JoshC.

As we'd expect, 30 years ago, Thorpe Park was a very different place. In fact, it wasn't really until 1983 that the park saw investment in 'theme park rides'; until then, the park was a more educational/leisure area. One attraction which opened in 1983 saw Phantom Fantasia - the first incarnation of what many knew as Wicked Witches Haunt. The ride was rethemed into WWH in 1994, before its untimely closure in 2000 due to the infamous Thorpe Park Fire.
Whilst I never got a chance to ride the original Phantom Fantasia (would be a bit difficult considering I hadn't been born then ), I've heard / read a couple of accounts of the ride, and it seemed to be a very British attraction - it had that eerie / scary tone, yet had humour to it as well. It was a ride which sounded fun for everyone, and was just spot on. When we remember that at this time, Thorpe was a small business, and the idea of a theme park wasn't really around in Britain (something which Wardley discussed about so well in his autobiography I thought), it's - in a way - an astounding achievement.
Here's a few photos of the original Phantom Fantasia, from either 1983 or 1984 (put in spoilers to save on space and such):
Unfortunately, I can't really offer much explanation into the scenes and such. However, Neilfever added a brilliant video of the ride onto his Youtube account a few years ago...

One final Phantom Fantasia photo to leave you with is this one...

Anyone recognise him?

You walk past him as you exit Nemesis Inferno! I think after the fire, he appeared in MHFS, and now keeps guard of the now abandoned area...
Wicked Witches Haunt
I did get a chance to go on WWH, however. Several times. My memory of it is rather hazy, seeinghow the last time I went on it I was barely 6, but there are some scenes that I remember. I think that in itself speaks volumes of this attraction - for me to remember it 13 years after my mind shows that it was an attraction that stayed with you. It might not have been the best dark ride, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you.
My personal memories of the ride was that it was one of the attractions you 'love to hate'. Not in Storm Surge way, but in a way that it always left me scared or spooked out, I'd have to close my eyes really tightly or cover my eyes and I'd sometimes let out a scream. As a child, it was ride that scared me, but that's why you like it. The best way I can word it is that it's the child-equivalent of a scare maze, or watching a horror film.
The witches didn't scare me really. I guess at that age, you're introduced to stories that split opinions on witches - some seem horrible, but are actually nice and vice versa. The thing was though, it did give me a 'feeling'; something bad could well happen here. The scenes that never failed to scare me were the ones with spiders - there were big, fair, ugly hairy spiders. They jumped out at you and stuff. I was petrified. I think the finale, or a scene very close to it, involved the carriage turning to face a wall, and then the biggest spider there was jumping out at you. Scary stuff. For the family audience the park had at the time, it must have been a huge hit.
So, that's really all I have to share. Whilst the ride was not 'iconic', it certainly played its part in Thorpe's history, and is probably something that will be mentioned for years to come. I do doubt that the ride would have stayed at the park much longer anyway, due to the shift in target market, the age of the attraction and such, it is a true shame it burnt down. But c'est la vie.
A couple of links which show of PF/WWH really nicely -
http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/phantomfantasia.html
http://www.baffles.me.uk/features/tpg/features/wwh/index.html
Would be great to hear others' memories of the ride too!

As we'd expect, 30 years ago, Thorpe Park was a very different place. In fact, it wasn't really until 1983 that the park saw investment in 'theme park rides'; until then, the park was a more educational/leisure area. One attraction which opened in 1983 saw Phantom Fantasia - the first incarnation of what many knew as Wicked Witches Haunt. The ride was rethemed into WWH in 1994, before its untimely closure in 2000 due to the infamous Thorpe Park Fire.
Whilst I never got a chance to ride the original Phantom Fantasia (would be a bit difficult considering I hadn't been born then ), I've heard / read a couple of accounts of the ride, and it seemed to be a very British attraction - it had that eerie / scary tone, yet had humour to it as well. It was a ride which sounded fun for everyone, and was just spot on. When we remember that at this time, Thorpe was a small business, and the idea of a theme park wasn't really around in Britain (something which Wardley discussed about so well in his autobiography I thought), it's - in a way - an astounding achievement.
Here's a few photos of the original Phantom Fantasia, from either 1983 or 1984 (put in spoilers to save on space and such):
Unfortunately, I can't really offer much explanation into the scenes and such. However, Neilfever added a brilliant video of the ride onto his Youtube account a few years ago...

One final Phantom Fantasia photo to leave you with is this one...

Anyone recognise him?

You walk past him as you exit Nemesis Inferno! I think after the fire, he appeared in MHFS, and now keeps guard of the now abandoned area...
Wicked Witches Haunt
I did get a chance to go on WWH, however. Several times. My memory of it is rather hazy, seeinghow the last time I went on it I was barely 6, but there are some scenes that I remember. I think that in itself speaks volumes of this attraction - for me to remember it 13 years after my mind shows that it was an attraction that stayed with you. It might not have been the best dark ride, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you.
My personal memories of the ride was that it was one of the attractions you 'love to hate'. Not in Storm Surge way, but in a way that it always left me scared or spooked out, I'd have to close my eyes really tightly or cover my eyes and I'd sometimes let out a scream. As a child, it was ride that scared me, but that's why you like it. The best way I can word it is that it's the child-equivalent of a scare maze, or watching a horror film.
The witches didn't scare me really. I guess at that age, you're introduced to stories that split opinions on witches - some seem horrible, but are actually nice and vice versa. The thing was though, it did give me a 'feeling'; something bad could well happen here. The scenes that never failed to scare me were the ones with spiders - there were big, fair, ugly hairy spiders. They jumped out at you and stuff. I was petrified. I think the finale, or a scene very close to it, involved the carriage turning to face a wall, and then the biggest spider there was jumping out at you. Scary stuff. For the family audience the park had at the time, it must have been a huge hit.
So, that's really all I have to share. Whilst the ride was not 'iconic', it certainly played its part in Thorpe's history, and is probably something that will be mentioned for years to come. I do doubt that the ride would have stayed at the park much longer anyway, due to the shift in target market, the age of the attraction and such, it is a true shame it burnt down. But c'est la vie.
A couple of links which show of PF/WWH really nicely -
http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/phantomfantasia.html
http://www.baffles.me.uk/features/tpg/features/wwh/index.html
Would be great to hear others' memories of the ride too!

As we'd expect, 30 years ago, Thorpe Park was a very different place. In fact, it wasn't really until 1983 that the park saw investment in 'theme park rides'; until then, the park was a more educational/leisure area. One attraction which opened in 1983 saw Phantom Fantasia - the first incarnation of what many knew as Wicked Witches Haunt. The ride was rethemed into WWH in 1994, before its untimely closure in 2000 due to the infamous Thorpe Park Fire.
Whilst I never got a chance to ride the original Phantom Fantasia (would be a bit difficult considering I hadn't been born then ), I've heard / read a couple of accounts of the ride, and it seemed to be a very British attraction - it had that eerie / scary tone, yet had humour to it as well. It was a ride which sounded fun for everyone, and was just spot on. When we remember that at this time, Thorpe was a small business, and the idea of a theme park wasn't really around in Britain (something which Wardley discussed about so well in his autobiography I thought), it's - in a way - an astounding achievement.
Here's a few photos of the original Phantom Fantasia, from either 1983 or 1984 (put in spoilers to save on space and such):
Unfortunately, I can't really offer much explanation into the scenes and such. However, Neilfever added a brilliant video of the ride onto his Youtube account a few years ago...

One final Phantom Fantasia photo to leave you with is this one...

Anyone recognise him?

You walk past him as you exit Nemesis Inferno! I think after the fire, he appeared in MHFS, and now keeps guard of the now abandoned area...
Wicked Witches Haunt
I did get a chance to go on WWH, however. Several times. My memory of it is rather hazy, seeinghow the last time I went on it I was barely 6, but there are some scenes that I remember. I think that in itself speaks volumes of this attraction - for me to remember it 13 years after my mind shows that it was an attraction that stayed with you. It might not have been the best dark ride, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you.
My personal memories of the ride was that it was one of the attractions you 'love to hate'. Not in Storm Surge way, but in a way that it always left me scared or spooked out, I'd have to close my eyes really tightly or cover my eyes and I'd sometimes let out a scream. As a child, it was ride that scared me, but that's why you like it. The best way I can word it is that it's the child-equivalent of a scare maze, or watching a horror film.
The witches didn't scare me really. I guess at that age, you're introduced to stories that split opinions on witches - some seem horrible, but are actually nice and vice versa. The thing was though, it did give me a 'feeling'; something bad could well happen here. The scenes that never failed to scare me were the ones with spiders - there were big, fair, ugly hairy spiders. They jumped out at you and stuff. I was petrified. I think the finale, or a scene very close to it, involved the carriage turning to face a wall, and then the biggest spider there was jumping out at you. Scary stuff. For the family audience the park had at the time, it must have been a huge hit.
So, that's really all I have to share. Whilst the ride was not 'iconic', it certainly played its part in Thorpe's history, and is probably something that will be mentioned for years to come. I do doubt that the ride would have stayed at the park much longer anyway, due to the shift in target market, the age of the attraction and such, it is a true shame it burnt down. But c'est la vie.
A couple of links which show of PF/WWH really nicely -
http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/phantomfantasia.html
http://www.baffles.me.uk/features/tpg/features/wwh/index.html
Would be great to hear others' memories of the ride too!

Source: Fright Nights 2013

As we'd expect, 30 years ago, Thorpe Park was a very different place. In fact, it wasn't really until 1983 that the park saw investment in 'theme park rides'; until then, the park was a more educational/leisure area. One attraction which opened in 1983 saw Phantom Fantasia - the first incarnation of what many knew as Wicked Witches Haunt. The ride was rethemed into WWH in 1994, before its untimely closure in 2000 due to the infamous Thorpe Park Fire.
Whilst I never got a chance to ride the original Phantom Fantasia (would be a bit difficult considering I hadn't been born then ), I've heard / read a couple of accounts of the ride, and it seemed to be a very British attraction - it had that eerie / scary tone, yet had humour to it as well. It was a ride which sounded fun for everyone, and was just spot on. When we remember that at this time, Thorpe was a small business, and the idea of a theme park wasn't really around in Britain (something which Wardley discussed about so well in his autobiography I thought), it's - in a way - an astounding achievement.
Here's a few photos of the original Phantom Fantasia, from either 1983 or 1984 (put in spoilers to save on space and such):
Unfortunately, I can't really offer much explanation into the scenes and such. However, Neilfever added a brilliant video of the ride onto his Youtube account a few years ago...

One final Phantom Fantasia photo to leave you with is this one...

Anyone recognise him?

You walk past him as you exit Nemesis Inferno! I think after the fire, he appeared in MHFS, and now keeps guard of the now abandoned area...
Wicked Witches Haunt
I did get a chance to go on WWH, however. Several times. My memory of it is rather hazy, seeinghow the last time I went on it I was barely 6, but there are some scenes that I remember. I think that in itself speaks volumes of this attraction - for me to remember it 13 years after my mind shows that it was an attraction that stayed with you. It might not have been the best dark ride, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you.
My personal memories of the ride was that it was one of the attractions you 'love to hate'. Not in Storm Surge way, but in a way that it always left me scared or spooked out, I'd have to close my eyes really tightly or cover my eyes and I'd sometimes let out a scream. As a child, it was ride that scared me, but that's why you like it. The best way I can word it is that it's the child-equivalent of a scare maze, or watching a horror film.
The witches didn't scare me really. I guess at that age, you're introduced to stories that split opinions on witches - some seem horrible, but are actually nice and vice versa. The thing was though, it did give me a 'feeling'; something bad could well happen here. The scenes that never failed to scare me were the ones with spiders - there were big, fair, ugly hairy spiders. They jumped out at you and stuff. I was petrified. I think the finale, or a scene very close to it, involved the carriage turning to face a wall, and then the biggest spider there was jumping out at you. Scary stuff. For the family audience the park had at the time, it must have been a huge hit.
So, that's really all I have to share. Whilst the ride was not 'iconic', it certainly played its part in Thorpe's history, and is probably something that will be mentioned for years to come. I do doubt that the ride would have stayed at the park much longer anyway, due to the shift in target market, the age of the attraction and such, it is a true shame it burnt down. But c'est la vie.
A couple of links which show of PF/WWH really nicely -
http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/phantomfantasia.html
http://www.baffles.me.uk/features/tpg/features/wwh/index.html
Would be great to hear others' memories of the ride too!

As we'd expect, 30 years ago, Thorpe Park was a very different place. In fact, it wasn't really until 1983 that the park saw investment in 'theme park rides'; until then, the park was a more educational/leisure area. One attraction which opened in 1983 saw Phantom Fantasia - the first incarnation of what many knew as Wicked Witches Haunt. The ride was rethemed into WWH in 1994, before its untimely closure in 2000 due to the infamous Thorpe Park Fire.
Whilst I never got a chance to ride the original Phantom Fantasia (would be a bit difficult considering I hadn't been born then ), I've heard / read a couple of accounts of the ride, and it seemed to be a very British attraction - it had that eerie / scary tone, yet had humour to it as well. It was a ride which sounded fun for everyone, and was just spot on. When we remember that at this time, Thorpe was a small business, and the idea of a theme park wasn't really around in Britain (something which Wardley discussed about so well in his autobiography I thought), it's - in a way - an astounding achievement.
Here's a few photos of the original Phantom Fantasia, from either 1983 or 1984 (put in spoilers to save on space and such):
Unfortunately, I can't really offer much explanation into the scenes and such. However, Neilfever added a brilliant video of the ride onto his Youtube account a few years ago...

One final Phantom Fantasia photo to leave you with is this one...

Anyone recognise him?

You walk past him as you exit Nemesis Inferno! I think after the fire, he appeared in MHFS, and now keeps guard of the now abandoned area...
Wicked Witches Haunt
I did get a chance to go on WWH, however. Several times. My memory of it is rather hazy, seeinghow the last time I went on it I was barely 6, but there are some scenes that I remember. I think that in itself speaks volumes of this attraction - for me to remember it 13 years after my mind shows that it was an attraction that stayed with you. It might not have been the best dark ride, but that doesn't mean it didn't affect you.
My personal memories of the ride was that it was one of the attractions you 'love to hate'. Not in Storm Surge way, but in a way that it always left me scared or spooked out, I'd have to close my eyes really tightly or cover my eyes and I'd sometimes let out a scream. As a child, it was ride that scared me, but that's why you like it. The best way I can word it is that it's the child-equivalent of a scare maze, or watching a horror film.
The witches didn't scare me really. I guess at that age, you're introduced to stories that split opinions on witches - some seem horrible, but are actually nice and vice versa. The thing was though, it did give me a 'feeling'; something bad could well happen here. The scenes that never failed to scare me were the ones with spiders - there were big, fair, ugly hairy spiders. They jumped out at you and stuff. I was petrified. I think the finale, or a scene very close to it, involved the carriage turning to face a wall, and then the biggest spider there was jumping out at you. Scary stuff. For the family audience the park had at the time, it must have been a huge hit.
So, that's really all I have to share. Whilst the ride was not 'iconic', it certainly played its part in Thorpe's history, and is probably something that will be mentioned for years to come. I do doubt that the ride would have stayed at the park much longer anyway, due to the shift in target market, the age of the attraction and such, it is a true shame it burnt down. But c'est la vie.
A couple of links which show of PF/WWH really nicely -
http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/phantomfantasia.html
http://www.baffles.me.uk/features/tpg/features/wwh/index.html
Would be great to hear others' memories of the ride too!

Well hello there and thanks for stopping by! Clicked the wrong page? Run - now! This is gonna be waffly so you have been warned (if you are still reading). Go grab a coffee or beverage of your choice and get yerself comfy.....
So.....after precisely zero hours sleep, the night before (not helped by the fact that Mr Fish was snoring LOUDLY in my lounge) I necked a fair few coffees, got ready and headed off - at 5am! We picked up Ethan, Ricky and James & Co then headed towards Thorpe Park, not before almost crashing into a van - first near death experience of the day. I questions whether Mr Fish actually has a driving license or just needs an eye test.
Arriving at the park slightly after 7am it felt a tad surreal - we filled out the consent forms then some of us went to the toilet (not a great idea to go on Stealth if you need the loo). Peaj did the introductions and it was great to see both new and old faces - I have no idea how Peaj remembers peoples names - I would get confused (mind you, it doesn't take much to confuse me)
While waiting to go into the park it was a nice opportunity to mingle and catch up with people as it had been a full 4 weeks since the last meet!
Finally we got into the park and headed towards the Stealth area - this is when my anxiety started to really kick in. I had actually taken one less anti-anxiety med than I usually would as I am cutting down but needed to take another one once I saw the Stealth trains testing.
Stealth is not a ride I am a huge fan of - it is the only coaster at Thorpe Park where I get really scared before hand - the launch and my fear of heights and I end up like a screaming lunatic (although I scream at most things). I have only been on it 4 times prior to this meet up. After my first ever go on Stealth this year I was so terrified that I bought the ORP because I vowed NEVER to go on it again - however, I did go on another 3 times - twice being very close to tears and the other time, sat next to a complete stranger as I decided to skip lunch and go on it - methinks I perforated the poor guys eardrums - oohps!
Ok.....am waffling.....bear with.....
After the ice cream stuff (which wasn't ice cream) was set up (and a Mr Whippy van arrived) everything was ready for us to go. One of the staff members pointed to myself and a few others and asked us to sit in the front 2 rows - OH NO - My WORST nightmare. Why did I go and buy a turquoise t-shirt?! My anxiety ramped up a few notches at that point but we headed towards the ride whilst I tried to not have a heart attack/panic attack.
I didn't realise just how many times we would need to ride Stealth and by the end of it, my fear of the ride had completely dissolved - it took a while though. I think I screamed several times before the train had even moved. I was really pleased that I managed to go in the front row about 4 times. I also did the back row and middle bits - I had a massive headache after a few rides so I took a headache tablet/cigarette break. I dread to think of how many times I swore during the ride times as I managed around 16 goes (ish). I am such a lady (not). I honestly don't know how some people did ALL the rides on it - you must be insane! It felt like I had done a workout afterwards - those restraints are pretty heavy to lift up - I reckon I toned up my bingo wings a bit after that!
Some people had to dash off and others went and did their own thang after the photo shoot but I stuck with the main group.....because that is how I roll.....innit
The park didn't seem *too* busy which was nice - I am awful at queuing and get restless legs and cigarette cravings (nasty habit). However, being with TPMers definitely helps with queuing and it was nice to speak to a couple of people I haven't previously had chance to chat to.
We didn't get chance to do Rumba, Detonator or Slammer as they were all down (not that I would ever do Slammer anyway and I am 50/50 about Detty). We were hoping for a relaxing ride on Rumba after the headache inducing multiple Stealth rides but it wasn't to be so instead we went to Inferno where I sat on the back row alongside Mr Fish, James & co and JoshC and gave myself another headache.
My ride count for the day was pretty good -
Stealth x 16(ish)
X - x4
Flying Fish x 1
Colossus x 1
Inferno x 1
Saw x 2
Loggers x 2
Rocky Express x 1
Storm Turd x 1
Samurai x 1
At lunchtime I went for a wander, hoping to get a sneaky go on The Swarm but the damn thing had a 60min queue so I met up with some of the others in the sunken gardens after grabbing a large cappucino. I got lost trying to find the sunken gardens - I didn't even know they were still there and I *almost* ended up queuing for Stealth
At this point in the day, on previous meets I would usually take more anti-anxiety meds (along with my anti-sickness tablets) but I felt pretty chilled and relaxed so it was a bit of an achievement for me.
Queuing for Colossus was funny - Ryan had me laughing with his randomness, plus Ricky being Ricky. Jack and I got on before the others as we were a bit too keen - have only ridden Colossus 5 times and I do like it - except for those inline twists - which make me feel a tad dizzy/sick.
First 2 goes on X were ravey fun - SO much better than X:/NWO which I couldn't ride due to the damn thing going backwards and me almost barfin on my one and only go on it. The second 2 rides (at the end of the day) - was in the dark which I didn't enjoy as much. I don't like the dark (I'm a wuss) plus I like to see where I am going so I'm pretty sure I screamed a bit
Storm turd was actually SPINNING! Only ridden this eyesore once and it was nice to have a sit down but I thought it was a bit pointless (and looked SO much better when it was at Cypress Gardens). But we went on, and after a 2 hour trip up the lift hill, off we went - and I screamed (v embarrasing) - the boat was spinning like crazy which made my head go a bit funny - it is still naff, still needs a damn good clean and was also making funny noises
First go on Saw was pretty smooth - second one, not so much and my head took a bit of bashing and I gave myself ANOTHER headache. I do like Saw (my second fave coaster at Thorpe after Swarm) but for me, after the indoor section and lift hill/drop the best bits are over and the head banging begins
A lot of us went on Rocky Express and I was in pain - during most of the ride I was sat sideways clinging on and trying to readjust myself - note to self: next time sit next to someone!
Samurai - why oh why did I do it? Done it once before, vowed to never do it again.....did it again and screamed a fair bit whilst possibly swearing. I don't like things that spin and it got to the point where I closed my eyes, opened them and I was upside down. I felt pretty rough as the ride was coming to a close and had to lean my head against the restraint because I felt like I was going to pass out. Still.....I would do it again!
We braved it tunnel-less twice on Loggers Leap - first time I was sat behind Phill Pritchard whilst sporting one of my "han-hats" aka an Asda carrier bag - works a treat at keeping hair dry - not great if you are fashion conscious but those who have seen the way I dress will know I do not follow fashion and generally look a mess. We got drenched and I was glad that I didn't sit at my usual place at the very front as Phill took most of the drenching!
Our second ride on Loggers was.....scary.....seriously. My second (sort of but not really) near death experience of the day (after Mr Fish's near collision with a van in the morning). All was going swimmingly until we realised that the boat in front was a bit too close - so going up the first lift hill it stopped (and I screamed), then it started again. Good stuff, sorted.....but no - going up the second lift hill the boats were too close together and as RideWhisperer said "guys there are 4 boats on the lift hill - this isn't good" I panicked a bit. I had visions of the lift hill collapsing, or our boat going backwards, or being evacuated (not that I over-react or anything!). Luckily the lift hill started and stopped so that there was a gap for the final drop. Felt a bit sorry for the people who had been queuing for Loggers as they shut it down and as we exited the boat I told the ride assistant that Ethan broke the ride
Swarm.....my favourite ride at Thorpe , had a bit of a queue but nothing major until it had technical difficulties and after that had to be sorted out (someone puked methinks). We ended up sitting down in the queueline where I attempted a bit of meditation which is difficult with an ambulance screeching etc etc, so we decided to play I spy which I was absolutely crud at, but hey, it passed the time and we were soon into the station. I sat front right next to James&co - most of my rides on the Swarm have been on the left so doing right and front row was really good - definitely my fave seat although James nicked the outer seat!
We all met up at the end of the day in the Dome but Monsieur Fish had forgotten to get a parking ticket so we dashed off to get one and then met everyone outside and headed towards Frankie & Bennys.....a great end to a great day
I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to everyone or even speak to everyone that was there on the day (there were a lot of us) but I had an amazing time, loads of laughs and my anxiety was a lot milder than it usually is - my anxiety levels change depending on who I am with etc so a big thank you to those who spoke to me, made me laugh and just for being lovely people.
And of course a big thankyou to TPM and Marc for getting the opportunity to ride Stealth 2000million times, to Peaj for being a brilliant meet organiser as always, and to Thorpe Park for letting us in and riding Stealth loads, and as a non MAP holder for the free entry. Mucho appreciano!
Waffle over.....!!!

First off, Ministry of Sound at Thorpe Park was outstanding. I did not have any idea what to expect from it really, was thinking the dome would not make much of a venue and the notorious Thorpe clientèle might make things a bit uncomfortable. I was very wrong on both counts.
The evening was run like two different events stuck together, summer nights riding followed by the nightclub separately. I expected them to blend together in some way, having appropriate music pumped around the park maybe, but it was all nice and relaxed wandering through the empty dusky park with beer in hand. A couple of other bars would have been nice (there was nothing on the whole Inferno to Colossus side of the park), but riding in the darkness with no queues is always going to be superb. Was also a very nice touch of them to open up Rush and Tidal on top of the advertised line up, little things like this really make a difference, great to see the park being so generous.
Once the rides began to close everyone made their way to the club, where the transformation of the dome really worked; totally cleared of furniture and machines, surrounded by black curtain, a couple of well staffed bars set up, a huge stage and lighting rig and a sound system that really worked in what must be an awkward space acoustically. Impressive. They even had a stand selling dirty doners to mop up that alcohol, which I gratefully devoured at the end of the night. There was a bit of a scrum for the bar at first, but that soon died down. Then everyone started dancing, and didn't stop. The atmosphere was great, I didn't see any trouble (except a couple of fellas who had smuggled in joints and smoked them in the middle of the dance floor stinking the place out, if you'd call that trouble), everyone was just there for a good time and it certainly seemed like they had one.
But there is always a but. The music was not what it could have, or I think it should have, been. It started well with a good string of proper classics for an hour or so, but then it lost its way. I can see what they were aiming for, they had advertised a 90's night but most of the people who went were barely born then, so they were playing mushups of 90's with modern stuff like putting Katie Perry over some 90's tune or another. That is all very well, but there is only so much of that stuff that exists and they soon started repeating themselves, and they needed to throw in some of the real classics too.
A couple of months ago a posted a few of the tunes I would like to hear. Of those we got little snippets of just two (Insomnia (minus the essential break and build) and Funk Phenomena (as a little sample in a mash up)). Here is largely what you did miss. And this is what, unbelievably, you didn't miss...
Tori Amos - Professional Widow Arman Van Helden remix. THE bassline of the 90's, missing this was criminal!


Sugar is Sweeter - CJ Bolland Arman Van Helden remix. The other bassline of the 90's.


Moloko - Sing it Back. The 90's were chock full of sing-a-long feel good house music and this was one of the best, would have gone down a storm I'm sure, along with many other of the same ilk.


Gat Decor - Dergees of Passion. Full of energy, two classics mashed together to make something greater than its two parts.


Goldie - Inner City Life. The 90's saw the start of a whole new genre of music, maybe it wouldn't quite have fitted on the night but I'd have gone bat**** crazy.


And just as important as the record selection on a night like this is how it is all stitched together, which comes down to the skill of the DJ. In a previous life I used to do a bit of DJing myself and the mid to late 90's was my peak, now I'm not suggesting for a second I'd have done a better job than those who did this night (actually, sod it, yes I would have) but maybe if they'd have got someone from the right era they'd have had a better idea. Back then the best DJs put their personality into the mixing, and they could do that because it wasn't all slick and perfectly matched up for them by a computer hooked up to some CDJs, but was on 12" vinyl which they touched and and manipulate with their own hands, putting a huge amount of energy into the set if it is done well. Thorpe posted a pic from behind the decks, and it was indeed a pair of CDJs. There is no way the DJ could have done the music justice with those.
If you want to see what I mean I've found on youtube my favourite DJ set of all time, Jeremy Healy on the Fantazia House Collection volume 3. I must have listened to it a thousand times and still find it fresh and exciting, the tracks are amazing on their own but what Healy does with them puts the whole thing in another league. Compare this with the digitally stuck together soulless nothing MoS themselves release today on their mix compilations, and largely gave us on the night. I'm sure that no one will bother but please, clear yourself an hour and a quarter, hook this up to some proper speakers and play it loud. This is what we should have been aiming for that night...

http://youtu.be/LxFjg1R77G4

On Sunday 7th July I took my first trip to Alton Towers - I had the opportunity to go way back in 2002 when Air opened but I chickened out because I was a massive wuss back then and the thought of being miles from home scared me
I was REALLY anxious about going - mainly because of my anxiety issues and also, as before, the thought of being so far from home was pretty scary (furthest I have ever been is DLP back in 2000 before my panic attacks began). But I bit the bullet and went and am SO glad that I did (even if it did mean me needing to take a fair amount of medication).
After a 3 and a half hour drive we arrived and I was feeling really excited. We parked up and got the monorail into the park entrance and myself, Mr Fish and Matt Creek met up with Stretchy. Once the kiosks opened we got our tickets (Mr Fish and I do not have MAPs so we BOGOF'ed). Went through the turnstiles and were approached by a member of staff asking if we wanted to buy a photo pass - gutted that you only get 4 photos when it used to be 5 but we wanted some ORP's - The photo passes were £25 BUT that included a free digital download for each ORP so Mr Fish and I went halves (I couldn't justify spending £25).
We tried several times to contact Marc who was joining us along with Ricky & Chris, Thrillseeker Alex and Liam but had no luck so we headed straight to The Smiler. Luckily the queue wasn't too long by the time we reached it and we stood watching it testing - the dummies have smiley faces on them . At one point, one of the trains stopped almost at the top of the second lift hill and I thought "uh oh" we are doomed but the ride opened and we walked through the queue line which took about 2 years (slight exaggeration!) I looked back at the queue which was trailing right up the hill and was thankful that we got there when we did. The inside section of The Smiler is HOT - not helped by the fact that it was a boiling day anyway!
We got on the ride and had the front row which was really good although I felt a bit stupid when I started screaming like a lunatic when the train had only just started moving
My only concern with the ride was my fear of vomiting on people - and because the ride goes SO close to the queue line I would have been mortified had I been ill and not only sprayed my fellow riders but also potentially those waiting to go on the ride. Luckily this didn't happen (I take some amazing anti-sickness pills). I really enjoyed the ride even though it does leave you feeling more than a tad disorientated . Without that second lift hill I think I would have felt pretty ill. Speaking of which, the vertical lift hill - not keen on them to be honest because I have a crazy fear of looking up at the sky (odd I know - that is the only part of Saw: The Ride that I dislike - that, and that puppet thing ). Having been on Saw, I kind of expected a massive drop at the other end but I can't complain given that you are inverted 14 times
We went back on The Smiler at the end of the day for another go - Marc and the others had bought fast track tickets for their first ride so our second ride, we all went on together.....and queued for 2 hours (although I am pretty sure it was longer than that as there were a couple of announcements apologising for delays due to queue jumpers - naughty!). So being in the queue line for a fair amount of time (whereas the first time I rode we were on the ride fairly quick) you realise just how close the ride goes - it made me jump several times! The ride also seems to roar - it is so loud and me being pretty much deaf as a post I could barely hear what the others were saying . However, being in the queue for so long gave me the opportunity to get a load of photo's and vids of the ride - which I would post here however I STILL haven't figured out how to do so
When we eventually got onto the ride, I sat in the third row on the far right - Alex wanted to sit between myself and Liam to compare what we were both like regarding screaming - again I began screaming as the train left the station and as the ride left the first lift hill I think I may have come out with some unsavory language . I don't know if it was the train we got or the fact that I was sat in the 3rd row but - it was PAINFUL and I came off with a massive headache .
Overall I really do like the ride and the fact that when you are in the queue line, the trains go so close to where you are standing. I thought the queue line would freak me out as you are penned in with fencing above your head but I felt ok about it. The inversions are good, a couple which are really intense and at points you don't know what the heck is going on (or that might just be me as I generally don't know what is going on at the best of times).
This is the second Gerstlauer coaster I have ridden and I would say (although I don't like to compare) that I prefer Saws inside section (although not keen on the puppet!) and the drop after the lift hill, but both are brilliant rides.
Ok so I appear to be waffling.....
As I said before, it was really hot on Sunday which meant that the park was pretty busy - meaning that my ride count was low, however, that didn't affect the fact that I had an amazing day and also conquered my fear of one particular ride that the thought of bothered me.....OBLIVION.
After riding The Smiler we headed over to Oblivion which had quite a short queue - I was feeling really anxious, bordering on a panic attack. I really hate the feeling of falling - although I have been on Detonator 3 times and panicked on the way up but each time loved it. The ride decided to have some technical issues whilst we were queuing so some people decided to leave the queue line but we remained in it even though I was desperate to run off . It didn't take long before the ride was up and running again and I was getting closer to having a heart attack. We got front row (yay) and I was almost in tears going up the lift hill - I just wanted it to be over and done with ASAP which it was and I actually loved it! I thought it would be far worse than detonator but you don't get the same force so I would have happily gone on again had there not been a queue. I felt really pleased that I did it - not only because I was bricking it, but also because I had only previously ridden 2 B&M coasters (Inferno and Swarm) - I would love to ride every B&M coaster but my fear of flying plus lack of money is a bit of a block to this!
So after riding my 3rd B&M, myself, Stretchy, Mr Fish and Matt Creek headed off to meet up with Marc and the others (who had already managed to get on Nemesis, Nemesis Sub-Terra Battle Galleons and Th13teen! Whilst waiting for them they had 3 staff members entertaining the crowds and I had to restrain myself from joining in. So I stood there watching (and singing into my microphone aka water bottle) whilst they were dancing along to "You Can't Stop The Beat" - would be great if Thorpe did similar stuff to this as it was really entertaining and a group of girls joined in and were obviously having fun (not that I was jealous)
Marc and the rest of the group arrived and we headed off to ride Th13teen. The queue times were clearly not updated as we were in the queue for what seemed like forever - but we played Mr Fishs game which consisted of picking an envelope which contained the name of a theme park and then having 30 seconds to name as many rides as you could. I got Thorpe Park but confused myself as they have way too many rides which begin with letter S, so I lost to ThrillseekerAlex who got Alton Towers and beat me - then went on to win the prize which I had my eye on - a pacman soap on a rope. Stretchy made me laugh when he genuinely didn't believe that Monkey Swinger at CWOA used to be called Billys Whizzer - the look on his face classic! To be fair, Stretchy has never been to Chessington which I think needs to be sorted out - however with the current state of the park I wouldn't suggest he visit any time this year
We eventually got into the Th13teen station and I was slightly scared because I think it was Ricky who informed me that you get electrocuted or something (or I may have just made that up). There was an amusing moment when both myself and Alex counted 10 people in our group when there was actually 9 of us (my excuse is that I counted my imaginary friend ). I sat next to Alex who I think could tell I was a bit anxious (not helped by the fact that, whilst going up the lift hill he told me that the ride has 2 loops - NOT funny when you are sat there with just a lap bar - if I am going upside down I wanna be fully secured thank you very much) Thankfully I had already ruined the element of surprise by watching the ride on the internet so I knew what to expect however this didn't stop me screaming - A LOT! I think my screaming got worse when the first mini drop happened followed by the slightly bigger one then I began screaming like a complete lunatic when the ride went backwards - I HATE going backwards, even on a train but screaming actually helped otherwise I may have been a bit
We had lunch at Woodcutters which was really nice and the service was good in there, and then headed to Hex - when we got inside, the ride was having issues - typical, but it was sorted fairly quickly. I had NO idea what to expect from this as it is one of the rides I hadn't really read much about. Whilst the first film was playing I could feel a breeze on my neck and felt a bit anxious, then turned around and realised it was Liam!
The end bit of the ride seriously disorientated me - we walked into the last room and I said "Oooh we can sit down" - then when the lap bars came down I began to wonder what the hell was occurring (no one in the group warned me about it) - holy cack, I nearly pooped myself (yes I am a bit of a wimp) - and things that mess with your mind (especially mine as it is a tad bongled already) I am not keen on and it got to the point where I had to close my eyes and lean my head on the lap bar thing.
After Hex, Marc, Ricky, Chris, Alex and Liam went to use their fast track on the Smiler, so myself and the others heading towards Nemesis - we were going to catch the sky ride but thankfully it was busy (the thought of cable cars scare me senseless) - however, after trekking what felt like 20 miles I would have happily got on a cable car just for a rest . So, after taking about 5 hours to walk to Nemesis I was just about ready to collapse - stretchy and Matt Creek were walking way faster than myself and Mr Fish - I am so unfit I had to take my inhaler(!). Nemesis had a bit of a queue but it seemed to go down quite quick, and we decided to go front row - I am always a bit anxious on rides I have never been on before (I even screamed on the dragon coaster at legoland ) but I felt pretty much okay about Nemesis having ridden Inferno 5 times in a row at the ERT event. I sat front row, far left and absolutely LOVED it - B&M coaster count up to 4 and I have to say that you would never know that the ride will be 20 next year - it was pretty smooth and just amazing! Although I have only ridden Nemesis once and Inferno about 14 times, I would probably rate Nemesis higher in terms of intensity and general enjoyment. Again as I have said before, I don't like to make comparisons with rides but they are both B&M inverted coasters and have the same blinking name in them. I personally think Thorpe should have called N:I just Inferno because people are naturally going to compare the two, even those who aren't particularly enthusiasts.
Although I do prefer Nemesis to Inferno, I like that on Inferno you have the pre-lift hill section and the tunnel with the mist darkness which I think is pretty enjoyable but the ride layout of Nemesis in my opinion is far better - plus actually has theming. I was a bit worried about feeling rough after Nemesis but I felt completely fine - Inferno leaves me feeling dizzy for some reason and I am not sure how I managed 5 consecutive rides on it although I had to run off after ride no. 5 as I thought I was going to be ill.
I really wanted to get an ORP from Nemesis but some of the flaming screens weren't working grrrrr so our picture didn't come up. Random thought here (my ride knowledge is extremely limited) - is the vertical loop on Nemesis bigger than Inferno?! It has to be - it looks mahoosive in comparison.
Ok so I am still waffling and on my way to typing a flaming essay/novel.....
I really wanted to ride Air but it had a 60min queue and we needed to meet up with the rest of the group. Ripsaw was looking quite tempting with those water fountains but we made our 5 hour journey back to meet up with the others - the sky ride was busy so we burnt off about 2000000 calories by trekking it back
We all met outside Battle Galleons and as, by that point I had already sweated off about half a stone I was in desperate need of refreshment so myself and some of the others went on. Wow - I had NO idea I would get SO wet. It also made me realise that some kids can be completely annoying as we had a bunch of them in the boat in front shouting at us - just spray the water people, and shut ya cake holes
Again I screamed on this every time I got pelted with water when I wasn't expecting it - at one point I was the only person in our group on one side of the boat so I attempted to multi-task and use 2 guns at the same time but then realised that it didn't work out so well as I couldn't move the guns unless I had a 3rd hand
Towards the end of the ride we spotted Liam and Alex waiting to drench us so we were on a mission to get them as soaked as possible - however, they were no where near as soaked as us when we got off the ride - I was literally drenched - almost "Tidal Wave" drenched but it helped to cool me off . I didn't realise that you can get an ORP from this so when we walked past the screens, the pic had been taken when I was on one side of the boat by myself so all you could see was me looking tired and behind me, the other guys backs!
By now it was just gone 5pm so we all headed over to The Smiler for our last ride of the day. I really wanted to do Oblivion again but it had a long queue and we didn't want to risk not getting another chance to be corrected flung around and upside down 14 times. I won't repeat myself (for a change) as I have already typed up a bit about the second ride but all I would say is - first row was great - third row = massive headache!
Smiler merch is.....not cheap, although I quite fancied the onesie they do. However Stretchy pointed out that a lot of the products are poor quality so I just bought a small bag (which would probably break if I put anything more than a bog roll in it) and a Smiler wristband. The teddies in there are something ridiculous like £15 = daylight robbery!
Due to delays and the massive queue line (I have always said I would never queue longer than an hour for any ride but a lot of people sat down in the queue line - myself included) so we didn't leave the park until gone 7ish. The monorail was closed so we had to walk about 200 miles to the car park. I was exhausted, sweaty but so happy that I had FINALLY gone to Alton Towers
As I said before, my ride count was low but this didn't put a dampener on the day at all - it would have been nice to try out Air, The Flume and Rapids (we didn't even go to Katanga area ), Rita and Duel but on a busy hot day it was impossible. Being so far from home (Ok not massively far, but just short of 200 miles) I dealt with pretty well and even getting there was a huge achievement for me.
It was lovely seeing Stretchy, ThrillseekerAlex, Ricky, Mr Fish, Matt Creek and Marc again fantastic to meet the lovely Liam aka LIMA and Chris. We went to Harvester afterwards where I suspect we all stunk as they put us on a table away from everyone else and underneath air conditioning - I was SO cold. Ricky made me laugh when he asked for a side order of no air con .
All in all a brilliant day with lovely people - I am hoping to be able to go back to Towers when it is much quieter so I can go on all the rides (if that is even possible in a day) - I had NO idea how big AT is but I love the fact that one minute you are at a ride, then you are walking through what appears to be a forest, then you see how lovely the gardens are. THEY HAVE TREES!!! Thorpe Park could definitely do with a bit of greenery! Having visited Towers it really does make TP look like a concrete jungle - BUT in Thorpes defence, they have a better selection of flat rides IMO.
I thought the staff at Alton Towers were really friendly which definitely makes the day that little bit better when they seem happy and chatty. Though I feel sorry for the guys working on the Smiler - I still have the song stuck in my head - it is like "It's a small world" all over again but the tune is rather catchy even if it does make me feel like I am going insane®
Really glad that I got the opportunity to ride The Smiler - it is a good ride but not something which I would count as world class (but then the only other theme park I have been to outside the UK was DLP over 10 years ago) - it certainly attracts the crowds but for me Nemesis was far superior although I did enjoy the Smiler (first time more so).
So I shall leave my wafflage here and sign off by saying.....SMILE.....ALWAYS!

Whilst this isn't a theme park it is definitely a great tourist attraction and definitely deserves a trip report.
The tour is well known globally with people travelling from all over the world to visit. We saw: English, German, Hungarian, Argentinian, South African, Turkish, Japanese and many more people of different origins. So it is certainly a well known tourist attraction!
So where do we begin? Well firstly, this may contain spoilers for those of you who haven't been and may like too. You have been warned. Secondly, this is very picture heavy.
You arrive at the studios and unsurprisingly they look like film studios. This is because they are, or were.

This lovely sign greets you before you join a lovely cattle pen queue to enter the VT room. Us Brits really love queuing!

The queue has a bit of theming though with Harry's under stair cupboard.
You watch a lovely video about the success of the Harry Potter franchise. Then you move into a seated area and sit before the entrance to Hogwarts! The seating was a bit strange as almost as soon as you were seated you had to move to the doors.

These guards take no prisoners when it comes to protecting Hogwarts!

Then all of a sudden you enter into the Great Hall.

All the teachers are here to keep us safe.

But watch out for the fiery gargoyles!
After a staff member talking to you about the Great Hall you are free to wander the rest of the tour at your own pace. Within this part are many of the props and rooms from the films. This is also where you see how the special effects are done with the use of green screen.

This table looked nice.

Watch your heads, these may fall on you.

Tic toc.

Snape, the good baddy.

The Goblet of Fire with a lack of fire.

An awful panoramic of Dumbledore's office.

I like this door.

Gringotts vehicle.

Tim Burke tells us the magic behind the flying broom, and they really use magic!

Decapitated Hagrid, his dog and their home.

Professor Umbridge has an unhealthy cat obsession.

The Death Eaters disapprove of this.

So create a very strange statue.
From here you go outside to see some of the larger props, very nice of a nice day but I doubt it's much fun in the rain.

This is a purple bus with three floors, your eyes aren't deceiving you.

The houses on Pivet Drive look very nice.

Some work could be done here though.

The bridge.

Certainly a memorable grave.

Wizard chess anyone?

These guys are ready!

And battle commences.
You return inside to the more technical side of Potter with all the costumes, animations, models and drawings.

Who doesn't love Dobby?

The secret behind Hagrid.

Such an innocent looking dog.

Lovely Buckbeak, he means no harm.

Why are people afraid of spiders? This one isn't scary at all.

And Dementors, they're not exactly big, more a nuisance.

Wizard humour...

I just don't get it!

Wizard ice creams on the other hand.

Quite a nice street.

Paper Hogsmeade.

And the tree.
From here there is only two things left, the wand shop Ollivanders which was quite good, and the most spectacular bit of the whole tour.
THE MODEL OF HOGWARTS! Pictures just don't do this justice, it is amazing to think that this was built in only 40 days and used for any of the overview shots of Hogwarts.



Then the lights went and it looked even better!





The whole tour is amazing and whilst it is expensive it is definitely worth visiting once. It is a great hit with people worldwide and with good reason. I'm not a massive Potter fan but still found this tour and look behind the magic great fun and very interesting. I recommend it to everyone!
Thanks for reading

First off, I understand that the Blogs feature was introduced with the intention of Trip Reports going here, but I'm still going to continue these sorts of blog entries here and in my other blog from time-to-time (if that's okay of course!)

Anyways, as most will know - or have worked out - I'm a university student, and I've just finished my first year (woo!). I decided just to do a quick entry just going through what it's been like, the ups and the downs and such, and just give a small insight into 'uni life'. Hopefully it'll be interesting to some, and may even help people who are thinking about going to uni / going to uni this year in some way. Either way, hope you enjoy!

So yeah, despite missing my offer effectively by two whole grades, I got accepted by my first choice - the University of Warwick, to do Maths. It's regularly ranked in the Top 10 universities in the country, and the Maths Department was this year ranked 23rd in the world. Personally, I don't like the idea of university rankings, as there's no fair way, in my eyes, to rank universities, as many surveys will focus on student satisfaction (and so students could just rate highly to improve post-university prospects), research successes (which has little to do with degrees) or results (and due to the wide range of courses and their difficulties at all the universities, that just seems silly). Nevertheless, it's nice to see 'my uni' ranking well..

The Maths department is also home to one of the country's more famous mathematicians - Ian Stewart. Not only has he had many successes with his research, he's also a popular science author, with a ridiculous number of books to his name (80 something I think), and has also worked with Terry Prachett on the 'Science of Discworld' books. Whilst he's now retired, he still hangs around the department a lot and gives the occasional talk, and he's always happy to have a little chat with people and sign a couple of his books (which I've taken advantage of). I guess you could say he's one of the 'John Wardleys' of popular Maths. I also found out my Personal Tutor before arriving at Warwick, and after a minute of research, I found his Wikipedia page(!) and it turned out he has had a few prizes for his research - found that a bit daunting to be honest!

Now, before arriving to uni, I didn't know what exactly to expect. I was moving 100 miles way from home, and whilst I knew 1 person on my course, I didn't really like them, so wanted to try my best to avoid them. So, I was in the usual uni position - moving a long way away from home, knowing no one, not really knowing how to cook, afraid of budgeting properly, as well as being not so confident and having a difficult course looming! I do think some people, especially in the media, forget just how much students have to deal with when moving to uni, and make it seem much simpler than it really is.

But, strangely, when I had moved in and everything, it all just seemed to work. Everyone was nervous, in the exact same position, and even if they were a confident person, being plunged into that sorta situation brings most people to jelly. One thing which scared me was the fact that I didn't drink, and feared that would hinder my chance to make friends with people / I'd be forced into drinking. That did not happen. A fair few people were similar to me, so it really was no biggie. So, seriously, anyone who's thinking about uni and doesn't fit the 'media-portrayed student' of loving to go out get smashed every night - don't worry, uni is not really like and that, and if you're not that sorta person, you will be fine!

Now, unlike most unis, Warwick doesn't have a traditional 'Fresher's Week' (ie the first week of first term has no lectures, and you can party and get to know people and stuff). Instead, we have lectures from the start, but have a 'Fresher's Fortnight', where there's loads of special events to help people adjust to uni life, but still have lectures and classes and whatever else. Seems nasty, but that's university!

So, for my first two terms, I had in the region of 20-24 hours of contact time a week (may not seem a lot to those outside of university, but trust me, it is a lot for university. For example, History students and Warwick have 8-10 hours!). I had 2-4 assignments due a week, which for the most part was just a series of questions. Usually, an assignment would take me 3-6 hours, depending on difficulty and length, and that's whilst working with others. Each assignment counted to each individual module, and each module counts to my overall grade for first year, which was 10% of my overall degree (despite first year for most degrees not counting). So, needless to say, it was essential to do them well! I'd also spend a few hours a week going over notes, writing them in neat, etc. So, some weeks, I could be working up to 55-60 hours a week; even then, I always felt like I 'could be doing more'.

I'd like to point out that's probably not the norm for your average student (in case anyone is getting a bit scared or put off!). Maths at university is EXTREMELY different to at GCSE and A-Level, and so at any uni requires a lot of contact time to explain and teach everything, and a lot of time outside of lectures to actually understand what you need to. Other subjects tend to have less contact hours (except science subjects, which have lab sessions, which can last several hours at once!), but a lot more reading material to be read in your own time (so whilst people doing History have 8 hours of lectures a week, they could spend 5-10 hours reading and making their own notes, for example). Then they'll have essays and such as well, so probably a rough estimate would be about 40 hours a week working, in theory.

The third and final term of the year at any uni is defined by one thing - exams. It's a shame that exams are the easiest way to grade somebody (which, after all, is one of the key points of uni - to get a graded degree), as it doesn't always reflect somebody's true potential; whatever level. At least at university, the lecturer will write the exam, rather than a group of old farts in some office, and so reflects what you have been taught directly, but still. So, I had a whole one hour contact time a week with my supervisor, where with 4 other people, we could ask questions on stuff we were stuck on. It wasn't particularly helpful, as there's so much stuff and so little time, and everyone struggles with different things. So, basically, I'd spend all day revising, and about 2-3 evenings a week, I'd relax and watch a film or something.

When I wasn't working, I'd normally just be relaxing with my flat mates. Normally we'd watch a film or a few episodes from a TV series a couple of nights of a week, play board games, etc., some people would go out a couple of times a week to the Students' Union (personally, I went out about two or three times in the first two terms, and not once in the last term), or pop down to the pub every now and then. It may not sound like much, but you can spend so many hours just doing stuff like this, before realising it's 2am and you probably should get some sleep 'cause of a dreaded 9am lecture!

When it came to things like shopping and cooking, I was fine with that. I was able to get my weekly shopping bill to about £20-£25, sometimes cheaper, but was still able to have a variety of food, which was healthy as well. More importantly, I pretty much stayed away from all ready meals, apart from an Iceland pizza once every couple weeks (which I'd highly recommend btw - only £1 and absolutely brill!). I was able to find time to cook decent, healthy meals every day, and quickly found myself to really enjoy cooking, and to be pretty decent at it. I did briefly turn into one of those people that takes photos of their food and shares it all over Facebook; I am no longer one of those people thankfully!

I guess one of the last things to talk about should be results. For those a bit unsure, the classification of results goes:
-First (at least 70%)
-2.I: two-one (60-69%)
-2.ii: two-two (50-59%)
-Third (40-49%)
-Fail (less than 40%).

I was disappointed to find out I'd gotten 56% for my first year, which after all the work I had put in, I felt wasn't a true reflection of my ability. However, I did find that this did include an exam I missed due to breaking my ankle, which for the time being has been scored a 0%. So, when I sit the exam in September, as long as I pass the exam, I'll just sneak in a 2.I (with my grade probably bumping up to 61-62%). Whilst I would have wanted higher, I was hoping for 68%+ honestly, it is something I will take. It was first year of uni, and some modules didn't play to my strengths, and so dragged me down quite a bit. Other years are worth more overall, and I have more choice in modules, so I can focus of my strengths - focus on the positives I guess.

Well, that ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated - sorry for the rambling, and congrats if you read that all! But yeah, hopefully that has given a bit of insight into the world of being a student. Just a couple of final points - what you tend to hear about university is it's the best time of your life, you'll look back fondly of it, etc., and the media focuses a lot of the partying side of it. However, what tends to be mentioned very little is how hard it can be away from the academic side. University is emotionally draining - you're away from home, and so much is piled on you so quickly at times. If you go to university, whatever you do, wherever you go, it's difficult to cope, and mild depression is more common than you may think. I hate to practically finish on such a down note, but I do remember Benin (I think) saying something similar when the topic of uni was being discussed on the forums before Sidders, Smidget and I started, and I admittedly thought it was an over-exaggeration. However, it's true - university is extremely tough in a personal sense, as well as an academic sense, and there's no way you can prepare for that in my eyes. It's something that's sometimes forgotten in the stress of it all, but I think it's safe to say that, at some point during a student's life at university, there'll be tough moments where you feel you can't deal with uni, for whatever reason, and you need to try and work your way up from what can feel like rock bottom. Though, I guess university is meant to help prepare you for life. And, well, that's life.
(Again, sorry about the length of this. Really did not expect to ramble on this long! :S )

First off, I understand that the Blogs feature was introduced with the intention of Trip Reports going here, but I'm still going to continue these sorts of blog entries here and in my other blog from time-to-time (if that's okay of course!)

Anyways, as most will know - or have worked out - I'm a university student, and I've just finished my first year (woo!). I decided just to do a quick entry just going through what it's been like, the ups and the downs and such, and just give a small insight into 'uni life'. Hopefully it'll be interesting to some, and may even help people who are thinking about going to uni / going to uni this year in some way. Either way, hope you enjoy!

So yeah, despite missing my offer effectively by two whole grades, I got accepted by my first choice - the University of Warwick, to do Maths. It's regularly ranked in the Top 10 universities in the country, and the Maths Department was this year ranked 23rd in the world. Personally, I don't like the idea of university rankings, as there's no fair way, in my eyes, to rank universities, as many surveys will focus on student satisfaction (and so students could just rate highly to improve post-university prospects), research successes (which has little to do with degrees) or results (and due to the wide range of courses and their difficulties at all the universities, that just seems silly). Nevertheless, it's nice to see 'my uni' ranking well..

The Maths department is also home to one of the country's more famous mathematicians - Ian Stewart. Not only has he had many successes with his research, he's also a popular science author, with a ridiculous number of books to his name (80 something I think), and has also worked with Terry Prachett on the 'Science of Discworld' books. Whilst he's now retired, he still hangs around the department a lot and gives the occasional talk, and he's always happy to have a little chat with people and sign a couple of his books (which I've taken advantage of). I guess you could say he's one of the 'John Wardleys' of popular Maths. I also found out my Personal Tutor before arriving at Warwick, and after a minute of research, I found his Wikipedia page(!) and it turned out he has had a few prizes for his research - found that a bit daunting to be honest!

Now, before arriving to uni, I didn't know what exactly to expect. I was moving 100 miles way from home, and whilst I knew 1 person on my course, I didn't really like them, so wanted to try my best to avoid them. So, I was in the usual uni position - moving a long way away from home, knowing no one, not really knowing how to cook, afraid of budgeting properly, as well as being not so confident and having a difficult course looming! I do think some people, especially in the media, forget just how much students have to deal with when moving to uni, and make it seem much simpler than it really is.

But, strangely, when I had moved in and everything, it all just seemed to work. Everyone was nervous, in the exact same position, and even if they were a confident person, being plunged into that sorta situation brings most people to jelly. One thing which scared me was the fact that I didn't drink, and feared that would hinder my chance to make friends with people / I'd be forced into drinking. That did not happen. A fair few people were similar to me, so it really was no biggie. So, seriously, anyone who's thinking about uni and doesn't fit the 'media-portrayed student' of loving to go out get smashed every night - don't worry, uni is not really like and that, and if you're not that sorta person, you will be fine!

Now, unlike most unis, Warwick doesn't have a traditional 'Fresher's Week' (ie the first week of first term has no lectures, and you can party and get to know people and stuff). Instead, we have lectures from the start, but have a 'Fresher's Fortnight', where there's loads of special events to help people adjust to uni life, but still have lectures and classes and whatever else. Seems nasty, but that's university!

So, for my first two terms, I had in the region of 20-24 hours of contact time a week (may not seem a lot to those outside of university, but trust me, it is a lot for university. For example, History students and Warwick have 8-10 hours!). I had 2-4 assignments due a week, which for the most part was just a series of questions. Usually, an assignment would take me 3-6 hours, depending on difficulty and length, and that's whilst working with others. Each assignment counted to each individual module, and each module counts to my overall grade for first year, which was 10% of my overall degree (despite first year for most degrees not counting). So, needless to say, it was essential to do them well! I'd also spend a few hours a week going over notes, writing them in neat, etc. So, some weeks, I could be working up to 55-60 hours a week; even then, I always felt like I 'could be doing more'.

I'd like to point out that's probably not the norm for your average student (in case anyone is getting a bit scared or put off!). Maths at university is EXTREMELY different to at GCSE and A-Level, and so at any uni requires a lot of contact time to explain and teach everything, and a lot of time outside of lectures to actually understand what you need to. Other subjects tend to have less contact hours (except science subjects, which have lab sessions, which can last several hours at once!), but a lot more reading material to be read in your own time (so whilst people doing History have 8 hours of lectures a week, they could spend 5-10 hours reading and making their own notes, for example). Then they'll have essays and such as well, so probably a rough estimate would be about 40 hours a week working, in theory.

The third and final term of the year at any uni is defined by one thing - exams. It's a shame that exams are the easiest way to grade somebody (which, after all, is one of the key points of uni - to get a graded degree), as it doesn't always reflect somebody's true potential; whatever level. At least at university, the lecturer will write the exam, rather than a group of old farts in some office, and so reflects what you have been taught directly, but still. So, I had a whole one hour contact time a week with my supervisor, where with 4 other people, we could ask questions on stuff we were stuck on. It wasn't particularly helpful, as there's so much stuff and so little time, and everyone struggles with different things. So, basically, I'd spend all day revising, and about 2-3 evenings a week, I'd relax and watch a film or something.

When I wasn't working, I'd normally just be relaxing with my flat mates. Normally we'd watch a film or a few episodes from a TV series a couple of nights of a week, play board games, etc., some people would go out a couple of times a week to the Students' Union (personally, I went out about two or three times in the first two terms, and not once in the last term), or pop down to the pub every now and then. It may not sound like much, but you can spend so many hours just doing stuff like this, before realising it's 2am and you probably should get some sleep 'cause of a dreaded 9am lecture!

When it came to things like shopping and cooking, I was fine with that. I was able to get my weekly shopping bill to about £20-£25, sometimes cheaper, but was still able to have a variety of food, which was healthy as well. More importantly, I pretty much stayed away from all ready meals, apart from an Iceland pizza once every couple weeks (which I'd highly recommend btw - only £1 and absolutely brill!). I was able to find time to cook decent, healthy meals every day, and quickly found myself to really enjoy cooking, and to be pretty decent at it. I did briefly turn into one of those people that takes photos of their food and shares it all over Facebook; I am no longer one of those people thankfully!

I guess one of the last things to talk about should be results. For those a bit unsure, the classification of results goes:
-First (at least 70%)
-2.I: two-one (60-69%)
-2.ii: two-two (50-59%)
-Third (40-49%)
-Fail (less than 40%).

I was disappointed to find out I'd gotten 56% for my first year, which after all the work I had put in, I felt wasn't a true reflection of my ability. However, I did find that this did include an exam I missed due to breaking my ankle, which for the time being has been scored a 0%. So, when I sit the exam in September, as long as I pass the exam, I'll just sneak in a 2.I (with my grade probably bumping up to 61-62%). Whilst I would have wanted higher, I was hoping for 68%+ honestly, it is something I will take. It was first year of uni, and some modules didn't play to my strengths, and so dragged me down quite a bit. Other years are worth more overall, and I have more choice in modules, so I can focus of my strengths - focus on the positives I guess.

Well, that ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated - sorry for the rambling, and congrats if you read that all! But yeah, hopefully that has given a bit of insight into the world of being a student. Just a couple of final points - what you tend to hear about university is it's the best time of your life, you'll look back fondly of it, etc., and the media focuses a lot of the partying side of it. However, what tends to be mentioned very little is how hard it can be away from the academic side. University is emotionally draining - you're away from home, and so much is piled on you so quickly at times. If you go to university, whatever you do, wherever you go, it's difficult to cope, and mild depression is more common than you may think. I hate to practically finish on such a down note, but I do remember Benin (I think) saying something similar when the topic of uni was being discussed on the forums before Sidders, Smidget and I started, and I admittedly thought it was an over-exaggeration. However, it's true - university is extremely tough in a personal sense, as well as an academic sense, and there's no way you can prepare for that in my eyes. It's something that's sometimes forgotten in the stress of it all, but I think it's safe to say that, at some point during a student's life at university, there'll be tough moments where you feel you can't deal with uni, for whatever reason, and you need to try and work your way up from what can feel like rock bottom. Though, I guess university is meant to help prepare you for life. And, well, that's life.
(Again, sorry about the length of this. Really did not expect to ramble on this long! :S )

First off, I understand that the Blogs feature was introduced with the intention of Trip Reports going here, but I'm still going to continue these sorts of blog entries here and in my other blog from time-to-time (if that's okay of course!)

Anyways, as most will know - or have worked out - I'm a university student, and I've just finished my first year (woo!). I decided just to do a quick entry just going through what it's been like, the ups and the downs and such, and just give a small insight into 'uni life'. Hopefully it'll be interesting to some, and may even help people who are thinking about going to uni / going to uni this year in some way. Either way, hope you enjoy!

So yeah, despite missing my offer effectively by two whole grades, I got accepted by my first choice - the University of Warwick, to do Maths. It's regularly ranked in the Top 10 universities in the country, and the Maths Department was this year ranked 23rd in the world. Personally, I don't like the idea of university rankings, as there's no fair way, in my eyes, to rank universities, as many surveys will focus on student satisfaction (and so students could just rate highly to improve post-university prospects), research successes (which has little to do with degrees) or results (and due to the wide range of courses and their difficulties at all the universities, that just seems silly). Nevertheless, it's nice to see 'my uni' ranking well..

The Maths department is also home to one of the country's more famous mathematicians - Ian Stewart. Not only has he had many successes with his research, he's also a popular science author, with a ridiculous number of books to his name (80 something I think), and has also worked with Terry Prachett on the 'Science of Discworld' books. Whilst he's now retired, he still hangs around the department a lot and gives the occasional talk, and he's always happy to have a little chat with people and sign a couple of his books (which I've taken advantage of). I guess you could say he's one of the 'John Wardleys' of popular Maths. I also found out my Personal Tutor before arriving at Warwick, and after a minute of research, I found his Wikipedia page(!) and it turned out he has had a few prizes for his research - found that a bit daunting to be honest!

Now, before arriving to uni, I didn't know what exactly to expect. I was moving 100 miles way from home, and whilst I knew 1 person on my course, I didn't really like them, so wanted to try my best to avoid them. So, I was in the usual uni position - moving a long way away from home, knowing no one, not really knowing how to cook, afraid of budgeting properly, as well as being not so confident and having a difficult course looming! I do think some people, especially in the media, forget just how much students have to deal with when moving to uni, and make it seem much simpler than it really is.

But, strangely, when I had moved in and everything, it all just seemed to work. Everyone was nervous, in the exact same position, and even if they were a confident person, being plunged into that sorta situation brings most people to jelly. One thing which scared me was the fact that I didn't drink, and feared that would hinder my chance to make friends with people / I'd be forced into drinking. That did not happen. A fair few people were similar to me, so it really was no biggie. So, seriously, anyone who's thinking about uni and doesn't fit the 'media-portrayed student' of loving to go out get smashed every night - don't worry, uni is not really like and that, and if you're not that sorta person, you will be fine!

Now, unlike most unis, Warwick doesn't have a traditional 'Fresher's Week' (ie the first week of first term has no lectures, and you can party and get to know people and stuff). Instead, we have lectures from the start, but have a 'Fresher's Fortnight', where there's loads of special events to help people adjust to uni life, but still have lectures and classes and whatever else. Seems nasty, but that's university!

So, for my first two terms, I had in the region of 20-24 hours of contact time a week (may not seem a lot to those outside of university, but trust me, it is a lot for university. For example, History students and Warwick have 8-10 hours!). I had 2-4 assignments due a week, which for the most part was just a series of questions. Usually, an assignment would take me 3-6 hours, depending on difficulty and length, and that's whilst working with others. Each assignment counted to each individual module, and each module counts to my overall grade for first year, which was 10% of my overall degree (despite first year for most degrees not counting). So, needless to say, it was essential to do them well! I'd also spend a few hours a week going over notes, writing them in neat, etc. So, some weeks, I could be working up to 55-60 hours a week; even then, I always felt like I 'could be doing more'.

I'd like to point out that's probably not the norm for your average student (in case anyone is getting a bit scared or put off!). Maths at university is EXTREMELY different to at GCSE and A-Level, and so at any uni requires a lot of contact time to explain and teach everything, and a lot of time outside of lectures to actually understand what you need to. Other subjects tend to have less contact hours (except science subjects, which have lab sessions, which can last several hours at once!), but a lot more reading material to be read in your own time (so whilst people doing History have 8 hours of lectures a week, they could spend 5-10 hours reading and making their own notes, for example). Then they'll have essays and such as well, so probably a rough estimate would be about 40 hours a week working, in theory.

The third and final term of the year at any uni is defined by one thing - exams. It's a shame that exams are the easiest way to grade somebody (which, after all, is one of the key points of uni - to get a graded degree), as it doesn't always reflect somebody's true potential; whatever level. At least at university, the lecturer will write the exam, rather than a group of old farts in some office, and so reflects what you have been taught directly, but still. So, I had a whole one hour contact time a week with my supervisor, where with 4 other people, we could ask questions on stuff we were stuck on. It wasn't particularly helpful, as there's so much stuff and so little time, and everyone struggles with different things. So, basically, I'd spend all day revising, and about 2-3 evenings a week, I'd relax and watch a film or something.

When I wasn't working, I'd normally just be relaxing with my flat mates. Normally we'd watch a film or a few episodes from a TV series a couple of nights of a week, play board games, etc., some people would go out a couple of times a week to the Students' Union (personally, I went out about two or three times in the first two terms, and not once in the last term), or pop down to the pub every now and then. It may not sound like much, but you can spend so many hours just doing stuff like this, before realising it's 2am and you probably should get some sleep 'cause of a dreaded 9am lecture!

When it came to things like shopping and cooking, I was fine with that. I was able to get my weekly shopping bill to about £20-£25, sometimes cheaper, but was still able to have a variety of food, which was healthy as well. More importantly, I pretty much stayed away from all ready meals, apart from an Iceland pizza once every couple weeks (which I'd highly recommend btw - only £1 and absolutely brill!). I was able to find time to cook decent, healthy meals every day, and quickly found myself to really enjoy cooking, and to be pretty decent at it. I did briefly turn into one of those people that takes photos of their food and shares it all over Facebook; I am no longer one of those people thankfully!

I guess one of the last things to talk about should be results. For those a bit unsure, the classification of results goes:
-First (at least 70%)
-2.I: two-one (60-69%)
-2.ii: two-two (50-59%)
-Third (40-49%)
-Fail (less than 40%).

I was disappointed to find out I'd gotten 56% for my first year, which after all the work I had put in, I felt wasn't a true reflection of my ability. However, I did find that this did include an exam I missed due to breaking my ankle, which for the time being has been scored a 0%. So, when I sit the exam in September, as long as I pass the exam, I'll just sneak in a 2.I (with my grade probably bumping up to 61-62%). Whilst I would have wanted higher, I was hoping for 68%+ honestly, it is something I will take. It was first year of uni, and some modules didn't play to my strengths, and so dragged me down quite a bit. Other years are worth more overall, and I have more choice in modules, so I can focus of my strengths - focus on the positives I guess.

Well, that ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated - sorry for the rambling, and congrats if you read that all! But yeah, hopefully that has given a bit of insight into the world of being a student. Just a couple of final points - what you tend to hear about university is it's the best time of your life, you'll look back fondly of it, etc., and the media focuses a lot of the partying side of it. However, what tends to be mentioned very little is how hard it can be away from the academic side. University is emotionally draining - you're away from home, and so much is piled on you so quickly at times. If you go to university, whatever you do, wherever you go, it's difficult to cope, and mild depression is more common than you may think. I hate to practically finish on such a down note, but I do remember Benin (I think) saying something similar when the topic of uni was being discussed on the forums before Sidders, Smidget and I started, and I admittedly thought it was an over-exaggeration. However, it's true - university is extremely tough in a personal sense, as well as an academic sense, and there's no way you can prepare for that in my eyes. It's something that's sometimes forgotten in the stress of it all, but I think it's safe to say that, at some point during a student's life at university, there'll be tough moments where you feel you can't deal with uni, for whatever reason, and you need to try and work your way up from what can feel like rock bottom. Though, I guess university is meant to help prepare you for life. And, well, that's life.
(Again, sorry about the length of this. Really did not expect to ramble on this long! :S )

Day 2 – Bellewaerde Park
Time for coasters! And with a brand new one it was time to head along to Belle, via several country roads and an awful diversion, we eventually arrived at the destination (N.B. There is an easier route to take to get to the park we discovered on our way back, blergh)…



Formerly a safari park, this place certainly shares similarities with both Chessington and Flamingoland, but let’s not set our hopes too low, and go and ride the first coaster of the day (in order to avoid long queues later), Ladybird a Large Zierer Tivoli…
Bugger. Well, these coasters are actually quite fun at times; although how it fitted into the Western theme area I have no idea. Though this thing was basically bread and butter to the usual types of this ride, so it’s unremarkable.



Next up, Boomerang. It’s like the park WANTS us to hate it, but either way, this is a well themed one so at least it looked nice to ride. After Nicky’s apprehension of her first Boomerang, we were on and were surprised to find it smooth, barring the odd jerk during the backwards section of course, it wasn’t perfect. But comparatively, it was like riding a B&M. Amazing scenes!





The final coaster was the brand new Huracan, an indoor Zierer coaster with random outside bit and epic dark ride section. Most reports heard before were of high praise regarding the level of theme this ride has, and this is most certainly true of the queue, station and pre-lift section. It’s pretty damn awesome, if the queue is quite bland and rather boring. Onto the ride itself and with no explanation you’re set off through various rooms with random theming in each, with music booming out of the speaker, pretty cool so far. After the wind room we’re off into the daylight (and random pointless red strobe) up the lift into the pre-darkness section. I do like the way the music fades out at this point and returns upon entry into the building, and speaking of such, the ride section is decent, but completely lacking in anything. I do like the daylight peeking it allowing you glimpses of the track, but there’s just nothing else. Even cheap cut-outs a la Revenge of the Mummy would improve things. Although with a minimum height of 1m, they put their hat on that market and went with it. The brake run laser show is quite cool, but I can only imagine what if they had decided to put in a freefall section on this to finish it instead? Then the turn back into the station to finish instead of stopping and waiting for the train in front to depart?
Good family coaster mind, with some decent dark ride element to it, but it had a lot more potential that could have been realised.
7/10






Coasters done, it was time for other things, so we polished up the Aztec area with El Volador, a Topple Tower which ran a lot faster than Djurs’, and El Toro a Huss Breakdance of JOY. After which we broke for lunch.








As the weather was awesome (where has Summer gone now?) we elected for the Log Flume, which had a massive ONE drop, and two lift hills… Lol wut? It was rather refreshing though to be fair, but that to me made no sense whatsoever.


It was then time to meander around the zoo part, or at least part of it, as it was still reasonably spread out. But regardless we saw Giraffes, Elephants, Zebras and Lemurs for the exotic stuff, whilst goats were the more typical animal nearby.












A wild Madhouse, Houdini appeared, which was promptly ruined by loud teenagers. But had an amusing clip which was as good as SMUGHEX. Further into the park we delved and found the potentially unique Bengal Express, which makes the idea of Zufari look turd, why? Because you’re in a train going right through the Lion and Tiger enclosure that’s why! Ok it’s well protected and everything, but still… Was awesome.











Next up were the Bengal Rapids, my very first Wedge rapids style ride, where rather than one complete boat they’ve cut it up and had essentially 3/4 (depending on where you go) sections that can and do act separately from each other. This also means that you can be attacked from any direction which balances out the general lack of being able to have too many large drops (which was disproven by Bagatelle). Was quite good fun though really in the end.



We dried off with an ice cream before doing the Squirrel Monkey island and then continuing around to the Huss Drop Tower Screaming Eagle, which was a good bit of fun as well. Next up was the Jungle Mission boat ride, after our experiences of such in Denmark, we dreaded to think what would be next, but we found an excessively random ride mixed into some animal enclosures (including Capybara, YAY), worth a go.










At that point we felt like we had done as much of the park that we wanted, so we rode Boomerang and Huracan again, before heading to the shop and home. Overall I would say Bellewaerde is a good park with a lot of potential ahead. The theming it has is very well done but is rather sparse overall. They also (in my opinion) need a real stand-out ride to really reach out to a larger audience of people, with a hint of uniqueness. Probably why I think Huracan would have benefitted from the freefall drop but on the other hand it would have meant missing out on that 1m limit.
I really liked the park, and whilst the zoo portion of it is tiny these days, they have some excellent viewing areas which make it rather similar to Flamingoland, only without the awfulness of being it. I hope they expand continually in the future because there is a great potential in there.

Yesterday (16/06/13) was my annual trip to the wonderful place that is Alton Towers. The past few weeks I had been quite worried in hearing that Smiler had kept breaking down, stalling and so on. Luckily, we not only got one chance to smile, but we got two!
The park yesterday was fairly quiet with queues ranging from 10-40 minutes for the main coasters with Smiler being between 80 and 120 minutes all day. Everything was working except Oblivion and Enterprise. We had lovely weather all day, not too hot, not too cold, it was just right. It was a great day and I did quite a few new things for me (Nemesis front row, Sub Terra, and The Smiler).
Ride Count:
Nemesis: 3 (1 front 2 back)
The Smiler: 2
Air, Duel, Rita, 13, Sonic, The Flume, Rapids, RMT, Sub Terra, Battle Galleons, Ice Age, Submission, Skyride: 1
Now time for some Smiler pictures and a few others.

Our day started off by seeing this lovely 3D Smiler advert in our hotel (I did want to take it home )

Sunny day at Towers, and the Monorail.

Diving

Corkscrewing

Equalling Colossus' record.

Now beating Colossus' record.

Diving, again.

No advocates...

Advocates!

Random Battle Galleons pic

Oblivion closed, but don't want it to feel left out.

Lots of tangled track.

So much track!

Laughing gas, I mean mist.

Half way corrected!

And I leave you with this sad picture of Harry the duck. All he wants is to become a yellow rubber duck but the staff at Towers can't fund his transformation. To help Harry, all you need to do is ride The Smiler instead of The Flume, then hopefully the staff will realise how important this transformation is for Harry. Thank you for your support.
Thanks for reading

Some more photos of my visit to Europa Park!

MMMM DUFF BEER <3

Just chilling in the Colosseum

Wodan and I

We made some friends...

This drop was incredible

Wait a minute.... am I at Universal?!?!?

What a way to end an absolutely fantastic day

Disclaimer: New ride spoilers and large amounts of hype-generation ahead.

On Wednesday myself, Tommy and Turtle ventured to Alton Towers attempting to experience Marmalisation for ourselves. After sadly missing the Moo-norail, we got the Splash monorail to the entrance where there was no major knowledge as to whether The Smiler would be open. For context, on the previous day it had stalled during testing and been closed all day along with the rest of X-Sector due to crane needs... SMILE ALWAYS. There were a few small signs suggesting it would closed, probably brought on by the words "THE SMILER WILL BE UNAVAILABLE", but we still had some optimism. Once in, we remembered our keeno-persona's and ran towards THE SINISTER INTAMIN WOODLAND AREA!!1!, before realising that Alton Towers is pretty big and no one has such energy at 9am. So Rita wasn't doing anything, and Th13teen was 'broken', oh you pesky Intamins you.

So our gardens visit occurred a lot earlier than expected as we hiked for three whole days to Nemesis. I think Mark9 nailed it when he called this 'rollercoaster crack' sometime ago. One ride simply isn't enough. There must be two. Or five, as it happened to go on the day. It just seems to get constantly better with every ride, I could have kept going but there was more to be seen and done so we left it at that. Air was unfortunately not ready at 10am and as a result we wouldn't get on it at all. We waited 5 minutes for Sub-Terra to open instead, which is still such a good attraction. There was a new smell I'd never smelt on it before too, highly unpleasant! Back at Intamin forest INTAMIN'S WERE RUNNING so we went on some Intamin's. I'm actually quite fond of Rita despite it being a bit of a shaker/neck-basher. Whilst as an attraction I can acknowledge it's fundamental flaws, the whip you get going over the first hill and the following turnaround is pretty damn fun so I always like to give it a go each visit. Then, Thirteen, oh Thirteen. I'll probably be doing another blog on this ride sometime since there's always so much to talk about, but anyway, it was good on the day, aided by the rag-dolling and the confused stranger with Tommy. Blah blah, Hex was next, blah blah, then we finally went to check out X-Sector where at around 11:45am, The Smiler appeared to be waking up. We managed to walk past the queue at just the right moment, and despite the horrifying amount of people in the extension queue we, it only took 75 minutes to queue for our first ride. Turns out they were batching pretty heavily at the ride entrance. This brings us onto the part of the report where I talk about
THE SMILER
: )
The first thing you notice about it is well, how much you... notice it. It was great moment to see it whizzing around it's track for the first time, accompanied by cheers of relieved guests who'd be queuing for hours already! It is a fabulous spectator ride, and I was absorbed watching it for the first time when we reached the queue by the main fence. The music here plays very loudly, but it's a very decent soundtrack indeed. It sets the tone for the ride well and whilst I love the main theme, it perhaps could have more variations. It remains very samey (or just short) when it had the potential for a lot of development. I might try and remix it a bit to show what I mean, but fundamentally it's still a great theme and I didn't get sick of it at all for the many hours I heard it throughout the day.

Through the main entrance and down the steps, the view of the whole ride and the Marmaliser is majestic. The outside queue starts of fine, going under the Marmaliser and many of the rides elements offering a great view, however the second half does get very tiring in the hideous cattlepen. Shoutout to the Smiler staff member 'Tim' who happily provided the 'smiles', constantly, harassingly, and quite unsettlingly to whomever he took a special interest in. The specially dressed Smiler staff in general did an excellent job all day, dealing with immense crowds and interacting with those in the queue. Had fun looking at the flying butterflies created by scanning the eye's with The Smiler app, and then we made it inside. I'd thought this would be the end of the cattlepen torture but alas... it's a shame really, the projection mapping does look very cool but it was overridden by feelings of UHCATTLEPEN COULD YOU NOT. PLEASE?! I feel that something more immersive could have been done here, but I guess it's not a major thing. Anyway, queue done, baggage done, and we're up the stairs into the station. Whilst it is fairly simple and bare, I liked the lights in here, which were very reminiscent of The Sanctuary so I was happy to see that continuation. Enough ramblings, the ride...

The first drop is just excellent. I knew it was coming but I wasn't prepared for the sheer suddenness of it. Sitting in the back row first time definitely helped, and the smoke effects as you leave the station make it hard to see what the rest of the train is doing so their was definitely a lot of surprise in that drop. No smoke effects inside for us unfortunately, but the barrel roll with strobes was made no less dramatic. Already I'm loving this, and we haven't even gone up the first lift hill. The first small drop off the lift looked like pure RCT awkwardness, but it was also surprisingly satisfying. I could keep dissecting every element from here on, but I fear my ability to talk for ages about this ride will make reading it a bit of a drag, so I'll skip to the point: Alton Towers are onto a winner. It's just excellent fun. The first half is smooth and quite disorientating, and everyone seemed relieved to have a break in the middle! The double dive loops were definitely a highlight of this half. The first airtime hill was unfortunately too trimmed to have any, however the second one was much better, aided by the hilarity of the Inoculator sending everyone into frenzy. Before that, the sea-serpent is another excellent manoeuvre, falling out of one inversion and soaring straight into another. The cobra roll part of the Staffordshire knot definitely has a major 'janky' moment, however I didn't find this to be anything as *painful* as Saw's and I thought it actually benefitted the forcefulness of that section. However, not all in my party agreed so I guess it's an individual thing. The first of the final two inversions is very forceful whereas the second is more 'graceful'. The ride's final sections are as satisfying as it's early ones, and the bits in the middle weren't exactly bad either...

Late season opening, unclear opening date, further weeks of delays... so was it all worth the wait? Unquestionably, convincingly, categorically; yes. It's an excellent addition to an already excellent line-up of rollercoasters. The reaction we saw of other people returning from their rides was always just as joyous. The exit corridor is fabulous too, but I'll let you all discover that for yourselves. Once it opened, there were no breakdowns during the day however this hasn't always been the case. Hopefully it beds itself in quicker than Saw did, and downtime remains minimal. Of course, this is early days. Saw wasn't great when it opened anyway but it has aged even less gracefully. I pray that this ride does not follow the same path as at the moment I simply yearn to ride it again and again. I'm not claiming it's perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but if you take away the 'OMG 14 INVERSIONS OMG REVOLUTIONARY WORLD FIRSTS' mindset, it's an enormous amount of fun.

I won't ramble about the next part of our day since I've covered the main headline, but we then ate at FCC by the window with an excellent view of The Smiler, whilst discussing it for a fair while. Then came Oblivion (still bloody excellent), The Flume (which was my first ever ride interestingly enough. I now understand why no one was really that keen to get me on it on my previous visits...), Runaway Mine Train and Duel. We checked Air's queue which was beyond an hour, so we had the choice of that or jumping in the 150 minute queue for The Smiler again. The Smiler it was... it's testament to the attraction's quality that I was happy to queue such an amount of time after my first go when other options were available. I'd probably do it on my next visit too. Watching the really cute trains whizzing around the circuit, interacting with one another, is merriment for any enthusiast.

Dan9 - Smiling advocate, for the moment.

8.5/10

So, you may or may not know, but I went to Europa Park recently. If you get a chance to go here then by all means DO IT, such an amazing park. The whole surrounding town area is just so nice also, really feels welcoming! Here's just a few pictures from my trip there:
Milka factory

SELFIE (in random German woman's car edition)

Part of our room, we paid 150 Euros each for 2 nights here, with our own bathroom/kitchen/balcony, just a 10 minute walk to the park, absolutely amazing value!

One of the beautiful hotels at Europa Park


Entering the park has that magical Disney feel about it

Amazing ride with an entrance to match!

The roughest ride I've ever been on, fun, but very rough (Euro-Sat)

Even Europa has scaffolding rides


Food Loop is such an amazing experience for a restaurant

Food Loop menu screen

Got my souvenir

Nice little panorama




Bench ride win

Bench ride selfie

My new favourite ride at any park ever



REAL LIFE DUFF BEER

Lots of Milka

Hotel Colosseo


What a wonderful, wonderful park.
I'll do another blog post when my friend who I went with uploads his pictures

After reading a few posts about posting trip reports as blogs I have decided all of my 2013 Thorpe trips will be in this blog thread. Each one will have the date of visit in the title making it nice and easy for those of you who want to view certain ones etc.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning when we set of for Thorpe. We were spited by intermittent rain throughout the morning but it ended out being a lovely day. For a Saturday with nice weather the queues weren't too bad with the longest we queued being 30 minutes for Swarm backwards. It was a thrill packed day from 10-6:30 and a great way to end the life on my MAP (as I'm unlikely to use it again before it runs out due to exams). I love the way the park is being run this year with operations on top notch that I saw yesterday. Everything was running full capacity (except Stealth) and the only 'breakdowns' I witnessed were twice on X due to 'essential cleaning.' Even on 1 car though Stealth was running brilliantly and the staff were very efficient as the second car was obviously broken as they did bring it out but it went straight back in after 1 test run. But the main reason for visiting was to use the brand new queue line signs which I have to say are great and only have a few downsides which I'll get to later.

We started and ended the day on Stealth which reminded me where I was. Without this I would have been lost. When the time is shown it says (I think) 'Stealth launching in T-minus ## minutes.'

We then went to feel the heat on Inferno (don't know why this picture is so small)

Followed by riding on a wave of sound and light on X (not sure there are enough X's in this picture)
This was followed by Colossus and Saw both with these lovely scrolling signs. Colossus' is related to the power of 10 and Saw's is about making your choice of life or death in ## minutes.

At this time the sun had come out so we went on our wild, wet adventure on Loggers Leap

Then Thorpe Mega Store. I wasn't going to queue 50 minutes for a soakin'

With lunch settled it was time for the flat rides. Simple signs work well.

Quantum doesn't get enough attention but I'm sure with its brand new sign it will receive all the attention.

And then all of a sudden it was the end of the day and rides were close d
The new signs are great and seem to update more often (or have the chance to if the time changes). The only 2 negatives are the fact that closed can't fit properly on the flat ride signs and Nemesis Inferno is referred to as Nemesis on the big boards because it wouldn't fit otherwise. May seem a bit picky but it will just add to the 'never knew Thorpe had the same ride as Alton' discussion. To make up for this though Swarm forwards and backwards times are on the large boards.

I had a final destination type near death experience the other day.
Driving to work along an A road a hail storm of biblical proportions suddenly fell out of an otherwise sunny sky, accompanied by a bit of thunder. I've never seen a lightning bolt hit the ground close up before, so when one hit a wooden power cable post about 20 ft in front of me a very nearly **** myself, such a blinding light and deafening crack of thunder that I could feel in the air as much as hear. The post exploded in an enormous shower of sparks which really filled the sky, followed almost instantly by another post on the opposite side of the road which the bolt must have traveled to along the cable to. It was like driving through an 80's car advert.
I was doing about 60 at the time when amongst the chaos I noticed out of the corner of my eye something falling towards me from above. The power cable between the two posts was dropping out of the sky onto the road below and I was driving towards it. Now I know that you are insulated from electricity in a car but at that moment you don't think that rationally and I was convinced I'd explode like the posts if it touched my car. It flashed through my mind whether to slam my brakes on and hope I stopped in time or put my foot down and try to get under it.
Not wanting to come to a stop right underneath it I slammed my foot on the accelerator. The power cable bounced off my windscreen and into the floor behind me in another huge shower of sparks. I guess if had smashed through I'd have been a goner but it didn't even make a mark, I survived. That was an exciting couple of seconds I can tell you.

Trip report time!
After being picked up from East Croydon by Peaj, along with Jaymiee and Ben (TopsyTurvy), we set off to Chessie. But not without picking up from Han from Wimbledon station; she got the train there by herself! Well done Han!
Once arriving at the park, Peaj received a text from Mr Fish saying that “the car park is closed” – he’d gone to the wrong entrance, bless him While Peaj went to collect him, JamesC, Phill and Matt arrived! It was easy to tell that Matt was a TPM member with his annual pass and lanyard! However, Jaymiee had never met Phill before, so as he was arriving said “Who’s that man walking towards us?” Once Peaj returned with Fish, the entrance had opened and in we went, bumping into Adam (scarycoasterboy) on the way in! After initially losing James (his new MAP didn’t let him through the turnstiles at first!) we headed over to Hocus Pocus Hall and met up with Alex (ThrillseekerAlex), Jonny and Chris *I think* (TP1214). We did Hocus Pocus as we were right next to it and it was a good laugh, been ages since I’d done it! Han jumped a few times though bless her!
After this we had a bundle of laughs on Rattlesnake! I shared a car with Peaj, James and Matt and made sure we screamed the loudest! As the years have gone on I love this ride even more; not that I ever disliked it but every time I ride, I find it more and more fun! I also adore the queueline as it just reminds me of my first ever visit to the park, and Rattlesnake was my first ride (this was back when it had its original height restriction of 1m 17)!
While waiting for Jack and Ethan (EC!) to arrive, we had a ride on Safari Skyway. Nice way to chill and enjoy the views of the zoo. As you can see I was super excited to see the animals!

We then met Jack (and his mum) at the entrance and headed over toward Land of the Dragons to meet Ethan. Peaj got a nice photo of us 3 plus James in the sun here!

We then headed over to Tomb Blaster where Peaj explained the rules of the game “Empire” and where we had one of our group photos. Then it was off to Tomb Blaster for some fun! Really enjoyed the ride, and also while walking through the queueline, I was reminded of how good it all is! Good fun ride, sat with Ethan, James, Han and Fish and I beat all of them with a score of 13900! Not sure what my highest score on this is but I tend to score higher on Duel. Overall, out of the whole group, I came fourth with my score, not bad at all!
Don’t we look good

The time then came to try out the new ride…ZUFARI! The queue wasn’t too bad and at this point the sun really came out, so off came the layers! There is a photo point in the queue where some of us were given hats and snakes to hold for the shot. It’s a bit of a shame to have something like that in the middle of a queue as in some ways it just screams out money making, plus causes some delays. Then again it did provide extra amusement and any income to the park is positive I guess.
Now, onto the ride itself. Let’s start with the preshow…errrm It’s great for interaction and the children seemed to enjoy it, but it was also quite cringey, especially Ghozi the lemur (who is apparently male but has a female voice?!). And the animation of its mouth is rather terrible! We did have a laugh though, even if it was for the wrong reasons! So then it was time for our adventure to begin! I must say it was nice to have a different experience to the usual rides by being in a vehicle driven by someone, something about it is good fun! Ethan thought so too!

We were lucky that we had nice weather too as it meant the animals were all out; flamingos, giraffes, zebras and white rhino. There’s not really much else I can say about those parts of the ride, other than that you can get nice photos of the animals if they’re out. And they seemed pretty happy too which is nice to see. But we soon arrived at the Danger Cave! Having heard about this from others (well the whole ride in general to be precise) I lowered my expectations. And I found it to be better than I expected! As others have said, for something in the UK it really isn’t bad at all. The water effects were good and the children were all screaming The waterfall as you exit provided a good laugh too! Everyone in the group came off smiling and saying it was good and better than they’d heard! Hurrah!
My happy mood after the ride quickly left me as I had a mini heart attack at the exit; my phone was missing! It had been in my jeans pocket but I checked my bag thoroughly incase I had put it in there and not remembered (yes, I do that). But it wasn’t there so I figured it had fallen out of my pocket into the vehicle. Now at this point the rest of the group were slowly disappearing from the exit. I did call after them but they didn’t hear, yet there was too much of a crowd to go after them, explain and then return to the ride; I didn’t want to risk someone finding my phone and taking it! As Sheepie would put it – I was flapping! I asked the staff members if they could look for my phone and luckily, they found it! Phew! But the bad news? The guy who found it then dropped it! I’ve only had it 6 months and up until now was in pristine condition, but it now has some lovely scuff marks on But I was flippin’ relieved that it wasn’t lost, and I guess if I’d had a cover on it, it would have helped
I breathed a huge sigh of relief, checked it still worked after its dramatic turn of events, and thought that by now, the group would realise they were missing one person and one or two might have come back to see where I was. But NO! Never fear, I did eventually catch up with them by Rameses and of course, I could’ve contacted Peaj or someone if I couldn’t find them. But it’s a bit disheartening when nobody realises you’ve disappeared I know I’m small but I’m not THAT small am I?
But never mind, it was time to ride an old, creaky top spin! The queue wasn’t too bad and I chose to sit on the edge as I just wasn’t in the mood for a face full of water. I’ve not ridden Rameses (or Ripsaw) for a few years as I just don’t find top spins that fun, plus the restraints try to knock the wind out of you! But this meant that I did enjoy it, and I’ll always remember my first trip to Chessie when I was too short to ride it, watching it and thinking how big and scary it looked!
We then went towards Mystic East as we had seen Dragon Falls running earlier on in the day. However we were greeted with a sign informing us that the area was closed off while they updated the theming, and the ride was empty of water. Mystic East is one of, if not the best, themed areas of the park and it was rather saddening to see its main ride in such a state
But as Peaj would say, “Hey ho!” And off to Wild Asia we went. We did Monkey Swinger first, taking advantage of its short queue. Speaking of Peaj, it was time for my traditional “Peaj Hug!”

Love how I’m being used as a head rest! It was going nicely until Ethan decided to start his evil kidney jabbing! Had a fun ride as always but the water jets weren’t on which was a shame, but it was fun waving at Han every time we whizzed past her. While we were in the mood for spinning we headed over to Kobra, which had quite a queue but as always when you’re with such a great bunch of people, it doesn’t matter. Had a lot of laughs in the queue – to the point where I ended up collapsing onto the floor! - with conversations ranging from saggy melons to soggy biscuits (!), to whacking one out Don’t worry – it was just my mind being dirty! And I was appropriately named a “Dirty minded individual.”
We had a good ride on Kobra, and after finding it uncomfortable previously (not the back rests, but the fact they pushed me into the front part, crushing my stomach) I was determined to not suffer again, however I think I made my leaning back a bit too obvious and the staff member asked me to lean forwards. As you can see, I was not impressed...

I did try to lean back as much as I could though, and I think I know why I have an issue but no one else does; my height! The bottom of my rib cage – so roughly where the diaphragm is – gets pushed into the front part of the seats. Whereas for others who are taller, the front part would push against their belly instead, thus causing less or no discomfort. But this leaves me wondering what it’s like for children. It’s not awful, I mean if I brace myself I can push myself back and be fine, but I would like to be able to put my arms and legs up without feeling suffocated!
After our ride, MarkC had finally arrived and was waiting with Han! And what better ride to do for our first one as a full group than Tuk Tuk Turmoil! I really do love this as a group ride, it is so fun and I could easily do it more than once purely for that reason!
Group photo time by the talking elephant tree thing (forgotten its name)! Won’t post it as you’ve already seen it in Peaj’s trip report.
Our bellies were rumbling so it was time to eat. It went well considering people went off separately, no faff or disagreements or standing around for a thousand years debating where to eat I went with some of the others to Creaky Café, which is a lovely little place and not bad for money. I literally walked in and exclaimed to James “OOOH this is nice!” We sat outside to eat, where the others who had gone elsewhere joined us. It was at this point that I felt even more happy and excited about the whole day and how awesome it had already been!
We paid a visit to Bubbleworks while our food went down and experienced the new music. I have to say, it was quite jolly and some of us were dancing/bobbing around to it! Me and Peaj got right into it, so much so that I ended up marmalised!


Joining me in my tub were Han, Jaymiee and Alex. Ooh cosy! I know this is so repetitive to say but I miss the original ride so much, it hurts to see how different it all is when all I can think of is how good it was! Particularly the fountain finale, gaah I miss those strobes! It made me so mad I turned rather demonic!


Jaymiee decided we should scream as loud as possible when going down the drop and see if Peaj’s boat did the same in competition – and sure enough, they did! God knows what the operator thought!
Vampire was up next Again, it’s such a shame to see it like it is when remembering how great it used to look. The queue was quite long but as usual we all made it good fun, and got some funny photos!

And our game of Empire finished with Adam winning the flag! It was also funny when MarkC asked if my name was Meryl I nearly collapsed onto the floor again! Was a fun ride as usual, and I’ll always love that lift hill noise and the roar of the trains
Time was running out so we decided to go on Black Buccaneer and make Dragon’s Fury our last ride of the day. Whilst chatting in the Buccaneer queueline, I discovered that Alex is from Horley. Horley! Somebody on TPM is from where I am from It might not seem much of a deal to some, but hardly anyone I know has heard of the place! Small world, eh? We soon got on the ride, where we could smell weed, which led to me and James trying to guess who it was I still say the lady on the opposite side wearing the pearls looked pretty out of it Got some good interaction on the ride too; the operator asked how we all knew each other due to our large group size, and we explained. The ride start announcement turned out to be “No standing up, no throwing up, no touching the cross bars if you are sat in the back rows, and if you plan on writing about this on the internet later, please say good things!” We certainly have!
So it was time for our last ride of the day (or so we thought…) on Dragon’s Fury. The queue was long-ish, made worse by Mark’s sugar addiction I hate to moan (and contradict my statement about positive feedback), but the operation of the ride was pretty dire, with cars stacking up outside the station – there were four stacked at one point! This man certainly wasn’t impressed:

Han, Fish and Chris look on in disgust:

Ooh er! We planned our seating arrangements strategically, and I shared with Peaj and Ethan. This resulted in some epic spinning on the first half of the ride! Not so much after the second lift hill, but then again I’ve noticed that cars never seem to spin as much on that part. But yeah, it was brilliant fun and probably the best ride I’ve ever had on Fury!
At this point, we had to say goodbye to Jack and Adam, and had found out that Zufari’s queue was still open! So there was only one option…LEG IT! Han wasn’t up for the mad sprint so decided to go for a mad spin on Rameses instead! We made it to Zufari in one piece, albeit breathless, and had another good ride on it. Some of us sat in the front for the preshow and JamesC was cheeky to Ghozi and got to do a monkey impression! We didn’t see as many animals this time around but it was still good.
We then made our way out of the area and said our goodbyes to those who weren’t coming to the meal. It really had been a fantastic meet and I was glad it still wasn’t yet over. Mark clearly didn’t want it to be over either; while walking back to Peaj’s car, he came after me for more hugs, bless him! This frightened Han so much she pooped bricks:

We had to sit outside at the Monkey Puzzle as there were no tables inside, and it was getting a tad chilly. Nevertheless, it was a nice meal, a nice way to relax after the day and to have a chat. I had paprika chicken and spicy chips which was yummy, although part of my breast was overdone

James and Ethan soon had to leave, and the rest of us headed inside to the warmth where we found some tables, and Peaj, Alex and Mr Fish found themselves eating an enormous sundae between them! We chilled for while then decided it was time to leave and end our day
And wow, what a day it was! Firstly, I’d like to say that it was a fantastic group of people that attended, as Peaj said. It was different, as there were quite a few newbies/new-ish to meets members, but it was great to see so many new faces and that everyone joined in and felt comfortable
Mark isn’t as bad as he is online (I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that as I said it to him in person and he admitted it ), he is adorable! Meryl indeed! Apologies to Matt, Adam, Jonny and Chris who I didn’t get round to speaking to that much, but as I said it was nice to meet you guys! The same goes to Alex although we did speak a bit at the meal, and also thank you for offering me a lift home I would have taken it but as you know, I had to stay in Peaj’s car and be a good friend James and Ethan are as lovely as they are online – James, you’re a total geek for walking around with your drinks capsule and Ethan, despite being an evil kidney jabbing gremlin, you did make me laugh when you said “For some reason I thought Mer would be taller.”
It was lovely as always to see everyone else again and that the whole group in general got on well and stuck together. So thank you all for being so awesome! This was definitely one of the best meets
Finally, as always, thank you to Peaj for organising this meet and running it so well. Empire was a great game to play throughout the day and really helped everyone get to know each other. The meets actually feel like meets again, which is how it should be I can’t thank you enough!
Thanks for reading! x

Hello all you TPM Explorers as we take you down into the magical Chessington where many stories and memories were formed for Part 1 of 5 of the official trip report. It was a fantastic day and it was so lovely to see all the new faces and I have to say probably one of the nicest crowds we have had so far this year.
Thank you for your patience whilst I've been slaving away at the office, so without further ado, it's what a few of you have all been waiting for - The Official Chessington Trip Report 2013. What will happen on the TPM Explorers 5th adventure of this year?
What a way to start the morning, meeting all these new faces who all happen to wear glasses...

Before you TPM Explorers start your adventure can you please read this safety sign first please

Whilst It's dark, so he thinks no one will notice - Matt Creek gets pleasure from pressing a lot of buttons!

Han30 on the other hand gets pleasure from releasing an epic fart, and then blames it on the farting chair to hide her crime

It may be a bumpy ride, but Jaymiee looks a tad bored whilst Mr.Fish is on the lookout for the ladies

With the Runaway Train off limits - Phill Pritchard tries his best to get a sneaky look in

However Matt Creek uses his brain to go up some stairs and around the fence to see the full picture

Can I please re-introduce to you all the wonderful Jackstevens217, this time sporting some smexy glasses

This is a Sealion you know, not a seal!

Before some Tomb Blasting action, everyone gathers around to get ready to compete in this trips game Empire

So believe it or not, but we are already at the end of Part 1 of 5 of the Official Trip Report. But what will happen tomorrow. Will someone else join the explorers? Do the TPM explorers really know what the new attraction Zufari is after chatting about it on forums for the last few months? What animals will come out to play? Plus some bromance starts to form Everyone go awww....
All these answers and more revealing fun will be out just after midnight tomorrow (That's just under 24 hours you know )
See you then!
Part 2
So hello everybody - all of you TPM explorers. Part 2 of 5 is later than I said in part 1, but as many people know the plans in the evening change when your out and about and I have to say, I did get this done last night but fell asleep at me laptop whilst writing the conclusion
So yesterday we left you with a nice photo outside the tomb blaster after people have found out about the rules of the game empire but what will we find today in the early time of the morning .
With Jackstevens217 and JamesC now reunited. It was the beginning of the hourly bro hugs

EC! feels left out, so thought he'd find love with his biscuit

It was now time to try out the new attraction Zufari and as you can see everyone is getting immersed into the experience when they see a giraffe

On Zufari we came across some Zebras

What you doing on Safari you fools, In this trip report I said we are currently at Zufari You cannot get the members these days I tell you.

That's better! Get yourself off Safari Skyway and see the rest of us back at Zufari

Now we are back all together, Did I say we came across some white rhinos

After having our first Zufari experience, Mr. Fish would like to show how happy he found the experience (and yes ladies he has chest hair - can you see it? )

From a few animals to a reptile, this photo makes it appear we have taken over the Kobra - where everyone is anticipating the force of the back rests

To finish Part 2 off, I would like to introduce to you MarkC who has come to join us for the second half of the day

Tomorrow, what will we find in part 3 now the TPM explorer gang is complete? Has Mr. Monkey from Thorpe Park been eyeing out the competition? And how do the explorers gather their energy to defeat the competition in Empire? Well you can find out tomorrow when the you will find out the answers to these thought defying questions
Part 3
Hello you scrumptious TPM explorers for Part 3 of 5 of the Official TPM Chessie Trip report. We last left you with the crew getting confused between a Safari & a Zufari, whilst meeting the last member to join the gang. So what will we find today I wonder...
On the way to Black Buccaneer, TopsyTurvy15 practices his rock climbing skills by jumping the pool of death

TopsyTurvy15 looks relieved to of made it to the boat, whilst Jaymiee still looks unimpressed (even though we have taken up half the boat!)

However MarkC is way too short to ride and is refused entry before this lovely ride attendant announced the '4th rule' of our ride

Meanwhile the banana boat, being really small in comparison to Black Buccaneer, tries to act BIG by chilaxing with a spiff overlooking the ride...

ScaryCoasterBoy really wants to win the game empire so decides to recharge his batteries ready for the battle ahead

ThrillSeekerAlex on the other hand does not need solar power to re-energise for the oncoming battle

TopsyTurvy15 eyes out the competition, and works out how he can defeat ScaryCoasterBoy

ScaryCoasterBoy however finds an opportunity to finish off TopsyTurvy15, EC!, Jonny392 & TP1214 before TopsyTurvy15 defeats him....

And pushes them all to their death down a gigantic slope, to the deadliest bath time in existence!

To celebrate some people getting defeated out of the game, everyone went for a calming spin on the monkey swinger

And there we have it - just over half way through our trip report and there is unbelievably still 2 more parts to go . But who will win the Empire game? Why did Peaj get so down? And who out of the explorers worships the vampire? I have no idea how you will find out unless you come back tomorrow to find out. You do not want to miss it
Part 4
So you cheeky TPM Explorers, we have reached the 4th part of 5 at this early hour which means we are at the penultimate episode. Previously we have seen how our explorers get their energy in preparation for battle and a banana overseeing the events - so what will we find today...
Phill Pritchard, Jaymiee & ScaryCoasterBoy are the last 3 muskerteers standing in battle (With EC! Trying to get in on the shot )

To be honest, it's amazing how Jaymiee has got so far - just look at him

Mer, JamesC & ....EC! Again... get ready to help knock out the last contenders with some tuk tuks

TopsyTurvy15 back from the grave and ThrillSeekerAlex are getting geared up and ready to crash into everyone

After the final battle on the dodgems, the leader of the empire came through.....It was...Jaymiee , who donated his prize to the very chuffed ScaryCoasterBoy

Peaj is completely devastated that Jaymiee won - he designed the game to be to hard for Jamiee to win....

Meanwhile whilst this fiasco was going on. MarkC gets really excited like a kid in a candy store and holds up the entire queue for 5 years

This is one groovy talented Vampire with his organ - It's just so lucky he has no followers or he'll take over the world

Oh No! I didn't know Han30 worshipped the evil vampire EC! Catches her praying/ meditating to the vampire and screams as he cannot escape!

To finish off part 4 after all the drama that has happened today - I thought It would be nice to show a lovely photo from the fury queue line EC! AGAIN!!!!

And there we have it Part 4 of 5 is complete and we have found out a member who likes to hog the limelight , But will he hog any more photo's on this adventure? What happened to some of the explorers after they left Chessington? And who ends up needing to be claimed? I don't know how you'll find out these answers but what I do know is that if you come back at trip'o'clock tomorrow you will find the conclusion to the adventure and the Official Group Photo will be available for all to see I can just hear the screams of excitement...
Part 5 (The Final Part)
So....All you TPM Explorers, it is the time you have all been waiting for. The conclusion - Part 5 of 5 of the Official TPM Chessington Trip Report. We have founf out who won Empire and yes the Lost Coaster Of Superstition Mountain DOES exist (good one ThrillSeekerAlex) and yes the end is nigh but what will we find on the last leg of our journey? Just remember we last left the adventure with that calm photo in the Dragon's Fury Queue line.
EC! The photo hogger and Peaj get spun around in shock as the dragon unleashes it's anger on them

ThrillSeekerAlex, JamesC & JackStevens217 appear relaxed and pleased that they have slayed the dragon

Everyone loves it when the dragon gets furious - Thumbs up everyone

After our spin we found out Zufari was still open. We sprinted as fast as we could to get there for a last ride, Only to find...the gates were still thankfully open

After our sprint to Zufari, we were hungry, so then ran full pelt until we got to the Monkey Puzzle Beefeater

With all this running around, it was too much for Han30, who collapsed out of breathe

The super fit Phill Pritchard was disappointed with Han30's Stamina - but was even more disappointed with 3 other Individuals

Mr.Fish, Peaj & ThrillSeekerAlex to be precise - Who were all eating a lovely big Chocolate Brownie Sundae

Before we leave this adventure, we are sorry to report that a kid has been sent to Lost & Found - Does anyone know anyone who can claim him

And now the photo everyone has been waiting for - The Official Chessington 2013 Group Photo

Can I just say how much of a great day this had been. Everything just seemed to work - The sun was out, there was an extremely good crowd that attended and the day just seemed to flow naturally with ease. One of my favourites of the year for me come to think of it. So this adventure has come to a close, but for those who came to this meet also know that another adventure is looming before we go clubbing at Thorpe Park. But where? Only one way to find out and that is to wake up on Thursday Morning to find an Official TPM Announcement
Peace People x x x

The talk of a '90's Anthems' MoS night at Thorpe in the summer has got me excited about some of the old music my clubbing days were made from.
I'm a bit past clubbing these days, but from my few experiences of recent times things have changed for the worse in club land. Everyone seems to take themselves too seriously, the music is either angry or made by numbers lightweight commercial rubbish, and the mixing is soulless; relying on computers to keep it too slick and taking all the energy out of it. Clubs used to be dirty, sweaty and carefree places, it didn't matter what you looked like as long as you were having a good time. Now it's all posturing and posing. If I jumped round the dancefloor like I used to I think I'd get sectioned.
Maybe it's the manifestation of the change of most people being on acid or ecstasy back then to nearly everyone being on coke or truly excessively drunk now. Maybe it is because clubbing has become the standard after pub choice for drinkers, rather than the original destination for music as it was back then, not an after pub bolt on to the evening to grab some bonus drinking time. People didn't go to clubs to get smashed, you were there for the music and that's all you needed really.
There are some tunes you haven't lived until you've heard them ear-splittingly loud in a room full of buzzing people who are loving it just as much as you are. Here are a few that spring to mind and I hope to hear at Thorpe in June...



http://youtu.be/Z4NpnPBfI44












I could go on forever.
Oh dear, seems like I've turned into my Dad where everything was 'better in my day'. Well it was.

As we know, following a poor response to marketing of Swarm last year, Thorpe decided to "revisit" Swarm's image and increase the "'thrill factor' for visitors". This was despite very positive reviews for Swarm as it stood last year. So, along with the new billboard theming elements, the back two rows have been turned backwards.
Now, in a way, it's very hard to do a comparison between the two. They are, essentially, the same ride - they follow the same layout, you more or less experience the same things, the off-ride experiences (queuing, ride interaction, etc.) are basically the same and so forth. More or less the only difference is the way you're facing. So, a comparison between the two is highly subjective - it boils down to what you're looking for when you ride Swarm.
So, the best way I can think to compare the two experiences is to focus on individual aspects of the ride's layout and how they ride when going forwards and backwards. Then, any other things can just be dealt with afterwards...
Inverted Drop
One of the defining features of Swarm is the 'head first inverted drop'. When going forwards, you are either in the front row, so are left looking at the track ahead of you, unaware of how much of a spectacle the 180 degree turn really is. In any other row, you see the train twist slowly upside, which is one amazing sight. It shocks you, makes you realise what you're about to experience, and before you know it - there you are, spinning around yourself. It is truly great. Going backwards has little difference to the front row in my opinion, except you just don't know exactly when it will happen. It's still a great feeling, but it neither adds nor takes away from the experience. So, basically, either way, it's great!
The Plane Wing
The first of the near misses really does little for me when going forwards. It's there, but it is a generic 'close, but not too close' near miss. It's certainly there more for the spectacle of it all as opposed to being something that's genuinely too close for comfort. That said, when on the left hand side of the train, it can catch first-timers off guard. When going backwards, it's as you would expect - you don't see it. I personally don't really even realise it's there when going backwards - may as well be a mist box there as the plane wing adds absolutely nothing. So the plane wing is nice and all going forwards, and superfluous when going backwards. So, forwards > backwards.
Zero-G Roll
Now, I absolutely LOVE this when going forwards. It's an inversion you really, really feel - something which I think is lost on more modern inverting coasters. When you are nearer the back of the train, it's great being able to see the train twist through the inversion as well. Going backwards is good as well; again, you really feel the inversion. But I'm not as big a fan of it going backwards; I still enjoy it, but just not as much as going forwards. A part of me thinks that, because when you were at the back of the train (I.e. row 7) and going forwards, it added to the idea of seeing the train twist through even more, I'm thinking that 'well, the backwards rows lose this effect'. Thus, as a straight out comparison between the forwards and backwards rows, I think the forwards rows JUST edge it out over the backwards rows, but comparing the Swarm we have now to the Swarm we had last year, the Swarm we had last year was better. So, forwards > backwards.
It is here I'd also compare the ways facing when the fire goes off from the fire engine, but as I've only been fortunate enough to experience it going forwards, it would be unfair of me to compare.
The Billboard
The all new near miss for 2013 is certainly a great addition. Many people's favourite near miss of the ride, it is certainly effective. Off ride, it is great to look at, and has a nice bit of quirkiness to it. On ride, when going forwards, just WOW. The way the train twists out of the zero-G roll means is it is genuinely an exciting feature and one where it seems like you may not 'twist enough in time'. The left hand side also provides a secondary near miss after the corkscrew, which is nice. Backwards though, you of course don't get the effect. You simply twist out of the zero-G roll and dive on through. Yeah sure, you see it afterwards (which is a nice advantage of the billboard compared to the other near misses, as it feels designed for backwards as well as forwards viewing, probably due to the fact it was built with the backwards rows in mind), but it's nothing special really. So, again, forwards > backwards.

The back of the billboard.
The inclined loop follows. It's nothing special either way - just a solid element that is paced well. Nothing more to say here other than forwards and backwards are equally solid.
Turnaround / The Helicopter
The turnaround is probably by favourite section of the ride when going forwards. It is surprisingly fast and forceful, and lasts a decent length of time. When on the right hand side of the train, it is just phenomenal, with the addition of the water spray and the subtle near miss of the spinning helicopter blades which can catch the unsuspecting off guard. One of the reasons why last season the back-right seat became my favourite was because of this part of the ride - you'd get a splash of water, force, speed and a near miss - what more could you want?! Backwards through this section is great as well; being able to see the water effect 'chase' you feels nice, and is something missed a bit when going forwards. But the subtle near miss from the helicopter is missed, which is a shame, as it is my favourite near miss of the ride.
When it boils down to it, riding forwards or backwards through this section of the ride is equally good. However, I did prefer back-right going forwards to going backwards there.
Corkscrew
The entrance into this element is great, continuing the forcefulness of the turnaround. Going forwards, the corkscrew is another solid element, and I think it has been designed with the visual spectacle in mind - going through the inclined loop looks great off ride. However, going backwards, it is a real highlight. I can't explain it really, but I just love it. Maybe it's the novelty of doing a common inversion on coasters backwards, but it's just a great feeling and the one thing I think 'WOW' about the most after riding backwards. So, backwards > forwards.

The corkscrew, beautifully cutting through the inclined loop!
The Tower, Church and Inline Twist
Near miss wise, I don't rate the tower or church highly. They're a very generic 'close, but not too close' near miss, and whilst nice, it doesn't impress me much. This doesn't mean they're bad in any way, and off ride it is simply stunning. The inline twist is, as with all the inversions, one you feel, and even if you don't get the near miss effect too much from the theming, it's still great being twisted upside down over it! Backwards you miss the near misses (same old story there then...), but the inline twist is fun, and as with going forwards, it's great seeing the station when you're hurled upside down. So, backwards and forwards are both equally good.

The tower, where the brilliant 'Swarm noise' plays.
And that basically ends the ride. The rest that follows is the worst part of the ride as it stands, going forwards or backwards.
Other Bits and Bobs
Just one final thing I want to say. I'm going to ignore the fact that I hate the way the queue system works and not use that in my judgement of which 'way' is better. However, the fact that the old Fastrack queue is now the backwards queue means there's less chance to see the ride in action, and it's harder to see the queue line TVs (and they are less frequent). I'm a big fan of having the experience of a ride start when you enter the queue, and finish when you're out of exit - a ride should never just be about the hardware. The backwards queue suffers from the fact that you can't get a decent 'feel' of the back story unless you've already seen it, which is a shame. It's only a little niggle, but it's a niggle nonetheless.
And so, there we have it. So, if you haven't been counting, here's how each of the individual on-ride elements 'score up', if you will:
Forwards 'wins' - 3
Backwards 'wins' - 1
Ties - 4
The fact that there are equally many ties and 'wins' should tell one thing - The Swarm is an amazing ride. Whether you have the seats facing forwards, backwards, inwards, whatever-way-wards, you won't take that away. However, facing forwards is the way forward (if you'll pardon the pun...); as, simply put, it allows you to experience the theming and the near misses that Swarm has been designed to take advantage of. If you take them out the equation, the experience is lacking something. Now, me knocking the backwards rows all sounds very negative, but honestly, it is my third favourite coaster experience - only beaten by Swarm going forwards and Nemesis at Alton Towers. So, time for the final verdict:
The Swarm (Forwards): 10/10 (In a way, I don't want to give it a perfect score, but I just can't justify not doing so).
The Swarm (Backwards): 8.5/10
(And comments and criticisms are welcome! )

As we know, following a poor response to marketing of Swarm last year, Thorpe decided to "revisit" Swarm's image and increase the "'thrill factor' for visitors". This was despite very positive reviews for Swarm as it stood last year. So, along with the new billboard theming elements, the back two rows have been turned backwards.
Now, in a way, it's very hard to do a comparison between the two. They are, essentially, the same ride - they follow the same layout, you more or less experience the same things, the off-ride experiences (queuing, ride interaction, etc.) are basically the same and so forth. More or less the only difference is the way you're facing. So, a comparison between the two is highly subjective - it boils down to what you're looking for when you ride Swarm.
So, the best way I can think to compare the two experiences is to focus on individual aspects of the ride's layout and how they ride when going forwards and backwards. Then, any other things can just be dealt with afterwards...
Inverted Drop
One of the defining features of Swarm is the 'head first inverted drop'. When going forwards, you are either in the front row, so are left looking at the track ahead of you, unaware of how much of a spectacle the 180 degree turn really is. In any other row, you see the train twist slowly upside, which is one amazing sight. It shocks you, makes you realise what you're about to experience, and before you know it - there you are, spinning around yourself. It is truly great. Going backwards has little difference to the front row in my opinion, except you just don't know exactly when it will happen. It's still a great feeling, but it neither adds nor takes away from the experience. So, basically, either way, it's great!
The Plane Wing
The first of the near misses really does little for me when going forwards. It's there, but it is a generic 'close, but not too close' near miss. It's certainly there more for the spectacle of it all as opposed to being something that's genuinely too close for comfort. That said, when on the left hand side of the train, it can catch first-timers off guard. When going backwards, it's as you would expect - you don't see it. I personally don't really even realise it's there when going backwards - may as well be a mist box there as the plane wing adds absolutely nothing. So the plane wing is nice and all going forwards, and superfluous when going backwards. So, forwards > backwards.
Zero-G Roll
Now, I absolutely LOVE this when going forwards. It's an inversion you really, really feel - something which I think is lost on more modern inverting coasters. When you are nearer the back of the train, it's great being able to see the train twist through the inversion as well. Going backwards is good as well; again, you really feel the inversion. But I'm not as big a fan of it going backwards; I still enjoy it, but just not as much as going forwards. A part of me thinks that, because when you were at the back of the train (I.e. row 7) and going forwards, it added to the idea of seeing the train twist through even more, I'm thinking that 'well, the backwards rows lose this effect'. Thus, as a straight out comparison between the forwards and backwards rows, I think the forwards rows JUST edge it out over the backwards rows, but comparing the Swarm we have now to the Swarm we had last year, the Swarm we had last year was better. So, forwards > backwards.
It is here I'd also compare the ways facing when the fire goes off from the fire engine, but as I've only been fortunate enough to experience it going forwards, it would be unfair of me to compare.
The Billboard
The all new near miss for 2013 is certainly a great addition. Many people's favourite near miss of the ride, it is certainly effective. Off ride, it is great to look at, and has a nice bit of quirkiness to it. On ride, when going forwards, just WOW. The way the train twists out of the zero-G roll means is it is genuinely an exciting feature and one where it seems like you may not 'twist enough in time'. The left hand side also provides a secondary near miss after the corkscrew, which is nice. Backwards though, you of course don't get the effect. You simply twist out of the zero-G roll and dive on through. Yeah sure, you see it afterwards (which is a nice advantage of the billboard compared to the other near misses, as it feels designed for backwards as well as forwards viewing, probably due to the fact it was built with the backwards rows in mind), but it's nothing special really. So, again, forwards > backwards.

The back of the billboard.
The inclined loop follows. It's nothing special either way - just a solid element that is paced well. Nothing more to say here other than forwards and backwards are equally solid.
Turnaround / The Helicopter
The turnaround is probably by favourite section of the ride when going forwards. It is surprisingly fast and forceful, and lasts a decent length of time. When on the right hand side of the train, it is just phenomenal, with the addition of the water spray and the subtle near miss of the spinning helicopter blades which can catch the unsuspecting off guard. One of the reasons why last season the back-right seat became my favourite was because of this part of the ride - you'd get a splash of water, force, speed and a near miss - what more could you want?! Backwards through this section is great as well; being able to see the water effect 'chase' you feels nice, and is something missed a bit when going forwards. But the subtle near miss from the helicopter is missed, which is a shame, as it is my favourite near miss of the ride.
When it boils down to it, riding forwards or backwards through this section of the ride is equally good. However, I did prefer back-right going forwards to going backwards there.
Corkscrew
The entrance into this element is great, continuing the forcefulness of the turnaround. Going forwards, the corkscrew is another solid element, and I think it has been designed with the visual spectacle in mind - going through the inclined loop looks great off ride. However, going backwards, it is a real highlight. I can't explain it really, but I just love it. Maybe it's the novelty of doing a common inversion on coasters backwards, but it's just a great feeling and the one thing I think 'WOW' about the most after riding backwards. So, backwards > forwards.

The corkscrew, beautifully cutting through the inclined loop!
The Tower, Church and Inline Twist
Near miss wise, I don't rate the tower or church highly. They're a very generic 'close, but not too close' near miss, and whilst nice, it doesn't impress me much. This doesn't mean they're bad in any way, and off ride it is simply stunning. The inline twist is, as with all the inversions, one you feel, and even if you don't get the near miss effect too much from the theming, it's still great being twisted upside down over it! Backwards you miss the near misses (same old story there then...), but the inline twist is fun, and as with going forwards, it's great seeing the station when you're hurled upside down. So, backwards and forwards are both equally good.

The tower, where the brilliant 'Swarm noise' plays.
And that basically ends the ride. The rest that follows is the worst part of the ride as it stands, going forwards or backwards.
Other Bits and Bobs
Just one final thing I want to say. I'm going to ignore the fact that I hate the way the queue system works and not use that in my judgement of which 'way' is better. However, the fact that the old Fastrack queue is now the backwards queue means there's less chance to see the ride in action, and it's harder to see the queue line TVs (and they are less frequent). I'm a big fan of having the experience of a ride start when you enter the queue, and finish when you're out of exit - a ride should never just be about the hardware. The backwards queue suffers from the fact that you can't get a decent 'feel' of the back story unless you've already seen it, which is a shame. It's only a little niggle, but it's a niggle nonetheless.
And so, there we have it. So, if you haven't been counting, here's how each of the individual on-ride elements 'score up', if you will:
Forwards 'wins' - 3
Backwards 'wins' - 1
Ties - 4
The fact that there are equally many ties and 'wins' should tell one thing - The Swarm is an amazing ride. Whether you have the seats facing forwards, backwards, inwards, whatever-way-wards, you won't take that away. However, facing forwards is the way forward (if you'll pardon the pun...); as, simply put, it allows you to experience the theming and the near misses that Swarm has been designed to take advantage of. If you take them out the equation, the experience is lacking something. Now, me knocking the backwards rows all sounds very negative, but honestly, it is my third favourite coaster experience - only beaten by Swarm going forwards and Nemesis at Alton Towers. So, time for the final verdict:
The Swarm (Forwards): 10/10 (In a way, I don't want to give it a perfect score, but I just can't justify not doing so).
The Swarm (Backwards): 8.5/10
(And comments and criticisms are welcome! )