Benin

Some concept art... Taken off Screamscape...

Polishing a turd then?I wouldn't get excited... It's still going to be the same duck related crap...

Yeah, Chelsea spending £50 mill on Torres is great business considering how bad he's been this year...Sickening money anyways all around...Ohhhh, actually Palace had a good window compared to the last couple of years... Horray!

Evidently you'd be very very suprised how massive the difference is...

^Not really...Chessie and Alton regularly die out around 5-6pm during their longer days in the summer... As the majority of families leave early to avoid traffic/tired kids/etc...Chessie over Halloween in the last few hours is dead more often than not... Towers and Thorpe get guests coming in for day and night stuff, so it varies a lot more...Thing is with our leisure industry atm, it's really not worthwhile the parks extending the hours when the people aren't there... And I don't think the parks will ever really get the amount of people that would even warrant later closing on a REGULAR basis... Yes there have been weeks when Chessie closed at 7 during the summer (08 was the worst, but I avoided that week), but it just doesn't happen regularly enough for them to change it all to 7, especially as when that means the majority of their workers would also have to go home due to work hours and under 18 rules...Plus, the UK parks when busy most of the time cannot seem to handle the numbers... You know when Chessie hits 10k+ because it's noticeable, same for when Thorpe's packed solid... And Lego... Towers I can't say for 100% certainty but I can imagine it being a similar situation...Unless we were able to have serious expansions of everything, a few extra thousand in each park would be a bloody nightmare for all involved...

As if the contract ending will mean any major changes this year...

How many do it on a regular basis?The UK park employees are just also not brilliant, due to various laws and what-not for working and stuff... Chessie during Halloween was a mess last time I worked there cos they had to mess around with timetables for all those under 18s... Dunno bout Thorpe and Towers, but quite frankly it's a logisitical nightmare when you consider the UK transport system... Hard enough to get to some of our parks as is...It might be perfectly possible, but is it at all logical? No...

^Now with that MCBR comment you're putting words into my mouth...When I rode Silver Star the trims were excessively noticeable... It's about the only ride I've been on that had them on in such a way that was as noticeable...MCBR's are a completely different kettle of fish... And have nothing to do with my arguement here, as I'm talking that ride's with certain actions happening on it (let's not go towards Thirteen's trim here), involving slowing the ride down can make a good ride bad... Most of the time my experiences with MCBRs have made such a little effect on the ride I just don't notice them... So... Yeah...

See also - Tiny Truckers...

I'd tap both of them....With a hammer...

Ohhhhh, new Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Muse albums this year?Sign me up...

You may want to run whilst you still have a chance

There are good suggestions and bad suggestions though...I'd rather this topic be full of logical and sensible suggestions though... A guy can dream can't he?

Get Over ItWow, bloody old school early 2000s film following the usual boy/girl at college relationship stuff...But it was rather amusing, and certainly shows a startling difference between 10 years of similar (read - same) films...Also, to see Kirsten Dunst, Mila Kunis and Zoe Saldana in one film was just random considering their current status in the industry...7/10

Urgh... Why is it that bad things happen in twos (or more)?

Of course it's popular, there's no doubt that it is...HOWEVER, the current theming should be ripped out and burnt... Then replaced with good quality theming to make it awesome...

And it's posts like this which is why you have so much rep Mark

I think this arguement has been done to absolute death and I really cannot be arsed to flog the horse once again... But...Just because I have a family I should just go to Chessie? Why? My imaginary family (used for this arguement specifically) has an 17 year old, a 12 year old and a 5 year old...So, my 17 year old and 12 year old would probably (though if they were truly my kids they damn well wouldn't) want to go to Thorpe because of the big rides, but what is there for my 5 year old? This is STILL a family, and families DO still go to Thorpe, regardless of how they change... Because of set-ups like this...So what do I do? I don't want to leave my eldest two alone at Thorpe because of general parental worry, but I don't want to spend lots of money on my 5 year old to get on not very much... My 17 year old has also grown out of Chessie, whilst my 12 year old is on the cusp of this... I cannot please all the children I have regardless of my park of choice...Just saying families should go to Chessie is immensely narrow-minded...

When it all comes down to it though a GREAT ride paces itself in such a manner to MAKE it great... Let's take Nemesis, a ride that hits it's stop speed after two inversions... That's amazing design and layout ideas through into one amazing ride...Adding launches is quite frankly, cheating... Especially when you have more than one involved... I can't imagine myself liking a ride with just launch after launch with some curvy bits in the middle... It means it will also slow down before the launches as well, dropping pace before picking it up again... This happens for Maverick's launch (which I liked, but as I also mentioned in my post, the restraints destroyed any hope of it being perfect), but once is enough slowing down... This will slow down TWICE before a launch... Maybe it's because it's Intamin, or maybe it's because I actually think this ride is just not brilliant... I really cannot get any form of excitement for it because of (1) That stupid figure 8, (2) It seems to go on FOREVER, and (3) Numerous launches in a ride also doesn't make it an instant BEST THING EVAR!111I can say something wasn't excellent because it slowed down at a point... Silver Star's trims absolutely RUIN, yes RUIN the ride... Slowing down to a crawl for the rest of the circuit was just boring... Lost a lot of possible airtime and was just generally disappointing because of it... A similar comparison can be made to Cheetah Hunt, because of the way Maverick slows down before it hits it's LSM launches (which are the SAME as on Cheetah Hunt, allowing a comparison to be made based on experience)...Soooo, long story short, restraints will ruin it, it'll keep slowing down just to speed up again, the figure 8 thing looks daft, I could imagine this ride lasting TOO long (another thing about a great ride is that it doesn't outstay it's welcome), and having multiple launches on your ride also doesn't make it amazing...

Oh ffs it's spread over here...Can someone bash some heads together please? SBT you stated something rather silly, people picked you up on it... You get over it...EB you replied in a rather ott manner, so you also get over it...Either that, or TPM needs a naughty step......... Marc?

Why? Thorpe and families don't mix... Wouldn't be suprised if RC was removed in the future...

Even when you're losing?

You mean launching into a figure 8 hexix 120ft into the air won't slow the ride down?An excellent ride shouldn't let up... If the start is rubbish you still have that in your mind come the end of it... So what if it has two other launches? That won't help save a poor beginning to a ride would it? Plus, it has corners, and THOSE Intamin restraints... Unless they've radically changed them after Maverick, it will still hurt when it corners and thus make it nowhere near as good as it would be...

^It's not singling out... It's just simple law...16 is generally regarded as the age when young'uns are able to behave (of course, this often is disproven on a regular basis), and it's generally the attractions covering themselves should anything bad happen due to unsupervised silly people...Had to enforce that policy on the Eye in summer... Quite simply because if he didn't have an adult of 18 with him in the case of an emergency we (the attraction AND staff) would be liable for any harm caused to him during commotion...So you shouldn't have been sold the Pass or let into the attraction... And it's occurrence isn't THAT often because not many non-supervised groups of kids come to the attractions, the rest is up to the staff member, who could easily be disciplined/sacked for it...So yeah, it's the attractions covering themselves for it... Dunno about the 18+ to buy the pass though...

There is space for greenery...We're not talking about gardens in the sense of Towers... Because that would never suit Thorpe... HOWEVER... More trees could be planted in queuelines, and STRATEGIC areas around the park... Called them "Rest Zones" or whatever, just give us some nice spaces in which to sit-down and watch rides or wait for people if that's what we want to do...It's too sparsely spread around the park in some cases... It's mainly just for shade purposes that people are probably suggesting this... Comparing having shaded areas to a garden centre was pretty daft... Because that's not what people were suggesting... Quite simple really when we stop and think about it all...Making Sunken Garden a bit more prominent wouldn't go amiss either... Just make sure no-one's doing anything like the map suggests they should...The handbags are well and truly out in the coaster communities right now aren't they?