Ian-S

Who's antone?

A maglev track?

40mph winds here (bought down trees) so no surprise really.

Do the plans indicate if they will go down too? Although I'd imagine that wouldn't be a good idea at Thorpe since it's on the water table.

I can understand on standing up all around the route, given the right circumstances it would be easy to fall out, my only concern of going down backwards would be my back myself lol. I shall give it a try next time, see if anybody notices lol.

Did anybody get their knickers in a twist over your friend turning round? I've often wanted to do that to snap a shot mid drop but thought they might get all health and safety on you, at Thorpe on Friday they were going mental at somebody on the Rapids who was standing up on the exit ramp.

I don't disagree with you, but you do highlight my point about times dropping towards the end of the day too. I'm talking here from a Annual Passholder living on the doorstep's point of view, who can just run in mid-afternoon and enjoy a few rides while the Wife prepares dinner, not Joe Bloggs coming from Norfolk for a daytrip with 5 kids. Your site has been a godsend this week btw, I guess it's raining at Thorpe atm since the queues are so short, wish my boy was here cos we'd jump in the car now if he was since the radar shows the rain will stop in about 15 minutes.

The film has a massive long zip line doesn't it? That would make a good ride.

Well obviously over the course of a day you're not going to, but the queues dramatically dropped in waiting time yesterday after about two, Swarm was walk on while in the morning every time we ventured near it, the queue was back to the gate. We got there yesterday at 10, took until 2 to do all the big rides only once each, got food, then between 3 and 4 did the same rides again, including twice on Stealth, if you can't see the pattern there, not my problem lol.

Are you talking about the 'share the fun for £10' vouchers that come with the MAP packs? I don't know of any limitations other than the obvious, but you have to join the everyday minions general admission queue to exchange them for entry tickets, so take that into account when planning the day. Other than having to stand in the queue for 20 minutes it was a breeze to exchange them yesterday and get in.

I'm starting to wonder if the age old "get to the theme park in the first hour" theory has become the worst kept secret in history, based on yesterday and the queue times site today it seems to be best to turn up about 2.30-3pm atm.

IIRC it had 4 cars running, two being loaded/unloaded while two were out on track, no idea if that's normal operation. We sat for ages waiting to get out, then they moved our car forward when the second one came in and unload both together, don't know if that's normal procedure or not but it doesn't seem the quickest way to me. One thing I did notice was a major increase in security, at one point there was more security stood in the Colossus station than there was ride operators, again I don't know if that's normal during regular season as I've only ever been to Thorpe for pass days and Brainiac in this century but I'd never seen on-site security in such numbers. Mind you Swarm was showing 45 minutes of the queue at one point when it was walk on, and we got on Stealth three times so there was some upsides to the day (nope didn't do celeb, no interest), but unless they get their **** together for Summer, we won't be venturing there again until Autumn, I don't like crowds, especially bad tempered Chav filled ones lol. One time we went on Stealth then guy behind me screamed f***, f***, f*** continuously from the time we were strapped in to the end of the ride, not my cup of tea.

TBH I can't see the attraction of a maze outside of special events, but that's just me, I've also never watched the show either.

Everything today was running one train, apart from The Swarm, understandable for a regular week day in March, but not for what is essentially the first day of Easter holidays for a lot of Surrey Schools. Wait time was 90 minutes for SAW and tbh neither me or my son thought much of it lol! Stealth broke down about 5 times too lol, at one point they could get anybody out of the trains, not sure why but I'd assume the harnesses wouldn't release, we went out to Inferno and when we got back it was running it again so we jumped on before it was too late lol.

I don't think this is going to be a mass draw long term, walked past today and the queues were tiny, with 50 minutes on the boards., throughput must be terrible. Was quiet funny to see all the extra cattle pens they'd errected with temporary railings empty, not many people in the park seemed the slightest bit interested by it.

Eeny, meeny, miny, mo...... smack!

If it's Top Gear will it have an authentic punch at the ride exit?

The only way I can imagine they could possibly tie a ride into the hunger games is by basing it on the train in the films.

Does anybody know where the AP building is at Chessington? One of the staff at Thorpe told us to go back to our home attraction and get our passes reprinted since "none of the new passes issued by Chessington" scanned at the turn styles, but we haven't been to our home attraction aside from a 10 minute pop-in a few weeks back lol.

I just ate my wife's last pack of Rolos...

Good and good for you Jamie, last time I had a queue confrontation it was with a French kid at Tussaurds who started ranting at me for not moving fast enough into the Marvel movie, so I told him to stop shoving it won't get him in any faster, to which he replied with a load of abuse, luckily I recognised a few words and simply said if I was a pig I'd be walking on all fours, he soon shut up after that, but then promptly pushed over a tiny girl (probably about 8) and the last I saw of him was him and his family being dragged off by security. Some people just have no respect or decency.

They must have drafted in the Brainiac half term operators of Flying Fish from Thorpe Park then, cos they were that bad back then.

Resurfacing to me is when they rip up the old asphalt and lay new stuff down, but it looks from your photo that in this case all they've done is slapped that sealant type stuff down on top of the old surface. They've done that recently as a test on some paths round here, it's only taken 3 weeks for the weeds underneath to break through the new 'surface'. You should have got your phone out and record the miserable #### swearing at your mum and sent the video to your local MP.

Forums would be pretty boring places if we all agreed on things.

Yeah I get that but what I mean is, if I wanted to go to Alton Towers tomorrow, it's a 4 hour trip, I wouldn't just jump in the car and go. I would at least check the place is open, before doing anything else, I wouldn't just jump in the car, drive there, then complain that the place is closed. I'm referring to something I saw on Facebook/twitter, can't remember which, where someone was complaining that they had done a 200 mile round rip only to find the place was closed...... (it was a few weeks ago now)., I was somewhat amazed they didn't check before leaving... A friend of mine also very nearly turned up at chessington last weekend not realising it was a MAP only day, it was only when I explained what it was and that they had to pre-book the tickets and have an annual pass, otherwise they wouldn't get in, that she realised what an awful bobo she was about to make, OK for us, Chessington is only 15 minutes away, but her kids would have been mighty pissed lol.