Paul

Glad you have a good time!Happy Birthday! :blink:Wow, so many members went to Thorpe Park today!

It would be great for people who like those sorts of rides as well, with pretty small queues. It would probably seem like an hour or ERT all to yourself!

Also, with Chessington being family orientated, I suppose that many families just want convenience (especially if they've got kids running all over the place). If some rides are open, and other aren't, it would probably just be pointless, and like you said, very confusing.

It might be a bit difficult, but I could see it working. "Welcome to Chessington & Zoo. All of our rides and attractions are open until 6pm. Attention Experienced Adventurers! Rameses Revenge, Dragon's Fury, Vampire and Rattlesnake will remain open until 7pm."

Fare enough. It just seems quite busy walking round at 6pm, but I suppose the ride queues have emptied out by then. And as for Halloween, I will look out for that, I'm visiting soon so hopefully I will see what you mean.

I agree, it is annoying when people correct you on things, and argue about stupid little things. But everyone is different. You will get some really annoying people, and others that you get on really well with. When I joined TPM, I just thought about talking about theme parks all of the time, and forgot about the fact that it would be more than that. I really enjoy it here, much more than I thought I would. I have met many cool people, and some not so cool. I've had heated discussions, and I've learnt more about theme parks. It's a great little community on here, and I really enjoy it.

I do agree, but I seem to find that the queues are usually pretty constant right up until closing time at Chessington. I do think that if the park was open later, then quite a few people would stay.

A nice report. Good to hear you had a good time.

Larger entrance welcome signs etc to North and South entrances. (More like Thorpe's, with the rollercoaster track). Something big and eye-catching. Dragon's Falls station could be improved. (More in the way of theming etc. At the moment it seems very empty and boring, especially when looking down from the gallery. Lights in the Runaway Train and Dragon Falls tunnels. To have the areas in the park divided up more clearly, with large arched sign posts displaying the name of the area. Ride Q information boards in every area, but only giving the ride times for rides in that area. I.e.: "Welcome to Transylvania. The current queue times are as follows: Bubbleworks: 45 minutes; Vampire: 60 minutes".Have longer opening hours throughout the season (Like Thorpe). Close at 10pm at Halloween instead of 8pm. Varying from 6pm - 8pm in peak times instead of 6pm throughout the season.I have one improvement that I would do to every park, not just Chessington. Have all Q-line TV's playing theme-park, or better still, ride specific media. Rather than random annoying TV music videos etc. Every ride should have a background story, and should have a video explaining it (like in Tomb Blaster). This would really set the atmosphere. There's nothing I hate more at the moment than walking in the Nemesis Inferno queue line having to hear Nickleback - Rockstar blaring out, clashing with the NI theme.

I always aim to arrive at the park 30 minutes before scheduled opening time. That way, I can get to the front of the Annual Pass queue, and if the park opens 15 minutes earlier than expected, it's a great thing! I would always advise to arrive 30 minutes before opening. Yes, it can be a long wait, but the benefits of arriving that early are far more than the drawbacks.

In my opinion, you are being slightly too clingy / overprotective. When I was in a relationship, I was quite relaxed about what my girlfriend did without me. Obviously if she didn't tell me that she was busy then I would maybe be slightly anxious. But if she texted me and said that she was going out all weekend, and couldn't see or speak to me for four days, then I would be completely fine with it. It would only be if she didn't reply to my texts that I would get annoyed.

Let's see. 3rd October, weekend day out of peak-season. I would say probably 0-30 minutes for flats and coasters throughout the day. I visited on an off-peak Saturday not too long ago and SAW reached 60 minutes at one point during the day. Should be quite quiet, I wouldn't expect anything to go over 45 minutes all day (except SAW). Depends also on the number of trains operating on Saturday, I would imagine Colossus and Nemesis Inferno will probably be on one for a good part of the day, Stealth on two. Have a great time whatever the queues are like, but I would strongly recommend to leave Lost City (Vortex side) until mid-afternoon (3pm), and head to Stealth and Nemesis Inferno first. Don't go straight to SAW or Colossus, catch these towards the end of the day.

Exactly, there are many classic rides that I love that don't have inversions.

My next trip is planned to be on the 17th October, and it will probably be my last Thorpe Park trip this season (with the exception of a possible trip in the last few days). I am planning to do Chessington's Hocus Pocus as well this year, hopefully on a Saturday before half-term.

I completely understand where you are coming from with the school bit. I'm in year 11 now as well, and the amount of homework we've had so far is just incredible! We started our Statistics Coursework, English Coursework, and French and Spanish coursework all this week, and it's only Wednesday! I'm so snowed under with work at the moment, and it feels that as soon as you get some off of your shoulders, more and more just gets piled on! I've been getting really stressed this week, I really just need to relax and turn it down a notch. I know what you mean though, even though we are working hard, I can't believe how quickly the time is going! I've already had 3 weeks of school! I didn't realize how much harder year 11 was going to be than year 10! At the moment, I'm doing 2 hours of homework per night, and that's not even with revision included! So with revision on top of that, is almost 3/4 hours. I'm seriously going to calm down though, there's no point getting this worked up about school if it's actually causing me so much stress.

I'm back on the forums after having been away for a few days. I must say, it was a bit of a shock at first, but I think that the new layout is really great! Very cool! :)Anyway, I haven't really had much spare time on my hands at all recently, what with incredible amounts of school work / work / band playing / sports etc. Despite the large amounts of stress I'm currently under, I am happy now, finding out today that I'm going to Thorpe Park on 17th October, and the best thing is that we're staying until 10pm! I actually can't wait! The longest I stayed on a Fright Night was 7pm, so I'm really looking forward to having all that time in the park! :DAnyway, just thought I'd say how good the forum's looking! Well done guys!

When are you going James?

Oh right, I haven't been to Thorpe on crutches before myself, but I have seen people in queue-lines on crutches. If you really can't manage the stairs, then you should be eligible for a disabled riders pass, which will allow you through the exit.

You can go on crutches, and just leave them on the ride platforms etc.

Good!

I hardly ever stay behind after school, but I usually use my lunch hour to get on with coursework. There aren't a great deal of facilities at my school, so I'm more than happy to use that time to study.

And join in the pie fight!

It's quite sad that I'm never going to see it again, although I'm really excited about the 2010 developments.

I have several designs, although I'm not quite sure how to post them on here. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I was guessing that you need to be pretty qualified, the pay is pretty good! £70 for what, 6 hours work?