Matt N
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Posts posted by Matt N
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Hi guys. Over the years, I’m sure that most of us have done a number of coasters and a number of parks quite a few times. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what are your most ridden coasters and your most visited parks?
For me, my answer to these questions would not have been exhaustive and exact until a couple of days ago. I always started my coaster and park counts and visit log from an arbitrary “enthusiasm start date” of 28th September 2013, the day I rode Alton Towers’ big coasters for the first time, as my recollections of exact orders and dates before that was spotty. However, my dad recently found an old hard drive with all of my parents’ pictures from when we were kids on it. This meant that I was able to ditch my “enthusiasm start date” and go right back to the very start of my life to the degree of exactness I desire. And it’s unveiled some interesting stats about my most ridden coasters and my most visited parks across the course of my entire life… not to mention that changing my coaster counting method gained me a bonus +3 from 2011 that tipped me over 100 coasters!
Following the discoveries of the other day, my all-time unique coaster count is 102, and my all-time unique park count is 22. I have had 451 coaster rides in total, so I have averaged 4.4 total rides (to 1dp) on each coaster I have ever ridden. I have had 113 park visits in total, so I have averaged 5.1 total visits (to 1dp) to each park I have ever visited.
My top 10 most ridden coasters of all time are as follows:
- Nemesis and Runaway Mine Train at Alton Towers - 29 rides (Nemesis first ridden 28th September 2013, RMT first ridden 30th May 2009)
- Oblivion and Thirteen at Alton Towers - 25 rides (Oblivion first ridden 28th September 2013, Thirteen first ridden 15th August 2010)
- Wicker Man at Alton Towers - 24 rides (first ridden 25th March 2018)
- The Swarm at Thorpe Park - 20 rides (first ridden 27th July 2014)
- Galactica at Alton Towers - 19 rides (first ridden 28th September 2013)
- The Smiler at Alton Towers - 18 rides (first ridden 29th September 2013)
- Rita at Alton Towers - 16 rides (first ridden 28th September 2013)
- Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers - 15 rides (first ridden 15th August 2010)
- Stealth at Thorpe Park - 12 rides (first ridden 27th July 2014)
- Nemesis Inferno at Thorpe Park - 11 rides (first ridden 27th July 2014)
My top 5 most visited parks are as follows:
- Alton Towers - 40 visits (first visited 30th May 2009)
- Universal’s Islands of Adventure - 11 visits (first visited 29th August 2012)
- Thorpe Park and Universal Studios Florida - 10 visits (Thorpe first visited 27th July 2014, USF first visited 31st August 2012)
- SeaWorld Orlando - 5 visits (first visited 28th August 2012)
- Legoland Windsor - 4 visits (first visited 28th July 2009)
My first ever theme park visit was to Drayton Manor on 18th April 2008, and my first ever coaster was Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster on the same day. However, I have only visited Drayton Manor twice more since; once on 8th August 2018 and once on 9th June 2022. I have only ridden Troublesome Trucks once more since my first ever ride on it.
Of the 102 coasters I have ridden, 42 of those are coasters that I have only ridden once, which equates to 41.2% of my count (to 1dp). Of the 22 parks I have visited, 3 of those are parks that I have only visited once, which equates to 13.6% of my count (to 1dp).
If I extend that to encompass coasters that I have ridden 3 times or less, the number of coasters that I have ridden 3 times or less is 75, which represents 73.5% of my count (to 1dp). The number of parks that I have visited 3 times or less is 16, which represents 72.7% of my count (to 1dp).
So overall, then, the bulk of my coaster rides and park visits are concentrated around a relatively small number of parks and coasters, with there being a significant outlier at the very top; Alton Towers. Of my 113 park visits since 2008, 40 of these have been Alton Towers visits, which represents 35.4% of my total visits (to 1dp). Of my 451 coaster rides since 2008, 201 of these have been at Alton Towers, which represents 44.6% of my total coaster rides (to 1dp).
I have to say that I found this a very interesting insight into my coaster riding and park visiting habits… I’ll post my full visit log spreadsheet later when I’m not on the move and using 4G.
But I’d be keen to know; what are your most ridden coasters and most visited parks?
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Yes, Alton Towers has had YULLBE in the Hospitality Suite as an upcharge attraction since some point last year.
After Merlin’s ill-fated experiments with VR in the form of Galactica and Derren Brown’s Ghost Train, I’d be incredibly surprised if they ever put VR on a major ride again.
Personally, I’m still leaning towards an indoor coaster of some description. I reckon an Intamin Multi Dimensional Coaster with some sort of dark ride element, similar to Uncharted at PortAventura, would be a logical fit, but I’m open to surprises.
Whatever it is, though, I’m thinking it’ll be a family thrill ride (1.2m height restriction at most) rather than an out and out thrill ride.
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Following my recent trip to Florida, my top 10 has changed quite a bit. The composition of this new list did take a fair amount of deliberation, and even now, I should add that I'm still slightly undecided on some of the placements.
This trip presented me with some very interesting conundrums in terms of coaster ranking, as in many cases, I was comparing incredibly different types of ride that were all truly, truly excellent in their own way. It really did test me, and I often second guessed the relative placements of certain rides. Nonetheless, I think I've managed to come up with a final post-Florida ranking.
For clarity, I gained 8 new roller coaster credits during my trip, taking my total coaster count to 99. Of the new coasters I rode, 4 of these made my top 10 and 10/10 tier (which I should add are now one and the same; my 10/10 tier currently encompasses ranking spots 1-10), and the other "new addition" to my 10/10 tier is a previously ridden coaster that exceeded my previous memories of it.
Some of the placements may seem strange. I'm more than happy to answer questions on any placements you find questionable, but I should state that at a basic level, my favourite coasters are rides that have the perfect blend of fun, thrills and rerideability. Out and out intensity is not everything for me; it's the fun factor and rerideability that ultimately matters. There are certainly tangible things that typically correlate with me ranking a coaster highly (for instance, most rides in this list have notable airtime moments to at least a certain extent), but the most important thing for me is a good blend of fun, thrills and rerideability, and I think one entry to my top 10 in particular taught me that the qualities of "what I like in a coaster" are perhaps less tangible than I had previously thought they were.
So, without further ado, my current top 10 is as follows... (new entries are in italics, relocated coasters are underlined)
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: Even 7 years after my first ride, this coaster still reigns supreme for me, and my recent revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced that! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my recent revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Islands of Adventure: It may not quite be #1, but my goodness was it close, and VelociCoaster would certainly be a worthy contender for the top spot! There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are quite a few sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a firm favourite of mine! 10/10
- Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I did rank this below Mako of the two B&M Hypers I've ridden due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako's strongest moments, in my view, and while smooth in its own right, it isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako. I also felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! However, my reason for not ranking this coaster higher is that it’s almost a little… much at times. Iron Gwazi is not a rough coaster by any stretch, but it’s certainly fierce in places, and I did find the final few elements in particular to be toeing the line in terms of what I can handle from a violence and intensity standpoint. It does quite a bit of what I’d refer to as “snapping”, where it changes direction and exerts high forces very rapidly, and while this looks good on paper and probably looks good in NoLimits or whatever, it doesn’t ride quite so well in practice for me, and I did find Iron Gwazi ever so slightly uncomfortable in those snappier portions of the layout. If I’m being picky, I also wasn’t the biggest lover of the trains (and these could well have contributed to the slight discomfort I experienced in areas), although they’re admittedly far from the worst trains I’ve ever sat in. Nevertheless, these are minor niggles rather than total deal breakers for me, and the high points of the ride are high enough for me to override them to a certain extent; while I perhaps didn’t love Iron Gwazi quite as much as I’d hoped to for the aforementioned reasons, it’s still a phenomenal ride that I thought very highly of! 10/10
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa: I had remembered liking this ride back in 2016, but my reride in 2023 was even better than I’d previously remembered! I love a B&M Dive Coaster, and this was a fantastic one! The sustained airtime over both drops was absolutely phenomenal, and the sheer size of them produced a brilliant sensation of speed throughout the ride! You typically think of Dive Coasters for their initial vertical drop, but interestingly, I actually thought that the second vertical drop on SheiKra delivered just as much as the first if not more! Overall, SheiKra was phenomenal, and a really pleasant surprise; I often said that I preferred Oblivion, but I’d now say that I comfortably prefer SheiKra, as I do feel that the added height and length really add something to it! 10/10
- Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon is often maligned, but I absolutely love it, personally! Yes, the ride is not the most intense coaster by any means, but I just find it incredibly good fun! There’s some excellent ejector airtime on there, with some particular highlight moments being the top hat, the drop down into the second launch and one incredibly fun drop during the second half of the layout! I also think that the ride is fast-paced and thrilling throughout, and it’s also incredibly smooth and comfortable, with the overhead lap bars ensuring that the inversions in particular are negotiated comfortably in a way that ensures maximum floaty negatives! Overall, I love Icon for its fun airtime, fast pace, fun twists and turns and overall rerideability; it’s just such a wonderfully fun coaster, in my opinion! 10/10
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando: I had pretty low expectations for Ice Breaker, as its reviews are generally middling to negative, but I have to say that it massively exceeded expectations for me; it was a phenomenal little ride that I absolutely loved! I should say that the much-maligned “comfort collars” have been removed, so I experienced the ride without them, but I found it to be fantastic, with a fun and punchy swing launch, a backwards spike with some brilliant floater airtime, some surprisingly excellent pops of ejector airtime in places, some fun twists and turns, and a smooth and fun ride experience throughout! The trains are a little tight to get into and out of, but I found the restraints unobtrusive when I was sat down enjoying the ride, so I didn’t find them to be an issue overall. All in all, I thought Ice Breaker was a fantastic ride that hugely exceeded my expectations; it may not have quite been my favourite coaster I rode in Florida, but I dare say that coaster-wise, it was possibly the sleeper hit of the trip in terms of how much it exceeded my expectations! I expected very little, but I ended up absolutely loving the ride, personally! 10/10
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers: It may now only be in my top 10 by the skin of its teeth, but Wicker Man is a fantastic GCI coaster that I absolutely love! It may not look like much on paper, but I find it to be an enormously fun and rerideable coaster that never fails to put a huge smile on my face! I find it to be a really fast-paced coaster with some really fun twists and turns and some surprising pops of airtime, with some particular favourite elements of mine being the initial s-bend drop, where you gain brilliant speed incredibly quickly, and the big drop out of the high u-turn and following airtime hill, with both elements providing some excellent airtime that really whips you out of the seat! Overall, I find Wicker Man a hugely fun and rerideable wooden coaster with awesome airtime, twists and pacing, and I think it’s a ride that is definitely far more than the sum of its parts, personally! 10/10
In terms of other notable new Florida additions, the only major new coaster addition I can think of that is missing is Pipeline: The Surf Coaster, which I found to be a big disappointment and is ranked at #52 out of 99.
Overall, I thought that this trip was brilliant, personally!
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Hi guys. I don’t know about any of you, but one thing I personally like doing at theme parks is timing ride throughputs and observing the operations on rides. With this in mind, I decided to make a thread for like-minded people who are interested in throughputs and operations to share their throughput timings and operational insights from parks around the world. Whether your timings and operational insights are from Chessington, Europa Park, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, Oakwood or anywhere else in the world, I’d love to hear about them and I’m sure many others would too!
My reason for deciding to create this thread is because I have some throughput timings and operational insights of my own to share. Currently, I’m coming towards the end of a trip to Florida, so I thought I’d share some of the throughput timings and general operational insights I was able to log at Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios Florida, SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa.
For various reasons, I could not time throughputs quite as comprehensively as I would normally like on this trip; things like metal detectors and themed queues obscuring sight of the rides at Universal and queues that were often too short to get a comprehensive average at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens meant that I had to rely more on chance occasions where I was standing within eyeshot of a ride at Universal in particular and as such, the averages are often based on lower amounts of dispatches than the 10 I normally aspire towards. Nonetheless, here are some of the throughput timings and general insights I was able to gain from Universal Orlando, SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa.
Islands of Adventure
- Flight of the Hippogriff (Theoretical: 993pph on 2 trains) - 951pph (2 trains, 12th June 2023, average of 3) Note: I did not ride this, but I got a good vantage point from the queue line of Hagrid’s.
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (Theoretical: 1,700pph on 12 trains) - 1,617pph (unknown number of trains, 12th June 2023, average of 10)
- Incredible Hulk (Theoretical: 1,920pph on 3 trains) - 1,138pph (possibly only running 2 trains (as I did not stack, which I didn’t think was possible on 3), 12th June 2023, average of 4), 1,608pph (unknown number of trains, 21st June 2023, average of 3)
- VelociCoaster (Theoretical: 1,800pph on 4 trains) - 1,489pph (unknown number of trains, 17th June 2023, average of 3), 1,566pph (4 trains, 21st June 2023, average of 6)
Universal Studios Florida
- Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit (Theoretical: 1,850pph on 7 trains) - 1,329pph (unknown number of trains, 13th June 2023, average of 3)
SeaWorld Orlando
- Ice Breaker (Theoretical: 650-750pph on 2 trains) - 564pph (2 trains, 16th June 2023, average of 2)
- Kraken (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains) - I did not get an exact throughput for this, but the ride was running 2 trains and stacking on the brake run was routine. According to the dispatch timer in the station, the ride’s average park time seemed to be around 3 minutes. (16th June 2023)
- Mako (Theoretical: 1,680pph on 3 trains) - 960pph (2 trains, 16th June 2023, average of 4). In terms of general insights, there was quite often a gap in the station between trains and the dispatch timer showed the train being parked for as little as 60 seconds on some occasions.
- Manta (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains/2 stations) - I did not get an exact throughput for this, but the ride was running 2 trains and 1 station, and stacking seemed fairly common. (16th June 2023)
- Pipeline The Surf Coaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 474pph (2 trains, 16th June 2023, average of 7)
Busch Gardens Tampa
- Cobra’s Curse (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 trains) - 527pph (unknown number of trains, 22nd June 2023, average of 2)
- Iron Gwazi (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 493pph (2 trains, 22nd June 2023, average of 5). In terms of general insights, stacking was routine and park times in the station averaged around 2.5 minutes according to the station dispatch timer, sometimes going as high as 3 minutes.
- Kumba (Theoretical: 1,700pph on 3 trains) - I did not get a reading for this, but the ride was seemingly only running 1 train. (22nd June 2023)
- Sand Serpent (Theoretical: 1,120pph on 10 cars) - 331pph (4 cars, 22nd June 2023, average of 4)
- Scorpion (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 357pph (1 train, 22nd June 2023, average of 2)
I hope you find this interesting; I know I certainly found this data interesting to gather! If I’m able to do any notable readings at Universal tomorrow, I’ll report back, but as my Florida trip is mostly over, I thought I’d report my current findings.
If you have any throughput timings and/or general operational insights from a recent park visit that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear about them in this thread!
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Apparently Ghost Train is closing for improvements from Tuesday to Friday next week, according to Thorpe Park on their Facebook group.
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It’s funny you should say that, because Chessington Buzz reported back in April that the ride is rumoured to be closing at the end of this season for a Nemesis-style retrack, reopening in March 2025 for its 35th anniversary:
Take this with as much salt as you like, but Chessington Buzz seem to be very reliable for predicting Chessington’s future plans, for what it’s worth.
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According to Theme Park Insanity, Thorpe Park have stated in their pass holder group that they are taking on board feedback regarding Ghost Train:
Some of the key things they have said include:
- They are currently working to optimise the experience, and they are still fine tuning the effects and such.
- They are aware that Ghost Train is no longer primarily a ride and will try to stop referring to it as such.
- The implementation of timed tickets on Ghost Train is being considered to improve guest experience and throughput efficiency.
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On the flip side, however, Nemesis Sub-Terra’s new logo still uses the modern Nemesis font rather than the original one. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily indicative of anything, but I imagine it could mean something.
If they were resurrecting the old Nemesis logo, surely they’d have updated Sub-Terra’s logo accordingly?
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On 5/23/2023 at 6:08 PM, JoshC. said:
It's not impossible to imagine there being a spinning car, or a backwards row / rows, on this. But at the same time, you have to wonder if:
1. It really needs it. This is the UK's tallest coaster, do we need anything more?
2. If it will be too much. This is going to be a fast, hard-hitting ride, unlike any of Mack's other spinning coasters. Adding the spinning to it might be unnecessary.
I agree with the first point, but in terms of the second point; will Exodus necessarily be any more intense than, say, Ride to Happiness, which solely uses spinning trains?
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Out of interest, does anyone know how much involvement Derren Brown himself actually had in the design of DBGT?
The PR material always inferred that he'd been very heavily involved in the design of the ride, but I've heard rumblings that most of the finer details of the experience had already been decided upon prior to Derren's arrival, and his role was merely as a marketing figurehead for the attraction. Indeed, I've heard rumours that Derren himself actually wasn't very fond of the attraction at all...
Does anyone know how much involvement Derren Brown actually had in the attraction's design and development?
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I think the issue that this project always faced is that once you removed the VR and got rid of Derren Brown, there was only so much you could have done to improve the ride without spending huge amounts of money completely gutting the building.
Unlike most dark ride systems, the ride system was very bespokely tailored to DBGT and the very specific sequence of events that happened within it. With something like Duel, for instance, the ride system itself had no particular quirks that were tailored to The Haunted House as it was per se, so Merlin were able to make The Curse at Alton Manor into a pretty different ride without performing any overly radical work.
With DBGT, on the other hand, the very design of the ride system meant that the same basic structure of the original attraction would always need to be followed. Riders would need to sit on a train, be rushed out of the train for a live action sequence of some sort and then sit on another train to return to the offload station. And with the design of the ride vehicle not really providing much scope for added physical theming due to the VR being the originally intended vehicle for storytelling, that made the park's options very limited in terms of what they could actually do with the train portions in particular.
With this in mind, I think it was complicated for Thorpe Park to make a new ride out of it because in the absence of a huge budget to demolish the whole thing and start again, the basic building blocks of the ride experience would always have needed to remain exactly the same, which would have limited the park's options massively.
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From what I ascertain, the green belt at Chessington, or more specifically the planning restriction rigmarole that the park deals with as a result of the green belt restrictions combined with the noise-related grievances of local residents, was pretty much the sole reason for Tussauds even expanding their theme park offering past Chessington in the first place, let alone bringing Thorpe Park into the mix.
From what I gather, Tussauds’ original intent was to expand Chessington and turn it into the market-leading theme park in the UK. However, the installation of Vampire in 1990 caused great dismay among local residents due to noise, so as such, the local council vowed that they would never allow a ride on that scale to be built again. When considering the noise complaints combined with the green belt restrictions, it became evident to John Wardley and Tussauds that Chessington could not become the market leader that they had hoped it would be, so they instead looked to build their market leader elsewhere.
The original intent here was to build a new ground up theme park, with various site options including Woburn Abbey and Corby Steelworks being considered, but various difficulties with this meant that Tussauds instead decided to gain market dominance within the UK theme park sector by purchasing Alton Towers. They purchased Alton Towers, developed it into a market leading UK theme park, and the rest is history.
However, Tussauds still wanted a thrill park in the South, and that’s where Thorpe Park comes in. During the mid-90s, Thorpe Park was Chessington’s key competitor in the family stakes, and they arguably had a tamer offering than Chessington from what I’ve read, but they had far looser planning regulations. With this in mind, Tussauds decided to buy the park because it offered the double whammy of allowing them to operate a thrill park in the South while simultaneously eliminating Chessington’s closest competitor in the family stakes. As such, Tussauds bought the park, added loads of thrill rides, and the rest is history.
I apologise for the long ramble, but I thought it would add some context. In terms of how it relates to the question of “was the green belt around Chessington the reason why Thorpe Park became a thrill park?”, I would argue that the timeline of Tussauds’ theme park portfolio in the UK would make the answer to that question an emphatic yes. Or even if it wasn’t the sole reason, it was at very least a significant contributing factor.
The reason Thorpe Park became so aggressively thrill-focused from the 2000s onwards was because if they hadn’t, Tussauds would have had the issue of the two London parks (Thorpe and Chessington) stepping on each other’s toes, and history would suggest that two parks owned by the same company in a shared market with a shared target demographic can often end with one eventually cannibalising the other (see examples such as Cedar Point/Geauga Lake for reference). As such, Tussauds needed to differentiate the parks, and with the overbearing planning regulations at Chessington, it made the most sense for Chessington to be the family park and Thorpe to be the thrill park. So with that in mind, I think you could most definitely claim that Chessington’s green belt is a key factor in Thorpe Park being a thrill park today.
If those green belt restrictions did not exist at Chessington, I wager that we would most definitely have seen more intense thrill rides at Chessington. The construction of Vampire, a pretty intense thrill ride for the time, in 1990 would suggest that this was Tussauds’ original intent, and had Vampire been less poorly received by the locals, I wager that we would have seen more investment of a similar nature. Whether Thorpe Park would have diversified to become a thrill park to compete with this is another question entirely, but the park’s prior history of having generally been tamer than Chessington would suggest that they may well not have done had Tussauds not gotten involved. If Chessington had targeted thrill seekers more comprehensively, Thorpe may well have stuck to targeting families, in my view.
It is an interesting thought to consider, though!
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12 minutes ago, Wheezy said:
The Book of Exodus in the Bible is where the Israelites leave Egypt - how closely are coasters' working titles usually tied to their final themes?
It varies. Project Stealth ended up being the final name of Stealth, whereas Project Dylan was simply named after the project manager's cat in the case of Saw.
Normally there is some relation, though.
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I wouldn’t expect a hugely elaborate theme for this. Very few hyper coasters are heavily themed; they’re such big rides that it’s quite hard to theme them effectively, and the expense of building the ride hardware alone is huge.
I’d expect something along the lines of Mako at SeaWorld, where it has a light theme and style and a couple of nice little items, but nothing overly elaborate. And to be honest, I’d be perfectly happy with that.
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New documents have been uploaded to the council website... and they reveal that Exodus will be gold at its base, fading to white at a height of 28-33m similar to Stealth:
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It's excellent to see that construction is progressing at a good rate!
The more happens with this, the more excited I get. I was originally a tad disappointed that Thorpe didn't choose more of an overt airtime machine, but as time goes on, I'm growing increasingly convinced that the layout will be excellent and quite unlike anything ever seen before! And to be honest, I think there could be more airtime than I'd previously anticipated, even if the airtime the ride provides isn't "straight airtime" per se.
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I’m not sure I’d necessarily expect theming for Exodus. The planning application stated that “the ride structure itself is the theming” or something along those lines, and hyper coasters are rarely heavily themed anyway.
At most, I’d expect something along the lines of Mako; a light style, but not an especially overbearing theme.
With the type of ride this is, I don’t think a lack of theme should really be an issue; the height record in itself is a big selling point, and as I said, hyper coasters are not a ride type typically known for having heavy theming.
It would be nice if the ride had a mild theme, but at the same time, I wouldn’t overly mind if it had no real theme either. Of the UK Merlin parks, Thorpe Park probably has the least commitment to theme, and with the park’s current focus being on “thrills”, I don't think it really matters for them to head down the amusement park route, personally.
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Are they making the lake bigger, by any chance? I only wondered because if that is the lake’s final size, the splashdown is further up the site than I’d imagined…
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This isn’t related to opening, but I had a random thought about Ghost Train.
Could the ride potentially employ UV paint in some capacity? Thorpe’s teaser video potentially hinted at this, with words suddenly appearing on the side of the building when the grim reaper-type figure appeared:
And The Curse at Alton Manor’s pre-show utilises a similar effect:
Could we potentially see a similar trick employed on Ghost Train in some capacity? -
Well, I rode this for the first time today! I'll admit that I initially struggled to coherently review the ride, and my actual first ride itself was a bit of a blur, but having watched a few POVs of the ride, I can better process what happened, and I now feel more at liberty to talk about it in a bit more depth.
Be warned; this review does contain spoilers of The Curse at Alton Manor. If you do not want spoilers, read no further.
Let me start with the area. Gloomy Wood looks brilliant; given that they haven't changed much, the area feels weirdly fleshed out and lively compared to how it did before, and I'm a big fan of the darker colour scheme that they've adopted with the facade and area buildings. It looks great!
As the ride was walk on when I did it, I didn't get to see an awful lot of the outdoor queue, but what I did see looked very nice. I particularly liked the copious amounts of smoke; this made it feel very ambient!
Moving onto the indoor queue; this hasn't changed a huge amount, but has been spruced up somewhat to fit the new theme. The vestibule looks very similar to how it did before, but they have added some cloth over the theming items to make it look like it's been "repossessed". The more notably different room is the Drawing Room, which, although quite similar to how it was before on the face of it, does feel notably enhanced to me. There's now a pre-show telling the story of Emily Alton, and this culminates with some brilliant projection mapping and a really surprising reveal of UV paint all over the walls, showing what seem to be Emily Alton's deranged ramblings. I thought this was a very clever effect, and set up the ride very nicely!
Let's move onto the ride itself. Now as I said, I found this to be a bit of a blur when I physically rode, and as stupid as it sounds, I had to watch a few POVs to actually process it. It is a lot to take in, and as someone who's a bit of a weakling when it comes to horror stuff, I did find the first ride a bit overwhelming. With that being said, I do feel that the ride is a definite improvement on its predecessor Duel, and in terms of production value, I think it's a nicely done ride overall, although there are odd things I'd improve. I won't do a scene-by-scene breakdown, but some key points of interest include:
- I thought that projection mapping was used to great effect within the ride, and I felt that it definitely did add something.
- The Trommel Tunnel is working again, and I have to say that this effect did surprise me! I'd never actually experienced this effect in a working state (I.e. spinning) before, and I never really understood what people thought was so great about the Trommel Tunnel. I have to say that its use within The Curse at Alton Manor definitely proved me wrong on that front; it is a surprisingly convincing effect, particularly when paired with the spinning clock at the end, and it was probably one of my favourite individual effects in the ride!
- The mirror scene that replaced what was previously the Skeleton Corridor now houses a very clever effect, wherein you seem to disappear from the car and Emily Alton "replaces" you. I thought that this was very clever!
- The ending is an excellently executed jumpscare; I have to admit that I audibly shrieked when the massive Emily head suddenly appeared!
- Paradoxically, the ride feels very similar to how it was before, yet also very different, if that makes any sense?
- There was perhaps more reuse of old scenes from the previous iterations than I was expecting, but I think that this mostly works well because the park have made these scenes befitting of the new storyline; they feel very different to how they were before.
- There were some surprisingly impressive physical sets built new for the ride; I was particularly impressed with what they've done with the Attic scene.
- I've heard people mention the dark area between the Trommel and the Attic scene. I think the audio does still make this area feel quite unnerving, but I do get what people mean when they say that it feels a bit unfinished. I think it could do with an extra something to properly finish it off; maybe some UV paint like in the pre-show and exit corridor, or some light flashes?
- The other scene that I don't think entirely works is the Screaming Heads scene. I'm not entirely sure how it fits into the ride, and it feels a bit out of place to me.
- As I said above, I do think that it's quite an overwhelming attraction overall. When combining the noise, the darkness and the jumpscares, it is quite a lot to take in. Although with that being said, that could just be because I'm not the biggest horror lover and it was my first ride on a ghost train-style attraction; I felt similarly about Duel the first time I rode that.
Overall, I thought that it was a nicely executed ride; Merlin Magic Making have done a very good job given the budget and timeframe, and they have definitely improved upon Duel, in my view! If I'm being completely honest, however, I didn't exactly come off feeling entirely blown away. I'd stop short of saying that I was disappointed, because as I said, it is a very nicely done ride with high production value overall, in my view, and my initial gut reaction upon exiting could well be due to my initial struggling to process it all. I did only have 1 ride, after all.
I must admit, though, that I'm not sure the ride entirely lived up to some of the hyperbole being thrown around for me. It's a very nicely executed ride overall, but it's not my favourite dark ride in the UK and I would still say that I prefer Hex within the park. That could be down to it not being entirely my sort of thing, it could be down to the fact that I felt a little overwhelmed by it on my first ride, or it could be down to the fact that I only got 1 ride on it, but for whatever reason, I'm perhaps not feeling as enamoured with it and enthralled by it as many others seem to be. It's nice and it's well executed, but I'm not quite gelling with it like everyone else seems to be for some reason; I don't deny that they've done very well, but I'm not quite on board the hype train like everyone else seems to be. I apologise if I come across a bit cynical or moany here, but I'm just being 100% honest about how I personally felt about the attraction on my ride.
Nonetheless, it is a nice ride overall, I'm sure that it will be tweaked and improved with time, and Alton Towers should be really proud of what they've pulled off!
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Hi guys. As of late, I’ve heard it mentioned that Thorpe Park is aiming to pursue more of an “amusement park” style vibe, with the themed areas being de-emphasised. The park allegedly even said this themselves in a recent post in their Facebook group. But in the past, the park has aimed to pursue theming more, with the themed areas being more strongly marketed and more themed rides being installed. With this in mind, I’d be keen to know; what is your stance on Thorpe Park’s alleged new direction? What path do you think the park should take with regard to themed areas?
Personally, I’m not too upset that Thorpe Park is moving away from themed areas. While there are admittedly some very heavily themed individual rides at Thorpe Park, I would never have said that the park had any real cohesive themed areas; compared to somewhere like Europa, a typical Orlando park or to a lesser extent somewhere like Alton Towers, I would have said that Thorpe Park lacked easily definable themed areas. If I didn’t know any better, I would have struggled to separate areas like Lost City, Amity Cove and Calypso Quay, and indeed the park’s own grasp on these themed areas has seemed very tenuous at times (for instance, X was always listed as being within Lost City even though its entrance was within Amity Cove, and Samurai is in Old Town even though its theme and aesthetic arguably lend themselves more to Lost City). Often, the things within Thorpe’s themed areas have had very little thematic relation to each other, and at times, I felt that the themed areas were little more than a token gesture.
I do also agree somewhat with Thorpe Park’s argument that the park is too compact to make proper themed areas work properly. Because everything is within reasonably close range of a number of other themes, I think that it’s hard to make a whole themed area work compellingly. And in a park like Thorpe, I’d also argue that focusing too much on themed areas could constrain creativity when it comes to devising new rides. The park has never seemed overly focused on immersing guests into themed areas, instead focusing on immersing guests into themed individual rides, and I’d far prefer that they do that well than try and fit things into arbitrary themed areas. And besides, not every park needs to be strongly themed; personally, I would have said that Thorpe Park’s strengths lie more in thrills than theming, and if that’s the case, I don’t really see an issue with them pursuing theming less.
But what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with the park’s move away from themed areas? Or do you feel that the park needs to keep the themed areas in mind?
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11 minutes ago, Mark9 said:
I'd agree if that was true. But it isn't. Each time we've lost a flat ride over the last twenty years, we've gained empty space not a new rollercoaster.
Ripsaw - Nothing
Boneshaker - Nothing
Dynamo - Empty space for 9 years, it's replacement lasting only 2 and a half years
Mushroom Swinger - Nothing (although I'm still not sure if that twister is a permanent addition or not).
Enterprise - Nothing
Submission - Nothing
You can count the temporary retro squad if you want, I don't as they are literally desperate additions to spread the ride line up.
Towers is full of these empty holes where rides used to be. None of the current rollercoaster line up were made possible because a flat ride left the park.
While I admit that no flat ride was directly replaced by a roller coaster, I’ve often heard it said that in many cases, roller coasters indirectly replaced flat rides in terms of things like staffing and maintenance bills. By that, I mean that when a new roller coaster has been built, the park have had to sacrifice a flat ride to get it built.
I also wasn’t talking exclusively about flat rides either. For instance, I’ve heard many say that removing The Flume in favour of Wicker Man was a terrible move, but I think that seeing The Flume go was a price worth paying to get Wicker Man even if it did mean that the park had one less non-coaster.
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Based on the rage in Alton Towers fan circles about the recent demise of Enterprise, I’ve got a potentially very blasphemous Alton Towers opinion… while I don’t deny that the park could probably do with a new flat ride or two at this point, as well as a new dark ride in the form of the Dungeons boat ride reopening, I feel that the reduction of the non-coaster lineup at Alton Towers was overall a worthy price to pay for the strengthening of the coaster lineup.
What is your favourite coaster lineup in the UK?
in UK Attractions
Posted
Hi guys. The UK has a surprising amount of parks for a relatively small country in terms of landmass, and this naturally means that the UK has quite a number of coaster lineups. These vary in quantity and variety, but there are a surprising amount of coasters in the UK nonetheless. After a furious debate in the Blackpool Pleasure Beach topic yesterday regarding its coaster lineup vs Alton Towers' (amongst other things), it got me thinking about my favourite UK coaster lineups. As such, my question to you today is; which coaster lineup in the UK is your favourite?
Personally, I would vote for the coaster lineup of Alton Towers as a gut instinct answer. Their top coaster for me (Wicker Man) is one of my favourite coasters in the UK and sits firmly in my top 10, Oblivion isn't at all far behind (it's at #11 and the very top of my 9/10 tier, in fact!), and overall, the park has a number of very solid headliners, in my view!
However, I'd be interested to work out the answer to this statistically based on my coaster rankings and ratings from my spreadsheet...
My UK parks ranked by measures of central tendency of all ridden coasters
Mean Rating
Median Rating
Mean Ranking
Median Ranking
By the measures of central tendency for all UK parks, Alton Towers wins for me by mean and median rankings and ratings, with Paultons Park and Thorpe Park coming 2nd and 3rd in all measures respectively.
However, I would say that measures of central tendency across a whole lineup are not necessarily an accurate indicator of how much I or anyone else likes a park's lineup, as for me (and I'm sure this is the case for many others), I can look past some slightly weaker links if the park's top few coasters are really good. Measures of central tendency for the whole lineup doesn't take the top-ranking coasters into account, purely considering what things look like at the centre of the park's ranking. They are quite good for determining how consistently strong a lineup is, but perhaps not for how much one personally likes a park's lineup. For instance, all of these measures have Paultons Park as my 2nd favourite coaster lineup in the UK. Would I personally say that was the case if asked? No, I wouldn't. This isn't a slight against Paultons by any means, but I'd say that its lineup lacks a few thrill headliners compared to some of my personal favourite parks in the UK.
With this in mind, I'll try this out looking solely at the parks' top 3 coasters...
My UK parks ranked by measures of central tendency of the top 3 ridden coasters
Mean Rating of Top 3
Median Rating of Top 3
Mean Ranking of Top 3
Median Ranking
So by the measures of central tendency for the top 3, Alton Towers won those too, closely followed by Thorpe Park and Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.
As I can never resist a ranking, I also thought I'd have a go at ranking the UK coaster selections I've done by gut feeling and explain my reasoning for each placement:
It would seem that based on gut feeling, I agree a lot more with my ranking of the parks' top 3s by measures of central tendency than I would with my ranking of their whole selections by measures of central tendency. Doing measures of central tendency for the whole selection will always negatively impact a park with one or two lowly ranked coasters even if the top few are relatively strong. It also negatively impacts parks where you've ridden all of the coasters compared to parks where you've only ridden a select few of the top draws.
So overall then, I think I can conclude that Alton Towers is definitely my favourite coaster lineup in the UK! I apologise for the long and likely somewhat uninteresting statistical and ranking-based detour, but I thought that it might be interesting to delve through my rankings and see empirically how the UK's lineups stack up with each other. But I'd be keen to know; what is your favourite coaster lineup in the UK?