JoshC.

As long as they had a good day, does it matter? Does it really matter if they rode 3 rides or 100 rides? As long as they had a good day and enjoyed themselves, that is all that should count. Doing the zoo is also a very big thing really (though I'm not saying £45pp for a zoo is good value!) What should matter is that Chessington don't sink to the level of assuming that everyone will be like your friends and have a good day with so little done. They should of course strive to be as good as possible and make sure everyone can enjoy themselves, regardless of how they spend their day.

Genuine question - what other explanation would there be that is less odd? Parks do checks and train staff / test out safety procedures during the season whilst the park is closed. This may also be in light of recent events, but it shouldn't be anything to worry about!

Possibly testing evacuation procedures?

So, as some on here might be aware, myself, scarycoasterboy (Adam), J.S217 (Jack) and Peaj did a bit of a European road trip at the end of last month / beginning of this month. 8 days, 7 parks, 3 countries - it was a big'un. Parks we visited were... Plopsaland de Panne (27th June) Bellewaerde (28th) Walibi Belgium (29th) Phantasialand (30th) Toverland (1st July) Efteling (1st-3rd) Bobbejaanland (4th) As we were visiting Belgium, Germany and Holland, we squished the three countries together to get the working title of 'BelGerAnd' for the name of the trip. Unfortunately, that terrible attempt just sort of stuck (much like Stealth's project name ey?). So that explains that. (PS: Any feedback on the style of this would be great. I do plan on writing up reports from all the parks, so would be nice to do it in a way that people would want to read it!) Anyway, enough set up, let's get down to TR-ing... An early start beckoned us - leaving to get the 5:15 ferry from Dover. Naturally, this meant we arrived at Plopsaland - a realtively short drive from Calais - ridiculously before the 10am opening... The entrance area looks very nice. We wandered around the local area to pass the time, and about a 5 minute walk away, we found a Belgian War Memorial. It was somewhat surprising to realise that a theme park was so close to a place like. We had a wander around and it really hits home... With our respects paid, we ventured off to the world of Plopsa. First up was the coaster I was most looking forward to off the day, Anubis. It's the first launched Gerstlauer I've done, and indeed the first rolling launch I've done. I was looking forward to it, after hearing many good reviews. After a near walk-on through the nicely themed queue, we were on. Simply put, the ride is fab - the launch is great fun, and then the ride that follows mixes pops of airtime, inversions and bits of force nicely together. I found going up the initial hill quite intense too. The ride flows really well and it's very smooth too. It's a little on the short side and lacks any substantial outdoor theming, but at the same time, it doesn't leave you feeling short changed. All in all, a great ride that is really enjoyable. A somewhat understated entrance. Couple of ride shots. We then moved over to Rollerskater, one of the park's family coasters. This immediately caught my eye for one reason - the random theming. From a giant washing machine, bird in a cage to a turtle on a plate, the ride seemed a bit wacky. The coaster itself is fun, but the random bits of theming just make it a right laugh. Lift hill The infamous washing machine Station building We then ticked off another cred, by doing their powered coaster, De Draak. It's got an extravagantly themed queue line, but it also has a long layout that interacts nicely with the surroundings. Picks up some decent speed and it's nice that it goes round twice too. De Station. With temperatures soaring, we decided to cool down on De Boomstammetjes, the park's log flume. It was okay, had a nice double drop finale, but didn't get you wet enough really. By now we had realised something a bit odd - the park itself felt very very busy, but the queues themselves didn't really reflect that. Not sure if that's the norm for Plopsaland given their target market or not, but we weren't really going to complain, as it gave a nice atmosphere to the park, but meant we could try out all that the park had to offer. With this in mind, we did a few of the filler rides, including Waterfietsen; some pedal swan boats. Was a very nice tour round the lake, though have to admit my legs were aching after a while! Two filler rides that we didn't get done during this little period, however, were their Teacups, which is still being given its awesome-looking retheme, and Rox-Flyer, their Star Flyer. Ah well. Two rides of spite. With some flat rides done and lunch out of the way, we moved over to Supersplash, the 'water coaster' which anyone would have a hard time calling a 'coaster'. It was probably our longest queue for the day, at about 20-25 minutes - quite nice that it was indoors too! Following an interesting lift sequence, the ride does a drop underneath a bridge, before coming back up and then giving a nice-looking splash and then meandering back to the station. The lift sequence is nice, but lacking anything substantial really. The drop I found a bit rough in all honesty, but the splash was nice - not wet of course, but was refreshing. I'm a bit unsure on it as an attraction - it takes ideas from a couple of different rides, but doesn't really do anything with them. A bit of a shame. A shame I didn't get a shot with a boat in really. We then planned to tick off the two remaining creds on park - Vleermius, the random suspended coaster, and Viktor's Race, the park's kiddie coaster. Unfortunately, it became apparent that Vleermius would spite us - it was closed with no obvious work being done to it. Shame, as it's something I did want to try out, but I'm sure I'll get to try something like it in the future. Viktor's Race, however, was open. Nothing really to say about it, merely one done for the coaster count. Neither ride was very photo-worthy for me, it would seem. More wondering round the park was done afterwards, and getting in some rerides along the way. We were planning on heading over the to Wickieland to try out the Disk-o and splash battle over their, but noticed the Disk-o was closed due to it stalling, so we decided to leave that area till later. Instead, we worked our way over to the indoor area Maya Land, near the front of the park. It's a great area for kids with some fabulous looking rides. The one that caught my attention the most though was De Waterlelies, a Zamperla Demolition Derby. After not getting on the one at Drayton for the past two years, this simply had to be done. Certainly a fun little ride, though it does sort of feel like it drags on a bit towards the end. We also did the slide in Maya Land before leaving to explore the rest of the park once again. Spinning waterlilies <3 After a couple more rides on Anubis, we then headed over to Het Bos van Plop, an indoor boat ride. I really enjoyed it to be honest, the theming was lovely, the music was catchy and it was just a nice way to relax. Such a simple ride executed so well. We then did the train ride around the park before heading over to Wickieland again... The Disk-o was still closed, but the car had been bought back to the station-area at least. Instead, we decided to the splash battle - Wickie The Battle. It was very nicely themed, a good length and got you to a good level of wet. Great water ride all in all! With park close nearing, we dashed over to Supersplash for one more ride (majority vote over-ruled me unfortunately!). We then stayed in the park for a bit longer, looking around the entrance and such, before hitting the road. An hour-or-so drive later, we arrived at our French hotel, and after realising the hotel owners were out for the night and eventually being given our keys by other guests, we were finally in. A quick McDonald's and some French TV bought an end to our first - and fortunately longest - day! Final Thoughts: I really enjoyed Plopsaland. It's a fab little park, with some nice little gems and great theming. The addition of a woodie next year is definitely music to my ears - one more family thrill coaster would complete the park's line up I think. It's certainly a park I want to go back to soon, and the proximity to me is a bonus!

That layout is interesting - the turn out of the station looks like it could give a nice bit of force for a junior coaster! Be interesting to compare it to the Ben 10 layout. I'm really excited for the park - this investment is an obvious statement of intent for where they want to take the place. Paultons had always been a park on my 'to do' list, but more a 'I'll get it done when I get it done' type of park. This investment has shot it up there to a park already in my 2016 plans - and I hope that it gives the general public a similar feeling when the area opens up.

Does anyone know why it even exists? My first thought would of course be to use it when the park is heaving to try and increase throughput. But when we went, the park was really quiet and queues never went above 30 minutes (and even then, Mystery didn't even go above 15 from what I remember...), which would sort of throw that theory out the window.

I've got the following Thorpe Park ones... Amity Beach My First Coaster It's My Birthday Angry Birds The Swarm I'm a Celeb Stealth and a Vampire one from Chessington. Planning on completing the Thorpe collection, but not really fussed by any others..

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.