Cal

Just for anyone interested, this is the Smilers computer system.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11646279/Alton-Towers-Smiler-ride-crash.html Video of people describing what happened. Sounds like the car did stop at the top of the lift.

Not good news, hope everyone is ok. 4 people are seriously injured apparently. What I don't understand is why a car was running empty when it had a queue? Was there a problem with this car, hense why it crashed?

Has anyone on here been in late August? With the express pass, what times roughly would you expect to queue?

Yes you get in the park for free with an annual pass, so no need for the 2 day ticket. You also receive discount for staying at the shark hotel if you have an annual pass.

From my experience at Thorpe, I find the queue time boards to be generally inaccurate. I never really judge the queue by the time, but through the length now. Just from the last time I was at Thorpe, Inferno stated 15 mins for the last hour when we were staying in our seats, walk on. Rush was on 25 mins all afternoon, it was no more than 10. Saw stated 30 mins, look round the corner to find it's walk on. It's something I think they need to work on, updating queue times. I personally have never seen anyone update them on tablets, I just assumed it was down to the ride team to update them.

Can't wait to see it finished, it looks soo much better Never realised how much it needed this.

This is true. Not everyone has 3G on their smartphones, and from my own experience, some places around the park you don't get wifi connection. With everyone around the park using the wifi, I can see it getting slow etc but I have no idea what it'll be like obviously. I don't really see the charge to be a problem, people are on there phones a lot anyway so will run out of charge without using reserve and ride. Reserve and ride won't make much of a difference to peoples battery. Maybe the park could get more charging stations like they have in the dome though. --- I haven't really given my opinion on reserve and ride before, I've never experience it myself. Over Facebook and speaking to my friend who visited, the feedback did seem very positive. I just can't really see it working at Fright Nights. If the 5 main coasters all have reserve and ride, I can't imagine what the queues for the mazes will be like. --- It's great to see that you now have to scan your ticket + annual pass to use it, it will reduce the amount of people misusing the system. I can still think of flaws though.

Sounds like another fun day at Chessington today. 2 rides closed, rameses on half capacity, vampire's had a lot of downtime and they are removing a car on dragons fury on a 2 hour queue.

And that 60 minute queue is likely to be because they are only using the front row. (Photo from themeparkguide) Pretty poor for a busy day but there must be a good reason for it.

Last year Slammer closed everyday around 2 for checks, so it's likely that the second shutdown was just because they were doing checks.

Was it testing today as well?

Are you really complaining because Bubbleworks was down for 5 minutes? Every ride has short shutdowns which can't be helped.

Yes staff will have to be trained on it, as like you say it hasn't yet operated this season. It's also not in the same team as last year, it's now in area 1 instead of area 2 so there will be no staff trained on it. It has been passed over to the ride team though, as this video shows it being tested with ride audio (engineers wouldn't do that when they are testing it) and you can see a member of the ride team standing by the batching area. RobF said it takes 18hours to train someone on Slammer, so if it's been tested the last 2 days as well (that's 12 hours) it should be very soon that it opens!

If it's still been testing the last 2 days then theres a good chance it'll open, but I don't know what it's been doing the last 2 days?

I doubt there will be rides open after park closing then as like Zach said it's not during the holidays. They only seem to do it on school holiday days. You get in the park between 9:15-9:30, it depends how many rides are ready. When the main gates open for normal quests at 10 you will get an hour of unlimited fast track, between 10-11. I'm unsure how you claim this, but I'm sure you will be told if you ask about it when you're there.

I've heard things like the black Buccaneer and monkey swinger being single staffed, which is absolutely ridiculous with queues like that. The last time I went to Chessington, black Buccaneer had 2 staff, 1 to load/unload and 1 opp, and monkey swinger had at least 2.

If you don't go often, a photopass seems the best option which is £25 for 4 photos (I think?) Which works out to £6.25 per photo.

Video of it testing today! - By the looks of it, it should be open very soon! Last year it started doing tests on AP day and opened late in the season, so it's looking a lot better this season! Looks like it should be ready for Thursday now, let's hope!

Looks soo good It did really need this. Would be surprised if they only did parts of the track though, would look a bit odd. Surprised me they're doing it mid season though.

According to Theme Park Xtreme it was testing all day, which sounds good! Does anyone know it's been handed over to the ride team yet, or if it's just being tested by engineers?

I very much doubt it'll be open by Thursday. Like Josh said, it has a lot of testing to go through before it can be signed off.

And last year it was moving/testing on AP day. God knows when it's going to open this year.

Last year I thought they were pretty good with one train op compared to previous years. Most mornings when I got there at 9:30 it was ready on 2 trains. I believe if it is back on 2 now, may not be in the week due to it being off peak, but it's not just Colossus one 1 train. Speaking of trains, is X back on 3?