Mitchada04

All of the turntables were working yesterday

Brilliant meet great day at the park and even though we couldn't do MoS a few of us enjoyed the fantastically amazingly awesome How To Train Your Dragon 2! Still not sure how it can take the people in Bar360 40 minutes to put a piece of chocolate cake on a plate and then a scoop of ice cream (it wasn't even busy) but that's the theme park magic for you Hope you over 18s enjoyed MoS, because next year you'll have me to put up with

It looks soooo out of place! But the old ones were absolutely awful so anything is an improvement.

Don't forget that under 18s can drive too For example, last weekend I took J.S217 and Styles to Towers for the meet and we're all under 18 so it can be done. You just have to ask around. And with regards to timings, it's the first week of school/college, you can get away with not doing any work that weekend

The tolerance of the catch car is 3mm otherwise it won't launch. You can't just rock it back onto the catch car. It's not a simple push the train into position job. They'd have to manually release the dog and get positioning spot on. My source? Staring at the dog and catch car plus the computer screen showing it's in the tolerance whilst an engineer explained.

Thanks Mark I couldn't be bothered to do a general TR either so this was a good way to show some of my pictures from the weekend

The great thing with that picture is there was no editing involved. The Towers are that magical that we ended up looking like that.

Sold out ones last year were between 1000 and 2000 I believe. Also, the first 500 tickets are free, more are available but you have to pay the usual £5 fee for them.

You've just got the last seat then toofy (if you need a lift in the morning from the station just ask as well)

After my weekend at Towers I thought I'd explain why Nemesis is my favourite. Even before this point you can hear it roaring around its twisted layout which can be quite intimidating. It is the roar of a monster! An untamed alien that wants to escape! The British weather was brilliant to help set the scene! But you can stand directly under element of Nemesis with no netting ruining your photos. Unlike Smiler Without the netting these photos would have been half decent! Nemesis is full of force! It's relentless! This is one drop. All be it forceful but not anything significant. The only bonus about Oblivion is the long ride time you get due to the stacking. Nemesis may be a mix of a few colours but it looks good for the ride theme. Due to height, the black sections on this look stupid. Nemesis has never been rethemed. This has (although I do really like Duel). Some say it's rough, no just intense. This was rough. It has a cooler station. This makes you look at blue lit concrete. It's not trimmed. Th13teen is. It's never caught on fire. The Skyride has. It's fun all the time! The Flume isn't. And it's 100% photogenic! Okay so maybe I've been a bit harsh on the other rides, but for me Nemesis is best! Some of you probably think I'm a sheep and just follow the herd of people who love it. No. My first experience of Nemesis was when I'd just hit 1.4. Never been to Alton Towers before hand and we went on the Monorail to the entrance. With our AP we went to Forbidden Valley for ERT and I heard the roar! No idea what it was until I saw it. And there it was, Nemesis! I remember my first ride and after many years it's still never disappointed! Sure it's not the fastest, or the biggest, but for me it holds a special place in my heart and has never let me down. I appreciate everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that is mine

It's going to be the 7 o'clock showing of How To Train Your Dragon 2: 3D at Staines (probably)

The campaign that it was painting a bad image for mental health sufferers. Got quite heated so much so that the police were contacted to try and get Thorpe to remove it. This had NO influence on them removing it though. It was decided in the summer that it was to be The Asylum's last Fright Nights. It was just a shame it ended on such a negative campaign. They'll probably replace it with a similar concept anyway so don't see what the problem is (although I'd much rather they move away from it and make something decent that builds suspense because for me Asylum wasn't that great, just a slow procession through some flashing lights and loud noises *waits for the hate*)

Excellent weekend! loved almost every minute (the M6 is a pain though although when I Get Around by the Beach Boys played it got a bit better ) Went to quite possibly the most bizarre take away place ever, D-Licious! Hotel was okay but the room next to us was a bit noisy (those rowdy guests in room 218 ). Was a bit worried about it all as it was my first long journey but it all went smoothly The two days at Towers were excellent! Decent ride count and got on Smiler front row with Peaj after being in the SRQ. The great thing about these weekend trips are that they don't end after park close or after the meal, they go on for a whole night and another day will try my best to get to Blackpool

No. The wooden Zacspin going on Miss Hippo's Fungle Safari site. Have a peep over the fence next time you're there, you'll see the wood and ride control booth and some WD40

Basically, you know the wooden zacspin Thorpe are getting, clone that but make it bigger and faster and do 15 inversions because why not? That's clearly what the public want. But seriously, I'm led to believe it is what was originally planned for SW7 but once again B&M were a bit slow in perfecting the concept so Smiler happened (great) and we will see it in 2017 if all goes to plan.

On Friday the Fastrack queues were NOT being used for RnR. Stealth it was using the disable queue, Swarm the backwards queue, Saw the bit in the middle between both queues, Colossus the left hand side of the two entrance paths and Inferno the first cattlepen (although this did mean the main queue was the same length in the afternoon). Therefore Fastrack was not affected on Friday (can't speak for the other days). The only problem we had with the system was that the RnR waiting times were all over an hour for the main coasters when the actual queues were 15-20 minutes (physically as well, not just by the look of it). We walked on Colossus at 5 when the RnR wait was nearing 2 hours. It took too long for them to realise that it could become "ride right now."

Banned because your ban was flawed as you don't have the most medals so someone was going to ban you for the same reason. That someone is me

The Halloween event at Universal is a separate ticket. Meaning on HHN the park closes at 5pm with it reopening for HHN at 6 till 11/12/1. Islands stays open till 8 ish though. I believe it's the same for Busch Gardens Howl'O Scream. I'd expect it to be moderately busy with queues between 30 minutes and an hour (probably less). The main rides are very rarely closed for maintenence and although it may not be a particularly busy time of year it is one of the recognised time so they'll plan maintenance schedules around this.

You can find the maintenance schedule for Busch on their website which shows a year in advance. Universal tend to show closures a month or so in advance under their opening times. Not to sure about Disney. And it depends what time of October you go as the beginning half of the month I know to be quiet. Not sure on the later half.

Was working on Sunday

There were always people on in on Sunday. One thing this has done is open up that half of the beach to the older demographic with tables and chairs set out for spectators and people being allowed into the small pool section on that side (on Friday they had a staff member standing under the bridge stopping people from going one side to the other)

Whilst I prefer the inside bag room, with only one staff member it does not work! The queue was 40 minutes inside the building when we did it and moved so slow! Because, one person in the bag room led to empty/ half empty trains being sent! Our little group of 5 got one row each, half a train full. The lady was trying her best but it's not physically possible! It gets even more messy when the operator tells people on the ramp to go past those with bags to fill up the trains. Chaos.

Can't find them at Universal though, further proving why ABL is much much better. Plus only half of the train ride counts as the other half is in a whole different, separately ticketed theme park. And the queues, they'll be fun. At least with ABL the queues are no where near as bad as what Diagon Alley will be like! Importantly as well, Hedwig loved Thorpe! (Josh's photo ) ABL shows why Merlin is second only to Disney

Before I show you it in action BE SAFE And some Storm Surge just because why not. Didn't see if it actually was £25 but there were a far few people having a go. You go into the white tent it looked like, pay, get a wetsuit then go up in groups of 3.

Banned for thinking your banning powers scare people (go for it )