Luke_A
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Posts posted by Luke_A
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Just looking through the Other Parks & Attractions sub-forum and realised Cedar Point doesn't have a topic, surely it deserves one as America's roller coast, eh!?
Also the fact that with the news of their 2013 rollercoaster; I can imagine there will be a lot of discussion about the place over this years closed season and the coming months when we discover more about their major 2013 project.Anyway, they confirmed this news today on Twitter!
Something big is happening. Disaster Transport & Space Spiral will be dismantled this season to make space for @!!$!(*%% Stay tuned 4 more!
So that's pretty much what we knew already, should be interesting when more details are announced about that possible B&M Wing Rider!
And I wonder if that random spam of symbols will actually have any relevance to the ride or if it's just a filler to just make people think something new is on the way... Hmm. 
EDIT: The closing date for Disaster Transport has been set for July 29th.
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1. Oblivion - Pure intimidation and thrill, it does what it's intended to do so well and offers a drop like no other, much love for Oblivion.
2. Nemesis Inferno - Possibly higher up my list because I rode this before Nemesis, got hyped up that Nemesis would be better and then thought it wasn't. Inferno is brilliant in the back right seat, everything from the great first drop to the snappiness of the inversions and final helixes, a great all-round coaster with a great theme and soundtrack.
3. The Swarm - Excellently themed, the 'twistyness' of The Swarm's inversions is something I love about the ride, the way the train goes through the Zero-G is a great sensation, as is the the final inline twist over the station.
4. Nemesis - Nemesis is a good ride ok... But I just don't find it as great as I expected it to be, it's not got the things about it which I like about most rollercoasters.
5. Air - It's somewhat boring after riding it so many times (Maybe I'm being a little harsh here but it is in my opinion) and not really thrilling... Although the flying position is something cool and I look forward to trying other coasters which use that seating position.
(/ExtremelyControversialHeightsLovingLuke]
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It really was an awesome event, I'm surprised me & Peaj and lots of others too managed all 11 rides, weird to think you can do so many inversions in just 30 mins... Felt so dizzy and my ears felt like they were on fire afterwards!
Was great to meet some new people too, can't wait for more future meets and events like this! 
I didn't get any pictures as we weren't allowed to get any in the ride/maintenance areas, but I look forward to seeing the ones during the ride time. A lucky few got to do a lift walk, and walking under the last inversion was cool, gives you a real sense as to how close to the ground it actually is. Random bit of cool info I learnt on the trip when we were talking to one of the members of staff about the rides computer system and how it compares to others, The Swarm's was recently slightly reprogrammed to improve the capacity by taking less speed off of the train on the top set of of magnetic brakes so that the circuit time was less = higher capacity. Ooh, there was also a cake for Colossus' tenth birthday there, aw.
Thanks to Thorpe Park and everyone who organised the trip. (and thank you Ian for the lift back to Richmond station)
Colossus
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Luke & Liam & A Manor in Drayton!
Ok so today me & Liam visited Drayton Manor. I hadn't been to this park since I was aged 2, so it may as well have been a new park to visit for me. The park was not busy but not quiet, most rides had 10-20 minute queue's while others were 5 mins-walk on, although I expect G-Force had a horrendous wait time later in the day, I'll get onto that later...
There was no queue at all at the ticket booths, so it was a simple and hassle-free process to get entry to the park, the turnstiles seemed to be all out of use, I'm not sure if they are broken or if it's seen as more efficient to have staff stood there scanning tickets with hand held scanners or not? Bit of a weird decision in my opinion to do this.
Apocalypse.
I had heard mixed things about this Intamin drop tower, some said how it's not as good as the Fabbri alternative because the drop is less "powerful" or something along those lines, having ridden and loved Detonator and Mega Drop (now Jolly Roger at PW Hills) and only 1 other Intamin drop tower at Hayling Island, I was expecting mixed things from Apocalypse.
I went straight in for the stand-up side with floor, seeing as it was walk-on in the morning and only running 1 side of every option. The seat adjusts to your height and then you begin lifting, about 10ft up the tower the seats tilt forwards slightly, a very simple but awesome addition to the experience which makes all the difference, the speed of the lift picks up and you reach the top. The exposure is great, nothing really beats (other than floorless ;0 ) being 180 feet in the air, standing up, tilted forwards, knowing that you are going to be dropping back down to earth anytime soon. You drop, the drop is long and is just pure floaty free fall, I have to say I preferred this feeling to the forced drop of Fabbri towers. The floorless side was my favourite out of all, the feeling of exposure on this side is unbeatable. I rode Apocalypse 5 times in total today with a variation of all sides. Liam was nervous doing the sit down side at first but he loved it so much he ended up doing standing too... But didn't like that so we did sit down again...
If Slammer gets removed from Thorpe Park then Apocalypse will take it's place as my no.1 Theme Park thrill ride, it does everything perfectly and I can't wait to ride more taller Intamin drop towers in the future, currently it is at no.2 I'd say in my top theme park thrill rides list, an absolutely 100% brilliant ride.
Apocalypse - 10/10
G-Force.
G-Force was mine and Liam's first Maurer X-Car coaster, we'd heard bad things about this and I personally didn't expect much from it, so I was only left to be surprised; well I was not. It was awful.
From the outside you enter the fully hidden queue line to be greeted by a metal building filled with 2 cattle pens on the ground floor, this is followed by 4 long flights of steps and another small section of queue at the top, all of this happens whilst some early 2000's dance music plays in the building whilst the queue moves at a ridiculously slow rate due to the ride only having 1 train and therefore terrible capacity. This wasn't helped by the slow staff who weren't very quick at checking bars or letting people onto the ride, the car was sat in the station for about 30 seconds before they let us on after having a conversation between themselves. It was like a woman's weekly meeting.
You take your seat and move the lap bar across your chest, it can be quite tight and uncomfortable... The lift hill is the worst decision ever, the blood rushes to your head as you're pinned into your seat hanging from your waist, you then leave the lift and enter an airtime hill, of course none of this airtime is felt because your middle body cannot move at all due to the restraints. The inversions are slow and badly paced and nothing interesting happens during the ride. I entered the brakes feeling somewhat "What on earth just happened to me" but Liam enjoyed it a little more.
G-Force - 2/10
Shockwave.
Shockwave was the best coaster of the lot at Drayton in my opinion. The staff were efficient at loading the ride as it was only running 1 train, a much more bearable queue than G-Force, odd bits of theming inside were nice as well, as was the outside of the station which is built above the Rapids. The 'saddle' section of the seat was not even near me during my ride... Therefore it was not painful at all and the ride is actually very smooth, you would think it's a B&M if you weren't already told it's an Intamin/Giovanola hybrid. The Zero-G roll is a great element, if you imagine the way the Swarm's Zero-G twists you round, but standing up. It's a very unique and gracious element, this is what possibly made the ride for me, you don't really think of the straight sections of track which follow it. The brakes are a little sharp at the end but other than that it was a fairly good rollercoaster.
Shockwave - 5/10.
Stormforce 10.
Stormforce was great fun! The theming is very good, we said that it was the best themed ride at the park. The lighthouse in the queue is a wonderful element!
You leave the station area in your lifeboat and go into a bay where a roller-shutter comes down behind you and a sailor/RNLI person (can't remember) starts to talk to you, the boat then lifts on a tilt. We were sat in the back seats and omg! The airtime you get coming off of this first drop is incredible! It's like the wild mouse at Blackpool, you have nothing holding you in your seat so you fly right up off of your seat and then land with a bang when the boat goes into the splash down. Certainly got us by surprise!
You meander through a flume section before going up another lift and into the backwards drop. Being in the back seats this got us completely drenched, the ride ends with a drop similar to that of loggers leap, again giving a nice little pop of floaty airtime! The ride was certainly a lot of fun and as a group it would be awesome. This could well be contending with Tidal Wave as my favourite UK water ride, we loved it! Only bad thing was the ewwy yellow lake water.
Stormforce 10 - 9/10
Overall, today's trip to Drayton was good. You've just not got to expect the best of everything from the place, it's good but does lack in many areas. Although, I do think the general direction the park is going in is great with all the recent investment. Maelstrom was also a great ride, if that and Vortex were to be running the same cycles I'd say they are about the same, I rate swing rides with good airtime quite highly usually and this lived up to the expectations!
Visit Pros.
- The park is filled with really unique rides, some unique for the worse you could say. It's definitely worth a visit if you haven't been already!
- Not too busy
- All rides operating
- Pretty good weather and was good to see Liam again!
Visit Cons.
- Staff really should try a bit harder on some rides to get good throughputs, some were great whilst some not so great.
- All of the Picsolve kiosks do not accept card payments at Drayton, very annoying seeing as when we wanted to buy a photo on Apocalypse at the end of the day and had no change left with little time left to go hunting for a cashpoint, it's just little things like this which can be annoying, you'd expect better from such a major attraction.
- Rides running on 1/2 capacity, Shockwave was on 1 train, G-Force only has 1 train, Apocalypse only running 3 sides of it's tower when the sit down side had about 15/20 min queue.
- The park opening system is ridiculous, the park opens at 9:30, and rides 10:30. Meaning that everyone is queueing outside the entrances of rides waiting for them to open. The park also closed at 5, could have been better but typical UK park operating hours I suppose...
Thanks for reading! Sorry it's been pretty text heavy... I just felt I had to explain some things properly to do them justice.
- Cornflakes, Mitchada04, JackR and 5 others
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Such a peaceful, slower song from Skrillex here, it's unreleased, very much hoping that this ends up in his next album which is rumoured to be named Voltage, after one of his best received unreleased songs, Voltage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjBOnu_H0CA
Also, Madeon! He's an 18 year-old Electronic Dance Music producer, his music is so unique to your usual EDM, this Minimix he did for the Annie Mac show last week on Radio1 shows off his music skills well, so good!
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Awesome, thanks Marc!Luke, I can give you a lift back to staines if you like
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I can attend this.
Should get to Thorpe between 12-1PM if anyone wants to meet, only problem I might have is getting back to Staines station after the event, I know the 950 buses run 1 hour after park close but not sure if anyone else is planning on doing that too? Might need a lift back to Staines station if the buses aren't on and if anyone goes that way, please! Thanks to everyone who's planned this, really looking forward to going to my first "official" TPM event! -
The Weymouth Sea Life Tower is now open, it costs £8.10 per person to go up the Rotating Viewing Tower which was manufactured by Huss. The Tower stands at a height of 174ft. Merlin Annual Passes can be used for entry to the Tower at any time when Weymouth are not holding the sailing events for the 2012 Olympics.
http://www.weymouth-tower.com/explore/default.aspx
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As with the majority of the Alton Towers cuts this year, the late ride opening times have now been scrapped. Cutting things which directly effect guest experience is a risky route to go down... Let's hope the next lot of cuts (they're bound to happen following the ones which have occurred already, let's face it...) aren't noticeable to guests or as unnoticeable as possible.
Source: TowersStreetAlton Towers reverse late ride openings.
Just over a week since TowersStreet broke the news that several of Alton Towers attractions would open an hour later than the rest of the park we can reveal that the decision has been reversed.
For 5 days the following attractions did not open until 11am: Air, Th13teen, Duel, Skyride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wobble World, Battle Galleons and the Driving School.
At present the only attractions which will open at 11am are the Flume and Congo River Rapids, as has been the case for several seasons.
TowersStreet members were critical of the move which was believed to have been introduced as a cost-saving measure.
The reasons behind the reversal has not been confirmed, however it is believed to have been a strong negative reaction from the public. This is not the first time this season a controversial decision has been overturned, initially Enterprise and Submission were going to be closed for several months and the sky ride faced closure on off peak days however both of these decisions were changed late on.
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... And the point in this thing is!?
Everyone knows what "WooHoo" is in The Sims.
Gotta love Mrs. Bucket. <3
- UnderItAll and Mer
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Sandcastle Water Park in Blackpool is very good, it's all indoors and has had 2 new slides this year. It's got something for everyone, and quite a few good thrill slides too. It's very well themed as well! It's literally right opposite the Pleasure Beach, great views of PMBO and the other rides from the windows and slide towers!
Splashdown, Poole also looks like a great park at Tower Park in Poole, not been here yet but going in August. They have an indoor and outdoor section.
Never seem to find many good pics/videos of this park but this shows it pretty well below...
Splashdown, Quaywest is a fully outdoor Water Park in Torquay, right by the sea. Went here when I was about 12/13 and seem to remember most of the slides being very similar, one of them though was pretty impressive with just a straight down near vertical drop. Wouldn't really recommend this one as much tbh as they've not got many new slides.
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Double post eek but that was ages ago! ; 0 Anyway...
Apple's WWDC2012 Keynote has been taking place tonight, with Mac updates, and also the announcement of iOS6!
A new feature which will feature in iOS6 which has particularly stood out to me is an integrated App called "PassBook" This App holds tickets, passes, loyalty cards, and anything else which could possibly be coded with a barcode or similar type of computer-read code.
After thought, this could hugely benefit theme parks! Guests could potentially purchase tickets via an official app, get the barcode appear when they get in the proximity of the attraction, scan at the turnstile and off you go! Certainly an idea for the future for Theme Parks and attractions.
What a great idea of an App from Apple!
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Looks like a good ride, kinda looks like it'll end up being something in-between a Huss Millennium and KMG XLR8, video of Millennium below.
It's great to see AI attempting to create in-house rides, but it sure does take a lot longer for them to complete than if they were to have got it from a manufacturer. There must be some sort of reason as to why they decided to produce it in-house anyway (maybe cheaper?) -
Surprise surprise...
Hopefully not for weeks on end, Slammer is usually plagued with mid-season downtime year on year.SLAMMER is currently unavailable, but will be back in all it’s awesomeness soon.
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The UK has recently received a brand new Technical Park Loop Fighter, 'AtmosFear' which is owned by showman Stanley Reeves (S&D Leisure Rides) looks to be a great addition to have in the UK, and the only ride of it's type here too! The ride features all-LED lighting and brilliant artwork, video below.
In other news, the new KMG ride type, 'Sicko' (pictured below) has been reported by KMG to have made it's first successful test runs in their factory! I can imagine this is going to be a very intense, unique and extreme ride, looking forward to seeing more of this.
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Sounds unusual for it to be stuck for the whole ride... I've ridden a fair few of these things now and have realised that if you ride as a single rider the car will not usually release until the Speed of the arm picks up. The gondola's get held in the loading position with some sort of clamping disc brake, it could just be the case that this didn't release properly, or as Pluk said there could be a problem with the bearing. And I'm guessing it was the Booster in the video below?
Which is one of the older models currently in the UK so the creaking may just be a sign of age, I know Wilson's "Storm" Speed can have a bit of a rattle and creak to it sometimes when pulling higher G's flying through the platform, which is also one of the older models (they don't have the LED arrows stretching down the arms) Fair rides get checked yearly majorly for ADIPS and Non-Destructive tests, and then should also be checked daily by showmen too. The Speed is a brilliant ride anyway! -
Lex Luthor's restraints are installed at SFMM and look like they're just lap bars with something more reassuring to hold onto...
Intamin really have had a massive variation in their ride hardware designs lately, I can imagine this ride is going to leave you feeling very exposed at 415ft up!
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A new Wallace & Gromit ride will indeed replace/retheme the Gold Mine in 2013!
Image credit to Pleasure Beach Experience.
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Lol
Parks, Rides And Coaster News
in General Discussion
Posted
You may remember when I posted about the new Mondial ride idea for 2012, the 'Turbine.'
The first Mondial Turbine makes it's debut at Tilburg on the 20th July. The ride stands at approximately 215ft tall (absolutely huge for a ride of this type) and looks really quite spectacular... It's pretty much the Mondial take on a Booster, some say that Boosters can be repetitive, but the Turbine has cars identical to the Mondial 'Capriolo 10' which can be manually braked and also rotate 360º on two axis, which creates an incredibly intense ride experience, I'm sure this ride will be a big hit for the company and is only the beginning of this trend of 200ft+ booster type rides, with KMG set to debut a 230ft 'Speed' and 'Inversion' over the next few years. The Turbine takes 20 riders at a time, some pictures below...
The fan on the Capriolo's make an awesome roaring sound (all for effect), glad to see they've carried that over to this ride type too.
Looks awesome towering over the Fabbri ride behind it in the distance... Can't wait to see some videos of this brilliant looking ride!
Photo's credit to Robert Buisman and Jurjen Haagsma.