Cal

I had ultimate FastTrack a couple weeks back and I had a few front row and back row rides throughout the day. They normally let FastTrack through pretty instantly regardless of how many people are on the stairs, it’s random and depends on the host so I wouldn’t really worry too much about it.

Skyride planned to open tomorrow now. If it was just down to the heat then they should've said that, instead of "working hard to create a truly magical experience", there isn't a lot magical about a transportation ride

No, they aren’t even selling FastTrack for most coasters tomorrow or the weekend. They can add/remove FastTrack allocation at any time so I wouldn’t look too much into it. They normally update ‘one shot’ FastTrack availability daily.

Went to the park last Thursday after grabbing an overnight stay deal on Black Friday for Wednesday (when the park was originally meant to be closed), breakfast included, plus unlimited FastTrack all day (including Hyperia) for just £72 total (£36 per person). I never usually stay over, but that price for unlimited FastTrack made it an absolute no-brainer. I was pretty much on Hyperia for most of the day, and managed over 30 rides on it, as well as a couple of other rides too. Saw it testing before 9am and it was open for 10. Should be standard but nice to see they’re making the effort to get it running on time this season - it’s a big improvement over last year’s late starts. As the day went on and the ride warmed up, I did notice it started to get a little jolty/rattly from around row 4/5. Might be down to the different wheel compounds they’re using, but honestly it wasn’t anything major and didn’t really take away from the ride experience. Operations were absolutely flawless all day, the team were smashing the trains out and I didn't see it stack once, trains were even dispatched before the other hit the break run which I hadn't seen before. There was a lot of people who had the same deal also lapping Hyperia, and with RAP usage on top, the main queue for Hyperia definitely took a hit. Bit of a problem when RAP and FastTrack is allocated for the whole park but people are just using it on Hyperia. Since I was staying over, I was actually there for park opening for once (normally I don’t bother till the afternoon. I hate how they keep all the gates closed until 10am. Other parks like Chessington and Towers let you in the park earlier, not sure why this one can’t do the same. Back in the day, they used to open the gates earlier (around half 9) and if rides were ready, you’d open them before opening. Much better procedure than having a bottleneck and lots of people running in my opinion. This was on a quiet day too, can’t imagine what this is like on peak days. Shame not to get on Stealth again, still not been on it this season yet. Didn't see any visible work going on last week but hopefully the issues will get sorted soon. Rumba Rapids was testing and there seemed to be a lot of staff over there training, the ride availability page shows this will be open on late May now. Vortex is running really well, and has done for the last few seasons. It still has its smoke machine from Fright Nights too, doesn’t have much effect without it being dark and the lighting etc but still nice to see.

I hope, and I'm sure it'll be successful for them. I can't help but feel sad though that Chessington is just turning into an IP park though. Not the same Chessington I grew up in 😢

Who knows No action over there today didn't see any trains on the circuit or any engineers around, likely waiting for another part now.

No it didn’t. Have been told it isn’t planned to open today too.

Good news, it'll be re-opening this summer!

Looks like its re-opened this afternoon after a day and a half closed.

New water feature in the Hyperia queue

Very sad indeed. Was one of my favorite rides when I went to Florida back in 2015, hope it can be saved. I swear they only just repainted it?

Always had a soft spot for Colossus, love the area and has always had one of my favorite pieces of theme park music. I do agree though, it definitely doesn't have the same reputation of the likes of Nemesis or Vampire and can imagine when that time comes they'll be better off looking at something else. But yeah, just interesting what happened with the re-track project as the need to re-track would still be there, but would be an odd choice to repaint the whole coaster if they needed to re-track it. An Intamin multi launch could be a potential good replacement that could work without destroying the pathway when that time comes 👀

Looks surprisingly nice that! I'm staying at the park next week so will give it a try

Stealth is back open today 😅

Was testing in the afternoon yes, and wasn't rolling back which is a good sign 🤞 Hopefully the issue is resolved and it'll be open in the next couple days.

Yeah agreed. The whole park in general is looking pretty fresh and definitely the best since I've started visiting around 2010. Colossus and Stealth in particular look the best they've looked since I've started visiting. Vortex is nearly 24 years old but looks and runs like a brand new flat... They confirmed on the passholder group that the re-tracking was a multi year project and large sections of track would be replaced. I remember them saying that track that needs replacing won't be repainted, but since then no track has been replaced and the whole layout has nearly been painted? As far as I'm aware, in 2023 they just repainted the original bit of track and put that back on rather than get a replacement from Taziker, so that section that didn't fit was never actually replaced.

Every time I see an old video of Thorpe, it makes me realize how different Colossus looks now. It really does look the best its done in years. On another note, does anyone know what happened with the re-track project? I would assume its been cancelled after that segment not fitting and not seeing any track get replaced since. If the park were doing bits of re-tracking, surely at some point soon parts of the track will come to the end of there life and need replacing?

Wouldn't surprise me. I've definitely noticed the app hasn't been updated as much since the days of the passholder group, where they were regularly asking for feedback and making changes. The single rider page on the info section still hasn't been updated to include Hyperia for example...

Noticed they're open an additional day, Wednesday 23rd April was previously scheduled to be closed but it'll now be open

Strange its not been added to the ride availability page too, they're usually quite good at keeping that updated

Seems to have some issues causing rollbacks at the moment. Hopefully just waiting on a part and will be back open soon 🤞

It was early this afternoon after a breakdown I believe. How dare you get a video you might get kicked out for this 🤣 Rumba rapids will now be opening in June instead of May to compensate for crane hire costs.

Oh dear, hope @MattyMoo got a ride on it this morning. This is becoming an absolute joke now though. Huge design flaw. They clearly just can't send any empty trains unless changes are made, which is an operational nightmare for them.

Well it didn't last very long, queue has been cleared. What on earth did they do to the lift hill over closed season... 🤣

Lots of issues with the lift so far this year it seems. Do feel sorry for them as it’s continuing to be a nightmare for them to operate. Swarm in comparison has probably had a handful of closed days since it opened 10 years ago, pretty sure it didn’t have a single day closed in its first couple seasons. Good to see they have sorted out the rest of the area (updates shared on theme park guide) as some it really looked a mess on AP day.