SteveJ

Inflation!Also, Merlin I don't ever qualified what was in the budget. Remember costs of acquiring the IP, infilling the lake, etc. The coaster is only one part of the cost. People just seem to think cost = quality so PR jump on it.

The Swarm construction update 8/10/11.Visited Thorpe today for Fright Nights and got quite a few construction pics for the Swarm! **Feel free to post these images to other forums, they are mine; I don't mind, just give credit to Mania Hub and Me** thank youu :)Ok, so I entered the park and went on Detonator with nothing new to see, then about 1/2 an hour later this rather large support appeared!After seeing this, I went over to the future bridge area to see if there was any more happening... I'm greeted 2 large pieces of B&M track, the construction workers were cleaning them ready to put into place.Approximately 2 hours later even more supports had been constructed. These are supports for the Zero-G roll (second inversion)Workers putting ties around the track ready for lifting.about 1/2 hour later again and a track piece for the bottom of the 1st drop is in place, but... There ARE holes for a Trim Brake here. Hopefully it won't be used too strongly but wiring was put in for it nearer the end of the day.Just so you can gauge the size of this support, it's just a bit taller than Tidal Wave, A support for the Lift Hill was also installed which can be seen in this photo, to the right.At about 4PM, plenty of Supports were now on site, seen at the bottom of this picture. As well as the Lift Hill base and motor, the motor is the blue part in the track. Nothing else really happened after the crane was put away, maybe things that weren't obviously going to be seen such as electronics were being worked on, but that's all that happened today. If construction keeps up at this pace then we've got an exciting few weeks ahead of us!Thanks for reading. Luke.

My pretty sexy photos, If I don't say so myself...

So does Bubbleworks have a future?I would much rather this be saved for a major new dark ride project with real artists, real lighting and a real budget, rather than have another stupid rush "retheme" job. This could easily be a repeat of 2006, but it could also be something so much more. I agree, do not attempt at restoring the old ride as that would be a huge embarrassment for Chessington and the past should remain where it is. It is extremely unlikely that any recreation would be as accurate, imaginative or magic as the original. Also audiences and technology have moved on, so something else is needed to pull in crowds.Dark rides are amazing. The possibilities are almost limitless, it really is a chance to let your imagination go anywhere, as long as it can be achieved theatrically and will attract crowds. So why then have so many recent UK dark ride projects been bland, confused and gimmicky? I hope Chessington are going to take the future of Bubbleworks seriously this time. They should learn from their own history on how to make a fantastic unique experience, and also learn from all the mistakes...

Thanks! The whole place was completely unrecognisable when the big change happened. It was like a whole area of Thorpe Park that I knew quite well simply no longer existed. Now I know whereabouts the old attractions used to be in comparison to Stealth.It was a lovely little area; it made the park feel much less compact, especially with the Farm still open. There was a lot to explore.

God, even if it was built now you wouldn't be riding the damn thing for another 5 months anyway.

A bit of info on the reasons behind the sad demise:Dan Longley was a Tussauds Studios AV technician when The 5th Dimension was built, and played a major role in the 1988 revamp. Here, he tells us about the ride:I worked on the original Tussauds in-house team that designed and built the 5th Dimension. As an AV technician, I was responsible for many of the special effects on the ride.The ride had great aspirations and design ideas but the storyline was a bit too wordy and the sets were not convincing - you didn't feel as if you were going into another world, it just felt like a load of sets in a metal shed built by humans!Some of the effects were good, though I say it myself! I designed a laser/strobe tunnel (travel through galaxies) which you ascended up through after entering through the computer screen. Steve from the Planetarium designed and built the laser unit which consisted of 20 x 100mW lasers (if my memory serves right) and a massive array of mirrors and servos. These lasers were chosen because they were the only low-powered lasers that you could legally and safely point directly at the public at the time. They also didn't require a massive cooling system which I seem to remember lasers used in those days!Unfortunately, we were installing everything into a cold, dirty industrial environment - not suitable for such delicate equipment! These were pioneering days for us! Needless to say, the laser unit needed nursing and it wasn't clear (certainly to me) how or who had the expertise to undertake the maintenance. This was the same for all the animations, light focussing, etc.A month or so later, a memo went around the studio heads mentioning me in all but name for the ride's failure to meet expectations. It was true that many of the effects needed maintenance (which wasn't happening) but it showed how essential the effects had been.So, I trotted off to see Ray Barrett, who was director responsible for new projects at the time, and said that I would like to go down and sort things out. John Wardley agreed to supervise me, Tussauds put in a further sum of money, and I was very much left to my own devices!I worked very closely with Chessington's resident scenic theming team (who hadn't been involved in the original work). They 'filled' up the scenes to make the sets more encompassing and atmospheric, which I think was successful. We also re-thought through the whole ride, including the script.I cannot stress to you how appalling conditions were working in the cold winter months in a blacked-out unheated barn. It doesn't matter how many floodlights you use in a black box - it's still dark and dangerous!The refurbishments had to be ready for the new season (88?) and we just about completed on time. I kept a small team on to fine-tune the show with the public on the ride, checking timings of all the trains, etc.So. after all the work, was it worth it? The answer, I'm afraid, is probably not really. It was a good ride but in the wrong place at the wrong time and operated by the wrong team! I'll explain:I think we as the designers took short-cuts in creating solutions; unfortunately, we didn't have the resources that Disney would have available for such a dark ride. When you design something new it is always a prototype; ideally the prototype is tested and then re-designed and re-engineered into a final product solution. Unfortunately, we never have that luxury! The problem with the operation of the Fifth Dimension was to do with the fact that it was not really a 'suitable' theme park ride. It was a 'show' and should have been presented as such. As a 'performance artist' I understood this. When I supervised the operation of the re-vamped ride, I would ensure that all visitors were held back and I made sure they listened to the video introduction in the queue area.To assist the operator, the loading bay entrance door, video sequence, trains, special effects were all synchronised to ensure that the visitor's 'experience' was maximised, and a similar experience for each visitor. Under my control, I would insist that every train went into the ride full (try performing to an empty auditorium - it's not fun!). When the trains came out of the ride the visitors would often burst into spontaneous applause!I would train up the operators and explain to them that they were managing a show, a performance, and how important timing and hype was to the 'adventure'. I'd leave them to it and all running to perfection!The next day I would come in and the staff would have changed! Chessington employs 10s of low-paid casual (student) labour over the season, so I realised I had no hope of training them all. Anyway, they didn't work for me and they had other priorities!So, I would come in the next morning and take a test ride. My first observation was that only a few people would be put on the train. The passengers hadn't seen the introduction properly so they had no idea what the ride was about - many thought they were going on a roller coaster (and you couldn't convince them otherwise!). Worse still, the park's ride engineers had been in that morning to inspect the trains, etc, and they would leave a door open somewhere, which would flood a scene with daylight and completely ruin the dramatic effect. [Actually, as a point of interest, it only takes a single LED to ruin the effect of a black-out. Try standing in darkness in a room that has an infrared sensor for the home burglar alarm].And that basically was the problem. It was a theatrical show and should have been conceived and operated as such. And like all shows the balance between brilliance and appallingness is a fine line. The ride part is an irrelevance - it perhaps would have helped to have advertised the 'ride' along the lines of the 'travelling laser theatre show'! Well, the psychology is the hardest part to get right, or perhaps I should say 'communication' is...Dan Longley MBA BA (Hons) MAPMVisiting lecturer in Tourism StudiesBirmingham, UKFrom the depths of archived reride.net. - bring back reride.net !!

This insuinates that Chessie stick to their own plans for more than a month...Which is apparently from what I'm told, not always the case unfortunately.. They really need to stick with one thing and expand on it... The zoo is nice guys, but STOP FOCUSING ON IT...

Thanks! The whole place was completely unrecognisable when the big change happened. It was like a whole area of Thorpe Park that I knew quite well simply no longer existed. Now I know whereabouts the old attractions used to be in comparison to Stealth.It was a lovely little area; it made the park feel much less compact, especially with the Farm still open. There was a lot to explore.

Do you have any clue what you're talking about - because all that comes out is bigheaded bull****.Buccaneer is a GERMAN ride that has had new GERMAN manufacturer restrictions imposed on it, exactly the same way that Falls, and GERMAN ride had GERMAN manufacturer restrictions imposed on it.Nothing has happened on Fury - the two adults to a car was repealed after a review and three adults in a car is in force because the car can take 300kg each, which is roughly 75kg each. Which is three fat people. Again, a GERMAN ride having GERMAN restrictions imposed on it. The construction of the ride is piss poor, there is only so many times you can say that Lift 1 is meant to sway like that.The basis is that if the chain had snapped in any other direction, it would have smashed straight into the train, killed the two people in the front train and seriously hurt the guests behind in rows 2 backwards.Do you have ANY CLUE what you're talking about Benin?

They are just a few little nods to the past or easter eggs. Nice to see, but they don't really mean anything (except the Flume hint perhaps). If they were trying to add a real backstory to the area, they would not do it through a small sign on an information point, it's just a bit of fun.

Thought I'd drag this up, for those who aren't sure..
An area beside where the original Fish was, connected from Model World. The last big green area to go, for Stealth. Althopugh part was kept and is still there, under Stealth's launch track, where The Swarm boards have since gone up..

Why? Simply because every major themepark I can think of has a log flume and so should Alton, and I'm not sure your guess that to make it a reasonable ride would cost less than a rebuild (especially when you factor in the decreased maintenance costs it should save in the long term. It could actually pay for itself fairly quickly). I think it really is that broken and gives an awful ride at the moment.A modern logflume can be a totally different ride to a 20 year old one, depending what they want to do with it. No one thinks it is odd when the same is done with a coaster. I'm quite sure as a one off spend they could have got corkscrew running like new much cheaper than building 13, but they didn't. Because it would have been throwing money at something old and knackered that would doubtless needed a ton of maintenance money every year and not provided anything new to promote. Why could exactly the same thing not happen with a flume?Not saying that is happening, it's just a thought. But I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.