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I think you should go to Great Yarmouth instead of DLP Matt.

Forums have unfortunately died away a bit. The rise of social media is a big part of that. And then with Discords, Slacks, Twitches and whatever else (I feel like an old man talking about that as I have no clue on these things properly), it just adds. The idea of signing up for one specific website to discuss one specific topic is just foreign now. Thorpe-specific as well, it's no coincidence that here at TPM the forums dropped off during a time when investment in the park was at rock bottom. We went from coasters every 3 years, and new attractions yearly, to bouncy castles and mazes being the 'big new things'. And yeah, theme park enthusiasm has changed dramatically. 10 years ago, it focused a lot on "trying" to find out whatever you could, but deep down knowing you would just get the odd glimpse here and there. You might hear from / know someone who legitimately knows something, and you got a kick out of knowing it. But it was all a lot more 'wait and see'. Now, influencer culture more broadly means people have quite literally been able to turn their hobbies into a career of sorts. It's their job to find out the information, be that camping out for days on end, working alongside the parks or what have you. It feels a lot more stifled. This point really resonated with me @Inferno We're currently experiencing a double-edged sword of information. Getting 'behind the curtain' is so much easier now, be that through press nights, VIP BTSs, park open-ness, etc. But sometimes a bit of ignorance can be bliss too, or that more scattergun approach feels more natural. Seeing behind the curtain is very controlled, parks will naturally sweep the dirt under the rug before they do that (literally, in some cases). There was something much more exciting about just catching glimpses here and there in a more uncontrolled way. At the same time, just reading your Face it Alone review from Studio 13, it made me go "Damn, I wish we had a POV of it. I would love to remember how it looked during that middle third which is such a blur". Even if we know that a press night POV would be over-egged, it would still be good to see (okay, there wasn't a 'press night' in the way we're used to describing that for FN14, but you know what I mean). We're really in a golden age of being able to document and archive stuff, which I think is positive. Going back to a more TPM-focus now, I've literally spent more than half my life as a member on this forum. I've made life-long friendships here. At one point, I house-shared with a couple of people I met through TPM. Whilst that's stuff that could happen on Twitter / Discord / Whatever, it just felt much more natural here. I always feel like these days I could contribute more to the forums, but as Benin says, growing up means forums slowly subside in the priority list. With TPM, we keep the socials active. The forums and the website have suffered. The main website in particular; backend-wise, it's ancient, and those problems have crept into the look of the website (you can't actually read any news article at the moment, lol whoops). We're looking at fixing that over summer though... We intend to keep the forums running. We're probably long removed from the days of running meets. But we never ran paid-for meets/events (even when we got ERTs, BTSs, etc), and don't intend to go down that way. TPM is just a couple of people who like Thorpe and like sharing that enthusiasm with others, through both sharing updates and discussing things. Don't want to make it a career or anything. We've never gone down the Youtube/vlogging route, simply because we don't want to talk in front of a camera. We're not changing who we are, even if that means we're becoming a bit of relic to enthusiasm of yesteryear. Anyway, that was very tangential to this and rambling and hijacking of the topic at hand. The whole theme park enthusiasm has changed, some of it for the better, some for the worse. I guess the good thing is you can still make of it what you want. It's just a shame it's harder to keep it 'as it was', if you will, when the rest of it has changed around you.

You need a website with your own reviews on. I love reading all your trip reports.

You are fast becoming my favourite trip reporter. =)

Air- the Blade - That made me laugh my head off!

BEST. KIND OF TRIP REPORT. EVER.

Needs more Merlin put downs. 5/10

Yes a bit much blocking any replies regarding it but I think it all got a bit heated the other night so that was the best policy! Not entirely fair but then Thorpe are never going to divulge anything - just like asking AT when the Smiler will reopens gets the same stock response

Lesson learnt, don't have a Twitter Acount..

"The groundwork being so poor, it feels like you've visited the Alton Towers Waterpark" I died inside.

I'll give a serious review here then It's a small park with most of it being generic stuff you see at all the parks (small coasters like Paultons have, an array of well run flat rides and so on). It's a beautiful park to walk around. The bottom half of it doesn't even feel like a theme park (reminded me of Virginia Water Lake for anyone who's been). Raptor Attack is so simple with the generic coaster etc yet so immersive with the small groups entering the mine, physically low beams and really well done animatronics. Great little dark ride. Skate Karts are brill and would be great if you were in a group of friends to race around! The Ultimate is an amazing ride. Really is, yes it's rough, rattly and stuff but it feels like an old school coaster and the second half never lets up. Gutted we only did it the once! We were warned about it being on one train all day (think it has been most of the holidays as well actually as the red train is buggered). We queued 40 minutes for it just before 11, was probably 90 minutes most of the day. Although the track is long the ride only takes 7 minutes due to the stupidly slow lift hills. However you get 38 people on a train so it moves in nice bursts and the music they play is pretty awesome too! Wouldn't be a bad queue if it were on 2 trains.

Can't find them at Universal though, further proving why ABL is much much better. Plus only half of the train ride counts as the other half is in a whole different, separately ticketed theme park. And the queues, they'll be fun. At least with ABL the queues are no where near as bad as what Diagon Alley will be like! Importantly as well, Hedwig loved Thorpe! (Josh's photo ) ABL shows why Merlin is second only to Disney

Being a bad B&M is like being a bad Pixar film, it's still got some quality to it, but lacks certain aspects that made the older ones true classics... It's nowhere near the worst B&M I've ridden (Top Deck at Great America takes that prize), and it's probably my favourite coaster at Thorpe... I'd take run of the mill over all the apparent record breakers the park also has anyday...

You should have packed Storm Surge in your case and dumped it back there. Looks like a nice clean fresh park, if things like Splash Battle are going round empty is it not doing very well, or was it just a bit cold for it?

Eurgh, the drop n shop sign. Shows everything wrong about the place sometimes. Attention to detail. A completely white building? Next to a building blatantly designed to show old floodwater damage? Fantastic.

I know I rode both a fair few times, but with the passing of time they have merged into one in my head and it's all a bit hazy, which is a shame. I don't recall anything being particularly 'jumpy', it was more an overall spooky and atmospheric thing. The ballroom scene, the banquet scene and Sweeney Todd stick in my mind. Watching that video reminded me of that bell that slowly rang and for no reason at all terrified me! Had totally forgotten about that. But my clearest memory is of the ride loading station itself, which felt so grand and complete surrounded by skeletons up in the ceiling with the constant procession of cartridges circling around below before disappearing into the darkness. I remember loving it, I just wish I could remember exactly why!

@pluk has posted on TPM again?! We've missed you!!

I can give insight here. A few years ago (well, more than a few years now...8 years ago...I'm old), I had a job at Thorpe which was focusing primarily on 'looking after queue times', if you will. I had to update queue times that would appear on the boards, along with some other things. At the time when I joined, it was simply a glance and estimate. It was a two-way operation: the ride operator was required to contact the 'queue person' (ie: me) via phone once an hour (at a minimum), saying what they thought the queue time was. The queue person would also walk around the park, visually looking at all queues and updating the queue times. How is it physically done? All updates were done via a secure webpage. The queue person walked around with an iPad and could update directly all queue times from said webpage. Other people (park managers, etc) had access and ability to as well (will get onto this later). How would ride operators know what the queue time is? This was done by looking at the length of the queue, which for many rides, they could only see through via the ride's security cameras. The security cameras ride operators have access to focus primarily on ride areas (making sure no one is entering them), meaning coverage was mixed. Ride operators would sometimes not see much of the queue. Note: Queue lines are still covered by CCTV cameras, but ride operators won't have access to them all necessarily. The ride operator job is to run the ride safely. And that's a key point, the ride operator is there to run the ride safely, look after the ride hosts, etc. Updating queue times can go quite low on the list of priorities. Also, ride operators generally didn't have much knowledge of queue times. It would all be based on own experiences, either from when they might have visited the park and queued themselves, other operators, what guests say, etc. Generally they would get good ballpark figures, but when you hit busy periods, that experiential data is less helpful. How would the Queue Person know what the queue time is? Same idea. They would walk around, see the queue time, and update it. The advantage they had is they could see the whole queue, and have knowledge of what else is going on around the park. Eg: Colossus operator might not be aware that Saw closed down recently, meaning more people might flock there if they're nearby and want to ride a coaster. Queue Person would know this, and could keep a closer eye as a result. So it was all guesswork? Going onto my experience of working in this position as the queue man. I noted straight away there was very minimal written down information about how the physical length of a queue translates to a queue time. Of course, everyone was aware that this is a very muddled science: it depends on operations, number of trains, number of Fastrack / RAP users, delays, etc etc. Many of those things ride operators will not be aware of explicitly. Some of those things are out of a singular person's control. However, there is a way of turning it into a science. "Queueing theory" is a very rich area of maths, for example, which gives us many lessons we can learn. There's a lot of social science studies into how people will fill up a given space with strangers. There is access to lots of data about the rides; their uptime, their throughput/utilisation, so on and so on. You can combine all of those factors together to give a better estimate for queue times, one which relies on data, rather than just guesswork. Taking the Guessing out of the Guesswork I'll chuck in a bit of the numbers and theory here. Feel free to skip over. When thrown into a barriered queue, you'll find people spread out in similar ways. Except in extreme scenarios (very wide or very narrow queue lines), about 11 people will fill up 3m of space. This is to do with how groups of people will huddle together, groups will leave a space, etc. That data comes from a published research paper back in 2014/15 I believe and focused on UK audiences. Would be interesting to see if that's changed post-Covid, or is different in other countries. Anyways. If we know that, we can work out how many people a physical queue line holds. For example, if the Colossus queue line was 300m long, it would hold roughly 1100 people. And you can split that up; if the queue line from the airgates to the tunnel of Colossus' queue was 90m long, the number of people between the queue line and boarding is 330. (NB: Lengths made up). Now, we know what Colossus' theoretical throughput is. Internally, there is also a target throughput. But even better, parks track their throughputs for each ride. So you can see what they're actually achieving. If, over the course of last week, Colossus got a throughput of 550pph, and it had a full, 300m long queue line, you could see that it should be a 2 hour queue. Obviously that ignores Fastrack and RAP users. But again, you know the number of RAP and Fastrack users each day. You can take those into account, in some way. You don't know when they're going to use, but you can take it into account. For example, if there were 700 Colossus Fastrack tickets sold for an 8 hour park day, and 500 RAP users expected, you can account for that. If Colossus was getting a throughput of 550ph, over 8 hours it would get 4400 riders. But 1200/4400 of those riders came from Fastrack or RAP. So that means only 73% of riders are coming through the main queue, or rather the throughput of the main queue is 73% of 550, which is 400pph. Now if that 300m long queue of Colossus is filled with 1100 people, and you know 400pph are going through that queue, you can advertise the queue at 2h45min, rather than 4 hours. (Again, all numbers are fake here) On top of that, you can also take into account the chance of a shutdown. If Colossus has an uptime of 95%, then that means its closed 5% of the time. Of course, this is unlikely to spread evenly across the day, and usually occurs in a chunk, but if you add on that extra, you create a buffer which allows for a 'chance of shutdown', or just anything going wrong (slower operations, etc). I'll take this chance here to say: ride staff do not artificially inflate queue times to sell Fastrack tickets. I've no doubt it happens whereby a queue is advertised much longer than it is, and people have ended up buying Fastrack. But the queue time is not inflated to drive Fastrack sales. In saying that, I think it's better to advertise a queue time which might be 5-10 minutes longer since it will: 1) Create a buffer in case of issues and 2) Create happy guests - "Oh, the queue was advertised as 50 minutes, but we actually queued 40...result!" So, the way that I planned to calculate (note the word calculate, not estimate/guess) queue times would be: (N*(1+D))/(T*(1-(F/R))), where: N is number of people in queue D is percentage downtime T is throughput F is number of Fastrack and RAP users expected R is total ridership expected for the day Those 4 last variables would be based off numbers from how the ride has run over a period of several days / weeks prior, giving it a good outlook at how it should operate in practice. It wouldn't be perfect, but it does the job. And of course, number of people in a queue is again estimated, but can be done reasonably well. Of course, this isn't something that can be done in your head or anything, but can all be programmed to be done automatically, so long as you say the number of people in the queue roughly. When I trialled this system, it worked well, with overall accuracy of queue times improved, and less complaints about inaccurate queue times, which also saw a reduction in complaints about queue times altogether for a short period of time. (Those two might not be linked, but I'm gonna claim it's because of me). I'm a Celebrity was one which hugely benefitted, in part down to the huge buy in from the Entertainments Team running it. The issue here is, simply put, getting buy in from others. I required a bit more help setting up the automation and implementing it on a broader scale. Some people are opposed to change, some people are opposed to change where they don't understand every detail, some are just happy with the way things are. Some of Matt's analysis here is exactly the sort of thing which would be excellent for the operations teams at Merlin theme parks to see, so they can have more detailed data to help them determine how they're performing and the reflection on advertised queue times. But from my past experience within the parks, you would find yourself encountering people who: -Don't understand the analysis behind this, so immediately disregard it, -Would love the bottom line, but wouldn't use the data to help improve it, -Disregard everything and say everything is fine, -Agree with everything, but don't have the time/resources to action upon anything that would help. Obviously, with shifts in Merlin, this may be different now. But it's such a difficult thing to achieve. There are (naturally) some excellent data-driven minds who work in Merlin, who would love this stuff too, but they are used in other roles, usually outside of day-to-day operation / outside of attractions entirely. So Merlin know the importance of these things, it just hasn't trickled down to operational success. My time within the queue person job ended back in 2017, and this isn't the place to discuss that. But ultimately, the system devolved into operators phoning a central figure in an office to update queue times, with managers also chipping it. Likely with zero consistency. I don't know how things are this season admittedly, and I've been impressed with the accuracy being better than it has in the past. So maybe they've got something a bit better now. FAQ Do all parks do this guesswork? Within Merlin, I believe so yes. I think Towers have staff at rides update queue times, and Chessington was similar. Why did Thorpe need a central figure to update queue times? Couldn't it just be done by each ride through the website? The issue with the website and multiple users would be the constant need to refresh. If, say, there were 2 people on the website, and Person A updates Colossus' queue time from 10 minutes to 50 minutes, the site according to Person B would still have Colossus' queue time listed as 10 minutes, even though it was displaying on boards as 50. Then, if Person B updated Swarm's queue time from 30min to 20min, without refreshing the website, they would also update Colossus' queue time back to 10 minutes. So yeah, clunky system. I don't know if they've updated this. *This park* advertises queue times super accurately, how do they do it? I don't know. I would love to know how parks like Efteling, Europa, etc do it. Why can't parks just count the number of people going into a queue and going on a ride, using barriers, infrared, whatever? These work nicely in theory, but are open to abuse (people spinning barriers) and prone to error. The Alton Towers app had some Bluetooth tracking tech a while back, where it could see where guests were spending more of their time, etc. I don't know if they still do that, but I believe attractions.io (the company that does the Merlin apps and more) have loads of cool backend features. With Saw though, they had a very cool (rather complicated) piece of software they trialled. The name escapes me, but I'm sure I'll find it sooner or later. Basically though, it would track people in all queue lines, to see how long people were spending in the queues, and use it to give accurate queue times. It would update regularly, and give to the minute readings (eg, 47 minutes). This software was just installed to work with existing CCTV cameras. And, it worked well. Very well. Queue times were accurate. The system wasn't prone to error or breaking. It just worked, so you could leave it. In saying that, there were operational issues: -If you ever needed to over-ride it, you had to reset all the cameras to get the system back -It would never display a queue time lower than 10 minutes -It didn't work when the queue became external (ie out of the main queue) -People were weirded out by the exact numbers The middle two are the bigger issues here, but again, not huge in the grand scheme of things. There were bigger, more damning issues: -It was expensive. I don't know how much, but given every other queue time system is free pretty much, spending money on one is an issue. Spending lots of money is a bigger issue. -It required static CCTV cameras on the entire queue line. Whilst the entirety of Thorpe Park is covered by CCTV, many of these have the ability to change angle, which can help in a security situation. If you needed static CCTV cameras for the queue lines, it meant having to buy, set up, operate and maintain more new ones. And for some queue lines, this would require an awful lot (Colossus would be nightmare, with its sprawling queue line, going through tunnels, foliage, etc). Ultimately, whilst it gave accurate queue times, the initial outlay cost, and ongoing maintenance costs, weren't justifiable. Do accurate queue time really matter? Just to round off on this very long, tangential post (sorry Matt!). How important are accurate queue times? At the low level, yes, it's handy to know if a queue is 5 minutes or 10-15 minutes. At an extreme level, it's good to know if a queue is 1 hour or 2 hours. But beyond that? Does it matter if a queue is 30 minutes or 35 minutes? 110 minutes or 130 minutes? I think sometimes there's an overpush on queue time accuracy: if a queue is advertised at 110mins and I queue 130mins, I've still queued about 2 hours for a ride, with added annoyance that I've queued an extra 20 minutes than I was told. It might be better if there's ranges that are advertised (0-10, 10-20, etc, 90-120, 120-150, etc). It buckles you up for the length of the queue, tempers expectations, but gives leeway for a park too. You can have the most accurate queue times in the world, but if they're long and / or slow, that's all people will care or remember about.

I do miss the old days however I'm very appreciative of the accessibility of theme park enthusiasm now. When I first got into rides it was a very white male dominated environment. Whilst that is certainly still true to some extent, I'm glad that meets through Towers Times for example seem much more diverse then before. I miss the discussion on forums though and twitter is certainly no replacement as opinions there are very much ingrained. The amount of people that tell me Zadra is top tier RMC... it just baffles the mind

I think with the expansion of Facebook and then Discord the groups on forums just migrated to those places. Being able to make posting footage of things a job also has made a massive contribution to the way the media of it all is consumed and distributed. How many construction updates were just someone taking photos on a random visit rather than being camped out for days on end or a 30 minute video with an asinine presenter and a click bait title? Also many who used them in the "heyday" have grown up, gotten jobs and lives that take precedent over forum times. I will say though some things do irk me about modern enthusiasts. Which isn't solely a theme park based issue. The almost cult-like following of certain "influencers" where their word is law, the way in which everything must be amazing or terrible with zero nuance to things. On the other hand, I do think some places had some very unwelcoming "veterans" and often internal politics/cliques/issues that did not help matters for newcomers or regulars. As mentioned though, this is not an issue solely in this hobby. There's a lot of forums I used to frequent which are very dead, even with there being constant new stuff happening. Discord is king now I feel of the old forum life.

Still have a pair of DR Pepper pants from this event. These were the days.

Thank you everyone who’s responded! Some really interesting points. I agree with the point raised a couple of times here that visiting Thorpe specifically + half term was only ever going to exasperate it, and it’s true that it is Thorpe where I get the feeling of being “too old” the most. It’s not so much an issue elsewhere, especially abroad weirdly. Josh, that is utterly terrifying that a 15 year old joining the forum today would be younger than Stealth 😳 I too remember being on forums and at the park around that age watching the construction of Stealth. It doesn’t feel that long ago does it! I’ll be honest I still see Saw as “pretty new” 😂 👨🏼‍🦳 I REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS ALL FIELDS 😂 To be honest I agree with you all - I too don’t think you can be too old to visit and enjoy theme parks, and I have no plans to stop! This forum alone is evidence that there’s a keen following among a slightly older audience. Just interested to hear if others ever felt the same occasionally.

I'd be curious if this is a general feeling you have, or a feeling which is highlighted when you're specifically at Thorpe? I know sometimes I feel old whenever I visit Thorpe, sometimes too old. Another thing that makes me feel old is that I joined theme park forums when I was 15. If a 15 year old was to join the forums today, there's a good chance they would have been born after Stealth opened. I remember watching it being built, as well as The Flying Fish and Model World prior pretty vividly. Jeez. I know you say when you visit a park these days, there's a couple of moments where you feel like the odd one out. But that feeling was expanded at Fright Nights (during half term too I think?). It certainly makes sense that the feeling would be highlighted more in that case. It could also be one of those psychology things. Are you feeling like the odd one out because you think you are, and so are looking for evidence to support that? And so, in turn, you notice all the younger groups, and don't see many people who look a similar age to yourself / are older? For anyone reading who doesn't quite get what I mean: you don't see many yellow cars on the road these days, do you? But now that thought is in your head, you will be more acutely aware of yellow cars and notice them a lot more, and realise that - whilst they're not common - there's certainly a fair few about! Maybe during your Towers visit have in the back of your mind to exclusively look for groups of adults in their later 20s/early 30s...maybe you'll be surprised with how many you see? To stop with the psycho-analysing and answer the more direct question: no, you can't be too old for theme parks. I think there's certain social norms which can be at play (for example, going to a children's park alone can seem suspect in some people's minds...but that's completely different). Theme parks (and moreso rides) are a unique blend of escapism, thrill, story telling and holiday all in one, along with other options - such as the idea of 'collecting' ridden coasters/visiting/number of rides - if you so choose. Few hobbies offer such a blend, along with additional versatility and flexibility. I don't think you can be too old for any of the things theme parks offer. It's just whether you feel like the combination it offers is what you want, or if you want a narrower focus. One thing I've noticed over the years of being on forums is some people who were (and still are!) really interested in theme parks have similar other hobbies too. A couple of examples... -Live theatre and similar (escapism and story telling) -Skydiving / mountain biking / more "extreme" sports (thrill) -Travelling (self explanatory) Maybe that's another reason why there's seemingly less people who visit parks? As people get older, they get easier access to / realise other hobbies which share similar traits to visiting theme parks, and focus their attention there a bit more? That diversification then means they spend less time at parks, and then the concentration/percentage of younger people visiting parks decreases. Another thing which I note as well, is that specific park enthusiasm is much more concentrated with younger people. Unsurprisingly, there's very few 15 year olds which are interested in theme parks more broadly: their focus is on one or two parks, and usually their local park. But after say 15 years of continual visits, that local park won't have the same appeal or interest, and are likely more interested to parks more broadly. Again meaning they spend less time visiting their local park, and instead visiting a broader range of parks (again meaning that the average age of certain park visitors feels very young, and the late 20 / early 30 somethings all feel very old whenever they visit). I feel like I've waffled an awful lot and not said much. But in short: -You're not too old for theme parks (and if you are, I only have a maximum of 3 years left before I am...) -Thorpe Park is probably the park in the UK which would highlight this feeling the most -I think people's interests in theme parks spreads in one way or another as they get older, which can mean there's a skewed view as to how old park visitors are

As Matt said, we are never too old, but our feelings for things change. I am more than twice your age and love rides and roller coasters but I have often commented on how different people are, both emotionally and physically. Our appreciation and need for things change. Some would never consider using the rides, me? I have never been interested in basketball. If we were all the same, there would be one heck of a queue for the ride we love. The demographics of society affects the type of people attending parks, I.e. The majority of youngsters are not in the type of employment from which there would be difficulty in having time off. Again for me in the past I worked shifts, so that helped. Don't let your age control whether you ride or not, let your feelings decide that, and whatever you choose, enjoy it.

In my defence I'm not just a wimp! 😃 Goudrix has been retracked since I visited and supposedly is immeasurably better than it was before. Imagine your second ride magnified. I'm not going to forgive that contraption its sins. Sad to hear you didn't like Zeus, I thought it was incredible. Hopefully it's just you having bad taste and not that they've let it deteriorate!

Very interesting read up as always Whilst Kings Island to me is not a park to travel all the way to America for on its own, it is most certainly worth a visit when combined with days at Cedar Point. I actually enjoyed the atmosphere at the park when I visited but certainly not an atmosphere on the level of Cedar Point. Mystic Timbers to me was by far the star of the show at this park. Whilst front row on it isn’t really that great, the back row felt utterly frantic and the ride at night is sentastional and as such made it my number 1 wooden coaster (even ahead of Wodan and Balder) I do think Diamondback is probably one of my least favourite B&M Hypers but I was quite lucky to have had some solid rides on it airtime wise. I do agree that that trim is utterly stupid though. Banshee...where do I even start!!?? Can somebody please tell B&M that NOBODY LIKES THOSE DAMN VESTS!! Honestly was it not for those vests, it could have been up there with Raptor and Montu as one of my favourite inverts. Thanks to those vests it’s possibly my least favourite and that includes Nemesis Inferno!! I do think the park desperately needs a true WORLD CLASS/ELITE level stand out coaster to go with the current line up. Hopefully the 2020 Giga coaster will give them that.

I absolutely agree with you that the way Cedar Point takes care of its heritage rides is to be respected and admired. It’s something that often goes under the radar with this magnificent park given the focus on all the newer coasters they have.

Will hopefully be doing Kings Island’s ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ when I’m hopefully out there again in a few weeks. I’ll let you all know what it’s like. From current experience, Port Aventura is the only park I’ve gone full out on ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ only because of their diabolical batching ratios and that their clientele can’t seem to grasp the basic concept of queuing.

Any idea when a Part 2 might make an appearance? Always love your blogs to provide some inspiration!

Very much agree, Phantasialand is one of the best parks out there and somewhere I strongly enjoy visiting. My first visit did wonders for me, especially Taron, Chiapas and Mamba. I'm also another who actually somewhat likes the Ghost Train Omnimover, even though it's dated and will probably be the next thing ripped out. I feel a major modern dark ride is the next thing they should build. Hollywood though can go though and make way for something bigger, better and more modern.

Phantasialand isn't the best theme park in the world as there are some areas that need serious work. However, it's well on its way to being that park. It just needs to jettison some of the weaker attractions such as the Chinese omnimover and the Hollywood tour ride. As it stands though, rides like Taron, Black Mamba and Chiapas are simply outstanding, the work they've done on River Quest has massively improved the area. Europa Park and Phantasialand though are some of Europes best. Lucky Germans

I'll be doing all of those (except Screamland) plus Xtreme Scream Park and Legoland fireworks. It will be a first time for all of them for me (except Fright Nights. I think I'm most excited for Scarefest personally.

The lack of write up for Chiapas disappoints me. I hate Log flumes but that ride does things to me that no other water ride does.

Great report! It was nice to see such an in depth report of a park I knew nothing about.

It's good having a twitter account so you can tweet Thorpe asking which rides are closed and open they reply fast, but I agree I don't think I'd rather shouting it around on twitter

What is it with Alton and incomplete tunnel based experiences?!

I would have loved be to have seen a smile assistant jump out of that door! Shame it doesn't happen now

There's going to be a HYPEVENGERS ASSEMBLE! right? Then HYPEVENGERS AGE OF UNOROGINAL after?? If so I'll buy the boxsets

It's certainly strange that a park of such scale has received little investment in new rides (especially its first 10 years of operation) yet it is still rated highly amongst enthusiast. Just shows, high quality rides and experiences in the first place will lead to success. I think Harry Potter world has made Universal realise Islands full potential especially with the talks of a Jurassic Park extension for 2015 ish (when JP4 is released) and other ideas that I'm sure are always in the works. What is staggering (in my eyes) is how by opening Harry Potter world (which is actually just one new awesome ride and a re-theme) Islands equalled Studios attendance yet they're regularly investing. Either way I think the future for Islands is brighter (even though it was never dull) and if they can utilise an evening show on the lake or something then it will feel complete.

Of course there was going to be a shed, it is a Merlin creation I don't know if this an American thing or just how Legoland Florida chose to set them but both Wave Surfer and the Rocky Express whatever it's called seemed slower than they are over here. The Dragon; dark ride part is much better as a whole probably because it doesn't look/feel warn out. The tunnel out to the coaster is also a bit clearer with a story of the wizard. Boating school was smaller, Driving School looked bigger. The laser raiders had a few more effects interacting with the car and the audio is clearer but it is essentially a clone. Project X is run much better than Jungle Coaster ever was, even before the lids. They have 3 space towers in Florida which I bet helps the queues and they don't have the stupid seat belts that the operator had to unlock with a key. Their miniland is much better in my opinion but maybe that's because it looks new, has working effects and is of different areas to our one. I preferred it to the one in England maybe because there was more for the older generations to do? Plus the gardens which is a nice place to go from the manic Park. If you have a spare day out their and some money I'd recommend it, especially if you can get the 50% off with a MAP (didn't have any trouble doing this they even gave my ticket half price without my pass).

Love Kumba and SheiKra, Tolerated Montu, thought Cheetan Hunt was a mismatch and instead of excelling at being either a thrill ride or a family ride, ended up being in that awkward middle ground of being neither. Shame because I love the look of it, t's truly one of Intamins best looking rides. It just doesn't ride well enough.

I can round up my trip for you if you like. Shambhala - Awesome, as good as I remember and a proper crowd pleaser. Dragon Khan - Better then I remember. NOT samey, NOT too American. Just pure class from start to finish. Furius Baco - Abomination in ride form. Not a single enjoyable moment for me in any row, any seat. Just atrocious.

My favourite part of that growth is the jump in attendance at Towers thanks to Nemesis

Thanks for posting these pics Josh! I vaguely remember riding Wicked Witches Haunt when I was a child with my Dad (mum & little sis waited outside!) and being absolutely petrified the whole way round! I must have been about 6 or 7 I think. The thing I remember most about it was the suspense in the station. If you look here you can see how it is today - even where the buildings suddenly get "chopped off" where the old building used to be.

You missed the only other song that they played

We are very different!!! I'm not going to pretend to understand much of that, but isn't it great when you can incorporate your passions into work/studies? Secret to a happy life me thinks.

Now, I'm going to go the other way on this. I don't think there is any lack of creativity in the world, and not any less than there used to be. But what there is is too much stuff, too much of everything and too many people wanting to make money off of this everything. Everyone wants more an more and nearly everything that is produced is based solely on its commercial success. That of course breeds copying and repetition. Take television. For years and years there were a few channels, all the creative television minds in the country pushing all their efforts at a few channels. Then Sky happened and there were still a few good channels and loads of cheap crap spread over hundreds of channels. The pool of talent remains the same, as the viewers per channel spread out causing each drop and so do the revenues. There's hundreds of channels, the same amount of quality and a lot of rubbish padding it out, your chances of hitting crap is much greater so the perception of quality falls. Money men control nearly everything, and the future is harder to predict than the past. What do you do then? Repeat what has been popular before, it's the safest bet for making a buck. But the talent and creativity is still out there, it's just having a harder time getting their ideas to you. How do you fix it? You can't, without everyone everywhere rejecting all the substandard easy offerings thrown at us. But people fall for for the promotion promises, the uncreative is successful and the ever decreasing spiral of mainstream quality continues. So as an individual you have to wade through it all and find the quality and originality you crave. It is out there so find it, support it and make it a success.

I think my problem with Saw is down to the idea that it's trying to be an immersive experience and fails. It's nothing to do with the inside piece of the ride, to give Saw full credit, the use of darkness and the small drop is one of Thorpe Parks best roller coaster experiences. It never gets tiresome and always takes me by surprise. It's as soon as the ride goes outside that nothing works for me. The first drop is blase, the inversion boring, the turn around bordering on tiresome, the air time hill has a rattle to it that its brothers don't share, the turn around into the mcbr is randomly jolty. The final inversion is very forceful but it doesn't save the ride for me in the slightest. I think we compare to other euro fighters because the concept has legs, far more then many other types of coasters. You can have them utterly themeless like Speed and Rage or they can be epically themed stories like Fluch or Mystery Mine. The fact that Saw is not amazingly themed or badly themed put its between the others and means comparisons come quickly.