Mitchada04

They replied to someone on FB who posted that image and have confirmed that it is indeed back open (well as of 10 minutes ago that is)

I know this pops up a lot, so when speaking to an engineer yesterday on our tour of Swarm, I asked him who proposed the backwards rows. It was Thorpe who asked B&M how they'd go about doing it. They then worked together with B&M providing four new chassis's for the backwards rows. They were originally discussing the possibility of making alternate rows backwards and forwards (so one back, one forward, one back...) and one train being backwards and the other being forwards. But due to the logistics of the queue, this was the better option. They still have the four forward chassis's as spares or if they ever want to turn it around again, but this isn't an idea at the moment as backwards is still proving popular. And when an effect isn't working because it's broken, the engineers do know and they do aim to fix it but sometimes this isn't possible as their job is to get the ride operational for guests. Effects are a side job when there's time and sometimes budget. If there are problems in the morning with one of the cars or even a CCTV camera (any of the ones that face track have to work for the ride to open as they are deemed critical) they won't have the time to fix the effects and as they're in the ride area, they can't fix them during the day. They are also aware that the entrance sign is beginning to peel off due to the UV light and they want to replace it, but once again the money isn't there and they can't justify spending so much on it (can't remember how much we were told it would be but it was a lot!)

It's fun. Something that's been missing at Thorpe for ages, pure fun! Okay, the theming isn't brilliant, it's awkwardly placed, dodgems is a cheap investment, Detonator is even more awkward and so on. But if you glance over that and look at its target audience, they love it! The 4D cinema is really well done. Theming inside is decent for a dark cinema, seats lovely and comfy, effects synced well and cleverly used (maybe a bit overused) and the film is fun. If we can take one thing from this, we have got a really good 4D cinema out of it all. The dodgems are great fun! The smell isn't great (burning rubber) and the amount of rubber on the surface is funny but hopefully this is just because it's new? No idea on that one, but throughput wise it's decent. They batch you into a little hold while the ride is going so that when everyone is off, the right number of people are let in, bars down, staff do a quick glance check as it's quite clear with these bars if they aren't lowered, and the process repeats once more. So yeah, it's a cheap investment but the kids love it, it adds colour to the area and it's loud (we heard it when we were doing The Swarm lift hill walk as the music was left on).

https://www.thorpepark.com/tickets-passes/reserve-n-ride/ Page has been updated, set of trial dates added for June and it will be trialled on all 5 of the big coasters. Could be a disaster, could work well. The trial dates start next week on Monday and Tuesday, then a variety of days ending with the last weekend of June. Will be interesting to see how this works out. Also So they're definitely aiming on integrating Fastrack into the system. And it seems if you don't have a smartphone you'll get a card to use!

It's just illogical. Why can't it just be 9-10 and they hold non ERT guests at the gates to the theme park entrance parts and people who can get ERT just wonder around the park and go through the normal queue of the open rides? That's how Towers do it and have done for many many years. Getting a wristband will take forever when busy (it's a tiny desk near the otters with two staff on) and is just unnecessary! It also means Fastrack queues are in use from the word go! Got to Scorpion Express today just after 10 and the Fastrack queue was half full as well as disabled entrance meaning half the air gates were blocked off. Dread to think what Vampire was like.

But what are we going to discuss over closed season They've done the X refurb, reopened the 4D cinema and now brought back the entrance music! If they bring in a Top Spin next year and repaint Colossus future discussion will die!

"All to pick a ball out of a hat!?!?!" They did at least give it a sense of humour and some advertising for Thorpe which never hurt anyone.

Could be worse.

I rode Detonator 3 times on Wednesday so it's definitely open They probably only need one evening to do what they want with it. Stick the new sign in, maybe an Angry Bird on it and link up the new audio. Simple. The area entrance to the side of Detonator is progressing well even with that path open. All they also need to do is change the "Amity Shop n Drop" sign to whatever the Angry Bird shop is going to be called.

X-Men Days of Future Past. AMAZING! The Last Stand could have killed this franchise so easily but fortunately it didn't. First Class was brilliant and this was even better! The use of the past forms of the characters and current or future day ones works really well to show the contrast and how much has changed. The time travel aspect is simple and not unnecessarily confusing that happens far too often in films involving time travel. A truly brilliant film with excellent effects and amount of action while highly developing the story and character profiles. Loved every second of it! Bring on Apocalypse Oh and Quicksilver is great!

They were filming a Walkers advert behind Pizza Hut/ in front on the volcano today so when I went to Inferno they said it would be closed until 12 due to filming. Go back at 10:30 and it's open just without any music! I found it odd that Walkers would want it closed, surely it'd be a much cooler advert with Inferno actually going. But it did open a lot earlier than first said so woo!

The dodgems have started to have theming added to the structure and vinyls to the cars (they make a surprisingly large difference unlike the plain ones). There are speakers all over the area so I guess we'll be getting sounds of the game or something. The entrance to both the dodgems and 4D cinema are almost done. The dodgems cattle pen is almost done. And Detonator is still open so I've no idea what's going on there.

Well they got planning permission to build the 100ft one planned before Saw and that was an exceedingly dense structure. I wouldn't be against something like White Lightning though. Brilliant ride! Would definitely work with the new shift in market, it doesn't look intimidating but it sure packs a punch, full of airtime and was fun! But yeah, if this opens in 9 days I'll be amazed.

Completely agree! They look like the blobs that are on the channel and I wouldn't be surprised if they all have names and children know these. It makes sense to have them on the cars, afterall this is the first ride you see in Cbeebies Land and it gives this ride some character and identity!

Try and avoid queuing to long. If they are standing around waiting watching it they're more likely to wimp out. So if you convince them make sure you do those two first then when they love it you can go "told you so." You could also play the "imagine being able to tell everyone you went on the worlds only horror movie based coaster and one of Europe's tallest" because then they could show off. Or you could promise to look really scared in the picture so there actual fear doesn't look as bad. (I've used all of these for many of my friends and my dad even used a few on me when I was little).

I think that was one of the problems last year. It would get stuck at the top and it took them often half and hour to get people off. So that would explain why they are stopping it at the top and having the pins taken out to see if it can support itself and then lower.

I much prefer the look of these bars than the ones at Chessington. Leg room isn't the best at Chessington because you can't move your legs much due to the bar coming down the middle so at least this should solve that. Plus, bars are so much quicker to check and lower than having to do up a seat belt so throughput wise is also a bonus.

The Shark Hotel only has temporary permission though until either the 24th February 2024 or when the hotel is built, whichever comes first (the shark structure being built also has the same temporary permission). So they'd have to reapply to have the Shark Hotel stay alongside the hotel and if they do and it is popular they won't want to get rid of it as that would be stupid if it's making money. And if that does happen then we've lost prime roller coaster land which they specifically created for a large coaster. Which they also keep saying is the long term aim for that island, so although I don't dislike the Shark Hotel as such it should leave when the main hotel opens.

Screamscape usually do get these pieces of information from fairly reliable sources and I've seen the dark ride word thrown around a bit on Towersstreet. And Thorpe really need something relatively large that they can advertise. Let's not forget, just because their coaster may have been pushed back it doesn't mean they won't get a large investment in another form. Even a decent medium sized investment would be welcomed after 2 years of small investments (assuming Angry Birds is a small and not a medium one). If they do get something, what will be interesting is if it is highly themed to an original idea or based on an IP. Basically, if Thorpe are getting something relatively large for next year there will obviously be people who know. The fact Legoland put planning permission in at the end of April, if they are looking at building a large building I expect we'd see something by the summer as well as marketing on park to bring people back next year. If not, Colossus repaint and Top Spin next to the ZacSpin (which is coming along nicely on the Fungle Safari site )

I was hoping to be the first to actually show you the dodgem cars But Thorpe are clearly so excited they posted it on FB. Oh well, you haven't seen the red ones yet BIRDS PIGS & LADDERS MAN PAINTING QUEUE LINE OPEN DOOR!!! (the seats have been unwrapped) AN ENTRANCE GROUND VIEW GREEN This would have been a better dodgem. RED GREEN AND RED! (there are 4 cars so far from what we saw today) SIGN! It's progressing quickly now but they do only have 8 days. They have also started work on the entrance by Detonator putting up the beams and I expect they'll close Detty on Sunday or Monday for its retheme. Woo Angry Birds Land!

I can only reiterate what's been said about Thorpe on quiet days. It's fantastic! Especially when every ride is running on full capacity (no complaints here! ) There was a Merlin Entertainments Annual General Meeting going on with all the managers seemingly on park and a lot of people in suits (shareholders maybe?) so maybe that's why the park was at its best. Everything was running apart from Slammer (which did rise at one point, stopped for a few minutes then lowered before flipping). Swarm's fire was initially set to go off every time this morning but then it was turned off late afternoon (or whatever causes it to stop). Inferno tried to kill a pigeon and did quite well, Rush was on a great cycle as was Vortex and Samurai. Ride count: Inferno: 7 Swarm: 3 Stealth: 2 Colossus: 1 Saw: 2 X: 2 Detonator: 3 Loggers, Rocky, Quantum, Zodiac, Vortex, Rush, Rumba, Depth Charge, Fish, Samurai: 1 So 30 rides for 6 hours in the park. Very impressed with that! One thing regarding car parking, if people don't want to queue to leave then use all 4 of the barriers! Not just the middle 2!

I used to visit here all the time when I was a kid for one reason. It is designed for children. All the enclosures have viewing points designed for children and activities at each enclosure (like how loud can you roar even though they have no big cats ). Drusillas is also well known for having a set of large and good play areas. Many of the places I visited as a kid I can't remember very well but Drusillas is one I clearly and fondly remember! Park map for those interested. Anyway, opening this Saturday is a new land with a few rides, Hello Kitty Secret Garden. Included will be a tea cups, car ride and a frog hopper. It's not much but for a family zoo of this size it is quite a lot, and just goes to show how IPs are becoming such a large thing for these smaller parks as it expands your marketing vastly. Hopefully it will do Drusillas wonders like Peppa Pig and Thomas have done for their parks. (Some pics from the sight). http://www.drusillas.co.uk/hello-kitty-secret-garden Has anyone else here been to Drusillas? If so what did you think of this quaint little zoo

If the meet is at Thorpe, any chance of including Summer Nights in it like the MoS ones?

Surely Hogwarts is a family area? That has a Junior coaster, family dark ride and 1.4m thrill coaster! (Alright it just happened to be there but still!) A true family area is one where no one has to split from the family because they're bored. If the kids are too small to go on Detenator they can go on the dodgems or 4D cinema while the older ones go on it. Or you could watch the people going on it and laugh. Maybe even have a look in a shop or play one of the games. A family is a tricky thing to define but usually you'll have one older kid and one younger. If you can cater for all in one area then you have a family area.

They could get another launched coaster, something like Juvelen or even a Mack. Just because it launches doesn't mean it's going to be tall. Family launch airtime machine from Mack please. In a nice grassy green. Thanks.