Mega-Lite

I've had the intention of hitting up West Midland Safari Park, a zoo/drive through safari/amusement park hybrid, for quite a while now but due to both the cost and time required I've never gotten around to it, until now... After doing a bit of planning, I discovered if you book a week in advance, visit on the Sunday and combine the amusement park wristbands with the entrance tickets you can get the price down to a rather reasonable £26, which really isn't that bad at all, as I shall explain. With that I set off for the park on the Sunday just gone and other than the last 10 miles or so of the drive, things seemed to go quite well, I know right, I can't quite believe it either. For the last leg of the journey, from my direction at least, you have to drive through Kidderminster, which despite it being 10am on a Sunday morning, was absolutely heaving, couple that with many multilane roundabouts and it made for both an irritating and stressful end to the journey. Much like Farup Sommerland, you buy/redeem your entry tickets from your car on the way in, which is fine in my eyes because I'm a lazy bastard. It turns out, everyone gets a FREE return ticket just for showing up at the moment, so my £26 from earlier is now granting me 2 entries, not bad! After paying/redeeming you get the option of either going straight into the 4 mile long safari or turning off into a car park to do the on foot zoo/amusement park bit. As I was in actual pain from needing the toilet and was there for the creds mostly, I knew where I was heading. Toilet duties sorted and it was time to check out the amusement park. For some reason, I had it in my head that WMSP had just plonked 3 creds in a field, well I'm glad to admit I was wrong. Aswell as the amusement park area looking very well presented, the ride line up itself was quite impressive. Now while those creds aren't going to do anything for people like us, they are no doubt great family creds and all presented in a much cleaner way than I was expecting. Other than the credits, the amusement park is also home to a log flume, a ghost train, a fantastic drop tower, a Fabbri rapids ride, a swinging ship, a frisbee, a disko and various other famliy/childrens attractions. There's easily enough there to keep a family busy for a few hours, so it's probably worth the £14 on the day cost and of course you can get it cheaper online, so all round good value in my eyes. The staff were all super friendly as well which always helps. This thing really kicks ass, I believe it's manufactured by Fabbri and as you can see it uses the same firing you down the tower technology as Det, it's intense! After ticking off everything of interest to me in the amusement park, I headed out to check out the on foot zoo stuff. While there's nothing too exciting going on, there's easily enough there to kill or an hour or two. The highlights for me were the reptile house (snakes are awesome) and the lemur walkthrough (was convinced I was going to get mauled by them). On route back to the car I had a browse at the food on offer and much like the park itself, it all appeared to be really good value for money. I told myself when booking the tickets I wouldn't take my reasonably pricey, leased and sporty car (not showing off, setting you up for comedy) through the safari drive through but after being impressed by the rest of the park I convinced myself it was a good idea, it wasn't. The safari experience started off terrifying but ended up being extremely boring. Sitting in your own car with rhinos walking casually inches from you is both awesome and oh so scary. Talking of scary, driving a leased car past horny bastards is rather thrilling. Sadly that's about as good as it gets and the rest of the experience is pretty crap. All the animals that want to eat you are behind fences, so it feels like you're driving through a zoo at many points. Also on more than 1 occasion a section would be completely devoid of any animals. The major problem with the drive through though is, all the electric gates you have to wait forever to get through and there's so many of them! Less than 2 minutes of driving past a fence or nothing at all, then waiting 10 minutes for an electric gate to let you through, this situation plays out so many times that by the end of the safari I was so damn bored. Mercifully I made it out of the safari before I completely gave up on life. If you've got the patience for waiting for millions of gates to open, then I'm sure you'll love the novelty of the safari but I could quite happily never do it again. So in summary, the amusement park is rather good, the zoo is alright and the safari is a bit crap, either way I'm glad to say I have now been to West Midland Safari Park. Thanks for reading.

I'm hardly Mr B&Q, but do you even need to undercoat wood? Surely you just sand it and put the fresh paint on top of that... If they really are painting it grey, then paint me intrigued...

Christ, that blue looks so sexy.

Other than Big Dipper I really couldn't care less... The Pleasure Beach fanboy in me wants to believe there's more logic behind closing Dipper than just "cost cutting LOL", for example Icon related stuff or possibly non essential maintenance being forced on them. If it is some form of non essential maintenance, then I'd rather they corrected that now so that it can run at it's best when all the new arrivals visit for Icon.

It does indeed.

Worrying but not surprising...

While online searching for a new best friend, I stumbled on something much more important, Dymchurch has a cred! Immediately I put plans in motion to ride this beast... This Sunday just gone was the day of reckoning and it began with having a Mc10:35, I'll admit I don't see the appeal or even understand the logic but for about 2 minutes I felt one with the youth of today and that's priceless. From said McDonalds it was a one and a half hour drive to Dymchurch, which is in the arse end of Kent if you didn't know and as always, this drive was quite a memorable one. On the M20, I was viciously tailgated by no less than 3 Belgium registered 4X4s, all 3 of them with damage front and rear, implying I was not their first victim. Now I know Plopsa and Bobbejaanland are God awful and I've made my opinions on them very public but Christ, is murder really the answer? On the up side, if I did die at least I wouldn't have to get a mortgage... I left the safety (or lack thereof) of the motorway at Ashford and from there on was at the mercy of the sat nav. As previously mentioned my sat nav hates me, so of course things went to hell quite quickly. For the last 15 MILES of the journey, I was driving on single track dirt roads, shouting so loudly at the sat nav I may have disturbed the sheep in the adjacent field. For the last 6 MILES of the journey, I had 10 women in bright pink shirts cycling infront of me, taking up the whole dirt road, refusing to pull over and let me pass. For the last 4 MILES of the journey, the women were still refusing to allow me to pass and now a white van was tailgating (I didn't see if he was Belgium), honking and shouting abuse, if Mr Garmin isn't already dead, he's just made my list. To end it's reign of terribleness, I wasn't taken to the car park I asked for and was instead taken to a dead end housing estate, where the locals stared in disgust as I did a 3 point turn on a man's driveway and wheel spun away, still shouting at the sat nav. None of that mattered though, as I finally found my way to that car park, paid for parking, avoided the sketchy man scratching his balls in public and went out to explore the great town of Dymchurch. It turns out, Dymchurch might be the most deprived place I've ever visited. This is all I managed to find on my walk to the amusements, 3 charity shops, a sweet shop, the smallest Tesco's in the World, a pub and a restaurant. I don't know what I was expecting really but my plans of "going round town" after getting the cred were now spited. Undeterred I walked into the amusement park with my head held high. Much like Dymchurch the place, the "park" was absolutely tiny and had nothing else of interest to me apart from the cred, they used to have a really screwed up looking tiny log flume that looked worth a go but sadly that's long gone. I paid my £2.40 (I've got your back Benin) and went to experience Dymchurch's first ever cred and what a beast she was. A brand new wacky worm, with a tyre driven lift AND station (no more push starts!). It would be fair to say it wasn't running as well as some other wacky worms I've ridden but I'll put that down to it still bedding in. After this I visited the smallest Tesco's ever before getting back on the road and heading to Thorpe. Thanks for reading.

It's probably the awful company I keep, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there...

The Zacspin ruined my excitement.

Except intense ejector air time and phenomenal inversions but otherwise, it's alright. #TeamHelix Mamba's very good but Nemesis is in a different league. Agreed. I love you.

We don't deserve it and we aren't ready for it but here we go, not long now...

Whilst Wildfire is a strong top ten coaster to me, I'd be lying if I said it fully lived up to the RMC hype. Steel Vengeance looks offensively good but maybe don't get too over excited or you might feel a little let down like I was with Wildfire.

Just got back from my brush with The Walking Dead, thoughts... Firstly and I cannot stress this point enough, I don't think they should have done this to X. Rave X was a genius idea and the perfect family friendly roller coaster that Thorpe needed so badly in it's line up. The removal of X in my opinion at least was incredibly short sighted and ill advised. Therefore, no matter how good or bad Walking Dead is, in my eyes, the decision to replace X with it, was a mistake. So how was The Walking Dead then? Was alright. Exterior Queue This was almost exactly the same as it's always been, but now with loud Fright Nights style music and a cheap looking watch tower, no complaints, no praise. Preshow This was hilarious. Chris Hemsworth delivering comedy gold while a jombie chews some glass on a flat screen TV behind you. Footage of jomies invading Thorpe Park that made me literally laugh out loud. Then more hilarity from Hemsworth and off you go. It was cheesy, it was a dumb, I quite enjoyed it. Preride Corridors Literally the same X corridors but this time with 80 percent less rave. It reminded me of a heavily discounted Platform 13 at Walibi Holland. Sirens, a sense of urgency, people running and screaming but nothing at all happening. It could be worse but it certainly wasn't as good as it could be. Needs more jombies. Coaster At the air gates, the staff member was smashing their height stick on the floor to scare people, someone needs to tell him that they are 1) expensive and 2) if damaged it won't accurately tell you heights any more, but hey, you scared a bloke, so well done I guess! Not going to lie, I quite enjoyed the actual coaster portion. All 4 block sections are laughable, in a good way! First one, plastic jombies light up, I hope that's a reference to when XNWO had those weird plastic robots on that section, either way, it amused me. Second one, nothing at all, followed by Chris Hemsworth shouting. Third one, 3 flat screen TVs of jombies licking glass, while Chris Hemsworth makes the train judder about, suddenly triggering me to need the toilet. Fourth one, something about a generator, then a jombie lights up, the end. Hilarious. It's the inbetween, fast sections that are slightly impressive. The jombies lighting up and lunging at you as you speed past reminded me a lot of the fantastic Raptor Attack and Revenge of the Mummy. Also the theming on some of these fast sections looked to be of quite a good standard. Postride The train rolls into the station and the offload host goes bats**t insane, flailing like a madman, almost tripping over and screaming at you to get out. Then you're in a canteen or something and a loud noise goes off, neither of which made sense to me but some people screamed, so I guess it's fine? After this you walk through the old X exit corridors, except for the addition of 1 section now having rubber things you need to push through and strings that tickles your head as you do so, one of said strings slapped me in the eye, so if mildly unpleasant was the goal, they succeeded. Then you just walk out via the old exit. I can't help but feel this ending is lacking something. Were jombies meant to be attacking me at every turn but said effects/actors were missing? If the answer is no then the ending is rather disappointing, I was half expecting to be put in my place for the rest of the attraction making me laugh, but said big ending scare never came. Talking of scares... I'm a HUGE wuss when it comes to scare attractions and normally won't do them at all unless a cred is attached. So I have to ask, if this scaredy cat came off with nothing but comedy to report, where the hell did this 15/10 crap come from? To summarise, The Walking Dead is fine. I enjoyed it for what it was. If you go in with low expectations and the mindset of having a laugh, then like me you'll probably walk away mildly amused by the whole experience.

It's Intamin, I believe it...

Colossus sounded and rode the same as it has done for the last few seasons (quiet and smooth), to me at least. Though it did punch me in the side of the head for being cocky and not bracing myself for the cobra roll, but that's my own fault.

I've only ridden it 3 times and I'm already bored of the pre show. The bit where he picks up the train and the ending with the smoke are passable but the rest of it just drags on after you've seen it once. Still it's got nothing on Star Trek Operation Enterprise for over staying it's welcome on rerides. Agreed.

Riding a roller coaster just after eating, those were the days!

No mate... Like always you've completely missed the point again, but I'll help you out, I'm nice like that. I was giving an example of how my day played out, a day in which I wasn't rushing and was only really there for the Wicker Man. The entire point of my post, was to show, it is infact possible to leave Alton Towers with not much above 2 rides to your day. As I said before, I spoke to a member of the GP who was having an even less successful day, a man who wasn't just there for Wicker Man, a man who paid full price to get in, a man I'm sure would love to hear he's doing it wrong from someone on the internet who didn't even bother reading the full post. As for your plan. I'd rather not walk to the entrance and use up most of my energy before the day has already started, done it once before (didn't like it) and I wasn't in a rush on this day. Most of the GP automatically assume they have to use the monorail anyway, so we'll just write this one off. I have an Annual Pass (for now anyway) and could have just slithered in, but my brother needed to pick up his cheapo annual pass ticket (which you can't print at home, as they need to see me and my pass as proof), so your logic is make my brother pay more just to get on more rides in a park I've done hundreds of times? Judging by the queues, 40% or so of the GP buy/collect their tickets on the day, so another mute point. Smiler had a 90 minute queue at opening (I've ridden it many times before so f**k that, also I got it walk on later). Rita, Nemesis, Craplactica & Thirteen weren't open yet. Oblivion and Spinball are crap. Wicker Man is what I came for and because it's the new hip thing, it's what most of the GP head to first. Wicker Man was up and down like crazy throughout the day, if I followed your plan I'd almost certainly not have got to ride it twice, this was the ride I went for, so I made the right decision I think. Where in your master plan did you factor in an almost 3 hour unplanned breakdown and evac for Wicker Man? Alot of people were in that queue and lost almost 3 hours of their day, I guess they should be punished for doing it wrong? Get off your high horse and put yourself in the shoes of those there on the day before making fruitless comments about how everyone was doing it wrong...

We can't just blame Merlin/CWOAR on this one guys, alot of the problem comes from the GP's perception of the RAP system. I've known people in the past who know full well they are able and happy to queue in the standard queue lines, but because they have X wrong with them, they think, might as well bring a letter from my doctor and get myself that RAP, so essentially turning it into free fast track. I've also heard RAP described as fast track by the GP so many times it's almost funny, this is how wide spread the system is misunderstood. When I worked at Chessington, I can attest to what has been said, quite often on Fury, you'd see the RAP queue stretching down the exit ramp, an easy 20 minute queue. For those using it as fast track, that's a bonus, the main queue is 90 minutes, for those who NEED to use the queue, 20 minutes is unacceptable and I felt very uncomfortable with it on a few occasions. Tell me off if I'm wrong Herman, but I seem to remember there was a maximum amount of RAP users you could have on board Fury at any one time, meaning your comment about every other car might be slightly off? That or policies have changed? So in summary, I absolutely applaud Merlin/CWOAR if they are indeed increasing the circumstances for offering the RAP service, I just hope they are prepared for a backlash and stick to their guns when it comes. It's about time this system was sorted out, it's been abused for far too long.

What the hell has happened to the mid section of Ghost Train... I know the story was already a shambles but this new section helps the whole attraction make even less sense. Something about fracking, people getting infected, something about gas, get attacked by an infected person. GET OFF THE TRAIN! Then suddenly, things turn into a Fright Nights strobe maze with nothing happening, you go into a room to look at a drill, nothing happens, then you're shouted at to get out, the hell is going on lads? And now when we get back on the train, it's self aware you're on a ride at Thorpe, then you fall into hell. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but the continuity of the story is hilarious. For a once a year ride it's fine, so I won't join the band wagon of calling it terrible, but it could be alot better that's for sure.

Could Thorpe think of no better way to solve the obvious design flaw with their station exit gates, then to put in crap looking fairground turnstiles? Why no one thought of using those fancy electronic locking gates (like Rush and Wicker Man have) I'll never know...

Totally agree with what's being said, Thorpe were having a total nightmare! Nemesis Inferno had the WORST rides team I've seen in years (insert witty comment about PortAventura just to annoy you), prancing around, at one point all the platformers were in position with dispatch buttons pressed, while the op chatted on the phone for over a minute, finished her conversation, then finally thought "oh maybe I should actually do my job now", shocking stuff. Can you blame the ride for constantly killing itself, I know I wanted to... Does anyone know what causes Inferno to repeatedly anchor itself and stop dead in the first set of brakes (I was lucky enough to get to sit there for 15 minutes!), my guess would be some sort of over speed alert being thrown up, but you guys being the Thorpe die hards might know. Stealth went down while I was in the queue, then when I returned much later it was down again, didn't bother me though because it's only Stealth. Ghost Train went down while I was in the queue and when I returned later, we waited over 20 minutes to be batched in, I've no idea how this thing operates, so you can decide whether that was yet more issues or rather it running on a lower capacity (if it can?). Walking Dead was down all night, like I said in the official topic of that, how have they broken what is essentially a super reliable jumped up Vekoma Junior? Detonator took over 10 minutes on 1 cycle to start, can we still blame the staff being new or was this just awful staff? Swarm which before the event started had a train going up the lift every 10 seconds, was put on 1 train by the end of the event, why? Rumba Rapids closed half an hour earlier than advertised, which annoyed me a bit, because as has been mentioned elsewhere, it appears to have been intensified. Quantum, which was advertised as open, was in scaffolding, which was incredibly disappointing because it's fantastic. Regardless I had an OK time, it was a free event after all. The worst thing all night easily goes to the surge of the VIP pass holder, the scourge of the Earth...

Getting to the park at half 9, queuing 30 minutes for the monorail, then queuing over 30 minutes to buy tickets because the idiots have removed all their ticket booths, then queuing 20 minutes to go through the turnstiles. So it's now give or take 11am. Wait outside Wicker Man for 20 minutes watching it testing, then the queue opens and you join the back of an almost 2 hour queue. You get to almost the pre show batch point then the coaster breaks down. Despite the ride dying at 1pm, they leave you standing there for 50 minutes, then decide to evac the queue. Get given priority passes. It's now 2pm and you're hungry, of course. Walk to Wood Cutters to be presented with a rabble that refuses to be roused, while a staff member screams, "s'gonna be a wait for tables lads". F**k this, walk to Burger Kitchen to eat average burgers and awful fries. Almost 3 now and it's time for Hex, all the worries float away as you enjoy the UK's best dark ride (that isn't called Valhalla). 1 ride down boys. Walk to Smiler, it's walk on, but you notice on the app that Wicker Man is now reopen. Let's get fruity. 20 minute fast track queue for Wicker Man, then it breaks down for 10 minutes, but you finally get on it and it's lovely. Holy crap it's half 3 now and I've been on 2 rides! Head back to walk on Smiler, it's riding well! 3 rides. It's actually against the law to go to Alton Towers and not ride Nemesis, offenders will be blacklisted. Ride Duel on route and be bitterly disappointed by the "refurb". 4 rides. Nemesis is running 1 train and it's now 4:20 with a 5pm close. Leave Nemesis (5 rides) at 4:55 and run from Forbidden Valley to Wicker Man, get in the queue with seconds to spare, have an even better 2nd lap and leave the park at 6:30pm with 6 rides to your day. That's an answer to Mark's question and an above average (the average is that bad these days) trip report from my last visit. Plus I'm a shameless bastard who doesn't mind running and looking a fool. I spoke to a friendly bloke in the Nemesis queue who didn't plan to run after his lap and had only managed 3 rides previously because he let his son have his Wicker Man priority pass. If it wasn't for this experience (I had a good time either way and have done the park enough to not care anymore) I'd be like you and be dismissive, but no it does happen and if it was your first visit to the park it must suck hard.

Or you could just be cheeky and ask if guest services (if it's called that these days) would mind holding it for you for the day?

You're not the first person I've seen comment on the up time of Walking Dead, I wonder what they have done to it to change it from an insanely reliable Vekoma, to having random bursts of down time? Yeah I know the product is new, but the coaster isn't, so I really can't wrap my head around it, I want to believe that pissing around with the ride system to bring back the dumb brake stuff might have caused it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's something silly like a new effect playing up or actor issues.