JoshC.

To my knowledge they are still working on it (scaffolding is a good sign!) and they don't have any plans to remove it yet. But I believe the technical term to describe Quantum's state right now is "It's f#¢k€d"

Ah, I didn't realise it was still there tbh. There's no effort made to advertise it (aside from one sign I guess?), and it's probably hardly ever used. Just assumed due to lack of use they'd given up with it!

There are no more SRQs at Thorpe. They were gotten rid off a good 5-6 years ago, before randomly reappearing on Samurai a couple of years back. That didn't last long and I don't expect the park to reintroduce them any time soon.

The park removed their rapids ride this year and are investing $27m in opening a new in 2020: https://www.silverdollarcity.com/theme-park/2020 -2100ft long -5m30sec ride time -82ft tall vertical tower -45ft drop Exciting!

Dreamworld Australia, the park where there was the rapids incident in 2016 killing 4, is getting a new roller coaster. The park was (and still is) rumoured to be in quite an unstable position following the incident, not helped by some stiff competition theme park-wise on the Gold Coast. So some see this as perhaps a last roll of the dice in trying to stay afloat. The coaster will be a near Blue-Fire clone from Mack, but starts of with a swing launch (launch forward, backward, forwards into circuit) with a curved spike, a slightly higher top speed, and the final car will be one of Mack's Xtreme Spinning Cars (in a similar to fashion to how it was tested on the original Blue Fire a few years back): This is part of a wider AUS$70m (~£38m) expansion for the park as well, which will see a couple of smaller rides introduced, and some freshen ups of existing rides. The coaster will open in late 2020.

Yep. Yet when Ghost Train was closed for less than 48 hours, the park made a huge deal out of it. Very odd. Maybe. It certainly does struggle due to the unreliability of the ride type, and summer is usually when it's hit worst

Annnd it's now officially open, having opened at 2pm local after a press/fan event. A back seat POV can be found here: The park was originally only meant to be open until 8pm, but decided on the day to extend to 9.30pm (likely due to Zadra's afternoon opening and the waves of fans and press there). I'm related, a drone got caught in Zadra's track. It didn't end well for the drone: Don't take your drones to theme parks, kids.

I don't think so, but I grant you it's a bit suss that two accelerators are experiencing extending periods of downtime at the same time.

I would expect it to be closed for a long period of time from what I've heard. Frankly, I find it crazy that Thorpe haven't confirmed that on their website or social media in any way. I get that no park likes confirming a long-term closure, but surely from a customer service perspective it's better than saying nothing?

No, they shouldn't. This is precisely the point I'm trying to make. The resources, motivation and set up of Europa Park is completely unlike any other park. No park should see them as an example to work towards, because they cannot operate like them and cannot achieve their successes in the same way. Lessons can be learned, but they're obvious and basic ones. It wouldn't. There would be a small period of downtime, to fix/replace chain (whatever is more appropriate) and, because it's the UK, reassure the public that everything is safe. But there would be no need for the HSE to force an extended closure (especially given no one was injured).

Oh, definitely - credit where credit is due, Europa do what they do very well. There's no denying that. All I'm saying is it's easy to take for granted the unique situation the park is in, and how much that effects the operation of the park. They have a vested interest to run their Mack rides in the best way possible, meaning they can throw money at getting high level of staff, and high quality staff, to run the rides, along with expert engineers. And that naturally means any non-Mack rides have to be in the same position. Few parks could justify the level of investment it takes to upkeep the park to the standard Europa are able to, nor the way the park operates on a day-to-day basis. That's not to take away from what Europa do; they're brilliant and tick all the rights boxes. But still, they are the exception to the rule.

Let's keep in mind that Europa have access to a vast amount of engineering power, and have a space to keep a huge amount of spare parts / resources (thanks to being Mack). Very few parks in the world have that option, and I'm sure many parks envy the position they're in. Equally, it's incredible from a H&S perspective that they're in a position to reopen the ride less than 24hrs later - even if a UK park, for example, were able to replace and test a chain in such a time frame, a H&S investigation would delay a reopening. --- In a slightly more light hearted accident, Billybird Park in Zeelandsedijk, Netherlands, has had to close down a recently opened slide in their park, following a few incidents like this: Just looking at the slide, you have to wonder how this wasn't foreseen...

I mean, Mack are the European distributors for GCI, so it's as good as being a Mack

Fun transformation tweet from Simworx:

Not really anywhere appropriate to put this, so this'll do: http://igvofficial.com/german-theme-park-forced-to-shut-down-ride-resembling-nazi-swastika/ German theme park recently builds a Gerstlauer Sky Fly type ride, looks like two flying Swastikas. Oops. Apparently no one realised until someone posted a video online saying so. Double oops. The ride is now closed and the manufacturer is redesigning the ride so it only has 3 arms on each side.

Wouldn't happen at Europa Pa- Oh wait

It will have walls! Instantly better than Big Top 2015 right? Hopefully we can an announcement soon. Given the location and the quiet summer, it would have been a good way to drum up interest ("oooh, the abandoned Loggers Leap sawmill is having work done to it..what's happening??")

POV shows that the ride is going for the 'short but stunning' type of ride. Like yes, it's a short ride cycle, but it packs so much in. The speed is mental, and the little wobbles in the early half will certainly be felt. Going to be a crazy experience for sure. The park's owner has also confirmed the following: -The park will open the Vekoma double launch and a Vekoma mine train (still rumoured to be of a similar scale to Colorado Adventure at Phantasialand) in 2020 -The next few years will see the park open a Vekoma tilt coaster and 4 other unique/mid-to-large scale coasters The EU funding runs out for rides opening next year. So that's still mental expansion.

Ignoring the unnecessary sarcasm in your post, when you're at a theme park you've never visited before and want to make the most out of your day (especially with a 4 year old) you use the advertised queue times as a means of doing that. When some are completely out of the ball park in terms of accuracy, it's frustrating. And yes, it's the same for every other theme park which struggles to give accurate queue times. Doesn't make it any less of a valid point. NB: Walibi parks, Toverland, Efteling, Phantasialand (minus Taron) have all been pretty good at giving accurate queue times in my experiences.

Went to Paultons yesterday; went with my mum and 4 year old brother. A quick review: I'll start off with the negatives, because I do think that shaped a fair bit of frustration which underpinned the day and took away enjoyment from it.. -Their height measuring was all over the place. My brother has been 1.1m since about April/May, probably about 113/4cm now; so well over in context. Got him quickly measured at the start of the day (he was over 1.1m) in hope of getting a wristband saying so, but turns out they only do them for 1m (bit silly given there's a few rides reliant on that restriction, but okay). Went to Cobra; he was very clearly under the height stick. By a good 2-3cm. Standing up straight, etc etc, but very clearly under the bar. At the ride entrance, he was borderline. So, after doing more rides, popped to guest services to see what's what. Height checked again, clearly over, get a manager to sign a wristband confirming he's 1.1m. Try our luck with Magma. Had a bit of wait, get the front. Once again, my brother is under the height stick (and yet closer than he was at Cobra!). Try explaining we've had management confirm his height, but point blank refusal. At this point it's becoming obvious there's no consistency with their height sticks. Another trip to guest services to explain, another manager measures and confirms his height to be above 1.1m. Now says that for any future rides we have problems, get the operator to call so-and-so a person and they'll confirm to let us on. Problem sort of solved I guess, but in a way which undermines staff at the ride (if I was in that situation, I'd be feeling pretty uncomfortable). Further problems happened later in the day on one of the Peppa Pig rides, showing that my brother was again under 1.1m at the entrance according to the height stick, but over 1.1m according to the restriction board and the height stick before going onto the ride. This was a particular issue as the restriction determined whether he had to ride alone or with an adult. In fairness, all our issues were resolved and most staff handled it well. But this was an incredibly frustrating issue which underpinned the day and caused a lot of it to be wasted. Another, more minor, thing: pricing. Damn Paultons are cheeky. The food places in Peppa Pig World are more expensive than the rest of the park. Literally the same food is more expensive; we're talking less than 50p extra, but still. Left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when I noticed, and feels very sly. So, rants out the way, the rest of the park: -Lost Kingdom is a great area. Little rough round the edges, but well done with perfect rides for the park. -Peppa Pig World hits the bullseye for what it aims to do. And with a very good selection of rides for kids. -I didn't quite realise before my visit how expansive their zoo was. However, I really enjoyed it. -Outside of Peppa and Lost Kingdom, the park feels rather tacky. I know a lot of that hasn't been touched in recent years, but it's very jarring. -Operations were okay. Some rides felt very slow and had very weird loading procedures which felt very inefficient. Some rides had very inaccurate queue times (one Peppa ride we queued for advertised a 45min queue when it was 10min..). Bit of a shame. Overall, had a nice time, though hurt a bit by the frustrations of height measuring, which impacted the day a fair amount. My brother enjoyed everything he did and really loved Lost Kingdom (despite not being 'in' to dinosaurs). One thing to note is how busy the park was. Peppa was RAMMED all day, queues advertised at greater than 30mins for everything pretty much all day. The rest of the park was rather quiet; didn't see or wait for anything above 15mins. A very jarring situation which felt like we were in two different parks. For all of Paultons' development and successes, you wonder just how reliant they still are on Peppa right now. Final note on Tornado Springs: construction looks alright. They have a radio loop playing alongside the advertising boards which is a good touch. Very much looking forward to that, as I'm sure that'll give an indication for the quality of things to come, and whether they'll be a 'nice park which is rough round the edges' or a genuine threat against Merlin.

Zadra opens this Thursday:

If Annual Passholders keep going back and riding it, does it really matter what they do to the experience any more? 🤷‍♂️

Storm Chaser's queue is partially complete... https://twitter.com/Lawrence_Mancey/status/1162351227373522944

For a recent example, Untamed cost €12m. Assuming a ground-up RMC would cost more, and then take into account Merlin inflating prices, a brand new RMC would probably be slated to cost between the £18-20m mark. Hardly cheaper than a 'big' manufacturer. Sure, Freespins would be a nice idea, but they'd be pretty low down on my list of rides I'd like to see go to Thorpe (or Towers really). It wasn't too long ago the idea of one them (or a similar-ish Intamin Zac Spin) would have been shot down for being ridiculous, due to their average throughput. Now it feels like that option would be brilliant because it's something. It definitely is. Alton did that with B&M in the 90s to be fair. Six Flags seem to have done it with RMC. But for every successful partnership, they'll be unsuccessful ones. Sure it's not coaster-related, but Merlin/Simworx is a prime example. Parque Reunidos work closely with Gerstlauer, but they've gotten very little out of it. It's a gamble, especially with smaller manufacturers, so it doesn't always pay off.

Thorpe went for a smaller and cheaper manufacturer for DBGT in Simworx. But Thorpe asked too much and Simworx over-promised (and had to get in multiple other manufacturers making it a cocktail of technology which didn't really mix). It doesn't matter what manufacturer you go for, it matters what brief you give them and how much money you put into it. With RMC's popularity ever-soaring, their prices will be going up. They're definitely not a 'small' or 'cheap' manufacturer these days. Exactly the same as with Vekoma, for example: rides like Lech cost £4m, but now they're charging significantly more for the new style rides because demand has increased. S&S's track record hardly does much for them. Few of their coasters have been trouble-free (even Steel Curtain had construction issues). If Thorpe went for a coaster from them, if..or rather, when..a problem came about, they'd be slammed for being cheap. It's simple: you get what you pay for.