Marc

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

To be fair, it will allways be the "Worlds first 14 looping coaster" just as Colossus will still and will allways be "The worlds first 10 looping coaster.."

You say that but I think after the reaction to The Swarm we will see more gimicks and world firsts on rides just to give them somthing easy to market. I agree I can see it keeping the record for a long time, but then whilst its not a "Naff" recored, the fact merlin are beating their own record set 11 years ago, I dont think its a majorly interesting one for the UK from an enthusiast POV but that may just be me

I expect throughput will be much higher aslong as staff are on the ball

I do hope not! Hopefully this is just a one off!

The usual : Thorpe park Alton towers (if / when smiler opens) Different: PortAventura Drayton Manor Oakwood (I hope) Booked florida for next september

Its good that its doing well, tried to book on Saturday but it was sold out. Hopefully they add the remaining rooms to bring it up to the planned 120 or so to see them over till the full hotel is built.

Then they should read the signs and not ride it Anyway the smoke isnt gone so pointless discussion!

Thorpe park have released some details on some new Roller disco nights in 2013. From their site: Location: The Dome Time: 8pm – 11pm Early bird tickets - £5 Get your skates on, dress up and head to THORPE PARK’s themed Roller Disco nights from 24th - 28th May! The gates open at 6.30pm so grab a bite to eat before the party starts at 8pm, with live DJs, awesome give-aways and prizes for the best fancy dress! 24th May – School Disco - dig out your school uniform and dance to the best of the 90s and noughties 25th May – Club Floor Fillers - Saturday night with a twist with some of the best club bangers around 26th May - Back to the 80’s - grab your leg warmers and ra-ra skirt and attempt the running man in skates! 27th & 28th May – Retro Nights - all your favourites, soul tunes and club classics playing throughout the night

There are limited moderator positions, usually when one comes up we open up applications to allow members of the community the chance to apply and become a part of the team. There are no places at the moment but when there are we let everyone know

Slammer simply falls under the Colossus "area" which is why when theres nothing playing the Colossus theme will play.

The Vortex music is still there, its just down to the operator to press the button to start it. When the lost city "ambiance" was playing in the area instead of the noise, I guess there much more likely to press it than when musics playing instead!

Went on X today and it had more smoke than ever...

One thing I'm quite surprised about this ride is the height restriction, 1.1M seems quite high when you consider X is 1.0m. For a ride at the more family park, I was quite surprised about this.

To be fair Thorpe do the same when it's needed, thankfully The Swarm didnt suffer such teething problems Id be surprised if fastrack isn't offered atall this year.. Maybe a month or so but I guess we will see!

Screens look good At least if this rides like Saw it will be nice to look at! How long till it lists fastrack prices?

Actually thats a good point, this must have to be done first and will take a while for it to set properly too. I guess we will see!

I dont think Saw had one, so I guess its possible we will see it testing over the next few days!

7PM on off-peak days? The park is simply not busy enough to warrant this, they will never extend the hours to ones like this unless the park gets seriously more popular to justify it. Thorpe Park already have quite good open times compared to say Towers (which is actually busier) so I think we should count our selves lucky