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You'd think they would have removed the section about there being no happy ending to the story if they were removing stuff that someone felt could be insensitive to the Smiler victims.

I thought they had three more left?

Perhaps he was just bitter at not being able to ride something himself, and took it out on the park. Strongly suggest he stays out of London this weekend, cos he'll be more than offended at some of the t-shirts on display there.

Maybe it's been put on hold for a while due to the Smiler accident, everything Merlin is doing at the moment is low key.

The same tabloids that still think the car was stuck upside down for 20 minutes? The trouble is there are more people who believe the crap written by the 'stupidist tabloids' than there are that don't, we are a minority and our opinion is really of no consequence to Alton in comparison to the majority of their customers who may be swayed. As Han30 says, it doesn't matter what they do, the media will find a way to twist it to their point of view. Should have heard some of the comments we got from friends who would be considered middle to upper class well educated last week, they were genuinely shocked we hadn't cancelled the our trip 'because of the rollercoaster crash'.

They're damned if they do and damned if they don't (assuming HSE lift the prohibition order).

This guy? http://www.theladbible.com/articles/this-lad-s-attempt-at-getting-a-thorpe-park-fast-track-pass-seriously-backfired

Regarding the names I assume the ride has always had the giggler on one the spider legs? Maybe they'll just rename it to that and remove the marmalise references.

Time will tell as they say. My wife swears she saw Stealth do a rollback on the Saturday Annual Pass day, but she could have misunderstood the term rollback, we were on Inferno at the time.

True, I've also seen groups of people using just one card (child a) for the whole group, then going to the next ride and using child b's card for everybody to get on that, but I'll give him his due, there's one particular ride op (looks a bit like the guy who presents Saturday Kitchen just thinner) who is wise to this and I've seen him ask for 'the other child's card' more than once.

In this environment that's about as likely as you being hit by a tram while sat on your toilet, those on JSA don't exactly have a choice, if they are offered a job, they have to take it, and I can imagine many in the Leatherhead Job Centre are told 'apply to Chessington or be sanctioned'. It's an employers market at the moment.

The first one is a generalisation as to the opinion you expressed as being similar to those expressed by the majority of people, who in turn make the disabled feel a burden, it is not saying you are ignorant, if I wanted to say that, I would have said, you are ignorant. Ignorant means lacking in knowledge, it is not a term used to create offence, I'm not a brain surgeon so a brain surgeon would be well within their rights to call me ignorant of the procedures of brain surgery, and he would be absolutely correct in his assumption but it's not something I'd get offended at, he's 100‰ correct. If we were to get really technical, then yes, I used the term to describe your comments which were similar to those reflected by others, but this should also be taken into the context in which it was used, you had expressed a lot of opinions as to how the RAP system works and said some rather nasty and condesending things about people with mental illness (paraphrasing you said why should a person with ADHD get to the front of the queue because their brain lining is thin and they a impatient, they should find something to do to occupy themselves instead of jumping the queue etc.), so in a way, saying your views exhibited ignorance, was absolutely correct, plus I am not the only one to say this about your comments, so I'm not sure why you have singled me out as the perpetrator. There is a difference between saying someone's opinion on a particular subject is a bit ignorant or shows ignorance and saying that they are an ignorant person as a whole, I said the former and this is very different to saying you are an ignorant person totally. The second one I'm totally lost as to how you think that I am saying you are a narrow minded git, first off the comment wasn't even direced at you, it was in answer to toofpik's question about whether I would or have given up my seat for an able bodied person, at no time did I say, Altitude is an ignorant narrow minded git, now if I'd have said that, you'd be every right to get upset over it, but that's not what I said. What I said was that I am old enough to know there's more to life than being a narrow minded git like the other person in the queue who had told the girls to f*** off just because they selfishly wanted to ride that exact train instead of waiting 30 seconds, the final comment was a bit of humour to the effect of saying 'but given the conversation of the last few pages, Altitude may well disagree and think that I am a narrow minded git'. At no time did I call you arrogant either, I don't even think anybody in the thread has even used the word other than yourself. I hope we can now put this behind and move on, if you still think I called you an ignorant, arrogant narrow minded selfish git (or whatever it was), then there's nothing I or anybody else can say that will convince you otherwise. Now, again, can we please hear your ideas for making the RAP system better?

Sorry all but I'll go when this is settled. Why don't you quote the relevant posts to me Altitude so that we can discuss where I called you all those things? Or better still stop baiting and trolling me to reply in order to defend myself, I didn't call you any of the things you think I did, even others can see that.

I'm going to take Benin's advise and just not reply anymore to this thread, if others think I called you ignorant, arrogant or a narrow minded git then yes I'd apologise, but more than one person understood what I was saying so I'll just call it day now. If you do decide to post your ideas about how to improve the system then I may pop back in, but it's probably best I don't bother replying anymore.

As I said: Now can we get back to your ideas for improving the RAP system? Edit: my sigh post was of frustration at everything I say being ignored, in other words 'there's no point replying further because I'd just be repeating myself'.

*sigh*

When I left school I went on a YTS scheme, £35 a week for 9-5 Monday to Friday. Yup, that's £1.14 an hour (£2.99 in today's money). Does that make you see that £6.50 in a different light now?

Oh dear Altitude, it seem that no matter how clear I try to make things, you will just see what you want to see rather than what is actually said/written. If I was to be inclined to personally attack you, nobody here would be in any doubt over my motives. I am very interested to hear of your alternative methods for the RAP, but please drop the 'every post of his contains hidden personal attacks on me' attitude as this simply isn't the case, if you're going to continue to take everything anybody posts that is in disagreement to your view as containing a personal attack directed solely at you, then this isn't going to be a pleasant experience for any of us. I could for example take deep offence at you comparing me to Jesus (but it's more amusing for an athiest to be compared to Jesus then anything else), but I don't.

With us maybe, but many that I know have used their free tickets to go back again and judging by the queue times, it hasn't damaged their rep much lol.

£6.50 an hour is better than being self employed, but I do agree with you, Merlin should pay this London minimum wage at least, see we can agree on something Altitude

I also didn't say they cleared the pens, I said 'one pen', I also said if there was anybody already in that 'pen' they went first and they closed it off behind them. Sorry for the DP, as you say, debate is good, but please read and digest what I say, don't speed-read it and put words in my mouth that I didn't say.

Altitude, I didn't call you ignorant (neither did I call you arrogant, I can post up the definition of both if you want), I said your attitude was typical of the ignorance exhibited by a lots of people (there's a difference), which makes the disabled feel like a burden, sectioning up different disabilities into categories is not going to make the system work any better and could probably end up with the Park being done for Disability Discrimination. Alton and Chessie run a two tier system for able bodied and non-able, but at the ride, the procedure is the same. In other words, in the eyes of the law, there is no such thing as mental or physical disability, the two are categorised simply as a disability. You (and others) also seemed to be under the impression that the RAP gives the disabled person free fastrack, this is what some of us call ignorance too, I.e. you don't know how the system works, so have assumed how it works in your own head and though that ignorance, assumed wrong, I would hope that by now, nobody here still thinks that is the case (although I see from your last post you still think the RAP is a queuing privilege). As someone else pointed out, it's extremely difficult to fiddle the system, maybe if there was more than one disabled guest in a party you could swap cards per ride etc. but overall it's harder than you think. Sure there are probably people who get the wristband who shouldn't, but I would imagine there are not as many people doing this as you think too, and of course, even if someone does get the wristband, it still doesn't gain them anything over a normal member of the public who has queued, because they cannot use the wristband again for the length of time that they would have queued for anyway, so I simple don't understand how, considering how many first hand experiences of the system have been conveyed to you in this thread, you still consider that it's some sort of queue jumping facility that gives everybody instant access. If you have a better way for the system to work, put it here then and those of us who have experienced the system can say whether we think it's a good idea (or whether in fact, the system already does that). toofpikk, yes I have, many times, usually not for a single person, or two people just wanting their ride quicker, but I have put people in front of me if they are in a group and it will help them, on Friday there was about 8 kids all wanting to ride Rita together, the Batcher put too many people on the platform so there were only six free seats, they asked some others who told them to f*** off (literally) then they asked us and I said sure go ahead, we went on the next train, not an issue for us. I'm no saint, far from it, I'm just old enough to know there's more to life than being a narrow minded selfish git (although Altitude may disagree lol).

They probably just took their lead from Chessington, didn't hurt them opening with their main attractions down.

This is the kind of ignorance that makes disabled people feel like a burden on society, nobody said anything about the pens being emptied. I won't go into detail but I gave up my seat on Nemesis last Friday for a disabled kid and his mum and it didn't make me feel the slightest bit discriminated against, but it made that kids day for the sake of me waiting another 30 seconds. If you got your way that kid would never get the opportunity to experience a rollercoaster and nobody should be prevented from enjoying something because thy have an invisible disability.

My nephew is on the spectrum, among his many problems is he can react violently to being touched unexpeditly, can you imagine what it would be like for him to be in the cattle pen area with people bumping into him every few seconds? Before you say 'tell him to control his temper' it's not a question of it, his is a naturally reaction, as natural as you squinting when the sun get's in your eyes, or you licking your like when they get dry. Sometimes it's not just for the convenience of the disabled person to have a seperte queue, but for the safety of the ignorant *****s pushing and shoving cos they have nothing better to do while they wait.