TraX

I'm suprised that we haven't spoken of flood waters at Thorpe during this closed season! The pathways around the lower dome must of seen a bit of new water..

'The boiler shack' ? Do you mean the raised queueline down the stairs? If so, that raised queueline has been flattened. although I expect that the boiler will be used as additional theming. By the looks of things, the end section of the new flat queueline, will take you into straight into the old fastrack section.

It will be interesting to see if Market Square is finished by then, or if the pathways around Forbidden Kingdon will be open instead. Ripping up the entire space and opening up Market Square is a massive job and a good one, I hope they finish it on time.

Had an assement interview the other day at Chessington, and I can confirm that NOTHING major has changed on RMT! The flat (yes totally flat) queueline roof (that seems to situated in the pathway beside the childrens zoo, and leads into the old underground tunnel section of the old queue/inbetween the second helex) is slowly going up.. Bland B&Q style decking on the load platform is in and the building that was once hidden by the rocks has been painted a smoky red colour. The surrounding flats arent installed, and the whole thing looks exactly the same and open as it did most of last season. I know, I know that it's not finished, but it's not looking good! Other interesting discoveries was that no vertical signs of the new hotel and hearing that NOTHING is changing on falls. That too will be the same bare mess. So much for re-delelopment. :lol:

Angry Birds themed music Vs Chart music?

I think it's should be obvious by now, there will be no rocks! The old Runnaway train as we knew it, is never coming back. Whilst I'm sure it will have some nice touches to it, from what I can picture, it will be a very flat Merlin re-theme. If you have ridden Aladdin's Magic Carpets at the WDSP, you will be aware of the high wall around the flat cattlepen queueline, and ride to hide the staff area behind.. THAT'S what I'm expecting them to do here. (No rocks!!!!) If they do pull it off, I'll eat my hat. If anything, I'd be more interested how they spruce up the area with any additional buildings (panning for gold anyone?), I'm sure it will look fresh, but it certainlly wont have the interesting queueline, or rocks that made a mack powered coaster look cool..

Is it more than painted walls of various height to hide the staff road, around the outside edge of the ride then? :ph34r:

Great to see that kind of thing is still being 'created'. A lot of Merlin's new attractions all feel the same Saw/Raptor/Krake/Swarm/Zufari. Whilst they are happy with their brand, it's all pretty samey.

I think that the giant scorpian is more of a legend that riders will encounter in the middle of the main helix. I can also bet money on the old raised queueline being completly gone (following fears of people falling from height), and we will get a flat cattlepen instead..

I'd be very interested to see how Thorpe Park roll these out, so looking forward to hearing the details!

Isn't a highly themed hotel, better than a non themed hotel/or hashed rockless RMT/Scorpian Express? Whilst I agree it shouldn't be on top of their to do list, it will be pretty good.

I think that anyone who's seen the Legoland hotel or been to the Rain Forest Cafe, can image what Merlin will do with this.. I image it will be pretty good, and dispite The Scorpian Express/RMT stuff, and the fact that Chessie don't need it.. It's certainly better than the Waterfront Hotel ! ;-)

there will be two different logos. One for each of the two hotels.

The Holiday Inn will also have a name change, but will remain mostly the same. The new hotel will get all the big theming/themed rooms and resturant.

It is, yes!

The on-ride photo was never originally there, no. It was added later and included either bright green, or bright red 'plaques' attached to the inside of each car, letting you know which carrage you were in, which would then corrispond to the video screen in the shop. Its also worth noting that you could still at that point, exit around the shop before it was closed in. Same for the Bubbleworks, you would exit straight ahead and didn't have to go into the shop.

The arches have never been used for the public. The original queue line that the ride opened with, was a small cattle pen gravel section, that was directly to the right of-and led guests into the large gate and down the stairs, and through the tunnel that is now used for fastrack. The tunnel used to have mist through it. The mist effect was finally stopped due to H&S having issues with waterborne diseases. As the cattle pen was fairly small, it was common for the queue line to back up down the hill and end up at the cave. There was no route under the ride as their is today. I do have some pictures of a couple of years later, when this new queue line was made, I'll try dig them out.

Nice review of Chessington's new haunted attraction this year, over on Scare Tour! http://www.scaretouruk.com/review---chessington-hocus-pocus-2012.html

Fastrack sellers?

I understand that it's your own opinion, but FB is the roughest peice of crap with bog standard 'silver rails' cattle pen that I have ever ridden (and WHAT near misses? It's on a rough grassless patch of land).It's clear that B&M have perfected the wing rider coaster and that's painfully (excuse the pun) obvious with Intamin's sales Vs the sales of B&M's more comfy take on it.AstroDan, you are sent to the right or left (although you can probably sneak one way or the next), it's not as intense as Nemesis yet, but already I grey out on it and that's early doors!

Furious Baco IS NOT even on the same scale, forget about it.

Little addition to my fridge. B&M

A few more pics from saturdayhttp://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y2/Neilfever/THE%20SWARM/

I'd say back left personally, although both sides have their qualities!