Mitchada04

Information of the 4 known mazes (EX10, Asylum, Curse and Saw Alive) has been sent around in the Merlin VIP magazine which I haven't recieved but Rollercoaster Reel posted a picture of the page from the magazine. Does anyone else get the feeling that the image on the left is related to the new maze?

13 trips so far but hope for another 2 before fright Nights then 3-4 during Fright Nights. The 2012 season is already the most I've visited out of any season beating my previous record of 12 trips.

Maybe they'll have someone inside a dark corridor setting money on fire shouting 'this is what we do with your £45!'

I asked Thorpe Park about opening the mazes an hour early to compensate in the loss of an hour and this is what they had to say.

On the Saturday of Blow sh!t up last year they were at their capacity but as it was such a low capacity the park was quiet thus leading to this confussion. Anyway, back on topic, YAY, Fright Nights.

Sunday 4th November is now a Fright Nights date with Monday 5th open 10-5 meaning no fireworks this year.

If Thorpe doesn't get one of these insane hybrids in 2015 I might cry as they look right up Thorpes street. As for Full Throttle the loop and top hat on the same spine of track looks great and if SFMM can get the timings right I think we'll see many pics of the trains crossing. The backwards launch does seem a bit why but I suppose it doesn't do much else so needs to give some sort of surprise. I'd say there'll be three trains of 18 so not too bad but for a park that seems to be obsessed with adding throughput nightmare rides not brilliant. Really was expecting more from this ride though as I was hoping for Magic Mountains version of Maverick sweeping through the mountain itself with lots of terrain hugging. Hitting the brakes straight after the top hat aswell, so much potential lost. So what it has the tallest vertical loop at 160ft, Gatekeeper has a 164ft Inverting Dive which if anythink like THE SWARM's will be brilliant. It seems SFMM have lost their way in making rides with decent length and are obsessed in keeping their Coaster Capital crown.

If my memory is correct, they made last years AP Fright Nights preview an actual Fright Night date meaning non pass holders could go as well as pass holders. If they announce a date for the preview day (as it has yet to be confirmed it will be happening) just select a general ticket on Thorpes website for the same date as come the evening they don't check that you have a pass. Really hope they do a preview night again as it was so quiet last year at times it felt like you weren't ment to be there making the atmosphere great, especially with the clowns stalking you

Went to Thorpe twice during Sun Scream, the first and last day for Ride and Rave with a trip to Devon in the middle so both trips will be merged into one post. First of Friday 17th August. The weather was lovely and the park not to busy with the coasters having no longer than 1 hour queues. Colossus was on one train for the whole morning but the queue was moving really well even with loads of fastracks. All the rides were running well with very little downtime. Rush seems to be creaking quite badly which scared quite a few people in the queue. The Swarms effects were a bit random though. No water all day, mist here and there on the plane wing, helicopter blades spinning until they turned the fire on for half an hour. When the fire catches it is awesome. The heat and noise is great but when it doesn't catch the smell of gas lingers over the station and queue for quite a while. One train had no LEDs and the other had it on the back 5 rows. The new ambulance theming is well positioned and love that they gave it lights (meaning the island will be even cooler at Fright Nights. The ride itself was running well till we got stuck at the bottom of the lift for 10 minutes then went up half way, stopped again and eventually made it to the top and around. All of the pictures were taken on the 17th as I forgot my camera for Ride and Rave. WHEEL! Empty station (becoming a frequent sight for rides at Thorpe) More theming? (We now know it is the upturned telephone box) Tempted to buy the onride DVD just to get that case. This is where we got stuck on it. And because everyone else seems to do it, I thought I'd do my bit to help save the world. Sunday 26th August: The park was heaving but I didn't mind to much as I was here for ride and Rave. Got on three rides; Saw, Loggers and Swarm. We had a frog in are Loggers boat who seemed to enjoy the ride. Someones shoe flung off The Swarm during the inclined loop and flew over the queue to hit someone on the head. All the effects were working. The water at the fire engine turn around has been changed so it doesn't go over the fire. At first I thought the fire was going of randomly but I later realised it was going of for every 7th car. The telephone box is a good addition but I would rather something on the last corner isnstead of weeds. The event itself was great with an amazing atmosphere and the staff seemed to really enjoy it to so overall a very good night. With Sun Scream now over, hopefully we'll get some details of their next major event, Fright Nights.

Stealth is most definately more enjoyable as it doesn't try and stop blood circulation. Stealth for theming as it has a racing theme and looks good unlike Rita's couple of random themes to suit the ride next to it (which is always superior) Stealth for fear as well because of its height. Yes it seems slightly less intimidating because of the huge new B&M hotness next to it but it is still the tallest at Thorpe and its acceleration is just out of this world. If you can't tell yet, I love a bit of Stealth (better name as well)

Now that it's all official, Cedar Point have released the page for Gate Keeper on there website. http://www.cedarpoint.com/gatekeeper It's a good site with both the onride and offride povs, a webcam of the site to watch the construction, the renderings, news and all the teechnical data. Due to the MCBR it will have three 32 seater trains meaning a theoretical throughput of 1710 pph. Overall looks like a solid ride.

Went to Chessington yesterday as my sister wanted to go for the Moshi Monster thing. Overall a good day, other than Vampire and Dragons Fury which had a steady 80min queue all day the queues weren't that bad. We followed are usual route of get there at 9:30 to have a wander around the carnivores before the main gates open at 10. Love doing this as most of the animals are out as it is so quiet. Got to see the new gorilla baby and my favourite animal, the tiger. After passing the fossa, we realised that the gates to the theme park were all ready open at 9:50. I'm usually not adverse opening earlier than advertised but Chessington have never done it in all the years I've visited which meant we had a 25min queue for Vampire instead of the usual dash and no queue at 10 (suppose it doesn't matter as we were of by 10:15 which we usually are when the gates open at 10). Did a quick ride on the duck infested Bubbleworks (not real ones, the yellow plastic ducks). As it was nearly 10:30 (the time of the first Moshi show) we headed to Wild Asia. Whilst my dad and sister watched it, I got on Kobra, Monkey Swinger and the Dodgems. The Jungle Bus (smaller version of Quantum with a roof) was broken which it always seems to be and was even in Beanoland (Chessingtons version of Slammer for reliability). This led us to Dragon Falls which had a wierd rule of only 3 per boat in operation but was still walk on so no complaining. I do love the fast section after the dragon tunnel but I wish you'd get a bit wetter on the drops. Tomb Blaster was next and after walking through the Arab prison queueline we were straight on. It's great to see all the effects working, a slight variation in lighting and other bit and bobs around the ride. t was now time for the Madagascar show which I avoided and did Rattlesnake. All the effects in the queueline were working and some new audio for the guy with his head in the bucket. Dissapointed to hear a new voice for the 'sit back, hold on tight, this is a bumpy ride' which didn't sound Mexican in any way. That was it for the rides so we had are lunch and walked around the whole park again just to find all the moshlings. It was great to see how popular this was with loads of kids completing the sheet and finding all the Mega Block Moshlings. Great to also see huge piles of mud behind Wanyama Village for Zufari and loads of posters promoting it around the park. And that's it. Sorry for it all being text, I promise pictures galore for my next trip report.

Just found this video of THE SWARM at night with the LEDs working (well most of them )

It is no longer on Thorpe Parks scroller on their website saying it's unavailable (there's no scroller at the moment anyways). When driving by today at around 3:30 a car went over the top hat but I couldn't make out if it had people on or not so there's a good chance it will be working but wouldn't like to jinx it.

Th13teen has been added to ERT to make up for the loss of Rita. http://www.altontowers.com/events/early-ride-time/

Huge congratulations to the 3000m womens pursuit cycling team today. 6 Consecutive world records and a gold by thrashing the USAs team by over 3 seconds. As of now we have 11 golds and are 3rd in the table. Keep it up team GB

THE SWARM is now the complete package with its LEDs and immersive theming. People are loving the new ambulance theming and many were having pictures taken with it either holding it up or about to be crushed yesterday. Typical that the fire wasn't working yesterday when I was there but at least it is working (for now anyway). Now we know the fire has been signed over to Thorpe I look forward to Fright Nights even more as THE SWARMs island will should look insanely awesome

Rita is now running escaping properly again but as a precaution Towers have stuck a lovely fence under the launch so you can't go under it. Isn't it lovely. The blue fits in so well with the Dark Forest Also, on the left hand side of this photo you can see a sign promoting SW7. Credit to Adam on TowersTimes

Really hope Thorpe are watching this. It's got their 2 favourite things, inversions and short ride time. The only thing that would ruin this ride now is OTSRs.

I think this is the best way. Having it on the scroller all the time meant that anyone just glancing at Thorpe's website will notice it and either go what's Slammer or start spamming Facebook as to why it's closed. Only having it on Slammer's page means only people looking for the ride will find out about it. Having Slammer tucked away is really handy for Thorpe as they can literally just try and hide it. Quite like the text thay've added to the Slammer image on it's page as I think it will be heavily used.

I really hope they bring back the high levels of theming that we used to see around the whole park instead of the mazes (and 2 of those were/are white tents plonked on a beach) and a bit on the rides. I remeber the days of when hell froze over on Nemesis Inferno and all the heads on the Colossus station ceiling. The music that is played has also been lacking these past few years. Before you used to get specially made tracks just for Fright Nights. If those strobe lights go ahead then it will make a nice and welcome change to the lighting we currently get. Basically, all I want is the park to send of a clear message as to what time of year it is around the whole park. It was great to see actors wandering around the park but on all the times I went last year other than the AP fright Nights they were hanging around with the security at The Asylum's exit. The only time I felt the creepy atmosphere the last couple of years has been the AP evenings purely because it is so quiet you feel like you're not supposed to be there and the actors acually followed me and my friends around. Bring back the atmosphere that Fright Nights used to have.

The new theming element looks to be complete and with no fence surrounding it, at the moment anyway. Credit to TPMs FaceBook page.

Mack have posted a POV of The Storm.