Coaster

Yeah it is a bit strange, this has to be the most delayed UK theme park project surely? It seems like it has been forgotten about to be honest. I'm going to the park next weekend so will report on any changes to the area. Hope operations are better than last year!

Well I did go in the end, by the time I got there it was on two trains with a 60 minute queue which went down significantly whilst I was there, not sure how many trains it was on in the morning though. RNR was just as silly as last time, the only place you could get your phone scanned was in the dome however there was nobody in there when we went past. It was also a case of reserve and queue, however thankfully we didn't wait over 20 minutes (actually queueing), but I thought the concept was supposed to be reserve and walk straight on? Also on Nemesis Inferno a reserve and ride man went into the ride area where the batcher for the queueline had to tell him that he wasn't allowed there, so they clearly haven't been trained very well!

Was going to go to Thorpe this afternoon... Colossus on a 100 minute queue - don't think I'll bother!

Agreed, Paultons seems to have made a lot of good decisions in recent years, and two new coasters in one year is amazing! However, I don't think that Edge is classed as a coaster, it's a flat ride I think (but someone correct me if I'm wrong).

I still think don't think that this coaster looks outstanding. Sure, the theming is top notch but the actual ride looks far too short and I can't imagine it being any better than The Swarm in terms of coaster quality to be honest. That probably sums up my opinion of dive coasters in general rather than this particular ride though.

I never claimed to be an engineer, but it's just the latest in a long line of effects to be broken. Chessington have had this effect for years, and I recall hearing somewhere that they have it serviced every closed season to keep it in working order. If it was a one-off then that would be different, but let's face it, effect maintenance isn't exactly Chessington's (or actually Merlin parks in general) strong point.

A simple fountain arch should not be rocket science to keep running, especially when it's probably the only effect Bubbleworks has.

Did anyone go on the original Voodoo Mansion? (Now Spooky 3D). There doesn't seem to be anything online of the original ride, so I'm just wondering how different it was from the current form of the ride, and whether it was better/worse?

What a load of rubbish! Do these newspaper companies know nothing about theme parks?

It's probably to do with throughput allocations of the main queue. That's one of my main issues with RNR to be honest, it makes the standby queue worse still.

The thing is, I wouldn't class it as a success because it worked on a quiet day. If they can get it to work successfully on a peak day then I may have more support for the system, but at the moment whenever they trial it on a busy day it just results in chaos.

That's great news if true! We could have a brand new looking Colossus come 2016!

Unlikely, but not impossible. They need to be equipped for even the rarest of conditions and I am surprised that there wasn't a platform in place considering that it has stalled there more than once.

It is a horrible thought to think that she went on the ride for fun and suffered a life changing injury. I can't understand why The Smiler didn't have an evacuation platform on that section of track. It's prone to stalling, and it should have had a platform with a staircase to the ground so that people can be evacuated off it quickly (much like the PMBO has on the dips). Now that I've had time to think about it, it's shocking that there wasn't.

And then once you get to the RNR entrance, you queue for an hour even though you reserved a timeslot to go straight on. Well, that's what happened at Fright Nights anyway!

I wouldn't be surprised to see The Dragon only running two trains at the moment, and X has only been running two all season for some strange reason.

The fire effects seem to be very on-off this year, not sure if they're cutting costs. Glad to hear everything else was working though.

Most of Thorpe's flats are a disappointment these days sadly, Rush could be a great ride but is run on a dire cycle, as is Samurai - one ride on Whirlwind at Lightwater Valley makes it look like a kid's ride! I do enjoy Slammer (my second favourite flat ride) when it's open, and Detonator is okay for what it is I guess.

Did you go on Valhalla? If so, how was it running? Sorry to hear you got spited by PMBO, darn wind!

If nothing else, the fact that two trains are damaged and are being taken off site makes this unlikely.I also seriously doubt it would re-open so soon after such a serious incident.

I really, really hope this is true.

The only thing I can think of is maybe the ride is having problems and the pods all need to have five people in?

Great move from Thorpe here! Let's get Stealth's one back!

This article is a complete p*** take, completely unrelated and unacceptable. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/thirty-accidents-alton-towers-three-9397443 It's almost as if these people have a vendetta against Alton Towers.

Yeah, was just taking the mickey out of the strange marketing for the ride. In fact I'm glad they have kept inversions off it, a wooden coaster as a wooden coaster should be!