JoshC.

Testing video from yesterday... Back row on this is going to be fab! Also, the park have released a image of Raik's train...

Wait Heide Park are getting another woodie?!

Brewing made me think of tea. Derren Brown's Tea Party confirmed.

It'll be interesting to see if they make use of the shipping containers again. Given they've gotten a bit beaten up and will need another retheme, I wonder how many years they've got left in them. If we do see a Ghost Train maze tie in, it'd be interesting to see if Derren / his team have an input on it. And a more theatrical maze would be just right for Thorpe, to help vary things up!

The way the conversation reads is that there is that any Annual Pass preview is not going to be a 'day long' thing, but instead some sort of evening event or ticketed time slot system. Hence why they are saying there is no preview day. Agree with Ryan that the best thing would be to wait for an announcement from Thorpe to spell out exactly what is happening.

The queue time board use the hexadecimal counting system when the queues are long. d2 minutes converts to 210 minutes

Your friendly neighbourhood mathematician is always here to help! (And that applies to anyone; hiya)

I'm glad someone got a picture of the flower beds on here; whilst it's a pretty standard Merlin abandoned style, it does work with the building nicely. I also love the slanted blue mugs; certainly one of my favourite theme park mugs! Lack of Preview Day is curious and worrying, especially since they mentioned very explicitly there would be one..

I can safely say that during all my adult life, I have only ever urinated in a toilet or a urinal. Do I win medal?

The main part of the building (the warehouse) is about 10 meters high and about 35 to 40 meters long. The other part of building (the red shed) is just over 7 meters high, but about 70 meters long. So it's nowhere near as high as X, for example, but a fair bit longer. Hopefully that helps!

Don't get to excited Mark; they're actually pentagonal

Yeah, to say in a theme park would be better. But since I'm not that well travelled, it is pretty different to any ice cream I've seen outside of a theme park too in fairness.

The thing with Nitrogenie, in theory, is that they use 'real' ingredients and they use the nitrogen to freeze the ice cream mix super fast, thus creating a flavoursome, super smooth ice cream. I've had Lemon Meringue, where the lemon ice cream tasted like proper lemons, which had a freshly made meringue on top and Triple Chocolate Brownie, which has real brownies in it. Totally different to any ice cream you could get anywhere else. I agree it's a premium price, but then again, it should be because it's a premium product. Though to hear people aren't finding that it tastes like a premium product is a shame.

I seem to have completely misread the post and gotten Silver Star and Shambhala confused. Whoops Though it is worth pointing out that some parks will slightly exaggerate a ride's speed (after all, people can't accurately measure it themselves). Since RCDB and the like will use figures that a park claims, it can mean they are a little off. Hence why there can be such oddities.

Nitro is 80mph, Shambhala is 83.3mph according to RCDB. So Nitro is not faster; would be interested to know where it's said it is? I'd have assumed the cover on Silver Star's drop is to minimise the noise of screams to non-park goers.

It makes it easier in case of evacuation. There can only be so many RAP on a ride at any one time.

Maybe they're trying to get it to run backwards?

The theory is that by having more steel for track, they'd need less supports and ultimately less steel overall.

If that does ever happen (with any drink machine), you should always try and head to The Megastore and mention it. Then you'll either get a refund or the drink you were trying to get, and they can get someone to fix it.

It's still there and fully available. They've even added Coke Vanilla and Cherry Coke now.

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.