JoshC.

A world of triple posting. Meh. I did this again today! Same course, etc. Went really well, as this little feedback sheet shows...

Let's move any political discussion here to avoid a topic derailment: http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/10940-general-election-2015/(surprised it's taken this long for such a thread to come about, but we need one!)

So the general election is happening THIS THURSDAY. And we don't even have a thread for it? Disgraceful. Discuss all things electiony here. Are you voting? Where do your allegiances lie? Or are you apathetic to the whole process and feel much bigger change is needed? Even if you're not old enough to vote, still feel free to contribute your thoughts! (PS: This thread could get very opinionated and very messy very quickly; let's try and keep handbags away from this yeah? )

Seems to change a lot. Usually it's every 3 trains, but sometimes it's more (I've seen it anything up to once every 7 trains, though that was in 2012) or less. Some Summer Nights that I went to they had it going off every train which was pretty sweet.

From TPM's Facebook: One of Swarm's water effects is back working again.

Question: Why is this only open on weekdays? (Never been to AI or given it much attention, so this could be a really stupid question. I'm just a bit confused!)

Have I missed something? Where / when have people been calling the show inappropriate? :S

Well that explains why they kept the Carousel control booth. How else will they keep their ladders upright when not using them?

*6 months, since they've had closed season too. Hopefully this can be open by June time when all the school trips start happening in their hundreds. I know it's not got a brilliant throughput, but every little helps and SBNO rides are never a good reflection on any park...

Has it? Completely missed it on my visit then..

So this thing is testing now: No duelling yet, but that will come I assume.

Yeah; almost doubled the size of the land really, with a few new rides and a couple of play areas / exhibitions. Highlight for me is a Zamperla Demolition Derby which looks pretty fun actually In fairness, they had Air Race last year which is a fabulous addition to the park's line up in my opinion. I'm fine with them investing in Thomas Land as much as they want, but other parts of the park need attention too Buffalo, Pirates Adventure, the god-awful Wild West shoot out are all rides which either need removal or complete overhauls. If they sort them out, then they've actually got a pretty solid selection of attractions for a full day out. Another major coaster would be nice, but it's not a necessity at this stage to be fair.

Phill: "I'm scared, I want to go home. They've got super spinny things on this Carousel" Adam: "Oh go ride Thorpe Park's Carousel. Oh wait, YOU CAN'T. HA."

More Thomas Land expansion coming next year: Credit to Theme UK's Facebook. Nice to see the park continuing to invest and I'm glad Thomas Land has worked for them, but the rate they're going, it may add well be called Thomas Theme Park with Drayton Manor Land.

Double posting? How wrong of me. I've had it confirmed today that (assuming I get the grades) I've got a scholarship for my Masters Degree!

Carrying on with exam-esque theme, my first wave of exams is over! So yay, slight celebrations before my second wave begins in 2 and a bit weeks time.

Don't include the 's' in "https://" part of the link ie: You used this: http://youtu......... Fixed it for you though

Banned because you probably made 321 posts resurrecting dead topics like this one.

Pretty drawings. Let's see how the place looks in 5 years time before getting exited though.

The way it worked last year is you choose a date and tell them where you'd like to see. Of course, there may be limitations, but just ask for what you want and see what happens! I think they give you time though, so they can fit in with other VIP guests and the engineers' schedules. The VIP are usually really quick to respond to emails and give as much detail with any questions you have, so if you have any other questions, probably best to ask them directly!

3 of the 5 major Merlin parks have winged coasters now. A winged coaster wouldn't fit in with Chessington really and given Alton's constraints, I'd be very surprised if they had the space to build a decent winged coaster. The Swarm argument could go round in circles for months, but I think one thing worth remembering is this: 2013 saw the addition of a new, large-scale piece of theming (the billboard), which many see as the best near miss of the ride. The backwards rows, despite all the stick they are given by enthusiasts, have been well-received too. Given that, I don't think it shows they're *completely* out of touch with their customers, but rather they needed to give it a kick start for it to be as popular as they wanted it to be. I think you might have hit the nail on the head - they simply need more staff. I don't think having extra trains would help, as that requires a lot more storage space (which Thorpe simply don't have), and they would probably end up doing a Stealth and always having two ready and the third in the middle of a major strip down. It must be a pretty major part for it to be down this long. The ride was fine for AP day and the first few days of the season, and then died, so it must be something quite serious and unforeseen to be waiting this long.

The short answer is no. The long answer is no, and here's why: Apologises for the crude diagram, but here's the farm in (more or less) it's current state. The green line shows, to the best of my memory, the perimeter of the Farm in the last couple of years before its closure (though I think it used to be larger?). First things first; there's now a school there! Part of Thorpe working closely with the community, etc. So any new developments over there would lead to the moving of a school. The blue line circle / box shows roughly where the train tracks / station were. Part of the infilling of the new islands meant that some parts of the Farm were used for 'relief' essentially, and were flooded. So the old train route literally does not exist any more! You can see similar relief next to the yellow circle (which used to be where the water jetties picked up from I think?) The red circle shows the barn that's being replaced (so it wasn't even something that used to be accessible). Essentially, it's an old barn that had seen better days, and had suffered damage (fire, weather, a vehicle bashed into it...,etc.). Thorpe still use parts of the Farm area for storage and other things I believe, and were of course worried that it was unsafe to staff who would be in the area, and to the public (since it's close to a main-ish road). It was beyond repair and just needed replacing really - nothing exciting unfortunately! Some pictures of the barn in its old state, if you're curious: *Pictures taken from the plans about replacing the Barn) (As a side note, it was kind of weird seeing how much the Farm had changed from an aerial perspective. Hadn't Google-mapped Thorpe in ages, and now it's just mad me a little bit sad ) --- Bringing this back to the topic of CCR... I don't think it would ever be extended back to Thorpe Farm (there's no need for it to), and I couldn't really see it being extended to go round the park more - it would take up a lot of space, and the park just isn't that big enough to warrant it in my eyes. I would still love to see it return and do a short loop, add in a bit of theming / interactivity. It doesn't have to be anything big or special, but brining it back would be a nice little thing to help mix the day up!

Last season, technical service shifts were starting at 6am (and we still had similar issues of one train service, etc.). Maybe it's a case of they just need more people on? Whatever it is, it does seem like it simply does boil down to not enough funds being pumped into maintenance.. Not saying that they haven't gone above that, but I genuinely can't remember seen / heard / experienced queues of over 140 minutes in summer, despite going on really busy days. The only times I remember queues reaching that length are around the openings of rides or during busy Fright Nights* dates (and even then, that's only been for one attraction, not all the attractions). *I'm ignoring last year's Fright Nights with quoted 3-4 hour standby queues during Reserve n Ride.

You see, this sort of comment is one that swings to the complete other extreme. Yes, Merlin do good things, but it doesn't mean that they don't do bad things. Never ending negativity is silly, but so is never ending positivity (unless, of course, there are no real negatives, though unfortunately there are negatives with Merlin). Let's face it, regardless of how much good Merlin are doing, if queues are an hour long and they aren't adding on a second train to a coaster, that IS poor. With regards to the earlier comment about today's queues, maybe I'm just 'used' to long queue times at Thorpe, but an hour for the main rides and two hours for Colossus on reduced capacity (which would presumably be about an hour if it had two trains) isn't exactly unusual or ridiculously long for a Saturday outside of the holiday period... Even in the busiest periods, queues haven't even exceeded 3 hours in my experiences over the years, so to suggest anything over that is a ridiculous over-exaggeration in my opinion.