Mega-Lite

What a pity, never mind.

Tussauds were the idiots behind Bubbleworks and Tomb Blaster. The only credit we can give Merlin is their refurb of Tomb Blaster, which took it from tired and broken to absolutely f**king awful. I don't say this to correct you, just lest we forget what Tussauds did!

The whole thing looks sh*t and it sucks because I've yet to find a GCI I don't love. Maybe Merlin can advertise that. "The World's first crap GCI woodie!". I know it wasn't planned this way but the fact this opens (probably late) in the same year as Icon is hilarious. One of the worst coasters I've ever watched being built in the UK versus the most exciting UK coaster in many years.

There's a difference between being claustrophobic and being up there for 10 minutes and being claustrophobic and knowing you're trapped up there for a lengthy period. For me on planes it's all plain sailing, until you reach Gatwick, everyone's standing and crashing into each other and the pilot says we are waiting for Gatwick to attach the platform and I can't say how long that will take. That wasn't nice. I see where you are coming from though. That apology from Merlin was a bit crap.

I did say I'd be proved wrong.

Agree to disagree my friend, fantastic rides, put together awfully. I apologise for derailing this thread a bit, but I'll be honest, I've had more fun than I would of had discussing Chessington.

Oh I forgot about Quantum, that's fantastic too. 2 of the best flats out there, who cares if some bits fall off? Rush doesn't.

I'm fully waiting to be proved wrong here but I'm almost certain standard coaster trains, even from the big boy manufacturers do not cost anywhere near the 1 million figure, as for 10 million, even for Disney custom crazy ones that seems very off. Go on then prove me wrong! It's pretty much already been said by many other members but the cost of having a completely spare train in order to keep your coasters at capacity while another is off for unplanned work or awaiting a part is just too high to justify for most. As well as that out right cost, you'd also have to have a place to store it, which is yet more money.

The point I was trying to make was that Chessington in the more recent years made a bad throughput ride even worse. When I worked there, with a good operator and a host that was giving it all they had, Peeking was less of an operations nightmare. As we all know in recent years the park has stopped hiring people who care and have stopped pushing throughputs, thus making it worse than it used to be. As a flat ride in my personal opinion it's far better than crap like Boretex and modern Samurai, that's just my opinion though. I'd even struggle to call it a bad Ferris wheel actually, I've ridden worse examples. If you are looking at it strictly as a piece of ride hardware though, then yeah I agree with you Mark, it was a bit crap.

Slag off Peeking all you like but don't slander the great name of Fabbri. Still the best drop towers ever forged in steel!

That's just post 2009 Chessington, not fully Peeking's fault.

I've ridden worse, Peeking was fine.

Mack you beautiful bastards.

As pluk stated S&S free spins like Joker aren't what I was implying. X2 Eejanaika and Dinoconda are the beasts I meant! I've ridden Arashi, which is meant to be the best of the free spins and I didn't like it at all.

Sadly not I'm afraid, you give your money to a member of staff and they give you the ticket to get out later as they let you in. Glad I could help.

1) Explorer car park is the God awful grass one. The entrance and exit of the car park is via pot holed God awful "roads", it's terrible and not helped by the useless staff members who are hired to work in a car park but seemingly don't understand how parking works... To answer your question though, you'd never be looking at more than a 5 minute walk from the explorer car park to it's relevant entrance. 2) As that entrance spits you out straight into Land of the Dragons literally opposite Dragon's Fury's entrance, they don't open the gates into the park till opening time. 3) As previously stated, entrance and exit to the explorer car park is via terrible mostly destroyed "roads", it would be very foolish in my opinion to even think about parking in the explorer car park, then powering out into oncoming cars. If you are that desperate, why not pay a tenner and park in the express parking car park, located to the left of the main entrance? To get there enter the coach park/express car park entrance, pay your money and you are now parked right next to your beloved Lodge Gate entrance. Saves your legs too! I parked in the explorer car park once, never again. It's 10 pounds or bust for me, which just gives me even less reason to visit Chessington these days.

I want to say Peeking was around 300 an hour with 6 pod loading and everyone behaving themselves. So still better than current day Fury...

3 Intamin prefabs in 7 posts, I like that! I'm both extremely excited and extremely nervous to test out the Arrow/S&S 4D coasters. Can totally see why you'd pick X2, that sensation sounds incredible and evil at the same time!

I've decided to steal a topic I saw on another forum because I think it's quite interesting and I'd like to know what you guys reckon. What is your favourite drop (including lift if you want) that you have experienced? Mine would be no questioned asked Karnan. The insane, intense, amazing stuff that happens on the lift is only the beginning. When the actual drop comes it's one of the most intense moments I've ever experienced on a coaster. Back row, left seat, ejected so forcefully it hurts as you are twisted to the right and it feels like mere inches from you crashing into the tower structure, life altering! Honorable mentions would go to. Big One - No matter how many times I ride it, back row right seat still scares the crap out of me. Expedition GeForce - Similar to Big One but not as intense. T Express - The train reacts to the steepness of the drop in such a brutal ejector way and being Intamin, you can't be sure you'll be ok!

I quite like the way Everland do their ride reserve system. It only applies on their major attractions (4 in total I think). It only operates on weekends and public holidays. It stops running at 3pm and the queues for those 4 attractions go back to being free for all. It's still far too much faff in my opinion though. I kind of want this trial to fail if I'm honest.

On the up side, anything to make Stealth more interesting is a plus in my books.

I think the difference is Baron, that Heide has many other coasters to help take the burden and I'm not sure Thorpe do yet, that's not to say I think they should wait around though, a replacement (if must) sooner rather than later is the best option of course.

A member of the Coasterforce forums has posted a link to a Belgium fan site. A site that states they have learned that to repair Colossos would cost "a two digit million amount" and that removal is a serious option. http://www.pretparken.be/NL/article/1824/Toekomst On one hand, for f**ks sake.... On the other hand, if any of this is to be believed, 10 million minimum to fix an existing coaster is going to be hard to justify, when Merlin could add something new (much less exciting and generic) and being able to advertise it as such. If all true, I could understand it's removal, it's just a shame the replacement won't live up to Colossos and even more a shame I never got the cred.

Come on Efteling you're so much better than this crap.

So it's a 40 foot high GCI woody with most of the layout taking place in tunnels, so all signs point to it being a family coaster at best. Yet they are theming it to a dark and screwed up ritual that most people won't understand. Where is the logic in this? I really hope this "theme" provides fantastic theming and lots of fire effects (real ones) or otherwise I can't see why this is a better idea than just presenting it as it is, a small family GCI woody and just giving it a generic theme. At this stage, it's dumb but it might still work, just please don't market this as a terrifying thrilling new coaster or it's going to be 13 all over again.