Mitchada04

So I've got Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach and Pleasurewood Hills next week. Then Plopsaland, Bellewearde, Walibi Belgium, Phantasialand, Toverland, Efteling and Bobbejaanland in June/July. Oakwood in August and Blackpool seems to be floating around as an idea too. Disney now might be in September because why not. 4 days at Europa Park in October hopefully as well!

So just got back from 3 days at Towers and despite all the hate going on around the forums about how the park has been operating the past few weeks it didn't really affect us. First day (31st march) we arrived at 2pm to a park with literally walk on rides. Like no joke, went to Smiler first which was on 3 trains (didn't even need that many to be fair) and walked on row 3. Walked on some other rides and did all the coasters in those 3 hours bar Nemesis and Air because the skyride was closed due to the wind, oh and Smiler 3 times for good measure as you do (it's running a lot better this year!) Park closed at 5 but that's okay, it was a ghost town by that time. Only niggle over the 3 days was the monorail on 3 trains, just meant the queue moved in huge bursts then nothing for a while. Second day arrived, read some awful theme park related April fools jokes and headed onto park. Nemesis was on one train, fine. Air one station two trains, fine! Did those a few times, did Blade at 10, went and did Duel, did Nemesis and Air once more and then it was 11 so did Ripsaw, Sub Terra and went over to Dark forest. Simple! Although slightly annoying, when you know about the 11am openings you can work around them! So we kept doing the rides, did Smiler another 4 times that day and then got an amazing behind the scenes and lift hill walk of Smiler that evening! (A blog will be created with the juicy goodness of pictures and stories!) Final day, weather was nicer so Smiler had 4 trains and Nemesis on 2 but the park was still dead! The staff who did our behind the scenes kept seeing us and talking to us through Oblivion's microphone or running up and hugging us which was brilliant! Really made the trip that little bit different and special. So yeah, good stuff Towers! RIDE COUNT!!!!! Smiler: 11 (5 or 6 front rows) Nemesis: 6 Air: 6 Oblivion: 4 Enterprise: 3 13: 2 Rita: 2 Spinball: 2 Ripsaw: 2 RMT: 2 Hex: 1 Blade: 1 Duel: 1 Sub Terra: 1 CATCF: 1 Rapids: 1 Toadstool: 1 Flume: 1 Heave Ho: 1 Teacups: 1 Octanauts: 1 And if we count them, Skyride: 3, Monorail: 4, Sealife: 1 and a walk around the Towers!

Well I've been here for 2 days and going back today. The capacity on Park has been absolutely fine! We've walked onto nearly everything or had a 5 minute queue! Yesterday we went on a BTS of Smiler and they said the 4th train is being built for this weekend. Remember, up at Towers it's not school holidays til Friday. We were told yesterday and today are slow days with up to 10, 000 guests on Park.

Maybe it was just trying to help the clearing of land for SW8... or was purely meant for the skyride and missed.

Big maybe this one... depends what else other than my exams I have going on in May. Beginning or end of the month is best for me.

Let's us the latest drawing I've received...

Yeah, the Park over easter holidays was originally 5:30 close but it's all 5 close now. I hope the weekend opening times of only Flume Rapids Ripsae and ST is also the case for school holidays so 13 and Rita open at 10.

I really like this one And this one... those B&M curves with fresh blue Florida sky <3 The sky in this one is just amazing! Stealth at a different angle And because Paultons is awesome

I've already got my Empire ride sorted, I'm in. Can't miss out on any competition! Oh and I guess Chessington is okay too.

Paultons is fully open and investing well

Okay cuts have been made (and it shouldn't be done in the first place) but at least some logic should have been used when doing it! Surely FV is quieter than DF in the mornings (ignoring the ERT people in the area). So if you made ERT to include Blivvy and Rita again or similar and take off Nemesis and Air (as much as I love Nemmy on ERT it's just illogical now!) Then you could keep FV and Duel closed to 11 as even fewer people head that way first. Okay it's still a cut that no one wants but it just seems more logical (especially as Rita always gets a horrid queue). As for SRQ, yeah it's not great but they do severely slow down batching on rides that aren't designed for it. On Rita it was always awful and on Nemesis it used it's own staff member purely monitoring the SRQ.

The Sub Terra and Ripsaw one is just irritating. I understand Sub Terra but it means you have to leave FV and go back to it later after ERT instead of being able to get it all done in the morning!

Just wait til you see what else I've planned...

Pfft, I was merely going to point out all the places you used to be able to see the carousel but now can't and ifI annoy you that much, take it out on my spoon (well, you can try without success of course )

The cut trees are really nice! You can see the cleaned out waterfall and stuff, just how it's meant to be!

I confess... That's entirely my fault. But it had to be done.

Is mean. Why try and end Jadam, we're going for cutest couple and everything!

Ah Paultons Such an epic little park! Can't wait for this, and it's a park that constantly invests to pull in guests and even with the smallest of investments (new entrance and Carousel last year) they do them so spectacularly that people want to visit! It's how to successfully run a park and I'm so glad they get the visitor numbers they do (over a million a year I hear). Are we getting a vehicle buggy type ride through the dinosaurs as well as the two (although the poster has like 6 different coaster types on) coasters? If so yay! Go Paultons! Oh, and Critter Creek looks fab and colourful for what was quite a outdated looking area next to Peppa! They could so easily just expand Peppa Pig World but they choose not to, good on them! Get creative and go crazy!

Rattlesnake and Kobra were open, Kobra opened at 10:15 and died for a few hours straight away but was running in the afternoon. Rattlesnake was open by about 1 but at the entrance to begin with it was on the closed list. I think the thing that annoyed most people was Fury testing nearly non stop all day for staff training. Couldn't they have got some trained staff in to run that and then have the newbies shadow them and do the rest of the training today? Not an expert on it but everyone kept expecting Fury to randomly open as it was running fine.

I'm going to be practicing all week at college. Holding a plastic spoon on show all week

You say 1 week doesn't make a difference. But between half term and AP day loads of ride signs were replaced, stuff repainted. In 4 days since AP days the Carousel has nearly been entirely removed, more signs have been added at points, Tidal wave has had more work done to its lift (and the pool was full of water) and like Marc said, Rumba has had new slats put in place all in a few days. It definitely does make a difference. Tidal, Rumba, Samurai and Slammer were all advertised at the entrance not to be opening so yes it's not great but people were informed! Can't say for the rides down this morning but this afternoon it was all fine apart from Saw which is clearly struggling as it was meant to be open on AP days, and wasn't advertised to be closed today and did test once or twice. Not saying at all that any of this is good, having rides closed is always bad, but it is what it is.

Hmm, interesting! And Blade always used to be on ERT with Nemesis but this year it's not. Oh well, don't like pirate boats anyway

Surrey is meant to have this "even term length" thing but this half term is only 5 weeks long whereas the majority of counties don't break up till good Friday itself for 2 weeks. If you go to buy tickets, the 30th-2nd is actually £24.99 making it an "off peak date" but from Good Friday for two weeks it is £29.99 deeming that the peak dates. Gotta love Surrey and their silly term dates.

60% of my graphics A-Level is due by Easter... and I'm so on top of it :s

I like how the Colossus writing looks like it could belong to Loggers Leap as they are the same size