Project LC

Some very concerning responses on their twitter. Some how a 90 minute queue did not classify as high enough demand for a 2nd train. Along with some shocking maths of 90% of rides open. I hope they learn and go with full trains as a default at weekends from now on. Quite frankly 1 train operation on a saturday is just a joke.

1 train operations? Colossus is on 90 minutes for crying out loud. Stealth on 45 minutes. What should be a quiet day with the park at its best seems to just be shambles.

3m guests means very little, if they all got in for free it would be useless. Its how much is spent per guest that merlin cares about. They want maximum profit, so as many people spending as much as possible while they spend very little themselves.

Yes I have ridden another Screamin swing. Skyhawk was a million times better. However I meant my statement in a mechanical term rather than ride experience.

Staggered openings? That doesn't sound good, nor does a ride not even being open because of budgets. If profits are falling because of a lack of guests reducing the experience on offer isn't going to help. The idea is to drive people towards the park, not away from it.

Rush isn't exactly the best S&S swing, being the first its understandable however I think for it to perform as well as something like skyhawk would cost a lot of time and money. I don't know why it was performing poorly last year but I got the impression that it was a fairly large issue.

It a because they are old. Samurai isn't meant to work the hours it does, it's old and as a result it's dying. Saw is just a pile of junk, slammer is a poor design. Rumba is really old and tidal wave needed some work done.

A chain snap would be impressive. That chain is very strong and for it to snap would take quite some force. It would need to suffer fatigue which should be picked up in routine maintenance. Saying that its not unheard of I would just be very surprised if a chain snap was the case for its downtime.

They open at the time they do because that's the time when they are confident they will get more income than what they spend to open. Alton being in the middle of no where have decided that that point is a few weeks later. 1 and a half weeks isn't going to make that much difference, yeah it would help but overall the same/similar problems would still be around. This just seems to be the result of a load of ageing rides all needing some major work done at the same time. Can't really be avoided.

Regret to inform you but it isn't the only 1:1 recreation. My park is also 1:1 just rather unfinished and old. There are also other Servers that are working on Thorpe.

Well the rides are ageing and as a result may take a little more time than they used to. Then again saw and swarm are not exactly old. However to have 8 rides down is concerning, if it's because of a lack of engineers then they really need to start hiring more. Slammer is excused and maybe rush if they fix the swing height But really all should be open.

Samurai, slammer, saw, swarm, X, rush, Rumba rapids and tidal wave all reported to be closed according to queue times. Not the best start to the season if I'm honest.

Well it was listed as going. I guess it's time is up. Or they forgot about.

More positive than normal. I mean I even used the word good. This ride like most dive machines is going to focus on the drop. Afterall it is a dive machine and short doesnt mean bad. Stealth is short and imo thats the best UK coaster.

Its a dive machine, they are expensive they loose speed very quickly compared to other coasters. Also they focus on the drop so the rest of the layout isn't needed to be as great as on another coaster. It will be a good coaster but saying that I do feel the layout on all dive machines let them down a bit (possible exceptions being shekra and griffon).

TPJames's argument is not flawed. The points made are valid. No need to make an assault on him. How on earth would a discussion work if everyone agreed, the conversation would just die. Instead people have taken their time to explain their points to others with opposing views. Presumably so that the conversation can continue until a point where everyone agrees is reached.

The VIP days at cedar point still exist so I assume they are still there at the other cedar fair parks. They have been watered down a little with no backstage tour but the rest is still the same. However they work because there is very little demand for them. VIP should not be allowed to fastrack rides that don't have a dedicated queue. That is good enough already and they don't need more. The whole pass is a joke. Poorly executed, terrible name and they seem to be able to do anything they like.

63 rides where you enter via the exit when fastrack for the ride shouldn't even exist for anyone, never mind VIP.

I never meant it as it was the passes fault. I more said it as a general statement that no one should be fastracking the Rumba Rapids. I am aware they can and they do so via the exit but its pointless. It makes guests angry and saves them hardly anytime anyway.

I did mean that if there is no dedicated fastrack queue then you shouldn't be able to fastrack it. The rumba rapids definitely doesn't need to be fastracked. The whole queue filled only takes about 10-20 minutes, not exactly a big wait. If a ride doesn't have a dedicated queue for fastrack then you shouldn't be able to by pass the main one.

No fastrack ever should be using the exit. There are fastrack queues on fastrack available rides. At no point should anyone be queuing at the exit. If the park isn't busy enough to have someone at the fastrack queue then clearly you don't need to be using the system. Thorpe parks allocation is done by selling the number of tickets to be 1/3rd of the wait time of the main queue. Which is a fancy way of saying it cant exceed 25% of the throughput allocation. I don't know about Alton but I imagine it is very similar. The only difference is that Alton generally have high throughput rides.

In my opinion VIP passes should only be able to use the fastrack queue and never be able to reride unless the general public are allowed to. If a ride doesn't have fastrack then tough. No pass unless it's disability should allow exit access.

Fastrack feeding into set rows is a horrific system. It may be nice for the people which can use those rows but for the main queue it means there is a set throughput they can't use and the throughput they can use still has a 20-30% fastrack allocation. So on nemesis inferno the main queue serves just over half the train. It's a joke and annoying. Some allocations I've seen have been horrible. The swarm queue didn't move for 15-20 minutes while I was in it because of them selling fastrack at the entrance and a load of VIP holders putting up a fuss they had to wait 20 minutes. Well to be honest not a single person we talked to cared what they had to say as we had been waiting about 70 minutes. The pass shouldn't exist. Merlin may want to rake in the cash but there should be no option that allows someone constant use of a queue that is shorter and give it a name that gives them an excuse to act all high and mighty.

Fury is having its tracked filled with sand to reduce noise. That would have slowed down its winter maintenance a lot.

They do flip the boats already so I don't see how doing it could slow down operations more.