Benin

According to the website, Terror of the Towers will contain 'vampires'... God knows how they're approaching that then... The storyline for Carnival could be interesting for a finale as well... Or it'll end up being the same as Asylum, only sans chainsaw...

I think the issue with the Dive Machines was general cost due to the wider track/trains and the need for some decent extra landscaping (this of course depends on the park, as neither Griffon or Krake have a tunnel portion)... It was never that popular a concept unfortunately, as only 7 live in the world today and Krake (the smallest) cost a princely €12 million (SheiKra and Griffon costing $13-15 million approx as a comparison)... I think it just suffered from being an exceptionally pricey concept for something so simple (although the longest gap between rides was 5 years between G5 and SheiKra)... Interestingly, there are also only 7 Stand-Ups in the world... All in America (compared to 3 Dive Machines in Asia) weirdly... And the last NEW one (I.e. not one of the relocated 2 since they just got refurbs really) was built in 1999... That's a long, long time...

It's a weird one really, because it's such a psychological barrier to guests that bars have to be pushed in towards themselves to be released (see also, Flying Fish)... So naturally, when they push the bar away from them to get out (the logical thing) and it doesn't work, they panic... Then usually a member of staff (or more recently, another guest) pushes it down for them and they live to fight another day...

Fair enough, I don't exactly come into this side of the forum often (because I don't care) and never saw it discussed... As you were...

I'm surprised I'm posting this... http://www.thorpepark.com/frightnights/

I've been on Riddlers Revenge (and Mantis and Vortex, all B&Ms) as well as the obvious Shockwave, and they are all pretty much painful to experience due to the 'seating' position... There's not much in the way of airtime on a Stand-Up, especially comparing as mentioned to Wooden/Mega Coasters, and all it does is do loops in an 'unique' position... If there's one thing Thorpe doesn't need, it's more inversions... I just really don't see the point in bringing them back because even back in the day it seems that they never really took off (unlike the WingRider concept, whilst it is pretty much a fad, it's clearly being more successful than other concepts)... As for uncomfortable Wooden coasters, yep, those exist, but a lot of the modern GCIs are glass smooth, and in a lot of cases the ricketyness of the Wooden coasters gives them a personality completely aside from the steel coasters (unless they're an Intamin plug-and-bore)... There are rough B&Ms out there, just gotta find them...

Unfortunately, this is not true, Stand-Ups are just generally uncomfortable and unenjoyable... There are so many better options than a fad that happened in the late 90s...

You don't need to go big to create a good ride...

I would presume so, considering that's a photo of it...

I've done over 300 coasters, suffice to say, that does result in a lot of absolute crap rides being ridden... And that's not including any Wacky Worms and the like (which I don't think should be counted as they're never going to be good compared to the 'proper' coasters)... Not like I have a top 10 in my signature either of course...

Yep, it's nowhere near the bottom of my worst coasters... It does indeed have a few points of pain (it IS a Vekoma after all) but those few moments are nothing in comparison to many other rides... Here's a top/bottom 5 of the worst coasters I have ridden (from bad to worse)... 1 - Vortex - Great America Stand-Up coasters are vile creations no matter the creator, and this B&M blot's only positive thing is that it's short... The worst of a bad bunch (but still better than Shockwave)... 2 - G-Force - Drayton Manor Awful restraints (which have since been fixed, new trainS please Drayton), awful queue, awful gimmick, awful layout... Just, awful... 3 - Tornado - Bakken My hate for this ride should be clear, yet I am in the minority in the overall scheme of things... Without the stupid pointless launch I reckon this might have been decent, but it was pure pain as soon as the launch kicked in... 4 - Mean Streak - Cedar Point I'd like to bring this up what with the recent conversations on here regarding Wooden coasters, as like with most things, for every good one, there's a bad one lurking in the shadows... Mean Streak IS this bad coaster... It was constantly ricketing along the track causing mass amounts of pain and headaches through the several minutes it took to last (which was too long)... I was amongst those disappointed when it didn't catch fire recently... 5 - Sequioa Adventure - Gardaland Stan Checketts needs shooting for greenlighting this concept... That simple, as prolonged amounts of hangtime in those S&S restraints seen on Slammer/Mumbo Jumbo is quite possibly worse than any ride ever created... I would even prefer to ride a Volare over this thing ever again... Honourable Mentions - Volares, Coney Island Cyclone, El Diablo, Saw, Rita, Tatsu (sod you all), Iron Dragon, Gemini, Adventure Express, Caligstro, SLCs, Big Loop, Pepsi Max Big One, Colossus and many, many, MANY more... N.B. This list is pre-Furius Baco...

BBJ's 45 minute queue was for the tickets to get in I believe... Further explanation on why the queue was so awful beyond the 45 minutes would be good though...

Whilst I wasn't saying that staff should be powering through every hour, they shouldn't be praised for batching groups into gates and the like when that should be done anyway... Filling up trains is part of the job description, my point has nothing to do with pushing throughputs...

The idea of "Edir Eht - WAS" horrifies me beyond compare... The idea of actors does not factor logically into not have stupidly long queues... I thought the park were meant to be reducing queues?

They're only doing that for one hour a day? I would be expecting a park to do that as the minimum method of operation... For the entire day, every day...

So NOT really an 8/10 then?

Was the batcher not batching again? (Something that happened on my parents visit yesterday)

And that's even after I attended I too would like to hear more about what rides were done and the situation... Someone else mentioned Swarm had downtime and that was it aside from Tidal Wave... But really, for the 2/3 hours, how could you not fulfil £5 worth of rides when according to many others, the majority were a one train wait? The 4 out of 8 booths is a problem to be fair... Though it's probably the only night they've needed THAT many...

Dat helix

Animal attractions I can let off being closed at times because of the fickle nature of animals being unpredictable... Of course, it might have been closed because it closes every day for lunch...

Attributing the fall in attendance to just the Swarm not being marketing correctly is quite frankly, daft... Not like there was a massive event in London that was resulting in a lot of people fleeing the country and generally not going touristy things... Or that the park had a reputation for being not that great... Or that most parks suffered a decline in attendance...

To be fair, too many people for Chessie is about 7'000 people...

You mean like?

If Liseberg can have Kanonen and Helix then there is no reason why Thorpe (or any park) cannot do the same... With this reasoning, no-one can suggest an Intamin Blitz because it also has a launch... If anything, a Mack Mega would make Colossus (rather than Stealth) pointless, because it'd be simply better in every way and Stealth can still rely on the height being the draw... Considering a Mack can appeal to a wider audience with a lower height restriction as well, which fits straight into the family thrill route the park are taking, it'd be a fab idea...