Mitchada04

Derren Brown would work well with the likes of a dark ride or experience but as a wooden coaster? Unless it was something like the Lord of Darkness from Oblivion but instead being Derren Brown? No idea but we can't overlook the Hunger Games IP. They mentioned it once and it's a Lionsgate film. If we're getting a woody can we just get an awesome GCI with immense theming angry no IP? If the ride is good enough by itself it will sell! Make the single image that Merlin like amazing and the tag line whatever (it wouldn't be tough to get a UK's first ____ wooden coaster) and it'll do well. This tag line Merlin like doesn't have to be a worlds first or even a gimmick necessarily, just something that sums up how awesome the ride is in a phrase. Or Mack. But I fear Merlin would somehow ruin it.

Banned for obviously being upset that Jack rates Inferno over Swarm because it is a better ride.

The barriers don't add to the congestion much. 98% of the time they work well and you scan your ticket and are straight out. And then when you get to the roundabout there isn't a queue as the flow to it has been constant. It also reduces the arguments at the mini roundabout where the bus stop and drop off join on as you don't have 1000s of cars fighting for one lane with no restricted flow. When there was a huge problem in Staines or on the M25 they would announce that the Dome would remain open and that you could even go back into the park even if you had left. The few rides open till 9 or whatever it was in the summer also helped a bit. No it's not brilliant but it never will be. On our quiet days at Universal it took 10 minutes to get parked and when walking to the parks the queues for the barriers were ridiculous to get into the car park! All because you can't just scan a ticket and go in, but you have to buy the ticket therefore adding to the delays. Even leaving those parks was a nightmare! 11pm close at SeaWorld one night with the whole car park exiting through T Junctions onto a main road. Not fun and didn't leave the best impression. But it's a way of life. You can leave early or stay as late as possible if it bothers you that much. No one forces you to leave when the majority of people do.

You can't revise solidly every day till your exams. That's just not the best way. Having a day off at a theme park and just having some fun is probably good as it'll help take your mind off things especially if you're stressed. I did a few theme parks around my GCSEs last year As for walking around the zoo I really like the sound of that!

The Inferno ash! I think it was for sale, or from Ikea. Something on that shelf was from Ikea as it still had the barcode sticker on it The new merch range is great though! They had some of last years shirts on sale in the Mega Store on Friday and they looked so cheap and tacky compared to this years. Great improvement and the little touches like the pictures in the shops just add to it all!

Banned for having a SBNO ride as your profile picture.

This is by far the best Easter event they've done that I can remember! The Angry Bird Easter egg hunt was great fun and we were really surprised by the positioning of one of the birds (but it was great to see them using this area). The egg you win is also very nice! An Aero Bubbles egg with Aero Bubbles inside. Yummy! (They also gave you a blue pen which has a Thorpe Park logo on it so that's a nice piece of free merchandise ) Braniac Live was brilliant! Truly excellent show that was fun and enjoyable, something that has been missing from Thorpe for a long time. Much better than those stunt shows they usually bring in. Great use of The Asylum building too! I hope they use it over the summer for something and maybe even a Fright Nights show. The Asylum is gone, get over it. Brilliant event and definitely the way Thorpe's events should be going!

I'd say the barriers make it easier in the long run. I left at Park close yesterday and there weren't any massive queues and most of the time the tickets work and barriers go up very quickly. And because it is filtered a bit more it means when you get to the roundabout you're not having to queue. I think entrance barriers would be worse as that could cause queues onto the roundabout and Staines/Chertsey road. It works at certain parks because they're designed that way or have 20 booths like the American parks but I think it would be a disaster at Thorpe.

Not to fear, the tea cups were storming once more today (although one of the tables is still broken and they're still very stiff)

It was testing quite a bit again today though!

It's all down to opinion. If everyone agreed on what the best ride in the world is then what would be the point of other rides? The great thing is everyone likes different things and types of ride. See in my opinion Colossus should be above Saw, Vampire below Kumali and X higher up (although it would be interesting to see how many people had been on the new X when they did the poll). Big One is quite high up, I wouldn't rate it that highly because after the first drop it is pretty boring and rough. But woo! Go Nemesis for getting back in the top 10 and fighting of TPR's stupidly loved Chinese coasters ridden by like 20 people.

It was closed all day and didn't look like it was having any work done to it when I walked past.

There's nothing the staff members can do to make swing B go higher. It is out of sync massively with swing A and just can't reach 90 degrees (looked like 80 today while swing A was getting about 100). It's down to the engineers and S&S to fix, but I doubt it's an easy job to do when the ride is operating every day now. Wouldn't surprise me if they'd have to take some of it apart to fix it.

Looks quite nice now! And the inside is really nicely done!

Definitely beginning to look more like a shark! (not the best picture I'll admit )

Slammer update for you all! It wasn't slamming today. Did notice these orange things on each side and I don't recognise them so maybe they're part of the "new" Slammer? No idea but it wasn't testing today and the cherry picker was outside it again.

Can't believe I didn't see them arrive did have a look in the cinema as one of the yellow exit doors was open and not much to say apart from the fact they are completely new seats and are still wrapped up.

I'm going (as long as I don't have to wear a onesie!)

Park Outlook posted earlier that it was open and put a picture of it that is obviously old (old queue time sign and it wasn't wet today) and then they said it was closed for testing and posted a video of it testing. The rate they're having to test it to get it to open it'll break before they can actually open it!

Universal Orlando Florida or California?

Must be for the Easter egg hunt they've got going on over Easter weekend. And I bet the tickets to the premiere screening of Angry Birds 4D are in there

I can only reiterate Mark's point Matt it is just a fantastic park that is such a nice place to be! It is easily my favourite of the non Merlin parks in this country and that's just from 2 visits! It's great to see it being a success because it deserves it! It's difficult to compare it to Legoland and Chessington as they have completely different budgets/funding, but Paultons is a perfectly rounded family park. Toddlers, children, parents and even grandparents would have a great time! The only market it doesn't target solely is teens/young adults so you're unlikely to see groups of teenagers roaming around but as a family, yes. Great park, great place, just great! Definitely give it a visit Matt

Ah yes Wave Runner was great! Even with a queue it moved much quicker than Depth Charge and the slide seemed much faster!

My aim this year is to visit as many of the British theme parks as possible giving this blog the name "A Year of Britain" in the hope that next year it can expand and so on Anyway, first up is the delightful Paultons Park! I had only been once before back when Cobra opened in 2006 and it was a really nice day out. So 8 years on it was time to see what had changed. Upon arrival it was raining But do not fear, it was only the bizarre but cool new raining tree! Although the new entrance wasn't ready and we had to go through that lovely tent it sure is a nice looking new entrance and plaza! This bird was certainly impressed with the new entrance! One thing about Paultons is how beautiful it is! The park is in a lovely country setting and has some great nature and wildlife. But it is also clear that they care about the appearance of the park which is great! Lots of open grass space! It's really nice as this is the first thing you see before any rides. Peaceful and tranquil. Before the rides opened at 10:30 we had a wander through the dinosaurs. All dinosaurs looked happy and well looked after so all good here. Not yet weird purple lava volcano drop tower with a dinosaur in the queue... Time for the first ride of the day on the very decent Cobra! It's a very blue ride! So to counteract this they have cleverly placed a red bin in the way of this shot. Now don't confuse Cobra with Kobra at Chessington, down here they call it The Edge. Quite easy to tell the difference, Paultons spell things properly, Merlin use stupid letters. After sorting that out, we rode Magma! Queue is weird but nicely themed, ride makes very little sense (a volcano with a dinosaur and a mine? Yeah I know...) but it was a fun ride. Made me a bit queasy as it spins slowly while dropping and goes on for ever but still fun Moving on we have Red boat Blue boat Up boat Down boat. I mean Raging River Rapids. Standard fun fair model but good fun and very bright! Look at how nice the plants around this chairswing is! And Cobra. We were a week early for the Victorian carousel But it looked good and the plant things around it were really cool! Mr Meerkat will definitely be first in line! What's this I see? Mr Penguin isn't giving it away... Of course it's Peppa Pig World! Although it was heaving in there which is good because it made the rest of the park dead, it is really well done! It's bright, cheerful, heavily detailed and the rides are based on the characters making it very popular. For what was a relatively small and unknown park, this area has given the park new life and success! They (unlike Drayton) don't keep adding to this area, they are instead using the money and improving the rest of the park adding a variety of family thrills! Merlin, Cbeebies land has a LOT to live up to. A ride with a sting in its tail. And I will finish this entry up with a picture of the really nice 4D cinema! I hear that the same company are doing the 4D cinema at Thorpe which fills me with hope as this is a really nice cinema!

Slammer puts too much stress on it's parts. S&S discontinued it so Thorpe have to get parts specially made meaning it takes longer. The screamin' swing is a much more reliable design of S&S's (in comparison to Slammer that is). I believe it's Merlin that keep giving Thorpe a specific fund for Slammer. I know they've been working on some new features that should allow them to lower it manually (I think this is the reason it closed last season as it kept getting stuck up in the air). Hopefully it won't be too long before it opens and is finally a bit more reliable.