Mitchada04

It was closed for repairs. The article states that it is closed for good with a replacement ride expected by the end of this year. Real shame as it looked quite good and the duelling aspect of sit down vs. Invert seemed interesting! Guess it was just far too costly to come up with a solution for it. It's been plagued with technical problemsfrom day one and has spent most of its life dormant. Oh well, seems only Disney can make decent rides with Vekoma.

The thing with Disney is, part of what you are paying for is the line "I've been to Disney world." Doesn't ring true with Thorpe or any Merlin park really. No matter what Merlin say about being second only to Disney, in quality they are far behind! Merlin is only on the way to number one because of attendance figures because you can't go into any large town these days without a midway attraction. They may become number one in attendance figures but they sure won't be becoming number one in quality for a long time.

I've heard Easter Sunday is pike day or whatever (without being degrading). Easter Monday was always pretty good at Legoland and the past 2/3 May day bank holiday Monday's have been really quiet. Mothers day is another excellent one! Not too sure about Easter though.

Even though this year the last Sunday of easter holidays is actually Easter Sunday?

Oh well at 11:15 ish John Wardley took us over to The Swarm for a ride and we took up the whole left hand side and some other seats through the exit which was a bit of a faff

Was that about 11:30? If so I might know why...

Love the image! This side of the new marketing is excellent! Also love the way they are using the fact it's an island much more!

What's this I see? Why it's the frame for the shark of course!

White Lightning is more what I wish for Chessington! Wodan. Simple as. 1.2m height restriction, fun for families whilst providing thrills. Job done.

Still think it should be wood! Was talking to one of the ents staff today at the science week event and it all came down to maintenance costs of wooden coasters. They still have the planning permission for the woodie so it's not out of the question for the future, especially with these hybrids. We also discussed how easy it would be to make the tallest fastest wooden in Britain because they are so rare over here. From what the person I was talking to said the next coaster is looking to be 2016 although it is still very up in the air. (I know that I was talking to a member of staff who doesn't know all the information but still, it's nice to share)

Could this be for the science event they've got this week? Would make sense. Still don't think the wooden concept ever died, just was put back on the shelf once again. Would be interesting to see how the public on park react to that image though, as all the FB comments seem to want woodies (yes, even the general public). If Merlin still think that the GP find them unsafe then I'd like to know who they ask (possibly the same people who were up for a smaller drinks capsule that costs 75p per refill).

Both my rides on Saw have been good this year! Felt as if the jolt had shrunk in size so you weren't shaking and rattling for the rest of the ride so much. Colossus was running better though because it's a better ride

Good day with some great people as per usual! Now been a year since I started attending meets and I've loved every single one! I'm especially looking forward to all the selfies taken in the X queue, eat your heart out Ellen DeGeneres

Yay, means we'll get to sit on the second lift for ages again. Ah I miss those days. This is only good if the operations are severely improved! Stacking on 2 trains is bad enough, imagine that speed of operation with 3 trains. But it seems like Chessie's year so hopefully operations will have improved and 3 train op will work I'm also liking the queue line fencing repaint!

Alvey is excited by it so won't be a B&M. Probably just a wacky worm, he seems to love them My guess is wood. Big RMC, I think they said they had a few European projects in the pipe line.

This was at Alton Towers. John Lewis do this every year the weekend before opening. The park is open to employees and friends/families of the employees who work at John Lewis or a partner (like Waitrose I believe?).

It doesn't have to slow down operations. All the parks in Florida have this rule and their operations are great! The staff will eventually get into the habit of being able to do up the belts with their eyes shut so I'm sure it won't have that much of an effect.

It's the chain dogs clicking when the car detaches from the chain and the back speeds over it (or something to do with that) So I'm guessing it's done it since it opened. I do love the noise though! It's basically the iconic Colossus noise, heard it by Inferno yesterday and I've heard it in the car park a few times.

It's also good in showing that you don't have to be a teenager to ride thrill rides. The average child is 1.4 at 8/9 years of age. And with the new more family aimed approach they should definitely push this fact which I think this offer will do very well.

Got my ticket this morning, can't wait

I don't see a problem really. Okay it looked like it was going to be 10-5 and now it's 10-4, but it could quite easily have been closed. And if it's quiet, you'll have been on everything you want to by 4.

Surely it's only £10 for the Nemesis Inferno workshop tour add on as the event is £30 without it and £40 with it.

6 of these in 9 years? Merlin must be quite certain that this will be successful then. From reading the articles, at least it won't be 100% Shrek, yes the main thing is an interactive Shrek walkthrough experience thing but there will also be a "character courtyard" to meet other DreamWorks characters. It might be okay, it has some potential. At least Shrek is a large franchise that hasn't really died, it's just been a bit quiet. After all, they opened a whole Shrek dedicated area at Universal Singapore so it must have some potential still. Time will tell. Merlin Bank certainly seems to be coming along well though, all they need now is some dodgy looking Fastrack units dotted outside the attractions to make the area more cramped and a rip off.

The hole in Market Square is circular and with all this talk of it being a centrepiece I was thinking something like the Universal globe that is outside each of their parks. The Chessington logo would work well for this with it being a globe, it could include a fountain effect like the Hollywood Universal globe kinda does and it would certainly be a centrepiece! Hardly anyone goes to Universal without getting their picture taken in front of the spinning globe. So that's my guess

Would the general public care though that Stealth is an Intamin? No. It works both ways, many a time at Thorpe or anywhere people look at you funny if you take photos of something only enthusiasts would get. I have had many photos with "chavs" as all enthusiasts seem to call them jumping in front of my camera just to ruin a great shot. They'll then walk of laughing about it! So while we seem to judge the general public as stupid idiots who just want to go faster and higher, the general public can look at us enthusiasts as geeks. It's the same with all hobbies, you'll have people who judge those who aren't as smart about it as you and they'll judge you for being the know it all that ruins the fun. And going back to educating people, one of my friends who goes to Thorpe with me many times now knows loads about rides. He didn't know that Stealth was an Intamin, I didn't laugh at him for not knowing, I told him about it because he was interested.