Sidders

I worry for Chessington.

This is scarily accurate to how I feel about my life right now. Melancholy, poignant, and bittersweet. /feels, man.

Has a beard and a tash...

Has the same phone as me.

Not sure when this change was implemented, but you could always ask Thorpe in the "Questions to THORPE PARK" topic and see how they respond?

It does! A big thanks you to our member chriss, who has helped redesign the look and feel of the forums with a spanking new skin. The orange is BACK, people! Still a few tweaks and minor adjustments to be made, so hold tight while we refine the look, which I think you'll all agree is much more succinct with the TPM site than the old skin.

I was having this conversation with our resident trolley dolly Liam_T, Mer and Valentez the other week, Jack, and it's a highly valid point. SW7 genuinely clashes with The X Sector. The area, to me, is a very clinical, stark testing laboratory facility where people aren't meant to get an idea of the horrors that lie within the walls because of how eerily plain it looks. SW7's building looks like SAW's warehouse, and will have a hugely complex tangle of Gerstlauer track entwined around it, with enormously detailed set-pieces and a very compact layout. It contradicts The X Sector in every way. Even Oblivion is plain and simple, like the area it's in. It's got no fancy details - it's all purpose-built and uniform, lending that distinct air of aloofness and intrigue to it because it's so stark - an area of concrete vastness and a ride with just a drop into a big black hole. SW7 on the other hand strikes me as quite a bit too much crammed (it's MUCH closer to Oblivion than I thought) into one. It'll feel at odds with The X Sector because the ride station looks like a derelict laboratory facility left to disuse. It doesn't reek of the staunchly professional nothingness that Oblivion has. Oblivion is a secret well-kept; SW7 is an advert for the overtly disturbing. It's got random satellites cast around, cracked and filthy walls, smashed windows, and all those unusual torture device archways things in the queueline. It's hardly trying to hide itself from the prying eyes of conspiracy theorists, is it? This is something I feel Oblivion does extremely well, but something someone forget to think about when designing SW7's theme. In many ways, Oblivion's "Something to hide" attitude to themeing is more much effective than just leaving things to fall into disarray... Furthermore, SW7 is also going to take a lot from the ride of Oblivion. The whole area is miles from the rest of the park, and is a very isolated experience - I imagine it's quite silent too, hanging over that hole (save the screamers) and seeing nothing but maybe Enterprise, Submission and the hole. SW7 will detract a lot from the exposition of Oblivion because instead of it being you, the train and the hole, there's numerous Gerstlauer trains whizzing around a track right in front of you, taking all focus off the hole. The screaming of SW7 will also ruin the feeling of isolation whilst suspended over the hole. Just food for thought really. I'm neither a strong advocate nor detractor of SW7 (it's a new ride - who's going to openly detract?!) as I won't be able to ride it for quite some time but I'll thoroughly enjoy following it's construction. And since we've all been chewing our legs off for some SW7 conversation, I got thinking that with all the positive appraisal the plans got when they first came out, what if we take a back seat and look at the ride's impact on the actual area? The ride I'm sure will be brilliant in it's own right. It just might feel a bit too SAW-like in that it's a jarring contrast to it's surrounding area. Cheers for reminding me about that though, Jack.

Banned for the gay rainbow...

Yep, if you're anywhere near normal height, the ones in the picture I posted are impossible to do because you have to lie down, and that makes you stop.

Been here loads of times. The Screamer is great (2:54) but lasts about 5 seconds and drowns you at the end. The Black Baron is the same but only lasts two seconds, and the gert green thing with the optional rubber rings outdoors is actually okay (the first slide in the video, where the koolkids are penguin diving). By FAR and away the best slide is the Mississippi Drifter (the one at 1:54), which can genuinely be every bit of the word lamazing if you've got some mates and can actually find a rubber ring. It's the one everyone likes to race everyone else on, but it's SO hard to manoeuvre in those rings (as you can see in the video), hence why it's amazing because, especially when all the effects are on and the outdoor section is open, it lasts about ten minutes excluding the time it takes everyone to make it back to their rings for the tenth time. Some people abandon their rings completely! So yeah, LOVE THIS ONE. But word of advice - watch out for the paedos in the first bowl because there was a fat guy in his fifties who kept volunteering to help 'younger' ladies unfortunate enough to fall out of their rings (which happens A LOT) back into them on my last trip... odd. Watch out for queues as well - they can get pretty beastly. The rest is pretty **** even by Somerset's standards. Some of the slides are so crap you actually stop in them, and some of them look like ventilation pipes. Watch out for the stairwells up to the slides though - they're more industrial-looking than Saw's interior themeing. It's almost like someone left a tap on in a warehouse so don't expect too much when you do go. Good value for money. £11.99 for all day. WOO WATERY VENT PIPES (That's Colorado Coaster on the right, Red River Roller in the middle and some other crap one).

So? In all seriousness, it does look better, but I still think it's a pretty poor addition to a park with an otherwise stellar line-up of coasters. The beginning part particularly just appears to go nowhere - perhaps a little more themeing might disguise the fact the ride just meanders about in the desert.

ROBD BE MAD.

Right, that's the first page done - let me know if you think it looks better Josh Will do the second page when I get more time. I might leave it though because no-one need look at the second page.

I empathise with this, Josh, and I can't vouch for some of the grammatical errors, but a lot of what can be viewed often have mis-encrypted characters that appear as something like "&39;amp" or something like that. I'll give them all a look over soon.

Guys, I don't think it actually is the end of Slammer. Even if it is leaving it'll be fixed up and operate until the end of the season at least.

The drunk birthday girl attacked my legs, and we were camping on a trampoline with a tent extension. And we were drinking. So when she grabbed legs this happened:

Fixed

Thorpe have added more than one ride a year before (in 2001 they added three, technically) - although those were the (Tussauds primarily) days of mass development for the park; nearly every year since 2000 has seen major/moderate developments. Whilst I think Merlin may slow down this growth process now that Thorpe is a fully established park with an impressive ride line-up to contend with even large American park, I still wouldn't put it past them if the opportunity came. But the biggest apparent issue I foresee with adding more than one ride a year, if that, is where to put the rides.

Possibly, but the riding position angle on Time Machine appears to be about 90o! On the KMG XLR8 it only looks to be about 50o...

Haven't we been speculating Slammer's removal since last year? /genuine question

Surely, considering the ride position, this ride would be dangerous if the duration lasted over something like a minute? I only say this because the ride position looks like it might cause severe lack of blood to the head/insufficient distribution of brain fluids under the continuous centripetal force, even when the ride is erect. Someone more in the know about these things tell me there's nothing to worry about because I really don't see how that ride position is safe.

Find an image you want to post, right click it, select "Copy image URL" and then paste in the text box. You then need to add the board extensions [ I m g ] and [ / I m g ] (without the spaces) at either side of the URL. This should work.

HELL YEAH INFERNO.