JoshC.

You see, I can understand that then. Poor weather (and when you visited there was a storm brewing?) and low gate figures being made lower make it an understandable business decision to close early. Indeed, the theory should be that the since there's a low number of people there, people will be able to ride everything (they want to), so there shouldn't be minimal dip in guest satisfaction. I visited a park last year where they announced on the day, via small, easily missable, signs, that the closing time was an hour earlier than advertised. But since the park was so quiet it made no difference to the visit.

@Jamie: How busy was it / what was the weather like when the park decided to close early whilst you visited?

How busy is it / what is the weather like? I'm never a fan of parks cutting opening times on the day, but if they've really not got the numbers to justify their closing time, I can at least understand the decision.

We know basically nothing about SW8; ride type, theme, size, etc.

Many people, when they think of wooden coasters, will think of Blackpool's selection - all of which are 'old'. Alternatively, they'll think of other old wooden coasters, like Cyclone, which are well documented about. I'm the grand scheme of things, few people in the UK audience have ridden recently built wooden coasters. Hence why there is this preconception they are old fashioned and, potentially, dangerous to a degree. All it takes is for them to experience a new one to realise it is not the case. But to build one is a huge risk, because of people's misconceptions. Hence why an RMC would be a good choice. Whether that's what we get is a different matter though.

Some of the trains used on the Moscow Monorail are from Intamin, yes. As well as a small selection of dark rides and simulators, they also do several transportation things too.

Go Ape Chessington is the treetops course which the park submitted plans for in the middle of last year. So we've known this is happening; they've simply teamed up with Go Ape for it. I believe adult tickets are £33.

For the record, Air was advertised as the world's first next generation flying coaster. This is indeed a true statement as well. The first flying coaster was Skytrak: http://rcdb.com/2380.htm, opening in 1997 and closing in 1998. There was also another random flying coaster in the UAE and a Vekoma Flying Dutchman that opened before Air, but Air is still easily considered to be the first next generation flying coaster.

When I visited yesterday the park seemed reasonably busy. Car park was pretty full and the park felt busy (in a good way); it was 'alive'. Considering the terrible weather at the beginning of the week and that many people will be holding off visiting till DBGT opens, I don't think the park are having trouble getting people to visit right now.

I've also seen them use the actual Fastrack queue numerous times during my visits over the paSt few years.

If the Slammer scenario over the past few seasons has taught us anything, it's that Thorpe will do everything and anything to keep their rides working. I'd rather see them give up the ghost with this and just cut their losses, but if Slammer ends up having a good season this year and beyond, then maybe all the effort they put into this is worthwhile.

We've seen that people's opinions can change the park's mind in the past - just look at the original pricing structure of Summer Nights (£15 for AP holders, £18 for non-APers down to £5 and £15 respectively). 200 people emailing Thorpe saying they want to see Summer Nights return will mean a lot more to them than 200 people writing their name on a third party petition saying they want it to return.

Went into the shop today; echoing others' comments of how lovely it is. I also liked the smell that was in there - it was a musty; a bit like Hex I have to say! On a different note, there was another entrance sign today... There was work going on around the entrance sign currently up; not sure if they were replacing it or adding a second one behind it though. Oh, and the music is awesome.

Vampire is a suspended coaster though.

Went there again today and things seemed much better! And the music from there was a bit quieter, which is a plus for me!

On a more general note, one of my biggest worries about all this is how everything is going to fit together. We've got this reinvention of the Ghost Train, and something set in 1871, but how does that fit in with things all the cog work and machinery, the ideas of "minds wanted", the modern day underground scenario, etc? There seems to be an awful lot going around this attraction, and it could be a lot to fit in and make 'work' in 13 minutes in my opinion. Of course, some of it could be generic marketing to try and throw people off the scent, but who knows. I'd laugh if Simworx have just been on park to check out Angry Birds 4D and have nothing to do with DBGT I'd give it longer than that; after all, there's still just over 5 weeks before it opens. I think staff will be able to feed off the 'new factor' from guests for quite a while, and hopefully as the final marketing push happens, be able to keep the excitement going. But I do agree with your general statement. Staff are of course buzzing because it's new and exciting and everything. But it won't be too long before those in the shop simply get used to it.

Testing, 1, 2, testing... https://www.facebook.com/phantasialand/videos/1074720065900490/ Anyone who says 'It looks slow' gets a one way ticket to kick-up-the-butt-ville

They were offering free tickets to return later in the season to anyone who pre-booked and priority passes for a future visit to AP holders by the sounds of it (source: Theme Park Worldwide). Pretty standard response from the park in these sorts of situations.

Towers did stress when this was first announced that VR would be optional. It was simply that VR was the big push / point of the ride now. And it's not like the VR has been unpopular yet; most riders were opting to wear them I believe? So I wonder if there was incident / technical problems which is forcing Towers' hand into making it compulsory? And if there has been, why wasn't said thing foreseen and prevented...

Despite last night's storm, and having to open almost an hour and a half late, apparently Thorpe were able to eventually open all rides with the exception of Tidal Wave and Samurai today.

Joking aside, power cuts happen. They lead to rides being closed. It's unfortunate, but will happen from time to time.

I'd like to think there'd be random, unannounced, soft openings to help get timings right and the like. Whether they'll have enough time, given that the huge, train-like, thing is still sat outside the building, is a different matter though.

A CF one of New Revolution is up now, and features the same "story" VR-wise... Should be noted that the VR in this video, as well as the one above, is not the same as the rider's are seeing, hence why they're out of sync. Still, the quality seems rather poor. And, naturally, throughputs have been badly affected, and there's reports of anything up to 8 minutes between dispatches on Dare Devil Dive... In other news, Bobbejaanland have been trialling their VR experience on Revolution: http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/5184/Nieuwe-virtual-reality-achtbaan-Bobbejaanland-zorgt-voor-lange-wachttijden.html The VR coaster experience seems to be called Mount Mara, so they seem to be quite big on splitting the two experiences apart. But with an hour long queue (which for the park is huge), 10 minutes between being given the headset to returning it, reduced capacity (though not THAT big an issue on a 60-seater train...) and battery issues, it's still got all the usual concerns.

One thing I find interesting about your views is this... So you spent a long time before the stated release time refreshing the page, trying to get tickets. What would have happened if you were one of the people who got the 12p tickets before they sold out? Would you be complaining then? I doubt it. And what would you be saying if they released them at 10am dead, and you had missed out on a ticket simply by being a bit too slow / unlucky? Would you be complaining then? Maybe, but there's nothing you could do really. With such a limited number of tickets, they were of course going to sell out ridiculously quickly. And many people were going to miss out. And many people were going to be disappointed. This whole thing was to get publicity, and it's done that. Why? They were under no obligation to do this in the first place. Offering more tickets at 12p means that people will miss out again and get all the more angry over it. Simply put, no one is any more deserving or entitled to the tickets than anyone else. It's disappointing that this mistake happened, and Thorpe should try their best to make sure that this sort of mistake doesn't happen again.