JoshC.

What pluk basically said. We now have two very different ride experiences, which are both being treated as big headline attractions, along with the likes of Stealth, Saw and so forth. One of those experiences (the 2 backwards rows) will allow 314pph to experience it which, for a park like Thorpe, shouldn't really happen on any ride, let alone a major ride. Then the forward-facing experience is now down to 786pph, which makes that in itself the worst of all the coasters at Thorpe.

Whilst I agree that not everyone will want to ride it backwards, the park are still potentially putting themselves in an unwinnable situation. If the park get people to 'book' backwards seats, for free, there will no doubt be people ignorant to this, and when they find out all the slots are gone, they will be annoyed, which is understandable to a degree - when you go to a theme park, you don't think you need to book a seat on a roller coaster, do you? Of course, you could argue that it would the person's fault for not checking, but really, when it's being pushed as heavily as it is, you don't particualrly think that there's 'hidden booking ideas', if you will. If you just have it as splitting into front and back facing queues (say, where the old front row queue was), you inherit the problems of the front row system - congestion in the building, not knowing the length of the queue for such rows, and the like. How that can be improved I don't know, but if they can improve it, then it may work better, but I just don't see how that will work well. The sad reality is, when you think about, The Swarm is now 2 rides (a backwards one and a forwards one), with 1 queue system. The backwards rows will have a 'theoretical throughput' of about 314pph, making it one of the lowest on park. Yet, it will be advertised (presumably quite heavily) this year, and appeal to a large number of people. We then consider that the theoretical throughput of the forwards rows is now about 786pph, making that queue longer as well. I'm open-minded about the row-reversal, and look forward to trying it out, but the more I think about it, the more I think this changing two rows backwards is going to be a nightmare for guests and staff and just wrong. Hence why Thorpe "can't win either way"...

I wouldn't exactly say the rop looks awful. Whilst it may look a little bit better without it, it doesn't effect the impact of top hat section. When you look at Stealth, you see the height and are meant to be blown away. That's exactly what happens. Until now, I've heard no moans about the rope being there, and very very few people wonder why it's there. The only time when I find it is particularly noticeable is when it's dark, which is to colour contrast. It's not so much of a large, widespread grumble that the rope is unsightly, because to most, it isn't.

The way I was thinking was - theoretical throughput on 2 trains is 1100, so 1 train operation would be 550 (in theory). So, 550*(8/28)=157 (nearest whole number). 1000/157=6.36 hours of operation of Swarm. So who knows what will happen there really; maybe the 1000 is a safe cap incase things go wrong / because of reduced throughput for whatever reason? I don't know too much about the engineering and safety aspect of all, but I believe that the reversing of the rows isn't just a simple 'take off the nuts and bolts and turn them round' job, so will take a while. Then I'd have thought that it would need to go through rigorous testing to ensure it's safe and such. As I say, I don't really know much about it, but surely that is going to take more than three days? So, if only one train is ready to run backwards on AP day, then it wouldn't feel me with hope that Swarm would be running properly for the beginning of season..

Explains why I had no idea about it - I seem to have stopped getting emails from MAP for some reason, even though my pass is in date. :S With 1000 spaces, that would suggest to me that there's only one train operation taking place (or only 1 train with backwards seats), neither of which would create a pleasurable queueing experience...

Oh-err. Where was that announced? If that's the case, then that would mean in theory only one trains has the two rows turned backwards / operational. I think it was said that there's no necessary extras (such as buying / booking a ticket) to go backwards, so that would be strange. Hopefully, for a 'backwards' queue, they'll just scrap the front row system (which was just a bit pointless to start with really) and modify that a bit.

I don't see why Thorpe would install Extremis? Having Detonator on park, they already have a brilliant drop ride. Granted, a ride like Extremis would offer a different type of drop, but they are fundamentally the same thing; something like Sub Terra could work at Thorpe if there's enough emphasis on everything other than the ride system, but the use of Extremis wouldn't work for Thorpe. To be honest, neither of those rides seem suited to any of the Merlin parks in my opinion. Better to use them at one of the Dungeons, or just sell 'em on.

The park have released some photos of work ongoing maintainenance on the rides. Notice the work for the billboard. By far my favourite!

Seems as though the Android version is available now!

Reasons why iOS is better than Android: -The Smiler game has been released on iOS, but not yet Android. That is all. Can't wait to play though - most people have said it's fun. EDIT: Just to be clear, this post is meant to being criticising Apple, not praising it. Everything else about Android is superior. [/end controversial and pointless phone superiority discussion]

Really really enjoying the current series of Being Human at the moment. I'm seriously impressed this series. Last series had far too much focus on a central plot line and just didn't deviate from it. This series has done much better, giving a central plot which is slowly developing into something more and more interesting, whilst still having enough substance in each individual episode. Really glad that it doesn't feel like they're milking yet, despite being in its fifth series and having none of the original cast. Can't wait to see how it develops!

Ah, my mistake, was getting my facts mixed up. The press release back in October said Smiler will be 3x the length of Oblivion, 3x the ride time of Rita and 10km/h faster than Air. Sorry 'bout that!

Announced by AT's Twitter. Wednesday release it is then.

Will be interesting to see how this goes. There's been enough experience with the Wingrider now from B&M and Merlin to know what works for Wingriders. Something of a similar scale to Raptor would be great, and the Transylvania theme would go down a treat and has plenty of potential with the wingrider concept. I look forward to the development of this!

Hey there - welcome to the forums! If you just scroll over the 'Rides' tab at the top of the website, it still lists X as an extreme thrill, but if go on the Full Ride Listing (http://www.thorpepark.com/rides/full-ride-listing.aspx), it lists it as Thrilling and Fun. So it could be just a transitional phase at the moment if you will. As for the description, I think it has changed again, or at the very least tweaked a bit. Hopefully they don't try and create a 'scary' ride, but just something whih is completely random and weird, which seems like the direction they're taking. Fingers crossed!

Doesn't have to be scary to be good though. I'd also argue that the ride (like Chessington) is marketed at families with people of all ages, not young children. I guess what happens in the cave depends on the story of the attraction. Seems as though we're on safari, and a tree cuts our route off, so we go through a cave that an African tribe has said is dangerous. Have some ancient ritual / chanting and a waterfall in there, and it'd be good. Couple of other effects and it would create a superb ending I think

It's going to mimick a safari pretty much - plenty of people would be interested in that! As for the trucks, I believe they're actually ex-army lorries with 5.8 litre engines. Can't see them wanting to waste fuel by going too slowly.

The length is 1170m; so 3 times the length of Air. If the new No Limits recreation is wholly accurate, then the outdoor section is about 110 seconds, which would still leave about 55 seconds of ride time indoors. Definitely has to be onride pre show(s) for that to happen.

I don't. Maybe you should set one up to see who agrees with you?

And the condoms!

I've no idea what discourse analysis is, but it I can rant about mathematical analysis. Seem like, uni + anything with the word analysis = bad.

Gah, go back to uni on the 20th; can't make any of those dates I'm afraid!

I was under the impression it was more than one.

£70?! *faints over-dramatically* Don't get me wrong, collecting maps isn't a bad thing, I do it myself, at there are some maps which are just beautiful. But I'd never really go to the 'extreme' of buying or selling them really. Or if there ever was one I particularly wanted, I would not pay much money for it. As for paying £13 for the 1998 map, well fair enough, each to their own, but I don't think I could ever value any map at that high a cost; for me, they're more 'sentimental' items. I think I may have a spare 2001 map if you're interested Mr 9?