Mattgwise

But the question still remains. What are they going to do to sort out the car park congestion? It happens far too often.

It was an issue with restraints on swing A that closed the ride at about 5:55pm on Tuesday, so guess they've been having ongoing issues with them.

It doesn't help that many people are stupid and don't realise they have to pay. They then get to the barrier and have to faff looking for money. Additionally the people queuing up at the AP building to buy a ticket then have someone come out telling them they can just pay at the barriers, again causing a hold up whilst the staff have to give change. I find it interesting that there aren't any machines at all near the entrance/exit (or anywhere) for people that have forgotten to purchase a ticket. This would really help!

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27077503 Accident on a miami style ride in Worthing

Yesterday I didn't see the nest either, but did notice between Samurai and Saw plaza a Swan sitting on its large nest. So it's not just the bird!

Inferno staff were excellent yesterday in terms of dispatching speed (well in the afternoon). Most trains were sent literally as the other train was pulling into the brake run. My train went straight through. But I did see three trains in a row get dispatched with at least four empty seats.

Good trip today. Fairly busy but have to say operations on all the coasters were good leading to queues moving faster than usual. Swarm in particular was run exceptionally well (minus the bagging area exit) and the train dispatched majority of the time before the other train even hit the brakes resulting in it crawling up the lift hill at a slow speed until about 3/4s of the way up. Zodiac and Slammer (didn't see it testing) closed all day and Rush closed in morning and had restraint problems around 5:45. Still no Saw queueline music. Thought I heard someone say it was fixed at start of season???

My friend arrived to Chessington at 12:30pm and there was still a large queue at the admission turnstiles. It was VERY busy apparently.

TBH I am just hoping that the ride is having a new filtered or chlorinated water system installed. It has to be the log flume with the most vile water in my opinion.

Both were on two trains. I can't imagine how they would cope with three trains as both rides had us sit in the break run for at least 30 seconds on two trains, however in their defence I suppose it would be many staff members first open day which would naturally make things a little slower than usual.

Had a few days booked at Barcelona and my last full day there happened to be Friday 11th April which was the first day of the 2014 season at Port Aventura so simply had to have a day there. We took the train from Barcelona Sants train Station looking forward to a good day presuming that the park would be lovely and quiet as it was the first day and schools in Spain hadn't quite finished for their holiday. But how wrong we were. The park was very busy and unfortunately didn't get on too many rides and have to say had the WORST queueing experience of my life. More on that further in the report Upon arrival at around 10:15 the queue time boards were not working and as we past Furious Baco which looked empty decided to queue up for it. We past the many lines of outdoor queue line thinking it was going to be nice and quiet. Once we passed by this area we entered the massive indoor queuing area to find endless cattle pens zig zagging every where which were all full. After much faffing with the rides team and a few queue jumpers we managed to get to the ride after virtually an hour. Was it good, well the only thing that was good was the launch. After that it truly is the MOST painful ride I have ever experienced. I went on presuming everything I had heard was pure exaggeration but no, it really is awfully rough. So rough it makes Colossus seem like it glides smoothly over ice. Upon exiting the ride the queue was well into the outdoor area and the queue boards were finally working and advertised the monstrosity of a ride we had just ridden as 2h10m!!! Next up we past through the well themed Far west area of the park and went on all the flat rides there as well as the rapids. They were all fun and the rapids although very short was quite good, lots of speed, spinning and wetness. After that we queued for Stampida for about 40 minutes. This was a fun ride but unfortuately it caused my Samsung Galaxy S4 to crack across the screen completley killing it so as you can imagine I was unhappy, but did not want to ruin the day so just accepted it and moved on. After some lunch it was already 2:30 so decided to queue for Hurakan Condor which was advertised as 40 minutes. Once again lots of cattle pens and eventually 1h 20mins later we were near the front. The ride itself has stand up and sit down, however you are not allowed to pick whether you sit or stand. I was hoping I would get lucky and get one of the stand up sides as I would have been very unhappy to have had to queued all that time to then be told to go on the side I didn't want to. Thankfully I got lucky. The ride was fun and intense enough, but not as forceful as Detonator. After this we decided to go to Shambhala as that was the one ride that was a must. This is where my worst queueing experience occured. The queue was advertised as 1h10 mins, but all but maybe 5 or 6 lines of cattlepen were filled so knew it was going to take longer. However during the wait we had at least 40 spanish people queue jump in the area around us alone. I could not believe it! People were cutting across left, right and centre and at one point when I say no to somebody trying to push past me she decided to crawl around my legs!!!! The queueing area is designed awfully and there is nothing to stop people doing it. For some reason no one was confronting all of these ill mannered people and it was just complete chaos. During the queueing the ride suffered two break downs of about 10 - 15 mins each. The second breakdown occurred 2h 10mins into queuing when I was about 100 people from the front and an attended came out and said something and everyone behind us started to leave and a few in front. At this point I was very annoyed and decided there was no way I would be moving (maybe this ride ought to be renamed Shambles). Thankfully 10 minutes later everyone started to clap and the ride reopened. 2 hours and 40 minutes after joining the queue we were finally taking our seats. Thankfully the ride was incredible and has a wonderful amount of airtime. It is now my favourite rollercoaster, but I don't want to ever ever go through the queuing experience again!!! It was now ten minutes from closing and we managed to join the queue for Dragon Khan. This time we only queued 20 minutes and there was not any of the queue jumping experienced at Shambhala. Again another good, solid rollercoaster, another of my favourites. So although the park gave me a new favourite rollercoaster and is beautifully themed and has wonderful scenery we still left dissappointed overall as we expected to get on much more and did not expect such inconsiderate people.

Seems that the parks music system is playing up again. Samurai playing Colossus theme during loading (start and end of ride before it even finishes lowering) in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhUBLtiOdR8

Robert Ritchie???

And the current queue time of 30 mins would be halved at least.

Right now? Dead quiet! All queues 0 minutes. Apparently all rides are experiencing downtime right now too! When you planning on visiting?

Really! IMO they were just as dire last year if not worse. I counted 4 mins 30 seconds on my phone for a train to be dispatched in august and on my visit about a week before in which I complained about numerous issues (see trip reports thread) I counted virtually 2 mins 30 seconds twice in a row. Truly shocking

Good to hear although on all three of my visits last season that area was not playing at all.

Maybe this whole "family approach" stuff of late is building up to the next coaster not being a thrill machine but instead something a bit more family friendly. So could it be that the next roller is going to be a simple family friendly woodie?

Just saw on Facebook that some of the old ride cars and information from Thorpe's history are currently on display at the park in the dome. Looks to be there until 28th March https://www.facebook.com/southparks

Well that's what I initially thought and 2 parts of the ground had puddles suggesting it may have been on earlier, So maybe he just made that decision himself.

Transylvania sounds much better than my last couple of visits. The nice cheerful Clarinet Polka music playing outside Bubbleworks loudly and for the first time in like four years I heard the vampire music down near the waterfall and entrance and it was playing quite loud. Then in Burger Kitchen heard the Transylvania halloween loop.

The water jets weren't working today, so I asked the operator if they were broken and he said they aren't using them due to the cold weather. In past years they had them on regardless of the weather/time of year as it's part of the ride experience. In my opinion the water really makes the ride so much more fun and interesting.

All the above worked today, the only problem with the ride today was that not a single target worked in the Final giant snake scene. This is the part you can usually really up your score! Seems to be really inconsistent with the effects! As usual loading was dire!

Didn't move at all today. To be honest it looks like the whole thing is sitting in a derelict amusement park. The trains and track all look in urgent need of care and attention.

Agreed. I counted dispatch time of around 4mins 30 secs lasts year several times. At one point on 3 train opetatiob they used to dispatch every 45 seconds!