Luke_A

Slammer-Sponsored by an insurance company or AA Th13teen-I have always thought that Monster energy could be a sponsor for Th13teenDetonator-Sponsored by Standard fireworksFlying Fish-Sponsored by John WestLoggers Leap-Sponsored by IkeaColossus-Sponsored by Indesit washing machines...

Yes it is true that S&S have stopped production of the Sky Swat >>INFO HERE<<, I think it's a shame because I find it a really unique flat ride and to know that there wont be anymore ever built and Slammer probably won't last THAT long is quite annoying. It is my favourite flat at Thorpe too and I think the one at SFNE has had a similar amount of problems as Slammer. Anyone else notice the white bands around the main booms this year? Wonder what they mean?

That is urgh vile, I am not happy with what they have done to the entrance by putting metal panels over it and making the Oblivion font smaller and the writing above. Old good (2010&before) Entrance Bad ugly new entrance This is just going to make the whole 'government/intimidating feel of X-sector be less 'powerful'. I mean it says 'take on Oblivion with Fanta' - what sort of tagline is that! I know there is an image somewhere (I can't find it) where the man in the queue line videos is holding a can of tango/fanta, it actually would not surprise me if this actually happened. :lol:EDIT:Yes, I know X-Sector could do with a bit of TLC, but it's like they are trying to do it by adding a sponsor. And that old entrance may have been changed before the sponsorship, but the old one still looks a lot better.

I'm visiting on Tuesday & according to the Thorpe website the only attraction that is down now is Saw Alive, at least Slammer is back up as I thought it could have been one of those times where it's down for like 2-3 weeks. We all thought Slammer was having a good year last year until it had that long turn of downtime near the end of the season...

Caught me out there Yes, that is an exception I suppose, but most rides like MS spinners&Wild Mouses don't have them, some Intamin's like TTD or Xcelerator that have lap bars have seatbelts too.

To be honest I would much prefer all rides to have no seatbelts, the amount of times the belts have to be 're-checked' at some parks sometimes is just stupid. I mean lap bars don't have them so why should OTSR's? And yes, on B&M's the bars are mechanically released, they don't use electricity, instead if you look when you are in the station of Nemesis or Inferno next a metal bar that runs all along the top of the station is pushed down using compressed air onto some little sort of 'clips' on top of the train which then release the restraints. On Stealth, saw, Colossus and other Intamin/Gerstlauer/Mack/and some other ride manufacturers they use an electric current to release the restraints with some using redundant hydraulics to lock etc. So yeah, imo the seatbelts just cause lots of faffing around in stations...

A full set of photos from Krake's opening day can be found at ThemeParkReview >Here.<I must say this coaster is themed really well, I know the 'teeth' aren't around the track like some expected, but I still think it creates a great effect having them there with the fog and other theming.Also,Are they trim brakes in the water splash..., I wouldn't have thought they would have needed them as the water splash decreases the trains speed a bit anyway? If it is anything like previous B&M's they may have just added them for precautionary reasons. But yeah, an awesome looking coaster from those photo's in the link!

I Went to Paultons on Tuesday. (12/4/11)It was a really good day at a Park which isn't really talked about that much and has some pretty decent rides too. After heading through the turnstiles it was a fairly long walk all the way over to the other side of the park to get on the first ride, which was Cobra. This is the best 'Mouse' type coaster in the UK imo, it has some nice helixes, turns and airtime hills. It was pretty much a walk on at the start of the day and it amazes me how it doesn't need an operator to be in the console, they can just use the dispatch console to do everything with one operator! Next, I went to ride on the...Edge, it's better than Kobra (don't get confused here) It always gets to the top of each spike and gets some good airtime over the airtime hill if you sit furthest away from the loading platform. The park was pretty quiet on a whole, when compared to Merlin parks and Edge remained an almost walk on all day, most of the time it was just waiting for the cycle to finish that created a small queue. The majority of people were in PPW, which did have big queues on everything. Overall it was a really good day, and we will probably visit again when we are in the area. Ride Count:Cobra: 4Edge: 4The Stinger: 2Flying Frog: 1Kontiki: 1Sky Swinger: 1Raging River Ride: 1Jumping Bean: 1Rio Grande Train: 1Some random car ride similar to tiny truckers which I got forced onto and almost got stuck in: 1George's Dinosaur Adventure: 1-This had 30mins queue and was the longest queue of the day.

I agree with the comments from Ian above, of how the seatbelt is used as a 'comfort' feature as well as it's possible other reasons for being installed.One thing I have noticed though is that not all coasters that would usually have seatbelts sometimes do not have them, take Kumba at BGT for example. (I think it may have them now?)

Wow, Merlin not doing Fastrack? Any reason why?

Yes, Duel had problems when we walked past, just thought it was about that time and yes I did see the Oblivion Breakdown, wasn't for long though, someone just had to go to the top and press some buttons by the looks of it.And no Hex I don't actually know why we didn't do it, My Sister didn't seem to keen about the idea that it 'pretends' you go upside down, but oh well, plenty of other times! But 6 rides on Oblivion was nice <3.

I visited Alton Towers yesterday. (8/4/11)It was a very successful trip, all rides running on full capacity, and the ride teams were dispatching at excellent rates (as always at Alton) We firstly went into X-Sector and got 3 rides on Oblivion during the first 20 minutes of ERT, the ride team were having to dispatch empty shuttles; simply because there was literally no queue at some times and Alton have their stupid 'no re-ride policy.' Then, we headed into the Dark Intamin Forest and got 1 ride on Rita during the last 10 minutes of ERT, after this it was a straight walk on to Th13teen...Next up after a trip on the Skyride was Forbidden Valley with Nemesis first (walk on), Nemesis was running insanely intense as usual, the tours bus also had smoke and Air times were had after this. Air was then only a 5 minute wait in the station, I have also now discovered how the back row is certainly the best row on Air too. Didn't get on Ripsaw all day, don't know why, just didn't . Duel did not open until about 13:00, so we then carried on to RMT, The Flume (which has had some painting work done) and then Congo River Rapids, these all just had about a 5 minute queue again and it was nice to get 3 goes round on RMT as well as the boiler having smoke coming out the chimney. Spinball had about a 40 minute queue in the early afternoon-so I got a fastrack for that. It was then onto X-Sector again for another ride on Oblivion, then KFC sat on the oblivion area by the drop followed by two more ride on Oblivion after this. (I really did have a thing for Oblivion Yesterday! ) The trip then followed with more rides around the park and an a Merlin AP renewal at the end of the day! Good Points. Rides Running at full capacity & Ride teams being extremely quick at batching and dispatching. A quiet day on the park for what could have been inset days for Schools. All effects working on rides (Rita's smoke and Th13teens smoke behind the station, Oblivion had nice mist too. Most things about the day! Bad Points.The Re-Ride policy when there is NO QUEUE&they send EMPTY Shuttles/half empty trains. No major rides broke down, the Skyride had a problem for about 1/2 hour, but then started again. The Twirling Toadstools closed at about 13:00 due to a technical problem. Rita had 1 breakdown, which looked to be something like a problem with a sensor on one of the break fins. It reopened again after having a queue evac. RideCount:Oblivion-6Air-3Th13teen-2Sonic Spinball-2Rita-1Nemesis-1RMT-1Duel-1CRR-1The Flume-1Charlie-1Queues...Nemesis-0mins most of the day, up to 15 later in the dayOblivion-0mins all dayAir-0mins in the morning, up to about 20-30 later in the dayTh13teen-got up to 30 mins but was back to 10 mins after 2:30Rita-Had a long queue all day, probably 40 mins or moreSpinball-30-40 mins most of the dayThe Flume-got up to 30 minsEverything else had pretty much very small or no queues....Got the Alton Towers Monopoly, it's actually a really good game and although Oblivion is Apparently cheaper than the Gallopers Carousel and Th13teen and Rita are the most expensive, it is good Monopoly quality and has some quite funny things on the chance cards like 'you queue jumped, pay 200M.'So yeah, Thanks for Reading my almost Essay-like TR. An overall Awesome day at the Towers!Sorry, I didn't get many pictures. *no more Emoticons allowed* : P

I rode Th13teen again twice today, with my Sister who rode it for the first time (she's 11)...She loved the whole ride, was a bit nervous but then got off of it wanting to ride again. Pretty much the same as what Benin said above ^Th13teen is a great Family ride, and it still manages to create that mild thrill in certain parts of it. Just what Morwenna said 'the ultimate Rollercoaster.' It has some Airtime, some nice transitions, the drop, theming, excellent capacity, mild launch and it has lap bars. Th13teen has grown on me this season, it's a great ride that does what it is supposed to do; and all in all does it very well.

On the note of Giant Drop, Here is a video of it. It is just under 400ft High (390ft). Almost 4 times the height of Detonator. OMG.

That Superman coaster looks awesome, nice to see an Intamin Launcher with such an amazing Pre-Launch section! ;)And Scooby-Doo, again good to see a nice Pre-Elevator section- notice a trend here , a ghost train&A wild mouse, This must make for a great coaster.Here's a video of the new style of "Jet Ski Coaster" from Intamin, Launched using Tyres. This one is at SeaWorld Australia. Looks quite fun to be honest.

The height restrictions for The Flume have now been put in line with Dragon falls' restriction (1.3M Unaccompanied), as well as Marauders Mayhem (1.2M Unaccompanied). This is obviously Mack's decision (as mentioned before). Just time until Thorpe decide to change theirs for the Teacups and Loggers Leap now. >Source<

Rebecca Black is probably going to be one of those people who only ever makes one song, and I don't blame you for not listening to it Michaela.

New Video of Raptor , this one features someone riding the coaster, hopefully they will upload a proper POV soon! It looks so smooth, and those restraints look really secure too, almost too secure, but I'm sure they will be fine. Can't wait until we get something like this in 2012 at Thorpe!

It wouldn't surprise me if they run both this new advert & the Th13teen advert too for 2011.

Chessington released the new 'Xtra Adventures' page on their website today, it includes fastrack prices&rides. It also contains information like animal experience packages and adoption packages too.Fastrack table with new packages below below: I feel sorry for whoever has to operate truckers with fastrack I also wonder if they will still let AP holders get 20% off of the ultimate fastrack like they did last year?>>Xtra Adventures<<

The nuclear power plant is now saying that the cooling system for reactor 2 has now stopped working too, they are using sea water as an alternative to try and cool it down more to avoid another explosion after reactor 3's building had an explosion today. This is just getting worse and worse for Japan, it's very worrying about what could happen at the nuclear power station next.

Well, Storm Surge is part of the MTDP and is possibly counting as one of those rides (the area that Strom Surge is now on was indicated as a possible area for a flat). Whenever people get asked about what flat they would want at Thorpe next, quite a lot of people say a Top Spin, I know there is one just down the road, but that doesn't mean that Thorpe could not possibly install the 'suspended floorless' version, it looks quite a different ride experience to be honest, and if it was themed anything like Talocan then that would be amazing. Another Huss ride I would like to see at Thorpe (I know this has been mentioned lots before in the past) is a Jump2, yes, the ride is HUGE and some say they can look ugly, but I think the ride experience would suit Thorpe Park well even though I can't see them getting one because of the space it would take up. Can't really think of any more at the moment, but if I could pick a year I think Thorpe will install a flat may be in 2013/2014, most probably the latter.

I agree with you Ricky about the Colossus staff being extremely slow, I think they were the worst ride team I experienced all day. However, the Slammer team I think were being really quick at loading and offloading, on my ride, literally as the other guests left the ride, the air gates opened and we were bar checked and waiting for the ride to start, same for rush really. Shame Samurai didn't open, in the morning when I asked a staff member, he said it was due to open later in the day... but it didn't. Don't see why they couldn't turn on the Nemesis lights, they were in the tunnel, just not on and the steam too. But after that 'consideration' official notice on the Facebook page, let's hope they make next years AP day more exclusive.

I like the look of it so far, yes the supports look messy, but I think that Thorpe have done well with the entrance and the 'pipes' theming around the splash pool area. I will judge what I think of the ride experience after I have ridden it tomorrow (really hoping for good weather!).

This is a new addition then, unless it's an error on the website and it shouldn't be there, but I doubt that. I expect they have mounted cameras to the top of the tower, just like on Apocalypse and other drop rides. On the note of ride photo's, does anyone know if Storm Surge will have an on ride photo?EDIT: Just noticed that you can now get five photo's on a photo pass instead of four, and at the same price!