JoshC.

The park's website says that Fright Nights (or at least FN attractions) is only suitable for over 13s, so it seems unlikely. I was interested to see if they would do that, but there's nothing wrong with having a more adult event for a family park, especially for only a couple of weeks.

Restraint problems aren't uncommon on rides. Happens every so often. Don't fret every time Slammer has a small bit of downtime or opens slightly later. One tiny little problem isn't going to cause it to go to the scrapheap!

Saw is one of the better received rides on park apparently and the film series is certainly iconic. Sure, it's not everyone's cop of tea, and the response is mixed from enthusiasts, but it's definitely been a great investment for the park!

16 to be a platformer I believe. 18 (and have experience) to operate rides.

I fear for the throughputs. However, the ride itself does look quite fun.

^I think the point Morgan is making is that since The Marmaliser is the key thematic feature, the station exterior is likely going to be ignored regardless of the theming.

Showing scenes from Saw 3D / Saw VII would also give a brilliant opportunity to utilise the seats during the car trap too!

How was it a last minute investment? It was probably first planned art least a year ago, which I wouldn't call last minute for a small investment.

How do you know that haven't though?

I'm sorry...

I used Priority Passes to do all the mazes at Fright Nights last season. I've felt unclean ever since.

Shockwave? More like Shocking!

Sounds like fun; I'm up for it!

To be fair, she probably did more than one coaster that day! And Colossus needs more good press than Inferno I'd say

The flaming fire truck (strong sense of irony), the destroyed emergency services vehicles and destroyed church (showing no one can help you and nowhere is safe), the destroyed flying modes of transports (showing The Swarm control the skies), the cries for help from the telephone box, the slight humour of the billboard and more are all great little touches. There's also more. Given that the ride is set AT Thorpe Park, surely the church makes no sense to be there? But no one complains about that. It's one of those things you have to accept for the story, and it happens in all forms if entertainment.

Points out Swarm, Amity Cove, Saw (to a degree) as well as plenty of other little touches around the park.

On the other hand though, most guests won't just ride the coasters. They'll ride the flats, the water rides, etc. Of course, the coasters will be the big draw, but it won't be the only thing which defines a person's visit. I get that for some people, the new system may affect how many times you can reride a coaster or whatever. However, it has the possibility to allow people to get on more rides during their day, which is what most people want at the end of the day! The system has the capability to please more people than displease.

Perfect Day fit well with the You're Next idea (because irony woo), and given some basic knowledge of the film's premise, it would make sense. I do think there are better choices to play around the park though. I always wonder with IPs how much parks expect their guests to know about the franchises. A basic knowledge of the film's premise should be enough (so even if you haven't watched the film, you know the general idea), but then there's also opportunities to extend on the story / replicate ideas from the film (for those who have watched the film). I do think MBV (and maybe even Cabin) failed at this a bit. I knew the general idea MBV for example, but was left confused as to why I was going from mine to hospital to mine to random area to woods to random area. I bet Cabin could have confused others too, what with the random rooms which don't really create a story. Hopefully this can be improved upon, and the new maze also takes this into consideration.

Clearly some people are just not a fan of the system at all (which is fine; everyone can have their own opinion). Perhaps the only way for some to be convinced by it is to see it be a success. From what I can tell on social media (look through Facebook / search for Reserve n' Ride on Twitter), there's been more positive feedback than negative feedback. Given that people are more inclined to post negative feedback on social media, I think that shows some sort of promise for the system, and I'm pretty sure the overall feedback (ie - not just from social media) is more positive than negative at the moment. And that will be based on everyone who's used it at any time. This seems to be one of those things which needs looking at from a casual visitor's perspective: -In the past, on a busy day in the Summer, you may well have queued two hours for Saw, then 20 minutes for Rush, 40 minutes for Loggers (say). RnR could feasibly give rise to a situation where you virtually queue for Saw for just over two hours, whilst also doing Rush with a 50 minute queues and Loggers with a 70 minute queue (since the queues for non-RnR rides will increase) at the same time. -So, previously, you could have done 3 rides in 3 hours. But RnR could let you do 3 rides in just over 2 hours. From a casual visitor's perspective, RnR is better. Even though you queue longer for the flat rides, you get rides done in a shorter time period. Of course, that's all really hypothetical, but it's definitely a plausible outcome of RnR. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Reserve n' Ride has potential to work well. Guests are understanding it, seeing that it works, and the actual system itself is having less technical problems. The trials are promising too. With some more attractions added to the line up to keep guests occupied, I truly do think it can work.

Happy birthday to Ryan!

^Reserve and Ride has been well received actually. They had a bad week or two recently, but other than that, it's been pretty good during the year from what I've heard. The thing is James, not all coasters have 2 hour queues all the time. Most days, you'll see one or two rides with near 2 hour queues (usually Saw and Colossus in my experiences), and the rest between 60-90mins. And that would be at their worst. So, your assumptions are a bit over the top really. We truly won't know the effect it will have on the rest of the rides until they try it for a few days (one day or half a day is just not good enough). For it to be as successful as possible, they'll need more attractions, yes, but I think it can work.

Thanks for all the info; sounds promising! However, bit confused here - did Freezer run elsewhere, since it was only at Thorpe between 2002 and 2004?!

One thing which I've noticed people say is about the "unfair ratios" of RnR to people who queue normally, and the long queue times that people have to wait if they queue normally. Surely that shows the system is in fact working well... Say Saw had a 60 minute queue for people who decided to queue normally - which it did at one point yesterday - and (if there's ratios favouring Fastrack and RnR) only 2 out of the 8 cars let normal guests on. Then, there's only gonna be around 200-250 people actually normally queueing for the ride (assuming Saw's throughput is between 800-1000). Assuming the same for the other four coasters, then you're looking at 1000 people queueing for the major 5 coasters. If all the 'ordinary' queues for coasters are longer, then you're still only looking at 1500-2000 at most queueing for the actual coasters. Using the system yesterday, was able to get on the rides very quickly after checking in. I certainly wouldn't have got all 5 major coasters done during the day if RnR wasn't operating, since I wouldn't want to bother with the queues. If those people had to use RnR, and you spread them across the entire park and the 10-15ish rides that could possibly appeal to them, then at this stage, it will give a noticeable, but not particularly huge, increase to ride queue times, as well as boost up virtual waiting times. I want to see the park try just virtual queueing on the coasters, but at the moment, it's probably a step too far given the limited line up to do. So the normal queueing option - whilst confusing and weird and whatnot - is a good idea at the moment. What they need to do now is increase the attraction line up. High throughput rides would be great, but they also need shows, non-rides, etc. to give more alternatives and to keep everyone entertained. That way, the virtual queueing will work, and there's enough attractions to be able to cope. The fact that, for the most part, the non-coasters aren't that much more busier at the moment, shows that the park don't actually need that much more for this to be achievable. I'd even say that if the park could get a season-round show in the arena / Hideaway and CCR back, they could realistically try it next season. Couple more high throughput rides and attraction in the next couple of years and they could attempt to roll it out to more and more rides as well. Long story short - I think RnR is getting to a stage where it's working well. The system seems a lot better than in the past, and these trials are coming back positive. I don't think it'll be that difficult to roll it out to having the coasters to be virtual queue and Fastrack only. Couple of other points. People mentioning about the fact your can reserve rides when not on park. It is a flaw, yes, and it is something which would be good to be sorted out. However, I don't think it's too big a deal? I doubt there's many people who have nothing better to do than book a place in a queue on a roller coaster just to annoy some other people. Some people could do it if they're arriving after the park opens, but I imagine that's a smaller problem since most people will arrive within the first hour of opening. I know many have mentioned the flaw how multiple people from one group can reserve different rides. This is something which could be abused, yes, however I wonder how much it affects to queues. I personally doubt it will affect the overall park waiting times if it happened, but I guess that's only something you can know if you compare the two cases.. If a ride has a long virtual queue, I don't think that's a big deal. Just shows it's popular surely? It's not fun having to plan your day out at a theme park in a way such that you have to say "Right, we have 3 hours till we can ride this ride...", and that's something that Thorpe can improve by having more things to do on park. tl;dr - For RnR to be truly successful, the park needs to give guests more things to do. The trials they're doing at the moment seem promising however. Don't knock it til you've tried it either!

No worries - hope all is okay! Thanks to everyone that showed up. Mr and Mrs was a bit of a flop on terms of a game, but fingers crossed everyone got to know each other a little better, which was the point mostly! And the Quiz was a little too hard in the end I think, but oh wells.. Hopefully another Organized Chat can happen soon as well

Divisional Director Mike Vallis did his nomination! Wonder how long it'll be before Nick Varney gets his nomination?