Fred

Thirteen? I'm sorry, you're confusing this with thorpe. Towers run their fastrack systems very differently - Thirteen didn't sell fastrack properly (as in, not advertised or constantly available) until around July. Didn't have any availability whatsoever in first month or so. Sub terra didn't have any availability until after easter holidays (only available on Ultimate and Platinum). I imagine SW7 will be the same as thirteen, not available on all until they're absolutely sure the ride is settled and functioning correctly. Even now I find thirteens fastrack is sold acceptably.. the only time when it's not, is scarefest when it was affected by hotel fastrack. Free fastrack, and therefore not sold.. (Dark Forest tickets decreased at same time) As for queues as well, unless there was technical issues (even first day) there weren't queues of over 50mins. Sub terras first day (although, yes, not a coaster but popular for a new ride) had 40min queues. I just don't expect it to make much of a difference, if its running at full capacity with no issues. Oblivion, well thats always busy in the morning then dead by the afternoon onwards. I imagine all that SW7 will do is make ERT busier, make it very quiet come 10, get busier around lunch then die completely. This is exactly what happened to Nemesis this year where a lot of the time, the only time it had relative queues was around lunch.

It'll be quiet on quiet days, and busy on busy days. As always. Majority of the time I visited to ride swarm, the queue was no more than 5mins. But also a good couple of times I queued almost 2hrs for it. Just depends when you visit. You'd easily get on it though if you wanted to.

The most amount of flooding I've seen before is the grassy area by Vortex get swallowed up. Boo

I'm sorry, didn't realise you were intelligent as you didn't decide to actually put any substance in your post - which is what I was getting at.

Again, depends on the market really. They target a specific group which has been hit quite badly (and noted that they have: Read the mid-year merlin results on merlinentertainments.biz).

Bollocks. It's also about supply and demand. Amazingly, there's higher demand at towers so prices should actually be higher. Stop talking this business/economics **** without actually applying it.

Magic Making was also only 'officially' formed in 2010 as well. We've definitely seen a marked change in attractions since then. We'll exclude storm surge for various reasons. Mainly because we all make cheap mistakes.

It'll be due to damage - they can access the wheels without the pods coming off (they're only wheel pods - you can pull the thing at the bottom and open it to access anything).

Or less emphasis on updating queue times because there's less people going to ride them etc, not that it's right or anything. Rapids and flumes always have a big issue with this - if the queue is small, people expect not to share. Second it gets to a busy level (ones acceptable busyness is anothers outrageous queue remember), then noone wants to share when you try and force. Lego are the only park who actively try to fill boats regardless of queue to counter this issue. As for ORP argument, as long as you don't tell anyone because honestly none of the staff care. Rides staff won't care about an external company, and PicSolve won't care because rapids are their biggest seller of photos in any park anyway. The park is geared towards throughputs and satisfaction on busy times, rather than trying to make every single penny ever.

Holly - issue here being that you just rant without any reasoning, or any logic behind it. Everyones moaning, because they don't see sense behind it. I don't see sense behind it, and that's with connections and a background in business. Why charge so much for what is essentially a travelodge? When your local B&Bs (oh, and travelodge) undercut them quite considerably. They're all rather easy to get to - even if you had to pay for taxi or another mode of transport. So, they decide to price because of convenience. It's convenient to have a hotel on site - however, it needs to reflect true demand. Unless they do offers, people who will want to go to their clubs and late night will realise they save a fair bit for a slight inconvenience. People staying with no evening entertainment or late opening have even less of an excuse, with regular buses or transport to other forms of accomodation. I think they're just pushed the convenience too much, without truely realising their market and competition. Maybe with these prices, they'll engineer "offers" to get people in, or just reduce prices anyway. Time will tell.

Most of under seat workings they can get to by lifting the floor panels up anyway - they don't need the lack of bottom for easy access as they'd theoretically only need to access it in winter (as alton towers does). Probably got taken off and lost though, and it's been an expenditure they'd rather not have.. which is a shame, it makes the ride look ugly and fairgroundy and can have an affect on its reliability during rain as well.

They had job adverts up last year for a PR person - the goal is to turn thorpe into a resort using snoozebox. So yeah, resort status from this year apparently. Ha.

I think we need a radical new way of doing things. Firstly, scrap the thorpe trips. Noone likes thorpe anyway. Let's go towers instead. Secondly, remove all the current members from the meets. It's obviously not working if they don't stay together longer than an hour - this is a people problem, not a trip problem. So by removing them we have a fresh start. Thirdly, announce it randomly spur of the moment. That means people who genuinely wanna go will go. Finally, as everyone says make sure it's all day. No leaving early, if you miss your bus and cant get home, tough. That's what a meets about. You stick together. Might need something to keep people together, either duct tape or hire police with tasers. That's what I've gotta say on the issue.

Air (7) Battle Galleons (4) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age: The 4D Experience (2) Marauder's Mayhem (4) Nemesis (5) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (5) Oblivion (6) Ripsaw (5) Rita (4) Runaway Mine Train (5) Skyride (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (8) Th13teen (5) Gardens +1 Ice Age -1

Air (5) Battle Galleons (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (6) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (6) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (5) Ripsaw (4) Rita (6) Runaway Mine Train (5) Sonic Spinball (1) Skyride (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (7) Th13teen (5) Ripsaw + Spinball -

Air (5) Battle Galleons (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (6) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (6) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (5) Ripsaw (4) Rita (5) Runaway Mine Train (5) Sonic Spinball (4) Skyride (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (5) Th13teen (5) Spinball - gardens +

Because it hasn't a zoo or an estate costing them fortunes? I bet you, if you looked at average guest expenditure, they won't have anything near as much as the average guest of the other parks. Towers goes for the same market, exact same market, during offpeak time. If they had to go £99 for two, with park entry, god knows how thorpe can expect anything more.

To be fair to him - he's compared school trips at thorpe to 2nd busiest day of this season at towers. AstroDan has it spot on, though opening times may affect it slightly (6pm ride close compared to 9pm), due to it being schools the park has walk-on rides after 5 and is dead before 11 as well. Quiet hours compared to busy scarefest.

Yeah I'm sure they've done their market research - they'll know their target market doesn't have any money, and if they cannot afford towers hotel prices and there's many many budget hotels around Staines. Now this is why they've set them higher!

Air (6) Battle Galleons (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Enterprise (1) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (6) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (7) Ripsaw (6) Rita (5) Runaway Mine Train (6) Sonic Spinball (4) Skyride (4) The Flume (4) The Gardens (5) Th13teen (5) Enterprise - gardens +

Air (7) Battle Galleons (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Enterprise (2) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (6) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (6) Oblivion (5) Ripsaw (6) Rita (5) Runaway Mine Train (6) Sonic Spinball (4) Skyride (4) The Flume (4) The Gardens (5) Th13teen (5) RMT +1 Enterprise -1

Awkward. By "ride in the garden" I meant sex.

Win, oakwood securing investment. Sure, it's £4m and it's 7 rides.. probably similar to the pirate area of Lightwater, or Octopus Gardens.. but it's investment. Now, let's hope it works wonders and they can continue to invest!

You can create a ride in the gardens if you really want to... Air (6) Battle Galleons (5) Congo River Rapids (5) Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back (5) Enterprise (4) Hex: The Legend Of The Towers (5) Ice Age The 4D Experience (5) Marauders Mayhem (5) Nemesis (6) Nemesis: Sub-Terra (5) Oblivion (5) Ripsaw (6) Rita (5) Runaway Mine Train (5) Sonic Spinball (3) Skyride (5) The Flume (5) The Gardens (5) Th13teen (5) Spinball - Ripsaw +

Doesn't need a layout, it does exactly what it says on the tin. It's amazing.