BigBobJones

I have done the back once, I won't rush to do it ever again as going forwards for me is so much better in my opinion. There are so many issues with the station and this is all down to staff managing guests. For example: 20 minute forward queue 10 minute backward queue 1 Member of staff in the bad drop (Massive queues to collect+Pickup) Guests queue jumping groups of people stuck at the bag drop No member of staff filtering guests between left and right Right hand of the station full for front row Right hand back row queue has 12 people waiting Left hand has 5 people queuing for the stairs and members of staff asking people if they want to go backwards Back row has 2 people queuing for 4 seats and some guests getting to re-ride as nobody is waiting The signs saying "Back row tickets only" causes so much confusion, do you have to buy the tickets, where do you get them from how much do they cost.... Even when the bag drop and staff are working at a good speed, you still hear the staff shouting up the stairs for guests who have back row tickets to move forward.

In all honesty I can see Thorpe spending the minimum on this ride as it isn't really their most popular ride. Look at the lack of investment on Colossus

Hmm after the massive queues last year for Fright nights and the shear over selling of Fast Track tickets I won't even bother going to Fright Nights this year. They will seriously need to pull their finger out and reduce the queues which I know they won't do for me to be interested in going.

I would think some TLC as if you look at what is going on at Chessington, I would expect Loggers to get some work. I doubt they will want to rip it out to replace it with another ride as they already have two islands they can place a ride on. We will all be keeping an eye on it and hoping it gets some TLC and maybe CCR opening too!

When I saw it I thought "Wow look at this coaster!" Then I remember what Colossus looks like

Merin have got this completely wrong here is my view: If they introduced BOGOF back in March, everyone would have seen it as another fantastic perk, some would take them up on it, others would use their soft drinks capsules and all MAP holders were happy. But they gave us a fantastic free deal which we all loved and now they have changed the deal, yes BOGOF is great but pass holders are seeing this as something they have lost out on rather than a perk. They need to think this through and market and execute it correctly. Remember the free digital downloads last year and now people (not me) are paying £2 per photo on top of the £8 price this year....

I'm in two minds about this, as if its warm weather like we have had recently, then stick it on, but when its cold I wouldn't ride Rumba if you got that wet. This is the problem with this country and we don't mind getting wet in the summer, but nobody wants to get soaked in the cold weather. But I saw it on Sunday and it looked very impressive.

It will be interesting to see how this develops or is this is just another phase. There is really no reason why CCR and the 4D cinema couldn't re-open and the area should be used more often. We often take the nieces to Chessington, leave at 2PM then do a few hours at Thorpe when we do as the little one is only 1.2, doesn't stop us going on X, Fish, Rapids, Loggers, Quantum, Zodiac, Banana boat etc, the bonus of taking young kids who are not 1.4 to Thorpe is that you don't have to queue. One afternoon we got 10 goes on the Flying Fish, Quantum, Zodiac, Banana boat three trips around Rumba and a trip on Loggers. This shows there is things for kids 1.2 upwards and those rides never seem to be busy, but I wouldn't take a kid shorter than 1.2 to Thorpe. I saw a Family on Sunday the kid must have been 90cm tall, dad says "Did you enjoy your day out" the kid says yes. I said to my partner "She must have gone on all of around 3 rides as she was not tall enough to go on anything" LOL

They are happy to charge MAP holders £5 to get in and charge for some mazes, but don't want to pay out for some theming.... really, this would never happen at Thorpe would it?

I never knew of the weight limit and I was on it today and I am over this weight and have never been challenged.

Matt they need to be able to manage two trains before we can even think about a 3rd again, currently they can not work with two trains.

Or sending out every other train on Colossus empty until the queue builds up.

I agree with Vampire and Dragon's having the longest queues, but down the road Thorpe can easily manage queues of 60-90 mins on many of their rides.

If they did a discount pass which excluded Legoland and Thorpe I'd get one too!

Legoland is great when the park is empty. But for me the worst ride has to be the Jolly Rocker, this rule about Adults either end makes the whole thing a disaster, people getting split up and having to pull extra adults from further down the queue. Yesterday it took nearly 10 mins to load it up. You don't get this at Chessington and its the same ride. I understand the small kids can fall out and that is why it is done, but can't they get the ride modified?

Legoland is starting to look very good, I was commenting on how well a lot of the theming is looking, but its a shame not all the Merlin parks look as good.

Just imagine if Merlin spent the money on Thorpe, it could too be like Europa Park

The real worrying thing for me is that on the Dragon Falls sigh it says it will be completed over the WINTER of 2014! So we have a long time to wait for it all to be completed

The Picsolve booth is pointless, The preshow isn't great, whilst going from the pre-recorded Chase Van Driver over to the Leema, technology played up and the lip sync was way out. I have only been on it twice and the same questions were asked, well apart from when she said "The boy in the front row with a hat on" which turned out to be a girl! LOL On a positive side, we got lots of time on the safari this weekend, where as a few weeks ago they flew round very quickly and you didin't get to see much at all. The audio was a lot louder and much better to hear too. It is good that they are making improvements and its good to see the area transform as the plants start to grow.

They had the normal Austrian music outside the Bubbleworks and the Vampire music just outside the Vampire entrance.

Well Chessington had not the B team on the Vampire today. We got there first thing. 1st train went out full 2nd train one empty row 3rd train one empty row They were letting enough people into the station, but the person at the end of the ramp was so painfully slow to get people to the air gates, that the train was sat in the station with only 6 or 7 rows filled and then the train was waiting on batching.... Common sense would be that if this is happening, let more people through and aim for 4 people per air gate so any delay in batching does not hold up the train. We got to the air gates and the ride went down people had to be released from the ride. They really need to take the microphone away from the staff, the guy in the control booth, Craig was stressy and in my opinion took away the atmosphere. Give me a pre-recorded message any day.

Second time this year they had all the flood lights on round the entire ride, it completely looses all atmosphere and you can see how dirty and grubby the ride really is. Merlin please give it some TLC. It was good to see 95% of the effects working which was a good thing.

This is where recorded announcements are a bonus as they are consistent and not really good or really bad.

Good review and I agree if you had paid full price or this was your only visit this year you would be disappointed A woman at work said she tried to buy fast tracks, but they stopped selling them.

Wow no ops on he PA on the Vampire? Have I died and got to Heaven Chessington? I have to say most of the ops on the Buccaneer have been good, I really wish they would have more than 1 person running the entire ride.