JoshC.

Posted on TPM's Facebook... Almost done (even if it's later than planned!) Looking good!

Has Shoutbox kicked the bucket? Or have I just accidentally deleted it from my view?

'Th13teen - don't go alone' Single Ride Queue available. Always makes me chuckle...

Pigs chasing a cow? How amoosing.

Why not late August?

Yep, the ERT thing isn't official, and is just a trial. They haven't officially said anything so that it doesn't bind them into opening early every day. The Triathlon is something which I believe is becoming a regular thing; one happened last year and another two are to happen this year. Info - http://www.thetriproject.co.uk/casestudies/view/thorpe-park-triathlon-2013 Starting at 7am gives plenty of time for it to finish by a 10am opening, but, as with any event like this, you can't always be sure. It also gives Thorpe some great publicity for really not doing anything!

So it's my big exam period next week and revision is controlling my life. For one particular module, we were told the best revision would be to do the past couple of exam papers, as the exam would be of a similar style (yay for lecturers being the ones who set exams at uni, and not some random exam board). Did one of the exam papers just now and look through the lecturers solutions (which are marked as the official solutions online, and would have been the adhered to mark scheme a couple of years back) and...they're wrong. There's mistakes like saying 2+3=6, which in turn, make an entire 6 mark question in the solutions wrong. This then carries onto the next part, meaning that 15 marks (out of a 100 mark paper) are completely wrong in the model solutions. There's also other solutions where the lecturer has missed out particular cases / done things ambiguously, and thus not making it clear that his solution actually answers his own question... And, what's more, this has been well known! When people were revising for the exam last year, they noticed the same mistakes and brought it up with the lecturer as well as the guy that updates the website, yet nothing has been done. No warnings, corrections or anything. It just feels ridiculous that something that is so important can just go unattended - there's enough stress going around without finding out the solutions are wrong. I'm going to mention it to someone in the department of course, but from what I've heard, the module is not running next year, so I doubt bringing it up will be of much use... Fortunately, I've been able to get the right answers (after checking with others), so I guess it's not terrible. But it's just annoying really. On a brighter note, writing this post has made for great procrastination!

The look of the ride is just awful. Up there with the likes of Storm Surge. However, my original thought of the ride itself hasn't changed - it does look okay. Nothing special, but it does look okay and maybe even a bit fun. Trouble is, it's a ride that can't make its mind up: does it want to try and be a woodie that acts like a steel, or just an insane woodie. Because if it's trying to act like a steel coaster, it's acting like a meh steel coaster. If it's acting like a woodie, it's missing the core woodie features; airtime, being a bit of fun, etc. So yeah, looks okay on its own merit. But against anything else, I just hear groans of 'Whyyyy'. And it looks horrible. Have I mentioned that yet?

^It was a member on the forum who said that, not Thorpe. Unless something like that is said by Thorpe, don't treat it as 100% fact - even the most reliable members get the occasional thing wrong / aren't always in the loop. But yeah, it's great Thorpe got this issue sorted so quickly. One wonders how long we'd have been waiting if this happened 6-7 years ago...

I was afraid this was going to happen. From what I understand, yesterday had three ways you could queue. Ordinary, Fastrack and RnR. That was just not going to work. If you allot a certain number of seats to RnR, then - when combined with Fastrack - you're dramatically reducing how many people using the ordinary queueing method will get to ride and, as such, dramatically increasing the main queue time. It makes ordinary queueing pointless and anyone wanting to do it have sour tastes in their mouths. The other option of making RnR users virtually wait the real-life queue time (so, if you book at 11am and there's a 90min queue, you virtually wait 90mins) would not work, as there's just going to be too many people at any one time, and just increasing the queue. It then also makes people question to point of Fastrack. Without RnR, you have the choice to queue normally or to pay extra and skip the majority of the queue at a time of your choice. But with RnR in the system used yesterday, you've got the third choice of being given a time to go straight onto the ride. It just comes across as Fastrack with less choice and you wouldn't know what to do. Thorpe should have stuck to their guns with this one. Make sure that the tech behind it was working perfectly and just trial this as a full replacement for ordinary queueing. By not making it compulsory, they've made the system more confusing - both for guests and the system itself - and it just wouldn't have worked. Should have just stuck with it and seen if that worked. Or, if they've lost faith in that, trial it as a Fastrack replacement, paid-for service under a new name. As I say, Thorpe should have stuck with their guns and tried the planned system for a bit longer.

Huh?

For the most part, 2 trains on the major coasters wasn't needed. The events I went to, the was no queue for any of the coasters with one train on them. Having two trains would have probably been an unnecessary expense on the whole and been a bit pointless. Granted, on the one or two nights that there were queues, it would have been nice to have extra trains, but there may have been reasons this was not possible (maintenance, budget, etc.). On the whole, I don't think it's totally fair to judge an event (in its debut experience) on one bad night!

There's clearly not enough demand for the park to open until 10pm during summer. It would be nice if the trialled it sometime again in the near future, but in the past, it just hasn't worked out. Okay, some parks like Oakwood stay open until 10pm, but Oakwood is a very different to Thorpe, for example, with a much different location, market and aim. Summer Nights became more popular as time progressed; no doubt this was due to word of mouth. The earlier events were literally dead, no queues and just what they advertised. They'll have improved from last year and will get the right number of staff giving tickets out and ensure that queues are absolutely minimal. I don't see any problem with paying a small fee to get next-to-no queues. Yes, there were a couple of nights when it didn't work out, but Thorpe will have learnt from these mistakes and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Some fears will probably be about 'What happens if a ride gets a 4 hour booked queue?' as well. I doubt that will happen though. I still think it's worth giving the system a chance. I certainly had reservations over it when I went last year and it was on Swarm. However, on a rather busy August day, I got 3 rides on Swarm, when I otherwise would have only gotten 1. Give it a chance and a try, and it may grow on you!

ROLLER COASTERS HAVE FEELINGS TOO

No one's arguing though? Just a discussion - people have different opinions and they're being discussed. No one is being shot down, or told their opinion is wrong. Some will not like what Thorpe are doing, others may do. Others may feel that there's things that are said which are unrealistic / unfair towards the park. There's no arguing going on. So just grab a nice cold beverage and enjoy the debate!

But the shift in target marker was huge and very noticeable. They didn't spend millions on it, but they opened their appeal to many, many more people, which can only bring people through the gate. Swarm backwards and X no doubt helped, as they had something to cater for thrillseekers that was new, but also a new thing for younger guests too.

Swarm backwards, X and a big, noticeable change in target market is not 'doing nothing' in my opinion!

This is why I think they should be trialling this system during a quieter period of the season, as opposed to June (or August, like last year). If things go wrong, it will cause less problems. But yeah, as SCB says, the system can be stopped and revert back to the ordinary system at any point and cause little problem, as was shown on Monday!

Really? I never would have guessed! It was the first time the system was used with the 5 major coasters, including front row on Stealth and on Saw (Saw front row screams of 'WHY??' to me though). There could well be a fault with the system which was not expected. Or maybe they got some algorithms wrong or something. Who knows? But at least they realised the mistake and decided to take the time to fix it. Just like any new ride, there will be teething problems, it's to be expected.

Merlin won't dictate to the park's how to carry out maintenance though. I doubt many people at the heart of Merlin have enough knowledge to say 'Your maintenance schedule should go like this and that'.

To be fair, Thorpe had a bad year in 2012, so it's easier in a way for them to get a bigger percentage increase in visitors. Chessington is a weird one, since it seesaws out of the Top 20 (it was in there a couple of years ago; in response to SCB below ), but Zufari probably had big pulling power. Smiler would have brought in guests, but since Alton are consistently in how many guests they could physically get through, it's not surprise they didn't get as big an increase as the other two. Merlin seem to be in quite an unchallenged second for the time being...

Ah, the 'rollergoalster' train, which brought such good luck to England in 2010...

Attendance figures for parks around the world for last year have been revealed - http://www.teaconnect.org/pdf/TEAAECOM2013.pdf For people interested, the European figures are on Page 27. Merlin park's to feature in the Top 20: -Gardaland; 2.7million (8th) -Alton Towers; 2.5million (9th) -Legoland Windsor; 2.05million (10th) -Thorpe Park; 2million (11th) -Legoland Billund; 1.8million (12th) -Chessington; 1.5million (17th) -Heide Park; 1.4million (19th) Chessington had the biggest jump in attendance, going up over 15% (though I'd be interested how satisfied guests were with their experiences...), and Thorpe rose 11% (I guess that's what happens after a bad year and a big change in target market). Some interesting figures all in all!

^To be fair, environmental issues should be a big issue, especially around Alton. It's a shame, but I'd much rather water than have them risk big fines (or worse)! Hopefully there's some creative way they could solve the issue though.