Coaster

Let's have one built in the UK ASAP!

I've just seen that Alton Towers is only open until 5pm on May half term. That is absolutely pathetic, bear in mind that it's probably going to be packed that is the typical "we've got your money now deal with it" attitude. I was thinking of going but probably won't bother now, it's not worth the effort for that amount of ride time.

It's not completely down to Merlin, but at the end of the day it's them who give the budgets for maintenence staff etc, and Thorpe are clearly struggling at the moment so I would have thought that more money would be allocated (if that's how it works, this is just guesswork). Furthermore, if I owned the park then I would want to know why there were so many rides closed as well as a high level of downtime, and would strive to get them open as quickly as possible. Without inside knowledge of the park it's impossible to know whether anything could be done, or if they are awaiting parts etc but to the public it just looks like the rides have been left without the park or company caring. I won't even begin to work out what the underlying problem with Thorpe's maintenence is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was down to not having enough money, which ultimately comes down to Merlin.

My guess is that they've been allowed to install the new ride, but part of the agreement was to not advertise it because of the traffic issue? Either way, good move from Legoland to install a slightly more thrilling ride.

Well folks, it's testing! (Link to Club PBE Facebook page where the testing video is: https://www.facebook.com/PBExperience?fref=nf )

Not true, I think it's a great concept and really clever how you've managed to get details of the queue times at so many parks.

I really do hope the train makes a return, it does look bad just left sat there rotting and with the new family approach it should be open!

Believe me, BPB has had a lot of negativity from me recently, have a look at the negatives on my most recent TR if you want evidence, I'm not happy with that park at all at the moment. Anyway, what on earth does Blackpool Pleasure Beach's monorail have to do with Chessington? That's a stupid comparison, it's just like me saying (boom at least BPB haven't rethemed Valhalla to Imperial Leather), pointless and not relevant to the discussion about Chessington. You seem to think I am of the opinion that Pleasure Beach can do no wrong, you couldn't be further from the truth if that is the case! Also, just to add, Thorpe have done exactly the same thing with their train yet BPB still operates theirs. More to the point, it's not a case of "hating" on a park, I don't automatically hate Chessington or Thorpe, I actually think that they are quite good parks, but they have a lot of issues which really shouldn't be there. But there's got to be a reason why it happens in Chessington and Thorpe but not Alton Towers (as often), or some European parks. This level of ride reliability is past defending now, two months into a season there should not still be significant downtime (this is more Thorpe than Chessington to be honest though). Yes these things do happen on occasion but it's become a regular occurrence at these two parks in particular, getting to the end of April with three rides closed by default is laughable.

Yes there is a reason these are called fansites, which is that the people on them are supposed to care about the park - if I wasn't a fan of theme parks then I wouldn't give two hoots whether they were being run well, in good condition, opening their rides and any other issues, being a fan is all about picking out the pros and cons of the park in question and I don't see the point in not posting anything negative when there clearly are issues which should, in many cases be resolved. If this is seen as a positive point then that speaks volumes about the state of the park. Without being rude, I am not going to give them credit for opening a ride three weeks (or however long it was) later than they should have done. However, if it does return to three trains then I will be very pleasantly surprised and they will be credited! Again, this is basic expectation. Having a ride open should not be seen as a positive or something to be praised, it's what should be expected of any park. That's good, but again I don't see why I should credit a park for not removing any of their rides, it's not something you praise in most cases. A post of "Chessington are doing well at the moment, they haven't removed any rides!" just sounds silly.

Agreed, they do need to look at dispatch times, hopefully with the pressure of there being three trains they will just get used to working faster, as there's no point in going to three trains if it doesn't increase throughput. As for batching yourself, that works but only if the flow of people into the station is managed - I remember queueing once for two hours in the station because there was no batcher and it was absolute chaos. *Disclaimer - The above post contains a small amount of negative content, if this distresses you in any way please avoid reading it.

If I was being genuinely serious I wouldn't have used a laughing face now would I. As for being negative, there isn't much positive to talk about regarding Thorpe and Chessington at the moment, and there's no point saying "shut up and put up with it", if the park took that attitude then they would be seen as having awful customer service!

I'm not sure how credible it is but Ride Rater seem to be confident that it is returning to three train operation: http://riderater.co.uk/in-brief/

Oh come on, surely you must have realised that was a joke? Of course it's an issue and it's much better than closing it, I actually do respect them for keeping it open but I was just trying to be humorous, surely the ( ) face gave that away?

Only Chessington could come up with that one!

Hmm, it doesn't exactly scream "historic castle" but I guess they know what they are doing.

No that's not what I meant, I meant that it would be possible to revert back to Professor Burp, the examples were just to show that it is possible to completely change a dark ride.

I hope not, I would much rather see an all round good coaster rather than another one that relies on gimmicks. However, this isn't to say that a RMC wouldn't be good, I haven't ever been on one but they don't appeal to me as much as traditional wooden coasters.

Oh right, in that case it looks quite possible. Really hope they finally get a wooden coaster!

It's coming up with the "this page cannot be found" link, is this the same for anyone else? EDIT: Found the link, it's exciting but I'm not going to get excited yet, wasn't it them who tried to tell us that The Smiler would have a washing machine element if I remember rightly?

The park was probably just quieter, unless they were actually running coasters on two!

That's not true, no matter what state the ride is in, they could still gut all of the ride theming and start again. For example, look at what BPB did with the old Goldmine ride - unless you have seen it with the lights on you wouldn't know that it used to be Goldmine themed, it's been completely redesigned but still has the same layout and overall building infrastructure. EDIT: Actually, the same applies with Terror Tomb and Fifth Dimension if that's a more relevant example.

I quite like the fact that it's interactive, as letting the ride control it is something unique and different from most other rides (unless you go to Oakwood - Bobsleigh is fantastic and every park should have one!). As for ride experience, it depends on how much you want to flip, you can change direction and the ride is moving as well, but I can't judge the ride experience until I've ridden it, this is just an educated guess.

That's the main issue I have with the new London Dungeons, the ceilings are all the same height and are clearly visible, whereas in the old one each scene had a different height ceiling depending on where you were supposed to be. The low ceilings are also an issue in the Blackpool Tower dungeons, but not quite as much because they use lighting to hide it slightly better. For a themed experience, low unthemed ceilings are not good enough, it should be 360 degree theming.

Fantastic investment. I've never been to Europa so can't comment but from what I have seen it looks like a fun concept.

I did, but not as often as I do now and I think I was lucky most of the time apart from Saw's opening weekend (which had all coasters down at one point if I remember correctly!)I'm sure that running one train on quiet days is a way to artificially inflate queue times to sell Fastrack, and to save on maintenence costs etc. It's not on and they don't have any reason to do this, they make millions already!