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eee

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Everything posted by eee

  1. Me and the lovely Serena love saw and have ridden many times. Sometimes it's been rough others really smooth. Clearly as the day progresses and the track moves with the temperature the ride changes. One thing we have noticed is that the front is rougher than the rear. (did that seem a little rude? lol)
  2. Yeah I've seen it like that.I don't mind the noodle place though it doesn't seem to get too mental.
  3. The only food I really enjoy at TP are the waffles and ice cream. Anything else I bring with me and leave in a locker till it's time to eat. There's enough queueing in a day at TP without queueing for food too.
  4. I never watch adverts I either channel surf or tivo stuff. starting to think I'll watch some to try and catch these.
  5. THE SWARM sounds amazing. Me and my better half (Serena) have been following the build and updates with much anticipation. We live in manchester so can't just nip to the park and we missed out on any preview days so we're doing two days at the start of the easter hols. We became thorpe converts when Saw was opened so can't wait for THE SWARM. The annual passes have been sorted and the hotel is booked. Roll on the 2nd of april!!!
  6. Well Evey,thank god I'm not alone in my views I was starting to think I was surrounded by AT employees. Yes the AP day at Thorpe was a farce, unscrupulous AP holders were equally as culpable as Merlin though; there were many making a few quid outside and no security preventing them selling their quota to a sea of morons.I have to say I think you are right about the amity theming, I'm not really overly concerned with theming I just like thrill rides but I imagine if I took the kids they would notice such things. And whilst I get your point about the volcano, AT has its theming faux pas moments...However, bang for buck thrill rides and quickest queues goes to TP. Oh and unlike being stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for Air and not knowing it has broken down at least at TP you are close enough to hear the announcements if that should happen. No doubt I'll be dragged back to AT soon by my beloved and who knows maybe it will be ok, but I won't hold my breath
  7. Well benin I'm glad you have a system for AT, as do I. I merely mentioned spinball because for the average person, as in not an AP holder like myself or you, it is the likely the first thing they see and as such after such a long wait to get in it is often the first thing they head for. I've seen it happen and I'm sure you have too. Now I can believe you have arrived at the park for 10 but unless you have a jetpack in your rucksack you didn't get to the gate much before halfpast, though as I don't know you I could give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you run like Ussain Bolt and as such I guess you could make the park gates by 10.05, but you would need a powerbar and a lucozade as you swiped your card through the gate. If, however, you don't posess the athletic speed of mr bolt you will have had to trudge through a million cars or wait in the first queue of the day for the monorail. So for the non-super hero amongst us arriving at the park for 10 means arriving at the gate for about half past. Of course I could always get ripped off a little more by merlin and pay extra to park closer but I'm too tight for that.As you say its always good to arrive for 9 or earlier, but seriously the roads leading to the park mean leaving where we are in manchester at a ridiculously early time, this hardly helps with my mood in the queues. As you say indoor eating is sparse and whilst you point out some options for this unless you want lunch at 10.30am or 3.00pm then you ain't going to get inside them. And in fairness Thorpe isn't much better for food venues inside or out. So now lets say, not being able to sprint as quickly as Ussain Bolt, I get into the park for 10.30 and the park closes at 6. For my route I want to go to 13 first and follow it up with rita, I'll queue for the best part of 2 hours to do these and at 12.30 will be disappointed and starting to get hungry. I know oblivion has a very quick throughput so decide to cheer myself up with the rush that gives me and thereby allowing myself to go to kfc or picnic on the lawns. By 1.15 I'm slightly happier and opt for the lawns and my butties. So in my non superhero world 2 or 3 rides before lunch is the usual. Now at this juncture I must point out that this is on a better day at AT. Lets assume rita was working and I didn't get stuck behind a coach or 7 on the way in and got there for 10. I could of course eat in the queue, assuming no filthy bugger is smoking all over me but I like to sit and eat, I'm old fashioned that way.I'm glad you enjoy the strolls between rides, indeed if AT restricted the number of people allowed in to the park by 50% and the resulting queues were shorter then I too might enjoy the walks however to me they are a boring and torturous part of an inevitable slow slow walk to the front of a ride that may or may not excite me. As for atmosphere, I was in Thorpe yesterday and both me and my beloved commented on the lovely atmosphere. Like a southern european holiday spot my beloved remarked. As I walked through amity I noticed how much space there was and how little jostling about there was. It is not a country park atmosphere clearly but it has a beachy fun atmosphere to it that extends far and wide. It has a kind of fun party feel to it that stays with you all day. Add to this the fact that I can get a locker in the middle of the park to leave my lunch in and that when I was done at 6 I was in my car by ten past and on the m25 by halfpast. Thorpe isn't perfect it suffer from the greed and poor management of merlin like AT and others too but for my money and time I'll take it over AT 9 times out of 10.I don't have facebook so I don't know what people say on there but I do read travel writers and look on travel critic websites like trip advisor and I assure you people are finding AT a real chore.And so I will happily meet someone who thinks I'm wrong and will follow them round- no fast passes-no special car park and no getting there before 10 I would love to be proved wrong because me and my beloved have special memories of AT and we would both like to think we can recapture some of the past fun we had there. however, right now we're both disappointed with it.
  8. Where is all this marketing? TV, radio, net? Not seen any except in the park or on here. I spend more hours than is reasonable in front of the tv and listen to the radio in the car everyday and yet haven't seen or heard any of it.
  9. Alton Towers has become nothing but a let down. We used to love it but after visiting Thorpe you have to say, yawn. Its a day of long walks, long waits and boring rides. I don't see what the attraction for families is because if you want green space and such like you don't need to spend a fortune to go to your local park.The rides are not a patch on Thorpe and no, disney doesn't have uber thrill rides but it is genuinely well themed and not just the design its the shows and parades too, all tied into well known films, where are they for my 7 yr old in Alton Towers? Even Halloween has become dull at AT. Add into the mix that unless you arrive an hour before the doors open, no easy thing considering the winding slow b-roads miles away from motorways, it will take about an hour to get into the park. At which point you could quickly stomp to sonic spinball and wait an hour for a fairly average ride. After that you will be lucky to do 3 more rides after being fleeced for food and drink. Oh and if its cold dont expect to find somewhere warm and dry to eat, however, do expect to sit outside surrounded by rubbish and have the wind cool your, already slightly iffy ,food cold.Only the very lucky or the peculiar breed of sycophantic fanboy types have anything good to say about AT recently. Just google it, trip advisor it etc It's a total let down for the majority of visitors. Me and my beloved were staunch and loyal AT fans and we only tried Thorpe because we fancied a weekend away, man what an eyeopener it was. Now we only miss air and hex and despite the uniqueness of air we both agree its hardly a scarefest. And as for hex, it's a nice sitdown and a nice warm up for our halloween vists. However, I think our halloween this year will be down at thorpe. 7 years of halloween visits, its a tradition and as sad as it is we know we will only be disappointed at AT. Recently went to BPP with the school I work at and despite my inherent dislike of blackpool I had to concede the school were right to move away from AT and take the kids to BPP, it was much better VFM and in 6 hours the kids could do pretty much everything. Take them to AT and they complain for days about only getting on 2 or 3 rides.Alton Towers needs a rethink and soon.
  10. As the theming matters very little to me I honestly don't care what they do as long as the ride remains. Even better if no more sixth form theatre studies students waste their time trying to scare me.
  11. was on stealth yesterday (24th july) no smoke. Still, the throughput was rapid and we got on twice within first 35 minutes of our visit.
  12. I can only assume you work for Alton Towers or have some special rose tinted specs for when you visit. If you are so lucky to have only have seen one hour queues at AT you should go and buy a lotto ticket cos with luck like that you will win big. 3 or 4 times a year I was dragged to AT by my better half I used to get excited but now its just tedious; I trudge through long queues for average rides. I trek miles from ride to ride and then I have to queue again, just to get the monorail to my car.
  13. There's is nothing even remotely disneyesque about Alton Towers. There is no immersion in a magical theme anywhere. The only disney comparison is the in your face cynical money making that's constantly present. But at least disney doesn't charge for fast passes.Alton Towers is so very over rated, after a visit to Thorpe last week my allegiences are well and truely being questioned. The only thing I missed about AT was Air. I didn't miss the huuuge queues, the stupid location or the hiking between rides. Nor did I miss the so called thrill rides because Saw the ride alone makes Thorpe a better option.EEE
  14. eee

    Th13teen

    Very smooth, good theming (if that floats your boat, just irritates me) and a good family coaster.Want thrills? look elsewhere. eee
  15. Talk about queue I wonder how long it will take to get out of the car park at fright nights because of the new charging making everything slower?Queues you know when they are bad when you see 99mins put on them!I have learnt at thorpe park 2 hours is not that bad anymore it would be half that time if they did not have half the guests in the park with fastrack!The queues getting out of Alton Towers because of having to pay are horrendous.eee
  16. Sat 21st Aug 2010- followed the advice I found on here about queue times and got to the park for 8 and the longest queue we had was for Colossus in which after 55 mins we were told it was closed. After that tyhe longest we waited was 45 mins for Nemesis. SHortest wait time- 5 mins after running to SAW when the park opened ;)eee
  17. There's nothing like this at Alton Towers and me and my partner found this a great place for tired feet.
  18. eee

    Colossus

    As I've said on a couple of posts this morning Me and My partner paid our first ever visit to Thorpe on Sat. I really wanted to go on Colossus. Got in a queue with a 60 minute wait time and after 55 minutes was told the ride was broken. I was slightly miffed but the fast pass was handy and we got on Stealth in 5 minutes. Anyway at about 6pm we walked towards the Saw Maze(so lame) we noticed the queue wasn't in that wooded area, despite the sign saying there was a 70 minute wait, we ran back round and through the queue area and got on in 20 mins, yay! Now I'm a big guy and it was the only ride that I found a squeeze. I managed to lock the restraint though and off we went- I loved it. Bit rough but hey I didn't care. And no its no Dragon Khan ( my personal all time fave ride) but its good.EEE
  19. First time Thorpe visit on Sat (no planes hit anything ) and got to say- Stealth- wow- puts Rita to shame. My other half still prefers Furious Baco thougheee
  20. The thing that irritated me most at Thorpe was the poor service and attitude of the food vendors. Inefficient and inept. They were so slow and disinterested.And along with Alton Towers- go disney on fast passes no more greedy, cynical money making. Go to attraction, take a ticket with a time, go back at that time...simples. EEE
  21. My partner and I finally got to ride Saw on Saturday (3 times ) and we were so impressed. Never been to Thorpe before as we're from Manchester and are Alton Towers veterans. Saw blew us away! EEE
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