Matt 236

Zodiac was closed all day Tuesday with no signs of life on the ride all day. Haven't seen the ride down as much since the mid Tussaud's era when they still had the original ride. I think the return of the park scroller on the site would be a great move, as it gives guests planning to visit updates on events, disruptions and closed rides and are more prepared for worst case scenarios.

Went on the tea cups on Tuesday and the central wheel on my cup was very stiff. Could barely move it during the whole ride and struggled to get a decent spin from it. I think the ride needs some work done to it, because the tea cup wheels are so stiff there now and also one the turn table platforms with the cups on hasn't been spinning all season. Legoland's Spinning Spider is far easier to spin on the wheel and can reach a fast speed when done right. I love storm in a tea cup, but they need to grease the wheels and get that other turn table working so it became a better ride.

So it seems only only two uk coasters made the top 100. Shame inferno, Swarm and a Fury got so low. I remember a few years back when fury was in the top 50. The uk definitely needs some new groundbreaking coasters now. I wish Merlin would knock this world first thing on the head and just plan on making a decent coaster with a great exciting layout.

Went to Amity Fish and Chips at Thorpe when I visited Tuesday. The interior is quite well done IMO and features pictures on the wall of stealth and items that relate to the American 50's theme as well. The exterior (seen further up) is nothing to go to town about, but it does the job and looks ok with stealth in the background. I had fish and chips (probably the obvious choice) which my food was served at the till pretty quickly. Alternatives on the menu are pies, sausages and a vegetarian option, for those who don't fancy fish. The food there was delicious, the batter nice and crispy and no waste on the fish I had either. The chips were nice and chunky and delicious (maybe only second to lattice fries) and the curry sauce was ok too. 7/10 Not bad value for money, however it did slightly concern me that my pass discount was only £6.12, considering its £6.95 full price and it looked more like a10% discount price (would be more like 5.50 at 20%). Definitely a lot better than Legoland's new Burger Kitchens (in comparison) which look bland, soulless and dull (especially the Lego City one which looks horrible on the outside).

Hex for me is definitely the best uk dark ride. The queue line build up, theming, surroundings, story, narration, effects and the brilliant sound track make for a remarkable attraction and one of the few experiences at a Merlin park that is almost on a Disney standard. That said, I've not been to a Disney park yet ( shock ) which is something I'm desperate to achieve in the near future as the rides there look far superior to the uk in theming, story, experience and up keep (bar a selected few). Honourable uk dark ride mentions, X, love the lights sequence, it feels like a night club themed coaster Spirit Of London, love the story telling/ theming of the ride. Feels like one of those brilliant Tussaud's and Wardley dark rides Still haven't done Duel or Sub Terra, plus I am still yet to visit Blackpolol where a good chunk of uk dark rides are housed including Valhalla, which I've heard a lot of good things of. My opinion could change if/when I do these rides. It's a shame the uk hasn't seen many dark rides built in the last 10 years, as considering the bad weather and that most parks have noise/sound restrictions and/or lack of space, these attractiones would be brilliant for our parks and I think chessie and Thorpe at least could do with a decent dark ride style attraction,. I'd rather see a major dark ride than a coaster at Thorpe tbh. Storm surge dark ride/ Charlie and the chocolate factory (bring back toy land tours)

In the night garden ride looks rather dull and disappointing at the moment. As for the rest of the area, it still looks like a farmyard covered in bright colours from an exploding paint factory.

Looks loverly. Definitely more appetising than the burger kitchen restaurants. Hopefully the food there will be good.

Florida Gringotts coaster or Seven dwarfs mine train?

Facebook Burrito or Kebab?

Definitely B&M Space Mountain or Rock N Rollercoaster?

Looks a good addition to me, was thinking the entrance could do with some improvements as it currently a bit worn and dated.

Skyway has very much been run down since I started visiting the park in 2006 I which the ride has looked run down, the trains rattly (some with doors that don't close) and also that' it's route doesn't really work for it anymore. Whilst the station changes sound promising, the ride needs to be retracked with a slightly different (and more interesting) route, new or heavily refurbished trains and a repaint of the track and station area. In reality we'll be lucky if we see the trains alone refurbished in the near future.

Thanks for the trip report Scary Coaster Boy. Paultons is a park I've been interested in visiting for a few years now (mostly for Edge and Cobra) and looks a nice park. How does it compare to other uk parks such as Legoland, Chessington and other parks?

Certainly sounds very interesting and I like the idea of a big spectacular show aspect of the park, as it's something most/all our parks seem to lack. Will be interesting to see how this develops.

Definitely GCI Disneyland (CA) or Disneyworld?

Chair Runaway Train or Scorpion Express?

Just remembered some more bad experiences, 4/ Visiting Thorpe Park on a very busy day in 2011. It was mid July, so the place was rammed with school kids and queue ages for the rides and received a low ride count. Something like 6 rides in 8 hours (but can't remember), I know it didn't get to ride stealth, rush or any of the main water rides. 5/ Queung over three hours for Colossus on the same trip. It was raining and lots seats were broken and then some VIP guests made me wait even longer as they got instant ride access and had a couple of rides. 6/ Thorpe Park Annual Pass day 2011. My family had to renew their passes but they weren't sure if I was needed so I had to queue with them for a long 2 hours in the pouring rain. What was just as bad was I didn't get to do any rides when I was there because it was so busy, my family had enough and I had a play rehearsal in the afternoon, so I was very disappointed in everything about the day there. 7/ Inferno being closed most of the day on the 2014 opening weekend and not riding it, making it my first visit in eight years in which I haven't done the ride.

The way those trains fly through that circuit is beautiful. Mack's definitely making some amazing coasters at the moment.

Worst themepark experiences for me are, 3/ Legoland during very busy days. The park feels almost unbearable when all the rides have long queues. Visited days like that in 2005 and 2012 and ended up leaving the park at like 3/4pm because the queues were too bad. 2/ Nearly vomming on Samurai after eating too many chocolates and drinking too much cocacola before going on. 1/ Losing a brand new camera I received as an 18th birthday present at Tivoli World. The camera was more than a few weeks old and disappeared without trace in the last couple of hours I was at the park. The most depressing thing was, I only realised I lost it he next day, because I thought someone else in the group was looking after it.

I like the look of the entrance a lot. Very sleek, modern and even a few characteristic elements such as the tree outside and undercover area. Suits the park well and better than those old log cabin booths they used to have. I think parks like Oakwood and Thorpe should follow this, in terms of renovating their entrances.

So far, what's been announced is nothing special, although it's good to see the park adding further additions. Whilst I'm not going to speculate what the summer addition will be, I would like a roller coaster of some sort.

I didn't really know where to put this tbh, but seeing I couldn't find an existing/ appropriate topic, I thought I would create one. Sad news has been announced at Universal Singapore today it's been confirmed their roller coaster Battlestar Galactica will be closed for good. The ride, the tallest duelling coaster in the world, has been plagued with operational and technical problems since day one when it opened in 2010 and will be replaced with a new ride at the end of the year. Full details about the article can be found here https://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/what-is-buzzing/troubled-universal-studios-singapore-ride-battlestar-galactica-closes-084334087.html

The soundtrack to this ride, just amazing. IMA score, certainly know the right balance of musical and technical material to create some very immersive and atmospheric ride scores, which they've done well for this ride like the mystery of Hocus Pocus and a The Smiler. As for the coaster itself, whilst I haven't ridden it yet, I can say whilst it's in no way terrible or even bad, it's not the best. The ride's pace seems abit slow and it needs more theming and elements to create an immersive and exciting story line/ experience to guests. Considering they have Europa and Phantasia Land (at least) as competitors who have made some amazing themed and payed out rides, the outcome of this one is a coasters that's good, but not amazing. I think Swarm and Raptor look better now.

Looks an amazing log flume ride. That theming is just amazing, with the rock work details, skeleton cave and other elements and wow, that final drop at the end is just crazy. Would love to see a log ride like this in the uk. Been a long time since we've had a new one (I'm not counting Oakwood's as that was Camrlots) and the exhorting ones are rather meh these days.

https://www.facebook.com/southparks/photos/a.10152110405478495.1073741827.213894828494/10152118565218495/?type=1 Courtesy of Southparks, Legoland were planning to build a duel motorbike coaster at somepoint in the past, but sadly things didn't work out and like many creative concepts, this never happened. Would've been awesome if this coaster was built.