TPJames

Out of pure interest, how has Rush been performing the last couple of days? It really started to show its knackered side last year when the swings were barely reaching 80-90degrees at most on a good day. I remember the old days when it used to reach about 110-120degrees for a good few swings. I really hope over this closed season they have worked on it to get it back to a good state, as last year it was acceptable but it was obvious the ride was having problems as the swings were so out of time and it wasn't reaching anywhere as high as it used to.

For the first few weeks of the season, having four rides down isn't too terrible in terms of ride avalibility, although thorpe were claiming they had a 97% ride avalibility today which I fail to see with four rides down? Hopefully Slammer, Samurai, Tidal Wave and Rumba will be up by the beginning of the Easter Holidays, the water rides will certainly be needed in the hot weather and they will be needed to suck in some of the crowds as fillers to keep queue times to a minimum. Let's just hope maintenace goes to plan the next couple of weeks to offer a full ride avalibility during Easter

I'd like to do an Octonauts lift-hill VIP experience please.

Think before you type please, your posts are so contradictory and it is clear that you are against me voicing my opinion.As for the maths, I am not going to oppose your figures as I don't have any correct ones to provide myself, however I highly doubt the average merlin annual pass holder will be visiting 100 attractions across the world, when only 31 of them are in the UK. Money is not endless and when purchasing a Merlin pass in the UK, it is particularly hard to reach the ones abroad.

I honestly laugh how you are so against my opinion. This is a forum; a forum is a place for people to express their opinions and take part in controlled debates viewing sides from your own as well as other people's point of view. It is not an argument, there is no need to get angry or even express your opinion against someone else in such an aggressive tone like you feel the need to. For a start, your maths is far far off. Since when were there 100 theme parks in the UK, let alone the ones owned by Merlin? Another factor is that you simply have no clue how many VIP passes have been released. On an event day, there are far more VIPs than you would expect; things like Fright Nights are popular and the volume of fastrackers is utterly insane, the fact that VIP holders can theoretically fastrack on the same maze/ride as many times as they like is re-riding and does affect the queueline. If you don't like my opinion, feel free to debate against it. However, don't express my opinion is wrong and stupid when everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Also, I have no clue where you are plucking these random figures from, but your maths makes utterly no sense. I respect you have an opposing opinion to mine but please don't supply it with completely irrelevant and false evidence.

It disgusts me how highly they are treated compared to normal merlin pass holders, who pay endless event charges and have to stand in the windy cattlepen queues like all the day guests. Yes, VIP pass holders are paying a premium at the end of the day, however the way they are treated compared to normal guests is infuriating and the unlimited fastrack issue puts a negative impact on all of the general public. If it was such a necessary addition to the VIP pass, then why did they feel the need to add unlimited fastrack to rides which don't even have fastrack access, utterly insane and it's beyond unfair on everyone else. Fastrack is a problem in itself at merlin parks, however VIP passes are only making it worse. I'm not saying I hate the people who use the pass, I just hate Merlin for creating it in the first place. The staff treat guests like they are celebrities; they get escorted in first with their own meeting point, unlimited fastrack on rides which don't even have fastrack, choosing where they sit from the line exit and unlimited re-rides. Yet, the staff have no option to do this, as they have been instructed by Merlin to do so. I'm not surprised the pass gets as much hate as it does, it's great for the consumer however for any other day guest it just goes to show how merlin treat their customers like muck unless you are paying the top premium rate.

What are you on about? Take a look for yourself... https://www.thorpepark.com/resort-information/getting-here-opening-times

Something I've noticed is that 13th April- 17th April are all listed as 10-6pm days which would imply school holidays however the Surrey Schools Term Dates calendar states that schools in the Surrey area go back on the 13th April. Anyone got any idea on why this is, and if so, do you reckon the specified week will be particularly busy? (Also, on the busiest days during Easter, what are peak queue times, I would imagine no where near as busy as Summer or Fright nights but coaster lengths of up to around 90minutes?)

The ride teams at thorpe seem to think differently...They will almost always try and clear the fastrack queue before even letting anyone through in the main queue. It's at it's worst on fright nights, when the fastrack line is well over an hour and the main queue is over 3 hours yet they only try and continuously clear the fastrack queue which is unsurprisingly, impossible.

Wasn't sure where to post this however I believe this topic is related and appropriate. I was having a look across youtube and ran into this, what an amazing set up! Seeing as the owner only made it in a week simply to show limited money, time and space could be used to create an immersive experience I think it is fantastic. Ovbiously is no where near on the scale of thorpe's mazes but it clearly shows how an intense, enjoyable and immersive experience can be created.

It's probably sheer laziness on their part as well, they can't be bothered to walk through the windy cattlepens, even if it is walk-on and therefore just take to the ride exits instead as it's less effort.Burn some calories, they've probably helped themselves to unlimited breakfast, lunch and dinner free buffet in the exclusive "VIP passholder meeting point" anyway...

Probably whatever they want... They are "VIP" after all. I can't be bothered to go into a rant about how much they frustrate me at times as sometimes the way they use their passes is completely unfair. There was a medium sized front row queue on nemesis inferno on Sunday and the ride team literally weren't letting the front row queue move up due to VIP passholders wanting to ride and re-ride there. It's a completely biased system, yes they should receive extra perks but these perks should NOT have negative effects on other people. I laugh when it backfires though; we walked straight into the stealth station on Sunday in the main queue and the VIP pass holders had to wait 5-10mins due to the chain being pulled across the steps and the ride host not paying attention as the ride was walk on. It's mean of me but it's pretty funny when they try to take advantage of their perks, especially when there is no queue.

Squeaking, creaking, leaking, shoe-soaking fun!What's not to love eh?

In an ideal world, they could spend their money on a park overhaul instead of the "filler" investments we get year upon year which are bound to only last a couple of years from now before a refurbishment/retheme or renewal is required. 2011 would have been an ideal year, 2013 also, even 2014 and 2015 would have been good years to give the park some TLC instead of trying to attract the guests in with a tacky investment which will not make the people want to return. I reckon if the park spent some money on making it look and feel nicer, along with better operations on busy days, then more and more people would want to return opposed to a filler attraction which makes people never look back due to low throughput and last minute decisions. Storm surge is bound to go soon. Also, both angry birds land AND I'm a celebrity will have to be rethemed or removed within a few years time when they simply aren't popular anymore. The last minute decisions which will only last a few years are so much worse than a stable development plan, which gets an intense amount of care every few years and rides which will actually want to make guests return and will last a long time into the future. I worry for thorpe park in the future as there will come a time soon when a heavy high amount of their rides will have to be rethemed or even removed all around the same few years. Storm surge, vortex, zodiac, samurai, slammer, IAC, Saw(alive) and Angry Birds land will all have had their time in the near future and this will reuslt in a heavy amount of money having to be spent in the park in a short space of time. If the development plan had been stable in the first place with quality developments and TLC, thorpe would not be in the same situation as they will be in a short period of time.

I really don't think anyone is in trouble. The amount of onride POVs on youtube shows that permissions hasn't been given and I saw plently of people will cameras/phones and even selfie sticks on rides today.I doubt thorpe care unless an incident happens involving a lose article, I'm sure they aren't bothered about their POVs being released on youtube. It all depends on which staff members are operating rides, if the staff are friendly and your camera looks secure, they are likely to let you keep it in your possession however other staff will be strict to the rules or if your camera is particularly unsafe they will ask you to put it away. I don't think there's any harm done in trying to film if your camera is secure. If thorpe don't want you to film, they can simply tell you to pop your camera away. I doubt anyone is getting in any sorts of trouble here for any reason... There was no incident involved therefore there is nothing to worry about.

I gather maintenance wasn't yet finished on the other three trains then? What's a shame is how many rides hadn't actually had their full maintenance completed. Even though X, Colossus and loggers leap were open, they all clearly still had trains/cars being worked on resulting in lower capacity and small children not being able to ride (loggers leap). On top of this, Slammer, Samurai, Rush, Quantum, Tidal Wave and Rumba Rapids are yet to finish maintenance with Saw likely to have a bit of extra work done now after it being down the whole weekend. I can only say I hope it's all sorted by the main season as there's clearly 10 rides which haven't finished full maintenance yet. Was a great preview day today though and the attractions which were open were all running superbly.

It's an alright new design in my opinion, although I have preferred previous map designs at Chessington. The actual way the map has been executed I dislike however, in no way at all is it going to help first-time guests navigate their way round the park to certain attractions, a lot of pathways/directions are inaccurate to what they would be like in real life when walking around the park.

These were set up again today at various places across the park, including amity cove and lost city. They were blasting pop music all over the park to an extent in which I couldn't here ride themes. I have no clue what they were set up for however the fact that they were testing them while guests were on park was fustrating! [emoji14]On a seperate note, it was virtually all pop music playing across the whole park after 3pm with the exception of stealth and swarm. The lost city was full of pop music right down from vortex to around the samurai area. Tidal wave's area, Angry Birds Land and Nemesis Inferno's areas were playing pop music too along with neptunes beach and surrounding areas. Whatever happened to ride themes was beyond me today! They decided to play the vortex theme however it was just clashing with Uptown funk blasting from the speakers...

NEWSFLASH: Colossus isn't painful on the front row! [emoji38] Waited 40minutes for the front row today due to one train and terrible operations however I actually had one of the first ever enjoyable rides on it; it was running well, as were the other coasters and I didn't bash my head against the side at all the whole run. Think this only applies to front row though as on previous experiences it has been so rough. Fab.

Most of the time today, the VIP holders were fastracking a walk on queue which was utterly pointless; however their unlimited fastrack is likely to become seriously fustrating for the GP on peak days along with the overselling of fastrack and unlimited priority passes given out.

Was told by social media, staff around the park and signs aroung the park that coasters would only be open till 4pm today, however they turned out to be open till 4:30pm which was amazing! Everything was walk on from around 3pm as well, with virtually no one walking around in the park after 4pm. Operations were pretty good today, with the exceptions of Colossus and X. X was only running two cars which led to a 60minute queue and colosuss was only on one meaning front row queue was a nightmare! The staff were being friendly around the park and it opened slightly early and closed after advertised time as well which was great. Overall a great day out with a decent selection of rides open and relatively good operations and low queue times. Only downside was the park looked like a massive construction site, there were cranes, scaffolding, temporary fences and construction fences everywhere. It's not a massive let down to the park however the general look of the park could look much better; especially when it opens for the main season. Opposing this though, there were some great touch ups around the park so individual rides look good however general park appearance will hopefully improve after I'm a Celebrity opens...

Colossus operations are awful this morning, it's on one train and there's 13 ride hosts in the station however only two of them are doing anything, the rest are talking in the corner...

Personally, I think the standard and premium passes should be merged into one, the "spremium pass". This pass should include all the benefits of both standard and premium including free car parking and no event charges. These benefits should be included in the standard pass in the first place and should not be an upgrade. Then I think they should scrap the VIP pass. Now that they have started it, there is always going to be a demand for it and thus it will never go; however I really don't think it's fair to offer such a teir that only the wealthy can afford because they can't be bothered to queue. I'm sure if the VIP pass was removed, the amount of fastrack passing through would reduce as the VIP passes can use fastrack as and when they please, even on the quietest days. I don't have anything against what the pass has to offer, users are paying a small fortune to access these perks; I just disagree with the whole tiered system in the first place, especially the difference between the Standard and Premium passes.

Yeah, if anyone on park could give an accurate closing time this would be really appreciated, as I will be visiting tomorrow (I imagine park times will be similar).

X potentially opening for tomorrow?*fingers crossed*