JoshC.

And happy birthday to Nick!

Good to see Scruffy Dog are involved still; I'm guessing they also did some stuff for Cabin as well as MBV. Fingers crossed we see some nice improvements!

Loving the report so far toofy; thanks for doing it! Oh and hey, I'm going to Tesco today, really looking forward to it!!!

I see what you're saying there Mark, and in theory, it could end up going down that route. However, at this stage, I don't really see anything to support your fears, other than that one comment. Thorpe still are investing in the park (Swarm and Frights Nights being the two major ones recently), they're focusing a lot of guest experience / satisfaction, they're improving opening hours (okay, Summer Nights is a paid extra, but they've still got good opening hours all year round I think for a UK park); I could go on some more. Sure, there are still some flaws with the park, and some of those flaws need a lot of work to iron out. But I don't think Thorpe - or Merlin - will get into a state of complacency. Indeed, the reasons they feel guests will go back to them could be because of what they are going to do! As I say, I see your concerns here, but I do think (or maybe I should be saying 'hope' here?) they'll be unfounded.

Happy birthday Worthy!

Personally, I don't think Merlin have too much to worry about. It's been noted that no other major theme park operator operates within the UK - it's just Merlin. There must be a reason (or reasons!) for that. Whatever those reasons, it shows that the UK industry is hard to penetrate. So this is a huge risk for Paramount, and there's lots more things that could wrong than right - there's a good chance that it could indeed fail, or at the very least, not do as well as Paramount will want. Also, Merlin have a very good stronghold on the UK market. The market is saturated with Merlin, and most who are interested in theme parks will probably have been to one of the Merlin attractions. So if Paramount Park is a success, in the long run, will it really make much difference? Some people will choose Paramount over another park, yes, but in the long run, people will still go to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington and Legoland, especially if Merlin keep investing in the parks (which they are!). I don't think many people are going to get a magic light bulb go over their head when they visit Paramount Park and go "This is much better than Thorpe Park (say), let's never go there again!". Basically, as long as Merlin continue to invest in their parks, the arrival of Paramount won't do any harm. It may lead them to have to do better investments, who knows, but guests will still come back. But I don't see any reason for them to hit the panic button yet and have to dramatically change anything.

Since this is more a general FN topic rather than related to any specific year, makes sense to post this here... http://www.scareattractions.co.uk/thorpe-park-se7en-exclusive-pics/ - Some pictures from inside Se7en in it's first or second year. Shows a good amount of detail in there; some that I'd missed as well despite doing the maze several times!

Same year they had characters having sex in the middle of Rumba on their map; what did you expect?

It was posted on their Youtube channel with the title 'ROLLER COASTER PORN' (or something like that). They took it down quite quickly I believe. Don't miss the days of that marketing.

Colossus certainly isn't unbearable (as the ERT a couple of years back showed me). However, in my experience, it's very much pot luck as to whether you get a good ride on it or not. Some rows are fine, others are not. However, in my recent ride (as well rides in general), I've found the cobra roll and double corkscrew to be unpleasant experiences, and even bracing yourself doesn't do much on the cobra roll. It's a shame really when any ride has pot luck for what experience it gives. More so a shame for Colossus since I enjoy the second half of the ride..

Gotta feel for Paultons.

No idea where to put this, but it needs posting... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea5F7VfjN8A (first 3 minutes)

Opening times can be found on the main website here -https://www.thorpepark.com/resort-information/getting-here-opening-times/ Hope you have a great day!

At prices like that, you can hardly blame people for getting Fastrack unlimited. Good price on a single go, awful price on the unlimited.

A lot of the things you mention there shouldn't be happening; staff should always be writing down the correct time, and indeed, always be writing down a time (unless it's just a few minute queue, since that really doesn't matter). Also, what should be happening is the appropriate rows should be blocked off before anyone is in them (which can lead to a short wait before riding, but that's fair). So the actual system hasn't been executed properly on your visit. If it had been, these complaints you have of the system wouldn't be there! In general, I reckon the Disabled pass will get people on the ride quicker than Fastrack; that's partially the point after all. If the system is executed properly, it won't affect the queue times that much (indeed, it should be pretty unnoticeable). As for the number, I do think a maximum of 3 is fair. The thing to remember is, in practice, changing the number down to 1 or 2 will have next to no difference on queue times. Think about it - the coasters seat 2 or 4 people in a row, they cannot put more than 1 disabled party on a ride and they don't mix disabled guests and ordinary guests in the same rows (in my experiences at least). So in the case of 4-seat row coasters, it makes no difference. In the case of 2-seat rows, it can make the difference of 2 people. Given how few disabled guests there usually are at Thorpe, it makes so little difference to the throughputs. For non-coasters, for the most part, whether you have 2, 3 or 4 people in a disabled party makes little difference (I can't think of a ride where it would make a difference, that's for sure!). You say you want a fair system, but I still don't think charging people to be able to go on the same ride as their disabled friends is fair on them? The system has improved an awful lot compared to a few years back (where there was basically no limit to some rides), and I think up to 3 additional guests is a good balance between allowing disabled guests to enjoy their ride with friends/family, but not taking the mick. Any lower is just being unfair on them, in my opinion. All in all, I don't think the system needs to change. What needs to change (based on your experience), is that the system is operated as it should. I respect your opinion, but the system ain't broke, so why change it! When it is operated properly by staff, and disabled guests themselves don't try and abuse it, the system works well. Maybe you should let Thorpe know that the staff weren't operating the system properly - if they don't know it's not being run properly, they can't make the appropriate changes...

The Superfreeze thing is apparently something that's been trialled before - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercooling#Applications So it's not *properly* frozen, just turns kinda slushy. Lovely.

Fish fingers.

For the first in about 10 or 11 years, I visited a non-Merlin theme park. It's been a long time coming, and anywhere was a start. And that start was to be Drayton Manor. After such a beautiful week, Saturday decided to take a turn for the worst, and give us rain, thunder, lightning (though with a couple of breaks of sunshine during the day!). Adam picked me up and we arrived at Drayton around 9ish. Even though we were early, we could tell it was gonna be quiet day, and thank goodness, after some of the horror stories I'd heard about the park's operations. We arrived to some sun, though we could tell dark times were ahead. Half 9 came and the park opened. One of the first things which confuse me about the park is opening the park at 9:30, but not the rides until 10:30. There's not really enough to do for a whole hour, other than the small zoo, which we headed to straight away. Tigers are a'coming. A chimpanzee looks to Apocalypse in the distance. Rides were testing so we headed over to G Force (which apparently had been closed for a couple of days) and we were pretty much first in the queue. 10:30 came and it opened; yay. This was my first coaster with inversions that had lap bars, and I'd heard some pretty poor things about it, but kept an open mind. And yeah, I thought it was quite fun. My first ride didn't give me any problems with the restraints, and it was a fun, fast-paced ride. I did get a bit of air time as well, which is nice. It's an odd ride (especially with the "humpety bumpety" lift) and seems to do all the best bits at the beginning, giving a week end, but hey-ho, it's a fun enough ride. My G Force face. Next up was the big, new thing - Air Race. I wasn't quite sure how it'd ride, what with the continual spinning and moving and stuff, but it was actually really good. The rocking start is very good, and then it just keeps spinning, round and round and round. It doesn't get boring, and there's some nice moments where you're left hanging upside down for quite a while. Near the end of the ride, we started spinning in the opposite direction. Would be nice if it did it sooner, just to mix it up a little, but hey ho. On a ride later on in the day, we counted that we went upside 18 times (sorry Smiler! ). Air Race does have a nice entrance feature though. Air Race's queue line is a nice cattlepen - like many of Drayton's queue - and has a TV playing annoying things. Shockwave followed. Have to say, the station and theming in the queue line is quite nice actually. The seats and restraints on this thing though is very, erm, eurgh. Yeah, I'll go with eurgh. They're not comfortable and they just don't feel right. The ride itself has two highlights - a random little dip before going onto the lift, and the zero-g roll (which is actually incredible). The rest is uncomfortable, rattly or boring. There vertical loop was bleurgh, the double corkscrew is verging on painful and then the random straight bits are unimaginative (though, at least they don't try to castrate you). Now I see why so few stand ups have been built... Found in Shockwave's queueline - made me chuckle... Next up was Splash Canyon, the park's rapids. It was barely 11 o'clock, but we were already soaking wet, so water rides wouldn't make much difference. Fun little ride, not that wet really, though the indoor section did take me off guard. Another water ride followed, and this time it was in the famous Stormforce 10. I'd heard a lot of good things about this, so I was excited. Have to say, the queue - which we once again walked through - is nicely themed and works really well. Onto the ride itself. The first drop is nice, and the way it's done was unexpected by me. Then wandering through the random waterfall is cool. The second drop, the backwards one, was a shock. We were sat at the very back, which meant we got the full force of water. For a split second, I thought I was on Tidal Wave I was that wet. Brilliant water ride. Not-so brilliant for when the weather is already chucking it down. Final drop is quite nice too. So yeah, a great water ride all in all, but I'll try to avoid the back next time... A quick spin on Malestrom (nothing really to say about this, just a nice filler really) and drying off in one of the heater things (which was so worth it given how wet we were...), it was time to venture indoors for Pirate Adventure. It's an indoor boat ride which is basically a knock off of Pirates of the Caribbean. Have to say it's alright, though it seemed like a lot of the animatronics were broke. The ending was super anti-climatic too, which was a shame. For the record, this was probably our longest queue of the day at an amazingly long 15 minutes. Goes to show how quiet it was I guess. A go on the dodgems, sponsored by Free Radio, followed, and they were pretty decent. Food followed in the Safari Pizza & Pasta: Very nice indoors restaurant located by the zoo. Indoors there's loads of animal animatronics which move and stuff and it was quite a nice atmosphere in there. (By the way, unlike Merlin's Pizza / Pasta, this isn't all you can eat in case you're wondering. We just had a nice pizza and wedges meal). We headed over to Ben 10: Ultimate Mission, the world's first Vekoma Junior Boomerang. It looked surprisingly tall and quick for a junior coaster, and I have to admit, it was one coaster I was really looking forward to. Again, there was next to no queue, which was great. The majority of the queue is indoors, and is very well themed, with aliens, loads of 'high tech' stuff, noises, lights, etc., and a false corridor which tricked Adam and I. Very, very good. Aliens. First ride gifted us with front row. Being lifted up backwards was a nice sensation, though the stop is very harsh and judders you around a bit. Then you're dropped down and you pick up a lot of speed very quickly, meander around a bit, then up a random wiggle. You hear the laser fire and do backward to the station. It's a short ride of course, but it's great. It has a bit of everything and left both of us happy. No doubt kids love the ride as well. It's certainly Drayton's most complete ride and is fun for everyone. What's even more impressive is how it takes up so little room. Given the lack of queue, we went straight back round to do it again, which is a testament to the ride's quality. Look at that joy. Afterwards, we ventured to what I'll nickname 'dark ride row'. We started off with The Haunting, a Vekoma madhouse. Much like Hex, it has two pre-shows before the ride. The first pre-show is very nicely done, with some TVs giving you an introduction, and one or two nice effects used. The second pre-show isn't as good I found, going on for a bit too long, and that you couldn't always hear what was being said. The actual madhouse itself is good, with a nice ending I thought. So all in all it is a nice ride, but it also showed by just how good Hex is as well. Haunting is great in its own right, but Hex is in a different league. Next door was Golden Nugget - Wild West Shoot Out. As the name suggests, it's a gun-based ride where you shoot things for points. Other than the name and logo, there's no reference to the Golden Nugget cereal. It's a very cheap ride clearly, and to be honest, is quite laughable. It's nice that some things happen when you hit the target though. But still, not a great ride. We ended dark ride row with Drunken Barrels, the tilting teacups. They were good fun, and the plate actually tipped, but our cup was way too stiff to spin. It was now time for the last major ride (in my opinion), Apocalypse. Decided to go in at the deep end and do stand up first (though, unfortunately, the floorless seating wasn't available today). The seats are okay - more comfortable than Shockwave's at least! - and the tilt is a great twist; did get me a little bit. However, the drop itself is okay at best. Just doesn't really get me as much as I'd hoped. Though the suddenness of the drop is a nice touch. Sit down followed straight away, and I think I prefer that seating arrangement due to the added comfort. One thing which disappointed me with this (and a lot of Drayton in general actually) was the lack of audio, apart from the occasional siren. No atmosphere, very little tension and it just felt like the ride could have been so much more intimidating with some sort of background noise. We decided to get some other rides done, including Flying Dutchman - yet another odd Drayton ride - and Buffalo Coaster. Buffalo is quite possibly the weirdest coaster I've done, with an odd layout, monorail-like speeds, yet the occasional okay bit. It goes on forever as well. I feels like it's time should be nearly up, and the space and surrounding area would be great for a family coaster (hi there Mack!). Oh, one laughable thing about Buffalo - on our ride, the train overshot the station, meaning the people in the front row couldn't get out, and had to have another go (I feel for the poor souls). I would do a list of all the things which are more useful than Buffalo, but I think I'd be here for too long... Buffalo with Apocalypse in the background. The Buffalo should look a lot more sad though. We then went to the other side of the park to venture round Thomas Land. Looks nice, and I know that my younger self would have exploded with excitement to be there. Only ride we did round here was Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster. For a ride set in Thomas Land, it was actually alright, and the ending on it was a specific highlight. Great ride for the younger market. We saw Percy whilst queueing fro Troublesome Trucks. NEW FOR 2015. Funnily enough, when you're in the park, you don't really recognise the construction going on. When you're outside the park, by the entrance, you see the site, but have no idea what it's for. With basically everything done, it was time for rerides aplenty. Air Race, G Force and Shockwave were all done again, as was Ben 10. After a while, a storm came over, bringing more rain, thunder and lightning, bringing most rides to a close (as an interesting fact, Apocalypse was hit by lightning this past week ). One of the few rides which remained open was Polperro Express Train; a short train ride which goes round part of the park. It gave some nice views of Shockwave, Stormforce 10, G Force and the rapids, and it was a nice break from the rain. Some rides slowly began reopening, so we were able to get a few more rides in (including on the Golden Nugget ride since it was indoors, and just so we could laugh at it's awfulness some more). We ended up riding Ben 10 five times during the day, which I think shows how it is indeed a good ride for the park. The day ended off with a ride on G Force, and it was the only one where I had an uncomfortable experience. However, I still stand by my views that it is a fun ride; just a shame the restraints can cause it to be otherwise. Drayton Manor is a nice park all in all, and given it's a small park, it's done well for itself. But there's a few rides which are very cheap and laughable which need sorting out, I imagine on a busy day it's a bad place to be in (queue board times to some description would be nice for example), and there's some things lacking (audio on all rides for example). I don't want to end on a negative note, as I enjoyed the place and had a fabulous day out, and if you take it for what it is, it is good. I definitely would recommend people trying it out (especially if you have a voucher of some description), there are some good rides there which make it worth going there once. Visiting has given me the extra incentive to try out other parks as well. It's not that I haven't wanted to, but it's more that I've been a been a bit blasé about it all. However, after yesterday's experience, I now have an urge to try parks new and different (and who knows, might even crack Europe next year!) I'll leave with perhaps the best photo of the day; our last ride on Ben 10:

Echoing SCB's comments - great day, with a great ride count. First time visiting the park and it was a great first trip to the place. I'll do a TR in the next day or two, but really enjoyed the likes of G Force, Air Race and Ben 10. Shockwave has potentially left me with a few less children for the future. A few neat rides for a small park too.

Who cares about Super Freeze, I want Coca Cola Freestyle machines!!!

Cheeky.

Wasn't there also plans for Colossus (or, at least, a multi-inversion coaster) for Chessington at one point too?

For Fright Nights roles only I meant. Job descriptions in the past for FN roles have made reference to 'a terrifying new attraction' our 'new mazes'... They've never said what exactly they are though of course.

Helix

With regards to Thorpe, I doubt many Europeans make their way over the UK for Thorpe. Alton I'd say is a different story (Nemesis must surely be a huge draw?). However, how many 'regular people (ie non-enthusiasts) go to the likes of any of the European parks (bar Disney)? I doubt many have heard of the German parks (with perhaps the exception of Europa Park possibly, since that is hugely popular?). So I expect very few regular people will go for those parks; if they travel abroad for a theme park, it's likely going to end up being Disney / Orlando or the like. There's very few parks which I think try to attract people from other countries in Europe (hard for me to say really, since I haven't been to any, but I think that's a fair assumption to make). But what's stopping Merlin trying to reach out to a more international audience? Alton is more ready for it (given they have a top-10 coaster in the world, multiple world's firsts, many hotels, etc.), but if rumours of a large dark ride are true, coupled along with other decent investments, there's nothing stopping Thorpe attempting to capture a broader audience. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, nor that it will definitely work, but I think in a few more years, with the right investments, they could give it a damn good go.