Mega-Lite

Yeah I assume that’s what it’s for which is pretty good of them - fingers crossed it’s running well then!

The biggest problem with this refurbishment is they seem to have spend the money in all the wrong places. Of all the ride’s flaws, why’d they bother fixing up the zombie tomb at the entrance? It’s looked cheap since the beginning of time, reparing part of it wasn’t going to fix that. Demolishing it really would’ve been better, as it makes the ride seem super tacky, hence most guests don’t bother riding. The space it’s in would serve much better as a proper entrance sign. Likewise, the money for those TV’s in the queue was a huge waste, they’re too bright, and distracting from the proper portraits. While on their own they’re a nice touch, they certainly should not have been a priority. The lighting in most places is still tragic, especially the timing. The great hall demon is only lit up towards the end of its movement, yet we see the whole thing reset.  The same can be said for plenty of the effects. I think the only one that disappeared on time was electric bill?
 
On the topic of the ride’s exterior- while it’s pleasing to see they’re now diverting guests though the woodland queue, rather than just shoving them though by the side of the house, the entrance really could benefit from having a proper sign to make it stand out, it sort of just seems like a gap in the hedge at the minute. Oh, and please change the name. No guest reads “Duel” and thinks ‘ghost train’. If it had a name that actually told you what the ride was, maybe it’d be more popular 

Got to ride Wickerman on Friday at Towers - I was very concerned we weren't going to get on after travelling 200 miles to get to Towers - but, fair play to Merlin, as despite being down from 1.30 ish, they re-opened at 3.45 with officially 15 minutes of queue-open time remaining - and then stayed open until 4.45pm. In the morning - the ride didn't open until AFTER ERT (oops) and the queues in the morning were peaking at 60-80 minutes so we decided to wait until the afternoon and do the 0 minute queue rides instead, which nearly ended in our downfall
 
Anyway - have to say that I think Merlin are on to a winner with Wickerman here. The queueline is the best I've been in some time in terms of setting you up for the ride, the Wickerman statue looks awesome, and the coaster as a whole is stunning. It really does roar round <3
 
The pre-show was spot on and sets the scene perfectly. The ride itself I loved (got to ride twice!) - screamed and laughed around the track, fantastic stuff - you can really feel it slide into the corners and it's pretty relentless, and picks up decent speed - it's pitched perfectly if you ask me, a properly fun and thrilling ride, that looks incredible and rides just as well. Great attraction to the lineup, and glad it's come to fruition as I wonder if it was close to getting shelved due to the Smiler accident.
 
Well done Towers - now just fingers crossed the Wickerman starts behaving itself and has less down-time. 
 

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.

Christ, that blue looks so sexy.

Dymchurch reminds me of my holidays to the caravan in Kent when I was a wee boy. I got stuck on the ghost train there and had to be escorted off. Good times. Good read.

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.

The Zacspin ruined my excitement.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

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

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...

The rule on Fury is 1 disabled guest + 3 companions. So that's one full car. On busy days with the 20min + RAP queue you mentioned, it was common that every other car sent would have a disabled guest and their three companions. It was a bit daft.

In fairness, the majority of coasters don't open until 11 so Wicker Man is naturally the first ride people come to, terrible planning from Alton really.
 
Hardly the sign of a decent park either when you have to go round it in a particular way in order to get on any rides, where's the fun in that?

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.  

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...

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...

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...

Awesome video of  CWoA in 1997. Some good footage of rides and areas, with Vampire, Bubbleworks, Dragon River and Terror Tomb looking good in particular.
 
 

I didn't think much of Troy to be honest, strange to see you'd rank it the best. Wodan's great, it just falls into the "I can't really remember it" haze that comes with most of Europa Park.
 
The large GCIs have dead spots, where you are waiting for things to start getting good again, the smaller ones (Wicker & Draak), don't waste time faffing about and just kick more ass.

I've got no problem admitting I was wrong and I'm very happy to report that I was most certainly wrong and too quick to cast judgement on Wicker Man. Never again will I doubt GCI, their track record is still perfect.
 
Now while I still agree that Alton Towers could and should have done more with the UK's first modern wooden roller coaster, what we have ended up with is great.
 
The Story: Wicker Man's story about the creepy cult of weirdos, worshipping the Wicker Man for years in the forest and bringing him sacrifices in return for one day him returning their favour and gifting them with freedom and safety, is simple, effective and quite unnerving, I like it.
 
Theming & Effects: Those involved have done a great job with the theming. The Wicker Man himself, in person looks damn impressive. The sheer amount of fire, mist and smoke effects used (please keep these running for the life of the ride) is so overwhelming and surprising and really adds to the experience. Not only that but the buildings (preshow and station) inside and out are incredibly well done. As a package, as present, Wicker Man is probably the best themed roller coaster in the UK.
 
Queueline: After a couple of switchbacks to begin with, the queue ends up becoming a nice swooping semi circle which provides great views of the coaster layout and really helps build excitement. This style of queue over the crap that is Smiler's queue anyday, much appreciated.
 
Preshow: I really enjoyed this, it's creepy, gets you hyped for what's about to transpire and in all honesty is alot of fun to watch.
 
The Coaster: This little GCI is great. Great laterals, a few pops of good airtime, 1 insane ejector moment, that perfect amount of out of control that all woodies need and a real sense of speed. Also to my surprise, it's alot longer than I was expecting, so you get a decent length ride out of it.
 
If you're into ranking things, after 2 laps, I'd probably put Wicker Man above Wodan and Troy, just below Draak, which I feel is a stronger layout and the racing aspect adds so much fun to the experience.
 
I really feel Wicker Man is going to do great things for Alton Towers and I really hope they can quickly improve the up time and maintain both the coaster and effects to the quality they were on opening.