Fred

I take it you went in 2011? Both mazes were awful, completely agree. Last year, complete change. Both of them hugely better than what was there previously. They felt worth the money (sanctuary definitely - that maze was utterly fantastic). They seemingly got the length of the maze correct with the atmosphere being worth the money finally last year. Can only build on it being TOTT & Sanct this year (unless they cock up sanct somehow).

You've probably got confused is all. Tomb used to have an a frame sign (presumably the one mentioned) saying FIVE trains. Vampire used to have one which said THREE trains.

Hey hey hey. Chessie just cannot maintain their ride for shizzle. But who cares, we won't be getting one at thorpe. That's like thorpe adding a Vekoma Corkscrew.

Closed at 830pm tonight. Good on Lego. You may be busy, but you sure know how to make the best out of a potentially poor situation (for guests anyway).

3 on offpeak (dead weekdays), 4 usually, 5 during halloween, summer and hopefully easter.

Throughput of the ride is fine, though I dislike it running on 3 trains. It's a different matter when they have cars blocked off though (due to the guns not working generally).

Because they're highly sensible human beings. Wonder if this ride empties peoples pockets, I've never seen/heard stuff flying out on Smiler whereas Air constantly empties peoples pockets!

The mazes were expensive late in evening with no offers - something like £12 or £14 for them both. Carnival I imagine they'll work it to increase the throughputs - larger groups, with people going through more often. Wonder if they'll sell fastrack on it though like they did TOTT, as I can imagine that'd kill it. TOTT as a charged maze makes sense - both charged mazes right next to each other (ensuring guests didn't go from TOTT into sanctuary was a nightmare), it also allows them to lower the group numbers going through, which'll increase the atmosphere. Hopefully it'll mean some additional budget to change it enough. Plus, for those who don't pay for mazes, it'll be a welcome change considering it's been this version of TOTT for 3yrs now. Also, arguably, towers mazes you can feel where the money has gone - they've got a quality feel about them, they've got the length and atmosphere which hopefully makes it worth the money. I doubt you'd be anywhere near satisfied if you had to pay for thorpes mazes and ended up with the quality of them (based on last year and the opinion with The Passing).

As mentioned in Questions to Thorpe - it's swings and roundabouts. I prefer the charged mazes method. Because I know the queues will be short, it's almost like a fastrack ticket. Though it varies hugely, I managed to get on both mazes for £5 due to a twitter offer. There were 5min queues when I did it. Wonderful.

Sounds brilliant. Damn you for not recording every single moment of your drive to grab this. Sounds rather magical!

Interesting to read this after we know they're targetting families now - has your viewpoint changed since? I believe it'll always be for the older families, those that can enjoy the majority of attractions, however you need more rest rides - those which you can relax on, those typically which have been removed in recent years. A few of those to balance out those hardcore thrillseekers and those which aren't quite ready yet!

Hey, Don't forget about Ripsaw.. we class that as a water ride, yeah?

Nope, it's just "The Worlds most intense ride experience"

It only happened after the park was sold to Aspro - the same time the rides went onto dual operation and cut staffing ridiculously. Considering water rides are some of the most expensive rides to run at a park, I imagine if anything it's to save a huge amount of money on electricity. 2pm guarantees a demand for the ride, and helps fill the boats (Oakwood doesn't get that busy, heck it runs on one train with no queue for speed most of it's life) so that'd help. Staffing wise sounds about perfect too, staff come in, do everyones lunch breaks, then at 2pm open drenched. Sounds about right there.

The only thing which seems to run as intended, and get a higher capacity over peak periods, is Tomb Blaster and 5 trains.. Oh crap, probably just reminded Chessie of that. That'll be gone soon as well, no doubt

The shade has made the picture very gloomy, uninviting and bland. That's what's wrong with that picture.

Oh, but training staff would never reduce the likelihood of it NEVER happening again!!!!11 . Just close all your rides and become a zoo again Chessie. You know you want to. How safe would that be then?!

Well, it wouldn't be replaced by an equal amount - those with fastrack could potentially go on like 3 rides in an hour (say all those queues were an hour). If they didn't do fastrack, it wouldn't be replaced by 3 people in those queues.. that one person would only be in one of the queues. Fastrack has been reduced in vast quantities at towers (by over a thousand a day for certain rides). The impact on the main queue wait times? Neglible, that's with the same amount of guests on park (and smiler closed to make it even).

Presumably its rare to have people wanting to go on Drenched straight away, it's easier just to staff from 2pm everyday then. Anyway, we should be thinking positives. Less chance of it killing us if it's opening hours are poor!

This whole fastrack thing.. I think there's a slight flaw in your argument that the queue will be the same time if they had no fastrack to if they did. If I queued up, and whilst queuing 300 people use fastrack infront of me, those 300 people wouldn't have chosen to ride before me and therefore there'd be a lower queue time for me. So the queue would've been shorter. It depends if the entire system is timeslotted as well, as I don't buy thorpes so I don't know. If they're not timeslotted, I highly doubt all of those with fastrack would've joined the queueline at the same time as they would've gone along with estimated queue times rather than queueing because they've got a quick entry.

Depends how many fastrack and how many people are actually being sent . I can't honestly believe the park is getting queues of 2hrs 40mins and yet absolutely sod all is being done to try and reduce queue times. What the hell?!

The picture by stealth is actually a massive bit of weeds, fighting for each others sunlight. Apart from that, loads of trees. Surely enough space to cut them down to build rides!!

The throughputs on all the rides at beginning of August were incredibly good throughout the day when I went - they were literally going as fast as they could throughout entire day, on everything. It was brilliant. How long did your fireworks last for? We went last year and it lasted 20mins.. went this year and it only lasted 5, really disappointed by that!

No, I mean a front row queue on a normal ride - they could've easily created a front row on both sides of the station albeit a bit squished. Having a front row queue positioned away from the actual station is just bonkers.

Chessie is useless with any sort of guests. I'm surprised noones ever bothered to try and do anything about it. Maybe noone actually gives a monkeys there anymore. 2006, operations side was way better, but the rides themselves were falling to bits still.