Coaster

Yeah, the only thing I could pick about the effects is a maintenance light left on in the indoor section of the ride and the strobe on the spikes, but apart from that it was pretty good.It was also running really well today, I don't usually rate it but it was smooth(ish) and really forceful today.

Park audio was really good today, especially Saw which has had its queue audio fixed, audio in the station turned up (Jigsaw talking etc.) and the offload announcement is back! It is clear that a lot of time has gone into getting it right across the whole park, really impressed with this.

Chavs in queues! Urgh! Today in the queue for Saw, me and my friend were walking through the first section of the queue (just past the entrance sign), there was no need to walk particularly fast as we are going to get to the end of the queue and have to wait anyway, and these two obnoxious girls shouted at us "do you want to walk any slower?" Then I replied with "okay then, we are going to get to the end of the queue anyway so there's no hurry" and then they started calling me all sorts of insults such as "fat, ugly" etc - I wont post the rest on here but some were really quite nasty, and this went on for the entire duration of the queue. Then they were trying to get in my bag, fiddling with the zip etc so asked them to stop, 2 minutes later one of them starts kicking me! I must give credit to Thorpe for their handling of this, I reported it at the baggage hold (and by now they had also managed to push in front of us) and they were swiftly removed from the airgates and marched off the ride by security, if I could remember the name of the ride op I spoke to then I'd give him some credit, as lots of staff wouldn't do anything. The question is, why do people feel the need to be rude just for the sake of it? The first comment they made was very rude, but insulting someone over and over again for half an hour is just ridiculous, do they not have any respect? And are they so obnoxious that they really cant see the queue ahead of them? Its lucky I let insults and mean remarks go over my head, some people would have been really upset by some of the things they were saying. Some people really are horrible and a disgrace to everyone else just trying to enjoy their day! Theme parks are supposed to be a break from stress and having to put up with horrible people, but this isn't the first time I've had a bad experience at Thorpe (or seen other people suffering). Rant over.

I got a go on it, the pods were flipping really well but it's still run on a very tame setting so not great.

Why's Detonator shut now? Good that Samurai will be open though!

Yeah, just a shame that it doesn't have enough rides that appeal to me, but I will visit next year as it was my childhood park and two new coasters! There's only really one major UK park that I rate, aside from that I enjoy days out at smaller parks more than Merlin ones these days, purely because they aren't so dire with operations and know how to open rides! I've had a glance over at the queue times page and they aren't listed as that horrendous (aside from Thirteen being closed), are they longer than stated?

Great, so all three Merlin parks seem to be going rapidly down the pan. There won't be any good parks left in the UK soon!

From my experiences it only slowed down dispatches when staff weren't on the ball, when they were working efficiently it was fine.

Only?

The Nemesis SRQ has been removed. I won't be visiting nearly as much this year, as re-riding Nemesis was one of my main reasons for going (as it's one of two coasters at Towers that I actually rate highly). Very poor decision, if I see empty seats going out I won't be impressed!

What a joke! This means that they are now the worst park in the UK for staggered openings, with 15 rides opening late. One of the worst decisions I've ever seen from Towers here, and that's saying something!

Is that actually happening? I hope not!

Doesn't look as good as Critter Creek... It does look good though, and a small coaster was needed since Beastie left.

Sad times Wish I'd had just one go on it now!

It looks good IMO, although being very picky I think it would look better if it was all the same colour. No, seriously it's fine, probably one of the best done signs at Thorpe.

I'm not saying that I do know what they plan, I'm just suggesting that better planning is needed. Anyone can see that something has gone wrong, you don't have to know anything about theme parks or how they work internally to see this - unless you are suggesting that they planned all these closures? If they were supposed to open with a limited line-up then they would have advertised it as such if they have got any decency about them, therefore there is clear evidence that they didn't intend to have all these rides closed. Whilst it could be down to unforseen issues, they have had these rides for long enough now to know, mostly, any issues that may occur (not saying completely, but they must have some idea), and again there's no getting away from the fact that having such a high level of rides closed is unacceptable. Also, please find where I have said that I know everything about how they plan etc, I merely suggested that it could be a planning issue and I'm guessing at any other reasons it could be, perhaps if the parks actually told the GP what the problem was then I wouldn't need to.

The sacking comment was tounge in cheek, but the point is that something has gone wrong here, something which could have been avoided with better planning. I'm not saying that it's completely unavoidable, but with better planning/an ample team (or whatever has gone wrong), we could be looking at two or three rides closed across the two parks rather than at least ten collectively (on opening days).

I visited Chessington last year, that's when my opinions are based on. As for Forbidden Kingdom, have you seen the state of Tomb Blaster? (Both the ride and it's exterior).

It was intended as a joke, but I consider the following areas as looking tired and in need of TLC: Forbidden Kingdom, Mystic East, Land of the Dragons, parts of Transylvania and Pirate's Cove.

It's better than themes at Chessington now: 1/ Derelict theme park 2/ Market Square

On this occasion only, I can see the reason behind the fee, because if they are only selling 400 tickets then they will want to make sure that everyone turns up!

They've had all winter to do the maintenance on their rides, they clearly haven't got a big enough maintenance team, or have left the work too late! Even if there are unforeseen issues, they should have planned to allow for flexibility, as having this number of rides closed on opening day is not acceptable. As for suggesting that they haven't opened yet, it's nearly the end of March, they've had more than enough time to do the work needed, other parks (with less financial backing I may add!) have managed it with rides that require much more maintenance work. I'm not sure where things have gone wrong, it could be poor planning, not enough closed season workers or other issues, but someone needs a good sacking! I challenge anyone to defend Merlin or Chessington on this one (I'm not sure whether this is down to the park, Merlin or both), it's a complete farce.

The 2015 advert has been put online, which features I'm a Celebrity footage as well as being voiced over by Ant and Dec. https://youtu.be/TOMjMdhryfI

Now that's how you theme an area!

Yet another example of introducing something good and then letting it deteriorate over time. Hopefully they will at least be creative and introduce dummies made to look like people with gas masks on and strobes that flash infrequently (therefore tricking people into thinking that they are real people), but they probably won't even do that.