JoshC.

Was the throughput of Studio 13 significantly smaller than Asylum though? Genuine question. I didn't visit FN enough to be able to get a feel for throughput, but given the mazes take a similar amount of time to get through (Studio 13 felt a bit shorter to me actually, but that might be because it wasn't a repetitive boring drag of strobe lights and mesh fences) and have similar amount of people per group, I'd be surprised if the throughput was significantly less. Though, maybe they did have high throughput mazes and Studio 13 was the one with a lower throughput, since it was "the best" last year.

I'm guessing that includes the hotel though? If you take that away, I'm guessing that takes a large amount of the investment figure away. If you consider the actual investment in the theme park itself, as opposed to the resort as a whole (a funny thing to say perhaps, given Merlin's obsession with calling the places 'resort theme parks'), then it was low. As someone who visited and has no interest in the hotels, a freshened up Market Square, an adventure trail and a boringly-themed powered coaster doesn't exactly feel like a park's "biggest investment" on record.

I still genuinely think Thorpe should try RnR without a standby queue at least once on the 5 coasters. When they first trialled the system in 2013 on just Swarm, it seemed to work well when the system didn't crash (well, in my opinion at least!). RnR was designed with the 'queue free park' in mind, so it would be interesting to see how the system works with that in operation. I fully understand the impracticalities of it all and do think it should be trialled on a relatively quiet day, but I think the system needs trialling like that at some point in the upcoming season! If it doesn't work, then Thorpe should rethink the whole idea; maybe use it as just a Fastrack only thing or something? On a related point, I was always shocked that Thorpe have trialled this system during such busy periods. That must surely say something about Thorpe's faith within the system!

^If the park are working on a 4 year cycle (which seems to be the more adopted strategy from Merlin now), then Chessington's next 'major' thing should open in 2017. Given they'd have to submit plans in about a year, I'd hope they've got a couple of plans which are in some more in depth! Then again, one more major attraction won't help Chessington. They really need to sort out Mexicana a bit more, give Mystic East (and particular Dragon Falls) some work, spruce up Tomb Blaster, do something worthwhile with the Skyway, do some work to Transylvania, the list goes on... Being pedantic even, they should make Land of the Dragons actually fit in with the park too. And for a family park, the park feels far too child-orientated for my liking - I expect that many kids actually do enjoy the park, but older visitors are left a bit bored by some of the attractions which are targeted for 'everyone'. That needs sorting too.

Ah, the Blogs feature really is great - http://forum.maniahub.com/blog/10/entry-309-why-saw-is-actually-a-really-good-coaster/ NB: The title of the blog was really just designed to make people read it. Whilst I do like Saw, I think my opinion of it is not as high now as I make it out to be in that blog. But alas, that's what time does I guess!

Hulk. Because you said you like Spiderman. P or NP?

Don't get the fuss about the lack of advertising. This is clearly a very low key coaster. It's going to be aimed at young children. At the moment, a family with young children isn't going to be any more persuaded to think about visiting the park because 'they're building a coaster for kids'. At this stage, a family (and indeed most people) will be more likely to book a visit after hearing about the Enchanted Village and such. I'm sure once the ride is built / nearly built, the park will advertise it and use it as an opportunity to push CBeebies Land further into the eyes of the young family market. But at this stage, do they need to? I don't really think so.

^ I think they were added a couple of months after opening. (Well, despite being stuck in the tunnel for so long and having a good look, I didn't see any during my visit in April!)

Two in one day? Crikey, we've reached the heights of Closed Season...

Bingo! Now cue 5 pages of discussion about it.

Looks like Matt's up all night to get pluky...

Supports are on park for the rumoured coaster: http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2015/supports-arrive-on-site-for-rumoured-cbeebies-coaster/ Come on now, manufacturer nerds - who do you think those supports are from?

Line up is looking good! If all goes well, I can make at least 3 of these meets. Depending on where I end up from September onwards, how much funding I get (if any), I might be able to make some more later in the year too.

The trouble with linking the system with admission tickets is that it makes the whole thing more complicated, more laborious and makes the system more prone to faults. Sure, it stops abuse of the system, but it makes the system much worse. I guess that is the biggest flaw with the system: It's either too easy to abuse it, or it's too overwhelming to make it worthwhile. Hopefully they can find some form of middle ground, as I expect the park are fully aware of this. I think it's worth saying though that you don't need to abuse the system to get the most out of it. When I went to Fright Nights, in about 5 hours, I got all 5 scare attractions done, as well as Swarm, along with time for a quick break. Given that it was a rather busy day, I don't think I'd have gotten all that done normally (indeed, back in 2012, I got 2 mazes done in 4 hours before giving up with the rest of the park and leaving, questioning if the 200 mile round trip was worth it...).

This is a no brainer. It's JoshC. The C. stands for Cougan. (Since we are all Lez Cougan, Lez is a legitimate TPM member)

Probably a no from me. I'm spending time at home and Thorpe on the 14th/15th, and at conferences the next two weekends I believe. Very slim chance I can make it if it's the 1st, so we shall see!

^Last year was Opening Weekend in fairness! But yeah, of course, agree that whatever is most popular is best. XD

I can only do 21st, 22nd and 28th. However, I do feel the Official Meet should really be during Opening Weekend!

In fairness, it takes 30 seconds to book a ride. It is ever so slightly more unsociable, yes, but I don't think it's anything that should be made an issue out of.

In fairness, it can connect to the internet, so can be used for RnR. But yeah, as Marc says, they've got the paper system as well, so it's alright I guess. I still think that 99% of people who go to Thorpe will be in a group where someone has a smart device that can connect to the internet. So the whole argument about not having smart phones / not taking phones doesn't really seem to hold much worth in my eyes!

Really? Maybe it's just me, but I always have my phone with me (unless I'm going to uni for an official exam). It's a common thing, since a phone can be used to contact people, check travel information, etc etc. Going for a day out means those things are essential to me just in case something happens.

In fairness, Legoland were meant to be getting a pretty decent-looking dark ride ride this year. Of course, due to the council / locals, plans never got approved so Legoland are really have to improvise and think outside the box.

Am I the only one who thinks the closeness of these things is a nice little idea? Yeah, okay, so you're a bit cramped into one another. But when I first heard the name 'Enchanted Village', I wasn't expecting anything particularly spaced out. I was expecting something a cosy little area that feels secluded and in it's own enchanted, magical world. I think that, once finished, it could well have that feel. For me personally, if I was going to go to one of these things, I wouldn't care that there's another cabin a metre away from me to be honest.

Nope. If Swarm had been 100m longer, they'd have gone over the pre-agreed maximum coaster length set out in the MTDP (why they set it to a maximum of 850m, who knows?). I'm sure Thorpe will want as high throughput additions as they want, but under the constraints, I doubt Swarm could really achieve any more than it already does.

I don't see why Thorpe would advertise Reserve n Ride as heavily as people are suggesting. I expect there will be more trials and they'll be more ambitious with the idea, but I don't think the park are going to start saying 'Come to THORPE PARK and try Reserve n Ride - tomorrow's queueless theme park...today', or something like that. And yeah, Disney aren't going to care about Thorpe. It's one park owned by Merlin with a much more targeted audience than Disney. They're not going to push one of their ideas more because another, much smaller, park is doing a similar system.