Mitchada04

Seems work might have started. Scare Tour have posted this; They've been doing a lot of work down there recently so wouldn't surprise me. Plus, having the building by Inferno would work with regards to the film with the only inside part being at the end, and it will drown out the noise of Inferno, because behind BK I expect it's quite quiet and with some work it could make you feel quite secluded. I would also guess then that the entrance will be CCR station and the exit will be through the gates next to where Inferno starts. Secondly, Theme Park guide have posted this today; Two weeks ago when I was there a few builders were digging up the paving and relaying it which I thought was strange considering it doesn't get used so surely other areas of the park would benefit more from this sort of work. So I can only guess we'll also see something in here. Exciting times!

If people were opening the gate on Stealth then it can't have been more than 3 trains wait. The Summer Nights I went to all of the queues were a free for all purely because the only people you saw were up in the station, not in the queues. I'm sure if there was actually a queue the staff wouldn't have let people use the side gate for re-rides. And, people wouldn't be going around again without getting off it there was someone waiting behind that gate, only if that airgate was empty. Tidal Wave closed isn't really a big issue, how many people would actually ride it? And it wasn't even on the original line up when the event was announced, that and Storm Surge were added closer to the event. Rides not opening till 8 isn't a surprise really, the park closed at 7 with queues for the likes of Swarm probably around 30 minutes, and then they have to take a car off, annoying but expected. Maybe they should have made it 8-11 to ensure all rides are ready but this is the first year they've done anything like this so mistakes are allowed and I'm sure will be looked at if the event returns next year. Surely we should all be a bit happy that the event has steadily been getting busier as this means it's likely to return or longer opening hours will be implemented for the summer (or at least the last few weeks when it is much busier).

Yesterday was fine. Of course Slammer was done but other than that I only saw two closures, Stealth for 5 minutes and Nemesis Inferno for 10. Other than those from what I could tell everything was running fine the whole day.

I actually love the stall turn from both aspects- on and off ride. On ride because it gives you a breather, you begin to think Nemesis has given all it has then bam! Straight after it is another forceful corkscrew. It's also great off ride as you see the trains glide over that little plaza area by the station with feet dangling. Beautiful! The thing with Nemesis is it doesn't claim to be the biggest, fastest, longest, most inverting, worlds scariest ride on Earth. It just has a solid story line, followed by a decent queuing experience for a ride in Britain (the train swooping overhead to the first corkscrew, the look down into the pit and loop and the red waterfalls), then an amazing ride that has one of the most unique layouts ever utilising the landscape brilliantly. Perfect! The whole area is great, hearing the roar of this untamed beast as you head towards the Valley sets of the adrenaline before you've even seen Nemesis! It just goes to show that a ride doesn't need a world first element or gimmick to be great and successful, it just needs a complete experience that is amazing. The fact it's 20 years old and remains favourites to many and ranks very high every year is amazing. I do love how the name Nemesis arose, from the drunk minds of John Wardley and Nick Varney (if you haven't read "Creating my own Nemesis" here's the extract).

Nemesis Inferno all the way! The way interacts with the foilage is much better in the dark as it's more of a surprise. It is also lit brilliantly and rides so well at night! Have to also mention Colossus, it is again lit great and is great fun in the dark. So is Stealth with the view of the park. Saw is bland and meh and Swarm is hit and miss. If the lights on the cars are working (which they weren't always last year) and the fire goes of it's great, but it is essentially flood lit in places. Do like the flickering light on the billboard though

Maybe it's different for people who drive as my dad hates being wet after a water ride and then having to drive. Especially when that ride is Valhalla and you have a 90 minute drive. On really hot days too I'd rather ride Tidal Wave early on because the one you dry of quite quickly and two you don't have to queue for over an hour.

Oh no! I'm very glad I went yesterday, hope the damage (if there is much) isn't too severe! Something like this could severely damage the place in the long term money wise.

My only problem with this system is it's just another thing to go wrong. No matter how much you "trial" something technical, stuff still goes wrongs. Yes you can make a system very reliable much like a B&M but it can still go wrong. And we've seen from the trials that when the system crashes or it all goes wrong it gets very chaotic. I mean you can't not let anyone ride because reserve n ride is down for an hour. Just recently Thorpe's ticketing system crashed online due to high demand for the £20 sale, this will be the same. If they think of a suitable contingency plan for when the system goes down (even if it is turning it off for an hour and just giving out 1000 of the paper tickets or whatever) then it has potential.

This place really is my guilty pleasure. Went yesterday and had a great day. I'm going to go into why I love this place but first of all you have to understand that it's not a theme park, and it doesn't even call itself one. Adventure Island calls itself a "Fun Park" which suits the place very well. If you go expecting immersively themed areas then you will come away disappointed, but if you go wanting fun thrilling rides with very short queues even on the busiest of days you will come away very happy. So where to start, it was a lovely day yesterday and very busy on park. However, even with this the longest queue was 15 minutes for Rage. What I loved most was people were complaining about this saying that it was far too busy. 15 minutes for there largest ride?! I didn't have a single issue with this. This was also with the whole queue line full. Unlike many parks, they also added the third train at 3pm when it wasn't needed as such but they did and within 5 minutes that train was also transporting guests. Operations across the park were also superb! The staff were filling every seat possible on the rides to try and reduce the already minimal queues. The rides here don't have massive throughputs, but they were making use of everything they had available to them. If you see any of the rides with a full queue, the longest you'll wait is 20 minutes. The staff are another reason I love this place. They're all young adults but are great fun. They have the perfect mix of keeping throughputs high and giving guest the best day possible. Many staff had come up with dances to do with there rides music, coming up with ways to interact whilst the guests are on the ride, and getting you hyped up for the ride, all without affecting the queue time. The general park wide atmosphere is also superb, no it's not like a theme park with different themed tracks of music, but the use of Southend FM around the park gives a very lively feel and they also have characters walking around, great! Time Machine: This ride deserves its own mention. When I last went two years ago this was meant to be ready but it wasn't, and didn't open till last October, but the wait was worth it! This ride is insane!!! It is one of the most intense ride experiences ever and you can really feel it pulling on your face. It looks quite simple in what it does but when on it you have no idea where you are going. Adventure Island makes many of there own rides but this is by far the best. It's amazing how this thing doesn't tear itself apart and a huge congratulation is in order for the engineers who designed and built it. I would love to see what they could create if given the money and land!

They have said that they'll be releasing the online pre booking for passes soon so when that's up you'll be able to book online

Those locations would make sense as the park said they were looking to move away from the 'tents' to hold mazes so nothing on the beach would go along with that.

Great set of results James I'm sure huge congratulations are due for everyone else who got there results too! I got 9.5 A's and 3 A*s. More importantly the school as a whole got 96% 5 or more A*-C which for a school that was once only getting 11% is excellent, and that we were only predicted 82%. We sure showed statistics who's boss! Just have to wait for the embarrassing photo to appear in the local paper

I am very excited for this! I hope that they're not all mazes and if they are, they've learnt from the past few Fright Nights and continue to move away from the conventional conga line maze. Regarding upcharge for the mazes: The wonders of FB.

No Asylum?! But Theme Park Collective said The Asylum was part of the line up!

Before you read this is a very tongue in cheek report. There is a well known phrase that often gets thrown around regarding Thorpe, "If I wanted to look at trees I'd go to a garden centre." So I decided to visit Thorpe and see what gardeny stuff it has to offer. First of all you're greeted by this lovely lake surrounded by trees! More of this lovely lake and the trees. Lots of foliage... Even more! Some nice trees with decorative rocks. An array of trees, I'm spoilt for choice. Another lake and you guessed it, trees! They even tried to make it like an experience with the dense foliage. And more with a scaled up volcano piece that you'd put in your fish tank. This bunch of trees looks interesting, like they're shaped around an entrance These trees look well cared for. TREES! Even a baby tree! And themed trees for that ultimate devastated look in your garden! So maybe the "tree" statement should be more like "If I wanted to look at plants I'd go to a garden centre" because you don't really go out to buy a tree. So plant wise... Some nice flower boxes. Nice selection of potted plants. Lovely flower bed. The colours are very enticing! More flower boxes A nice array of plants and flowers with another decorative rock! Simple yet very effective. Look at them all, so pretty There's so much it's having to fight for space! So I think that saying about Thorpe is well and truly rubbish. I had a better day looking at the trees and plants at Thorpe than at any garden centre! The only similarity is this... They had this very expensive ornament called "Slammer." I was going to buy one but apparently it's currently unavailable even though it's sitting right there! The labels on items always lie. Thanks for reading

Just In case You Didn't Know Or Had Forgotten

A few things that probably relate to many pages ago. That list by TPC confuses me, the only maze we know returning is Saw Alive and if the rest is true, why would Thorpe keep The Asylum but have IP based mazes for all the rest? With Fright Night's now starting on Saturday 5th October I wouldn't mind betting that the AP preview event will be on Friday 4th. As I said earlier, The Passing was having a lot of work done to it. The skip everything was being emptied into. First it was wooden floor boards and by the looks of it on top is drainage stuff? Whilst this doesn't mean The Passing is leaving, it's definitely being worked on. Finally, whilst I love all of these teases for Fright Nights, they seem to be coming very quickly all of a sudden which in one sense is great but it will also mean the build up is over before its properly begun. I'm still very excited though

At one point the station was empty and sending empty backwards rows with a 90 minute backward queue. It seems that when it's quiet, it works, but when it's busy it fails. I know it's not great but it's a flaw with the system that should be looked at. Many people were realising that this could be done so were doing it (probably why the backwards queue is always so illogical in length). Many people used to take advantage of the old Fastrack system and did at the Disney parks by learning the secrets. Nothings perfect, maybe they could solve it by always having a batcher (or on days where there's a queue) in each side of the station and letting in backwards queue separately so they get put in the cattle pen in the station, then the forwards so the staff know who is meant to be going where. Or just put both queues together and let you decide in the station like a front row queue.

It seems that Brave it Backwards is actually amazing, let me explain. The main queue was around 2 hours most of the day but at around 1pm BiB was empty meaning you could queue up there, hide your ticket (which they weren't even giving out or asking for) and go forwards in 10 minutes. Result! Fastrack was once again heaving at The Swarm (where as Stealth had hardly any and only a 60 minute queue, could this possible be a link! ) The only issue is how quick the BiB queue grows again to something stupid like 100 minutes. A great snippet of a conversation I heard in the queue today which I though was worth sharing. Person 1: Did you know this is all based on a plane crash? Person 2: Why's it called Swarm then, it should be called Crash. Person 1: They couldn't call it that as they have that by the entrance.

If The Passing is staying then it'll have had a lot of work done! They're taking loads of stuff out (flooring I think) and dumping it in a skip basically.

So annoyed it's not being trialled today as the approximate waiting time is 120 minutes (probably more) for forwards. Fun.

Shame this isn't being trialled tomorrow as I wanted to give it a go

Thanks think I'll try and go the Tuesday instead

How busy do we reckon Monday the 26th will be? It's a bank holiday but is it one of the quiet bank holidays or busy ones? Thanks

Everything in that is great news! FN AP preview event is always great! More dates being added is great! The mazes remaining open till 10pm along with the rides if there is demand, great! GREAT!