BigBobJones

But the main tarmacked car park is poor, the spaces are way too close together, they need more barriers. As for the overflow car park, how much does a lorry of gravel cost to dump to fill in the holes and make the grass car parks less of a bog. Now Alton Towers main car park is what they should be aiming for.

Don't forget that you no longer get digital downloads, they charge you £2 per pic extra or you can buy a digital photopass £25 for 4 photos. So no discount, less photos and no digital download.....

The fact is that if you don't want to do the mazes, why should you pay extra? I saw the prices for the mazes at Alton and only did Terror of the Towers, I refused to pay for the Sanctuary, which is great as its currently free. Why would I want to pay £5 for there to be a 2 hour queue for a maze? I won't buy fast track and I really don't believe any attraction is good enough to queue for 2 hours in the cold. Last year I paid £0 to do Terror of the Towers at Alton, but I paid £5 to walk through the door at Thorpe just to do no mazes at all... that isn't really value for money IMO. Hence I will be doing Scarefest for 2 days this year and be avoiding Thorpe.

TBH I won't loose any sleep over it and I doubt most of Chessington's guests will either. The problem is its the wrong type of ride of Chessington, having a 1.4m height restriction rules out a very large number of their core guests

This ride should stay, it needs a major refurb, but I believe all water effects should be operational, but they should be switched on at the right time of the year. For example when its 1 degrees, you don't need or want the water squirter switched on like the other week, but when its hot and sunny you don't want all water features switched off either. I also think it would be good to have music playing as you went round the ride too

I prefer Alton to Thorpe, they don't sting you an extra £5 to get in and the queues are not as bad. I took one look at the queues for the mazes and didn't either bother doing any of them, I only wanted to do the coasters in the dark. If anything I found Fright Nights lacking in theme, busy busy busy, fast track fast track fast track selling and just reading complaints online lots of unhappy customers. I'm sure if they didn't let so many people in the park it would have been a better atmosphere. Thorpe do the night time lighting a lot better than the towers

Had the same issue at Thorpe and Alton with T-shirt sizes too

Picsolve will get no business from me this year after reducing the number of photos on the photopass, removing MAP discount and charging extra for digital downloads...

Hmmm they can stick the photo section up their bum, I refuse the pay for photos now they have increased the price and reduced the offering.

Makes me wonder when they extend the hotel if then they will close it as the hotel will come very close or even in the path of it. That might be the time they refurb it... or not

Hence on Friday it had a queue of 120 mins and Dragons Fury 20 mins, so we got on Fury 3 times and Vampire once. Now which has the higher throughput.... The staff need a rocket up their backside.

I saw the heaters on last year and thought it was strange to have heaters under the train in the station, now I know why

I wonder how much a PAP (Paramount Annual Pass) would cost

I want a Roll back

It matters when you cant get out the car park and people are beeping their horns behind you, it matters when you try to get in and you cause a queue and you turn the Annual Pass queue into the slow queue. It also matters when you try and order food and they can't enter in your pass for your MAP discount.

I thought I was faster too, but just put it down to not riding it for so long

We have had a complete nightmare with our passes, got 4 during the January sale at Chessington and they don't work anywhere else than Chessington. Can't get into the park, can't get the car park barriers to work. Went into Thorpe Guest Services who denied they could do anything at all Thorpe Annual Passes shrugged their shoulders and didn't want to help Drove to Chessington to be told "Wait it will update" But after 3 months it hadn't Chessington Guest Services were unable to help, but did ask Welcome to re-issue our passes Went to Chessie welcome to get them re-newed, took 30 mins in the cold with only one person selling tickets and a long queue behind us and lots of talking to her line manager to re-issue 4 passes Yet again just like the 4 original passes, details were incorrect, had to get them re-issued Got Welcome to call the sweet shop so we can get our new cards clipped for our Annual Pass Quencher Went to the Sweet shop to get them clipped Two days later, still unable to get into Thorpe or out of the car park, complained to Guest Services and Dominic logged a call with Merlin IT who would respond in 5 days 7 days later - still not working - back to Guest Services, Dominic called Annual passes to re-issue from Thorpe Went to Annual Passes who were now able to help 30 mins to re-issue 4 passes, and guess what, ALL 4 of them were wrong, not only have we got incorrect surnames and date of births wrong, but 3 passes had 3 weeks taken off and one pass 6 weeks off the end date... re-issued again to correct Then had to get the shop in the dome called so we can get our new passes clipped Go to the shop in the dome - clipped and done. Not tested them at Chessington, but some simple questions: If the problem is so well know, why has it not been fixed? Why does everyone deny they can fix it unless you are really pushy and demanding. What is the point of an Annual pass queue when you go to Alton Towers and everyone else gets through the gates but you hold up all the pass holders as your pass won't scan.... And why do the staff keep on making mistakes with the details, three times I have given the correct details on the paper form, but every time we have had passes issued, they are always wrong and three of our four still have errors on them For a universal pass which can be used at any Merlin attraction, why do they have this Galaxy system which doesn't speak to any other park and no park can edit your details and even Guest Services don't have access And to make things even worse they gave us the old passes which didn't work which have the clip for the drinks re-fill, well that's good, one quick flash and all my friends can gets unlimited drinks this year as we still have last years cup and the staff don't seem bothered which one they fill up as long as you have a clipped pass which is in date.

I tend to avoid Colossus as the seats are so uncomfortable, you are squeezed in and the belts are so too short, the number of people I have seen having to get off as they can't clip in the belts. They really need to do something about this or even get seats for larger guests as guests with long legs, big tummys or large breasts really struggle.

I'm sticking my head in the sand here, I know it happens, but have never seen it happen and the last thing I want to think about is "Have they cleaned it well enough, is there still some sick on the seat or the bit I'm holding on to or will some sick hit me in the face when the ride is going"

It was working very well earlier, in fact maybe its because its been nearly a year since going on it, I really enjoyed it earlier. I do hope they don't get rid of it too soon.

What did I say, I said they would do a Sub Terra and close it for a week for an 'upgrade' LOL I should have put money on it!

I don't have a problem with a signal at Thorpe, but Chessington seems to have so many dead spots that even the card machines in the shops fail to get a connection all too often.

Theme Park Guide are claiming that Thorpe will receive park wide WiFi this year and this is not an April fools joke. Has anyone else heard this or is there an official press release on this?

What made me laugh yesterday was the cattle pen queue system out side guest services, next they will be selling fast track for that too! lol

It seems to have a bit of downtime too, newer trains would be welcomed as there is nothing wrong with the ride, just needs some TLC