Matt 236

Ridden Smiler for the first time today (twice) and have to say its absolutely superb. The ride layout is impressive and immense and delivers many moments of weightlessness and overall delivers a well paced and constructed ride where no inversion used is wasted. The ride I find find is rather smooth (which is from riding one of the rougher trains) plus the duelling motion (though a rare occurrence) is pretty impressive. Some say the ride doesn't have too much theming, but it isn't a big deal as the ride is very much the centrepiece especially as all the queue is around the ride area and very near by as well as interacting with the ride itself. Overall, a brilliant ride which I strongly enjoyed and for me almost as good as the legendary Nemesis, 9.5/10.

It's good to know everything's gradually being fixed. Shame though about the broken speakers on Saw & Tidal Wave and the fact Colossus and Amity Cove music are still high. I hope Thorpe sort those out soon.

Yeah, I'm hoping to be there for park opening. Can't wait for MOS.

Tbh wasn't planning on visiting the park again this year even if Mine Train was reopened. Although the other parks have ad their fair share of pros and cons for this year, Chessington is definitely noticbly worse than the others with two of it's staple rides removed of their theming due to poor maintenance, poor ride operations and their only inverting ride down for the rest of the season or forever. Even with the few decent changes such as Zufati ad Creaky Cafe, the park is king downhill and has taken two steps forward, three steps back in 2013. The park in one year has gone from quite well themed to badly themed and I believe it to be the parks worst season since 2001. I expect Mine Train to be a disappointment next year from what was there pre 2013.

Well here's a surprise (not really to be honest) but Chessington are now asking people to not just sketch ideas for Falls but Mine Train as well. http://www.chessington.com/updates/#help-us Despite first expectations, it sounds like Mine Train could well be SBNO for the whole of 2013 seeing as it states the ride will reopen with new theming in 2014 whilst it says Falls will be rethemed in 2014 but is currently open. Looks like that's 2 rides down for the rest of the season.

They'd better make sure this ride is working for Sunday, otherwise a certain someone may go down to ride guest services .

Oh goody, another bit of publicity for the park. At least the rides still open according to the site which is essential anyway as the park doesn't have many decent throughput rides. Really isn't going well for the park this year.

Well that's a stupid idea, blocking off a large pathway so that people almost have to walk though the shipping container shop to get out or double back on themselves. Surely if they wanted people to head through an exit shop, they should've designed it better, perhaps likeThirteens where you walk straight in to the shop after the photo booth instead of removing a perfectly useful path.

£10 is far too much to feed giraffes, Chessington certainly is overpriced in many ways. They should charge £5 to feed them or even nothing at all really for this. Starting to look like it was a bad idea of Chessington posting about that on their Facebook page with the amount of people criticising the amount and referring them to Colchester zoo.

I'm very interested in part 5 especially as I get the impression it will be based around the terrible journey leaving the park.

Loving the Jamflakes clones storyline. May need to reoccur in future meet trip reports.

I'm gutted James, I might not see you now for a while

Here's what everyone's been waiting for, the Legoland meet movie, well part 1 anyway because the movie is so long it had to be divided in to two halves. Enjoy Part 2 on it's way shortly.

I would do but when I try ad vote it sends me off to another page & removes my votes (not sure what's going on).

In terms of dates, I think ican do the 10/11th August and 31st and 1st September. I cannot do the first two due to various reasons. P.S for some reason it's not letting me vote.

I think it would be brilliant if the park opened the coasters later after park operations because it would offer an exciting opportunity to fans and possibly mean more revenue for the park.

I wouldbe strongly interested in an Oakwood meet however I would need a lift there and back due to the excessive distance and the fact I currently can't drive. Other than that, I'm up for an Oakwood meet.

That's quite Impressive Stretchy, with the idea of name tags for elements of the ride.

Lol, Princess Cornflake's magic tower. Great part 1 Peaj, can't wait for the following trip report sections.

In terms of roller coasters Thorpe could add that haven't been done so far, Woodie (either an air time monster or looping one) Woodie hybrid (like rattler) Hyper coaster with lots of airtime (like shambhala or millennium force) Flyer (but that's going to be similar to Swarm &Air) Something completely new not done yet Stand up coaster (possibly not impressive enough) Not too many other options really.

I say replace Spinball with a new fun family coaster, one with thrilling fun airtime, twist and turns and one with a capacity of over 900 an hour as well as having a colour scheme and noise level that Won't detract the park area. Maybe something like Knightmare would fulfil this successfully though that's more of a thrill coaster than a family one.

To be honest, the location of this at the moment is not too bad. Okay, it's not a brilliant location but its within the Neptunes and Amity areas and the theme therefore is quite coherent even with the nearby Swarm devastation theme. Also, the ride presentation is noticeably better than a few years ago too because some shrubbery is starting to appear now though not near the amazing standard of the original.

Doesn't look like a room to stay for any one who wants a chilled out stay or good nights sleep. It looks very disorienting everywhere especially in the bathroom. Still might be worth experiencing a marmalisation there once.

When I last rode it during the ERT, I found the ride a little bit rough but it wasn't unbearable. That being said, I found it roughest coaster that day as Colossus was running surprisingly smooth.

Next ERT? Probably Saw for its 5th birthday.