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JoshuaA
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Posts posted by JoshuaA
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Definitely gutted that I didn't get to experience FLY. But its an excuse to go back next year.
For those who have no time to read my review. I really enjoyed this park, Taron and Black Mamba are both really good coasters. I do still prefer Europa and Cedar Point. Though Klugheim is a work of art, and I hope Rookburgh continues the trend of great theming.
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Its an intamin, duh.
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RMC?
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Going for the first time on Sunday. Any hidden gems or tips? Only got one day so wanna try and get as much as done as possible.
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I think the prices really reflect the quality of the product.. Sure lowering your prices down will get more sales, but then you have a million passholders who get discount on everything and all want to visit the park all the time (and trying to get a passholder pre-book is like trying to light a candle under-water..)
Honestly I feel the premium passholders need more incentives. Six Flags with their membership offer things like passholder-only areas and entrances just for passholders. Maybe Merlin should expand on the tiers and benefits in the future?
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Yeah certainly the right decision, even though it is incredibly difficult and sad for everyone.
I hope the drive in cinema does well for them, and hopefully next year of Shocktoberfest will be the best yet.
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Trust the best run park to be the only park left in the chain to not offer it.
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So apparently fastrack made a return at the park.. Ew.
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Yeah it honestly doesn't look too hopeful at the moment. I'm guessing the drive-in cinema would be the 'replacement' for it this year. It is very rough, though I'm glad the farm is doing other things (the farm shop, the cinema). Hopefully when Shocktober returns it will be better than ever.
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Pre-Phantasialand rankings. Had some changes after Alton Towers:
1. Steel Vengeance
2. Maverick
3. Shambhala
4. Wodan
5. The Smiler- Got a heavy push up after a couple of recent rides (one in the front)
6. Top Thrill Dragster (-1)
7. Goliath (Great America)
8. Blue Fire
9. Wickerman (+1)
10. Nemesis (-5) got pushed down after some under-whelming rides.
11. Millennium Force (-2)
12. Magnum XL
13. Silver Star
14. Raptor (Cedar Point)
15. Nemesis Inferno
16. Furius Baco
17. Viper (Six Flags Great America)
18. Euro-Mir
19. Galactica
20. Gatekeeper
21. Stealth
22. Gemini
23. Batman The Ride
24. The Joker (S&S freespin)
25. Raging Bull
Some very controversial picks here, I'm interested to see how Phantasialand goes. I expect Taron to hit my top 5, and Black Mamba top 10-15. Can't wait for my first visit.
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Double Post:
I visited the drive through cinema last saturday and it was great. Very well thought out, loads of options for food (a tad pricy though tbf).
Overall if you're anyway near Crawley it is certainly worth going for a evening. I have heard though that they may continue doing this until Halloween. Which potentially could mean no Shocktoberfest. Hopefully that is not the case, but we'll have to wait and see I guess.
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This looks like a fun, shouldn't be hard to replace a ride that was down 99.9% of the time. Hopefully it is executed well, if so, Chessie have a winner on their hands.
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Went today. Overall I wouldn't say the ride is too bad in shape. The effects on the marmaliser (the lights, and the water needle) were both in full force. Sound effects also louder than ever. Though the TV screens before the vertical lift chain seemed to not work (it was so hot I didn't event want to look at it tbh).
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I rode Duel today, I am a huge fan of this ride. I always make a point of riding it on every visit, even after the refurb I liked it.
This year, holy crap. It sucks now. Rooms are target-less, half of the targets seem to be missing or broken. The music was pretty quiet, the ride had a ton of light areas that didn't used to be light, I actually felt bored. It feels lifeless. I'm not sure what happened. I loved duel and now I find it a snoozefest.
Awful
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I visited yesterday and today, and I have to admit I feel unlucky. The power-cut at Thorpe, then this today. Not the luckiest guy alive that is for sure lol.
So like the Power-Cut, I felt communication was lacking a little. The park practically seemed normal until 12 hit and out of nowhere the park was closing? Seemed to odd to open in the first place, I guess cheers to them for opening at all. And the portable loos were a decent last minute way of trying to fix things.
Besides the water issues, the park had very strong operations. Wickerman on three trains with dispatches that were consistently fast. Smiler also seemed to load pretty fast too, it duelled pretty much always as well which is great. The B&M's were also very solid, and Thirteen had great dispatches, but honestly even with that the ride still has a obnoxiously slow queue (no fault of the parks here, just wasn't really designed to run in covid measures).
Staff were very cheerful, even today when they were probably getting hounded by the armies of Karen's.
Overall very impressed. Even if today was a little rocky with the early closure. Can't wait to come back.
The park just has such a nicer vibe than Thorpe, from the staff, to the clientele, to the natural beauty. The coaster lineup is really the cherry on the cake.
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On 8/8/2020 at 8:51 PM, Ivsetti said:
34 degree Celsius heat. In direct path of the sun. No shade. Wearing a face mask and visor for the entire time? Earning minimum wage? People can't even keep a face mask on a ride for 30 seconds but you expect staff to be running rides in these extreme conditions as fast as they would be normally? I'm critical of the park but even I would be more lax on this than normal.
The problem is, I have visited 3+ times now. Inferno and Swarm have consistently had slow ops in all types of weather. Sure it is stuffy, though I do think the park need to strive to do better. 3-4 minute dispatches are not fine, it happened to be a hot day, but on other visits its been the same story.
Stealth is another great example, it had lightning quick operations. And that ride probably has the most exposed station of them all. So....
And when it comes to two trains, I guess it doesn't really matter when the train is sitting on the break run for a hour. I do think though when things like this happen it is fair to call them out, sure 2 trains maybe the normal. But went I was it wasn't, and its a valid complaint to make. In no way was I slamming the park for the power-cut, I was just pointing out three things that could have been done better.
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Really cool investment for a cool park. How they fit it in, I will never know.
Lets just pray B&M don't ruin the ride with their god-awful vest restraints.
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2 hours ago, JoshC. said:
As a question: how do you think the park could / should have communicated it?
I've both been a visitor and a staff member at a theme park during a power cut, and it is frustrating and can be chaotic. If you don't have PA systems working properly (which can happen during a power cut), it takes out a key method for communicating to a mass number of people quickly. You can have staff telling people, but this rarely captures a large proportion of people.
I'm sure that whilst the park's handling of it was adequate enough, they could have done it better, but it's not a straightforward thing to deal with.
Some of them worked. But it was very vague, for example in the Colossus area we heard that Colossus was delayed over an announcement, but no mention of the power cut. If they just chipped in 'we're experiencing a power-cut in some areas which may delay some rides' would of been fine. We didn't really know what was happening until I read up on here.
2 hours ago, JoshC. said:In this sort of situation, if the ride didn't open with 2 trains, it'll be a case that the second train wasn't ready / signed off by engineering. From an operational perspective, there is no reason to run one train at the start of day: they know the park is busy, it doesn't require any more staff, etc.
So the decision will be 'Open Swarm on 1 train and add the second when it's ready' or 'Don't open Swarm until both trains are ready'. Generally speaking, the former is the better option in my opinion, but there's no denying it's frustrating for anyone in the queue.
The reason as to why the second train wasn't ready is anyone's guess. Could be a minor problem that engineers picked up on during their daily checks and is just unavoidable.
In fairness to the park, they seem to have run full capacity of trains all season (and, from what I remember, most of last season too?). Obviously they should be doing that, especially in a pandemic, but what you've experienced isn't the norm right now.
It just really isn't enough for a peak august day. It isn't even like Swarm has many trains to deal with, really there is no excuse. Both should of been ready to go from the start of the day.
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I went yesterday, and it was about as messy as it sounds. It was a scorching day, and people were very frustrated.
The powercut was beyond control, though I certainly think it could of been handled better, I didn't actually know what was happening until I read the post above me! The park really could of communicated that better. I also was kinda pissed at The Swarm's operations.
At one point it was the only major coaster operating, and the queue was two hours. 10 minutes into the queue they decided to add another train on.. You couldn't of done that at the start of the day? Like you surely didn't think it would be a quiet day really? This left a two hour queue waiting stagnant for 10 minutes (which made people even more frustrated). The dispatches were also god awful. Inferno suffered from pretty poor dispatches too, you might as well finish your blog post and spend 10 minutes scrolling through facebook on the brake run.
On the upside, free water was given out. Samurai was running a pretty good cycle, got three rides in and each time it impressed me.
Saw though proven once again to be the NEW Stealth, even after the powercut it was up and down like a yo-yo. I don't get why it faces so much downtime? In theory it should be a lot more reliable than Stealth. Talking about Stealth, great dispatches and fairly reliable.
Overall a rocky day, but it wasn't really all down to the park. Though the park could of really made some better decisions (having Swarm on 2 trains for the whole day, better communication about the powercut).
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Pretty lucky to be honest, but the two that stick out to me the most are:
- Gemini- This one was by far the most odd. Gemini's MCBR really is easy to forget about, so when we halted to a stop on the emergency brakes it shocked me. I'm not sure why the ride stopped, as it was only on one train per side (it was a dead day). But it was amusing, its MCBR is also fairly tall too. Luckily got a free ride access pass from this, which gave me another ride on Maverick.
- Stampida- It was December, and I remember this ride stopping on the lift hill. It was a heavily rainy day in Salou, and before boarding the train it was chucking it down. The 30 minutes on the lift hill was dreadful, the coaster afterwards was nearly as bad. Thats not the even the worst part, I was in PortAventura! Bad enough by itself.
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Europa, ich liebe dich. Looks lush man, the original was cheesey fun, but this looks soo good.
Madame Freudenreich, Kolumbusjolle, Eurosat, this, damn man. Europa Park know how to refurb/redo their rides for sure.
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22 hours ago, JoshC. said:
Good point, though Piraten and Junior Inverts are not innovative ideas. Mack truly innovated with their Powersplash. The technology involved in splash element of the ride is really unique and innovative. Sure you can copy layouts, look at Anaconda at Golden Reef City, but taking such a unique idea and adding nothing new is such a insult. Even worse it doesn't even have a turntable, it offers less than the Powersplash. Intamin just saw Pulsar and copy and pasted it. Even the trains are somewhat similar. To make matters worse the track isn't even Intamin's, its more of a imitation of RMC'S.
22 hours ago, JoshC. said:I can't find a link, so feel free to not believe me or just take my word for it, but I've heard that RMC aren't planning on really doing launch coasters. They're happy with what they have, and the issues with Lightning Rod have kept them grounded.
You say that Intamin have contracted RMC in the past, and mention rides which were built 10-15 years ago, in a market that Intamin don't deal with any more (wooden coasters). Things have changed a lot since then.
Lightning Rod was a mistake, though RMC are still very new in the game. And in the next few years, these raptors are popping up like flies. I'm sure a launch would be tried on one or two.
22 hours ago, JoshC. said:RMC don't have much more experience with single rail track either, really. They only have built two (which have opened) - that's nothing. It's easy enough for Intamin to 'catch up' with having that experience if you will, and we don't know what's been going on behind the scenes (which could lead them to installing more confidence in buyers over RMC).
They have more than you think. Remember RMC have/had three upcoming raptors next year. Jersey Devil, the clone in the middle of nowhere, and Kentucky Kingdom's confirmed raptor. They also have the two Skyline Skywarps behind their belt, which again is single rail RMC track. Also one of the models on displays in the Hot Racers video was obviously meant for West Coast Racers. This means Intamin was in competition against premier, and lost. My point is that Intamin contract a lot of other companies to build their rides. RMC do a lot of the heavy lifting themselves, hence the price being pretty cheap. RMC at one point in time did the heavy lifting for Intamin.
Also who is buying these raptors? Mostly Six Flags, and smaller independent parks. I doubt Intamin could be as cheap as RMC, like under 10 million. Remember they are premium, but the raptors are low throughput rides for parks that want a CHEAP coaster.
22 hours ago, JoshC. said:As for the cost of their rides, Intamin are obviously a premium manufacturer. But I think smaller parks with smaller budgets do turn to them, as they know there's quality there too. Parks in Asia have turned to them for family coasters. Parks like Futuroscope and Vulcania in France have gone to them for family-thrill rides. Plenty of Chinese parks, from the ones with tons of money to the smaller ones with less money we rarely hear about, go to them for a variety of rides. Intamin have a reputation which they've built up (largely good!), which helps them a lot really.
I disagree. Intamin really have a mixed reputation IMO. For example I see Cedar Fair not buying any intamin products for a LONG LONG time. Because of the countless problems. Dragster's downtime, Maverick's false promised throughput, Shoot the Rapids's incident, Perlious Plunge's death, Windseeker's problems, I305 being too intense for the GP and still not very popular to this day, Xcelerator's incident, Dragster's incident, Dragster's throughput being less than promised, Millie's throughput being less than promised. ECT.
Six Flags don't really seem interested either, well, because premier and RMC do it cheaper. WCR probably came to cost, premier probably was the cheaper option. Six Flags also have their own issues with Intamin. All three of the intamin mega coasters named superman has claimed a life. So yeah, Intamin's reputation isn't really that positive as you suggest. Merlin don't really seem that keen as well (Thirteen being the last main ride to my knowledge) most of their major coasters recently have been B&M. Sure they were involved in DBGT, but that is more of a negative than a positive. With that, that is 3 major park chains not wanting to work with you.
They are getting better with some of their models, I do not deny that. But when you're infamous for building rides that aren't reliable and building clones of rides that are built by one of the most reliable companies, I do think they will fall flat on their face. When I think Intamin coasters, I think downtime at the cost of innovation.
Seaworld I guess are still building them, but then again what ISN'T seaworld building atm lol?
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Double post, but I wanted to rant about these models as I really dislike the showing from Intamin.
I'm gonna give opinions on each model:
UltraSplash: If Mack sue, I would not blame them. This is basically just a Powersplash with track that is basically a knock off RMC's single rail track. This model is by far the worst and I hope it flops. If Intamin get a sale for this one, I hope Mack take them to court and then some.
Giga Splash: Okay unlike the others its somewhat original. Though Intamin have one of the WORST track records with waters rides like this.
Shoot The Rapids, Perlious Plunge, Pilgrims Plunge (no incidents, but unreliable), Drenched, why should people build a Giga Splash over the more reliable Mack Supersplash? So yeah, a fair model, but I don't see parks being keen to buy (especially Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks). I think its the best of the bunch though, and it actually brings something to the industry.
Vertical LSM Coaster; Nothing too offensive, I do not think they can beat Premier though. Sky Rocket II's have such a good price point and I'm unsure if Intamin can match it. Even if they can, would they be as reliable? I do not think they will be.
Hot Racer: RMC do not do launches yet. Though I see them in the very near future, and this model looks cool, though I do think it will cost more than the RMC equivalent, which will mean it will not be as desirable. Remember RMC do a LOT of things without any sub contractors. Intamin even contracted RMC to build some of their previous rides (El Toro, T Express). Also RMC have a lot more experience with the single-rail track.
I really hope Intamin go back to being innovative one day, most of these are following trends instead of starting them. Which is what made Intamin so good imo.
Fright Nights 2020 - No Spoilers
in The Future
Posted
I actually quite like the lineup considering covid. The pricing however, yikes. I get the park is limited capacity, and they wanna make money. But juicing annual passholders like lemons feels a little wrong.. Charging to get in and then for the mazes as well.. Passholders already had it kinda rough having to book weeks in advance to even get in. This feels like the nail in the coffin, if you weren't already pi**ed off that you could barely ever get the date you wanted during the summer, now for FN you have to pay more than ever to get in which doesn't even include the mazes. As said the worst part is that Thorpe never really has had the quality of Scarefest. When you pay for scarefest mazes, you usually know its a well thought out, well themed, long attraction that is worth your money. Fright Nights however, unless Platform and Blair Witch II are drastically changed then honestly I see the reception being frosty.
I do like the variety of scare zones/experiences/whatever some of these are. Its spread out across the park, and hopefully will give the park a better atmosphere than previous years. No IP's as well, and something around Swarm Island is a god-send and overdue. Even if its just some decoration.