Cal

Seems they've gone back to not sending empty trains again. On the last train yesterday we spent what felt like forever on the break run whilst they filled the 3 front rows with water dummies.

No one batching on Inferno today so just queueing as normal inside the station.

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.