JoshC.

I'm confused.. I know what the moan is, I agree it's the not the best planning and I didn't go against that in my post. I just helped clear up the whole issue of whether there was going to be a bridge from SG to Swarm.. So how you've got that I didn't get the moan from my post confuses me.. :S

Well, technically, track has been erected for a while now.. But maintenance track doesn't really count, does it? ;)But that's still good to hear I guess.

A view from what might be a different side of the fence, if you will...I had my 14th visit to Thorpe at the weekend, which lasted a few hours due to me having a cold. What has taken me there 14 times this season you may ask - is it because I love the place, love the atmosphere I create, love the rides? No. Simply put, it's a place for me to go which is a 30 minute (ish) walk from where I live, and it works out as a cheap day out to go with friends, in our particular cases. I'm not saying I don't enjoy visiting, of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't bother going, would I? So, in my 14 visits, I think I can say Thorpe is having one of it's better seasons. Reliability, though not perfect, is generally one the up. Out of those 14 visits, I can remember 2 were more than 1 ride was down all day (one of which was actually Saturday..). Generally, the four major coasters (and every other ride) was up and running at the start of the day too. That has been a consistency throughout the year for me, which I think needs some recognition - especially when compared to previous seasons. I think it's worth pointing out hear that Samurai and Slammer are both currently down due to 'cracks', which perhaps shows that they're not the greatest rides to have at a park where reliability is an issue. Despite this, Slammer has had a very good season this time round. One of my biggest grumbles I've had this year is the music. The chart music has completely dominated the front area of the park, up to FF and even Vortex. Now, whilst I'm not the biggest fan of it in general, I understand the usage in the entrance area and the bridge, but not on rides. And don't get me started on the new CC playlist, which I absolutely HATE. However, I have heard no such grumbles when I've been with 'non-enthusiast' friends; they prefer the new CC playlist (even after liking the old one), and really have no issues with chart music playing on some of the rides even. To be fair, I see their point - how is having a different piece of background music going to affect their day, whether they like it or not. They're not going there to listen to some music, they're going there to enjoy a day out with others, and be at a theme park. As long as some atmosphere is there, it keeps people happy. (Before people stop reading the this post thinking I'm an utter idiot, please do read on, as there is more to come...)When it comes down to the atmosphere the rides create, well, I'd say that the more recent projects (ie, the Merlin ones) seem to be going in that direction. The Saw duo are examples of creating attractions which have theming in conjunction to a ride. Granted, the coaster doesn't work brilliantly with theming during its entire course, but that's the trouble with a fastracked movie-tie-in idea, which at the end of the day, Saw was. Storm Surge looks horrendous, but it shows signs of interactivity with the free water canons; Thorpe are coming up with ways that keep their target market entertained. I've seen people much more interested in the canons than the actual ride; possibly not what they were aiming for, but it shows that Thorpe aren't just thinking of the ride any more. Look at Swarm and it's on-park marketing; the park I'd say is showing signs of improvement in this area. When looking at older rides, I'd say the flats need a complete do-over when it comes to their appearance, and new ones should be thought carefully for their look and audio. I think everyone hopes that some of the older flats will be sorted out in due time.And now, what this whole thing is leading up to... This one sentence. I've heard it used a thousand times, and much like Mark has said, then why have Thorpe bothered in the past? As I've been alluding to this entire post, the park seems to have recently been 'getting away' with things. They have been able to get away with not making older rides look very pleasant, let the park audio slip into a jumble, let rides lack any true experience to them and so forth because it doesn't really affect the average person's day out. People rave about Saw, despite it's lack of theming everywhere. People give the thumbs up to Storm Surge because they are able to enjoy it. I could go on and on and on here. I am in no way saying people at Thorpe don't care about stories, theming, music and everything else, but as long as something is there, they are kept happy. It all boils down to how much Thorpe wants to be the best. If they truly want to be the best, this 'sliding by' will no longer happen, and we will see great rides in the future, that are the full package, and general park improvements occur. If they don't, we can expect more years of what we have now. Personally, I think the next year will shows us just how much they want to be 'Number 1'...

UCAS, and it's blooming complicated forms.

Throwing my view into this...Grey is grey is grey. Grey is a nice colour for the ride, and is at least something different compared to Merlin's 4 previous major coasters. A different shade of grey for the supports is hardly going to make a big difference to the impact and appearance of the ride; grey is grey is grey.

So...it had been over a month since my last theme park visit, and with a couple of trips cancelled / postponed with people, it was due time for a little family visit there. After troubles with the buses there, we got there for just before 11 (instead of the 10/half 10 we had originally planned). It was busy when we got there...as expected.But the weather was nice!Though dark clouds were looming in the distance...So, as we got past the turnstiles, the first thing that struck me was Swarm's advertising sign. As some may know, I was slightly sceptical about it's positioning, detracting for the feel the tank created. However, my view has changed - I'm a fan of it; does the job PERFECTLY. The tank, however, needs to have the writing taken off; the sign advertises the slogan beautifully. If they were to take of the writing, I'd say there's enough continuity for it to work with the GP. The sign.The positioning. As said, I'm fine with that now, but feel the writing on the tank isn't needed (now).After a shorter-than-normal ride on Vortex, which left me feeling slightly short-changed, general wandering around took place. I had a sneaky peek in the arena, to see what was going down with the new maze...Absolutely nothing. :PRumba Rapids, a 'favourite' / must do of mine. For the first time this since I think, I actually had to queue. *Shock, horror - queuing at a theme park!*. Meh, I like the music, so I don't mind. Anyway, love the fact that the pre-tunnel waterfall has returned - top notch stuff Thorpe. Standard Stealth photo.We were relatively worked, so we decided to wander round for a bit more, and ended up by Stealth; not for the ride, for The Swarm advertising! XD We saw 'police officers' in the distance, closer to the photo point than Sunken Garden area, so we had a nose around in SG.Sunken Garden greenery.Swarm site looking normally normal.After we emerged from behind the theming, we were greeted with this:An accomplice of Les Coogan!Looking a bit drunk to be honest.I was about to speak to him, then he turned around, and walked away! How very rude of him.. heheI followed him, overhearing him and the female officer 'arguing'. I saw him take a sip from his cup of water (which I assume was meant to be discrete, but ah well), then he turned around and spat it all out.. "What are you doing!?" Screamed the officer. "I just threw up." He replied. After general 'aliens are doing it' comments, I asked for a photo, to 'help spread the truth'. He happily obliged.I can't remember what was written on the paper. 'The cake is a lie'springs to mind; I can make that out too. For all you gamer-savvy people out there, it's a regular theme that comes up in Portal... One thing to note was he wasn't reading from it. He wandered off afterwards shouting 'Put it on the internet!'. One thing I half liked / half disliked was the fact that neither officer interacted with me personally, which seems against what I've seen in videos. I liked that because it seems as if they knew I was a bit more savvy on the concept, so it would be more worth interacted with others who weren't too sure, to make it seem realistic that it was just some lunatic. I disliked because it meant less interaction for me.. Anyway, couple more antics:Officer talking to some people.The guy walking off..Quite possibly the funniest thing I've seen an actor at Thorpe do. He approached a group of 4 cleaner (yes 4! Why they were clumped together like that I will never know..) and poured some water on the ground. He complained that they weren't doing their job, so made them clean it up. Of course, the mark still there, he ranted a little bit more, then went into something about aliens I guess, as I started to wander off.. The discussion was lengthy, and did attract some attention.After a bore spin on SIATC (namely because the cup was too hard to spin), we had lunch at the Mexican Cantina, then it was Canada Creek times. We just missed a CCR train, but I was slightly shocked to find two people were sitting on the grass, just to the left of the track, as if nothing was wrong. The driver stopped and escorted to just outside the barriers. What a pair of idiots.Said grass.Saw from CCR.Loggers Leap followed, with great enjoyment of course. The park was busy, the weather was getting worse, so we decided to call it a day...almost. Flying Fish had to be done of course.A quick peek at Se7en's new location was had first.The operator on Flying Fish was actually amazingly epic today. After our 4 laps, and with not all the rows filled up for the next ride, the op told us to leave our seats..without even locking our bars. He then proceeding to 'have a go at us' for not leaving. He tried bargaining with us, persuading us to leave, pleading with us (saying how we were being selfish for not letting the next people on the ride) then threatened to call security and get us escorted from the park. After someone on the train shouted 'there's not enough security for all 38 of us', he finally decided to unlock the seats. I heard the click, saw a couple fly up, thought I was able to get up, but no...loads of bars were still locked. He then mocked us 'still stuck' people, saying we weren't worthy to leave, and that he could call security now.. Then another click an my bar flies up a bit. I finally stand up; though it's not that easy for me of course! The bar only unlocked a little - so I still couldn't get out! XD After a bit more fooling around, everyone was free. Got to admit, it helped fill the train up and made it epicly fun for us - an applause from he well deservedly got from me. *claps*To round off all of the pictures:Dogs in theme parks? How!?That's that then. Just a nice little trip for just over 3 hours, was something to do really. Best way to describe the day was another day at the office - the usual going ons, along with a few perks. Probably the last trip I'll have before FN now; which I can't wait for now all the more!

Wasn't anything of great interest that I saw today, just the general, not-that-interesting work.

Well, I must say I liked that finale!A bit too open-ended for my liking though, and thought the ending was a bit obvious after what had happened during the episode.. However, ignoring that, it was all good.Impressive series of Torchwood!

http://www.thorpepark.com/frightnights/The Curse will, however, be returning.. I think we'd all hope that Thorpe wouldn't get rid of two mazes, and only replace them with one.

To clear up the issue of the entrance bridge to the island further, a picture I posted on Ride Guide a couple of weeks ago now actually, following a similar discussion:There's no way a bridge can be made to the island without either: going on Island A or getting rid of one of the ponds, both of which are stupid (though the former won't be when it's actually got rides on it). In other words, the dotted lines are bridges for the future.As Thorpe have said, the map is a work of art, not necessarily for geographical accuracy. As Thorpe tend to change the design of their maps on a bi-annual basis, I think we can expect a new style map next year, which will incorporate the island well, spreading out all of the park nicely on the page. As has been said, it was concept art. Saw's concept art showed blades on the track; do you really expect that to happen? It's just to show off the ride; not give an accurate view of exactly how it will be. I would, however, say that there's a good chance of water and fire effects being somehow involved in the ride / general experience.

Last episode of Torchwood tonight! I dunno what it's been about this series, I thought it was a bit too slow at the beginning, which is making the ending feel a bit more rushed than I was expecting, but I've loved it, much like all the previous series.Can't wait to see how it ends; just hope it's not some cheap, cheesey ending that feels like lazy writing...

I agree with the hit and miss thing, nature of a scare attraction really.Whilst my first visit in Se7en was in 2009, I did hear really bad things from friends and family in prior years. Last year, Se7en was on top form and my favourite maze.

When I did Hellgate last year, it was genuinely the poorest experience I have ever had in a scare attraction (granted, haven't been on many, but that doesn't lessen that statement's worth really).There was a lack of actors, lack of consistency and just general lack of scares. I remember doing it in 05 as well, with a similar poor feeling coming out. So, think it's best that Hellgate kicked the bucket before it became a joke.

^I've *heard* rumours that supports and possibly track should start going up over the weekend.

That is far from thick; probably the opposite.The SS boats are basically oversized dingies, so how they can have a drainage 'system' if you will confuses me.

Glad to see the back end of Hellgate to be honest..Was a poor maze whenever I went in it; only good things were the music and the usage of the 'spinning tunnel'..

When I'm in one of the tents, it's never made a difference to me. As soon as I've stepped in them, I've never felt like I'm in a tent. However, on the outside, it doesn't build up any sort of tension, because it's just this big, white blob that's just sat there. Does spoil the atmosphere quite a bit..

^You say we'll be guinea pigs if we go, but we won't? The actors will have had test runs to some degree (I guess that is what happens anyway..), there's been John Lewis events where they go in early (don't know whether they still happen now), etc. etc.Sure, you don't expect them to be on the top of their game, but you wouldn't say 'Oh, it's the first night of this show, it's fine that the acting was bad' if you went to a theatre, would you? Granted, the conditions and that are slightly different, but you do have to expect some level of quality?

^I don't know about the idea of filming outside regular park operations, though that seems right anyway, I believe there's an awful lot of H&S paperwok that needs filling out before on board filiming can take place, especially from an outside party.

Yesterday's episode was a bit stupid really in my eyes, especially the way it started. 'Oh, I've been told to press the button, but there's two. Should I do the logical thing and ask which one or just be silly and press whichever one I want to?'

But, they didn't advertise The Swarm in it...at all? All there was was a VERY slight glimpse of LC12 posters, as shown in the screen grab, which are near-on impossible to see during real time, and the island of dirt, which means absolutely nothing in a way of advertising.

First I've heard about them being removed.Though I agree they're very precise, but I guess it could just be how they are starting it?

The trench could be for a pond, couldn't it?I believe they're making some sort of pond / whatever you want to call it in that general area; if I'm looking where everyone else is that is..

The MTDP states Island A is one potential location for a 2015 coaster, the other being Island E (where the tank advertising currently is). Therefore, it could actually be 2018 (or whenever the second coaster after this will happen) that that island link could be used..Though, I'd say it more likely for Island A for 2015, due to the simple reason that it would flow better.But yeah, will be interesting to see how the island copes with the situation of being a dead end for a couple of years.

Woo for reaching 100 rep. (Waits for some comment relating to e-penises and how rep isn't important and that I should get over myself...)