Mattgwise

Where did you see that? Says 6pm when I look on the official website. http://www.altontowers.com/events/opening-times/#tab-themepark-aug

Noticed that Storm Surge is down and happened to come across an incident with it when reading a trip report on Pleasure Beach Experience just now. It seems that one of the conveyor belts has come off at the top off the ride whilst it was operating. Picture from http://www.pleasurebeachexperience.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2395.

It sure does!

Never seen that cycle before, three windmills.

Jamie, seeing as you say it was running very slow and you say it shut at 5pm in your trip report I would imagine it was a problem with the ride and not a particular setting.

It will open at some point, Thorpe Park commented on a Facebook post in June that there are no plans to permanently close Slammer and in the Questions to Thorpe Park subforum they have confirmed engineers are/will be working on the ride. We just need to be patient. It has gone down for a good month or two during several seasons since it opened.

No!

Was looking through the Thorpe Park facebook page and a guy called James posted on 24th June "What's the deal with Slammer? Do you plan on removing the ride this year?" and Thorpe Park Official responded "Hi James, Slammer is currently unavailable however there are no plans at present to close the ride. We'll update our website and post on Facebook as soon as Slammer is ready to re-open. Enjoy your visit!" So I guess that answers the current debate for now.

It is generally fairly busy throughout most of july, even weekdays as many other students do what you are planning to do and before the schools break up many organise school trips to Thorpe Park making it very busy at times. Then of course it is the school holidays.

Well base it on the number of hours the park is open it is about the same (ONLY when using a BOGOF voucher at Alton Towers). Take an 8 hour day (10-6) at Alton Towers, works out £2.72 an hour. Cedar point is mostly open 10-10 which works out about £2.75 an hour. Cedar Point might not have BOGOF (and do you know that for sure?) but there are tonnes more rides to go on. I am fully aware that a lot of people use BOGOF vouchers but there is still a fairly high number of people who don't and pay full price, so in my opinion I still say it is more expensive at Alton Towers on average.

Just looked at the ticket price section of the Alton Towers website and have noticed the ticket prices have increased from £42.00 to £43.50. Not sure how long ago it changed but in early may it was definitely £42. Why is there always a need to increase already expensive prices further mid season. Pretty awful prices for those that don't have BOGOF tickets, and what with the car park charge as well. So much cheaper in the US. Take Cedar Point for example, they charge $51.99 which is roughly £33 and there is so much more to do and the place is open until 10pm most of the time.

Looks good, Shame the capacity of Swarm wasn't able to be as good as shown in the 360 tour, with 3 trains on track at once!

It was very annoying to hear that all over the park during halloween. Gets very repetitive listening to it all day, everywhere!

No, this is the music that played in Transylvania

Fred said the Transylvania music had changed, as in the area around bubbleworks and down to entrance of Vampire. Vampire music remains, although is very annoying that they use the microphone/PA over it so much.

Cheers. Thats made me relax a little, as I did think it would be a nightmare.

I originally searched combined flights and hotels through Expedia, but it was only bringing up hotels in Europa park itself or Freiburg and Offenburg which are the two nearest larger towns, this would have worked out expensive getting trains and buses to Europa park each day (visiting the theme park twice). So I found a hotel on booking.com in Grafenhausen which is a 10 minute drive away - http://www.booking.c...131cb59e;dcid=1 that had fairly good reviews. I then searched how I would get to the particular location by train on http://www.bahn.de/p/view/index.shtml and realised it was quite simple with a train from Basel to Freiburg, followed by a change of train to Orschweier which is about 10 minutes from the hotel. This is the first time I have personally booked flights and hotels separately, and definitely the first time I will have to personally find my way to a hotel on a transport system in a country of which I cannot speak ANY of the language in. Lets hope I don't get lost.

Just booked my hotel and flights to Europa park and cannot wait! Sadly couldn't afford to stay in the parks hotels but am staying nearby in Grafenhausen. I booked the hotel for 16th July and it has cost £192 for a triple room for three nights, which I thought was great value at £64 a person.

Chessington is £2 this year, well it was two weeks ago unless they have recently changed theirs too. If the price increases carry on like this In five years time the car park will cost like £10 and admission £50. Very expensive day out.

Seems to be a season of theme park closures this year do far. Three closures by Merlin in a month (2 Alton Towers and now this). Knowing what Merlin are like, they will probably put ticket prices up again to make up for lost money!

Very out of place and seems strange accessing it from next to the medical centre. Looks very rushed as on top of the poor state of the ride, they haven't even removed part of the old railway line.

Sorry if I wasn't clear (after re-reading it, it is poorly written) What I meant was it was doing it with the track empty and it was making the noise every 10 seconds or so, obviously a problem with it.

Vampire really needs its third train back. Takes forever to load and queue seems to hardly move on two train operation.

Good day today, park opened at 9:30 (on Vampire at 9:45) and was very quiet until 11:30-12 when it suddenly got fairly busy and Vampire, Rattlesnake, Tomb Blaster, Dragon Falls, Dragon's Fury, Kobra all had queues of at least 45 mins. Jumbos, TTT (Dodgem's), Bubbleworks, Buccannear and Rameses had 25 - 30 minute queues most of the afternoon. Dragon's Fury went down at about 1:30/2pm. Black Buccannear has the most ridiculous batching system ever.does it have balance issues as they kept faffing about asking people to swap seats and he was counting people quite often before giving thumbs up to the operator? Rameses Revenge seemed to invert 6 times in a row on the second of its two cycles it gives. I have never seen it do more than 4 and it seemed to soak people for longer than usual too.

Just for anyone going tomorrow the ride might be down as it went down about half way through today, second MCBR making constant noises as if it was slowing down a train. From about 3pm onwards, two mechanics were present but It did not reopen by end of day.