Benin

The staff never get told things... It's silly really... There's often such a lack of communication it seems (hell, for the TPM Swarm ERT day, the staff didn't even know, thought they would be told that they'd be working extra) between departments... Disappointing that they'd do such a daft thing during this time of year... Way to make guests happy Thorpe... As for 2 trains at 10, the park did open at 9:30 Based on what they've done so far this year, I wouldn't be surprised if they were still doing it...

YAY! I hope that whatever they get, they use the hilly terrain of the area... Could make sommat very good if they use it well...

Filming crew? In the middle of the day? Weird that they didn't advertise this fact... It's quite poor show really, could they have not done it before ride opening? Or indeed after park close? Wouldn't be surprised if your technical fault on Inferno was adding the second train... If they are still doing that then Thorpe need to seriously consider their operations...

I've never been in that car park (at least not in the past decade) to comment on it's overall quality... The queues are (in comparison to things that can be dealt with like the car park situation) not as major an issue, as they aren't as easy to manage when you have a generally busy time of year (not just the bank holidays, expecting school holidays to be empty to beyond ludicrous)... There are methods of improving these queues, but that's for another paragraph, let's look at Fury and Vampire... Fury has always had a slow moving queue (and quite regularly is on of the longest queues on any day, let alone a holiday period), it's just the nature of the lack of throughput the ride system has, the staff can go as fast as they can/want but will forever be limited by the ride... This is a really impossible one to fix... As for Vampire, 2 hours from the mini tunnel? Ew much? This might not just be down to fastrack though, as the lack of 3rd train and poor ride staff will also mean the queue will be longer... But 2 hours? Sommat's up with it really... I think the 3rd train being removed for good really killed Vampire's ability to take on a queue in the summer... As I've never seen (personally) the queue be that long when the line is full, but considering the times I went last year how slow that queue moved (not because of lots of fastrack), I'm not surprised it's gotten worse... A shame, cos that queue used to get blitz through... It kinda coincides with other complaints about the staff's general attitude you hear these days... You can tell I haven't visited this year yet can't you? Wait till Saturday night, I'll be trumpeting the "Chessie staff need a kick up the arse" view once again (and have done since 2011 tbh)...

The queue complaints are silly, quite clearly went on Sunday (when at capacity)... Why people think going on certain days won't make it busy I have no idea... Of course, another high capacity throughput coaster and replacing the crap throughput rides with good ones would help, but how many parks can really handle their capacity well? As for South Car Park, can they even pave it? Someone did claim that but I have no idea if that's true... To be honest that entrance does need redoing though, make it bigger and able to withstand the people entering from that end of the park... Really, the only complaints that should be paid attention to, are the state of the car parks, although it is possible that they can't pave over (sure someone will know)... The rest are a result of a park at capacity and hence should be deemed relatively trivial... The only solution to that is increasing the park's capacity or throughputs...

Stop moaning and start posting then...

Who actually uses the apps? People should use Ride Hopper, that's good for queuetimes, since they get filled in by people ON park timing themselves in the queue... Needs more people to use it mind...

No one having them = Fewer people skipping the queue = Queue doesn't get held up It's amazing really how batching/fastrack affects queuetimes, Fury and Vampire easily get eaten up at the end of the day when neither of these things happen... I assume the same happens elsewhere...

A really poorly photoshopped (probably fan made) promotional image? Isn't that Saw being used on there? Hah! Look at the outrageous headbanging going on...

#ridestaffproblems

A rather big IF though... What would people consider as their maximum limit towards paying to stay the night in a box?

The problem I see with the fire is that it's not catching everytime... Once that's sorted it'll be fine... The water jets weren't even on last time...

There's nothing specifically wrong with the Air tunnel, aside from how much I enjoy looking at bare soggy concrete to get me excited for a ride (and now being blinded by excessively bright lights for the pointless on ride video)... Although, flying over the shed is just as fab <3

Why isn't it red? [/pedantic] Tis good really, dunno what else they could add in future... Indeed, I doubt we'll see any major stuff until the island is used... As for the other rides, they don't need any extra theming (aside from Inferno getting the backside of the volcano), rather a repaint and spruce up...

Hit capacity today... As well as Chessie AND Drayton... Bank Holidays <3

Best country? It's gotta be Germany surely? Just for the sheer overall quality of rides and atmosphere... Places like Europa, Phantasialand and Hansa show that the country has parks of the normal types (big corporation owned down to small family run parks) and have some of the best rides in Europe (Black Mamba, Fluch, Blue Fire, etc)... Overall the atmosphere and general operation policies also help, with a preference for the rides people to focus on the rides and bring down those queues, whilst the rest of the departments organise the interactive qualities also desired... Italy come a close second... 3 major parks, all of which have some quality within (although the Merlin park is the weakest of the 3, similar situation in Germany out of the parks I've visited), and with Mirabilandia home to Katun and iSpeed, the quality of rides is very high (aside from Gardaland's coasters)... It's also home to my favourite dark ride, Huntik... Be interesting to see how successful Etnaland is to see how Italy's future goes... Dunno where the UK would come in... Need to visit some other European countries to see how those compare...

Chessie get absolutely no budget... So being a resort doesn't make the budget bigger...

I'm still lost tbh... Raptor has little to no theming or styling to link it into anything really... It's station and queue are atypically generic American things really... Very much a case of you could pick it up and put it into a random allocated amusement park (say any other Cedar Fair or Six Flags park) and you wouldn't need to change anything... Griffon and SheiKra are both themed, both rather nicely I might add, and fit into their areas well... Kraken's station and queue is also nicely themed... Maverick's theme is mainly in the surrounding area (rather than just the ride, although CP cheated as the queue/station building already existed), but it gives it an actual embedded feeling, rather than the plonked emotions of nearly every other ride there...

Indeed, not everyone at Thorpe is legally able to drink for one...

Shame the view gets ruined by a mouldy beach, Depth Charge, NWO and Storm Surge...

Raptor? Styled? If you mean styled to be absolutely generic (like most American rides) then yes... I'll give you Maverick though, that's nearly full on themed...

Revamp of Duploland being put forward as next year's potential addition... http://www.rbwm.gov.uk/pam/planning_application_search.jsp?appnum=12%2F02314%2FFULL Legoland's ride policy seems to be...

Liam was just asking you to expand on your reasonings, allowing for a well supported arguement putting across why you hope that Thorpe becomes the 'official' UK number 1 over Towers... It's better to back up your opinions than just state them...

What even about the European parks which have even smaller a budget? Places like Plopsaland (at a guess here, maybe they just have a company who know what they're doing), or the quality of the last additions at Hansa Park, or places like Toverland? Disney run at a loss because a company that big and across multiple industries probably will do regardless... However, they seem to approach business with a whole "add things that'll bring quality" (excusing California Adventure and Paris Studios, but, they were both still better than many other parks in the world), instead of worrying about the balance, because they know that they will more than likely make the money back, whether that's through the theme parks or another section of the business... Merlin seem to be focused on being sustainable, but because of that, the last few years have been rather lacklustre, especially the last two years (2010 was a decent year aside from Saw Alive), add into this the cost cutting methods poorly applied to the parks and the overall price per entry (even with a low percentage actually paying on the gate costs), it does leave a bad taste in the mouth... The car park is still grass? Ew, dunno if I prefer that to Thorpe's gravel pit tbh... Both are pretty damn awful really... Although £2 for Chessie is much cheaper than both Asterix and Plopsaland, even with conversion rates... Though I expect it might well go up soon to get in line with the rest of them... I'll agree on the staff factor, but that might be a UK thing, as working at a park for 90% of the people is seen as a part time job just to do whilst on the weekend/summer... Of course there are those enthusiastic lot somewhere around the park, but at Chessie and Thorpe, the majority seem happy to just natter to each other... Moaning about having to stay behind to get people on Vampire though is silly, if they really cared about getting home, they'd get people on the ride faster... It's not hard to get rid of a 45 minute queue after closing in 30 minutes after park closure on 2 trains... Although Vampire on 2 trains these days is just dire... The overselling of Fastrack is the park's problem... And needs to be nipped in the bud by the rides managers getting at the retail lot for overselling... It does happen because the retail people get told to take advantage of the demand, but more often than not, overselling screws EVERYONE over... I dunno what methods they could use to improve it (assuming it will never be free (and easy to abuse as it was back in the day)), perhaps bringing in timed slots again or the introduction of a Q-Bot system might help prevent both overselling and also help spread the crowds of Fastrack...

Orrrrr just ignore this idea, and put money into fixing Samurai and other parts of the park (as well as a new ride, I fear that we won't be getting anything if this goes through, even if Vengeance is going for cheap)...