pluk

Although I do appreciate them making an effort with X, and think the music suits it, I'm not a fan of the new lighting. It's just too, err, light. The only thing I thought made X kind of rideable was the darkness making it disorientating, that's been lost now. The light from the lift hill and final brake run illuminate the entire pyramid too much, more directional lights like lasers would work a whole lot better for me.

^ When I'm downstairs and I can hear my wife swearing in the bedroom upstairs I know she's putting that stuff on and messing it up! Does look good when she manages it though.

Got that deal at Chessington a couple of weeks back, but didn't notice it advertised at Thorpe yesterday. £2 for two seems fair to me, they'll still be making a tidy profit but I wont feel like I've been mugged.

Amity KFC today, with the standard wait - "just be a few minuets for the fries" . How can it surprise them every day that at lunch time, when everything comes with chips, that people may order some chips and it would be a good idea to cook some chips? Decent food in the end though.The only thing that really pisses me off on the food and drink front is £1.80 for a small bottle of coke. Such a rip off, when most things are quite fairly priced.

Out of interest, what the hell does one of those cables cost? it must be a fortune, it's huge! And realistically they can't just have them laying around in the yard, even if they wanted to replace it now surely they have to have it specially made to the exact length required, which would take some time itself I would think. It's quite a specialist bit of kit.

Short trip report from trip today. It won't be a post of beauty like Jacks as I couldn't be bothered to get the camera out.Went with a group of 12 workmates who don't have the same ride addiction issues as me, so much time wasting messing around with toilets, shops, decision making etc. grrrrr.Arrived just after 10, heart sank at the size of the queue to buy my ticket but it moved along at an impressive rate with all but one booth open and it only took 10mins. Some of my friends had pre booked their tickets but with only one collection window open it took them ages, meaning we didn't get in to nearly 11 which really takes the piss. Not the best start to the day. I also wanted to get some cash out but the (free) machine outside was out of cash, so had to get it from the (expensive) machine inside. I'm sure this was just one of those things and not another Merlin money making scheme.Straight to Stealth, 10min queue, all good. By the time we got off it was up to 45mins and all major rides were a similar length, by my standards that's a busy day and I was not impressed. We found though that many advertised queue times were wildly inaccurate, Saw showed 60mins, was really 20, Rush showed 10mins was really 35. Don't know if the system they use was broken but it's not a problem I've had before.Rumba Rapids, since I last went at the start of the season (and moaned about the state of it on here) has had a bit of a clean up. Someone has gone at the queue line and tunnel with a pressure washer and some fairy lights have been but up over the old berry advertising in the dark (both things suggested on the forum). It's not amazing, but looks respectable and is exactly what was needed.Detonator sounds like it's blown it's speakers at the top, just muffled noise which kept cutting out. Still a great ride though.Tea cups, always fun. One of my group commented on how great it is that they were actually Tetley teacups, not my feelings but goes to show that sponsorship isn't seen so negatively by 'normal' people.Saw and Colossus were brilliant, neither felt rough to me.X/WTF - I appreciate them making some effort with the lights and music, but it just illuminates the whole inside too much for me. I've always thought the only thing that made it in any way good to ride was the darkness making it disorientating, and that's been lost. Lasers which don't throw light in all directions would work better for me.Rides on Slammer and Rush were great, but the dispatch time is shocking. The staff just seem to meander about the place with no real purpose and certainly no hurry. I know safety checks must not be rushed but I think someone needs a kick up the bum. Girl checking our restraints on Rush was great though, gave us jazz hands and did a little dance throughout the ride. Random but fun. (To balance this out all the coasters were being run with mega efficiency which I'm not used to on my quiet days. Well done all round).What the hell with Vortex restraint slamming itself into my nuts at a thousand miles an hour. Least safe safety feature ever.Inferno has had it's station given a much needed clean (something else I'd moaned about on here). Lack of tunnel effects throughout.Loggers suddenly has all it's backstops out on the top half of the lift, some of which looked shiny and new (another thing recently discussed on here at length - begining to think we are being watched! If we are, please put a bin liner or something over the tunnel roof hole - ta).Surprise of the day - Samurai. Rode at lunchtime, the standard short and so much less forceful than before ride. Then rode again later, last ride of the day (they shut the queue line behind us) and WOW. It honestly felt like stealth when it started, acceleration wise. It was so intense, I thought I was back at Chessington. And it went on for ages, it really is an amazing ride when it is like this. So, can someone tell me: did the controller use a more intense setting (does one even exist), or was it because it weighed less at only about 30% full it was able to be so awesome?Got on basically everything, some multiple times, on a 'busy' day with an indecisive group. Quite impressive. One of my best trips in a long time.

Thanks for that Jake. Fingers crossed Topsyturvy!

I'm due to be going tomorrow, anything down at the mo? Nothing on the website scroller.

Tomb Blaster - Anything outside of the station building and it's a no from me. Not much to do with the queue line, more to do with how much I want to go on the ride itself, but it does often seem like a very slow shuffle.Air - Going totally against the rest of of what I said above, I will not go to Alton without riding Air no matter how long it takes me, because of how much I love it. Most I've waited was around 2hrs not long after it opened, which was quite painful, but at least the ride is fairly visible from most of the queue line and it's not an actual back and forth cattle pen. Detonator - About 20 minutes I guess, which I would think is not much off of the platform. Again, decent view of the ride itself helps pass the time.Expedition Everest - Sadly, I've never ridden. Last time I went it was built but not yet open which made me want to weep. But like Air, I need to ride it so no real limit.Dragon Falls - Around 30-45 mins. I have not queued since the money grabbing disgrace that is fastrack reared its ugly head, but it used to wind it's way through the tranquil reeds at quite a pace and you were entertained by live music or magic in the bandstand. Those were the days!!Silver-Star - Never been.

My Brother-in-law used to suffer like that with eczema, had all the tests with Dr etc and got nowhere. He then tried one of those oriental herbal places, which I've always thought were some sort of legalised fraud, they told him to stop eating tomatoes, he did and eczema gone within about a week never to return. It's no exaggeration to say his life has changed since it was sorted, hope you get to the bottom of what's causing yours.-- --People ignoring blue lights and sirens. We don't turn those things on because they are pretty you know. Get the hell out of the way!

How the hell does this happen? No planning application required in Germany then! We could never have a surprise announcement like this in the UK. Shame.As for the throughput, has anyone ever built a 4 seat wide woodie? Would it even be possible with the weight on a wooden structure? Pretty much double your throughput if you could.

IOA attendance jumps 30.2% on the back of Harry Potter. Wow, that's how you make a return on your investment!

Would that gearbox on the way out have been what was causing it to be jerky and vibrate badly couple of weeks back, or does it always feel like that these days?

If the queue is just going to be your standard cattle pen, for me throughput is essential. I simply will not wait for more than about an hour for any ride like that - I am very much a quiet day man and wouldn't dream of going on a summer weekend. If the throughput is that low it keeps the queue that high the ride may as well not exist to me.I find Saws queue particularly painful, mainly because of the queue being released into the station in batches, so it's stand still for 5 minutes, 10 seconds of shuffling forward, then another five minutes wait. Makes it drag something rotten. Constant movement is much easier for me to deal with.But the real thing that makes a queue fly by for me is entertainment. Hex is really three rooms of queue line entertainment for the ride at the end, and you don't even realise you are queuing. Similar with tower of terror. I could stand and watch Mr Potato Head in the TSMM queue for ages, so I don't notice I'm waiting. Even stealth radio when it's live provides enough variety to keep me occupied. Pre shows and queue line entertainment are the way forward, and should be designed into every substantial new ride.

They keep playing this on MTV, I can't escape it ...... Truly truly awful, don't you think? Sounds like some kind of horrible mash up of ting tings / b*witched / tweenies.How the hell does this rubbish get released?

Absolutely. What I don't understand is why do they need telling? The levels are so obviously wrong the ride ops MUST be able to hear it. Unless by a massive coincidence they have employed only deaf people in Transylvania.

I understand and am comfortable with them moving up and down a bit, as there is going to be a bit of give between the notches. What really unnerves me are samurai restraints. I remember when it opened at Chessington they were absolutely solid with no movement at all, now they move side to side a couple of inches when locked. This does not seem right to me, what is that is giving way for them to move like that? There should be no side to side moving part in there!I'm not a worrier in general, but it really makes me feel uneasy on there, I can't relax and enjoy it.

As I understand it, yes, the plans were not accepted by the council, but the issues were supposedly quite easy to overcome with some adjustments but the amended plans were never resubmitted because of the survey nonsense.Either way, I so agree - just give a pile of money to GCI and let them get on with it. Everything I've riden by them has been extraordinary.

The reasons given for the original woodie plans not being built make me more angry than the fact it was not built. Surveys of the public will always find an average result, and the result of that will be an average attraction, never at the extremes of what is possible.The public, me included, are mostly idiots. Do you think when they built Nemesis they asked the public "Do you think it would be a good idea to build the most intense ride in the world? Your legs will be dangling and it will feel like your about to smash into the surroundings" when nothing like this existed anywhere? Of course they didn't, because most of the public would have said "Well, that doesn't sound terribly safe" and it would never have been built. Instead they put their trust in experts of the industry who built the best thing they could, which was a thing of real beauty.They went to the trouble of planning an epic wooden coaster, they knew it was the right thing to build but lost their bottle because of the results of a bunch of surveys. They should have trusted their instincts and built it, if they'd done it as well as we know they can people would now be travelling from around the world to get on it. They should get their bottle back and build it, or something like it, now.

Or, it could be easier just to stop warning people for stuff like banter instead!!!

True that, not a fan of the whole idea tbh, all feels a bit clique to me. This is a public forum, not a private club.

Yeah. Id hope not too. But that's thinking of a water coaster as we know it, this could be something entirely new and a whole lot better than previous water coaster attempts.Just imagine a massive woodie winding around the existing but referbed flume. That's SW stuff.

So, having riden a few weeks back, I thought the setting was most odd, don't know if this would be a 'new' one as I hadn't been for years and years. It was split in two, the first half was lame as a dead duck - a top spin with no spin at the top, just some mild swinging about. Then it spent about 30 seconds bringing itself to a stop and aligning itself, the ride op gave some spiel about getting off if you want to, no one did, and then we were off for a 'proper' go, roughly as I remember it from years ago.Is this normal, or was it due to it being a very quiet day? If they are messing about with all that when it is busy and has a queue then the whole first half seems like a waste of time to me, especially bringing it to a stop between the two halves.

Having read some discussion of the height balloons and god Wardley both being seen in the flume area, and the decrepit state of said flume, could it be a possibility the flume is going, to make way for SW7?If so I think a water coaster could be a possibility, to directly replace the old and at the same time make something new. I hope not though, I'm not a fan.

I remember as a kid being so much more intimidated by the Black Hole compared to The Beast, which was basically the same ride but not in a tent. Amazing what a difference it makes to a ride by putting it in the dark, feels a lot faster and more disorientating.Was sad to see it go, but probably the right decision if they would have had to throw that much money at it to get it up to spec. As long as they spend that money saved on something special and new in there instead. Oh.