoon. I'd go as far as to say this has been one of the best preview events the park has held yet. All coasters minus WD were running full capacity, including Colossus on two trains and Tidal Wave on two boats which is something rarely seen these days! The staff running the coasters were on fire too with frequent and fast dispatch times. No messing around or delays this visit anywhere across any ride. Staff were friendly and cooperative when DBGT broke down and all of them seem enthused, which is a promising start to the season. Probably the most surprising thing for me was walking into a park where every minute between 10am - 5pm, the coasters did not remove any trains on their circuits due to small queues later in the day, which has become a terrible habit of this park lately. Instead, by 4pm, I was riding a train on Colossus with only 6 guests and loads of empty ones. Same for Inferno too. This is what I like to see! As for the changes and things I noticed across the park, there are some questionable cosmetic changes made inside the dome I really don't think highly of, especially given it's just black walls everywhere now and PVC posters in front of the store instead of a glass display window as an example. It looks so incredibly dull in there without the old theming anymore and no massive widescreen projector will ever excuse the decision to do this. Also, there were some areas of the park which clearly weren't looked over properly during the winter, as the LED lighting rigs from Fright Nights are still standing next to Tidal Wave, Loggers Leap and IAC. Why are they still standing? It looks really lazy. Colossus in-person looks awful with the land filled in under the vertical loop. They could have at least turfed the ground with some grass or plants couldn't they? Least the original audio was back on it today which was great to hear! It honestly suits the coaster so much better than the IMAscore version. Swarm's station was also quite bad, as whilst they painted the steel supports after removing all the cladding surrounding them, they didn't paint the footers right down to the ground and as a result, bare silver metal is still visible near the floor on all the supports. It looks really bad and like a botch job. But most of all, my biggest concern about what I saw from today was a seriously worrying lack of upkeep with their audio and SFX, because it was incredibly inconsistent in some areas and many effects have not been fixed since the end of last season. This is something I have noticed Chessington and Alton Towers are also suffering from currently so it's not unique just to Thorpe. Here is a long list of every little observation I made from today for each ride. Used spoiler tags to keep this post from getting too long:

HAHA - I love how they got round to painting the beams like everyone wanted and then totally destroyed the rest of it taking ALL the wood down. They have replaced the speakers with inferior ones and have a lovely silver trunking for the wiring. Hilarious! Pic from TPM FB page...

The dome looks so dull and bare without the Atlantis theming... strange choice! I know it’s being done in stages but I liked the lost city/underwater theme personally

Congrats to Thorpe for making the Colossus area look like the Margate seafront.. (Minus the sea..) At least the run down pits used to blend into the area a little, they could of least done something more than just throw a bunch of concrete at it, looks horrendous.