dragon2000

Was this past Sunday (14th). I think it was between 2-4pm after our lunch had gone down! Just want to avoid being hit in the face by mobiles on Stealth...

Yep, pretty much as soon as they sat down they had them up in the air. Operator was head down, on the phone and filling out paperwork while launching...

They dispatched a Stealth train with at least two people holding their phones up recording. Face palm - how can 3 members of staff not notice?

Stealth trains really are flying out this year. And it seems to breaking down a bit less than last year, which is nice! As mentioned above, Inferno team were pretty poor this weekend. Slow operations and constantly empty seats - double seats empty at back row, urgh, not joining up two groups of two etc.

Loggers was shut all day again today. Really is unreliable these days.

Same for the majority of day today, trying to get everyone boarding quickly - well done!

I always wondered how many miles you cover in a day - seeing the map and data is really cool, thanks!

The inside seat leg barrier at the front is the worst. I wish there was some other design that still kept people's legs away which I assume is the purpose.

It didn't have rubber ducks and cheap shampoo bottles everywhere...

Had a mixed experience with R&R on Saturday. Virtual queue definitely did go to 3.5 hours for SAW as we found out... Full post here to keep it in the right topic: http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/10668-return-of-reserve-n-ride/page-14

Was at the park yesterday and if it was similar to today the following applies: Using R&R you can get on the major coasters within the first hour. Hardly anyone in the park was using the system until midday. After midday once a lot of 'normal guests' have caught on to the system and have seen that standing in the standby queues is painfully slow, the R&R wait times spike to (in our case) 45mins (Colossus, Swarm), 1.5 (Inferno, Stealth, or 3.5 hours (SAW!). Unfortunately yesterday we had some bad experiences with R&R from midday onwards. 1. Large amounts of people hanging outside the return entrances blocking people with valid return codes from being able to get scanned. 2. After returning at the required time, still having to wait anywhere from 20mins-45mins more to actually get on the ride! The SAW station yesterday was absolute chaos. The staff actually lost control against a queue of paid fastrack guests who decided they had had enough of waiting, un-clipped the chain and the entirety of that queue marched up the stairs to the station and pushed in front of everyone waiting. 3. Rides like Zodiac, Vortex, Samurai got bigger queues than normal filled with R&R people waiting out their coaster return times. We ended up waiting 40mins for the bloomin' Flying Fish!! You don't really have a choice of much to do... Out of those, I think my main point is if you have waited an hour or in the case of SAW 3.5 hours using R&R, you really don't expect to come at your return time and then have to wait another 20mins+! Sometimes yesterday it seemed like the standby queue was getting priority over the R&R return queue. IMO, if you choose to join the standby queue you have to accept that R&R people will take priority over you. Shame... it was working really well until midday.

^ It think it was supposed to be for about a week, so should be back in action by Thurs unless something requiring action was found during the maintenance.

Samurai is undergoing it's period of regular maintenance at the moment so that it can continue running smoothly (a bit like Stealth having it's cable changed biannually). Hopefully back open soon. Just bad timing that quite a few rides are having a rough patch at the moment simultaneously! I was there on Monday so had the fun of Saw stalled, Inferno shut etc! Let's just say guests weren't happy...

They really do need some more high capacity rides for the busy weekends, summer and holidays. Visited last week and though everything was open, after the first hour all the queues were 45mins+. Fury stayed at least 70mins all day and Vampire sat at 100mins+ all day. We got in the queue for Fury in the last couple of hours and waited 70mins and got in the Vampire queue at 5.58 and waited 90mins! Thank goodness for the zoo, at least can do something other than standing in a queue during the day. They keep getting more and more people staying over with the hotels but no major increase in headline ride capacity. The early ride time thing they are trying to do is also one hell of a mess. Only hotel people and day visitors who booked online get given a wristband. Annual Pass holders are excluded (presumably because so many of Chessington's visitors are AP holders?). It seemed like they were giving out a leaflet explaining but still everyone with wristbands were soooo confused. People with wristbands were going in the fastrack queues (like they should), but people with wristbands also went in the normal queues. Some of those people in the normal queue then thought half way through that the wristband meant they could push past everyone else and get to the front, rather than going out and into the fastrack queue. The fastrack queue probably would end up taking longer than normal queue, apart from staff members then feel the need to let through a ton of fastrack and virtually no normal queue. So if you don't have a wristband, be prepared to be screwed over with people pushing in front of you with wristbands and long queue times from the park's opening time! Absolute nightmare.

I rode it in it's opening year and there was definitely headbanging during the turnaround before the loop. Very peculiar shaping. My input to this thread - at the end of the day I think we are going to have to say smoothness is a matter of opinion. Everyone and their bodies are different and will feel different sensations on different rides. If you find something rough, it doesn't mean everyone else does too. If you find something smooth, it doesn't mean everyone will 'experience' a smooth ride too. There are way too many variables. (Or the conversation could continue going round in circles ) This is why we all have different favourite rides and not all rides are built the same...

Wouldn't be surprised if they are checking the cables after the Cedar Point accident: http://fox59.com/2014/07/28/two-injured-in-cedar-point-roller-coaster-accident/

If Slammer advertised at the entrance that it is more than 90mins I'm pretty sure that no one would join that queue... If you are waiting that long, why not get on one of the coasters instead? (is my logic)

At the end of the day, let's just be glad we have Colossus to ride instead of the ear-bashing that Infusion at BPB delivers...

I'm about 6ft and find Colossus fine, rarely bashes me too much. I'd agree with anyone saying it has seemed pretty smooth this year compared to previous. Mind you, have ridden it so many times I can kinda roll with the ride and avoid any contact with the harness, it's a zen-like state I tells ya - coaster & rider in perfect harmony

They often get everyone off the island if they know the Swarm will be shut for a while. Guessing it stops everyone wandering to the ride entrance to be disappointed.

I also love the call outs. Been trying to find a recording of them for years online!

The old tunnel was so awesome. It's always been the biggest disappointment for me of the re-vamp (excuse the pun). The old tunnel seemed to be so much darker and surrounded by rocks. Whilst they might not be able to remedy the tunnel, I wish they could sort out the station brakes one year. Watching the train hobble down the length of the station is frustrating.

Really surprised myself when I came to make my vote and ended up typing in The Smiler over Nemesis. The ride just feels like such an awesome journey.

Sprinklers were off on Sunday and they have removed the giant hose at the end of the turntable which I guess they were banned from using!

Anyone noticed the trees next to Inferno's exit path and at Fungle have all got white numbered tags on. Related to a new development or just for tree preservation?