JoshC.

"Shuttle X:\5 approaching" It looks cracked though!

I'm liking the blue / maroon combo to be honest.

It's the first proper weekend of the park being opened; there's gonna be loads of new staff who are still learning the ropes and aren't going to be at full speed with all the pressures of having guests, etc. It's not something that can be 'done over Closed Season'. It's not great that dispatches are taking longer than they should, but it's an unfortunate fact that things like this will happen. I bet in the next week, throughputs will be a lot better.

Even though Colossus ran surprisingly okay at the weekend, I still found Saw to be more comfortable. Admittedly, I noticed the jolt on the main drop on Saturday, but didn't find it to be uncomfortable in any way.

I do think they used to just leave there (at least, that was the case a few years back, dunno about the past couple of years), but nonetheless, good to see they're making use of an otherwise empty space. As for smoking areas, I didn't see any marked out yesterday, but the park do really need to clearly mark them, and ensure people are aware of them!

You can't expect them to keep it sat there all the time gathering dust! If anything, it's a good thing they've changed it to a lecture room; shows the park are doing more things outside of just opening a theme park (probably to do with National Science Week judging from posters around park) I've noticed that, despite designated smoking zones appearing on the map since 2012, such zones don't exist in real life. Something that really should be addressed consider the obvious shift in target market.

Here's one to get everyone started...

Yep, was a fantastic meet today; shame I had a leave a couple of hours early (sorry if I didn't say bye to anyone when I left, was in a bit of a rush!). Was lovely to see y'all again, hopefully I'll be able to make the August / September meets, as due to uni, it's unlikely I'll be able to make any until then! Looking forward to Peaj's trip report, and I'll try and get my own one up soon!

Naugteh me double posting (but this is important!) I've noticed that the section on the reverse side of the map says that the Shark Feature doesn't open until May!

http://www.imascore.com/helix/ Following the good response to the 30 minute piece, IMA Score and Liseberg have agreed to release the 20 minute Launch platform audio. Sounds very nice

The Marketing Director of Thorpe posted on Twitter the new advert will air on Monday.

The first half (well, first minute of that video) of the ride seems a tad unexciting to me; second half seems to be when the ride picks up. Hard to tell from a POV of course, but I the first half just looks a bit blasé. Looks like a good, fun family ride all in all though.

Looks nice. Seems like the right hand side will be giving a better experience though. Other wing riders seem to give a more even number of 'flipping over the track' and 'flipping under the track', if you will. FotD seems to heavily give the flip overs to the right side. Doubt it'll make that much a difference mind.

Oh Alton... http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2014/skyride-sub-terra-hex-and-ripsaw-to-open-from-11am/

Slap me wrist I'm double posting, but there's another resin statue... Okay Thorpe, you have the 5 major coasters and Tidal Wave in resin statues now. Please stop making such good quality merch...please?

Swarm was a bit of a mare today... Opened late (about 12ish, so not that late, but the latest I've ever seen it open...), no water effects, no fire effects, no audio effects, no audio in the area or station area at all. Nothing. Literally just the ride there, which is a real shame; like the ride was there in body, but not in spirit if you will. Hope it's sorted out ASAP! On a more positive note, operations were fab on the ride, with staff bashing through the trains and sending them out as soon as physically possible it seemed!

Super cool image of the Shark Hotel: Have to say, I'm surprised as how the new colour scheme and wavy top made it look a lot nicer!

Totally agree about the need to move the old bag collection signs! To be fair, though, all of the staff who platformed today mentioned about throwing your hands up and having a rave when I went on today, so that wasn't just this guy. As for prioritising 'faff and interaction' over checking bars and sending trains, I disagree. His interaction was either whilst checking bars or between trains arriving in the station, and he was still quick at sending out trains (or, at least, no slower than any other platformers today). Each to their own though I guess.

Stealth shop is looking mighty fine... Amity Fish and Chips / Stealth Diner looks nice too (I think the picture makes it look worse to be honest), but hopefully they'll make it look nicer still:

Not gonna lie, I saw this from the other side of the park, so I can't really say. I definitely saw it running though

Thoughts on the new X... Like it just as much as last year's X...I think. The new music is fine with me, the new lights are pretty cool. I noticed there was a couple of points along the track where it looked like 'track was missing' (I think due to how the lighting was rigged up) which was pretty amazing I though. However, it's hard for to tell because there was a floodlight on in the ride area (above the airtime-esque hill after the second set of block brakes). It lit up half the pyramid, meaning that any lights in that area were not effective at all, and everything there was far too easy to see. However, the side of the area not lit up by the pyramid was quite dark and really quite cool to be in. Hopefully that'll be sorted soon. Also, shout out to one of the awesome guys platforming. Full of energy, life and kept everyone entertained; just the sorta staff needed for X!

Samurai was testing this afternoon at about 2ish. Don't know if it ended up opening today, but I'd be willing to bet it'll be open by the weekend!

S&S free spin maybe? Alvey got to try out a test track of it and seemed to scream with excitement over it (when doesn't he though I guess?) and he's making a big deal outta of all this it seems.

In my post, you'll find that I said 'in some cases'. It's by no means a general thing, but from my own experience, I've found that when some people have more money, they spend less, and when they have less money, they spend more. Just a mere observation; sorry for stating it.

I do find that, in some cases, the more money people have, the scroogeier they can be, and the less they have, the more they give money away / spend. When it comes to charity, it will no doubt come down to personality. However, I would say that one's personality is somewhat shaped by their financial situation, especially when they were younger.