Coaster

Valhalla has won best water ride in the world in the 2016 Golden Ticket Award http://www.theridedirectory.com/news/golden-ticket-awards-2016/

It's far too complicated for what it actually does IMO, it could be so much more impressive with a less complex ride system but that's just my opinion. Hope it opens for those at the event!

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I noticed today that during the first VR section there is a whole news report that plays on the TV screens inside the carriage!

In case anyone's interested, some photos and thoughts from my recent visit to Oakwood http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/11319-oakwood-wednesday-24th-august-2016/

PARK OPEN: 10am - 10pm RIDES CLOSED: Drenched, Bounce, Tink's Flying School We visited Oakwood for the After Dark event this year, which included fireworks and a colour party. Over the years I've had mixed visits at Oakwood; some are brilliant, whereas others are not-so good. The day started badly with Megafobia not opening on time, however we did manage to get a ride on Bobsleigh before the queue built up, and a few goes on Speed which was running two cars. This is an improvement on previous years, where it has only been running one despite a large queue; it ran two cars all day which was great to see! The park is much nicer kept than it has been for years, with grass cut back neatly everywhere, a really nice new queueline for Bobsleigh and various other improvements across the park. This helped to create a great atmosphere and really feels as if they care about the park. Top notch! I would like to bring up operations here, as unfortunately with the exception of Speed they were a huge letdown. Firstly, it was unfortunate that the biggest ride (Megafobia) was not ready for park opening, however it actually opened at 11:25, so nearly an hour and a half late! To add to this, it was running on a one train service all day, they don't have a second train built up in the station which for the main summer season is far from ideal. Combined with late opening this meant that a long, slow queue built up immediately after the ride opened. The situation with Megafobia's queue got a lot worse later on in the day - I'll cover this in more detail further below. Ride closing times weren't clear. I contacted the park regarding the closing times, and was told that Megafobia closed at 9pm to prepare for the fireworks, but that everything else would be open until 10pm. I was therefore not impressed when I went over to Speed at 9:15pm to find the queue closed. This is extremely poor when we were told otherwise, and there were lots of people heading towards the ride only to turn away in disgust after seeing the gate closed. In addition to this, Megafobia's queue closed ten minutes earlier than advertised at 8:50pm. It was also a shame to see two of the park's "big four" closed on such a busy day, this didn't help with queues at all and it seems to be a regular occurrence at Oakwood for more than one big ride to be down all day. This brings me to the worst thing all day. After years of visiting theme parks I've finally found it, the worst queue management I have EVER seen! By the afternoon, Megafobia had a huge Fastpass queue; it stretched down the entire exit ramp and was spilling out over the path underneath it at one point. We were in the main queue from the 60 minutes board, where earlier the queue had taken 40. 85 minutes later we got on the ride! Why? Because of a complete lack of any competence at managing Fast Pass! The park were literally sending one full train from the main queue, then a full train of Fastpass, then repeat. So the already-low throughput due to one train has now been halfed, and slowed down more seeing as Fast Pass takes longer to load than the main queue. Furthermore, on the 85 minute queue occasion, the Fast Pass train had been loaded but there were two seats left at the back, and we were queueing for the back row. Did they fill up the seats from the main queue? I'll leave you to guess that one! To add insult to injury, the park now runs the system like Speedy Pass at BPB, in that you queue for a row and then have it taken from in front of you; previously Oakwood have had barriers which are put in the way of the airgates for the next ride to avoid this situation. After standing in the 85 minute queue I made a complaint and was told that there is no limit to the amount of Fast Pass sold. This is frankly appalling, and shows a complete disregard for the customer experience. I spoke to a few members of the park's management regarding the Fast Pass issue, all of whom were very friendly and a pleasure to talk to. They were also happy to listen to suggestions and take them onboard, and when I saw them around the park later on they asked me if everything was alright. A simple thing such as communicating well with customers goes a long way, so well done to Oakwood for this! On a more positive note, the After Dark event itself was really good! New for this year was the Paint Party, an idea I was initally unsure about, but it was fantastic fun and it drew a large crowd of people joining in. Basically, there's music playing, you buy powder from shop and then throw it up in the air. I really think Oakwood are onto something with this idea, as it must be a huge money-spinner as well as extremely popular. The fireworks were also very good, the display lasted for a decent amount of time and the effect of the fireworks launching from behind Megafobia is very effective. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't visited Oakwood, here are a few ride reviews; Megafobia is a fantastic wooden roller coaster with some very intense airtime and fast turns, as well as plenty of near misses with the ride's support structure. It wasn't running at its best on the day of my visit this year, however IMO it's still without question one of the best coasters in the UK. Similarly to Megafobia, Speed is also very intense, with an outrageously good airtime hill, two inversions and a fast helix to finish. For a point of comparison, I find it much better than Saw at Thorpe. Having never done Vertigo I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The initial incline is nerve racking to say the least, it's actually quite terrifying being pulled up that high facing the ground. The initial drop was fantastic, after which it was quite fun but the fear factor wore off. Treetops is a good family coaster, it's nothing spectacular but the near misses with the trees combined with a hidden layout make for a decent coaster. Bobsleigh is great fun, it's rider interactive, unique to the UK and suits the location of Oakwood perfectly. Only downside is the throughput! Waterfall is also great, basically if you don't balance your weight perfectly then you get soaked! Spooky 3D has had some restored effects, but overall it's still in need of some urgent TLC to bring it up to an acceptable standard. RIDECOUNT: Megafobia x7 (Some of which were due to complimentary exit passes given to us after making the complaint) Speed x6 Treetops x2 Bobsleigh x1 Waterfall x1 Skull Rock x1 Snake River Falls x1 Spooky 3D x1 Pirate Ship x1 Moon Landing x1 Neverland walkthrough x1 Vertigo x1 (Upcharge) TOTAL: 24 Highlights: - Speed running two cars! - The park looks much nicer this year - Paint party was a great idea and very popular - Fireworks were good - Friendly management - Nice to see the park celebrating 20 years of Megafobia Lowlights: - Worst queue/Fast Pass management EVER on Megafobia - Too many rides closed - Unclear ride closing times - Late opening on Megafobia - Ride capacity still poor overall Megafobia; Speed; Skull Rock; Really nice new queueline for Bobsleigh; Shame to see two major rides closed; The crowd for the paint party; Thanks for reading

Two photos from today; It appears that at least the outskirts of the marquee have more permanent walls (like there was in The Curse/Seven), so hopefully there won't be any curtains this year!

Did Tidal Wave for the first time this season today, the restored effects in the queueline are great!

One thing that needs sorting is the amount of cobwebs everywhere! In some difficult to reach places it's (somewhat) excusable, but they are everywhere - on the ceilings of ride stations, scattered throughout queuelines and they may as well rename Rumba to Spider Rapids! Unless it's new budget Fright Nights theming?

Had another go on Ghost Train today, noticed the following; - Queueline soundtrack not playing - Awful batching meaning that we had to wait for a while in the corridor between the preshow and main building, and then again in the main building. The attraction itself should not be a queue! - Infection check not being used (though this is a plus IMO) - Really slow throughput. - Glitchy headsets with audio only just audible. I've ridden Ghost Train a few times now, and it has already become boring to me. Hopefully others feel different, but for me there is no rerideability factor at all, there's too much waiting around and the experience becomes too repetitive - it's like watching the same film over and over again really, except that it's attached to your face rather than on a bigger screen.

Shocking that they can get so many things wrong, do they actually care about the park? Chessington have really shown their true colours with how they handled the Bubbleworks closure IMO, the unprofessionalism is a disgrace to the park and those who worked tirelessly to make it good in the first place. It's a shame, but IMO the place is going downhill rapidly.

Thanks for the info, the first Saturday of the event is looking the most likely so hopefully it won't be too busy with it being further away from Halloween.

PARK OPEN:10am - 6pm RIDES CLOSED: Voodoo Having never visited Flamingo Land before, I was looking forward to getting to a new park and wasn't sure what to expect. We arrived at 9:30am and bought our tickets with no queueing, after which we entered the park to find that Cliffhanger was already open! On the way over we noticed that Mumbo Jumbo was also open, despite there still being 20 minutes until the opening time, so we did that followed by Cliffhanger - a very good start to the day. The park is set out fairly well with some nice theming in places, however some of it could do with some TLC, for example Kumali's entrance sign. Also there is little in the way of audio, though there is some in the ride stations etc. The staff were much better than I was expecting after hearing horror stories, they were actually very pleasant and friendly. The worst point for me about Flamingo Land was that throughputs were dreadful, I'll cover it in more detail further down but basically, two of the four "big" coasters only run one train, and the other two (which are multiple car rides) were both running three cars but only having one out on the track at a time. The park runs a fastpass system, but fortunately due to it being a quiet day it didn't have a huge impact on the main queues, though it was still frustrating at times. For the benefit of those who haven't visited Flamingo Land, I'll review a few of the rides. Velocity is the stand out coaster at the park for me, it's forceful, has a small amount of airtime and a unique seating arrangement. The launch was also more powerful than I was expecting, and as an overall coaster I rate it much higher than Rita. Kumali was also fairly good, and it runs much better than Infusion. The first drop is good however the loop that follows is forceless, as is the zero-g-roll. With that said, the other elements were good with the right amount of bumpiness to be enjoyable, but not painful, and as an overall coaster it works quite well. I wasn't sure what to expect of Mumbo Jumbo, and I wasn't a huge fan of it. The ride feels far too trimmed, with the two elements that should be the highlight (more than vertical drop and a turn banked outwards) feeling far too tame due to this. With that said it's very different, but not something I would consider "good." It was running three cars, however one was always stacked in the station and they waited for the car in front to be in the brake run before dispatching the next one which is laughable. Hero wasn't as painful as I was expecting, however it wasn't comfortable and the coaster itself provides little other than being rattled around in a cage. Like Mumbo Jumbo operations were also extremely slow on this meaning that the queue moved at a snail's pace. Lost River was, frankly, dire. The throughput is unbelievably bad, actually it's worse than that! The ride was running three boats, however each boat had two rows closed off bringing the total number of people in each down to 12 (rather than 20). The overall ride time is around 5-6 minutes, much of which is meandering around the zoo areas, and they were stacking boats in the station and only dispatching when the third one was coming down the drop at the end - we worked out that it was getting about 120pph! Onto the ride itself, the outdoor section was boring and the drop was rough and dull. Mischief Mansion was hilarious, it's an amusing dark ride with bizarre props and the cars face side-on. On the not-so-funny side, we waited 45 minutes for it as they were only running three cars, and rather than spacing them out they waited until all three were back and then send them at short intervals. We caught up with the car in front halfway round which ruined the ride somewhat. Flip Flop is a very good flat, much like Maelstrom at Drayton it has a lot of force and airtime, however the ride cycle was too long IMO. Cliffhanger offered more airtime than Ice Blast but the launch itself is weaker, so it's difficult to decide which is better. Pterodactyl was very unnerving as it was windy and the chairs were spinning around, definitely the scariest ride of the day! RIDECOUNT: Velocity x3 Kumali x2 Mumbo Jumbo x2 Hero x2 Flip Flop x1 Cliffhanger x1 Pterodactyl x1 Twistoasarus x1 Lost River Ride x1 Mischief Mansion x1 Cycle Monorail x1 Splash Battle x1 Runaway Train x1 Zoom x1 Train x1 TOTAL: 20 Highlights: - Great to be at a new park - Velocity was a solid coaster - Staff much better than expected - Rides opened much earlier than advertised - Nice theming in places Lowlights: - Very low throughputs - Rides were mostly "average" - Far too many kiddie coasters - Lacking in audio - Fastpass system in use Photos Velocity; Kumali; Mumbo Jumbo; Hero, one of the strangest coasters I've ever seen; Lost River, it looks great but delivers so little; Thanks for reading

I'm thinking of doing Tulley's this year, how does the scare factor/quality of the mazes compare to Fright Nights? Also, how easy is it to get on all 8 attractions in an evening without Fast Pass?

It's a shame when people ruin an experience for everyone else, and frankly as enthusiasts (people who are supposed to care about parks), they should know better. With that said I don't see it as a reason for stopping such events; however maybe the people who acted in that way should be banned from any such event in the future. I didn't go to the farewell event, but the park's video on Facebook was laughable.

That's not good, but as you said, Gruffalo won't improve this anymore than a refurbishment of Bubbleworks would have.

That is a huge shame. What's wrong with the infrastructure of the ride out of interest?

Bit gutted that I won't make the last day tomorrow, Bubbleworks is a ride I have always enjoyed - though sadly I never got to ride the original (otherwise I'd probably hate the current version!) Personal opinion of the ride aside, I honestly think that Chessington are making a huge mistake by removing Bubbleworks. It does need a lot of work, but with the right creativity it really could have been a 'special' ride again without changing much of the actual infrastructure. Looking at the merits, the ride has a world class soundtrack which everyone knows and loves, a good infrastructure, scenes which could, with work, look great (restoring the original colours would work wonders), and potential for a new idea for the factory theme to be added without actually having to change too much. In addition to this, the fundamental idea is timeless and something that can be enjoyed by all ages. There is also no denying that it's a popular ride; it generates 40+ minute queues on a regular basis, and the public reaction to the closure says it all. It almost feels like they wanted it to deteriorate over the last few years, for example the fountain finale which was allowed to remain in a dire condition (black walls and bad use of lighting), broken audio in places, and generally feeling worse-for-wear. This sort of thing should be picked up by the park and improved so questions have to be asked - why did they neglect it? Actually, wasn't there talk of it being refurbished to be more like the original a few years back? If so, what happened to that idea?

I haven't unfortunately, there's one on Scruffy Dog's website though http://scruffydogltd.com/theming-design/thorpe-park-fright-nights-the-big-top/

Answering my own question, I'd firstly like to see an improvement to The Big Top. I don't like the theme (IMO it's too generic), but with that said they do have potential to make it scary. They could have some scarier-looking clowns in there, remove the first crystal ball scene and give the entire maze a sense of chaos. Personally, I feel it would be much better as one big maze rather than split into three sections, and if that was the case, some of the theming previously used outside could be incorporated creatively into the interior so there are more places for actors to hide. A weakness of the big tent last year was that it was too dark to see the actors or set pieces, which may have been down to the fact that if they lit it up more, you would realise that it really was just a tent with curtains! Finally, the chainsaw finale was really poorly executed last year - you couldn't really see the actor as it was so dark, and the exit was facing away from the queue - part of the fun with Asylum was watching people run out as you queue, as this added to the atmosphere of the area and anticipation whilst queueing. Also, the quality of the interior was not up to standard last year IMO, black felt cloths hanging off temporary scaffolding really doesn't cut it for an event as established as Fright Nights; (Photo taken during the Preview event last year where we were told filming was permitted) Elsewhere, the other mazes could do with a few changes purely so that they're a bit different, for example a few new locations for actors to jump out of. I'd also like to see a real focus on making them scary, as whilst they're fun, they are (IMO) not as scary as mazes Thorpe have done in the past. Parkwide some more theming and atmosphere would be nice - the audio and roaming actors last year were spot on but there is still more that could be done; who remembers the lighting and smoke on Samurai a good few years back?

Out of interest, what improvements are people hoping to see to Fright Nights this year (both in terms of the overall event and mazes)?

Just found this article; http://www.kiphakes.com/2016/07/bubbles-burst-farewell-bubbleworks.html

PARK OPEN: 10am - 5:30pm RIDES CLOSED: Flying Cutlass Having not visited for a few years, I was eager to return to Lightwater Valley to see what had changed, and to get back on The Ultimate! The day got off to a good start with a ride on Eagles Claw before the main park opened (10:30am), then straight onto Twister to dodge the queue followed by two rides on Raptor Attack (again before the queue built up) and then we made our way to The Ultimate. The park is in a fairly good state aesthetically with grass well kept, and the countryside setting really adds to the overall feel of the park. With that said, some of the rides looked in need of some TLC, particularly Twister which would benefit from a track repaint! I was impressed with the themed audio around the park, this was an improvement on my last visit where there was (to my memory) not much audio at all. It added a good level of atmosphere to several of the attractions, for example Eagle's Claw, The Ultimate and Raptor Attack (though this did have audio before). The themed announcements were also very good. I was saddened to find that the park now does a "front of queue" fastpass system, it doesn't need it and it's just a pain. Disappointed to see that they've gone down that route. I found that there isn't quite enough to entertain thrillseekers at the moment, the removal of Whirlwind has unfortunately left a gap in the lineup in terms of thrilling rides. I was quite surprised to see Black Pearl open after the recent incident, and I have to confess I decided against going on. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't visited Lightwater Valley, I'll review a few of the rides. The Ultimate is raucous, intense, bumpy, boring (slowest lifthills ever!), and unique all in one ride. It defies logic, but that's why I rate it so highly. The second section is one of the most insane parts of any coaster, so needless to say it's the highlight for me. I was also impressed to see the ride running two trains, however there were times when empty seats were left despite a queue - and too many queue jumpers! Raptor Attack is also very enjoyable, for anyone who doesn't know, it's a roller coaster in the dark with dinosaur anamatronics as well as a very well themed queueline. Unfortunately the ride was only running two cars, and they were only putting two people in each car (they are supposed to seat four), so I'd guess that throughput was less than 100pph which really isn't ideal for the park's second-most-popular ride. With that said, it is still a brilliant dark ride/coaster. I was disappointed when I heard that Whirlwind had been removed, and unfortunately Apollo doesn't provide the same thrills. Basically, it's a chair-o-plane that takes place about 70 feet high. I enjoyed the views but other than that I didn't find it thrilling in the slightest. Eagle's Claw on the other hand is a brilliant flat ride - the ride cycle is long with several different parts, and it spins at different speeds meaning that everyone gets to face in all directions throughout the ride. I have to say it's much better than Vortex at Thorpe. Wild River Rapids is a rapids ride with two sections; it starts with a "water slide" (similar to Storm Surge at TP), and then has a more traditional rapids section. It's great fun and a soaker if you're in the wrong seat! RIDECOUNT: The Ultimate x7 Raptor Attack x3 Eagle's Claw x2 Black Widow's Web x2 Falls of Terror x2 (Bumpy slide x1, freefall slide x1) Wild River Rapids x1 Apollo x1 Twister x1 Ladybird x1 Little Dipper (Big Apple) x1 Barrel Kegs (Breakdance) x1 Trauma Tower (Mini drop tower) x1 Skate Karts x1 Eagle's Creek Farm x1 Car Ride x1 Lightwater Wheel x1 Train x1 TOTAL: 28 Highlights: - Good to get back to Lightwater after a few years! - The Ultimate and Raptor Attack are two fantastic coasters - Nice countryside setting - Great welcome from the entrance staff - Park audio was fantastic Lowlights: - Low capacity on some rides - Fastpass system in use - Some rides look like they could do with some TLC - Not really enough for thrillseekers at the moment Photos The Ultimate; Raptor Attack; Lightwater Wheel; I was very surprised to see this open; Nice countryside setting; Thanks for reading

I think it's this version, which was used for the 2015 Firework event - https://youtu.be/_Np6RDSbjiM

Thankfully not!

Bit strange that the AP day is after the first weekend, it was always a "preview" day before.