Inferno

Panic over! The Smiler is open again this morning.

Go on a different night then? Or pull a sickie. They can't possibly please everyone can they!!

This is what I am unsure about too... Blair Witch was entirely about the 'fear' that builds up when you're expecting something to happen. It works so well because most of the tense moments don't actually show anything much on the screen, it's just very dark and almost silent. That sort of suspense won't be there is there are 28 people pouring down those stairs yelling "F**IN ELL LADZ DAT NEMESIS IS WELL BAD" every few minutes. That's why I'm surprised it's going there. They've probably got it all figured out though If they get it right it's going to be fantastic.

Why in the name of all that is holy are they doing this now, when paying customers are paying full price to see the park, and not in closed season when nobody is there?

In a 'normal' queue, you could join the queue at 6:00 and actually get on the ride at 6:40 if that's the time you happen to reach the front of the queue, so this would make sense. I'm very happy they've kept that in mind

If it's in containers then who knows what is being created off-site! There was news of activity going on inside the old Cinema building. All of the prep could be happening behind closed doors for all we know. There's still plenty of time for this.

^^ lol! Stuffed crust every time! The real question is, stuffed crust or the new Hotdog Crust?

Dear me....... Storm Surge I suppose!! France or Spain?

Cheers Yeah I remember doing that last year. There is no mention of it on the site now though... I guess one will turn up.

Quick question about booking an Annual Pass ticket for FN... When booking here, it says that Premium passholders do not need to pay the £5 event charge. Does anyone know if we can we just turn up with our passes and be let in without booking a ticket online?

Isn't he the guy who decided the Smiler wasn't a real rollercoaster because it had a second lifthill? (or something equally as ridiculous) I wouldn't read too much in to his opinion to be honest... This ride looks pretty fun I am not sure how those steep turns and prolonged inversions are going to ride though.

To be fair the park did tend to become quieter in the last hour last year on most days, and the mazes usually have longer queues than the coasters when they're open. I think this extra hour of mazes is a good thing even without the rides tbh The rides will still be open for 11 hours at least!!

I tried asking that here as well, but I think they got the wrong idea... They were available last year, so I think we'll just have to wait and see.

Thorpe always seem to have a blip towards the end of the summer don't they. Fingers crossed it was just a one-off!

I think they usually advertise that an 'upgrade' is £30 - that's if you already have a Standard pass. My advice would be to wait until the annual Boxing Day Sale, where you'll be able to buy a Premium for less than a full price Standard

That is a good point, I had no idea so many parks did that. I guess simply because you haven't paid for the whole year. In the same way that most Ryanair customers haven't paid for baggage, and haven't paid for food/drinks. That's the reason it's Cheaper! The option is there to have a better product, but you have to pay full price for it. As long as the premium pass continues to give unlimited access without restrictions then none of us have a leg to stand on really, unless they raise the prices a lot.

I agree with that last comment Josh. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a thrill capital, it's great The issue was that they refused to acknowledge that anybody outside the age of 15 - 20 existed, making it a really unwelcoming place for most visitors. I hope they continue focusing on thrills but spare a thought for everyone else that pays the ticket price every day too!

It doesn't look that bad really, and if it saves someone from being hit in the face by a phone at 50mph then it's all worth it. When you look up at the nets on other rides (especially Swarm) you always see a lot of stuff up there. So I guess they're worth it.

When you consider the price paid for the Annual Passes in the first place then the £5 event fee isn't bad, although I can see why it is unpopular. An annual pass really should allow access to the park every day it's open. I guess this is why they have different grades of Annual Pass though. I hate the idea of paying extra for attractions when already inside the park though, so yeah, I think Thorpe are doing it right If you're that upset about it then you've bought the wrong pass - get a Premium, it's still incredible value for money & you'll get "free" parking as well. (well, not 'free'... but it's included) Something I don't agree with though is the extra charge for Summer Nights... I don't understand why an Annual Pass doesn't cover that!

I loved reading this Josh! Cheers for posting. I knew they had a launched coaster planned but I hadn't seen the layout like this. I'm glad we ended up with Colossus. I wonder what TP would look like today if the launch had been built instead? Certainly Stealth wouldn't have been built. I'd love to see that admissions graph extended all the way to to this year.

I think we should wait and see what they come up with before writing these mazes off tbh... We have all been asking for this for years, now they've finally given us what we want and we're picking holes in it before it's even been built. Unfortunately that's the price we're going to have to pay for such an amazing event. The key is to go on the Fridays, or The Passholder Preview.

This is actually quite sad. It almost feels like he was not allowed to finish what he set out to do. I am guessing he doesn't quite see eye to eye with Nick Varney, and did anyone else get the feeling he was not 100% satisfied with the Smiler?

This is actually a really interesting discussion, and I am shocked at the amount of pro-Fastrackers out there! I'm an avid hater of Fastrack and think it severely impacts most people's experience for the benefit of a few. You can quote as many figgures as you like, and blame whoever you like for miscalculating the numbers, but none of this matters because it DOES make queues longer a lot of the time for the majority of guests... Much much longer on some days, therefore, as a system it does not work. ^ Couldn't agree more with this. I would be interested to see them run a 2 week trial during busy summer period where Fastrack is completely stopped, just to see how it pans out in reality... I can pretty much guarantee the queues will be more bearable, and guest satisfaction will go up (on the whole). True, that won't turn Thorpe in to a queue-less theme park, but that is an unachievable target so is sort of invalid. Unfortunately Fastrack will continue as long as there is dolla to be made. So we might as well just suck it up.