Benin

Haha, thanks for the memories of seeing people trying to squeeze into that... Hardly anyone who goes to Thorpe/Alton/Chessie/Lego/Anywhere will have even heard of Dollywood, let alone Mystery Mine... But that's because it's not in an excessively major UK tourist destination in the States... Even with the Smokey Mountains a stone's throw away (as an aside, I really suggest that everyone look into going there, it's amazing), and the general area being a tourist trap, it's certainly not number 1 on many lists...My point is that I reckon even without the branding Thorpe would've got people through the gates with good advertisement... How hard would it have been to advertise a spooky mine/saw mill themed coaster (as per the original posters) to the masses?And who said I was a fan of Thorpe? I very rarely have much good to say about the park through my own personal experiences at it... I'm not bitching about anything, just continuing discussion about Saw and a rather similar ride in America that I've been on... A ride that I happen to rate higher... I do know that the GP are indeed the most important part of any park's income stream, but that doesn't stop them being rather unknowing in terms of ride types and the like, which was my point... How many would know that Stealth and Colossus are done by the same company? Parks seem to go for easy links in order to get guests through the gates... Looking at Thorpe's coasters since Tussauds came in it's very obvious about the gimmicks and such...Colossus - 10 inversionsInferno - Billed as the "World's Greatest Roller-Coaster Experience" during construction... In addition the Nemesis name probably added in order to make many people link the original Towers version with it...Stealth - 'Tallest' and Fastest in EuropeSaw - "First Horror Film Themed Ride" I believe was the term they usedSimply put, it's very easy to manipulate guests into following the park's marketing procedures (None more obvious than with Thirteen's advertising) by putting this that and the other surrounding it... But when people come off fantastic rides saying "It was good, but needs loops", it kinda puts me off many GP... When I go to Towers and see 5/10 minute queues on Oblivion and 20 on Nemesis yet queues of 60 on Rita I just wonder what sort of mind-frame GP have... More often than not bigger and faster do not mean better... TTD in my experience is the singular exception to that rule...I've tangented a bit here... But I stand by my point of the GP not exactly being the brightest bulbs in the box... With the tales of death, underground inversions, letting go of restraints making you fall out and wondering if Vampire does actually spend the entire ride upside down I heard over the years, it's kinda hard to defend them overall...

Peter did actually cover himself on his comment by going "Unless they have a problem"...Air always gets long queues anyways regardless because of it's lower throughput and problematic loading system (Prepare for Air... Actually no row 3 seat 2)... Surely that's what the park's managers should be doing? Rather than some random person brought in especially for the job? It's not like any of the parks (general, not just Thorpe) have overally complicated feedback forms now is it? I'm obviously missing something there...

Parc Asterix is an awesome park that lacks a second quality ride, a B&M Inverted could just be that ride... Especially as it's very different...And that's the GCI Knight Valley woodie ain't it Mark? That's just bloody insane...

Well it's just gonna suck this year then obviously...

But I LIKED Euro Coaster...Hopefully they'll put the bloody price down though... Overally expensive tbh...Well as long as Spuk Castle is there again I think I'll be happy... That amused greatly as it sounded like Colossus and was such a coaster...

Different ride, different park, I've never compared Thirteen to Saw so why you're finding an urge to I'm not understanding the point... Probably, but that's the general public... Not exactly the brightest bunch in general in regards to rides and such are they?

Gonna go any further into the reason why? Is the reponse going to be along the lines of "MM is generic whilst Saw has a 'story'" What? No way is that true... Firstly the first indoor section which is probs just as long as Saw's, then you go indoors AGAIN for the second lift... Something Saw definitely doesn't do... This is relative... But MM has TWO indoors drops... The second of which is epic... That's about the only part I agree with on Saw for the first drop, but the second indoor drop's extra theming is very suprising...

I do dislike it when Merlin get blamed for Tussauds' faults...You can't expect a park to get turned around in 3 years now can you? The park is so buggered up in all departments that a quick fix isn't the best route available to them... Some of you ideas Will are rather unfeasible... The B&M invert and indoor/outdoor rapids especially, let alone replacing a very good log flume which takes up the space it does as part of it's design... What the park needs to do is continue what they're doing really... More revamps ftw...

I could go on about my ideas till the cows come home...So first, Mark's ideas...Skyway NEEDS something desperately... It looks dire as Mark said and considering it's the first thing you see at North entrance something needs doing soon... Making it do to Wanyama considering how major that should become in the future years should literally mean that it gets retracked towards it...Fury & Rattle also need something done... I've just imagined Rattle with Cobra cars and that would be epic, not gonna happen but it would be nice for the park to improve the throughputs (and for Rattle, ridership) of both of these rides...Vampire... Is so similar to the other rides in the park... It needs a bit of love and attention to help bring it back to it's original splendour... The old entrance needs to be brought back, the fencing should be made actually gothic-themed, the interior needs some work... It's just a list of things that the park could do to the ride (and others) to make it look as good as Wild Asia does...Now for my points...Bubbles... Gut the bloody thing and start again... See that old contest thing for what I'd do to it in depth... But the quicker that gets made into something good again the better...Entrances... South Entrance needs to be made a lot bigger (let alone the car park being tarmaced), including toilets and the like... Make it actually feel like a major entrance zone (similar to North)... Containment gates... Firstly, fix the one leading into Pirates Cove... Then, place on each one a sign telling people when the park opens... Nice and easy here...Toilets... Improve and expand ALL of them... Add more around the park to a really high quality standard...F&B... In-house continuation please... Greedy Goblin could do with an improvement as it's probably the worst eatery out of the lot based on this year's experiences...Toytown... Remove Trucks and Berries... Replace Berries with a Zamperla Drop Tower and Trucks with an entrance to Land of the Dragons... Retheme the Jumbos area to Forbidden Kingdom... Mexicana... Repaint... Again, relatively simple... Put a Twist and Splash from Mack where Rodeo is and make it very, very obvious that it exists...Translyvania... Bubbles and Vampire as mentioned before... Possibly find somewhere to put in another ride (arguably in the rig site), which would be either like Mystery Castle or possibly an indoor coaster...Pirates Cove... This is tricky, it should have a much larger actual identity as it just seems to sit there without any real significant point... So maybe add some extra theming here and there, and then add in a Mack Supersplash on the Fury field near to Buccaneer...Dragons... Some extra theming would be nice to see, especially making Spike and Cinders more prominent in the overall area... Removing Playhouse and Capers and replacing them with a Zamperla Demolition Derby would be decent and provide kids with another fun ride...Mystic East... Bring back the Falls rocks first and foremost, adding some proper theming at the top as well... Then remove Peeking and the two bungee/trampoline games replacing them with a Mack Music Express and a decent Ferris Wheel...Forbidden Kingdom... The one area in my eyes that doesn't need much work at all... Maybe give Rameses a good old fashioned epic rehab and keep Tomb up to standards... Wild Asia... Remove Temple of Mayhem and replace it with a Vekoma Madhouse including two preshow rooms... And of course my usual Gerstlauer Launched (or some other major 1.2m coaster that will fit) into the field behind it all...Zoo... Put Sea-Life in a proper building... Possibly give the zoo a more overall theme that links it all together... Continue expanding Wanyama with the safari ride... Trail of the Kings becomes simply an Endangered species section so where the lions would be shifted to Wanyama replace with Pandas... That would be awesome...This is all really basic points made... I could easily go into detail but that requires a bit more time... Maybe in the distant future the park could add another themed land at the back behind Mexicana and the rest by removing Runaway and replacing it with a bigger and better Vekoma Mine Train... But right now, that list is my current wants...

Friday got Neutron Star Collision....*face of jealousy*

Maybe not on the first drop, but there are definitely B&Ms with trims... See Silver Star and Intimidator amongst probably many of their bigger rides, I can't really be bothered to look throughly...

Intamin

So you're saying that all yellow plastic ducks are all related to Imperial Leather?Erm... No... I'm sure Chessie can leave UNBRANDED yellow ducks in there once the sponsorship dies the horrible death we've been wishing upon it... I don't think many people realise it's sponsored that much anyway...

*cries*Sigh, evidently not enough people went on the original or understand the rape it suffered...

I'm guessing that they may as well be doing some maintenance to the Sea-Life tunnel, hence it's closure...Just as long as they don't add no bloody "Ghost of the Sea" crap...

Matt Bellamy <3And <3 to Chris and Dominic too... Amazing band...Actually I'm just over a month away from seeing Bullet for my Valentine again... Horray for metal!

NWO is rubbish, and why aren't we moaning about it's rubbishness in it's own topic?

<3The park at Halloween was very very good as you've said, the lighting and what-not was excellent throughout the entire park...Bubbles had NO strobes in the finale, the quicker that thing dies the better, then we can get something original, fresh and bang up to date...Vamp closed early on Halloween night So I didn't get to queue in the dark but jesus it was running well... I'm so glad the park now has the view of knowing that it IS their icon... Just use that old entrance (which had been opened on the day slightly) and put a facade on the building and general improvements (like why not have gothic fencing in the queue?) and it can remain an icon for many many years...The future is certainly bright for Chessie, they need the support certainly from fans who may not understand about why certain things are being done instead of what may not be that's wanted first in order to improve the overall day out at the park, which is currently a more important thing for them to do...One day, maybe Runaway's rocks will get focused on, what with the boiler having smoke (then again, the whole park did), as well as new lights and sounds... Maybe... Just maybe...One thing I did notice on Halloween was the lack of happy staff... Maybe because I saw Keith way too much But based on past trips, the only talkative staff were the PicSolve people... A shame, maybe too many had "end-of-season" blues...2010 has certainly been a MASSIVE mark in Chessie's calender... As Mikey said it's probably mainly due to the year's of neglect, but having spoken to a few of the managers this year they all seem to have big ideas for all aspects of the park, and with focuses on the park's state can only be a good start for this decade...Honestly, I'm looking forward to 2012 for the 25th, I can dream they have something that will really place Chessie back on the map for that... Bring it on...P.S. Please Chessie, fix the Containment Gate leading into Pirates Cove... It's actually stupid...

No it didn't, as they left from Stafford (WOOOOO!) and hit the traffic after Uttoxeter... I'm not suprised considering the traffic can be an absolute hell... Especially with those roads...But yay for Mark! Where did you stay in little old Staffs?

Saw is longer (apparently) but......................Mystery Mine urinates all over Saw by far...I did them both in the same year and MM absolutely blew Saw apart...Better theming on inside and outside... TWO lift hills of the vertical variety... More SFX (I.e. not air cannons and a fountain)... The epic Dive Loop finale... Yeah... MM is so much better... It ruined Saw for me... Not that there was much to ruin, it's another ride that got hyped up when it was just an average (and rough) Eurofighter that got an IP attached to it to make it more scary...It's scarier walking down my street than going on that ride...

My work here is done then...

I don't know, ask maybe in the dedicated topic for that in the Thorpe section perhaps?

This is MEANT to be similar to a Wing-Rider (Baco), looking at the support surrounding the track, this slightly makes us (in theory) wonder how big the trains will be... Yes...

For the park itself it's been a mixed year taking into consideration crowds and stuff...Kobra certainly got the park back on track again, hopefully though we won't have to wait another 6 years for a big ride (or indeed, any ride) to turn up...

I take it it's a bad time to mention the director, two writers and the original Princeton and Trekkie actors appeared at the end then?