pluk

Loving these reports, takes me back to 2009 when I visited but as always with American parks it's amazing how much has changed in that relatively short time. Always a bitch getting spited by far away rides, I was a lover of ghostrider but its mental roughness isn't for everyone clearly. As for X2, missing that must be almost as painful as riding it. The damn thing is so unreliable though, I feel lucky for having got on and I think it is best to go expecting it to be closed. It was open for no more than a couple of hours the day I was there and that seems pretty normal sadly. Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk

Survived?! That man must be made of rubber.

Exactly this. It is possible to fully service all three trains over closed season, and in the early years I'm certain they did. The limiting factor is not space, it is not time, it is resources. Clearly there's not enough of them to get what should be done done.

You have a vast amount of faith in people who can't manage a very simple paper based fastrack system to try something this complex! The failure of the previous tests shows they haven't thought of at least some potential issues, as they have failed to overcome them! It's a little dismissive to say if we have thought of something then Thorpe must have too, so it's not worth saying. Very valid and so far unaccounted for points have been raised here.

Not sure anyone said there wasn't lap bars, but they don't have seat belts. Very different things. I thought the difference in height restrictions was due to Thorpes ones running faster so allowing gor more violent / major impacts, rwflecting the older target.

If you have not seen it, Fargo currently on channel 4 is probably the best TV I've ever seen. I'm not exaggerating, it is stunning visually, funny, dark, and powerful. If you've not seen it, watch it now before it ends and falls off of 4OD. You do need to catch up though, it'd be meaningless to jump in now. Also, BBC2's Episodes is just fantastic. So funny. I think you'd have to catch up on all three series now though, again not something you can just dive into midway.

Well then! It's all about the buffer, one is needed. I still don't for one second believe that they believe they will ever be operating a queue-less theme park, it's the gimmick they have attached to it to justify the trials either internally or externally, or a bit of both. If they do actually believe it they are deluded. It's probably how they are justifying it to those on high considering the disruption in fastack sales this will inevitably cause. I do hope it fails, because it is a bad idea. In fact I know it will fail, what I mean is I hope it does soon enough. That's not a bad thing on my part. I don't want the park in general to fail, I want this to fail, because I believe that in the long term it is a good thing that they realise it is a flawed idea as early as possible and stop it. The longer they drag it out the worse they will look. Just because everyone is it at doesn't make it good or right. Fastrack 'In some form or another' is the key here. I don't like fastrack at all and would rather everyone was equal in theme park land but that's not to say I do not see the advantage for infrequent visitors etc. But the privilege of jumping should come at a heavy heavy price, or be managed tightly to ensure it doesn't adversely affect everyone not using it severely. This r&r system could really be the answer if they used it sensibly, as an out and out two tier ticketing system for with and without. Everyone knows what they are getting then. An end to this one shot instant access set up can't come soon enough where as waiting outside of the queue is fair enough, it can be managed and charged for a whole days privilege accordingly. R&R may well be the future, not as a replacement to queuing, but maybe as a 'replacement' to fastrack instead.

FIVE MONTHS!!!!

-Exactly that. An hour wait, or a two hour virtual wait, you chose.Then they can keep upping the percentage to r&r (in turn increasing the physical wait time and reducing r&r wait time) and the system will find its natural balance. It's the only way the system can realistically function. As for fastrack, I would love for this to be its successor, its replacement. Pay to use the system as a whole, but the time users have to 'virtually' wait reduces its destructive impact on everyone else and tightly controls allocations..

Pretty quite, those first few mid week days usually. Certainly not busier than an average weekend and you get the extra hours too.

Nor would there be any point. Was that the guy climbing the rope? He was a decent trick.

Which again brings us back to why the hell aren't they doing the annual strip down of all three trains over closed season, which is FIVE MONTHS long. An unforeseeable problem such as this issue with the 'second' train is fair enough, but not having the back up which is there solely for circumstances like this is not.

Some actually ridiculous things... -thinking a whole theme park can be queue-less. However good the system, the world around it does not run smoothly enough for this to ever happen. -trialing this system in the first instance with enforced 100% participation instead of alongside a physical queue and giving people the choice. -this statement "like scrapping fastrack (which sorry being a realist is quite frankly ridiculous)", because parks didn't operate just fine for decades without it, did they? -claiming that as fans of the park we are wrong to criticise them when they do things this badly. I don't dislike this because it 'doesn't suit me personally', I dislike it because I think it is genuinely bad for the park and its reputation. Yes, it's good to be ambitious when trying to solve a problem, and the thought process behind what they are doing may well come from good intentions, but when it comes to implementation it has got to be realistic or they are doomed to failure. Even if your ultimate target is not achievable you start with something that is and work towards it to see how close you can get, not jump straight to the end goal and see how far you fall backwards. I don't think this system has no place, it could do wonders for how much time people spend queuing, but it will never replace it entirely. A buffer of physical queue will always be required to absorb the unpredictability of people and machines that a timed ticket system can not react to fast enough. If they want to be sensible about it, and find out what is actually possible, they need to run this alongside a normally functioning park with a 'stand-by' physical queue and slowly increase the percentage of available seats that are allocated to r&r over the physical one. Then they will see what works best for their guests and what percentage is possible queue-less. The answer will not be '100'.

I'm (nearly) always sad to see old major rides go. Think it's fair to say it wasn't great but it wasn't all bad either, world moves on to newer things I suppose but having one less major woodie in the world is a shame. Unless it's being referbed, then thumbs up!

What's the point in having three if they are doing the annual strip down on the third in open season? They're shut for five minute months, do it then! Unless it has gone the way of the vampire and train death canabalisation has begun? Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk

I can only imagine how great those back rows would be now the coaster as a whole is running so well. One day hopefully we'll get to find out.

As much as Ceebeebbiibbiieess turned out alright I'm always going to miss the farm, and those rickety wobbly old squirrel nutty cars would still be a massive improvement on gerstlauers finest efforts.

I think it's a bit of a shame that more hasn't been done to bring it on theme, especially as the mechanics of the ride actually suite the game theme of things being knocked down. If they couldn't or didn't want to do anything with it would it have been better to move the entrance instead? I'm sure it could be accessed from either of the other sides that isn't kfc.

It makes exactly as much difference as the amount of tickets they sell, which is LOADS. In it's current poorly managed and over sold form it makes a huge huge difference to the wait times, there is no question of that and I can't see how anyone can or would claim otherwise. It's just fact For all of time there has been a recognition by theme parks that some people queue jumping ruins other peoples day, as shown in the 'queue jumpers will be removed from park' etc signs which have always been there and wouldn't have been if that were not the case. Then suddenly the parks allow people to break this rule if they throw them a few quid at them. The people standing in the queue still feel the same about it even if the rule breaking is sanctioned by the park. It sucks. If fastrack must exist I hope this r&r thing evolves into a way to manage it more tightly, but the overall numbers sold needs to reduce (and price increase) dramatically for me to accept fastrack as something that isn't hugely destructive to most peoples day (including those using it too stupid to see the problem they are both creating and paying their way out of).

...because of fastrack. Thorpe is not, by any stretch, a multi day park in terms of size and attraction numbers. It's only not doable in a day if Thorpe make it not doable.

Hell yeah, I could catapult stuff at storm surge all day long.

Ah, so everyone individually, not just the lead of the 6, registers to the one account with their entrance ticket? Very much like the old system of the early 00's then but with the phone option so no paper tickets.

Abso-freakin-lutely I thought the original trials were mostly your standard Merlin 'look at us doing something mental' publicity stunt, I never for a moment thought they were naive enough to think a queue-free theme park could actually be a thing. Just no. Nothing can operate with the certainty or precision required for that system and people will be seriously pissed if they find the ride they want has been allocated out and they don't have the option of waiting it out in a real life queue. Loads of potential for a better managed electronic fastrack type system here, but not this. Have they set it up to stop all 6 people registering and the group getting 6 separate rides at once. If they have, how? If they haven't, oh dear!

Not seeing Labyrinth when you are young, isn't that child abuse?!

Nice vid, gives a good feel for the place. Glad to see the ITNG figures aren't totally static. Looks like a great amount of performers fills the place with life, hope that lasts long term. The man at 2.30 doing a Labyrinth Bowie with his balls is amazing. All good stuff.