JoshC.

The Swarm is set AT Thorpe Park. It is essentially about an alien race invading the park. Yet the station is a church, a building you would rarely see at a theme park. That's surely a bigger issue than an American accent? NB: I have no problem with the church, I find the whole idea / context brilliant. The big issue is how they thought 'let's set it at the park to try and make it relatable'.

>People moan that there's an American announcement for a coaster with a story set in Britain. >People don't moan that a coaster with a story set in a theme park has a station themed to a church. Good to see consistency in people's logic...

Cameras around the queue line track when people enter the queue and when they leave. This allows for the system to work out how many people are in the queue, calculate a throughput and calculate how long certain people are in the queue. Hence it can give accurate queue times. The system has been in place for a while and it seems to be accurate on the whole in my experiences (though I haven't queued since they've displayed to-the-minute queue times). It's not perfect and I know that it has been quite difficult to implement - certainly harder than it sounds - but I hope it does work and proves to be successful. I wouldn't expect it to be rolled out across other rides immediately because of the behind-the-scenes stuff involved, but it'd be nice if it could be widespread implemented in the future.

If you look at these types of rides at many other parks, they rarely have any queue most days. Look at the Merlin parks for a good example - you'll rarely see any of their Frog Hoppers or Rockin' Tugs with queues. And the only reason Sea Storm and Knight's Quest get queues is because they'd be considered as 'bigger rides'. Having small queues as opposed to no queue (and no one riding them!) shows that there is demand for them, and the right level of it too. Same with you!

For those interested, the rotational operation on the Old Town rides has been scrapped. Currently Rocky Express opens at park opening, Timber Tug at 11 and Lumber Jump at 12. The area is reasonably lively, with all rides having smallish queues - the demand is there!

Don't get me wrong, the theming in the queue is great. But it never felt like it fit in with the ride to me; it feels very disjointed. Maybe it's because I've always been on it when it's walk on so have never had time to truly take it in. But the ride itself is so disappointing anyway that it can't be saved by a good queue. I didn't find the good cycle theatrical, but I'be only had it once, so a reride would help in making my mind up there.

Are they finally building a high speed rail link to Chessington then? I remember a lot of people saying that Thorpe would look terrible compared to Universal when both parks did the Cabin in the Woods maze. But, at the time, people were impressed by Thorpe's effort and photos did make the two seem of similar quality. And Thorpe's scare tactics are very different to Universal's, so the way they are received is wildly different. As ever, any IP will have input into the quality of any attraction they're involved in. So there might not be any room for Merlin to muck up.

I never find Raik that good as an actual coaster. For the complete experience with the theming, effects and interaction with Klugheim, it's good. But the coaster experience is very average and I preferred Ben 10 in all honesty. Mystery Castle is highly overrated, I genuinely don't understand why people enjoy it. Plus the stupid different cycles that run randomly is mind boggling. Talocan is like every other top spin in my mind, it just so happens it looks a lot prettier. It's a shame you couldn't get River Quest or Maus done as they are 2 of the most memorable rides there - at least it gives you an excuse to go back...not that you need one!

Inferno has aged brilliantly, which is something so many people forget. It has a nice setting, some really forceful pops and a decent enough layout. I prefer Swarm, and that is also aging well (yay for B&M quality), but it's not surprising to see so many people loving Inferno. Just a shame it always feels like the middle child of the coasters.

Big Top and Saw Alive are confirmed to return, as they were mentioned on the website before the change, and also mentioned on the actor job description. Platform 15 was all but confirmed to return in our interview with Show Services: There's been no official confirmation on number of IPs though. Remember that if the park were to introduce a scare zone (be that a 'proper' scare like Towers have introduced / seen all over in America or a 'Merlin' scare zone like Dead End), they would no doubt class that as an attraction.

After another refreshing night at our hotel, we trekked on over to Plopsaland de Panne for Day 2. I'll keep this brief as I've babbled on about this loads before... We arrived at the park to be greeted by loads of school kids swarming about, so we headed straight for Heidi - The Ride, the park's coaster which was meant to be open last year but had loads of noise issues. It's a lot of fun. It holds its speed for most of the ride, features nice pops of airtime and the odd intense. It's practically a clone of White Lightning at Fun Spot America, so anyone who's ridden that will no doubt know what to expect. It's a bit on the short side, and it's a shame they didn't do more sound tunnels during the ride given all the extra fencing required. but it's still a very, very good family coaster and just what the park needed. We rode it 3 times during the course of day, including front and back, and it remained equally fun at all points - woohoo! One sad thing was how the ride opened on one train (fortunately we arrived just before all the school kids arrived to the coaster), and I imagine any sort of queue would then be painfully slow. Not to mention the queue is just a wooden, indoor cattlepen. It was also a 1-man op job at the time (like most of Plopsaland's rides!). However, it did go up to 2 trains later on, and at one point had 3 staff working on, easily the most I've ever seen working on 1 ride at Plopsa. Area looks nice They play the Heidi TV show in the queue, which has hilarious screenshots. We also finally got to do Vleermuis, the park's twin suspended batflyer coasters, which had been SBNO on our previous 2 visits. These had become a bit infamous for me, as they always looked 'fun' and odd, but their life at the park had come under question several times over the past few years. They're fun enough little coasters, even if they do kill you legs thanks to to tight restraints - worth a try if you ever visit I'd say. (I didn't get any good pictures, so check out RCDB for photos - https://rcdb.com/932.htm ) With the new stuff ticked off before 11, we then had 7 hours on park to just go around and enjoy the park, which has a solid selection of rides. Their Gerstlauer launch coaster Anubis proved great fun again, though I've noticed it can give uncomfortable rides on the back row which is a shame. Their Vekoma rollerskater, Rollerskater, had received some new theming which was nice to see. And despite all the school trips, and warm weather, we never really had to queue that long for anything, which is always a Plopsa plus! We then left and made our way to Leige, where we stayed in another hotel which looked like a prison on the outside, but was nice enough on the inside. We went to McDonald's for dinner, which served macarons as a dessert - good ol' Europeans! Day 3 then arrived, and it was time for another new park - Plopsa Coo! Plopsa Coo is situated in a very hilly (and picturesque!) part of Leige, and getting to it felt like going to a more complicated version of Alton Towers. The entrance to the car park appears out of nowhere, so the park is very well hidden amongst the countryside. Since we arrived super early, we had a wander around the car park and surrounding area, and accidentally stumbled upon the park's bobsleigh - literally the 'ride area' could be easily accessed from outside the park... Deciding not to venture any further to make sure we weren't kicked out before we even got in, we headed to the entrance, where the park promptly opened at 10am. Unsurprisingly, lots of school kids were about, and most headed straight to the park's headline spinning coaster, Vicky - The Ride (more on that later). The bobsleigh hadn't opened due to the rainy weather, and it didn't look like it would open any time soon (with rain and thunderstorms predicted for the whole day!). So we headed to the park's charlift... The chairlift was built long before a theme park existed on the site, and takes you 220m (~722ft) high (and the park itself is 240m above sea level!). At the top of the chairlift is a tower, which allows for some fantastic views of the surrounding area... You can vaguely see the park here. To the left is their measly 60m tall star flyer. The small hill on the right is where the bobsleigh is located. All in all, our time on the chairlift and tower took us about 45 minutes, which was a great way to start the day. Unfortunately the weather was still drizzly, so the bobsleigh still hadn't opened, and the front part of the park was swarming for kids, so we trekked to the back of the very small park. We ticked off a water slide and log flume, which were nice but nothing to write home about, before moving onto Halvar, the park's oldest coaster. It's a bog standard Vekoma coaster, but basically completely hidden behind loads of trees and such, which made the ride a bit more fun than it otherwise would have been. I didn't take any photos unfortunately, so check out RCDB - https://rcdb.com/931.htm We then moved onto the nearby Labyrinth, which was a big surprise of the whole trip really. It's an outdoor maze, made out of really tall wooden fences...with a twist. Throughout the maze are a series of locked doors, which you need a code to open. The code to each door is found by answering a question at a dead end of the maze. We had no idea what was going on until half way through the maze (thanks to us just following school kids through unlocked doors). Once we knew what was going on, it made the maze very interesting, and it's certainly a concept I'd like to try again! A question with 3 possible answers and corresponding codes. After a spot of lunch and some general wandering around the very small park, we headed over to Vicky - The Ride, which still had a very long queue. This Gerstlauer spinning coaster opened in 2011 and was pretty much our main reason for knowing the park existed! It looked pretty interesting, and had potential. After going through the very slow queue (we were essentially right next to the station and it took a good 30-40 minutes...), we were on, and were left disappointed. The layout doesn't lend itself to much spinning. The huge cars with inward-facing seats makes it difficult to get a good weight balance. And in general, it just felt a bit bland and meh. Maybe expectations were a little too high, but it was disappointing... Because of the constant on-off rain (though fortunately no thunderstorms!), the bobsleigh still wasn't dry enough to do. So instead we ticked off the star flyer (which felt so tiny thanks to our views from the chairlift), and the FREE mini golf, which was surprisingly decent with a variety of interesting holes, including this one which had no hole... It was now just after 3, and the park closed at 5. The rain had held off for a long time. We headed back over to the bobsleigh, where plenty of drying of the track was going on - things looked promising. After some lurking about, our prayers were answered - it opened! The bobsleigh was set on a really tall hill, and featured a random backwards incline to take you to the top, and 2 slopes to take you down. I've no idea how tall the hill was, but the slopes were 600m each and it was reasonably steep at some points, so it was quite cool. There's some awesome turns and fun spots, and some neat points to really gain speed. Unfortunately on my first go there was a crash in front of me about half way down, which really killed the experience. Fortunately we did a second run later on, and I got pretty much to the end before encountering a kid who had stopped on the tracks - joyous. Nonetheless, these were truly a huge highlight of the park and one of the biggest hidden gems of the trip! Between our rides on bobsleigh, we did a second go on their waterslide, but also did their FREE go kart track. Unsurprisingly it had a long queue, but you got 3 circuits on a decent length track in some cars which picked up an okay enough speed for what they were. Was certainly a pleasant surprise to be able to do something like this for free. After park close, we made our way into Germany and the wonderful city of Koln. Our beautiful hotel was situated nicely between two very explicit adult shops, our room offered a lovely view of the bin storage area of the hotel, but the beds were super-comfy and the room was huge, which was 2 things the previous 2 hotels didn't have. Woohoo! It was also a 10 minute walk from Hard Rock Koln, not that the restaurant chain interests me that much. So all in all, Plopsa Coo is a very nice and quaint little park. At one point we were concerned we wouldn't have enough to do, and then seeing all the school kids we were concerned we would be stuck in queues all day. But the park offered a great balance for us so we were able to comfortably do everything in the 7 hours the park was open, without rushing or feeling bored. Sure, it's not a must-do park, but it's certainly a nice park and definitely worth considering if you're anywhere nearby and want a little theme park fix. Next time, Day 4 - Phantasialand!

Wasn't that essentially what happened in 2013 with the Lionsgate films, but it didn't quite work... Here's what Thorpe posted on Facebook... Basically we can infer: -There'll be new stuff. -There'll be more stuff than before. -It'll be advertised as scary. Can we have the full reveal please? I'm too much of a Thorpe fanboy that I'd HAVE to do it just to tick it off... At least Thorpe actors growl at you, rather than just shout 'boo'...

Remember that the fee is for Standard AP holders, who haven't had Fright Nights included for years. This is also a very similar pricing set up to last year.

Summer Nights is not scheduled to happen this year.

It reopened yesterday, just in time for the quietest part of summer.

As you are hopefully aware, this year we have had the opportunity to pose some questions to members of the Thorpe Park team, including Divisional Director Dom Jones and Merlin Magic Making's John Burton. We've been lucky enough to have an insightful Q&A with the Show Services Technical Manager, Jonny. The Q&A talks about the resort's AV set-up, IMA Score, Fright Nights and more! You can have a read here - https://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/articles/20-07-2017/Show+Services+Q+and+A

Where is that description from? It is awfully written and highly inaccurate; doesn't give a reflection on how the story actually played!

Corrected that for you They are currently awaiting a part from B&M, which is taking time to actually manufacturer. Real shame, but it it's that severe, I guess it's one of those 'unfortunate, can't be helped' situations.

Rumba is scheduled to open at 11am on busy days, and 12pm on off peak days. That's the same with Storm Surge and Samurai (and Tug Boat and Lumber Jump before the silly rotational operation) in my experience / according to the boards at the front of rides. All other rides are meant to open when the park opens. It's not a case of disorganisation in terms of not knowing what is meant to be open and what's not, it's more a case that there are rides which open late because they haven't completed morning checks, not because they were planned to open late.

There's no way for AP holders to guarantee entry outside of FN. Probably your beat bet is to just arrive at like 9am. That way you get in the park when it opens (and is at its quietest), and you avoid running the risk of a capacity park.

Don't care if it's in Dutch, this is easily the best summer song released this year.

TTSP (the group who were given that presentation) have confirmed that nothing was confirmed at the presentation. The image is just to signify the road to 2020, when the next major investment is due. It'll likely be a coaster, because Thorpe haven't invested in a coaster since Swarm.

I'm not sure on this for certain, but I believe it was a 3 year contract with an option to extend if both parties wanted to. That's how the Lionsgate contract worked for FN, so it'd make sense for Thorpe to try and get a similar style of contract.

Octopus Garden was operated differently, in that all 7 rides in the area were always available, but they only had about 3 or 4 people to operate the rides. If you wanted to ride one of those rides, you would have to specifically ask a member of staff at a different ride to come and operate it. And I believe if you go even further back (like in the 90s) it didn't even have to be a person who worked on Rides - anyone who worked in the nearby surrounding area was trained on how to 'operate them'; ie - how to turn a key. The cases are very different to be fair.

So Adam has once again beaten me to starting up the massive Trip Report, but hey, you know what they say, first the worst, second the best... Once again, we went for a nice 8 day long road trip, hitting up some new parks and some old parks with new stuff. Day 1 was the wonderful French park Parc Bagatelle... Bagatelle is about an hour away from Calais (which is where we were conveniently staying after arriving by ferry at 2am), and a reasonably straightforward drive. The set up to get into the park is weird, with the car park being one side of a road, and then you have to go through a bland tunnel and security check to get to the main turnstiles and entrance of the park. It's all very dull and you basically just stumble into the park. Pretty much our main reason for visiting the park was to try out Triops - a Vekoma inverted boomerang, which also happens to be the first one made (though it's moved about a few times). So once the park opened, we headed over there, only to find a flimsy chain and a small A4 sign saying that area of the park didn't open till 11am. Whoops. After meandering around for a bit, we headed to Gaz Express, a Soquet (nope, no idea either) mine train which looks very Vekoma. It's partially set around a pond, featuring waterfalls and splash-down-esque features, has 2 random fire effects and a random indoor section (with a very cool fountain!). The lap bar restraints were also very concerning to look at, as they featured a large divider right where a gentlemen's groin area should go - any airtime would stop me from having children to say the least.. Fortunately, there was no airtime, and the ride itself was enjoyable enough! With it still being before 11, we opted to do the park's dodgems, Trafic Jam. Thee are by far the craziest dodgems I've done; the cards skid and drift, go fast, anything goes, and you got a really long cycle (felt like a good few minutes). Couple that along with the French just don't seem to car who they ram, it made a great ride! 11am came, and Triops wasn't open. So we joined the queue for the park's nearby spinning wild mouse (also scheduled to open at 11), Famous Jack, but, somewhat unsurprisingly that wasn't open either. After 15 minutes in the queue, we gave up, and saw Triops testing and got over to it just as it opened. Yay. It wasn't as awful as I was expecting, in fact the cobra roll was surprisingly smooth, yet intense whilst going forward. The vertical loop was horrid though, and the whole ride going backwards wasn't great. So in other words, it wasn't awful, but it's far from great. Some more meandering around the park's boundary eventually took us to the pirate ship, the 'Bag Pearl'. Unlike all other pirate ships I've done, the tire only drove the ride one way, meaning the ride took twice as long, leaving my stomach feeling a bit lost. It had a nice setting though, next to a lake, and nice enough theming. After doing their water slide and having some lunch at a canteen-style restaurant (which was alright bar the fact the glass pot my custard came for dessert was chipped), we did some of the water rides. The park has 2 log flumes, one really random one at the park's edge, giving a lovely view of a basketball court, and another decent one that gets you nicely wet. Neither were memorable enough for me to waste space on my phone to take a photo though.. We also did the park's rapids, which featuring a fun whirlpool element, and some good spots of theming...but not a lot else. After doing the park's car driving ride and some other general rubbish, it was back to the creds, doing Kidz Coaster (a Wacky Worm) and Spirale Express (another Soquel coaster, but a more junior variety, featuring a random sideways turn of fun). Spirale was a bit of surprise, and the Wacky Worm was a Wacky Worm. We did some more general junk that the park offers, including a monorail that shows you less than Safari Skyway did, and then headed to the back of the park again to do what we missed out on earlier... Famous Jack ended up being my first spinning wild mouse. And to be honest, it was great fun. I literally got tossed, turned and spun in every direction and it was just a bit mad. Sure, it was uncomfortable at parts and I wanted it to be over sooner rather than later, but I can't deny I didn't enjoy it. We then did the neighbouring Eccentric Bikes, a side attraction where you can ride bikes with off-centre wheels, flat tyres and more around a circuit. It was a good laugh, and also nice to finally experience what the Broncho Bikes at Thorpe might have been like all those years ago... The last major ride to do was Silver Wings, the park's new thing for 2017, a Zamperla Air Race. It suits the park well, has some nice theming, and adds nicely to the line up. Hopefully the park can continue to add investments like this. Each arm is named SW1, SW2,...,SW6. The geeks in us all enjoyed this. The neighbouring restaurant. After some re-rides, we ended the day at Cine Dynamik, which was a simulator. We knew nothing of the story, and once we got in the building, we were greeted by a giant clown face, florescent paint and a general wacky atmosphere. This seemed good. We then walked past a pre-show area (which a building layout saw suggested was once used to hand out 3D glasses), and entered the simulator. The story ended up being about you being shrunk to small size, and entering the human body as part a vaccine. Oh. Then the simulator ended up being HORRID, very jerky and generally just awful, and made us all feel dreadful. I guess the film has been changed recently, but it is genuinely the worst thing at the park and should be burnt down. So yeah, all in all, Bagatelle was as I expected really. It's a small park that has the odd flash and good things, the odd general wacky European feel and a lot of generic rubbish. But it was a nice enough day out, got a few coasters for the count, and was a nice easy day for the road trip. We headed back to Calais and had a nose around the local area. We ended up finding a nice little place which did pub grub and had fab service. After that, we then went back to our dingy hotel (it genuinely looked like a prison on the outside, but was fine on the inside), played some pool, then had a reasonably early night to prepare us for Day 2, featuring Plopsaland de Panne...