JoshC.

In a weird way, I'm glad you had a bad experience on Mystery Castle...it's kind of nice to know that I just experienced the ride on an off day, rather than just not 'getting' the ride. Sorry for taking pleasure in your sadness! I do hope whenever I next go I can catch it on a good day.

Going up the lift hill slowly is literally nothing to worry about during testing. The motors which power the lift hill take a while to warm up essentially, so the first tests of the day are always quite slow. The lift hill will speed up after each test - after many many tests, it is fine.

I'm all for aesthetically pleasing things at parks. It's what separates something good from something great. But the fence wasn't exactly anything special beforehand. It was just a fence. Now it's just a fence stacked on top of another fence. It doesn't look great, but it doesn't exactly make it look worse. If anything, the silliness of it might make people laugh - more than what the old fence was doing. If you *really* care about it being aesthetically pleasing, then you should moan about the old fence as much as the the fence in its current state. Otherwise, to me, it feels just like moaning for the sake of moaning.

The way I see it is that something like that won't detract from my day. Yes, it's silly and isn't the nicest thing in the world, but it isn't going to ruin my day. It's easily ignored, and if seen, just makes you chuckle and you move on from it. I'd be a bit more annoyed if this was a themed or styled fence we were talking about, but given it's a bog standard fence, I just find it very difficult to get worked up by something like this.

By having something that is perfectly fine and make it unnecessarily over-the-top? Not sure many would summarise Merlin in that way... The whole low thing about fences being too low is silly. It's a shame UK parks can't expect people to not use a bit of common sense really. At least these things are very minor and can be easily ignored.

Few of mine... Shame about the terrible quality, but one of Inferno where Row 6 is hiding One of Saw's Immelmann turn. Again, terrible quality, but I like the picture. Various reactions of people coming off Saw's MCBR (shame about the tree): Alternative Swarm view; makes the inclined loop and corkscrew combo look so nice: And a nice one of Baron; I like how it shows the ride isn't too large, but keeps the imposing-ness of it:

Glad you're having a good time! I agree with you about Mamba being a bit meh (even though I don't think it was forceless), but disagree about Mystery Castle - I think we just had a bad setting or something. :/ I'll share full views in my TR, but here's some photos of Taron's construction from just over a week ago... The sheer size and scale of this coaster is ridiculous. And the fact that they're meant to be fitting in a smaller coaster into that area too is just insane. Really looking forward to seeing it develop further!

Most rides recommend that you don't ride of you have back problems. It all depends on how severe the problem is. If it's more a niggle / twinge, she should be okay on most rides to be honest. If it's more, she should probably avoid some of the more forceful rides. Tell her to take some painkillers with her and see how she feels on the day. Try some of the quieter rides first and go with the flow.

There are two sets of stairs in the building that take you to and from some sort of station area. Would suggest the attraction makes use of multiple levels, but it's hard to say for certain!

I've noticed that some rides have a tendency to lead to longer queues than others after the virtual wait. All comes down to the merge point.Presumably the 30 minute wait after the virtual queue was for Swarm? It's on one train and they let too many into the station in my opinion.. Also, what did you manage to do in your hour of virtual waiting? If you did even one ride, then it's better than waiting 90 minutes in the ride's standby queue.

There's a difference between what the staff selling Fastrack claim the queue length is and what the queue board time is though. Queue board times are controlled by different people, and they aim to be as accurate as possible. They won't inflate the queue time to sell Fastracks. The people by the entrance won't aim for accuracy, and will instead aim to sell you Fastrack however they can. It DOES happen, but not with the queue boards - which should always be seen as the first point of call.

Was planning on wait till I got my Efteling TR up before giving a fuller review, but since it's going to be ages before I get round to that, may as well give a fuller review now. I've tried to avoid spoilers of the indoors section, but read at your own risk I guess... Simply put, I loved Baron. Yes, it's not a very long ride. Yes, the layout is nothing special. Yes, the ride isn't that long. But I'm not so fussed with that sort of stuff. I look for a fun ride, with a good story and good theming. So the layout isn't so important to me. I was a bit disappointed with the queue line though. Very away from the good bits, but I guess you can't have everything. I thought that the split for front row and rows 2 and 3 was a bit too soon as well - it says it's a 20 minute wait for front row from the split point, but it was longer last week (understandable, given staff were still getting used to the ride). Interestingly, they give you a ticket to show your row before you enter the building, and take it away from you before you enter the station. Hopefully it will work in the long term for them.. The pre-shows are fab - even better that there's English translations for it too! Even after 5 rides last week, I kept finding loads of little details dotted around them which just made the whole story so believable and real. There's an animatronic of the Baron just before you enter the station which I adored and found quite life-like! As for the ride itself, I liked the pre-lift section; very fitting for the overall experience. One thing which I loved most about the overall experience was the sound of the ringing bell at the top of the lift hill, and just before you drop. It's such a simple effect, but it just fits beautifully with the whole ride. I found the drop to be very floaty and fun on the way down, followed by a bit of force as you exit into the Immelmann. The Immelmann and zero-g roll had nice pops of airtime floatyness too actually. The helix had a bit of force too (especially at the back!) and even gives a pop of airtime as you leave. The airtime hill at the end caught me a bit off guard too - it gave a surprising amount of airtime for something at the end of the ride! All in all, I just adored the experience. The ride is very "floaty" and fun, has a great story that flows throughout the entire area and has some wonderful bits of theming. I personally can't ask for any more in a coaster. Oh, I also just have to add in that the milkshake and pizza place underneath the lift hill is just amazing I know others won't have as much love for the ride as I do. It's probably been a bit overhyped too during construction, and some may be left a bit underwhelmed. But at the same time, I do think everyone will still be able to enjoy it for what it is and Efteling really are onto a winner with this!

Possibly playing devil's advocate here, but is Chessington really a leading park in the UK now? Sure, they're the 4th biggest in terms of attendance, but that means next to nothing really. They don't do anything particularly spectacular, the majority of their headline attractions are over 15 years old, they have added two major attractions in the past 12 years. Maybe too much is expected of Chessington? Or maybe that just highlights how low our expectations are?

Bit of a misunderstanding on my part here. I thought you were saying that those who control the queue boards were inflating queues to sell Fastrack tickets. Still, it sounds like you're suggesting that at times, the park deliberately don't add a second train to increase Fastrack sales? I don't think that's what you're trying to say, but that's just how I'm reading it! It's seems almost obvious that Thorpe have had budget cuts across their maintenance team in some respect - struggling to get everything open on two trains on busy days is an big indication to that. Naturally such a thing can lead to longer queues and more opportunity to sell Fastrack. I guess looking at the bigger picture, they're making an overall profit - they're saving money from one department and able to make more money from another. Just to reiterate my point on this - I totally agree that it does happen; I'm sure everyone on these forums have seen cases where the park has profited from Fastrack because of pushy salesmen, reduced capacity for seemingly unnecessary reasons or other reasons. But the way I've been reading some points on here make it sounds like those who control the queue time boards are inflating queue times on purpose to sell Fastrack. That is simply not the case, and it's one of my personal bugbears when someone suggests it is. Seems I may have misinterpreted some posts though.. Have to disagree with you here though. I've seen it happen at plenty of places - open the rides on maximum capacity straight away and be done with it. Let Fastrack be sold to the people who want it and that's that. Towers regularly work like that from my experiences, for an obvious example!

It'll be interesting to see if there's been any noticeable operational changes, or whether they've kept everything the same. Glad they've reopened it just as the summer season is kicking in!

I wonder if the Wave Surfer thing (whatever it's called) could be returning for summer, and they're changing rooms?

BUT THEY DO NOT DO THIS. Even from a theoretical perspective. Two who control queue times and those who control Fastrack are different people with different aims. Queues are not artificially inflated to increase Fastrack sales.

To be fair, shooter rides CAN be great fun. Tomb is just not a great example of one. Whatever this is, for them to begin teaser trailers this early on, one would hope it's a pretty major or significant thing. Not holding my breath yet mind.

Meh, yesterday was relatively quiet. Never saw a queue above 40 minutes and coasters opened on two trains I believe. Park even opened half hour earlier than stated. Then again, I left early so there might have been an afternoon rush (though I doubt it). You can still have nice days during the busy period.

It'll be successful. People expect to pay money at theme parks and will be prepared to pay extra for the idea of something 'magical'. This is just a high-end product on park. Personally I'd prefer to try this franchise outside of a theme park as it does sound pretty cool. But at a theme park, I look either for quick and easy food or themed food Since this is neither, I likely won't be trying it at Alton any time soon.

Complete line up of acts for Island Beats - which started today! - is now on Thorpe's website: https://www.thorpepark.com/island-beats/events/island-beats/

I know Towers are subject to budget cuts, but a roller coaster powered by Mark9 pedalling a bike or something is taking cost cutting to a whole new level...

That's certainly the best way to word it! I don't want to hype the ride up any more than enthusiasts already have, as I think I'll love it more than others. It's a solid ride that flows well. It's not the best, it's not exactly special, just a very well done ride which I enjoyed a lot.

As an overall experience, Baron is quite possibly my favourite attraction. The ride itself is a little short, but great fun and very graceful. The theming, effects and story are perfect though. Others didn't love it as much as me, but each to their own. I think it depends on what you want from a coaster.

We didn't I'm afraid - been driving instead! Hope you have fun. Not sure if you're aware, school kids are breaking up for summer this week in Germany, but hopefully it's not too busy for you.