Han30

That's brilliant! I will be gutted if Loggers doesn't make a return, but at the same time it wouldn't come as a shock considering the age of it. It would be such a shame - that double drop Has NO work on refurb happened at all? - could they be doing some maintenance behind the scenes, so to speak or are they literally leaving it there to rot? It's one of Thorpes Classic rides and I think Log flumes are just a great addition to parks as they appeal to a wide range of people - and you get to cool off (albeit in scabby lake water) - the only ride you can cool off on at TP is Tidal Wave and that is taking cooling off to an extreme!

Someone was moaning on FB about Chessington staff "stopping" Vampire in the tunnel because a kid had jumped over a barrier. Are people really that daft to think that you can just stop a roller coaster?

Haha yeah same.... "omg I travelled 5000 miles and spent £20,000 'pacifically' to ride THE Stelf and dArren Browns ghost train and they ain't open - I want compo for this!"

To be fair, I don’t think I would know about the seats on Samurai if I wasn’t a bit of a geek - if you don't have an interest in something then I guess you aren't going to know or care how things work? I love eaves dropping on peoples conversations sometimes – some of the things you hear are quite funny. I’ve got a few….. Queuing for Vampire the year it got the new trains (2002?) – anyway, there was a bunch of teenagers in front of us and one of them says “yeah this ride goes upside down now” – kind of felt sorry for the poor sod if that’s what he was looking forward to. In queue for Samurai last year when Saw was closed following the Smiler incident - 2 people chatting behind us and one of them comes out with a corker that made me smack my own face “yeah that ride ain’t open today cos 2 people died on it on Monday” – Erm oookay. Teenage girl goes up to a ride host outside Vortex – she points at Zodiac which is full motion and at the highest point and asks “does that ride go upside down” – I mean, really??!!! When I went on Loggers Leap on my own, went twice round just to chill, came back into the station and the ride host asks if I want to go again (by this point I reek of lake water and had also swallowed some) – I said “no, I’m good thanks - I stink of filthy water” – his response was “oh the water is clean” – not sure what he definition of clean was but certainly different to mine On Slammer with my niece in March this year and she was feeling nervous – so I said “oh don’t worry, you’ll be fine – only one person has even fallen out of this and hey, if you do fall out, you might end up in the ghost train so you can have a sneaky peak” – I dread to think what anyone would have thought if they had overheard. On Slammer - the ride is in motion and the dude next to me goes something like this “arrrghhh, ahhhh what……who….who makes this rides arrrrrghhhh this isn’t normal”

Oh God - I was watching a POV of Falcons Fury, and just, no - no no no - anyone that can ride that thing is very brave in my opinion. I'm ok on small drop rides but detest Detonator due to how intense it is. Falcons Fury would kill me I reckon

I never bother only because I have 13 and would be there forever

Nemesis Inferno for sure

That doll is freakin' terrifying!

Rode Bubbleworks in its opening year and it was never the same when they rebranded it and got ride of Prof Burp - far too many ducks and quacking! Hopefully something decent will take its place.....hmmm

That is exactly what I thought! Plus they got a lift to the top which is perfect for unfit lazy buggers like myself! When people put "The" in front of rides - it annoys me more than it probably should I'm not sure how anyone could get their leg out in that thing - once those restraints are locked, my legs are not going anywhere. Either she is an epic contortionist or her leg was out before her restraint was locked (which you would think someone would notice??) - also - WHY would anyone want to go on Colossus with their leg outside of the train? It's pretty painful enough as it is. And just to add - when these news articles report and call the trains 'carts' - it annoys me - I think I need to chill out

I always enjoy reading your blog entries - great reviews and fab pictures! Taron looks like a fun ride - those twists and turns look pretty good. I would love to visit Phantasialand at some point and have done for a while now - mainly because of Talocan and Black Mamba. The theming looks incredible and puts Merlin to shame (from what I've seen in pictures). Europa Park, Phantasialand and Port Aventura are my top 3 parks to visit but I think it may lead to me feeling a bit "meh" about our Merlin parks. I went to DLP back in 2000 so the only one I've visited abroad. Just need to win the lotto and sort out my massive fear of flying. Great blog!

Hi there - I'm probably going to end up repeating what has already been said but here's my opinion for what its worth 1) Single fastrack for coasters is £6 (I also think but not 100% sure if Storm Surge and IAC maze is £6 as well) - other rides are £3 2) Inferno, Stealth and Colossus have seperate areas for front row queuing - with The Swarm just head to the front row air gates although you will probably be waiting a bit extra (it's worth it though) 3) I would say on the majority of my visits to the park (and I've been around 70 times in the past 3 years) that you generally get to chose which side you want to go on on Swarm - obviously if it is really busy they might tell you which side to go to but I'm sure you'll get both sides done over 2 days 4) No one has mentioned Quantum?! Ok it isn't a thrill ride but it is a bit mental at times (I did actually vomit after going on it once when I forgot to take my motion sickness tablets). I guess aside from Quantum, Vortex is a good one to start on to get you used to the feel of flats 5) I would use it at Colossus/Lost City and Saw: The Ride - possibly Samurai if you have the time 6) Not at all wimpish - I am not a fan of drops but Saw is my fave coaster at TP. For me personally I found my first ever go on it, because I wasn't expecting the drop it was a bit of a shock. Also, weirdly I find the indoor drop more intense that the main drop (still not sure why?!) - but don't let that put you off going on it - the main thing that I was worried about before I first went on Saw was that vertical lift hill. THIS is very good advice - I stupidly asked the ride host to literally ram me into my seat a few weeks ago, and he did - and I could barely breath - twas very uncomfortable. Not really sure what else to add - just have a fab time and if you can, try everything at least once (although it took me a long time before I finally tried out everything there) - try not to be put off if something looks scary - you'll probably end up enjoying it. Slammer looks horrifying when you watch it go round but it not anywhere near as bad once you ride it. And Detonator looks relatively tame and it isn't. You can get a digipass for digital prints of on ride photos which work out a lot cheaper than for individual printed out ones if you wanted to have memories of your time at the park. Hopefully Derren Browns Ghost Train will be open when you visit.....although who knows with that thing!

You should give scare mazes a go - I was petrified when I did my first one but loved it (and I get pretty bad anxiety) - I find them to be a good laugh Wow Smiler was your first inverting coaster? Impressive! Mine was Space Mountain at DLP although I remember feeling really chuffed when I finally did an upside down coaster. Yup I'm with you on freefall drops - I'm not a fan of drop rides - did Detonator back in 2013 4 times and just cannot bring myself to do it again. I would urge you to try Th13teen - its a brilliant rollercoaster - one of my faves at Towers and the drop isn't bad at all Wave swingers I used to hate after going on Billys Whizzer (not Monkey Swinger) at Chessie and feeling ill for about 3 hours after - have since discovered motion sickness tablets which help - I do always thing "what if this swing I'm sat on just fell off" Have you ever done a drop tower? Detty is quite intense. I'm fine on things like the drop ride at the Dungeons, or Magma at Paultons Park but for me Detonator is too much for my anxiety - definitely give it a go though - my niece finally went on Detonator the other week after being petrified of it (not helped by me saying I won't ever ride it again) - I thought she'd hate it but she ended up going on it 5 times that day

I do question why some people go into teaching - I understand that it must be stressful and I know I couldn't do it as I don't have the right temperament (or qualifications). its bad enough at school when you get bullied - but you certainly don't expect it from teachers who are meant to be there to help and not make you feel like a stack of poop. A teacher openly making fun of a character in a book is so wrong - at year 6, kids are quite impressionable - someone like that should not be in the teaching profession - it's pretty much giving kids the green light to make fun of anyone with a condition which might make them a bit different to their peers. Thankfully most teachers are there because they want to teach and are great at what they do. Before I had my bitch of a French teacher for GCSE French, I had a brilliant French teacher the year before and I actually enjoyed going into lessons. Going back to bullying- my niece who is in year 7 was reduced to tears recently by a kid from year 10 - I was so shocked as I assumed it was a kid from her year group. I don't condone violence because if you hit a bully you are pretty much going to be the one getting into trouble and not the bully but I can see how a victim of bullying could easily get driven to it. Years ago my younger sister was getting bullied and the school did absolutely nothing about it so my mum went up and waited outside- when the bullies came out of school my mum went up to them and had a quiet word - nothing threatening but the bullying stopped after that. I've told my niece that if this girl does anything else then I'll go along to the school to meet her one day and speak to the other kid

For the first year of riding Saw (so upwards of 50 times) I never got wet - didn't even realise water comes out until 2014 when, after exiting the indoor section I said quite loudly "that thing just spat at me"

I wouldn't let the corpse bother you - I didn't even notice it until after I had ridden Saw around 40 times (although admittedly I'm not the most observant of people)

It used to scare me - I once had quite a bad panic attack just before the lift hill thanks to the Billy puppet - that thing used to seriously freak me out but am fine with it now

It used to be my fave ride before I got the courage to do the coasters - I've not ridden it since a rather unfortunate incident back in 2003.

Saw someone post about the rollback on TPs FB page. I'm SO glad that didn't happen yesterday - I think I would freak out. Would love to see one though (in real life - seen plenty on YouTube).

The fire effect wasn't on yesterday - I love the fire, especially at night when it's dark and a tad chilling. I've also noticed on busy days that the fire effect is used about 1 in every 3 rides - I've been on it before with the fire going off and hadn't noticed though, to be fair I am not the most observant of people (putting it mildly!) When the coasters were all on around an hour + queue yesterday we headed over to Swarm which, according to the queue, was listed as 50 mins - at the entrance it said that the queue time was "up to 90 minutes" but you could see from just looking that it was nowhere near that - we got on after about 15 mins. I sat next to a lady who was with her partner and her child and a couple of his friends - when she asked if she could sit next to me so she could be on the same train as her family I was fine with it and asked which seat she wanted to sit in - she told me she hadn't ridden it before so I pretty much told her to sit on the outside seat - had a lovely chat with her in the station and then going up the lift hill - she was laughing all the way through the ride with the odd "eeeeek" and when we stopped she said "oh that was amazing, I'm going to go on again" - I love having random chats with people at theme parks (the only place I feel comfortable plucking up a conversation with a stranger) and seeing peoples reactions on rides. There was a guy on Stealth that made me laugh - as we were coming down from the top hat he started screaming "FOC********* HELL" whilst laughing like a loon. I thought operations on Swarm were really good - staff were pretty quick with restraint checking - on my last visit it seemed to take forever waiting for the train in the station to be despatched whilst the other one was waiting aimlessly just outside the station.

Ugh that's damned typical - but.....you at least got to the queue so that's a start and next time hopefully it won't break down. Some really great advice given here covering pretty much every aspect which one can encounter when trying a ride for the first time (or facing fears on rides). I like to try things once, if I don't like it then at least I've given it a shot but I do appreciate it can be nerve wracking - it wasn't until 2013 that I started going on proper big rides and even then I did rides gradually - wasn't until the last day of the season that I rode Vortex yet had done all of the coasters at TP. There are only 2 rides I've ridden which I don't think I could ride again but still glad I got the experience. My niece had her first ride on Samurai today - this time last year she was very scared of rides (although much much better than I was at her age)! I know with my niece she finds it helpful to explain how different rides feel before riding them and I am always honest with her (hence probably why she hasn't done Detonator yet oohps). I do agree about watching a ride before going on it - although I think if I had seen the layout of Space Mountain before I went on it 16 years ago I would have wussed out. You can get a good generally idea of a ride by watching it and watching people's reactions. The only exceptions to that which I can think of are Slammer and Detty - for me personally, Slammer looks absolutely terrifying to watch (and took me 18 months to conquer) but is actually ok once you are on it. Then you have Detty which doesn't look that high or intense until you ride it.

According to queue times site it hit a 60 minute queue quite quickly then was unavailable for a bit. Managed to get on using an exit pass after Inferno ceased operation as we were about to ride. Was great that they managed to get it open - same with X which was closed for most of the day

I had never used single rider until my first ride on Samurai today - very handy as the people I was with didn't fancy going on it at the time and the queue was about 50mins. There did seem to be a lot of people in groups using single rider which is fair enough - if there is a spare seat on a couple of pods, it enables them to be filled. But on my 3rd ride there was a group of 3 single riders (they were all together) and the ride host asked if they were single riders and then let them all on at the same time - on the same pod which sort of defeats the object.

Was told in was down for maintenance earlier so this is a nice surprise!

Been on this twice so far today - went single rider first time (so handy!) and the cycle was ok. Second time with my niece it was a tad intense but fab - we both loved it