Benin

Been open two days and already giving out free return tickets? Gotta be a new record right?

It offers a view of Blackpool... Automatically makes that view worse than any other ride's lift hill in the UK...

Samurai is buggered, because Chessie ran it into the ground (or at least, ran it at what were decent settings, but as Top Scans were designed for temporary fair environments, the constant high use was not agreeable in the end)... Everything else has question marks...

Inferno's exit is dire anyway, what with the whole backside of a volcano illusion being as such since it opened... Is the only addition by it a sign? I'm not sure what it adds or subtracts to anything really...

Of course there are valid excuses, but like Mark said, to have 5 rides closed? Quite simply not good enough... Samurai was closed prior to Fright Nights to get it ready, Slammer is Slammer, the water rides seem to be closed because of poor organisational structure in the maintenance... No-one seems to know what's wrong with Saw... Though, there shouldn't be excuses, valid reasoning instead is a lot better... But given that the park has several months shut over Christmas, there's clearly something wrong internally with the maintenance, as there has been for many, many years now...

I remember when current Zodiac was at Drayton, and did about 6 full inversions before coming back down... And of course back then, Thorpe had a themed Enterprise... Better days...

All rides should be available at the start of a park's operating season... If this is not possible, then perhaps they should open later in the year... That is, quite frankly, a pitiful excuse, given that every park in the world is able to do this... There is a minimum expectation parks should reach, and once agian Thorpe are unable to reach that goal... Just because a park isn't busy should also not be an excuse, it's probably just as important, as people will visit when it's quieter in order to get on all the rides in a minimal amount of time...

I prefer Krake (and Oblivion, obvs) to the bigger brothers of Griffon and Shakira... At least the smaller ones have some actual force to the drops...

*cough*2017coasterconstruction*cough*

You would, IF you could actually SEE out of the Monorail clearly...

MAP holders being obnoxious is no surprise, when enthusiasts tend to be the most obnoxious of all...

Spooky pic:

Cedar Fair parks do that already... I went on one many years ago (because my visit to Kings Island was the 5th July, it was busy), which was $300 a head for 8 hours of guided person, instant ride access (including the burdenous row choice, though we only cared about that on Beast and Diamondback) and priority show seating, food, vouchers and a backstage tour of Beast... Certainly got the value for money out of that one... And it was STILL cheaper than anything Merlin offer, though after a quick search it looks like it no longer exists... But that is how to do a VIP ticket thing...

Baden-Baden if you're ok with Ryanair... Basel-Freiburg-Mulhouse if you actually want to enjoy your flight... It's about an hour from Basel to Europa, there are many routes to take to get there, be it via public transport, which involves trains, or booking a taxi in advance (€100 each way ish) if you're lazy... You could even hire a car, but I don't see the point unless you're going to head off to other nearby parks, but Holiday Park and Tripsdrill aren't great, and you won't get bored of Europa...

Fixed that for you...

My favourite addition is the two dark ride portions to Whale Adventures... It just screams as the most pointless addition possibly ever, but it's something that will 100% improve the current ride experience... Also, new 4D show <3

It's when you see them moaning about an upturned carpet corner that you realise that the Florida/Californian sun may have roasted a few too many braincells... Also, the Starbucks topic will forever go down in infamy <3

Is that because of the effort put in, or because of our estimations be obscenely low though? No-one expects everything to be fixed up year on year, but at least on a rotational basis would at least be a start... When was the last time Inferno's volcano got a clean up properly? Hell last time I rode it I recall seeing the remains of a bird it had killed the year before! Unfortunately, we don't have parks that are pro-active in regards to refurbing rides/areas...

Should it come to AP day with those 3 rides off the line-up, it'll be one of the biggest embarrassments from a Merlin park... And that DOES take a lot of doing...

Highly doubt it is 8 months old, especially as over that time we've had a changeover from Pipeworks to Area 52 as to the developer... Even some of the original batch of images that came with the game's announcement look better than some aspects of the trailer...

One of the worst things about Colossus is the train design... I honestly cannot sit in the back row of an of the cars, unless I fancy pretending to be a contortionist... Plus there's the obvious roughness to boot... Wish they'd get the new generation trains...

Nope, nope, nope, nope... If I ran a park, I would just flat out ban those things all together, taking them and using them on rides is even more dangerous than just a normal camera... Thorpe, be sensible and ensure that those things aren't taken onto rides at all...

A shame that they didn't repaint the sign to at least attempt to hide the original stuff... Why are jobs only seemingly half done by Merlin?

The weight of the train won't be the same if there's one less row... And the coefficient of friction could be changed easily via different wheels (via different materials)... I also think all the Batmans in Six Flags are 8 rows, Inferno was the first 7 row Invert or sommat daft if I recall correctly... So the removed row is pretty much in order to change the train around a little bit, since the effects of backwards riding change immensely (through the different forces/vibrations acting upon the train/riders)... Indeed, the lost weight is probably part of this solution...