planenut

I've wanted to go this park for a couple of years now; the rides and location appear great and now with this to arrive... and it looks great....and apart from that, the "Airport" that one lands at is a former military base with a museum in it's underground hangers, how cool is that? well for a Plane Nut, very cool!

As most of you know the youngsters these days, finish the exams, and this is at the local colleges as well, then do "trips" to TP for various reasons, the main one is to stand in the queue in front of me. I met some kids last week who told me that they were on a bonus school trip for "full attendance", they didn't understand when I told them to go back to school to maintain that record. The half term to the end of the summer term is worst, then as suggested the earlier part of the main summer holiday is best if you want to go. Someone did suggest a Sunday is good, but I have always tried to avoid them too.

Doh!, any sheep he sees!

What a day, mine anyway, but to finish of with meeting so many of the TPM group, what a bunch of nice people; nutcases! but very nice. I hope that you all had a great day!

Go on then, have a look at this and see if you would have had the same reaction? http://www.wimp.com/spidercamera/

I'll see if I have time to say "hello" as I aim to be in the park but not necessarily on the same rides. I'll probably be wearing a shirt with an aeroplane on it, then you have to guess the age group, etc.etc.. Hope you all have a good day, and especially the ERT.

There must be some logic in it somewhere, but for the life of me I can't see it? If the people have already paid, then Merlin have the cash and a pass would only bring that body back in without any financial gain in the future. If the person normally only attends a few days a year, then they would possibly have been willing to pay the ticket again; however, if they've now been given a free ticket for the future, then still no financial gain for Merlin.

They actually bought equipment to manufacture parts for some of the rides; historically, there is nowhere better for large rides. Like most parks, some areas need TLC whilst some are recently refurbished or new. It is a great all round family entertaining park.

I don't think safety is the question; the fact that the supposed fail-safe systems which allow "manual extraction of riders" didn't work is questionable. I like this type of ride, so long as you don't get soaked on a cool day.

Though it is of short duration, and it never ceases to amaze me that some people queue for quite a while, then ride it and ask if that was it? - what have they been watching whilst in the queue? I digress; Stealth has everything except a loop; fantastic turn of speed, sudden change in direction and Positive G, that fantastic view, if you're quick, with the negative G of the tophat, then that wonderful freefall , to the pressure in the bottom gully, followed by another float over the bunnyhop, with the added pleasure of watching people's mobile phones flying past us - Doh!

What an odd thing to say. Stealth is one of the stalwarts of this nest of nutty rides, and is a draw on it's own. When rides are empty then that's the time to consider removal. Luckily with Merlins recent refurbishment of less well attended rides, Stealth is safe.

Ouch, they did in fact cut away at restraints, this will take some time to get back into action.

Does seem odd that they had to cut the restraints, shame. Hope nobody needed the loo!

Happened Thursday morning when we had high winds with higher gusts. Apparently it caught the train as in a sail and stopped it dead - wish I had a bet on that, the odds must be really high.

The engineers used a cherry-picker to reach it in the position you see in that shot; at one stage the wind caused the platform to sway severely and one of the engineers grabbed the track structure until the wind had eased.

it seems that even the ride can get tetchy - due to the wind being gusty this morning the fifth car on the morning test was stopped "on it's tracks" and engineers had to go up to free it from the track to force it into completing the run; and I thought it was meant to put the wind up the riders.

"You are only as high as your seat", well that's one of my comments when people say they fear the height. As an older guy, and the fact that I attend mostly on my own, I generally take some reading material for the queue, but if you have a shared interest with your friends, why not take a small book that you can share, a silly one; I too hate queueing for anything over twenty minutes, but luckily can go there during the week.

I've been twice this year, checked on the website which showed a 10a.m. opening, and found they had opened at 09.30 on both occasions.

I have never worked in a supermarket, restaurant and a (sort of) call centre, nor in fact a theme park, but I do know that Merlin will slap a deep clean of a ride on the staff with virtually no warning, and they are all expected to get home afterwards.

Not sure of the reasons for not trying but that may be it - get your friend to agree to ride each and then to give you his assessment? Tell him to (not meaning to sound like Darth Vader) feel the ride, the way he is held or allowed to move, the G forces and any discomfort, and most important, if he feels any airtime. Sometimes in the queues people express their concern for the danger or safety - I tell them that the ride would not be allowed to exist if it were anything but safe. I also alert them to the fact that they probably arrived by car or coach and that more people die on Britains motorways daily, than worldwide in theme parks during a year! Sadly though, some people physically don't like them, which means they are not in front of me in the queue!

I believe that if real fire was to be considered for inside a tunnel, then new air extraction would also have to be installed. On SWARM, I am pretty sure that the flame emission from the fire engine is supposed to react to every seventh pass of the train.

Maybe his pronunciation was not too good, as I think they are installing and testing the new trains, I.e. "more trains".

I too was at TP on Monday, giving my favourite ride Stealth a thorough testing, and it was much to the merriment of the ride ops. there, to keep pointing out that Colossus was still stuck on the lift hill, and the crew all harnessed up were having to get people off. I had toyed with the idea of having a trip on Colossus, but glad to say I stayed Stealthy all day.

Nemesis Inferno has red "fire" lighting in the tunnel, but I only saw them on once last year.