Luke_A

A new Wallace & Gromit ride will indeed replace/retheme the Gold Mine in 2013! Image credit to Pleasure Beach Experience.

Ooh look, another wild Merlin shipping container has appeared at Nemesis: Sub-Terra... Photo credit to TowersTimes

Went to Thorpe today, had a brilliant day with a fairly good ride count. Weather was really warm too, good for The Swarm's boosted water effects! The park opened at 9:30 again instead of the scheduled 10AM opening. Detonator opened just after 10 so I don't know what this 11am opening stuff is about unless it's just weekdays... Stealth was down at park opening but opened at around 10, Inferno team were allowing re-rides which was great! Got on it twice then headed over to Saw where they were also allowing re-rides! Got 3 rides on Saw in during this time, unfortunately Inferno was down for a while around 12-2pm so I didn't get on it again. Swarm had a queue line evac due to a lengthy breakdown at about 3PM, got a priority pass to use for any ride and also got to keep my Swarm fastrack to use later which worked out pretty well. Queue's generally were very good for a Saturday, most flat rides had no more than 15-20mins and all coasters except for Swarm had between 30-40mins. Swarm still has no fire or LED's for anyone wondering. Not sure about video's but Saw now has it's cameras back on. Colossus was advertising a 1 hour queue at one point when it was actually only about 20mins... There was a member of staff at the entrance selling off fastracks and ALOT of people were fooling for it by not seeing how the main queue was only up to the snack booth by the lift... Ride count. Saw: The Ride - 6 Colossus - 2 (1 front row) Stealth - 3 (2 pole position) The Swarm - 2 (left and right front row) Nemesis Inferno - 2 X:\ NWO - 1 Vortex - 2 Detonator - 3 Rush - 1 Pretty good day overall!

It was there today for sure, maybe the lights around it were just turned off when you were there?

Good news that Drayton are getting a new coaster I suppose. They've always had a pretty good relationship with Intamin (Shockwave, Splash Canyon, Maelstrom, Apocalypse; and then again when it got the modified floorless seats.) So ima throw a wild guess and hope that they get something like a Mega-Lite, would certainly put the park on the map more from not just an Enthusiasts point of view, but hopefully also the public as it's not often Drayton get something on the scale of a large coaster... If they didn't get something like that then one of the newer style Mack Mega-Lite coasters would be awesome. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

In other news, DiVertical has now started testing at full speed, looks like it runs the circuit much better than what we saw in the earlier testing videos! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl2Jzo9MW0w

Shambhala definitely looks like the best new B&M for 2012, love the way it seems to use it's height so well, and still enter the brakes with a huge amount of speed, losing NONE of it in the MCBR (which, oddly is very close to the end of the ride...), looks like a brilliant hyper coaster!

Thanks to @djgaps on Twitter.

And this... Thorpe Park 2011 advert, anyone?

Banned for not having a working avatar.

Legoland Windsor closed today due to a major power cut... Although Chessington are accepting tickets pre-booked for Legoland today. Thorpe yesterday with a power cut, Legoland today... Not good!

Banned for being TPM's Trolley Dolly.

And now only a few days after the first test runs, Skyrush is now starting to test the catch car speed without cars on the lift. My god that motor is massive from ABB, no wonder it makes the catch car go at such as speed, in the video on Facebook linked below, you can see just how fast the trains will be going up that lift! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3532748750927&set=o.197071770330160&type=3&theater

Was this it?

Skyrush... Wow, what an amazing looking coaster! The airtime looked great over those hills, especially the first one, and will be even greater once the lift gets up to it's 29kph full speed, which is very fast for a lift considering I305's lift goes 24kph. Awesome, thumbs up to Intamin on this one, love the exposed look of the outside seats. EDIT: Here is another video

This. On saturday I got to Oblivion at about 9:30, with people in groups faffing around to find their AP's/proof of entry, then a rather large line of other guests waiting for the 10AM standard opening. The staff at the entrance of Oblivion seemed to be having to explain to guests why AP holders are given priority access, I overheard someone saying to the staff member how they could see empty seats on the ride and it was stupid they weren't allowed on it. The old system was much better in my opinion, as guests disperse into rides at a slower pace rather than having them all rushing into the queue at once at 10AM. Let's just hope this is yet another decision which Towers decide go back on as well...

Double post eek. But here is a Polar X-Plorer POV! The outside section looks pretty nice and nifty, the drop section and the bit after looks quite meh; but then I suppose this ride is at Legoland, therefore designed more for children than all of the family... Looks like a nice ride though for a legoland park!

Skyrush is due to start testing very soon, the first train is now parked in the station and looks ready to go once all of it's shipping packaging has been removed... Really looking forward to seeing this ride start testing The huge catch car also ready to go. There were some worries that trims could have been on the way after some electrical boxes were spotted a couple of weeks ago under one of the mid-ride supports, but not to worry, it turns out that the wiring was just for some sensor bars. How many supports? Images credit to Keystone Thrills and All American Thrills.

Argh Benin! In my first review of the ride I said the theme couldn't get much better as a medium investment Merlin ride, and I enjoyed it, so rated the theme highly (7/10) , but the ride part however I rated poor... (2/10) << That's the reason I'm not changing my rating. Yes the theme has got better in the way it's presented in a more logical way, but it's not up to the standards of say other dark rides in the theme park world, and I know Merlin aren't really expected to live up to those standards set by companies and parks such as Disney, Europa and Universal.

Agreed with Liam, The theme is now much more explained before the actual drop, with more of the events happening before you drop. More lighting, improved use of lighting and effects and the back pokers and leg ticklers are all a big improvement on before. The drop is still of course very weak but nothing can really be done about that... The second lift also is much improved than before! Not changing my overall rating of it though, I'd still say it gets 4/10... maybe 5/10, I actually quite like it now.

So Pleasure Beach are attempting to break another world record of the longest time spent riding a roller coaster... I can safely say that I really would NOT enjoy riding The Big One for the proposed amount of time shown in the quote below, I would feel especially sorry for this man if he has to ride it in the back seat at any time during the record attempt...

So much love for Facejacker right now. <3 Dufrais is the best character in my opinion. So so funny.

This still never fails to make me laugh.