TPJames

It's back on 2 trains since this morning^ Source: InfernoMartin.

Apparently the barn where the farm was is currently being rebuilt. Could we see the return of the railway and the farm? (Or even a new attraction in its place).

It's good news if it is, but I sincerely worry that we are going to be seeing some serious stacking and trains stopping on the lift hill. Last year the operations on two trains were dire, you would have to wait 30-60seconds in the blocks before you could unload. The staff in general were slow and it didn't help that the batcher would only batch rows after the train had dispatched; it would be much more efficient if you could batch yourself. We're going to need to see an increase in staff working on restraints and speedy boarding etc. The operations this year and last year have been so slow on loading that it wouldn't be able to run three trains. Let's just hope staff have had appropriate training and can manage the extra stress; adding the third train back is seriously going to speed up the queueline provided we have efficient operations.

I prefer nemesis inferno. That's my opinion anyway.Hate all you like but nemesis just didn't live up to all the hype it receives. Each to their own opinion but I really find nemesis inferno to ride so much better and the intensity is kept throughout.

When it was 65minutes on monday, the baggage booth was also closed. Maybe the reason the 2nd train wasn't on was due to not enough staff to open the baggage booth? If so, it's appalling thorpe don't hire enough staff incase a second train was needed.On one train operation, the baggage hold is always closed, so what you experienced is regular to a normal occurance. It's yet another way the park try to save money by cutting down on staff(as does chessington e.g one man op on monkey swinger)

It's at a point where visiting on an off peak day just doesn't seem worth it anymore; on an average Sunday the queues are relatively similar or only a tiny bit longer than an off peak day due to two train operation opposed to one train on off peak days. Plus, on a Sunday you get the extra hour of ride time at the end of the day when the park is completely dead. At the end of the day, the park should be running full capacity on all rides regardless of whether it's peak or off peak as there is always enough demand for full capacity on the rollercoasters nowadays. The park has reached a point where it's busy enough on off peak days for two train operation as if they operate on one train, there is no longer the distinction needed between weekdays and weekends. The ONLY excuse which should be accepted is due to a technical fault, thorpe park and merlin earn more than enough money to be running full capacity on rides, it's only greedy to operate on one train, especially when there are long queues(30mins+) as thorpe park will earn plenty of money regardless of whether they are running full capacity on the rollercoasters or not. I'm wondering if it's something to do with Merlin's budget cuts; Chessington has the whole of Wild Asia closed off until 11am and the whole of Mystic East and Land of the dragons(bar fury) closed until 12pm on off peak days). Alton towers has ridiculously staggered openings this year on major rides on both peak and off peak days and thorpe's operations and ride reliability are going increasingly downhill. It's certainly not a great start to the year for merlin, the investments as a whole this year have been pretty poor as well.

Mist on nemesis inferno on Monday was really lacking, was barely just catching my feet inside the tunnel. It was pumping out loads from the top of the volcano though, I would rather it was the other way round! I swear this happens every season, the mist is always amazing at the beginning but gradually seems to disappear as the year progresses?

Well I've been in need of a channel trailer altogether so I decided to make one! I hope you enioy it but it's nowhere near as good as yours CoasterDude!

Vampire is running a main queue as normal as it's no longer school holidays, however is still on one train operation.

The thing is though, isn't "off peak" supposed to mean the queueing times are shorter? The queue times today for the major coasters were around the same if not longer than an average weekend. It wasn't as bad as it seemed though, we managed most coasters multiple times and had a fairly high ride count as everything apart from the coasters were virtually walk on all day. Nemesis inferno and saw also did add extra cars upon demand, resulting in short queues during the afternoon. Swarm and stealth were the only real problems, I'm sure 65minutes is enough "demand" for both of these to have a second train added but there must have been reasons behind it. The two spare stealth trains looked perfectly ready to be added however maybe running costs may have been an issue. Swarm definitely should have had a second train added, however this may have been down to a technical issue or another factor of which I do not know. The amount of people on park was around what I was expecting so I was pleasantly surprised when most queues died down in the afternoon(bar swarm and stealth which were over 30mins after 11am right up until closing time; swarm was also claiming a 30minute wait but we waited around 50-60minutes).

Detonator was open for the annual pass preview weekend and then broke straight after that. It's still sitting there not being worked on so I presume they are still waiting for a part.

Not sure where to post this but on park now, swarm is 60mins, stealth and Colossus are 30mins and nemesis inferno is 45mins. They are all on one train operation. Edit: Stealth is 60mins now and saw is 80minutes, stealth is running one train and saw is running 4 cars. Hopefully they will add more meaning queues die down in the afternoon.

I think it's good that Thorpe have hosted 9pm closing on selected rides for Shark Hotel guests over Easter. The rides available consisted of two children's rides: Flying Fish and Depth Charge, two family rides: Quantum and Zodiac and two thrill rides: Rush and Vortex. Whilst it would have been better if the likes of X and Colossus stayed open for hotel guests, it shows the park are heading in the right direction to later opening hours for the park in future years. Having 6 rides open for three hours after park closing is a generous decision for Thorpe park to make and is certainly improved compared to last year when only Vortex and Depth Charge were open for two hours extra into the evening. Hopefully the addition of this late ride time can lead onto the park staying open later in the long run. This addition and Island Beats certainly seem to hint that Thorpe are trying to extend their opening hours and are trying to come on to be one of the leading parks in Europe with hopefully more entertainment being added for guests as the year goes on.

I was there on the 9th and the signs either weren't up or they are particularly obscure...

When I went there was no notification of the reduced capacity whatsoever, however it was pretty ovbious as the queue was moving so damn slow despite being only 15minutes.The sign is only really needed for weekends as coasters are run on one train on weekdays regardless unless the queue gets to a substantial level. However, I'm sure they hire out enough staff on weekends to place one at the entrance when the park is busy. The sign is useful in a respect, however not completely necessary for these upcoming weeks. The sign will become particularly useful if the rollercoaster continues to run on reduced capacity over the upcoming holiday.

What confuses me is the lack of common sense within the department, Colossus has been running on one train over the whole of easter with no notice whatsoever that queue times will be extended, however as soon as the peak season ends, they decide to put a sign up notify people it's on a reduced capacity when it's going to have a smaller impact on guests? It's not going to be much of a problem throughout the next few off-peak weeks, as they would be running one train anyway even if they had two ready. Having put these signs up, they must be expecting Colossus to be on one train for the foreseeable future or for an extended period of time. It's not too much of a problem at the moment, as it hasn't hit over 100mins all easter, however if it is only operating one train during the summer months then we are going to see serious issues as it easily hits 140mins on two trains during the summer holidays.

Unfortunately, considering thorpe are only open until 7pm in the summer, going straight to 10pm closings every evening would be a big move and it may not be as well-received as they would be expecting. The last couple of hours in the evening could be very much dead and therefore not making the operating costs worthwhile.To an extent, this could potentially be a "trial" to extended hours during the summer, as was summer nights. However, this event is more likely to be a realistic simulation of how many people stay on after 7pm(from what I've heard it's all included in the ticket price now bar the concert?) or how many people want to buy an evening ticket from 4-10pm. However, I think having paid entertainment during the evening is not the right direction to head in; if thorpe choose to continue with this idea and make weekends or even every day in the summer 10pm closing then free entertainment will needed to be provided in order to keep guests entertained. As this is being viewed as a separate "event" altogether, thorpe can get away with it but if they decide to extend opening hours in the future free entertainment will need to be provided to draw the guests in to stay for the rest of the evening. As far as I see it at the moment, this move is the park potentially heading in the right direction. We now see 10am-7pm openings throughout the summer Sun-Thurs and on Fridays and Saturdays we now see 10am-10pm. The park are also throwing in a small amount of free entertainment as well as some paid entertainment which should be the right move to longer opening hours in the long run. However, if thorpe choose to extend their opening hours and provide shows/concerts/entertainment throughout park opening, I think we will need a better location than at crust, as at the moment this results in the whole of lost city being closed from 7pm onwards whereas in future if extended openings become popular, this area will certainly be needed to draw some of the crowds away from the bigger rides. (What I'm hoping to happen in future years is for "Summer Nights" to return, however instead it is simply 10am-10pm openings with free shows, music and entertainment right into the night and a fantastic firework show to finish the night off. If thorpe want to get up to the standards of the likes of Europa, Portaventura and Disney, this is certainly one way to do it and draw in the crowds for the whole day proving that late openings are popular if executed properly. Maybe I'm being unrealistic, but it certainly would improve the park and would no doubt make it more popular and make guests more likely to return as they run out of time to do and see everything in the 12hours on park).

Got stuck on Fury twice in the afternoon on Tuesday, on the plus side the queue was no more than 20minutes the whole afternoon and we were only stuck for about 10-15mins each time as the engineers were already on site and working on two broken cars(one of which was added onto the circuit in the late afternoon). We headed there straight in the morning(after getting vampire tickets) and the queue was also only about 15minutes at around 10:30am, however it broke down straight away so we ended up waiting about 30minutes. The breakdowns are never huge problems, however it wastes time as they have to test the whole ride again. The queueline is really un-atmospheric, the Wild Asia music can be overheard which is nice, but I really think it needs it's own ride theme, whether it has one or not I do not know. On a positive note, it's still a good fun ride and I love the way how it snakes round the land of the dragons. The sound over tiny truckers is god damn awful though, how do the little kids riding tiny truckers put up with it? The noise is horrendous! Even though I've never been on either, it's one of the main reasons I prefer Toadies Crazy Cars to Truckers as it's a much more secluded ride with no awful noises coming from Dragons fury.

"Do NOT fear though! SUMMER NIGHTS is rumoured to be staying around for those who don't wish to see the acts. This will be priced at £15. Rides available will be a mixture of coasters including Stealth, THE SWARM, Saw - The Ride, Nemesis Inferno as well as water rides such as Tidal Wave, Loggers Leap and Storm Surge. " From theme park collective. --- Unsure whether this means Summer Nights will be taking place at the same time as Island Beats or whether it will be seperate event altogether. If the two events are tied in together, I fear it could defeat the point of summer nights as it may be quite busy resulting in queues. However, I'm hoping capacity is strictly limited as the performance area is likely to be relatively small and there is always the option of adding a second train to rollercoasters(however unlikely that is to happen).

X has only had a massive queue the past few weeks due to two train operation. Same with Colossus, which has been running on one train and tidal wave, which has been running on one boat.Operations tend to be relatively poor most of the time anyway, as "demand" is never high enough to improve them. Also ride reliability and maintenace over the winter seems to be sub-standard this year with lots of trains/cars not ready on major rides and rides constantly breaking down or being closed for essential maintenace.

8 rides closed at the same time on a peak day? It's shocking how bad ride reliability at thorpe is! On another note, samurai is once again closed for "essential maintenace" and is unknown when it will be running again along with slammer and detonator. Didn't last long did it!?

^Summer Nights last year was only charging £5 for annual pass holders for three hours of exclusive ride time with no queues. We even managed 39 rides in three hours! If I were you I would wait and see if a summer nights style event returns, as this one is much more hefty in price and the concept of this is to watch some live music alongside a couple of rides whereas summer nights was purely based around riding rollercoasters in the sunset with minimal queueing times. The concept of this event is rather different so it has the potential to be much busier.

Oh, of course, how could I forget...? Last time their job was to jump the queues to make queue times longer for everyone else, wasn't it?

The Vamps at Thorpe Park again... Really? This "world class" event isn't being used for anything other than to make summer nights a more popular event however it will completely defeat the point of summer nights as queues for the rollercoasters will be massive right until closing time. Unless the event is a complete flop, of course If this is the new, "world class" summer nights, I will be extremely annoyed.

Rameses revenge was brilliant today. Apart from breaking down and stopping repeatedly throughout the day, it was performing reasonably well and the cycles were as fun as usual. I wouldn't call the ride thrilling or intense, however it's still a fun experience. Whatever they have done to the water jets is incredible! Stayed on for two consecutive rides and came off soaked through! The front row would get drenched first in the face whilst my legs and chest were being soaked by the water fountains; the fountains would then drop and raise again and blast right up into my face for about 10 seconds and it felt like I was drowning! Truly brilliant and I came off with my whole body completely soaked through!