Marc

And to the majority of its guests Thorpe is a very decent park... And are europa not owned by Mack anyway? So I'm sure they get a "good deal" on the majority of their rides and enable them to spend the rest on other things!

Any park could be like Europa park depending how much money is put into it to be fair!

Its no massive deal really, Saws done this since 2009, its just happened a couple of times when the parks open now so everyone can see!

I noticed yesterday on one of the cars the second row had some kind of lap bar, not sure if this is new or what. The loading is quite painful on this thing, guests in the cattlepen were actually cheering when they sent a car.. not good.

Yeah it's open now

They got the car back in the station I'm sure it will be open

Its not unusual to go to a visitor attraction and have to pay for parking, for example a football match parking will be atleast £8 unless you find some dodgy street to park down. Then of course across the states they charge for car parking (and much more for that matter). Whilst its a little annoyance, when you compare our parks (especially when you have a MAP), they are actually pretty good value for money. No they dont work, She probably had a staff pass printed on the back of a Standard card.

Since Merlin took over theyve been quite good at general upkeep IMO. Things like Tidal wave pool getting repainted every year never used to happen. Along with Park Wide Wifi and the new Queue Line systems I think the parks in a much better shape now than it has been before.

To be fair at thorpe half the park has been repainted, Stealths had parts of its track repainted, Inferno has had an awful lot of work to it, Stealth had its trains repainted all for this year alone. Along with them spending a substantial amount on installing the new Park Wide Link system last year, Park audio is probably at the best its been for a good few years also. Repainting an entire ride is a different kettle of fish mind.

To be fair it kind of made sense, with the Crash Pad being there the parks now a 24 hour operation so saying the parks now closed wasnt really needed. (The new one was kind of more to the point (Saying the rides are now closed) but no one really liked that lol

Atleast it fits in the the Thireteen theme...

End of day musics now gone. Around 10 mins after park close "The Noise" plays park wide, and then later on just in the dome / bridge for Crash Pad guests.

In their defence wasnt Saturday a Ministry night? Maybe they just got there abit early lol

They have (or have had) boxes of trainers there in the past. I guess the chances of 28 riders of flip flops are unlikely, but would be interesting to see!

No.... If your shoes are likley to fall off during the ride then you can take them off, if not you must leave them on. Difference being in an evacuation its easier to take up 1 or 2 pairs of shoes than it is taking up a train full of people who wanted to take them off.

If I was you id go to http://www.thorpepark.com/misc/contact-us.aspx and explain this to them, whilst they read these forums guest feedback is the best and most effective ways for issues to be looked into and hopefully improved upon!

I maybe wrong but I believe she was behind The Swarm, so I'm sure we are ok in that respect. Unfortunatly I doubt we will ever see anything to the scale of Nemesis in the UK again though.

From towerstimes Facebook page - Frist drop is being grinded down after problems during installation... Nice!

I dont think it would be worthwhile in the way that its run (I suspect it would still be run slower than it could be) but in terms of the rides reliability and engineers man hours spent on it it may well be worth it. We saw them replace Zodiac (All be it with a 2nd hand model) for simular reasons, it wouldnt surprise me to much if they did this with Samurai.

Well it sounds like it will go up this year! Any idea what altons is at? I expect it will stop when they are the same.

You say that, but with the problems samurai seems to have I do wonder how long it will be there

Usually a few months, for the Smiler I expect they are hoping a couple of weeks!

Because the park is busier?

The throughput is actually alot better now. I think it's actually much improved the ride and finishes off the improvements nicely!

To be fair when I rode it last week I heard someone come off and say it was the best ride they had been on I think as a family coaster it works well and its no longer a rather embarrassing ride for the park imo