Matt A

Good to hear they did go ahead with the various changes they said earlier! Looks like they've finally replaced all the light bulbs on the organ (even if it's not as good as it used to be it's still nicer to have it properly lit). Are the floods in the ceiling just a static colour now?

The 'star' stuff is a running thing throughout the year, staff and MAP holders can give staff a 'star' if they think someone is doing an exceptional job. I think the star ball is only for those with a number of stars but I'm not sure.

The chandeliers haven't been binned, just stored at the back of the station, you can see them if you look closely as the train goes back into the platform.

I believe Chessington is planning to get him moving again over the closed season, don't think there's much more planned than that though (although it may not happen, it didn't strike me as being a big priority). The whole organ is in such a bad state compared to what it used to be.

Painting any lines is better than the current mess of a car park!

I switched a long time ago from using an iPod touch to an Android tablet and later, an Android phone, it was a little bit confusing at first, the back button takes a bit of getting used to! But I found most things are quite similar, just sometimes in a different place. If you're a heavy user of Apple's services it can be a harder switch but Google offers everything Apple does just in a slightly different form. Been a happy user of Android for years now!

That's the plan at least, I believe they got it from a theme park group who had it (can't remember which one). I haven't heard it myself but it is apparently much better than what's there currently.

Construction work is apparently going on around the Charlie ATCF building, seems quite a likely spot to put it, can't see where else it would go apart from inside the towers.

Nick Hutson has uploaded samples of all the various tracks to his YouTube channel too: https://www.youtube.com/user/nickhutson/videos

It's looking unlikely I'll be able to make it, if I can it'll only be in the late afternoon/evening

I haven't but I discovered today (via an advert for it) that it's not exclusive to Fright Nights, it's also in Westfield and a few other locations

You're right, I didn't even think of that, looks completely different in this one:

Here's the complete line up, unless the Fanta thing is something amazing it's a pretty big let down as the last announcement (why not just announce it with all the others?)

Last time I looked they were £10 with a digital photo included

This is exactly what I thought it needed in 2016 (only time I've done Platform), a dark space can be enhanced so much with sound effects

This has definitely changed now, while I worked at a Merlin park we were told not to do any ratios but to try and keep the fasttrack queue at a third of the queue time of the main queue (at a maximum, usually there were nowhere near enough people for this to happen). Saves a member of staff, so no-one will be at the fasttrack merge point (which will be deemed as a non-essential position). This is purely one or more of the staff being lazy, I've worked on this ride and it can be a bit stressful to try and make sure that the batching is done right but it's really not that difficult, but some people just don't bother at all and keep the lanes blocked off regardless.

The Director clips were quite good, especially the Colossus one. But I agree they're getting old now, and also make no sense with the director not being part of FN anymore.

From my knowledge of sound equipment I'm pretty sure it's problems with he speakers themselves (mainly being broken) as a faulty amplifier would cause all the speakers connected to it to sound quiet/wrong rather than just a few. I noticed the problems a lot around Colossus, one speaker would be pumping out music while the rest didn't work, meaning you could only hear the soundtrack in about 20% of the area! Was very disappointing.

Tiger Rock and Dragon's Fury will close if gusts of wind are too strong but not for long if it isn't consistent. All the other rides (Vampire included) require very strong consistent wind levels to close them. (Source: worked there for a while)

Their 10 year plan has 2 new rides on it, so we can hopefully expect something in the next few years

Loving the marketing for this so far!

I might come along this year, sounds like I'll be in the same boat as some others who haven't been before ?

Rumours has it that it'll be a retheme to 'Room on the Broom' by Julia Donaldson (same author as The Gruffalo)

There's a banner in the bottom right to turn off the music and it reads "X ESCAPE THE DEAD". A reference to something about the walking dead ride perhaps?