JoshC.

The black vests lock as soon as the train starts to move, I believe. I've yet to experience this tightening of restraints on Swarm; never actually had a problem with them whatsoever..

Swarm would be an interesting one to try out, but not sure how long you could last over and over again... Th13teen would probably be my choice - enjoyable, smooth and rerideable to this extreme. As a side, a survival challenge on Colossus at Thorpe would be good 'fun' as well...

I have 35 points. Is that good? I really have no clue as to how this works / what I'm doing, just making it up as I go along..

That happened a few years ago with the likes of Inferno, Colossus and probably a couple of others that I can't remember. It created an awful amount of congestion and did not really work. With Swarm, it would be even worse, as there's no where safe for guests to wait and for staff to be made aware of single riders - it would be logistically speaking, near-on impossible. I don't think a SRQ would work for Swarm's station design anyway. Would probably end up like the front row queue, being given a pass, expect you'd have to wait inside the station by the batcher to get on.. The front row system will probably end up obsolete soon too; confusing and not that necessary really..

Well I've joined, for some reason...

There were rumours that it may open over summer, but they decided to keep it just to FN it seems.

Like X-Flight, it's the left hand side that flips over the top, as opposed to the right like with Swarm. Also seems to be more akin to X-Flight's first drop, where it starts twisting then dropping, unlike Swarm, which does the full 180 degree twist, then drops. Also, I spy a fair few inversions - at least 7 or 8? Love the look of the layout, and those key hole element look great!

Th13teen's name was released in December. Around this time we were having teaser posters just about to surface...

http://p.twimg.com/A0AfKtBCMAITSrc.jpg:large Posted by Adam James on TST. We haven't just got dirt now, WE'VE GOT HOLES!

Fair enough, and I'm not disagreeing with any of that when it boils down to it. My problem is more the amount of adverts, as opposed to them being there. The occasional special offer which is really good value, a build up to big events - fine. Posting about practically every offer, promotion and buying tickets to events - a bit much in my eyes. No problem with advertising the park, just think there should be a balance to it, and personally, I think there's just a bit too much weighting on advertising the park. Of course, this all comes down to difference of opinion. As said, I'd think the main purpose of the page could be a way of creating a bridge from becoming just a fan of the park on Facebook to a regular member of the site, which would mean irregular focus on advertising the park, and more focusing on updates, exclusives and linking to the forum. Perhaps this is not what you guys are focusing on as much - which is fine - and where the disagreement of 'how much' is coming from.

Not at all. However, simply put, who likes being bombarded with ads? Pretty much no one. I just don't think it's necessary for the TPM page to have what are pretty much adverts for the park, when they're more than likely going to be posted on Thorpe's Facebook page anyway. A quick look through the past couple of months, and it mentions about the £20 offer, the 2 free tickets in The Sun, buying Ride and Rave tickets, buying tickets for the Ministry of Sound club nights, the Frijj promotion..and that's in the past month. Pretty sure all of them have been mentioned on Thorpe's Facebook page, so it basically feels like a regurgitation of that. When you include how the cover photos regularly state about an event at the park and say to see the park's website for more details - which, by itself, I don't really have an issue with by the way, but grouped with the above, can become a bit much. I'm more than happy to see posts about if something major has happened (when Stealth reopened, and the most recent Trax event was cancelled, for example), pictures (even if they've been posted by the main page, as no doubt there's more, which I've seen a fair bit of) and just posts which keep the page active (EG: "Today marks just 100 days of the 2012 season remaining! How many more visits do you plan to make?") However, simply put, I just don't feel it's necessary for TPM page to be regularly advertising the park, the park's page does that more than well enough. Personally, I'd feel the main purpose would be to extend on the page, perhaps focus a bit more on the smaller things the park does and work as a way of bridging people from 'fans' to 'enthusiasts', if that makes sense. I don't even mind the occasional advert for the park, especially if there's a good deal going, as of course, not everyone who likes the TPM page is going to be a hardcore enthusiast, but I just think a balance needs to reached. Just my two cents there really..

Having ended up getting one today ( ), that YouTube video seemingly doesn't show the finished product. There is a slight 'back story' if you will, which is a bit of a mash up from the queue line videos and a couple of the teaser videos we saw last year. Mainly focuses around the news reporter who's on the scene warning people to stay indoors, and the part where Ian Stafford warns people too. Ends with the bit where the news reporter gets attacked before cutting the on ride footage. Unfortunately, the footage isn't the greatest of quality; Saw's was much better..

Agree with Fred here - all for supporting the park, but it can become a bit overboard; literally feels like an advert for the park, not a TPM page.. Aren't most people who like TPM over Facebook going to like the Official Thorpe page anyway, and hence won't need to see such adverts anyway? And also, on the topic of the Facebook page - apostrophes! I know I've moaned about things like this before and some people are probably tired of me banging on about it - but how hard is it to have "Your Guide to The Nation's Thrill Capital" rather than "Your Guide to The Nations Thrill Capital", and "Thorpe Park Mania, the Official Fan-site of Thorpe Park's very own Facebook page!" rather than "Thorpe Park Mania, the Official Fan-site of Thorpe Parks very own facebook page!"? Maybe it's just me being overly pedantic, but I think just having the grammar correct - especially on the cover photo / about section - looks much more professional, even if it is just little things such as an apostrophe or two...

I also went down to the park today, for the first time since the Colossus ERT. As some of you may know from Chat, haven't been 100% of late, and in fact went to the park with a 2cm deep hole in my neck.. Nonetheless, I was up for riding most things, apart from Colossus really.. Blinding sunlight = hot, hot, hot. After arriving at just after 10, it seemed the Swarm was having some troubles as we didn't see a train go through since we arrived, so we opted to head over to Saw instead. Great to see that the Saw Alive walkway has been opened again, something I grumbled about a couple of months ago, so that was good to see - thanks Thorpe! Saw had a surprisingly short queue really, only about 10 minutes. Staff were operating the ride well and the queue was moving very quickly. Also, all effects seemed to be working pretty much spot on, bar the water effect not reaching full height. Saw has become a well rounded ride, rather reliable and a pretty good throughput - some may find it rough, but it really is a great ride for the park! A ride on Samurai followed. As ever, fun and enjoyable, but it seems to be taking ages to position itself correctly at the end of the ride, which is a shame. It takes ages; feels like it last almost as long as the ride.. Views of Saw from Samurai are pretty nice. Also gave me a chance to test out my phone's camera at a theme park for the first time. Also noticed these gates which block off the old CCR route..never noticed them before... Loggers Leap times followed, as it had no queue. Was a little surprised, and annoyed, at how they were dispatching. Had a staff member before the four rows putting people into specific rows and then staff were also grouping people together to share boats. Don't really understand why there was a need to group people together when there's no queue - really makes no sense to me at all.. I guess having a member of staff putting people into specific rows will help when it's busy? After noticing Swarm was operational, we made our way over there, and took advantage of a Priority Pass I had saved to beat the 90 minute queue, due to 1 train operation (which turned to 2 when we arrived in the station). I seriously hope that there was an issue with on of the trains, and that it was fixed, rather than the park decided just to use one train to save money / build up a queue, as it is pretty ridiculous in my eyes. No effects were really working, even the sound effects were off.. Swarmy shots in the sun. Queue line flyover. Entrance sign to the island has been further improved, with the silver writing - nice to see Me 'holding up' the ambulance theming... After lunch and finding out the Rapids were to be down all day, we headed to Inferno. One train operation and a huge queue, it was probably a mistake. Many announcements were made apologising for the queue and saying they were on one train operation, and telling us to be patient and saying what the queue time was (even though the queue board wasn't being updated..). Doesn't really help when Fastrack was being let through aplenty, seriously felt like they'd oversold them, and every time Fastrack were let through, it pretty much added another 5-10 of queueing. Even after getting right to the front, the ride broke down for 5 minutes. Was really disappointed by the operational side of the ride today.. :/ Rush had broken down by some point in the afternoon after being on one swing all day, and Zodiac was also down all day. By the time we made our way to the Lost City flats, Quantum was also having some downtime. After picking up some free Dr Pepper by Tidal Wave (great to see that happening before Sun Scream!) and a quick go on Flying Fish, Swarm was done again with a 40 minute queue. The fire effect was working on-and-off for part of the queue, then disappeared again. I will say that, when it works, the fire effect is pretty impressive; could even feel the heat from the queue line. Sound effects, however, seemed a bit better, though still no water effects. Called it day there just before 5. So yeah, I had a great day and it was nice to be able to enjoy the park in sunny weather without it being crowded. However, with rides breaking down / not being available all day / being on lower capacity, some of the queues really did not reflect how busy the park was, which is a shame. Hopefully the park can regain some form after the Olympics finish, and presumably when the park will get a bit busier for the summer!

I got on twice today. The first time, no effects whatsoever; the sound was really off too. That was about quarter to 12. I went on in the afternoon as well and the fire effect was temperamental. Sometimes it went off, sometimes you could hear it but it didn't work (or produce a little flame rather late) and after a while it was just packed in. Obviously having some troubles getting to work consistently. However, when it does go, phwoar, it's great. Could feel the heat of it from the queue line sometimes!

Rather disappointingly, no fire or water effects today it seems. Even the sound effects are a bit off.

Ride has been 'officially announced' with this cheap and cheesy video and has the name Outlaw Run.. Also have come across this No Limits recreation, which seems pretty accurate to the layout!

My goodness! Dare I say that looks as sexy as Colossus' quad inlines. Majorly want to go on this thing!

Am I right in thinking the ride was never actually 'tweaked', but simply they changed how they measured the time? But yeah, would be nice if it was to change.. (As for the staffing thing, just to reiterate my view: IF it's KNOWN that the ride is to be down for a long period of time, I see no point in keeping 5-6 staff there, only bout 2-3. From a guest perspective, it makes more sense, even if it means guests are waiting an extra 5 or so minutes for the ride to open, which surely they wouldn't realise anyway? If, however, it's NOT known how long the ride will be down / that it's going to be down for a short period of time, then yes, having a full staff line up there makes sense..)

I guess you can say there's good and bad things around it. You say it looks better to guests to have staff to hand, but are 5-6 staff members, even for a popular ride like Stealth, necessary? Especially when they're bound to end up grouping together, so they're not just standing around aimlessly waiting to be spoken to. Personally, I just think it's a bit pointless, especially if it's known the ride will be down for a few hours. Whichever way you look at it, however it's handled, there's positives and negatives. For a large and popular ride like Stealth, if it was to have a long period of downtime, I'd think it best to fence the area off and have a couple of staff there to make sure people don't go in / inform guests what's going.

Whilst I understand that, I do agree with c1hirsin. Simply put, if you have 5 or 6 staff members hanging around a closed ride (which may not reopen for many hours), chatting amongst themselves and telling people 'Sorry, it's closed, we don't know how long for', or words to that effect, it doesn't exactly look good. Not having a go here at staff, as it basically is what they have been told to say / do, but in the eyes of a bog standard guest, it just doesn't look good, especially if they feel that other areas of the park are lacking staff / needs attention by staff...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4472666/Tragedy-as-mum-of-two-dies-following-theme-park-ride.html Not really the sort of media attention Drayton would want... A real shame that this has happened; thoughts to the family.

I agree - very film-trailer like! I do love that advert; would've been great if Thorpe released it online or as part of the on ride DVD (say a pre story before the footage of people onride). Also interesting to see how 'machine-like' The Swarm look in that advert, which is was originally planned. Thanks for sharing Liam!

I don't mind the look of them in the first photo; it seems to just 'work'. However, as the other one shows, a bit more up close, they just look ugly, unnatural and just doesn't 'work'. Really not sure about it; will have to wait till I see them in person till I pass full judgement...

Oh yeah, got 'em whilst they lasted. Pfft, foreign bears, not treading in THAT territory...yet... Isn't Nemesis bear new this year? If so, haven't been to Towers yet this season, so..