Mattgwise

Lift 1 100% has the fins as well, but haven't seen it reverse before. Picture from Towers Times forum

That is true usually, but The smiler is unique in that it IS designed to reverse trains down the lift hill, hence the fins on the lift hills that you don't usually see. I may be wrong, but think it is the first ever rollercoaster featuring a lift hill designed this way. Here it is in action on the second lift hill

So those few rides do actually stay open to anyone. I always thought it was just for hotel guests?

Well they will lose out to an extent. Especially Fridays as for example my cousin and several parents from a nearby school visit every week after school for a couple of hours and always purchase food and drinks.

I thought the same initially but read it again a few times and think they have just worded it badly muddling "stalls" and "stop". I then took it as the car on the lift hill stops as safety sensors activated due to stalled carriage on bat wing section.

Human error. Manual override as most of us predicted. Worth pointing out that nothing mentioned seems to be directly from Alton Towers or HSE.

Surprising that it reopened the same day. I would have thought the entire track and every bolt would have to be thoroughly checked after something like this.

Not sure on that as I didn't reach Thorpe until 12 due to being at Chessington until 1130.

Lucky you. I've given up with it. After about 150 games the highest I have managed is about 300,000. No where near the daily high scores.

All but Colossus were on full capacity yesterday and queues that I saw ranged from 10 to 30 mins (excluding Colossus). I think they have upped their game since the period of complaints from around a fortnight ago. Also it turned out it was for technical reasons they ran one train on all but Nemesis Inferno, not lack of demand.

All but Colossus were on full capacity yesterday and queues that I saw ranged from 10 to 30 mins. I think they have upped their game since the period of complaints from around a fortnight ago. Also it turned out it was all for technical reasons they ran one train on all but Nemesis Inferno, not lack of demand.

It is still dismantled in exactly the same way as shown in the picture a couple of pages back.

Strangely no music at entrance, dome, beach/fish/DC area, WWTP radio (despite them only yesterday asking who loves it on Facebook), no Colossus music, no rumba rapids music, no angry birds or dodgems music or Canada Creek (possibly due to loggers closed) Really made the atmosphere much less.

Much better operations at Thorpe Park today compared to my previous visit. All staff worked hard and efficiently as possible Only issue was queue times inaccurate. For example it said 45 mins on X and it was only 20 and Rumba said 5 but had a virtually full queue from bottom of stairs. Angry birds stated 8 mins till next show and had the waiting area completely full for it to then not even have the doors open and the timer reset to 20 mins. By the time the second timer got to about 15 mins a lot of us gave up and left.

Much better operations at Thorpe Park today compared to my previous visit. All staff worked hard and efficiently as possible Only issue was queue times inaccurate. For example it said 45 mins on X and it was only 20 and Rumba said 5 but had a virtually full queue from bottom of stairs. Angry birds stated 8 mins till next show and had the waiting area completely full for it to then not even have the doors open and the timer reset to 20 mins. By the time the second timer got to about 15 mins a lot of us gave up and left.

Arrived at the park entrance at 945 and was handed a letter apologising that 4 rides would be down offering a free return visit. At 955 the queue to vampire stretching all the way to pirates games was let in and instantly a 35 mins wait. Poor operations as usual. Why do they start letting people into the bays after it starts unloading then only open the air gates once the station fully cleared? Such unnecessary time wasting. I know it's been like this regularly for several years now but really is annoying. Bubbleworks was then closed till about 1115 and reopened on reduced capacity and waited 40 minutes. After every loaded boat one had to remain empty. Bizarre. Walked round the park once and rides closed included the 4 advertised and monkey swinger. We left and went to Thorpe Park which was better.

Problem is with Monkey Swinger whenever I have visited over the last few years is that it is mostly operated by one person. This means it takes about 8 to 10 minutes to get people off, fast track and disabled on, load with those room queue, check all swings and start the ride. This could be more than halved if it was operated by two staff.

Video showcasing Chessington in 1993. Features Chessington Railroad, Safari Skyway, Fifth Dimension, Professor Burp's, Runaway Mine Train, Original Vampire, Weather Vane, Dragon, Old Crocks Valley, Toytown Truckers, Dragon River with all it's theming haha, the circus and more. I really miss these days!!! What is hilarious is to see Vampire being operated ultra efficiently and the train coming off the second lift and over the buildings, to already see the next train on the section after the first lift!

Surprising about Swarm considering both recent days I have been the ride was closed temporarily and then sent many empty cars around before reopening without having to add weight to the cars like say they do with the big one. Maybe the wind speed was a little higher as I know they have a wind speed limit on Swarm.

There has been a death at Cedar Point today. From the Cedar Point Facebook page: "At approximately 5 p.m., a guest entered a restricted, fenced area of the Raptor roller coaster and was struck by the ride. Park safety officials responded immediately to the situation. Unfortunately the guest has passed away. Local authorities are on the scene conducting an investigation. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family at this time."

When I was at the park during a storm all of the rides I could see temporarily ceased operation. X may have stayed open, but didn't see that. The storm passed over in about 20 mins and everything reopened. Never known them to fully close the park. But then we don't tend to get whole days of thunderstorms.

Sounds like a repeat of last Wednesday.Waited an hour and fifteen minutes when I had joined an advertised 40 mins queue. I did complain as Colossus and Swarm were similar stories (not as bad as Stealth's) and was offered "return for £10 vouchers" and 2 priority passes each. Crazy, when part of the complaint was excessive fastrack on one train operation!

The geyser is also working as well as the yellow sprays at the bottom of the trough. If you pass through with them on you get soaked. I prefer it with these effects, makes it a tiny bit worth going on compared to before, but Only downfall is that the boats were already deep enough in water and this has been made worse now as they still don't bother pumping out the water.

Of course I would like to see it successful too. But three years and everytime I've been it has been chaos I am going to be negative about it. I completely agree about the other points of one train operation and fastrack overload. Simply too much to cope with having three types of queue on poor capacity. I still remember it being stated during construction updates Stealth being given three trains so that it would never run less than the two it can run!

I don't understand how it is still going as a "trial". I don't think I've ever known a trial to last three years!!!! Either always use it or scrap it for good! I know which will get my vote!