TraX

I can't wait for the mirror maze bit and being shouted at by the ents team.

Remember this happened with Saw, contractors giving some of the details away about the missed opportunity dark ride section. Thorpe were furious! Lol

Sounds like a really good theory! Sorry it's been over looked in this thread. There's a lot of over excited noise.

Great to finally see something official. Look great.

A lot of people might think it's over the top, but unfortunately the GP will complain about this type of thing. Chessington have been known to have roaming actors and even that got pulled due to 'racism' complaints. this is also the same park that is scared to put up a themed warning sign, rather than the official 'workplace' H&S signage.

This topic is literally going round in circles. If anyone's got time, should put together everything we knew pages ago. I hope things move forward soon as IMO this has been a particularly long and uneventful topic. looking forward to Thorpe ramping this thing up before I forget anything is happening at all.

Surely the entire thing is being able to brace yourself, is it not? Surely she can. I have a friend with one arm and he just came back from good times in Orlando! Also with Air in the press for it's lift stoppage, it's suprising that it took so long, as the ride staff are trained to evacuate as quicklhy as possible. Not sure of the timings, but they want to avoid any suspension trauma to guests from the flying position in the breaks or lift.

I wasn't expecting dead bodies, but I was expecting some decent theatrics and if you think the indoor section is spot on, you should absolutely get a job with MMM.

The dark ride portion of saw IMO is just dreadful. It was THE thing I was most looking forward too and it is such a missed opportunity... With a black light! I suspect it's another Zufari, that on paper sounded stunning.. Then it was cut, missed managed and sloppy. Saw could have been so theatrical, but Merlin aren't good at theatrics, clearly. I'm hoping this will prove me wrong.

SAW's theming is incredible?? Adequate I'd say, full of Merlin's usual missed opportunities. I hope this is on a bigger scale and hope there's plenty of actual theming to look at, rather than just a VR headset and a Simworx projection screen.

Yup thanks. ;-))

Unfortunately, they'll probably be overly happy with the updates THIS year. Pats on the back all round. No really, it's true.

I'd love to see Vampire fully restored to it's early days. The main gate, the fog under the pathway, the station lighting (strobes) and audio. Bring in some themed trains that resemble the original and re-do the tunnel, so it's fully covered and themed as the 'underground dive' it was always advertised with. It's unfortunate that some of the better station lighting updates a few years back were constantly tampered with, but that's the draw when you have such an enormous staff turnover. Benin already hit the nail on the head with it's theatrics and it seems MMM ironiclly, have absolutely no idea of theatrics (Saw, Tomb's 'update' and the easiest show missed opportunity in Zufari). Transylvania is the most popular land and I just wish Chessington would spend the cash, then I remember it's Chessington. 'Come stay in our new Resort hotels, with awesome views of our faded park and a 'plain' thats usually totally empty due to the hill side and animals slipping down it'. Great work guys.

I think knowing Thorpe, there's more chance of it being unavailable the week AFTER opening, following it's first technical glitch. They've had yonks on this and I would be suprised if it was delayed. Hopefully marketing will step up, so we can move forward from this and 12p ticket chat, I mean has there been any real sign of delay anyway?

Additionally, for all of us who have worked for Merlin will know that sometimes corners do get cut and a bond with the engineering team, mean somes rules do get bent every once in a while. If the ride op was listining to the engineer, I wouldn't be suprised at all... just a thought at least. The main issue I think is that they severly underestimated the rides ability to stall mid way through the course and how to react to it.

Yay my favourite yearly topic. Ride effects and how long they'll work. Haven't seen the Stealth smoke since 2007, hope it's still on in 3 weeks.

What do you think about tombs 'update' insider9150 ?

I think this is the reason they're enforcing headsets to be worn, so their 'world first' looks popular. After summer, or certainly next year they won't care if you're wearing headsets or not. A few years after that, they'll hopefully be gone completely and literally no one will care. I assume the guys who animated the film are the cheapest too. AnimalLive for Zufari was the cheapest and look how that went down.

Well H&S went over all over the Southbank enormously (and without warning). A shame if that's their fix, the cracked floor and ceiling much be pretty bad. Ludicrous the weight and moment wasn't better considered in the first place.

Are the park aware they've screwed up another job?

Back in the day when Vampire had its photo point added (it didn't from the start), there were carriage numbers in each car, which you'd have to remember. Loggers you couldn't even see your pcture, you'd have to buy it blindly, then wait two weeks for them to send it to you. The agony!

I don't know if it is. I feel it would have been ripped down with all the other polystyrene theming after the knee jerk reaction following the Tomb queue line accident.

Actually my fave coaster too, Kumba.

Perfectly put. I'm visiting Thorpe in May for DBGT, although going out of my way to avoid Towers and Chessington this season. Hopefully by May we'll have 2 trains on the coasters and the reliability will have improved.

It will happen, but it will likely be part of a bigger project. Area expansion or retheme. In regards to people climbing out, bring back the poor staff members that used to sit at the top of the drop (at Alton)!