Mysterio Ka

anything called chandler

You also get me following you around with a look of disappointment and disdain.
 
Enjoy your day!

Can I take this opportunity to thank all those staff members who made my visits so good this year. The ride operators, the engineers and the cleaning staff, who all dealt with me and those within earshot so tactfully and patiently. Staff and even some managers whom I saw rush to assist to tidy up the mess that some unwell riders left.
 
Whatever you all do in the future, this should have been a good experience to meet and deal with such a wide range of people from all walks of life.
 
The staff should feel chuffed if their "customers" left with a smile, you've done your bit to make somebody's day, well done.

Queue line interaction is fantastic until they put up safety fences and nets 

Haven't filled any threads with photos of a coaster being built for at least two weeks, so here's some construction photos from SW8 taken this weekend just gone;
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
The queueline interaction looks fantastic;

 

 

 

 

 
After seeing it in person I'm really looking forward to SW8, it doesn't look incredible but it's the wooden coaster Alton Towers has been missing for years, and frankly I think it looks like a lot of fun. 
 
The fact it's already well on the way to being complete both in terms of the ride and surrounding buildings/landscaping impresses me and seems a definite step forward from the construction of The Smiler or Derren Brown's Ghost Train.

If we all look at the bigger picture, If merlin can and have saved on costs even if planned to be short term. if financially it improved profitability, its hard to justify getting the budget back up as there would need to be a physical return on the investment which maybe difficult to sell and have the additional £££'s built back into P&L figures/budgets.
 

The biggest frustration with Vampire is the ride still has the foundations of a really good attraction. You wouldn't get any new Merlin-built coaster doing anything as exciting as the fly over the village, or dropping into the tunnel at such high speed. And you'd DEFINITLEY not get the drama and atmosphere in the station.  
 
If they would just hurry up and sell the parks to a firm that cares (or at least one that functions properly), then I'm sure something could be done before it's too late.
 
I doubt you'd even need to have tire dive lifts (maybe to please the locals) but all it would really take to have less stressful 3 train operation would be a reworking of the braking structure around the end of the ride. That way it wouldn't need to stop on lift two. 
 
Still, Vampire still has far more obvious flaws than crappy block structure. 

I believe the only places that play non-Thorpe music are X's queue line and Fin's (and of course Ministry of Sound nights).

The test track at Vekoma HQ now has trains (with seats!) attached...
 



 
Presumably these will be very similar (if not, the same), to the seats used on Fly!

I didn't know the arm sheered clean off! I assumed it had broken bolts, I refuse to watch the videos, they aren't safe for life.
 
That is extremely concerning, if a simple and extensive maintenance program for assessing this part of the ride can't be drawn up, could this be the beginning of the decline of the Afterburner?

The team who designed and built it all had background in theatre and worked on the project the entire season, whilst additionally working on The Vampire/Hollows attraction.
 
After the fire hit creaky cafe, the original team left and the entertainments department didn't have anyone creative, or with the technical experience to pull it off. It's 2nd year was out sourced to the studios to rebuild, using a theming guide left from the original team and the new technical guy didn't have the experience to recreate the different zones of audio/triggered lighting effects, or scenes that were cued by an actor.
 
It was pretty upsetting to see the standard slip so steeply during it's second year and the attraction really suffered. It was pretty shocking that only one of the IMAscore tracks were used and the whole attraction felt static as lights weren't programmed and were just 'on'. It was a poor state and I guess the difficulty was too much for them, hence why Scruffy Dog came in to create something new, as the entertainments team weren't up to it themselves.
 

The trains are half the fun of getting on. When a fat person is stuck in the back row all hell breaks loose and it's absolutely hilarious.
 
Colossus is riding nicely this season, I must say. Rode it for the first time a couple weeks back and the only noticable roughness was the entry and exit of the cobra roll, besides this it was very... tolerable. I'd say saw's jolt has been cleared up this year too, but I'm yet to ride it an excessive amount to the point that I notice it badly..

Rides in the UK are subject to the exact same requirements as all other European rides, though we probably enforce the standards more rigorously than some countries do.  OTSRs are not an automatic requirement for inverting rides. 
 
As for UK looping coasters with lap bars, G Force sort of counts, but previously there were coasters with actual lap bars only, mainly (exclusively?) Schwarzkopfs.  Thunderlooper and Tower of Terror/Twist and Shout were both lap bar only.  Possibly the ones at 'Mingo and Dreamland's Looping Star too, but I never rode those so I'm not sure.

anything called chandler

anything called chandler

Anyone know where the washing machine element is going? Or have I spoken out of turn?!

All effects WILL break temporarily, even the best ones. But whether they stay broken or not is what is most telling.
 
Disney for example will test their effects at the start of every day and service them at least weekly. In the UK, from what I witnessed, a physical animation will get serviced about once every 10 years or never (ridiculous) and AV or tech will get fixed if/when the relevant technician notices it is broken and if the park cares to pay for it. After 4 years or so, the money stops, and people stop caring.

Sounds good and all that, but that means they're losing that ejector airtime! Wasn't it the largest negative g's on a coaster anywhere?
 
crazy tophat>big loop anyday.

He moves quite badly to how he was designed and sticking the station theme outside on cheap speakers, with a tinny downloaded transfer of the music, sounds so tack and un-atmospheric, robbing it of any interest. You get far better sound design / setup at your average temporary scare maze, let alone a permanent queue at a high-priced theme park.
 
The music doesn't even loop anymore, it has a gap every minute like 2006 Bubbleworks all over again (which would be so easy to fix). By the time you reach the station, you've heard it over and over.

Remove the theme music from the queueline speakers Chessington.
 
If you understand anything about themed audio, why was it not instinctive to create a basic ambient track for use outside? A quality ambient track could be knocked up using a professional royalty free sound library in 15 minutes, if you have some understanding, ability and imagination. Terrible standards at this park.

The restraints on rammy aren't generous. At all. Bigger people need to be moved round alot more then is reasonable, because of the restraint system. With a lack of a test chair, and the awkward bar styles, this effects both taller, and wider people, and as said, those boundaries aren't forgiving. The end seats tend to be better for them just because they have more space on one side, but if the attendants box says the bars aren't locked, they reshuffle and then escort people off if this continues to happen. From what I remember it doesn't do it for single seats but rather in rows of 10, so if 2 large people are sitting in the same group of seats more problems occur. Before you're even allowed to send the ride you need 15 people.
 
It's a real ball ache for what is these days a pathetic shadow and squeak of a really good, intense and fun ride that chessington really should benefit from, but it's definitely getting to the point where it simply shouldn't be this bad.

The restraints on rammy aren't generous. At all. Bigger people need to be moved round alot more then is reasonable, because of the restraint system. With a lack of a test chair, and the awkward bar styles, this effects both taller, and wider people, and as said, those boundaries aren't forgiving. The end seats tend to be better for them just because they have more space on one side, but if the attendants box says the bars aren't locked, they reshuffle and then escort people off if this continues to happen. From what I remember it doesn't do it for single seats but rather in rows of 10, so if 2 large people are sitting in the same group of seats more problems occur. Before you're even allowed to send the ride you need 15 people.
 
It's a real ball ache for what is these days a pathetic shadow and squeak of a really good, intense and fun ride that chessington really should benefit from, but it's definitely getting to the point where it simply shouldn't be this bad.

X is the best coaster in the UK. 

Where to start 

Just take the message from this video and move on: 
 
 
 

I know one person who will know exactly what's going on with Loggers - Jart, where art thou?