Han30

Thank you so much for your lovely words and donation

Thank you ? shares of the link are fab for reaching more people Just wanted to say thanks again - I’m not sure if Adam (Roodie) has seen this topic (he knows I’ve posted as I checked with him first) but I’ll let him know people are thinking of him at this difficult time xx

Hey fellow maniacs - I just wanted a say a huge thank you to people who have taken a look at the link I posted, those who have shared the link and to the people who have kindly made a donation. I’m sure people will understand that no one wants to be in the situation of trying to raise funds to be able do such simple things that we all take for granted - I know that Adam is incredibly touched by the support he has been shown throughout this tough time. Being able to make memories with his 2 lovely boys and of course their mum is something very important to him and with the generosity of people this is looking more and more likely which is wonderful. Once again thank you so much x Hey stranger! Thanks for your response - a share of the link would be fantastic if you could do that (no worries about donating - sharing is just as helpful)! the more shares, the more people we can reach ?

Hey guys - hope it’s ok to start a new topic here as there was no where else I could find to put this. Many of you will have met @Roodie at various meets over the past 17 months. His first meet was Fright Nights 2016 and the day I first met him. Since then I’ve got to know and spend time with this wonderful member of TPM - the reason I’m posting this is because sadly Adam (Roodie) has recently been diagnosed with incurable cancer and has spent the past 5 weeks in hospital. Adam has 2 young sons (ages just 6 and 4) and is desperate to spend the time that he has making memories with them while at the same time raising money for MacMillan. His illness has forced him to quit work and so financially he is currently unavailable to do much in the way of taking his boys out (and while he recovers from surgery to his spine). His niece today set up a just giving page and it would mean a massive amount if you guys could take a look, share, or make a small donation (every penny counts). Thanks so much for reading this post xx https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/hannah-tutt?utm_id=1&utm_term=Ab9bDrkdE

I’ve often felt like this in my younger years - giving all I could within friendships etc only to be treated like crud and people just walking away. It used to upset me a lot but now I just think screw it. People can be sh!t holes but don’t let that stop who you are as a person - don’t change for anyone

Fruit BASTILLES?! ?

Umm wow - I guess it's going to stop people standing up but jeez - also makes for a rather crappy ORP Its sad when measures like this have to be put in place because a few people can't follow instructions or use basic common sense. Edit - how the hell do you get in the boats?

Merlin seem intent on ruining Towers - so many peeved people on FB and quite rightly so. 4pm closures for a park the size of AT is daft and staggered opening times this year are ridiculous - seriously Nemmy and Galactica not open until midday?! Nemmy is generally the first ride I head to when I visit and get a few rides in on that to start the day off- I wonder if they are opening that area at midday to get more business for the rollercoaster restaurant?! ?

Yes - the space they used for Island beats was small (where big top goes) - but aside from the marquee they don't really have the space (unless you count the dome)

I would prefer just Summer Nights to return but that's mainly based on when I was at Summer Nights one evening when Little Mix were playing Island Beats and there was SO many teenage girls everywhere - and singing their songs ?? I'm guessing it wasn't hugely popular - I went to quite a few summer nights back in 2015 and on one occasion when we were picking up our wristbands the lady serving us mentioned that they still had tickets for Pro Green left so my sister and her boyfriend went to watch it while my niece and I rode the coasters. I personally think merging Summer Nights and Island Beats was confusing but that might just be me. I'm assuming they didn't make much money from it either as I'm sure they would have brought it back if it was profitable?

Yeah I think you might be right sadly - Summer Nights were great while they lasted yet they scrapped them so I can't see why they'd introduce something similar - would be fab if they did but not holding my breath

Happy birthday @MarkC ?

I hate winter and have done before I got into theme parks but anyway, reflecting back on this year I've done a lot more than I usually would - less visits to Thorpe but 3 new parks visited (2 abroad) Thorpe Park X 9 Chessie X 4 Legoland X 1 Alton Towers X 3 Adventure Island X 1 BPB X 1 Efteling X 2 Phantasialand X 2 Tulleys X 1 Total 24 Next year will be the usual Merlin stuff - Thorpe and CWOA are fairly close to me and would love to go back to BPB as I really enjoyed it there plus with ICON opening next year (and my love for Valhalla) I'm hoping it will be possible. Also Towers for SW8. I would love to go back to Phantasialand and Efteling but in terms of European parks, Europa is one I would love to visit but I have a huge fear of flying ?. Edit - forgot to add Tulleys ?

Fave launch is Tarons 2nd launch - the sound it makes just adds to it ❤️

Came across an utter idiot woman while outside Saw Alive while waiting at disabled entrance on Sunday - she barged past us with a pushchair and was told she couldn't park it outside - she expected the staff to watch her baby while she went in then when they said they couldn't she wanted to take the baby INTO the maze and kicked off when she was told that wasn't possible - I was gobsmacked at the stupidity - she said "he's only a baby innit he's not gonna know what's happening" ?? < that was my face hearing that. She then starts saying she was going to complain and I just felt sorry for the staff having to deal with that level of stupidity from guests. Yes it's a baby but if she'd dropped the poor sod after a jump scare she'd be the one probably looking for compensation ?

I went to my first Scarefest last week - already done Fright Nights since 2013, and did Tulleys a few weeks ago. Totally agree with you about The Welcoming. As for Sub Species - that's the only scare maze that has truly terrified me to the point that I ran out and burst into tears whilst having an asthma attack and bad anxiety - I'd probably do it again in the future despite it being fricking terrifying - but it achieved for me an actual scare - the dude with the chainsaw at the end was bloody terrifying ?

Is that the one where they "scan" you for odd symptoms (for photo) - if so I've never seen that open and I rode DBGT for the first time last September - I would be surprised if they ditched that after just 2 months but who knows ?

Went to my first Scarefest on Thursday and was really impressed with how the park was decorated. We did all the mazes with the exception of the kids one (myself and @Roodie are nearing 40 so gave that one a miss) There was no queue for the mazes though we did do them early - TOTT was pretty good but I didn't find it particularly scary - but the length of the maze and the actors was worth it. Then we headed to Sub Species which was the one I was anxious about - had pretty bad anxiety during my time at Towers so before the mazes I took a couple of anxiety meds - genuinely thought I would be fine as I've done all of Thorpes mazes this year plus Tulleys (and at Tulleys myself and @roodie went through creepy cottage, the cellar and chop shop on our own as it was quiet). I can honestly say (and maybe I'm being a wimp) that Sub Species is the only maze that has really affected me - I'm not exaggerating when I say that I ran out of that maze, stopped and burst into tears whilst battling both a panic attack and asthma attack. And when I say burst into tears I was pretty much howling (thank god we went through early and there was not many people outside ?) From the moment the video at the beginning finished I was edgy then it just got worse getting pulled through a door in complete darkness - I found this maze scary because you are deliberately separated from the people you are with and isolated in darkness - at one point I just stopped, could see naff all and started panicking/swearing then an actor appeared and pushed me forwards. But the icing on the cake was when having met up with Roodie towards the end of the maze we headed to the exit - the actor at the end knew I was bricking it - he looked me square in the eyes, I knew what was going to happen - he smirked a little then chased me out with his chuffing chainsaw. I've been chased with a chainsaw before but that actor was good and the build up towards it had made me bloody edgy. In that respect Sub Species is fantastic as it achieved (for me anyway) what a scare maze should do - genuinely don't know if I could do that one again as I felt so vulnerable in there - although maybe it was worse as my anxiety hadn't been great that day. Definitely worth doing and I'm glad I did it but I was pretty surprised at my reaction and felt a bit silly afterwards ? The other maze we did after (mine tours) was good - and the actors in there were brilliant I'm not sure what to say about The Welcoming - when we got there we were handed what I initially thought was a pair of pants (it was a hood ?). What they have done with that area is amazing and the maze itself is brilliantly themed and it's a decent length - but the hooded section just felt a bit meh - having done the hooded maze at Tulleys a couple of weeks ago (and never done a hooded one before then) I actually found it less scary and more sweaty(!). The Welcoming was good and it had some good jumpy moments but it felt like it could have been better though I don't know how (if that makes sense) - the ending just sort of didn't feel complete - so it kind of felt like this big build up....to not a lot. Definitely worth doing but not particularly scary

I've read a few complaints online about creepy caves - I didn't realise when I did my recent post that it is a recommended age 10 plus attraction - in all honestly I think it should be older than 10 even though I'm sure there will be 10 year olds out there who would be ok with it but for the majority they should probably have a recommendation of 13+ I was gutted when they got rid of the maze behind Vampire as I loved that one but caves is a pretty solid attraction and it's nice to see the park have a maze that caters for slightly older guests - the issue I think is they need to make it clearer to people

Thorpe Park last Saturday - 2 lads behind us and one (I'm assuming as I didn't see) points to Rush and says to his friend "ah yeah mate that's just like Ripsaw at Towers innit" - I'm just hoping they were pointing at Rush and not Storm Surge as that is an even more stupid comparison

Yeah I forgot about that ? Damn there was me getting my hopes up that we'd have a worlds first soap opera themed maze - Coronation Street The Maze ?

Did Creepy Caves Unearthed yesterday and I think they are going to get a fair few complaints - not because it is bad but because it's a family park and I believe the attraction is too much for young ones - I would say they should have an age recommendation rather than a 'bat' rating (I think TOT woods is one bar - caves is 3) I wasn't expecting much even though Curse is pretty good - we went in along with a mum and dad and their kids and 2 girls that looked about 10-12 who were by themselves. Its actually pretty good, has a story line, the length of the attraction is surprisingly quite long. There are some really dark areas inside and a good few jump scares. From the start the 2 girls didn't like being at the back so I let them go in front of us and once the maze started it was pretty much screaming from the kids all the way through, at one point everyone was just huddled into a group clearly scared so we went ahead and sort of lead the way - at the end I could see the kids were terrified - one of the younger ones got carried through pretty much the whole attraction by I'm assuming her dad, and the 2 girls that went in by themselves looked close to tears. Because this is a paid attraction I can see people wanting a refund because there really is no warning about the nature of what is inside - I personally didn't find it scary (jumped a few times) but for their target audience of families, in particular those with very young kids in my opinion it isn't suitable. I have a 13 year old niece who I think would be fine with it but there's no way I would even consider taking my 7 year old nephew in it. The odd thing is that you don't have the usual safety speech by a staff member warning you of things such as smoke effect etc etc - instead you have an actor who asks what you are scared of and sort of jokes that you'll be put in a small dark room with spiders before taking you into the attraction - and because it is done in a light hearted manner, it doesn't really prepare you for what is inside. I would recommend if any of you are going to CWOA to try it out as it's interesting to see what they've done inside and it's actually a good attraction - but in terms of taking little ones in there - I'd say give it a miss

Well the IAC stuff is on sale so maybe they are going to get rid of it? I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has. VR on The Swarm would be a terrible idea IMO - they've already slowed down the throughputs on GalacticAir (and that's when the VR actually works) and it would make the near misses on Swarm damn pointless and ruin the ride.

Re-rides on Nemmy are the best! ❤️

If I don't take anti sickness tabs I get ill - vomited after quantum once and actually dragons claw at AI made me sick in Feb despite taking meds