Cal

... And open tomorrow = 0 days for re-theme.

You never know ... they may just use the plans from last year this year and spend money on it this year. I think it would be great to add it back, and anything would be better than the Blair witch. Although I would love this to return, I'd prefer them to get Slammer up and running again... because... well... it's Slammer

As if I actually give a complete damn about what you or others think of me...
I'm glad you made the time to post a rant at me though, I feel special, I may print it out, get it framed and put it up on my wall... Much honour, wow, etc...
It's not exactly my fault that Merlin parks cannot reach the standard I want them to reach come the end of the day... Low end investments are of course needed in the environment of theme parks, but does that mean that we should just accept low quality additions as a result of it just because? It's that sort of reaction to new additions that will result in them becoming a constant after all...
Especially this actually, given the likelihood (based upon other UK IP area successes) that it will pull in the punters, will it make Merlin want to really push the boat out in future additions? Even with the likes of Smiler, Sub Terra and Scorpion Express, all of which are lacking in various aspects of their individual selves, none of them really 'prove' to me that Merlin are really that capable of building something with a complete wow factor... But as they follow the results of KPIs, that the rides might lack in a critical state, be it drainage, theming (or lack of), it seems that having a fully immersive ride or area (say for example, being able to see backstage of Scorpion Express on ride) isn't being recognised enough by them...
Is this being needlessly negative? Probably, especially when Thorpe did make a good choice in bringing back both Dodgems and the Cinema (something I said when the first rumours came out actually, funny how my positive views get forgotten isn't it?), but then bringing in the IP to me does show an inability of the park to either feel confident in pushing the boat out theming wise for the family market using individual themes pre-existing in the park, or have looked at the successes of Thomas Land and Peppa Pig and want a bite of the apple, meaning that it was purely a business decision for a quick fix to tie-in with the rebrand for family audiences...
tl;dr - Blah, blah, blah, negativity, blah!

Yer they allways been there because before they got the contract with lionsgate they were planning on re opning the train as a ghost train they been working on the trains all year getting it ready then they found out that the track needed a massive repairs on the area they dug up to remove and decided they did not want to spend the money on the track it was gonna be a lot and I think they used it for slammer insted.

Clearly Jason was a fan of not having lap bars on the Dodgems...

I hate it so much when people put 'The' in front of rides like Stealth or Colossus. I know it's a really little thing but it really annoys me when I see it hahaa, it doesn't sound right saying 'The Stealth' so don't say it!

Is she there Permanently?

Ouch! That wall once looked great.. Now it's been slapped with one Rumba Rapids colour! Eww...

Whilst I am not directly saying what you have said is invalid I am going to clear a couple of things up.
Stealth in the cold can be somewhat of a nightmare to run in, not only are you running with a risk of numerous roll backs, you have the oil temperature to contend with. The cold tends to send the oil temperature sky-rocketing slowing launches down to a minimum 120 second interval and eventually shutting the ride down completely.
Summer Time for Stealth is also a nightmare to run in due to the fact the ride speeds up as it gets warmer, the warmer it is the faster it goes. The ride has numerous amounts of shut-downs in hot weather due to over speeding. As well as this the ride tends to 'fail-launch' a fair amount of times throughout the day. Another lovely shut-down you have to endure is the 'Brakes Not In Up Position', which is due to the expansion of metal in hot weather.
Stealth cannot launch in 'manual' mode, it is physically impossible. All you can do in manual is move the trains from loading to offloading and offloading to waiting ( as well as offloading to maintenance).

That's what I thought, it can be such a good ride but can be not so good as well. Oh well, it's been running really well recently which is great, and hopefully it can carry on throughout the season.
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It was indeed, so I have no idea why it was yellow.
This is the old one.

http://www.myfoxla.com/story/25540631/accident-at-disneyland-temporarily-closes-ride
Big fat non story, but mildly interesting none the less.

Who ever says that deserves there head on a spike.

I hate it so much when people put 'The' in front of rides like Stealth or Colossus. I know it's a really little thing but it really annoys me when I see it hahaa, it doesn't sound right saying 'The Stealth' so don't say it!

I didnt know if anyone had seen this but this is the brand new Pegasus 16 made by technical park which is travelling in Germany! Looks bloody awesome!

I must admit I am very jealous of those able to visit midweek when it's dead.

Not even gonna have vinyls on the cars?
I mean, really?

This is an interesting point actually.
Thorpe had that condition enforced upon them when the council approved the extension of the Crash Pad's stay until 2024, saying that there "shall not be any more than 250 bedrooms available...at any one time", with the reason given being "to prevent over development". However, since (presumably) Spring 2018 shall be the finished first phase, there would likely be only 150 rooms in the 'Thorpe Park Hotel' at the time. This would mean the park can then have both Shark Hotel and Thorpe Hotel at once (offering a cheaper alternative and a more expensive one) until the second phase is complete and the final 100 rooms are added in.
This is particularly good for the park since full funding for the hotel - which I would guess would mean for the second phase - is unlikely to be available until 2020.
The way I could see it working out is like this:
-Now until 2018 - Thorpe Shark Hotel is the only hotel on site, with up to 184 rooms.
-Spring 2018 - Thorpe Park Hotel opens with 150 rooms. Thorpe Shark Hotel remains open with up to 100 rooms (which I believe is about how many they have at the moment? ).
-By 2024 (though possibly earlier) - Thorpe Park Hotel is completely finished, and Thorpe Shark is removed.
It's been a very, very long haul for Thorpe, and I doubt they even anticipated it would take so long. However, what should be kept in mind is that not all the delays have been down to Thorpe - yeah, there's been the cost, but there's been logistical troubles and concerns raised by the council / other parties involved. However, these plans are the real deal. These give a lot more design detail then any other plans for the hotel (in fact, for most other planning applications in general - it's not often you see 2 pages of plans on the council's website y'know!) and have to be handed over to RBC in early June. This IS happening!

They will be added later on I should imagine.

Shark hotel update, starting to look quite good now in my opinion. This photo is from the company that are making this shark. You can see there Instagram below

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Some of us have been talking in chat and some people who went today have said at around 4:30 slammer did some testing ( not any spinning but going up and down) =D
It looks good for the future of slammer if its testing again
You have to love them engineers the amount of money and effort they keep putting in her!

And Thorpe Park's grammar gets worse... lol

Source: Stealthfan, TPR

Yes correct we lock the bars turn the key and start to lower the floor then it starts to rotate then when the min rotation speed is hit a light goes on that enables us to press start again and it will swing after that it's all computer ran but what other people said correct if it's swinging Pooley then it stop qwicker because it's not as high if swinging well on the day and getting good hight it can take extra minute to stop compleatly

I've never picked up any sort of judder in all the times I've been on vortex? It did jerk like once as it was slowing when I went during FN, but that was when it was on such a horrendous cycle, so I just assumed it was due to that. It seems to be a bit of an ongoing problem.

And yes, the laws of physdics would suggest that the cycle would appear to be longer, as the actual swings in themselves would be longer. So even if every cycle was, say, 9 swings, if they only reached about 80 degrees, it would be over much quicker as a- it wouldn't take as long to slow down, and b- you'd probably spend like 2-4 seconds less on each swing than if it hit 80 on it's first swing, and then continued with getting 100 degree swings; which would in turn take longer to slow down etc. Although, if the first initial swing was to reach a rather high angle, then there'd be more swings after a a result of the force from that swing, but I'm guessing the operators can manually control when it slows and the rate at which it does so to a certain extent(?) I could honestly talk about the physics behind it all day but I guess I should stop before you all fall asleep

I don't think operators have any control on the cycle of Vortex at all, seeing as a current operator at Thorpe Park either posted on here, or in the chat that on Vortex they just click one button and the computer does the rest