Coaster

Sounds great.
I want to go back to Paultons, it was my childhood park and the one that started my obsession me enjoying rides.
A shame that it's quite expensive otherwise I would go back - I think I will one day though.
Used to love the Cobra!

Detonator and depth charge. However, the op on vortex said that quantum was open yesterday aswell and there is a posibility rush may open up on some days too is just luck really on what you get open!

Well, Benin, It's been a trait for coasters fans for YEARS to compare park's reliability, to which nobody particularly cared. For instance, when Thorpe had diabolical reliability everyone jumped on the bandwagon, suddenly Alton have terrible reliability and people (you) are defending it with your life.
Isn't it humorous your complaining about people comparing parks/rides, and yet yourself, in your post, compared rides in another park(s) to other parks by pointing out their reliability is worse than that of Alton's/other parks.

It's a shame that they can't adopt the system that was adopted on the first Summer Nights - just leave the bags in the station (as there weren't enough staff to open the baggage hold!). No fuss whatsoever and it was easy to deal with. I appreciate that would add to congestion between offload and onload, and it's not as practical as it is with the likes of Colossus and Inferno, but I almost feel anything would be better than the current system..

^ I agree with your comments about the baggage hold - it does need looking at.

Normal, sadly. There was a new queue board system installed this year and I've never seen it work properly, I don't know why they find this so hard but they don't seem to be able to get it right, leading to accusations of exaggerated queue times to boost fastrack sales. Unusual to find a queue board showing a time shorter than it really is, normally the other way round only unless the ride breaks down.
They need a turnstyle in and turnstyle out to wirk out the queue time ala Disney. Simple!

Peter Capaldi is a great actor but even he can't save bad writing.

Oakwood is a park that I really enjoy, but always feel frustrated at in some way or another.
This year it had much improved operations and staff wise, but some of the same problems were still there (although this didn't ruin our enjoyment too much).
Megafobia was running brilliantly this year, and due to their After Dark event we got some rides on it in the dark! It was running well all day, but in the dark with rain at the end of the day (it runs faster at the end of the day) it was flying round the track!
The staff running Megafobia were brilliant. It was only running one train, but dispatch times were very fast and the staff were really friendly, talking through the PA on every dispatch and arrival into the station, even interacting with the guests at times through it.
Re-rides were had by all as the park emptied before 10pm but it impressed me that they kept all the rides open until 10pm (unlike last year!)

Speed is a great ride, but it really frustrates me operation wise! It was running one car for the whole of Wednesday and most of Tuesday, which is ridiculous for an 8 people per car ride. This causes for very slow moving queues on this ride which really shouldn't be there.
What annoyed me even more was that on the Tuesday, at about 4pm (park close 6pm this day) they put the second car on, when there wasn't demand for it! This proves that Speed is capable of running two trains, but they just do it when they feel like it! (I miss the days of 3 car service )
Hydro (I refuse to call it 'Drenched') was as brilliant as ever, operations are still poor but it has it's reasons.
Still one of the most forceful drops on any ride I have been on!
I wasn't very impressed with their new area Neverland. Skull rock, the 'themed' log flume was basically a trip through a warehouse with no attempt to hide the fact that you were in a warehouse whatsoever. It was also not actually that enjoyable and is over very quickly.
I didn't ride anything else in the area so can't comment on it.
Oakwood has a lot of hidden gems and unique attractions, the Bobsleigh being one of them. It is great fun, as are the others.
I didn't ride Waterfall this year, it is an absolutely ridiculous contraption and I would have almost certainly fallen in!
Overall I really enjoyed my visits to Oakwood, but operations could still be improved.
I can't remember the ridecount, but we had a lot of rides on Megafobia!
I hope that everyone going on the trip has a great time

Admit it - we've all done it at least once..

Dr Who needs to be more like this...
​DO NOT PLAY THIS IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SWEARING!!!!!

We are talking about Merlin you know!

Just like most effects at Thorpe then.

Maybe head for Zufari first?
It doesn't always open on time, but if it doesn't then there is Tomb Blaster near it that you can go to.
Don't head for Hocus Pocus Hall first - even on busy days this rarely ever gets a big queue (apart from during their halloween event in October) so do that once the park has got busier.
On an different note, I have just seen this:
http://www.chessington.com/plan-your-trip/pop-badges.aspx?mb=1
A bit odd, but fair enough.

I don't really understand why they restrict the capsule in the first place. Surely you buy the thing with the idea that anywhere that does a machine should serve you the drink. We got refused at The Smiler for example, in a two hour queue in the boiling sun. Just seems like a very odd policy to sell you the thing but only let certain places refill it.

Last Saturday three of the refill stations either were closed or had faulty machines. I had to have stern words at Guest Services about this as the places which were open had 25 min queues and one member of staff and the places which refuse to serve you drinks had 2-3 staff doing not a lot.
Plenty of hot frustrated customers melting in a 30C heat. The girl on one of the refill stations who was on her own with a queue a mile long and a faulty refill machine looked like she was going to burst out in tears as people were waiting ages to be told there was no drinks! Also Thorpe were selling plenty of day capsules but not having the infrastructure to support it.
This policy is ridiculous. I made a point when I went to the Towers on Sunday/Monday to go to all the places which were not standard refill stations to get my drinks refills.
Fish and Chips in FV Bar at the bottom of towers street Hot dog stands etc Nobody questioned it, they took the capsule and filled it up no questions asked "Are you having a good day" normal kiosk conversation...
The only thing Towers let people down with was that all the slush stations were closed

It's good THORPE are listening to the feedback they are getting! And this will be a fun event for sure! But the normal operational hours should be extended to 10pm during peak periods in summer and fright nights for people to get the most out of their money.

Yeah I love Drenched, I have been on it in the pouring torential rain, that was an experience and half lol.

Thanks for the tips. Was busy and hot but not horrendously so, and managed to get on all the coasters which is what we were aiming for.
Got to the gates just after 10 although I think the park had opened a bit earlier as quite a lot of people were already in the park.
Went straight to Swarm as anticipated it would be busy most of the day. Went in forwards queue, advertised at 40 minutes but took about an hour because they put the 2nd train on halfway through queueing (not sure why they didn't have it on before though). Backwards queue looked a bit of a mess though, they were only getting sent to one side of the train and the left side kept on sending empty backwards seats around. Anyway, enjoyed the ride. Smooth and reasonably thrilling. Some of the misses were quite good like the bottom corner of the billboard.
Did Flying Fish for giggles. Man got kicked off the train for not wearing a shirt lol.
Next went to Inferno. Queue was a bit of a drag because we ended up held in the cattlepens before the icecream shop and everyone was buying icecream and they were waiting ages between sending batches up the stairs. Ride was ok, although definitely prefer the original. Layout just seemed a bit unimaginative for the height it has.
Then went to Stealth because queue was short-ish. Really enjoyed this, definitely felt faster than RITA although expected the drop to be a bit scarier but wasn't too bad. On the other hand, it was over in about 15 seconds...
On to rapids, though they were a bit meh.
Got to Saw because the queue was advertised as only 20 minutes. However it was much longer than this and dragged because they only let so many people in at once. Did seem to give the impression that the theming hasn't been looked after so much. My impression of the ride was a bit mixed. On one hand I think it was probably the most intense and thrilling ride at the park. On the other, it was ridiculously rough. There was a massive jolt at the bottom of the drop and then I whacked my head probably 3 more times even though I was trying to hold it still. I don't normally complain about roughness - I would be one of the first to defend the old Corkscrew at AT about roughness - but Saw was just insanely rough. I don't think I could have ridden it more than once even if it was a walk on.
Queued a bit for Colossus. Again, holding the queue before the fast track merge made it seem longer than it was. Was expecting this to be rough but it was nothing compared to Saw. Actually really enjoyed it, the pacing was good and didn't realise that the heartlines actually go downhill which was quite a weird sensation.
Finally went on X because it was a walk-on. Very 80s, not quite sure what it was meant to be but ok...
After this we gave up and went home but was a fun day
Plus points:
-Was busy but not insanely busy
-Got on all the coasters
-Didn't get sunburnt
Negative points:
-Queueline batching/fastrack merging made some queues a bit frustrating
-Saw gave me a sore neck
-I know this is Britain but queues could do with more shade

I agree with your point, it's stupid.
I still walk round the shop anyways.
It's also very, very tacky.

Fastrack is horrendous, but you can't really blame the guests for it.
(Stating that the guests are "too lazy to queue" etc).
The park advertise it wrongly, it sounds like something that not many people would buy to be honest.
But picture this, you've never been to towers before and you turn up to find the park packed, you probably won't be back there for a really long time! What are you going to do? Buy fastrack.
Towers are the ones to blame. They oversell it on rides with awful throughputs anyway (less than or only just 1000pph on a brand new ride is awful!) and guests using it probably don't even realise that they are stuffing up the main queue.
In an ideal world fastrack would cease to exist, however I think that as Towers/Merlin would never do this (due to greed for money mostly) they should price them highly and sell little.
It is absolutely not fair that the queues get stuffed up, but it really isn't the fault of the guests!
(Not from personal experience, I refuse to buy fastrack).

The parks would be so much nice with no fasttrack, or at least get a fasttrack system that gives you a specific time and not one where it lets every body crowd in at once!

The company that built a low capacity roller coaster, then ensured they got fastrack onto it as quick as possible, compounding the problem of having a late opening roller coaster, increased demand in the park and then sending Fastrack sellers into other rides queue-lines to fleece its guests that don't pay for fastrack of any chance of a decent ride count.
I don't put anything past them.

Of course they won't. What do you take their marketing for, truthful?
Bear in mind they said
"Picture this…the gates close for the day, but we’re not done yet! If THORPE PARK reopened exclusively for late night summer riding on our top six coasters for a strictly limited number of guests at a bargain price…would you come?"
£16 AP and £18/£20 for anyone else is hardly "a bargain price!"

Sorry I totally forgot about this and only remembered when cleaning up my iTunes today.
Wasn't sure whether you had liked the actual area theme or the Laser Raiders queue so I've uploaded both and enabled download.
You're welcome 1
You're welcome 2
Credit to Kabir for the recording (even though it was 3 years ago you can have the credit ) and I don't recall where I got the Laser Raiders sample from...