Zappomatic

Anyone taken a look in the window on the end of the WWTP radio van? Nice humorous bit of backstory to the shop there!

If it's any consolation they do seem to have fixed Quantum's jolting...

Seems like for once they've actually had a good clean-up over the closed season!

On Sunday I noticed that the Park appear to have removed all gum from pathways over the closed season, and I noticed some of the staff patrolling with litter grabbers appeared to be carrying an aerosol of some sort which I think was for removing chewing gum.

I did notice a few random bottles and things in awkward places on Rumba Rapids and Loggers Leap and a piece of gum stuck inside my Swarm restraint but otherwise the park was unusually spotless.
On Sunday when Nemesis Inferno was running on one train and the sign outside advised of a 45 minute queue they had someone selling Fastrack at the entrance to the ride. Not really a good way to treat APs! Queue dropped down to about 10 minutes when they got the second train running.

The BBC News article mentions "a parade of shops" being affected... I wonder if that actually means the frontage to the buildings on that side of Transylvania? Some reviews of the Santa attraction on here mention there being electric heaters inside set too high. I wonder if a heater is the source of the blaze.

These rumours might explain the absolutely terrible state of the cars at the moment - looks almost like someone's been trying to eat the rubber surface of the seats!

This is from ReRide.net which I still have backed-up and eventually will get around to updating and uploading again!

Was good to see the smoke make a return on Stealth, and the smell reminded me of The 5th Dimension.

Was good to see the smoke make a return on Stealth, and the smell reminded me of The 5th Dimension.

Was good to see the smoke make a return on Stealth, and the smell reminded me of The 5th Dimension.

Amazingly quiet day on park today, with no queues for anything at all - not even Swarm backwards! The only real waiting was for Samurai which apparently needs 15 riders to be able to run - took some encouragement to get passers by to get on.
There seemed to be a couple of camera crews on park and it seems one of them (or maybe it was the same one?) was following around Liam from One Direction. Really did have to laugh how they all got led up the exit path for Nemesis Inferno when there was no queue through the main entrance anyway!
Park looking a lot cleaner and neater than it has in some time with lots of things repainted including Lost City queueline fences, outside of the Dome, Canada Creek Burger King and the block containing Burger King, Mexican Cantina etc. I get the feeling the park are now taking cleanliness seriously as there was no evidence of last season's litter, the exception to this being around the Rumba Rapids course - needs sorting out.
The Swarm backwards is certainly an interesting sensation, but I prefer riding forwards.
Quantum was incredibly jolty. Can see this having some downtime soon...
Rumba Rapids actually got people wet by waves splashing over the side of the boat for once, however we did scrape the tops of the pipes a few times.
The Swarm and Colossus were running on one train. Nemesis Inferno had two trains on but only one was in use but the park was so empty that even the one train was going out with plenty of empty seats!
Lovely to see the return of mist and lights on Nemesis Inferno.
Menu at Bar 360 has changed slightly (and prices have gone up). It now features sharing platters, and a few changes and additions to the main meals. I had sausage and mash which was an extremely generous portion and quite tasty, but I would have liked more of the onion gravy and maybe some peas or beans to go with it.
Later in the day most of the music around the park completely cut out which on top of the lack of guests made for a slightly weird atmosphere. I think the playlist in Canada Creek may have been changed - still not the old upbeat country classics but definitely less dreary than last season. As previously mentioned the entrance, Dome and Neptune's Beach now have a pretend radio station type setup called The Noise. Among the current chart stuff I randomly heard an old Craig David song which for some reason I found very funny indeed.
Staff all very friendly and polite, and some of them chatty. Pleasingly despite being only the third real open day they all seemed to know what they were doing!
All in all a really good day with plenty of positives and very little in the way of niggles. Let's hope they can keep it up!

It was a lot more fun when 2 adults were allowed to share a boat (as long as total weight was not more than 30 stone!). Possible to really fly on the bumps, and often run into the buffer at the end.When Eclipse was still at Thorpe Park I once saw a girl get stuck half way down - someone had to be lowered down in a boat on a rope to give her a push!

You described exactly what I was thinking of posting. Problem is I think it's probably way too obvious and sensible for Thorpe Park to even consider it.

Warning: This post contains memes.

So Alton gets this with their £20M coaster...:

And Forp get this:

Of course the throughput varies, but in terms of working out fast track numbers if should be using a good average of what they manage to achieve what they can't do is increase the throughput in any reliable or meaningful way. There has to be a presumption that they are doing just about the best they can on any reasonably busy day. What I'm saying is they can't turn it up to account for extra fast track sales, so fast track sales shouldn't increase either.
Indeed, if you have the longer queue you would want to 'enforce the ratio' more than with a short queue. Can't you see that selling more tickets when the queue is long will be doing the exact opposite. Remember, that throughput has not moved!
As for the times, stager it on the ticket into hour slots starting at 5 minute intervals. Simples!
From your operating experience you clearly have good knowledge of the departments and process of how these numbers are generated and managed. I don't really care about that, to me and the average visitor THORPE PARK is THORPE PARK as a complete entity I have no idea which department's fault it is and nor do I much care. Whoever is running the park as a whole has to bash some heads together to sort a working system that does not piss everyone off.

Sorry Ian, but that is exactly what you are doing with your 'interpretation' of the message from THORPE PARK. It clearly states there is no upper limit on the number sold, that they sell more as the queue time increases. Obviously the more fast track they sell the longer the main queue gets, so with their odd thinking that allows for the sale of more fast track tickets which will? You guessed it, cause the main queue to get longer and allow the sale of more fast track tickets. It's a never ending cycle of stupidity. There is no upper limit on the length of the main queue line other than the complete capacity of the park.
There is no positive spin to put on this system. It out and out sucks and is clearly the cause of much complaint and loss of guest satisfaction. The obvious and as far as I know common way of managing this is to have an absolute limit on the number of fast track ticket sales in any given time slot as a percentage of the operational capacity of a ride. The standard queue continues to move at a reasonable rate and the fast trackers stay close to walk on. This means that the sales of time slots simply get for later in the day and everyone is kept relatively happy.
The system as described by THORPE PARK is fundamentally flawed and has the net result of making anyone happy, apart from maybe the accountants at Merlin in the short term.

But...

That to me, reads that they have no upper limit set at all... Ergo, can be seen as the park can easily sell an 'unlimited' amount of Fastrack per day... Sticking a decent ratio or a maximum amount per hour (like Fred pointed out is done at Towers, which as I've pointed out before only goes to absolute hell on their busiest days of the year) would help ease the problems Thorpe have so much more...

Here's Guest Services' response to my complaint about Fastrack overselling:

So essentially Fastrack tickets are unlimited - the busier the park the more their systems are set up to sell, watering down the benefit for people who have bought them and making things hell for those who haven't.

Here's Guest Services' response to my complaint about Fastrack overselling:

So essentially Fastrack tickets are unlimited - the busier the park the more their systems are set up to sell, watering down the benefit for people who have bought them and making things hell for those who haven't.

Agree that the park is now looking horribly run-down, and yes on Friday my non-enthusiast friends had the same comment. Not just minor things like chipped paint, but buildings visibly crumbling, litter from previous seasons building up in crevices, multiple seasons worth of grafitti scratched into things... I think the most revolting thing I saw on Saturday was in the tunnels in the Colossus queue line, and between the fence and the wall in the station. Yuck!
I think the whole entrance area could do with being demolished and started again. What a cheap looking mess the current set-up is! They could also do with more indoor (or at least heated) food outlets for the cooler months of the year. On a chilly or wet day the outlets that have indoor seating just can't cope. Would it really be so expensive to install some heaters in the Calypso BBQ tent?

These rumours might explain the absolutely terrible state of the cars at the moment - looks almost like someone's been trying to eat the rubber surface of the seats!

Must add that several of my non enthusiast friends have also said this during this year. It doesn't help that Saw Alive and Canada Creek Railway (and Fungle Safari the last three years) are all standing as if they are rides that should be open, but simply closed that day.
On top of that one of my friends who had never been before commented on the poor condition of the foilage in Saw The Rides queue line and said "Are they that tight and money grabbing that they don't employ gardeners".
If time was spent making the place look nice and removing SBNO rides then I believe they could easily get away with not having anything new as people would want to return. The place looking run down And no new ride could possibly put people off.

It's also arguable that some guests don't return because of the state/running of the park. Because I'm an enthusiast it's different but when I had been with my parents before they were disgraced with the state of some of the rides (mind this was a few years back), the lack of atmosphere and the closure of 4 rides (2 roller coasters, 2 flats). So just reiterating my point, I would much prefer them to not add a new ride and give some TLC to the current infrastructure of the park.

Just come across a 1990 brochure on Flickr, not seen it before. Interesting how much pride the park took in its history, the attention to detail in its rides, and general pride in cleaning, maintenance and customer service. Who knew even back then they had a 16 track sound studio to produce their own show and ride audio?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65600336@N08/

Just come across a 1990 brochure on Flickr, not seen it before. Interesting how much pride the park took in its history, the attention to detail in its rides, and general pride in cleaning, maintenance and customer service. Who knew even back then they had a 16 track sound studio to produce their own show and ride audio?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65600336@N08/

ReRide.net is back, after a long battle to reset various login details.