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Very true - and that's saying something considering Merlin love the run down/abandoned "theme"! New area should be called HappyHappyShinyNewClean Town.

Very exiting to see Thorpe finally getting a new coaster, and a very run down area of the park seeing development. I'm personally hoping for a B&M hyper, think it would be perfect for Thorpe. Part of me does want a woodie and I've always thought the Loggers site would be perfect for a woodie, but I'd prefer a hyper and think it would be a much safer bet. A B&M would be high throughput, reliable, lower maintenance costs and with the cost of materials going up ridiculously a woodie would be much more expensive now, but I'd be very happy with either to be honest. Personally, I've always preferred more intense coasters so The Swarm has never been a personal favourite. I've always found it too smooth / slow. Over time its grown on me, its much more intense nowadays. I agree about the restraints. By the end I can't wait to get off as my chest is so tight from the restrains tightening. It's got a lot worse I've found so they need to sort that out.

Part of this is going to sound like a strange request, but the simple thing that I hope for from this ride is that it's fun and rerideable as opposed to out and out intense, and for the strange part, I actually hope it's something smooth. I feel that something that's just pure fun and easily rerideable is something that Thorpe lacks at present. Something that's smooth, nice and floaty (or just airtime-filled), thrilling but not too intense, and just purely fun as opposed to some brain-draining out and out force machine. That's why I would love for this to be a B&M Hyper; I remember Mako ticking all of these boxes, hence why it's still my all-time #1 5 years on! I used to think that Swarm filled this void, but a few things have happened with that one over time that have made it lose this status for me; the sustained g's in that helicopter helix are beginning to make me grey out for a sustained period of time most times I do it (which I don't especially enjoy), I'm growing to not be too keen on the restraints, and I also think it's getting a bit rougher. Not rough by any means, but in September, I had a back outer ride that really juddered quite a bit, and even the inner seats are beginning to develop a bit of a grind/rattle that the ride never used to have; it certainly seems to have lost that silky smoothness it once had for me. (Has anyone else found this, as I feel like I'm going insane here; most others still refer to Swarm as silky smooth and not intense in the slightest?) Don't get me wrong, I still like Swarm a lot; these are quite minor niggles in the grand scheme of things, and I think the ride's high points are still amazing enough to keep it in my top 10 (I do love its sensation of speed, and the speed of that first drop and huge negative g's of that final inversion are just absolutely spectacular!), but it's certainly becoming less my kind of thing, and is slipping down the top 10 for me (it's #8 currently, whereas it has been as high as #3 within the last year or two, and I reckon Europa next year could well move it out of the top 10 entirely, what with their big 3 aligning directly with my current top 3 in terms of ride types; we'll have to wait and see on that one. To be honest, based on my rides last September, I'm quite tempted to push it down to #9 or #10 and consider Inferno my favourite Thorpe coaster; Swarm currently just edges Inferno, but to be honest, I'm reconsidering that, in hindsight... Inferno has grown on me a lot). Before I go off on too much of a Swarm tangent, I was going to lead on to say; the reason I'd like something smooth is because I actually think that Thorpe has a surprisingly rough (or at least, not smooth) selection of coasters given that none of them are that old. From my experience, while Swarm and Inferno are not especially rough by any means, none of their coasters are nice and silky smooth in the way that I personally really like in a coaster; Inferno is probably their smoothest, and Swarm isn't a rough coaster by any means, but Stealth is feeling quite jolty these days (the ascent in particular really bashed me around a fair bit and gave me a headache on my rides in September, and the descent also bounces you about a fair bit towards the back... but again, I never hear this brought up about Stealth, so I must ask; am I the only one who's noticed this?), Saw, while it has been feeling smoother and growing on me a bit lately, is still quite rough in places, and Colossus... I don't think that one warrants an explanation from me based on many comments about it in the community. Let's just say it's among my least favourite coasters and keep it at that... I should preface the above by saying that my roughness tolerance is quite low, but my point still stands. Of the 3 major UK thrill parks (Alton, BPB and Thorpe), I'd say that Thorpe is the only one that doesn't have something that fills that fun, floaty/airtime-y and effortlessly rerideable void. From my perspective, Blackpool has Icon to fill this void and Alton has Wicker Man to fill this void, and both of those coasters are in my top 3. From a personal perspective, I really hope that Thorpe's 2024 coaster, whatever it ends up being, fills this void for them.