JoshC.

http://www.altontowers.com/useful-info/opening-times Opening times have been released! They seem quite strange - 5PM close during Easter weekend?!

The fundraising page is up until 15th April. Thanks for the £5 - greatly appreciate it!

Aww, thanks for that Han! I'm pleased (and rather surprised!) to say that my original £100 target has now been reached! I only started fundraising late last night, so this is already a marvellous achievement - let's see how far I can go!

I've done all bar Fifth Dimension (too young), Space Station Zero (too young), Samurai at Chessington (too small) and Calgary Stampede (too small). Not too bad if I say so myself. (Oh, and Mark, Miss Hippo's Fungle Safari closed in 2008, not 2007. [/nitpick])

As I said in the Shoutbox on Friday, I'm bungee jumping for Comic Relief this Friday (on Red Nose Day). The jump is taking place at my university's campus and is 160ft! Anyone who'd be willing to sponsor me, please use this link here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JoshuaCoyston As the link says, I'm aiming to raise £100 by Friday, which would be a great amount for a mere few days, and would also get me a video of the jump, which I'll of course share on here for your viewing pleasure. Any questions, just ask!

But in that visual, it looks like Swarm will be leaving us soon as well...

They might be updating it and I don't think it's been avaliable for Android before? As for the Crash Pad, I'm starting to get a feeling that I may have egg on my face...

Onesies aren't my thing really. If the price is right, I may end up getting one though.. If someone from here buys me one though, then I'd wear it to a TPM meet

I'd draw the line at a Thorpe Park onesie tbh. My wallet is safe from Thorpe Park's merchandise...hopefully

This has been tweeted by Coasterforce: Would be rather disappointed if that was the case - let's hope that's not the case ey? They've also tweeted saying the backwards queue (for the left hand side at least I think) had pretty much not moved in 15 minutes...

Agree here completely; especially the huge amount of investment that the park has put in in the past 12-13 years, which must easily total up to £80 million? Hopefully we can also see non-coaster years have better investment; I'd argue that past 3-4 haven't been exactly great, but this year seems to be good. Again, agree here. Would've liked your post, but I've reached the dreaded "You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day." unfortunately!

Just as a quick point, after seeing Ian and Smidget word things in a certain way. I don't think anyone is saying that the removal of part of the tunnel is going to "ruin the day" for anyone; as Smidget said, that is absurd. The concern is that the removal of the tunnel could affect the experience of the ride. The way I'm reading this, everyone is in some form of agreement. Those who have ridden it have said that the experience seem to agree that the removal isn't "good" - given the choice out of the lift and drop being enclosed or not, pretty much everyone would agree that it should be enclosed. However, it isn't too bad, and the experience is still enjoyable. It's just a shame the tunnel has been removed. Those who have yet to ride it fear that the experience will be adversely affected, but don't know how much. To me, I've always felt it was a huge part of the ride, so fear it could spoil the ride to a degree. Until I ride, I won't know - which is the case for everyone. Basically, I think we're all in agreement one way or another, just looking at it in slightly different angles. As I've said repeatedly, I won't pass any judgement until I've ridden, but the fact many seem to feel the experience has hardly changed feels me with hope.

X is likely to only open a couple of weeks late from what I've heard, so not that bad.

Probably too early to start a FN13 topic, so I'll post this here: Taken from Scare Tour's Twitter page (I assume it's from this year's Gate Map). Probably just marketing babble for the most-part, but we have seen the park stray away from the conga-line style maze the past couple of seasons. Perhaps a hint that they are to continue this trend and 'push more boundaries' this season?

The talk of the park will spend more money on what is generally marketable interests me. This season, there seems to have been a fair few improvements around the park, which is great. Having not visited the park, I don't know what all of these are, or their success, but from what I'm aware, there's been - Swarm stuff, X, fixing up of Inferno effects, improvements to Colossus' station, new Detonator restraints, new Depth Charge boats, some buildings and the beach being done up a bit, dome having some TLC and no doubt other bits and bobs. This all sounds great, and I'm glad that we're seeing these little touches being done - it shows that the park must somewhar care about their appearance. However, only the Swarm stuff and X are marketable. From what I could gather, the only other improvement which would directly improve guests' experiences are the Inferno effects (again, having not been to the park, this is more an assumption, but I doubt some of the little things are improving a guests' day out dramatically?). The one thing that I don't 'get' is surely Loggers' tunnel is more important than a spruce up of little things, new restraints and new boats? The enclosed drop for many is a highlight of the ride. Well, was. I don't know how budgeting works at theme parks, which could be why I'm not getting this, but I'd have thought that some of these things could be put off a year to ensure that a ride's experience isn't hampered. Out of a choice of loads of little spruce ups, which could be done any time, or ensuring that a ride is kept the way it was designed to be, neither of which are marketable, I know which I would choose. No doubt more non-enthusiasts who return this season will note the lack of tunnel more than Depth Charge's new boats and Detonator's new restraints. I'm trying to not judge the decision until I've ridden Loggers, as it would be unfair to do so otherwise. But from a purely theoretical view, if you will, this just does not feel right. Maybe my views will change once I visit the park.

The play area left in about 2008/09, and has been turned into a grassy area whihc people sometimes use for picnics. From the picture I've seen, the red dingies look nice!

Agreed with Ryan, looks quite nice and quirky. Will be interesting to see if it's as fitting when looked at in real life.

Very good points you raise there Mark. When I hinted towards to need of a Colossus repaint, it was more in relation to the fact that other parts of the park (Stealth's airtime hill, the buildings by Detonator, etc.) have received repaints. Whilst this is good - little touches like these are what improve parks - I can't help but feel that Colossus out of all of Thorpe's rides needs a repaint. Whilst I wouldn't put it at the top of my list for Merlin rides (RMT at Chessie, Vampire, Nemesis to name a couple), Colossus needs it the most out of all the Thorpe rides, closely followed by Rumba and Tidal Wave. Personally, I'd prefer that the bigger things are sorted out before the little things. But as you say, a repaint isn't enough to draw in the crowds, and a repaint of Colossus is no doubt very expensive, whilst some of the smaller touches we are seeing are cheaper and probably easier to do. Would a good clean of Colossus perhaps help give the ride a fresher look at a smaller cost? I'm not annoyed by the lack of Colossus repaint, just think it's something that needs to be done more than other things.

I agree with you that it's crazy to judge the entire park on this...at the moment. Having not been to the park yet, I (and many people here) can't really judge the park yet. After visiting, we can have a better idea as to whether it's 'accepetable' (there is no word for it really, but that'll do) that they've left Logger's like it is. Personally though, if a tunnel had got to the stage where it had rotted and needed removing, I'd have placed that VERY highly on my list of things to do over Closed Season...

^It's not open today. There's an image of X; looks like there's be some repainted of the lettering to a white/silver colour. Looks like we'll have to wait a little longer to see what exactly is happening then!

So the Fastrack queue has now become the backwards queue, and one of the extension queues has presumably been modified a bit to become the Fastrack queue? Interesting. Not what I was expecting to be honest, and is actually a good idea. My biggest concern is that it'll make it easier for people to think 'let's do it backwards', and create very long queues, as well as how well the station and bag point will be organised. Only time can tell us on that one...

Is it unreasonable to expect that they should have rebuilt it this closed season? If they're planning on rebuiliding it in the future, we're still left with this mish-mash of tunnel and no tunnel which looks horrid; not particularly good impression is it..? Or maybe they could have maintained it better in the first place so they wouldn't have had to resort to this?

I believe that it is on of these things: (Sorry about the quality) You used to see it on the CCR route I think (this photo is from the route in 2011, not 2010 like the stamp says ). I think there was another one to your right as you left the tunnel?

http://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/page/live Looking at Shoutbox is a good thing to do...

According to the Live Feed, Stealth's airtime hill has had "a bit of a repaint". This would be the second time Stealth has had a 'bit of a repaint' I think... Question is, why? I can think of a couple of Intamin rides at Thorpe which need a repaint, and Stealth isn't one of them.