Ian-S

ROFLMAO that'll be about right,

There were a lot of people on Sunday who seamed very happy with their day, many were saying things like will come back when I next get paid etc. etc. there were hardly any complaining (my nipper had to go back to the dome to use the loo so I waited by the exit for him and earwigged people in the queue talking), yes I know there are toilets by the turn styles, he insisted on going to the dome hehe. Mind you, these were the same people queuing to exit through a single turn style for the ten minutes, rather than exiting though one of the other 15 unused ones, so I'm not sure you can put a lot of stock in that...... LOL

LOL what's that about? Seriously?

They should stick the stage on there then, build a bridge and the leave the park open for the rest of us that want to ride and throw the great unwashed into their own pen where they can fap over the latest music trends without disturbing the rest of us lol. /sarcasm

What's this spare island you guys talk about? Is it the one behind The Swarm?

Lost City is the area to the left as you walk out the dome isn't it? The area that was basically closed off during the annual pass events. I couldn't make head nor tails of the plan for the stage so can't place it. 8 weeks worth of acts seems an extremely big period to fill.

Scenic Railway was my first ever ride back in 1982 or something crazy like that, thoroughly enjoyed it, we will definitely make a day trip down there this summer although I dread to think what the queues are going to be like since the population has boomed in the last 30 years.

Oh dear, obviously whoever thought of this at Thorpe hasn't ever been to something like Glastonbury or a similar event. Last time I went to something like this at the British GP many years ago, you could hear the concert on the other side of the facility over a mile away.... I know you can direct sound in specific directions and all that, but LOL Thorpe, haven't really thought this through have you? Summer Nights should be put on as a separate event when the concerts are not running, like in the alternative weeks or something, do they really think people are going to pay £75 a week for 8 weeks to goto a concert each weekend?

Yes they need to bring all those super 'we do things bigger, faster and longer' coasters over from the States that are sitting dormant over there that you see on sites like 28dayslater, it's not like they're going to be short of a few acres like Thorpe or Chessie.

Thorpe might have struck a ticket percentage deal with the bands, this is how gigs worked back in the last century, a band would get a small fee to cover their travelling costs then a percentage of gate fees (usually 50%), so it might not be a case of Thorpe physically having more budget's that the other parks, management could just be more creative. A friend is in a band and does tours across Eastern Europe, this is how they get paid (base fee + gate percentage).

Based on our experience I'd say electricBill is correct, the article states they phoned in advance and were given a list of the rides he could go on (21 in total) and nobody told them anything about this 'three steps' rule. The un-answered question here is this, she does not state whether the mother was riding with him, and I think this is the absolute key to any discrimination claim she tries to bring, if she was riding then yes, she has a case for discrimination, if not, then she doesn't... Now why is this key? Because it's Merlin rules that any disabled guest under 18, no matter their disability, must be accompanied by an adult onto the ride, having attended Thorpe with my cousin who's wheelchair bound, this was made very clear to me, they cannot ride alone. It is the able bodied person's responsibility to do loading/unloading in the event of a breakdown, in essence, you must be capable of taking the disabled guests off the ride yourself without help. So if they were trying to ride with his sister and mummy sat on the sidelines watching, then this would be why he was refused entry to the ride, because there's no way his sister would be capable of carrying him off the ride in the event of a breakdown and he cannot evacuate himself. If mummy was riding, then they have a strong case because a persons ability to access the ride cannot determined their ability to use it (that's the law). I've seen plenty of wheelchair bound users on rides at both Chessie and Thorpe, the only time they need to walk on, is if riding alone. I suspect given the description of the ride operators reactions, mummy wasn't riding with him like she should have been.

According to queue times X is 65 minute queue at the moment, sorry...

The back room workings of corporations can be a mystery, Microsoft bailed out Apple yet they were both huge rivals, same for Sky buying into ITV when they hit trouble, I'm not saying Merlin are involved, but if they were it would make commercial sense even if it doesn't to an outsider, they have experience in running theme parks, that experience is worth money (what experience does the BBC have?), being involved gives you a share of the profits if done right or a huge consultancy fee, this project appears to be going ahead regardless so in theory there's a choice, bury your head or get involved it doesn't have to be directly, they have plenty of subsidiaries they can use.I have a friend who spent the better part of the 1990's bailing out and buying shares in all his rivals, at the time it made no sense to me, he should have just let them goto the wall and moved into their markets, but he continued and today he has a slice of every sector of his industry, all of them bringing in their own income streams, as well as his own successful supply chain, the return on those bailouts is massive, and for the most part, the majority of people have no clue the 'competiting' rivals they pick and choose to buy from, are all owned by the one person. I don't doubt Paramount have what some call editorial control, but it might not be as controlling as you think, as long as LRCH pay their dues and don't give Paramount a bad reputation (like killing people or casting the brand poorly) they likely have full freedom to do as they wish within the scope of the IP's.This is similar to how Richard Branson runs Virgin, he only owns the airline himself, the rest is licensed branding, NTL/Telewest run Virgin Media and Mobile, before that the Prince behind A1GP ran Virgin Mobile, Branson himself has nothing to do with the everyday running of the businesses. Paramount won't care if the park runs at a loss, as long as they're paid their licensing costs, neither frankly will the Kuwaiti's, it's just a tax dodge for them, they might get bored eventually and want out, but the market value of their holding will far outweight their initial investment. Just my 2p worth mind you

I decided to do a little research into this park, mainly to see if the general consensus of the board here that it'll beat down Merlin has any merrit, which it may well do, or perhaps it won't, as far as I can tell.... Paramount themselves have very little to do with it (in fact in real term, absolutely nothing), they have just licensed their name and film IP's to the project owners (just like the Paramount parks in the USA and Spain that have nothing to do with CBS/Paramount Films, they are owned by Cedar Fair) Paramount Park Murcia is a similar setup, nothing to do with Paramount, just licensed the name. The owners are a consortium including the BBC, ITV, some small venture capital firms, and a large Kuwaiti investment firm called Kuwaiti European Holdings (who own 75%). London Resort Company Holdings Ltd is the owner of the project, the don't own the land (yet), but that is just a formality since the owner of the land is one of the consortium that owns LRCH. I'll leave it up to you to make up your own mind about that, only to say if you have formed your opinion of the park based on the fact 'Paramount are involved and are cool because they made Marvel movies' then think again. For all we know, Merlin may well be involved in the project themselves, being one of the smaller unnamed investors in LRCH.

Welcome to my world.

^ You're assuming Paramount won't have the same corporate outlook, if there's anything I've learnt over the years, don't expect a new entrant into a market to shake it up, they are far more likely to toe the existing party line, especially if they see that existing heavyweights have got away with screwing their customers year on year (just look at the domestic electric and gas supplies in this Country which is also a captive audience, the supply chain was opened up to create competition, in effect all it did was create cartels as none of the competitors offer radically different packages from each other, 'new' suppliers don't massively undercut the existing suppliers, even though they can because it's not good practice to undersell yourself too much). The only thing Paramount will bring is an alternative place for us to go that's not owned by Merlin, us Southerns are seriously lacking in non-Merlin owned parks, Paultons is the only one (easily accessible for South of River residents) of any consequence and that only has 2 decent roller coasters. In other news, anyone considering a trip to Chessie on 15th May don't bother, the place will be overrun with hundreds of unrulely hyperactive school kids that day (my son's school has their annual visit).

LOL that's like 5 mins queue time each. There are only 4 dates for this it seems, so maybe they'll alternative it with summer nights, one can hope. Ministry of Sound is on the Thorpe site to book tickets, but it doesn't say when MOS is.

Yeah that's my hope, I'm not a 'music' person but my neighbours are and when they went to a similar event at our local park I asked if they went on the rides and they looked at me like I was mad and replied 'we went for the music not the rides'. £20 is a bit steep though, hopefully that means they'll sell less tickets lol.

When we were there the other day briefly I swear I saw a sign in Canada Creek that said something about these events costing £25 a ticket, with a 20% discount for annual pass holders. How are the queues for rides at these events? I imagine a lot of groopies go in to adore their favourite band but is it worth it for us that don't give a crap about music to get some multi-rides in a short space of time? Or are the queues no different to a regular day?

I was kidding but do relate to what you say, we thought Saw was smoother too, just my son didn't like the indoor section.

You kids of today have no stamina, back when I went to school they made us do neck exercises, mind you they also gave me the cane for telling my French teacher to **** off in her natuive tounge so I guess things have changed a bit over the years...

Changing the subject slightly, but has a train ever stalled in the corkscrew section before? It seems to run though that section so dam slowly lol

IAC getting a universal panning on all the review sites, spent the last couple hours reading around (go away insomnia!) and haven't found a good review yet, apart from here. It's a bit sad really, must cost a bomb to run and although it's not my type of thing, if I worked on it I'd be seriously pissed at some of the reviews.

All schools are back to school then, so I would guess at it being quiet.

There's some weird physics reason why the back is rougher, I can't remember the specifics but it's something to do with the negative g and the way the front of the train pulls the rear cars round the corners/axes, energy dispersion is also involved, all the vibrations and energy is transfered in the oppersite direction of travel (obviously) so all that is transferred to the rear cars, essentially if sitting in the back row, you're getting all the energy from the whole train terminated in your car. It's much more noticeable on Inferno at the top of the hill lift, in the front row it's as smooth as glass but the rear seats you get quiet a whipping on the first drop. My son didn't like the launch of Stealth for the same reason, we'd always previously sat at the back, but yesterday we went on the front and he said it was much smoother and better, a 'nicer launch' as he put it, he also wasn't thrown around so much at the bottom of the hill.