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I went on Tuesday and had a fantastic day. I'm so biased towards Chessington though. I completely wear the rose tinted glasses. There's clearly issues across the park but sometimes, just sitting back and enjoying the day means more. + Four laps on Scorpion. Why did I love it so much?! I have no idea + Mexicana looks great with all the new little props in the area + I love Grufflalo so much. It stands tall with Wallace and Gromit and Hex as one of the best dark rides in the country + Dragons Fury now sits in the under-rated category. What a fantastic rollercoaster + Great to see the investment in the park. New rides, more announcements on rides, new music. + Croc Drop is fine but doesn't spin anymore. + Bought loads of merchandise because it was the original 1987 logo. Shameless + Free food for the Lorikeets now. - Blue Barnacle was almost as good Black Buccaneer. Surprised how high it went actually. - Very few boats on Tiger Rock. Park needs to invest in new boats now, it's going to be awful in Summer - Tomb Blaster was rough. I don't like the new story or the guns it uses. - Queue boards inaccuracy. Said 40 for Fury, was on the stairs, Said 40 at Vampire, was 5 minutes. - Lots of the Zoo area closed for refurbishment. Pirates Cove was very loud from construction. - Maybe its my Disney exposure, but how thin are the queues. Vampire can only be walked single file for examples. it's so tiny!

Terrible. Just terrible.

I'd have preferred a B&M hyper too. Frankly, whatever park they get added to, they are an incredible crowd pleaser and would have really hit a market not really catered for at Thorpe or indeed the UK. As marketable as Exodus will be, I personally think it's a shame that something a little more 'safe' wasn't chosen.

Who has time to stop and watch the people dancing on these stages? When you lose an hour to the Smiler or the Wicker Man, you aren't left with long to get on everything especially with the size of the place. There's not enough filler to spread people around. I felt the same as Madi Gras last year. There's just not enough hours open in the day to spend watching the stage. I just do not understand why the golf or the water park have the same opening times as the theme park. They've done that for years and its stupid. As I said in my trip report, there's no point visiting in 2023 with Nemesis closed. The park is just thread bare in attractions at the moment.

So I experienced Wicker Man's pre show for the first time since 2019. And gosh, I really do not like it. Okay, the actual premise is okay. Let's tell a short story about how this mysterious random group are sacrificing guests to a mysterious being and you'll be fed to the flames. And the presentation is nice (the reveal of the Wicker Man head gets a few oohs and ahhs). I think it's a bit unnecessary and could have been done in other ways, but that's not really the point I want to make. Operationally, the pre show is dire. 1. Let's crowd as many people into a small dark space as possible. Get them to squeeze into all the nooks and crannys. 2. Let's stop guests right below the screen so those at the front can't see anything. 3. Let's also stick a fence near the front that people can't see because it's too dark so they walk into it. 4. Let's have a small queue after the pre show that can fit less people than the pre show room. 5. Let's have an automatic door that tries to shut on people queueing after the pre show. 6. Let's play the pre show even when the door hasn't shut and people are still queueing to get batched. It's all just a bloody nightmare. Maybe I'm just being a bit nitpicky, but I really just do not like it.

Had a visit to Towers Tuesday and Wednesday. Some scattered thoughts: -Like Mark says, the Retrosquad's inclusion are effectively serving as replacements for Hex and Enterprise right now, defeating their original purpose. -The Tuesday was a bit busier than I expected, I guess from people who avoided the Bank Holiday Monday. Wednesday was very quiet. -Operationally, coasters were running well. I question the need on a day like Wednesday to run 3 trains on Thirteen, for example, when the team was effectively sending one empty all day. Surely that just ultimately leads to unnecessary wear and tear and more work for the engineering team in the long run? -I will expand on this in the Wicker Man topic, but I truly hate the Wicker Man pre show. -The park were running their 'Festival of Thrills' event still. They have live music / acts around the park, themed in some sense to the corresponding areas. It was fine, but even on the livelier Tuesday, didn't seem to garner much attention. Have to wonder if the money spent on this entertainment could be spent elsewhere more effectively. -All coasters had staff batching you into rows. This is obviously good when things are busy, but on the Wednesday especially, it felt unnecessary. When there's literally no queue, having a member of staff tell you what row to go in, and then batch others into the same row just feels a bit OTT. Maybe this is also a bit of me having gotten used to 'Covid rules' of not being sat next to strangers, but heyho. I also stayed onsite at the Splash Landings Hotel. First time staying there, was nice. However, the resort offerings are pretty...minimal. The park closed at 4pm on Tuesday. So does the water park. The mini golf shut at 5pm. So what's there to do at this resort? Eat dinner, or listen to a singer or two in the hotel bars. Just feels like they could do things so much better. Surely the indoor water park can stay open later, and attract more visitors? Surely they should be something to do at a big resort theme park after 5pm that isn't akin to something you could see at a local bar / fancier pub? All in, I had a nice couple of days with a decent ride count. But it still feels like there's a lot of steps that Towers need to do to get back to the top of their game