Mitchada04

Billboard is going in! (TPs FB page)

I've probably made a mistake somewhere but it seems to work. The park is open 7 hours on the AP day and 1000 Swarm backward tickets are available. This gives an hourly throughput of 1000/7= 142.857 (or 143 rounded). And with 8 seats going backwards 143/8= 18 trains an hour. So if my maths is correct that would mean a dispatch time of just over every 3 minutes which is a terrible throughput. Meaning that the forwards facing seats (20) multiplied by 18 gives only 320pph for forwards and a grand total of 463pph for the whole train. Now hopefully there is a mistake somewhere (in either my working out or Thorpe's decision at 1000 tickets) because I don't want to believe these figures. If these figures are true I can see Thorpe and Merlin receiving many complaints.

It was sent out in an email by Merlin. They did this pre-book thing with Saw Alive on the 2010 AP day which was good because it avoids massive queues on the thing everyone wants to do. For the main season you don't have to book a ticket for it but Fastrack will be available if you feel the urge to spend £7 (guessing) to jump the queue to go backwards.

I'm dissapointed that both the drops will be inversions instead of having the possibility of air time which looked possible with the published plans. And the removal of the twisty section after the cobra roll with corckscrews. It's just going to be one loop after another with only the two airtime hills taking it they remain and don't become zero-g rolls or something.

Because Chessington is popular and the sooner Merlin realise that the better. It has so much potential which I think Merlin have just worked out. I see good times ahead for Chessie

Whilst it's a bit later than the previous couple of days, capacity has once again been reached. Go Chessie

So it will have a secret element that will be kept secret until the public ride it a news channel reveals it a day before opening It would actually be nice to have a secret element that does remain a secret though, of course you can't stop it from getting out there because people will ride it and reveal all, but the longer it is kept a secret the better.

Why bother queueing for Storm Surge to get wet socks and shoes when Tidal Wave is next door, usually has a shorter queue and is much more fun

From Chessie's website.

Actually it isn't, a Swarm train has 7 rows, not 6 . In all seriousness though it is a great bit of promo but that is the one thing Merlin are very good at so it is what I would expect.

Merlin have surely got to consider longer operating seasons now with Towers also being very popular these past few days from what I've heard. The demand is there, they just need to take the bait.

Chessington have been using the prebook only system for a few years now and they do limit tickets. Last year I went on the Sunday AP day, they had run out of the prebook tickets a while in advance and queues didn't top 30 minutes for Vampire and Dragons Fury. Merlin are well aware of the disaterous 2011 event and won't want the same to happen again. This prebook system is tried and tested and proven to work. They'll know the heighest possible attendance and will (hopefully) be staffed for that. Merlin and Thorpe don't intentionally anger their passholders even if it does seem that way at times.

Do love this new bit of promo from the Merlin email. Hope to see it used alot

Yay, they are giving it another go. Let's just hope that they are prepared.

My entry was 'Graphic' and would you look at that, it was chosen Looks alot better than I had in mind and will hopefully add the element of near misses which The Swarm doesn't have many of compared to Raptor.

Latest Twitter picture from the Towers. Looks like the game could reveal all about the ride and that the concrete walls will be remaining as concrete with some paint on. I presume this is the beginning of the second lift with 'half way converted' on the right hand wall.

The competition is a bit of fun to give the park a bit of advertising over social media sites. I'm sure people are telling their friends about it because someone is going to win the prize even if the slogan isn't used. Anyway, we all know it is going to be a Fanta advert

Outlaw Run test video anyone?

The 10th is family and friends day so maybe they're letting the winners go then?

The times for FN have changed, whilst it is still the same dates they are now going to be open until 10:30 pm! I really hope this actually happens

To bring this back on topic, isn't Loggers Leap fun with its awesome double drop. Just hope they have the water running down it again this year.

The Zufari page has been updated with the TV advert and a little map of what you'll see. http://www.chessington.com/zufari/ Have to say I can't wait to find out what this theme park attraction style ending will entail with both the TV ad and the little map at the bottom building the suspense really well.

If X is rethemed to an acceptable level what will we all complain about next year (Lack of a Topspin anyone ) I will be very happy for it to have a lower height restriction and be changed if it is done well. Thorpe need to (and may have) realised that kids do still visit and aren't quite 1.4 metres so they shouldn't be forgotten about. Just to worry people, the only other ride on the 'Full Ride Listing' that uses the word 'ultimate' in its little description is Storm Surge and we all know how 'ultimate' that is. Reading a bit to much into it now aswell but the use of 'challenge' makes this seem like it won't be anything to do with MoS/MTV but I am probably reading into the use of these words too much.

Storm Surge was a good ride at Cypress Gardens (I know it seems hard to believe but it was). It fitted in well there and didn't ruin the view of the park. The slide wasn't rusting to pieces with holes all over the place and it had a very nice and simple wooden station and fencing around it. Whilst it had zero theming it looked much better than it does at Thorpe. I rode it many times on my two visits to Cypress Gardens over the years and it felt much better there, at Thorpe it feels cramped and an utter piece of rubbish. Just to compare them: And this image is being kind to Storm Surge at Thorpe. Storm Surge just doesn't fit and the only thing I like about it is the fact that they repainted Thorpe Mega Store because of it.

What I like about theme parks in the UK is how they are all unique. In America you have many Six Flags/ Cedar Fair parks etc that offer the same rides such as Batman clones, boomerangs and SLCs. Whilst in America that works due to the distance between each park over here it just wouldn't so we get a much larger variety of rides. We only have one boomerang, one standard SLC (which is plenty ) and so on. Whilst we may have similar ride types for expample the two Nemesis', they both offer completely different experiences in terms of layout, theming etc. We do have 3 Gerstlauer Eurofighters (soon to be 4) but each one has a completely different layout to the over so essentially a completely different ride. There are also some very unique coasters in this country such as G-Force (which has only been replicated once in Iraq I believe), X, The Ultimate and many others. And of course there are the many classics in this country mainly from Blackpool depending on what you define a 'classic.' As a country we have also seen many record breakers or world firsts (Colossus, Oblivion, Air, The Ultimate, PMBO and 13) and many roller coasters that are known worldwide notably Nemesis. Whilst it may seem like Merlin are ruling the theme park industry in Britain they only own 4 of the many parks and whilst there may not be alot of competition, parks like Drayton, Flamingo Land and Paultons are always investing (especially in recent years). Whilst they may not be £20 million B&M's that Merlin can afford they are decent investments (this isn't my argument for a Zamperla Volare but even with a Volare it is another unique coaster to the country that many will never have tried before) and with money as it is at the moment with a triple dip recession looming it's more than we can ask for. Ultimately, we will never see massive dark rides costing a ridiculous amount but what we do get is ample for a country this size and it isn't the size or cost of the ride, it is the quality and there are certainly many high quality coasters in this country. And just because I found this interesting, the UK has the most coasters out of any European country at 162 followed by Germany at 133 then France at 102 (according to RCDB) so I think the state of the theme park industry in the UK is absolutely fine.