BigBobJones

Time to eat my hat, for the first time ever the fire effect went off during Summer nights and we were in the front row. Thank god I didn't choose to 'Brave it backwards' and miss out

For me I had no complaints on the one train operation or the queues at any of the rides as the guest numbers were fine for minimal queues and one train operation. I did 13 rides in two hours and left at 9:30 as we had enough. I could have easily got 30 rides in if I wanted to, but we were more than happy with the number of rides we got in. The price to get in £5 was very good. You have to remember this is the cost to park your car at Thorpe if you don't have a premium MAP. Due to the 45 min wait in a fly infested queue, this will definitely mean we won't be renewing our annual passes as this is really the final straw for us. (not going into details and boring you all) But on a positive note, if Thorpe can keep the ticket collection queue down or let you do it all on-line, then I would be more than happy to pay £15 to go to the same event next year as for me it is so much better value for money compared to a normal day. Fair enough the ride selection is limited, but to get 13 rides in 2 hours against a normal 8-10 rides in an entire 8 hour day with the added £5 parking and more expensive entrance fee these events are very attractive.

They need to sort out the queue for tickets, when we got there a guy got on the radio and mentioned guests were queueing all the way back to the Annual pass hut and they didn't even open any more windows, 4 out of the 8 were open. If they could not open Tidal, I would have expected them to open Loggers as a replacement. But got 13 rides in this evening, could have got double that but we left after 2 hours. I would have loved to have been able to do Rush in the dark, but looks like I'll not get to do that again.

Well 45 mins to collect your 'pre-booked' tickets this evening. The queue for ticket collection was right back to the Annual pass hut and this did not change in the 45 mins I was in the queue. I'm not impressed spending 45 mins in a fly infested queue to collect a pre-booked ticket and being told Tidal Wave was not running and no replacement ride. To then find the Swam still not running at 7.50 and when we went back later the Swarm still was not working. Thankfully we waited and got on the ride. I made a point of getting to the park before 7PM so I had time to collect my tickets and get in for 7.30... how wrong was I. Overall, it was very good value for money, I would do it again, BUT the only thing putting me off doing it ever again was the queue to get your tickets/wristbands. Thorpe need to sort this out. Plus on every ride there was no queue system, it was a free for all, some people just not getting off rides, others using the normal queue, some jumping back on others opening gates to get on and staff not having a care in the world as to what was going on. For example on Stealth, some guests using the Fast Track queue, others using the disabled queue and others just opening the gate and walking through. There were even guests having free rides on the Games stalls by Tidal, having a free attempt on the rope ladders as there were no staff or security stopping them.

This evening Saw was the smoothest I have had in a long time and this was on two different cars. The wheels also sounded a lot quieter than normal too.

The audio around Inferno was the best I have ever heard it this evening.

I did wonder how long the police car would last, it is a shame as it looked great and the number of people who would have their pictures taken in front of it. The car may only be a small thing, but it fitted in well and was popular. It is a shame some individual(s) broke the window.

As I don't want to do the mazes, just the coasters in the dark, I'm going to settle for a Summer nights evening, hopefully less queues too.

Well if you had younger children I guess Legoland would have been worse. I only ever go to Lego land well out of the season. A good combination to do is Chessington in the morning, followed by lunch at Chessie (As it's so much cheaper to eat at Chessie than over priced Legoland) then Legoland in the afternoon. If done on a quiet day you can get both parks in and a good ride count. We did this in May and got 16 rides in over the two parks including lunch and travelling between parks. I also noticed that Lorakeet Lagoon was closed the other week (at the height of the season...) Chessie do have some serious running issues with the park at the moment. It has been said by many they do need some attractions which eat large numbers of guests, the Vekoma Madhouse would be ideal for Chessington, good low height requirement, 80 people every 4-5 minutes, not noisy for neighbours, not too tall and fits into such a small space. A good rapids ride and even a tea cups ride would all be ideal for Chessington.

First of all, love the hair! I seriously doubt it was that bad you only did 3 rides in an entire day. 45 mins for Skyway, an hour for Seastorm and an hour for the bubbleworks is 2 hours 45 mins out of an 8 hour day. I fully agree Chessington can't get the throughput they should be doing, but I have to ask what were the queues for: Black Buccaneer, Rattlesnake, Monkey Swinger, Jungle Bus? These don't tend to have massive queues. For me if I got there, I would not queue more than 45 mins for any ride at Chessington, I'd rather do the smaller rides than the bigger ones to do less queues. I guess the question is did you just give up on the rides and do the Zoo or were you not at the park for the full day? I was at the park two weeks ago and it was 2 hours 20 for Vampire 90+ for coasters, 1 hour for Bubbleworks/Zufari, we managed, Dragon falls, Bubbleworks, Vampire, Dragon's fury, Monkey Swinger and Skyway+ Lunch. Oh and the Rattlesnake.

The siren should be on the American Police car, you know the one with the smashed front window

For standard pass holders it was a complete joke last year. Book online, pay online then premium pass holders could show they had booked at the gate and walk in, but standard pass holders were forced to go back to the ticket booth to show their credit/debit card to be handed a ticket which was torn up 30 seconds later when you we through the main gate.

If the poll was not coaster, then Slammer, Rush, Samurai even Loggers are all good in the dark. Rumba has very good green lighting too. I would give The Swarm top votes, but I have ridden the ride 12 times this year and nearly 40 last year and EVERY time the fire effect has never gone off while I was on the ride. I have seen it plenty of times while in the queue. Plus with the water effects not working it is all disappointing. If the smoke effects were working on Inferno when I have been on it, then I would rate it as going through the smoky tunnel with the red lights would be amazing. At night Thorpe only has three rides which look good in the dark, two of them are fair ground rides and The Swarm. I would love to give Stealth top marks here as its my top Thorpe coaster, but there is nothing going for it to make me want to ride it in the dark. It is still an amazing coaster, but it would be good if Thorpe could light it up better. Why not light up the top hat with blue lights. On the launch track, why not have LED lights running down the track with an effect that looks like they are moving down the track.

air con can easily be installed on that ride and not be noticed at all. Anyone been to a little park called Disney World or Universal in Florida?

Every time I go they do an announcement to pull the restraints in towards, but every other kid ignores this. Even when they say "Un-do you seatbelts" most people ignore. The number of times you see people try and leave a ride and the restraint won't open as they have not un-done their seat belts. For me I do wonder is people are just stupid. For example they get on to a ride and there is obviously a seat belt, so why do they ignore it? Are they like this when they get into a car? They should have a countdown timer like they have on other rides at other parks, as soon as the train enters the station, they have x seconds to get everyone off and the next batch of guests on. With the Vampire, they have such a huge station which can easily handle having the next three train loads of guests waiting in line, but they insist on on filling the rows up once the train leaves meaning that the train is more than often waiting for guests to board.

Nothing wrong with the original theme. Look at the Towers when they changed Toyland Tours in to Charlie, there have not been many good transformations in recent years to give us hope. The only transformation which has made an improvement seems to be X.

Just remember for those few weeks of the year when it is warm, opening the air vents is a lot cheaper than putting in air con into that huge warehouse.

In all honesty with the speed the load guests up they might as well get rid of the second train and have one train operation.

Took most of the words out of my mouth! lol

The problem is it is a free for all when those gates open, what they need to do is let guests in slowly or in batches. It would be good if pass holders could get in earlier, even if it is 10-15 mins earlier. Put on some ERT for pass holders and those who book on-line. The other big problem, which Thorpe can't help and this is the guests fault is that most of their guests have no manners at all, they are all out for themselves and will queue jump and push in and not care about anyone else. The best day I had at Thorpe for guest interaction and friendliness and guests who behaved and had manners and did not queue jump was the Annual Pass holders day earlier in the year.

It is money making things like this which make guests feel de-valued. Our best friends have refused to renew their passes due to excessive Fast Track selling, Thorpe almost giving away Annual passes to guests (Pay full price and get an annal pass). It is good in the short term to make money and it benefits those who have the cash to splash, but for the general public and other pass holders it always leaves a sour taste in their mouth.

There is only one reason people get on so few rides and that is all down to PPP (P... Poor planning) If you ensure you are one of the first guests through the door, run the the biggest attraction, Vampire or Fury, you can get on. Jump off the Vampire and go straight on to the Bubble Works, then jump on the Sky Ride, then on to the Rattlesnake and that is your first hour done. Or you may get two goes on the Rattlesnake. The problem is people do not plan their day correctly, they turn up late hitting the biggest queues and they only go for the main attractions, you really need to balance out the bigger attractions with some of the smaller attractions. For example a few weeks ago I went to Thorpe with somebody who was only 1.2, so that rules out all of the bigger rides. But we got in at 10, had 30 mins for lunch and left a 2 PM. We got on 18 rides in total and could have got on more if we were not queuing for 20 mins to get our drinks filled up each time. Plus you have to have common sense, if you go during the summer holidays you have to expect queues, if you go out of season you expect minimal queues.

I think Tomb Blaster is a little like Duel, depending on which days you go, different effects will work one day and not the other. I'm sure as soon as they fix one effect another breaks.

It is all good n well, but I can see it turning in to a 6 Flags style where: If there is a 90 min queue: People not paying, get a ticket and have to come back 90 mins later People paying a premium get to cut the time in half to say 45 mins or 30 mins People buying the top package get to go on in 5 mins I don't want to be negative about the unreliability of any theme park ride, not pointing the finger at any park. But if a ride is down down for say 30 mins, does this mean that everyone has a 30 min extra wait for this ride? For example if I get to Saw at 11am, my ticket says come back at 12, but the ride breaks down for 30 mins during that time. I will come back expecting to get on at 12, but will have to wait until 12:30. Now if I had got a reservation for Samurai at 12:20, does this means I miss out of my ride, but which ride? If I turn up at Samurai late, I mess the system up for people in that queue too or loose out on a ride due to no fault of my own. Plus if you get in the park at 11am and there are 13,000 people in the park and everything is booked up apart from the Flying fish, Quantum and the Banana boat, you won't be too happy. Another thing is Thorpe is a fairly small park and there isn't a great deal of things to do so if people are not queuing, then they may get bored or leave early.... My view is it could work, but it will be all down to how much you want to pay and how much money merlin can squeeze out of us before we stop going to the park.

And I was planning a trip this weekend, maybe I will bring a can of Raid with me