Mer

Just seen this on Facebook Also, I see our old friend RideAddict/Monkey Nut is still hating on forums...this time it's SouthParks

I've only been once (2013) and am bloody determined to go this year, hopefully on preview night as it will be cheaper and quieter! My question is...do they still have a maze that is out in a cornfield? I know they change the mazes every so often but I'm hoping they still use it! That was flippin' creepy wondering around a pitch black, silent field Oh and to stay on topic...Thorpe, woo, etc.

Thanks again to Ryan and Paige for this great meet I was lucky to be able to go in the end, and I'm glad I could as it was a much-needed break for me I've done a l'il trip report: https://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/848-towers-meet-2017/ We need the photos and videos of Battle Galleons on here

As always, it was good to see everyone again and be back at Towers I can't believe the gorgeous weather we had for the whole weekend - I've never had that oop north before! Saturday This was a very chilled day, owing to the hot hot weather Started off with Smiler and Oblivion, before going on Hex Was really impressed by the TLC! The audio in the cinema is nice and loud, perhaps *slightly* too loud BUT it's better than being too quiet, especially when you have people talking over it (I always watch it properly every time). I've said this before, but I still always think of that electricBill YouTube video and expect it to say "Fifteenth Earl of S***e" The Octagon looks sooo good now I loved the dry ice rolling down the steps on the right-hand side! Also it was fun going on someone who's never been on before (Paige)! We then had a lovely walk around the Towers, going up on the roof too. It never fails to amaze me how nice the Towers are and the beautiful views you get from the top After lunch we did Nemesis which, of course, was as great as ever and looks gooooood. We then chilled with some drinks at the Coffee Lounge, caught some sun...then headed to Duel to find it was broken (No staff member out the front but the doors were locked shut). So some of us finished off with Th13teen, where the indoor section was nice and cool! Played some Extraordinary Golf afterwards which was good fun as always, and it's nice to see it's been spruced up. Sunday Another beautiful day! Some of the fountains aren't quite lined up...snotty-nosed frog alert! Started off with some ERT on Nemesis (twice in a row, obvs) then got GalacticAir out the way while the area was still quiet Me, Mike, Peaj and Matt happened to get front row, which was just as well as we rode it without VR! I think that's the most I've enjoyed it as "Air" Next up was Duel I was pleased to see that the lighting changes last year (which made several scenes too bright) have been put back to how they were, or at least improved as it seems nice and dark again It was good to bump into Stretchy afterwards, who joined us on a refreshing ride on Congo. There was quite a delay whilst queueing due to someone jumping in the water (apparently they weren't on the ride but climbed over a fence) Despite the lack of waterfalls, it's still just as "rapidy" so we still got pretty wet, and Ryan got the brunt of the "KFC Mega Wave" in our boat After RMT and lunch we went to Intamin Forest, which was all broken Unfortunately Rita reopened so we jumped on that while the queue was short. Rough as hell but at least it didn't destroy my back this time! Then we did Hex again, went inside the chapel afterwards...even came across some Sanctuary theming Spinball was down so we did X Sector...everything looks so nice with sunshine and blue skies! Then it was time...for Battle Galleons! How could we not in such a heatwave?! In the end, it was just me, Peaj and Matt (Mike chickened out ), with some others at the guns around the ride. Was nice to have a cool down...but then, as we were near the station, the ride came to a stop. Right in front of some water guns Turns out someone in the station had got their hair caught in the handle (ouch!) so first aid had to come and help. I'm not sure how long we were actually stuck there, possibly about 15-20 minutes? Peaj and Matt were in the firing line so got drenched - I was actually disappointed out that nobody aimed at me (twas absolutely boiling being sat in direct sunlight) Or maybe the gun just couldn't turn round far enough Was the most entertaining ride I've had on Battle Galleons though! And that was the end of the meet! Some of us chilled in the Splash Landings bar while waiting for the inevitable queue of cars to die down. Newly painted theming is looking good! It was also Marc's birthday on the Saturday, so we surprised him with a card and cake! So I'll end this report with a photo of said surprised Marc: Thanks for reading! (Oh and if anyone's wondering if I will ever write that Europa trip report from the meet last year...I'm getting there )

Yes

From the Wikipedia article on Tomb Blaster, which mentions why they changed the lasers (assuming it's correct): Love that last paragraph I didn't follow any updates on it during the refurb so didn't realise H&S was worked on too. Good to know that the "4 minute rule" shouldn't apply anymore if there's a fire Having ridden this atrocity again yesterday, I've realised that different targets score different points, depending on what colour they turn when you hit them. The ones that turn a white/yellow colour score 100, either the blue or red score 50, and the other scores either 50 or 25 (can't remember exactly). So this is why it's so hard to get a decent score now; only some of the targets that 100, you don't know which targets score 100 UNTIL you hit them, plus a lot of them need to be fired at several times before they register. Some of them yesterday did seem to be more responsive though, which was good. But I shouldn't be having to say that - it should be all or at least the majority that work with the first shot, not half of them! Another thing I don't get is that they still have the old targets (with the single green dot) as well as the new ones - do the old ones still work or...? They need to get the queue line TVs back and make a new video which explains how it works with the different colours/number of points. Or at least put signs up/add it to the ride board at the front. I've also heard families/children on the ride, or coming off the ride, saying they were confused, or that the older targets were easier... The effects were out of sync and the rattling dog cage thing doesn't go off until the train has passed! You don't stop in the snake pit for that long at all. The mummies at the end were completely broken, not moving or anything. The boulder was, of course, broken too. The Anubis scene was stupidly quiet, I'm not even sure any audio was playing The UV is terrible and ruins the whole feel of the attraction. It doesn't even make sense considering you're supposed to be in a, erm, tomb. The audio around the ride in general was hit and miss, with it suddenly cutting in at one point between scenes. Reminds me of how they messed up the Bubbleworks audio when it changed to Imperial Leather The station audio is a bit of a mess too. It has one TV which still shows the old video, but it's not that loud and the audio from it cuts out when the station announcements play. However I'm glad they have the old announcements back and no longer use that awful "It's dangerous out there!" thing. And am I the only one who's noticed the lack of smell effects since this "refurb?" Ugh, I just find the whole ride frustrating and no fun at all now!

Yeah hopefully the waterfalls will come back! It's probably because some people tend to move out their seat to avoid getting wet...which begs the question why they've even gone on a water ride in the first place Actually, that's just reminded me of a Facebook group/page a few years ago about people who go on water rides and are surprised when the seats are wet

Haha! His eyes are like in a cartoon where their eyeballs pop out of their head And yeah I never knew where the Nemesis one was for a while - it's so fast though, it's not surprising!

Adults who post online using text talk, e.g. "u" and "ur". It's even worse when it's on a forum amongst all the other, maturely typed posts! Just...why?!

Me and Stuntman were there from about 1pm today, and I'm glad to say that things were running really well (aka, how they should be running their park) The queue times were really good for a Saturday (and on a bank holiday weekend) - all rides were around 60 mins or less throughout the day, with the odd 70-90, but not for long. In fact there were quite a few times during the day that some of the main coasters had between 20-30 minute queues - enough time to get a cheeky front row ride on Stealth All the 2 train coasters had both trains running, don't know how many Saw and X had but their queues were similar to the other coasters give or take, so presumably full capacity. The queue times were being updated very regularly which was great. Reliability was very good, Swarm and Stealth had a few shutdowns but they didn't last too long (and it was those which temporarily pushed the other coaster queues up). Only saw DBGT close once And my bae is back on two swings DBGT is definitely a vast improvement on last year, and now feels like it's what it was originally meant to be. And we finally got to do I'm A Celeb Waited until it had no queue right before closing time and witnessed this shocking sight as a result: We didn't have a photo opportunity though - have they got rid of it this year, or was it maybe because it was the end of the day?

Popped onto the pier for a bit when down in Brighton yesterday (didn't ride anything though)! Booster is still down, took some pics and a video of engineers doing stuff, for all you geeks No idea if it normally has this much maintenance so it could be nothing (unless it's rusting away like the Super Booster ) Popped the video on YouTube as unlisted because videos uploaded straight into forum posts don't seem to play if you're on a smartphone. Turbo was repainted in 2013 to a tacky yellow and blue colour. It looks and sounds as rough and awful as ever. Good old Pinfari Also they have a new soft play area in the dome part (which actually looks quite fun and made me wish I was a kid again ) and a new spinny kiddie drop tower thing called i220. (Can't help but feel that Timber Tug Boat would've fitted in better on this pier than Thorpe...) Probably would've tried out Air Race if I wasn't stuffed after a lovely three-course Italian Looks like you get some awesome hang time! Oh and the pier is technically now Brighton Palace Pier, as was revealed last July http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14592161.Victory_as_new_owners_agree_to_put_back____Palace____to_pier_name/ Quite a detailed article which mentions the new owner and changes they want to make to the pier whilst keeping the tradition and heritage! I remember it being called Palace Pier, I think it's nice they're referring back to its original name Looks like the sign should be changing this year!

Is the usual game of Empire happening this year?

I think it's normal for them to advertise for jobs throughout the season, and other parks do it too. They'll mainly be recruiting for the summer holidays I imagine, then again for Fright Nights etc

The audio link doesn't work (it goes to a page with a play button but it doesn't work) Which is a shame as the sudden rant from Peaj at the end is hilarious

Yep, me and Stuntman will be attending everything (we did confirm a while ago )

It might've been that they had to stop the ride because of the guest action, and required engineers to restart it Hopefully that's the case!

I've collected quite a few over the past year or so! Also managed to get hold of some random Dungeons pins from Berlin, Edinburgh and Hamburg, despite never visiting... Some of them in the photos are just plain ol' badges but meh And yes, the DLP ones are still in their packaging - I just haven't got round to putting them on my lanyard yet! Oh and the Merlin one saying "You're A Star" was from my call centre days The new Towers ones for this year look nice - that Nemesis one last year was a bit crappy tbh I need to get some Chessie ones too, didn't get round to buying them last year Anyone know if they're the same this year (some of them last year were glow in the dark!)/if they've added any more?

Ermmm well...put it this way. Saturday was the first time I've made a complaint at guest services Inferno started on 1 train, then when it became apparent that there were a LOT more guests than they budgeted for, they added the second. Swarm was also on 2. So that was the good side of things... No idea about Saw but it had a 75 minute queue at one point (and I think it stayed pretty long for most of the day)...Colossus was on one train which meant even fast track had a 45 minute queue...Stealth was on one BUT we weren't expecting it to be open so maybe I'll let them off, even if it was one of the longest, worst queueing experiences of my life But that was mainly due to me feeling sick! X was weird - we went on it at about 10:30, no queue outside and pretty empty inside, but there was quite a gap between each train...when we got back outside, there was an external queue and they announced that it was 60 minutes! Oh and Rush still only had one swing working I know people will harp on about how the park was busier than they anticipated, but that is no excuse. Why wasn't the second train ready on Colossus? Why was X not running at full capacity? As for Stealth, I'm really hoping they only opened on one train so they could hurry up and get it open, and not because the other one isn't ready!

It does look ridiculous, even more so in person! It's quite sad to see what was a nice little area of the park being destroyed. Sure, people will argue that things don't last forever and theme parks have to change sometimes...but this is just a mess.

They do look nice, but...Creams ftw

I get what you mean about Silver Star (although I think it's better than Big One!) - my first ride was back row, so I was expecting a fast ride with lots of airtime, and anticipated the first drop... but I was a bit let down. However riding it front row the next time made a big difference for me, being blasted by the wind rushing in my face, and actually getting some decent airtime (albeit towards the end) And yeah, it does feel a bit odd with the lack of theming compared to other rides. As for Cassandra - I had no idea what on earth was going on I think my thoughts were along the lines of "I have no idea who Cassandra is, but I'm guessing she's pretty angry!" I really should get round to my trip report from May...I never did one for my first time at DLP as I didn't know where to start and was overwhelmed by it, but I'm determined to actually write a Europa one. I did make a start on it too, so I'm getting there!