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Not sure when this was updated, but they’ve scrapped the two closed Wednesdays in May and will now be open 10–5, which is good to see. They’ll still be closed next Wednesday 29th, but after that they’ll be open every day until September.

Operator was clearly just feeling generous, unless they run 5 laps as standard now. But they do usually adjust laps based on queue time.

The only time I've seen that was during Covid times, which I imagine was to prevent too many people being 'indoors' at once. I've seen a few people mention this recently so don't think it was a one off either. Very strange. I'm going tomorrow afternoon so will check out what they're doing.

The operator can control the amount of laps, so it usually runs between 2-5 laps. 3 laps is pretty standard, 2 when its very busy and then 5 when its quiet. I've personally not seen more than 5. Odd they were doing 5 laps if it was busy though 🤣

Colossus getting a higher throughput than Hyperia I do hope they consider throughput for their next big coaster. No matter how hard the staff work you can't really achieve a high throughput on it and when its the most popular ride on park, with a huge RAP and Fasttrack allocation it struggles on the busy days.

Tidal wave is open today for the first time this season!

Yes, I saw that he has now announced his new role as 'VP of Hotel Operations & Global Performance' Does anyone know who has stepped into the VP role at Thorpe, or are they currently recruiting for it?

Paw Patrol announced to be opening on the 3rd May. And the 2027 coaster has started to be delivered... Chessington is going to feel like a new park next year! Looking forward to having a multi dimension coaster in the UK and its great to see Chessington finally get a lot of investment

I was actually wrong about this, there are 3 prices for Fastrack with super off peak being £8. So today Hyperia has a 75 minute queue and Fastrracks are only £8. Very strange decision.

Park close has been extended till 9pm on the May bank holiday weekend, 23rd - 25th. Brilliant to see - hopefully the weather plays ball and its a success which will give them reason to do more of them in the future. I don't think we saw any later closings like this last season outside of Fright Nights? I think the last time we had them was 2024, 8pm close over Hyperia opening and a couple 9pm Saturdays in August.

Thats a shame. Its worth noting he hasn't left Merlin entirely, and is now the VP at Legoland Windsor. Neil has been at Thorpe for a long time. In my opinion, it’s one of the best run Merlin parks. How much of that is down to him is hard to say, but hopefully that standard remains.

I believe it sounds an alarm if the restraint comes down enough to indicate that the person in the test seat would fit. Very annoying I know - would be better to have a green/red light like I've seen at other parks 🤣 At least its working though I guess! SAWs test seat does the same.

Something I've noticed with Zodiac testing is that its actually reaching the full 90 degrees height and staying at full height for a few seconds before it starts to lower again. Haven't seen it reach full height in years! Will be interesting to see if it does that when it opens or if its just engineers running it in manual.

It appears some visible work has happened to the splashdown. Although I remember the same thing happening last year at some point and nothing seemed to happen. Strange.

Zodiac has been doing a lot of testing so far this season so will likely re-open soon. I do agree with your point though. I’d love to see Thorpe add some new flats rather than slowly losing them like we’ve seen at other parks.

My point about the premium pass fast track is that most of the daily allocation will likely go to Hyperia. I don’t see that being as much of an issue at other parks. For example, at Towers I imagine a high percentage would be split on Smiler, Wickerman, and Nemesis. Just my thoughts anyway from what I've observed, no facts.

I think Fasttrack might be a bit of an issue for Hyperia this year. It was overflowing outside the entrance at one point today. 1) Price of one shots have been reduced. £12 for off peak days and £16 for peak days. It has been a flat £20 every day for the last 2 seasons so not sure why its been reduced, certainly going to have more people buying it. 2) As we all know platinum passes get a free shot every visit now. The problem with that at Thorpe is that 90% of people are only going to be using theirs on Hyperia. 3) People that book the shark hotel on one of the closed days get unlimited Fasttrack including Hyperia all day. So everyone that booked for Thursday night had unlimited Fasttrack today. On days like today where there are a lot of enthusiasts, a high percentage of them are just going to be lapping Hyperia. When you combine the above with the high amount of RAP (which has a capacity for the whole park, but again a high percentage that just use it for Hyperia), thats going to take a huge toll on the main queue 😬

Very late to this but... Park count: Thorpe x10-20? Paultons x1 (first time in over 10 years) Liseberg x2 (first time) Grona Lund x1 (first time) Portaventura x2 (first time) Ferrari land x1 (first time) Parc Asterix x1 Walibi Belgium x1 Walibi Holland x2 (first time) Pretty successful year for me. 5 new parks, returning visits to some of my favourites and 3 European Halloween events. I got 29 new creds (4 of them being in my top 10) bringing me to a total of 205. Highlights Getting back to Paultons and seeing how much that place has changed. Haven't been since I was a kid. Portaventura was much better than expected. Walibi Holland was the best Halloween event I've ever been to. The Clinic and Slaughterhouse were the craziest Halloween attractions I've done, and Us vs You was a fantastic maze. I got on all 5 of my top 5 coasters last year. Disappointments Red Force wasn't as good as expected. I expected bad from Furious Baco. But that is by far the most uncomfortable and painful coaster I've ever experienced. Insane being closed at Grona Lund. Never done a Zac spin so was keen to get on it. 2026 I still don't really have much plans this year so will probably be a quieter year for me. I have a Merlin pass so have been to Thorpe and Towers already. I'll get lots of Thorpe trips in for sure. Paultons for the opening of their new coaster. Have a holiday in Turkey booked so will go to Land of legends and get on another Mack Hyper 😍 I was planning on Falcons Flight but thats looking unlikely now. Potentially a US trip instead. Was having a look at Florida but might be a bit silly to not wait for the new 2027 coaster at Universal. Looking at doing a couple days in Madrid but nothing booked yet.

Out of interest, what Thorpe employees have moved over to Towers? I know Howard from Chessington is now the VP at Towers but I wasn’t aware of any other moves?

I've seen a lot about this too. If that is the issue, then they need to do whatever they need to do to sort it. This isn't a new issue, Towers has had poor ride availability and capacity for years now. Pretty sure last year they had to cancel their pre season buy out days as they weren't ready. To start the season with 7 rides closed, staggered openings and not having major coasters on max capacity they clearly have some serious issues. Its an interesting thought. Towers always seems to be the first out of the 4 parks to get cuts the last few years and still has the weekday 4pm closes.

Haven't updated my top 10 in a while and have a few changes from 2025. New for 2025 in bold. 1) Toutatis 2) Untamed 3) Kondaa 4) Shambala 5) Hyperia 6) Ride to Happiness 7) Taron 8) Balder 9) Helix 10) Nemesis Kondaa used to be my number one, with Toutatis in second place. After riding both again in October I decided I prefer Toutatis overall. From the moment I got on it in 24 I was addicted to it, I’ll never get bored of that swing launch. I also love its more aggressive airtime.

Completely agree. Overall the park looks pretty fresh and they're on form operationally as we've come to expect the last few years. I'm disappointed the Colossus repaint wasn't finished though. I know Thorpe had Hyperia but it does feel Thorpe has lacked ££ out of the merlin parks. - Chessington has had a serious amount of investment the last few years. Jumanji, Paw Patrol land, and minecraft land next year. - Towers has had Nemmy retrack, Toxicator, millions on skyride refurb, and new family coaster within the last 3 years. Would love to see a new flat on the Slammer site next season to complement Hyperia, and a new major investment on the Rumba site or island behind Swarm before universal opening in 2031 would be fab.

Went to Towers on Friday for Alton After Dark. This was my first time visiting since 2024 as I only bothered with a Thorpe pass last year. Some mixed thoughts but overall had a great day and it wasn't too busy. Oblivion was closed for the day unfortunately which was a shame. It wasn't staffed and has now been added to ride availability page so may be closed for a while. A shame, but these things happen and can't be helped. Having 7 rides closed for the day though (including Monorail and Skyride) is totally unacceptable and needs to be sorted as soon as possible. I can understand having the couple of water rides closed if it was solely them closed, but when you have them as well as all the others closed its just poor. Disappointing to have the Skyride closed after having millions spent on it the last couple years. Along with that they have a number of staggered openings with major coasters opening at 11, which again is really poor. The only thrill rides that actually opened on time on Friday was Rita, Wicker man and Nemesis. Every other thrill ride closed. Its a very poor first impression. Once things started opening up ride availability was actually very good and I only witnessed a couple of breakdowns. - Thirteen was on 3 trains but the bag drop was closed when I first went on around 1pm which meant throughput was pretty dire. Having 3 trains stacking is something I hadn't seen before but was happening regularly. Thankfully later on it did open. Having the SRQ back on Thirteen was great! - Galactica was running 2 crafts 1 station achieving a throughput of under 600. Nice to have the SRQ back but was a painful wait with such slow operations and sending empty seats a number of times. - Wickerman was on 2 trains achieving around 700-800 an hour. Bag drop were having issues keeping up which meant a queue on the exit stairs causing them to send empty trains at one point. Onto the positives... - Toxicator is a fantastic edition and looks great. The cycle is decent enough, has good intensity at the end but not too much that it puts people off going on. A shame to see the fountains off and water drained though only 1 year after opening. The lights on the gondola weren't on at night either. - Smiler was running really well. Was running 4 trains and they were smashing the trains out. Could definitely do with a clean up at certain parts though. - Nemesis was riding great. Had quite a few rides on various seats and didn't notice any rattle at all. I've always been a big Nemesis fan and was initially a little disappointed with Nemesis Reborn, but theres no arguing that what they've done with the area is fantastic and I'm glad they spent the money on it. I forgot just how good Nemesis looks in the dark now too. World class with all the new lighting and smoke effects. 100% my favorite night ride in the UK! - Curse was great and easily my favourite dark ride in the country. Getting back on Hex was good also. Overall was a good day and great to get back. Towers has so much potential and theres so much I love about the place, but its very frustrating seeing it being run they way it is. 7 rides closed all day, limited capacity on major coasters, and staggered ride openings is just poor. Dark Forest and X sector are both in desperate need of a supporting flat in my opinion too.

Hours extended today for passholders day from 11-5 to 10:30-6 which was a nice surprise, even with the park really quiet.

Looks great. I'm not usually a big one for IPs but I think this is one of the better ones and this has potential to be great as long as Merlin spend the money on it. Throughput could be a problem for this. Saying that though, this is Chessington so it doesn't have much competition, this could probably still have one of the best throughputs on park 🤣