pluk

You need to get your priorities sorted. (says me who doesn't make it half the time!)

+1's : I'm going to guess this tour will over subscribed (as it's awesome and all) so not everyone who wants to will be able to attend. Bearing that in mind I would think +1's in general will not be possible for the tour itself, but +1's will always be very welcome to join the group for the day outside of the tour. It's Peaj's call, not mine, but this would seem fair so that active members and meet regulars get the benefits rather than those who are not actually part of the forums.

I have no idea how busy it gets in the run up to Christmas, I'd have thought that early in December would be fairly quite but really don't know. If you can go, do it. As long as you don't expect it to be the same scale (or quality in many areas) as Florida you shouldn't be too disappointed, and there are some real gems there too that for me were actually better than their USA equivalent. As for planning I'd make sure you look at all the options of days and hotel as you get some real anomalies and bargains sometimes, with on site multi day stays being actually cheaper than single day and 'lesser' of site accommodation. It's weird.The dining options are really worth considering too. My little trip report contains a few of the things I thought which you might find helpful, use their own detailed schedule and maintenance closure list to plan which park you hit when to do everything you want, and whatever you do plan at least one viewing of Dreams into your stay. It'd be criminal to miss it.

A bit more on the man, who I have to admit I'd never heard of. Had clearly done a lot for the industry and the area, we still need people like him taking risks and developing sites to try and bring some strong independent parks.

I know it won't happen but I'm looking forward to them seeing sense with their opening hours and extending them by at least an hour. Then I'll go again for the first time in about 6 years, which would be nice. If they did give me a reason to go I'd mostly be looking forward to the general atmosphere and beauty of the place late at night.

With the original, heavier trains the ride did flow a lot lot better. The weight of them meant the swinging was higher and followed a wider arc, the track was really cleverly designed so the turns flowed into one another naturally and the straight bits weren't taken flatly as they are now. The lightweight Vekoma trains don't carry the lateral momentum out of the turns and just sort of flop to the middle awaiting the next manoeuvre. That is not how it was designed at all.

Really pleased to notice yesterday that my passport ran out last month and I'm on holiday next week. What a moron. Trip to London Monday for the 1 day service it is then, and £128 out of my pocket for the trouble. Grrr.

Merlin getting one of their occasional beatings on watchdog at the mo. Basically, people getting reduced adult tickets for concessions are then getting charged more for their child tickets, the highest being the child of a disabled guest. What a wonderful system that is! Report ends with a sort of apology and 'we'll change it' from Merlin.

Surely there is a point where metal fatigue becomes a problem though? Sturdy but flexible has got to be better than out ant out wobbly, hasn't it? In terms of life of the ride and track repair requirements that is, I'm not suggesting it is in any way unsafe.

Aaannnddd, back to page one we go.... May as well just lock this topic and let people read it in an infinite circle...

And then make the Disney comparison. Its not a race to the bottom etc etc etc

There has also been a release from the 'authorities' stating it was a mechanical failure ( I'm on my phone at the mo so can't link). So I don't think it's that clear cut. If it operates in the same way as other top scans the ride will not start with restraints up, and they are locked by an operator at the end of the row behind the riders so from their point of view it might seem like they were not checked after something like this has happened. Also, the restraints operate in rows, surely all 5 restraints or none would be locked, not 3 out of 5? Difficult one, and from previous incidents from that part of the world I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

Thanks for the excellent detailed reply. This seems like a great idea, glad you are taking it seriously as no matter how innocently the over stated queue times errors occur they will always look suspicious coupled with some of the more aggressive sales techniques. Good work!

I'd like 151. I'd be satisfied then.

I might be! Where are you? I'm South Woodham.

http://english.cri.cn/11354/2013/09/16/2982s787803.htm A Chinese Samurai-a-like flings three people from itself mid cycle causing critical injuries. A bit concerning, that. Is this a Mondial like ours? I don't know if other manufacturers make them.

I fear you may have confirmed my concern. You've travelled more than me, but surely you haven't found it to this extreme elsewhere? I know I haven't and I've been about a bit. 10 mins or so on hour queues is expected and, as Marc said, sensible to cover of any little glitches. But having it more than double the real time? The only place I can think of with anything similar was Astrix, and they under rather than over estimated and mostly gave no queue times at all. I'm not sure what's worse, no info or wrong info.

Even if they don't the whole problem as described still stands. Whatever the reason or cause of them, are you saying that the exaggerated queue times do not directly lead to fastrack sales? Can't you see that that causes a serious problem of honesty and fairness? What a convenient problem not to fix that would be. Crazy theory indeed.

I don't think it matters how shiny and new the actual system is, if the data put into it is wrong the info to the guest will be too. It may be able to keep guests update of a time, but it is not anything like the queue time, so what's the point?! A chalk board that is close to correct is surely an improvement over an ap that isn't? Reserve and ride could be good if it is used sensibly. This whole 'queue-less park' idea has got to be a joke, but as a managed and sensible replacement to fastrack it could do great things. Getting rid of a standby queue though would be a big mistake. If that is correct this explains many things. They have sales targets, they have influence over the displayed queue time, they have an apparent lack of management or direction. What could the result of that possibly be?!

Better informed than what? Because they do a crap job of guessing! Like I said we all know as regular visitors roughly how long the queue will take just by looking at it, so should they. And I get that you wouldn't want the queue to be significantly longer than advertised, but we are talking of it being less than half of the figure they are coming up with. People know breakdowns happen, they are never going to like it but it is expected to an extent, as long as the queue is kept informed when that happens they accept the inaccurate queue in those circumstances. It has always been that way. I don't understand the mentality of over exaggerating the time to such an extent (unless of course you are adding value to a fastrack sale!). This also from the park that seem to be so in control of their queue system they can run their biggest ride with only timed slots and no queue. It is not something I ever encountered before a few years ago, and I agree it is not a Thorpe problem but a Merlin one (who happen to all be selling fastrack!), but other parks do not have the same problem (who don't sell fastrack!). 'Every effort is made to keep them updated' and 'systems have improved over the years' are just straight untruths. This quote reads like a press release form the park! No one can ever give 100% accurate queue times, that's a given (which also makes the 100% queueless thing a bit of a joke, but I digress). It is the huge exaggerations I find hard to defend when the result of it, intentionally or not, is a much more attractive looking fastrack. I know I sound like a moany old bastard, but it is only because I hate to see the parks do something that can be seen to be so underhand. They can severely dent their reputation with things like this, it really is something I can see cropping up on Watchdog, all for the sake of making a quick quid. Honesty and a fair system would certainly be better for everyone in the long term. It is a total untruth to say the system could not be run significantly better, and with the money they make from it they damn well should.

What, like the one selling the fastrack you mean?! In the scheme of things I go rarely but even I can look at a queueline and have a pretty close stab at how long it will take. If a member of staff that works there daily can't look at the queue and get it more than 50% wrong I'd question their suitability for any employment! They know what the queue time is displaying, their are shouting it at people after all! Anyway, it is incredibly easy to have very accurate queuetimes displayed, you simply count riders in and out of the queueline with either a turnstile or a laser beam breaker at a narrow point. These techniques are used commonly around the world. The list of reasons and excuses on these forums for why it happens whenever the issue is brought up is long and tedious. To the paying punter it doesn't matter, the point is it does happen and it is an unfair way to take money off of people. The queuetimes happen to be nearly always grossly overstated (this is a new problem, and happens to have come about in the last couple of seasons just as fastrack has exploded), the sales pitch happens to be aggressive, the park happens to make a staggering amount of money off the back of it and in my experience it happens to occur most most on Saw where you are not be able to see the queueline. The level of naivety required to not think these things are linked I find staggering, surely at the very least someone important somewhere has decided this is not a bad mistake to be making for the parks coffers so allow it to continue? All the while the public get fleeced, paying for something they are not actually getting. Do people really not think that is wrong?

Another person notices it. More people put their fingers in their ears and go La La La. No one cares what department or wrong calculation it is down to. Thorpe as a business are doing this all the time it seems, I don't go a lot but I see it consistently when I do, as do others. Do I hear watchdog calling? Sort it out. Play fair.

So the actual presentation is a bit better, but the queue line is still a mess of confusion around that building? It's a start I suppose.

As far as I know the only reason the queuing inside was stopped was to manage the fastrack 'fairly' (ie, not have the fastrackers wait too long), nothing to do with H&S. I would think when it is too quiet for fastrack to run they may as well let the queue be inside.

Bored of Theme Parks? Some other days out... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24080506