Ian-S

Some pics I took: Celebs attraction entrance, you can see the mini on the right hand side, so it's not part of the actual thing, just parked outside. Any idea on what these towers are? I took some photo's of all the saw merchandise too, who was it that was asking? Got on both X (what's the point of a rollercoaster in the dark?) and Loggers Leap - got the wife soaked so mission acomplished

You'd probably have to double that, the VIP member I spoke to said she'd definitely be renewing even if they tripled the cost, it was worth the value for fasttrack alone.I said she must use it a lot and she said yes, every weekend.

@Thorpelover we asked the guy in the inferno shop and he said the photo place was being relocated due to the celeb construction, should be open by the proper opening.

It was definitely running but we didn't see anybody on it aside from staff, but then most of our day was spent riding inferno and Colossus, for some reason my son likes inferno and Colossus more than swarm.

Thanks, we saw it from the top of Colossus so ran over and was well disapointed it wasn't running, that and the fish are the only rides my wife will go on.

There was a group of VIP's reriding swarm over and over late in the day, but they were at least getting off the ride and nipping through a gate back to the front of the ride queue, we had walk around the entire queue length when we did our re-rides, but for the extra they paid I can't hold that against them, for the cost they deserve some perks. I might feel differently on a hot summers afternoon if I've been stuck in a queue for two hours though lol. Merlin have made a rod for their own back though, even if they want to get rid of the VIP's you can bet the VIP's will complain against it.

Was loggers actually open though?, we went up to it about 11.30 and was told it wasn't open to guests, they were just test running it with empty logs.

When I went on this today I forgot to take off my hat and had to catch it as it flew off my head at the top lol. Epic ride, could be a bit longer though.

We got there at 9.45 and couldn't believe the queue, eventually got into the park at 10.30 wondering what the heck we'd let ourselves in for, but walked right onto Inferno without a queue, moderate queues for others. It was busy until lunch but then a lot of people must have gone home cos I walked right onto Stealth (even though everybody was queuing for the front seats, don't get the pull myself) and we double run the swarm, literally nobody queueing so the guy just said go back on if you want lol. Every big ride was running two cars by the afternoon aside from Colossus, I got my usual g-induced headache after running the swarm for the umptenth time so we gave up and came home, my son loved it, his first real day at a theme park, so that's all that matters in my eyes. All in a good day, the only downer was the queue to get in, they were doing bag checks and it seemed none of the new passes were scanning at the entry stalls, plus it seemed a lot of people simply didn't know what they were doing and by the time they got to the scan point, were then having to dig out their tickets and passes further backing things up. I did have to laugh at the women in front of us in the queue, who demanded one of the staff escort her to the entrance as she was a Merlin Premium Pass Holder and she deserved better than to have to queue, she was politely told everybody in the queue was pass holders and quickly shut up lol. Guy behind me in a queue claimed he worked for legoland and said tidal wave would be out of service for a long time as it needed a new pump which the park couldn't get.

I assume penguins bay is a late opener like the celeb thing at Thorpe, since it was still a building site last week.

Our Saturday ones on eventbrite have gone too, but you can still print them from the reminder email they sent out Thursday, they're attached as well as available via a link. Plus my inbox is full of emails reminding me it's M/TPAP holders only, and anybody not in receipt of a M/TPAP and pre-booked tickets will be turned away.

If they had the same entry limits as half term I won't complain, the longest we waited for swarm was 10 minutes. Having never been to one of these pass holder days before, my concern is there will be more people there than a regular March saturday afternoon, with everybody turning up thinking it's some exclusive day just for them. We live close enough that it won't be an issue if it's packed, we'll just come home as we have an inset day trip planned with our son later in the month (that happens to be only two surrey schools doing inset that day yay) but for someone who's travelled special from the other end of the country for their 'exclusive event' I can't see them being pleased if they've over allocated capacity. The weather is going to be good too BTW, best it's been for months, I said to the Mrs last weekend I wished it had been then, since it was pouring lol.

You an me both, any idea what the parks capacity is?

Was that the one where more people turned up than lived in Chertsey?

Is this the rollercoaster that's next to the carousel? It looked complete when we were there Sunday but we were peeping through a tiny hole in the huge fence blocking that area of the park off, so I could be wrong.

Here's hoping lol

Gonna be hot this weekend too, well hot in relation to a freezer anyway, they should trial run reservenride again, at least then if the system goes tits up it wouldn't cost them a fortune in free return tickets for angry guests.

Sounds like my cup of tea, at my age patience isn't in high supply lol, I'd rather go on a wet day and have no queues than a hot day and be stuck in them all day. Must admit when walking round Chessington I was wondering if we'd done the right thing buying these passes, there were hundreds of people wondering around with them (funny that a lot had standard ones too), but then it dawned on me they were all carrying the boxes too, so had picked them up that day presumably, lots of little kids in tow as well, so hopefully not the type to goto TP, too short haha Evil I know lol.

So how busy are these days likely to be? Silly question perhaps? We went to Chessington Sunday, just to wonder round the zoo, my goodness was it heaving. Also, am I the only one that would feel extremely uncomfortable with their annual pass hanging round their neck all day? Saw a lot doing that Sunday, I prefer to keep mine tucked away in my wallet eek.

Merlin will charge what people are willing to pay, I'm sure if they thought profits wouldn't take a dive they'd charge £100/£50 combos. We got our MAP's in the sale and have already covered the cost, when we went to London, it was absolutely pouring, yet there was an hour long queue for both the London Eye and Tussards, after we'd done them, we both agreed we'd never actually pay to go into the places if we hadn't had the MAP's (we didn't consider either of them worth even the discounted entry cost), but we met people at both places who had paid the full price + the fast track fees on the door so to speak. I actually said to the guy on the Eye to go back into the booking office and see if they did the MAP deal where they subtracted his entry off the cost like they do at the parks because otherwise it was going to cost him a fortune to visit the other Merlin places that day like he was intending with a family of 3, dunno whether he did or not but he seemed pretty hesitant because they 'wouldn't use the passes again'. Our neighbour also went to TP last year on a whim and paid full entry + ultimate fast track for 5, so people do do it, probably more than than we think lol.

Works fine for me, looks like they've put up Ultimate Fasttrack too to £80, could have sworn it was £75 last week.