JoshC.

"BACK TO BASICS Theme Park set to go back to old fashioned roller coasters after losing trust in modern steel ones. Alton Towers Resort have submitted plans for a roller coaster to made entirely from WOOD, going back 100 years to old fashioned, basic roller coasters. This follows the tragic accident last year on steel roller coaster The Smiler, where 5 people were seriously injured after 2 trains collided together, including two girls having to have a leg amputated. Many have questioned the decision, saying that going back to lo-tech, rickety rides from the past is more dangerous. "They should be putting in more technology, making these rides safer" said a random Twitter user, who also added "Wooden roller coasters are not safe, you feel like you'll die on them!" A Facebook user said "To go back to such old technology shows they've lost faith in themselves - Alton Towers and Merlin should close down!!!' "

https://towersstreet.com/news/2016/breaking-news-sw8-plans-published/ GCI woodie to be exact, with a possible launch. Couple of nice, large, themed structures too - seemingly taller than the ride itself? The question now is - what will this ride's tagline be? Are we going to see 'Europe's first launched wooden roller coaster', or some obscure, currently hidden, world first element?

Sad news indeed. Hopefully they can bounce back, and that their Screamland event pulls in the numbers this year - assuming that it actually can operate.

I had a problem with mine (base was scratched); just take it back to Ghost Train shop and they can replace it.

It's interesting to note that there are gates in line with all the doors, as well as for the designated main entrance and exit as marked on the plans. I wonder if this is just for fire escape purposes or if they're making significant changes to it (fail a room, get kicked out)? Also interesting that they haven't put in the third container for staff despite there being fences.

Personally, I'd say head to Stealth first (if you're planning on doing that), then Inferno. Check out IAC, but be wary that at the beginning of the day the wait time can be quiet a while because they have to wait for a group of size 10 to go through. Afterwards, do X and Storm Surge before the queues get too large. From there, anything else of interest to you should have reasonably short queues. Wait till mid-to-late afternoon for Swarm and Depth Charge. If you're planning on ride Ghost Train (assuming it is open), just wait till near the end of the day; you'll have done everything else and you're going to have to wait a whlie for it either way.

^It's interesting you mention about dispersing crowds throughout the year. In the last MTDP, Thorpe did explicitly mention that they were expecting to have an growth in the number of visitors each year, and that this growth would come from more visitors on off peak / quieter days. Whether they had some sort of plan to do this (as opposed to just wishful thinking), I don't know, but it is something the park were at least aware of. In theory, this sounds great, but then you run risk of creating a situation where theme parks become too expensive for people to bother with. Fastrack has its positives too, especially for guests who rarely visit / can only visit once. If such guests could only visit on very busy days, and see the option of Fastrack avaliable, they might see it as one way to be able to maximise their enjoyment for the day. Make it too expensive, on top of the ticket price, and people might just not bother. Of course, I agree that Fastrack is a premium product and should be expensive, but there still has to be a balance. To make an unlimited Fastrack ticket cost £160 would be pretty outrageous in anyone's books.

I don't think so. This seems to be one of, if not, the, first day this season the fire effect has been operational this season, and I'm pretty confident that the park have had more than 8k visitors previously this season. So if that is the case, then it must be a very recent decision. I think a possibility of why we haven't seen it much this season is because they had to get the effect signed off from an independent inspector again and it just took a bit of time to happen.

Please be open by July 2nd...Please be open by July 2nd...Please be open by July 2nd...

I love a good bit of humour, but any joke gets tiring if you see again and again and again in fairness. Originality would loosen my knickers

I'm beginning to think the next person who makes the 'Derren Brown's Bus Replacement Service' joke should get a one way ticket to Bansville...

And many people are one day closer to lying on their deathbed realising they wasted too much time and energy on worrying and moaning about what week a theme park attraction opens. Yay.

And then purposefully build a bad woodie for the extra spite.

The small text at the bottom of the Ghost Train advert had now been edited to say '...opens soon', for those keeping track.

To be fair, the Chessington mystery has been around for years. They've grown year on year for the past few years now, regardless of what they've added, or external factors that caused other parks problems. Maybe it's the Zoo which drags people in? Or word of mouth which originates from people wearing rose-tinted glasses from their visits years back? Or just the clear, safe target market that they don't stray from is (too?) loyal to them? It's a bit of a mystery how they seem to always gain numbers, but there are still plenty of logical explanations behind it.

I feel as though this thread should more be named 'Why don't Merlin regularly paint / deep clean their attractions?', as to say UK parks are left to rot is completely wrong in my opinion. I think Mark is 100% right - a fresh perspective is what is needed. It's not necessarily the lack of competition, though I agree that it doesn't help. What it more is is that there's an attitude of 'It'll do', because as long as it works and is safe, then the aesthetics can be overlooked. And I think even if there was competition, that same thought process would be there, because the Merlin parks can keep drawing in the guests with their tried and tested 'World's First _____', as that's seemingly what the UK market laps up. So a fresh perspective somewhere reasonably high up along the line could do a world of good. In saying that, we shouldn't overlook some of the good things the Merlin parks have done, such as Oblivion repaint, Nemesis repaint (eventually), Amity repaints / repairs and so forth. And it's not like there isn't the desire to do at a local scale (I believe a Colossus repaint has been discussed on more than one occasion); it's the higher up powers and the purse strings which are likely stopping these things happening. And it doesn't help that during the Tussauds era, things like ride effects and general upkeep of appearance were pretty much overlooked, with a 'If it's broke, don't fix it' attitude almost. Just wanted to bring up regarding that photo of the beach. The TPM photo was taken the day after a day of long rain showers and wind; this naturally causes the water to get some dirt and leaves in it unfortunately, and does happen every so often with the beach. However, as Marc says, it was being cleaned and dealt with appropriately once the weather had been sorted out.

Just wanted to make it clear that I've nothing against people expressing disappointment or being annoyed - it is more I don't see how Thorpe can ever win with what feels like, at times, a larger amount of the enthusiast community. But other than that, I do wholeheartedly agree with you post! I wasn't really clear with the Dollywood point. I meant that if you look at enthusiast forums in general, everyone seems understanding of the delays to Lightning Rod. Of course, I have not trawled through every single forum, but it's just something I've noticed from what I've been reading. Yet the complete rage for Ghost Train (in general) is in a whole different league, and I just can't see why. It baffles the mind. The only logical reason I can think of is it's just yet another chance for people to have a pop at Thorpe / Merlin. Again, I get the frustration. But there's a line between frustration and point blank rage which seems to have been crossed by many in my opinion.

There's a difference between an argument and a discussion. For the record, my post is not a stop moaning one, nor wpuld any reply be like that. However, simply put, it is tiring seeing the same old moaning replies which seem.to have no thought put into them other than 'Thorpe have mucked up again, time to moan!' Personally, I would appreciate a well thought out, proper, reponse if you had the time, rather than a 'I can't be bothered to reply', and would actually read it and reply appropriately. But hey, each to their own. --- @Archive - There are a couple of things I want to respond to your post about, but will respond later when I'm at my laptop.

Not trying to start an argument, but if you're afraid of causing a stir by replying to my post, then surely that means you accept any response disagreeing with it is, at best, clutching at straws? I'm all ears for a discussion and any fair reply to my post, but I don't think anything I've said is far from the truth at the moment.

Reading some of these comments simply just makes me hate the enthusiast community. People keep going back to the "if they weren't 100% certain the ride wasn't going to open on a set date, they shouldn't have announced it" point. Two things: -Do people honestly think that the park would announce a date they weren't confident of reaching? Or do people genuinely think the park goes 'Let's say Ghost Train is opening on this day when we have know it won't, and just p!ss everyone off and tell them it won't open then a week beforehand!!'? Delays can and do happen, with everything and anything. -Let's not forget that it was actually enthusiasts (well, pretty much everyone in fact), who were pushing the park for an opening date. As soon as the name was announced, people were never content with "Spring 2016", they wanted to know NOW when it would open. People were moaning there was no opening date. When the park said they'd try and communicate an opening date in February, people still moaned there was no date set during the last week of February, and were getting all angsty. Christ knows why when other, bigger, parks around the world are able to not announce opening dates for rides. Simply a case of Thorpe being damned if they do, damned if they don't. Thorpe are also saying that the ride isn't ready. Obviously they hoped to have it ready now, but unfortunately it's not. So, what, do people want to go on the ride when it's incomplete from a creative viewpoint, and experience a rubbish ride that's of course not worth the hype? Or just miss out on part of the attraction altogether. I find it funny how people are going on as though it's the end of the world, yet when Dollywood announced the Lightning Rod would be delayed (it was originally advertised to be opening in March), people were understanding - and still are - because 'the ride isn't ready yet'. What makes Lightning Rod so different to this? Or is just because it's Thorpe and people like to take a pop whenever, however and for whatever reason... Also, this is the first time that Thorpe have actually had to delay a ride's opening (I believe). Yes, Vortex was advertised as open when it was being built, but that is slightly different. The only similar thing we have is Smiler, where there were delays in construction from a structural perspective which caused delays. And this is, at least, being dealt with slightly better as there's more notice at the lack of opening. So I don't get the whole 'Do they ever learn', 'Typical', blah, blah, blah. Sorry for ranting, but it seems that time and time again it just feels like the majority of the (Thorpe) enthusiast community just seems to want to moan, and type before thinking. Just makes you wonder what's the point.

The Colossus Choir's debut album was released a while ago, but it did slip under the radar and saw no where near as successful as our new single. For those curious, songs we released in AC16 (Album Cover 2016) were... 1) Inferno Hot Hot Hot 2) A Total Eclipse of the Heart 3) Rush Life 4) I Just Had X 5) Don't be So Hard on Your Stealth 6) Never Gonna Give You Up (The Slammer Appreciation Song) 7) Another Ranger Bites the Dust 8) The Swarm (We ran out of original names) We had planned to collaborate with Alton John for 'Space Station', but alas it never happened. We look forward to working with The Galactinotes soon!

Rumoured layout for the rumoured 2018 Mack multi launch coaster:

To ensure that people who want to remain 100% spoiler free can do so, I've created a spoiler thread: That thread can be used to discuss the newly posted article which contains some spoilers (I haven't read it personally so I'm not sure how big the spoilers were, but they were spoilers nonetheless). Do read that thread at your own risk! This thread can be used to keep track of construction (if there's anything visible left to do), attraction opening date, marketing, etc. etc. Pretty much everything that we've been discussing before today. Once Ghost Train opens, things will likely be condensed down into one thread, but we'll get to that later. Thanks, and don't forget to Mind The Gap!

That photo does make it look that way as there is a gate open, which I assume will be locked pretty much all the time. I think instead of turning left to the bag room you would go straight ahead. The other two queues in the top left of that photo are of course Fastrack and disabled.

^I believe that Friday opening times are now 9:30-6 up until Fright Nights now! How many trains were on Stealth (/other coasters) out of interest?