Fred

Yeah, it'd only be done out of their preference. Maybe out of ease etc. Less people inside = better queue time viewing for guests, doesn't overheat inside, less chance for vandalism or problems inside where guests are difficult to access.

I don't see why they're not at all - they save next to no money (maybe a whole one extra member of staff), yet make a huge impact on a guests day. A manager stated to me reason why they don't do it, or takes a while is because it takes 3hrs to check a train. Not an excuse in my opinion, if towers can manage with exactly same opening hours (ala last couple of weeks of season), then thorpe can definitely do it. As for Air - they'dve got that wrong. It was open 2 stations, 3 crafts majority of the day. Only reason one station would be down and a train "stripped" is due to a locking pin error. It happens almost daily on that ride, where they have to remove the hiberglass off one of the rows to remove and change the pin. It was on full capacity by end of the day. They don't do any stripping of any crafts whatsoever in the stations for winter work.

Don't even need a headstart. They've got til late march to get rides done. Plenty, seriously plenty, of time.

Warwick Castle is interesting in it's own right. It's okay, but extremely "merlin". If you don't have a premium annual pass, expect to pay a lot to enter or do most of the attractions around the site. For free, there's a couple of shows, you can walk about in a few of the rooms (with added tussauds waxworks which makes no sense - speak to a guide and all of the figures in the rooms never visited the place), and you get to walk that 500odd step thing. That's a good view though. Foodwise - they do an amazing carvery there. Amazing. Apart from that, it's really just a castle. And if you like castles, it's better going to somewhere run by English Heritage.

Definitely family orientated accomodation again, hence the 4 bed things. Unsure if it says in planning applications, as haven't read them, but they are aiming to be like Centerparcs. I imagine it'll be for longer stays than hotels.

Yeah he's definitely right - only a quick google search confirms that they Pizza Hut own and run the brand at thorpe. Wonder if KFC is run by YUM! as well, don't pay too much attention to the registered business documents on the walls when ordering.

Hotels, apart from this year, are usually fully booked throughout the season. Sure, they give discounts, but it's still a hefty profit in the making. They know exactly what they're doing - and to have theming like this has actually surprised me. I know they're aiming for the multi-night visitors, those which'll also visit the nearby Peak District and stuff. If they end up being anything like this, well that's just impressive. I wanna be a hobbit.

The system, if indeed it is like Ian says, is flawed as sales can very easily ignore whatever live information they get fed (of which, I doubt is any), and just use their maximum fastrack slots available for each ride.

So that's why they have problems then - at least both Towers and Chessie have maximum limits, and do actually sell out of tickets etc, particularly time slotted ones. Shame/weird.

Best thing about thorpe is their lack of sales and info points - it steadies the flow further of fastrack sales having one central unit rather than loads. If anything, sort out the queueline or increase prices so they don't wanna buy, rather than increase units - they'll just end up having same problems they had in first place, and reason they shut them in first place!

Bit of a weird thing to say, a break from thorpe park. They're completely different bloody markets! Never been longleat, been West Midlands Safari Park twice this year though. If its anything like that, it's pretty damn cool. Though I adore WMSP's rides <3

^Is that in favour of fastrack, coming from a fastracker then? Getting front row of every other car is awful. Don't blame poor retail benin, fastrack come under Marketing dept in all the parks bar lego, where it's concessions. Poor guys.

People really shouldn't consider the Passing as a fastrack maze - it's a paid for maze. So you would still have to queue. Just a shame it was that length of queue, and that it was a crap attraction.

There is literally two bits of track on carpark J against the side. They aren't fenced off, but do however have a sign asking people not to climb on them!!

Most of the parks capacity is led by carparking spaces, rather than the real capacity. Lego "capacity" now is 16,000 guests, as measured by car parking spaces. However, they hit their all-time high attendance at almost 22k in 2009.

They can't change the trains! Surely they're now the only things left with the 90s thorpe logo on them?

Is Pizza Hut run as an actual pizza hut then, not as a franchise like KFC and BK do? The park's don't generally give a monkeys what those really earn, if they can improve guest satisfaction, improve revenue and profit margins for themselves, they'll happily remove the external companies. It all depends on whether thorpe thinks its the right time to part with them, whether their consumers will be happy without the high street brands, to trust and spend the same amount etc. Chessie and Towers obviously feel it's the right time, so surely it'll only be a matter of seasons til they disappear from thorpe as well.

Mate, not turning up for first week for that excuse is epic. Literally, you'll be known as hurricane kid forever. Plus it'll be good as an ice breaker for every single future interview or thing ever.

Wow that is one weird control panel. Almost like driving a bus init

If it's a twist, it's an incredibly huge twist! There's barely anything you can compare, apart from the people are a bit loony!

Because it's a paid system, they generally accept the tickets anytime after the time slot, just not before. Hence problems being created, if they do go back to sales & info to change the ticket, it'll just be written on, rather than changing the allocation quota. However the system definitely does seem ingrained. The amount of people who ask where to buy fastrack when the queue board extremely clearly says "5 minutes" is ridiculous.

Just as an inside thing about towers - fastrack hasn't increased this year, it hasn't really been any worse. Only times it fails is when hotel fastrack is included, or a major ride breaks down. Which, if you read into that topic on towers street, is what they're actually moaning about. Thorpe, on the other hand, is more than happy to sell fastrack when they don't have staffing levels to cope with it (on the "quiet" days for instance). There's a huge, huge, change in attitude and approach to fastrack between both parks.

Towers Pizza and Pasta is £9.95, and you can gain discount.. Dunno why anyone thinks it's good value to spend a tenner on pizza. Honestly. You'll eat about £3s worth. Spose that's what you get with "all you can eat", people just presume it's value.

Whats cheetah hunt's grade?

Same program. Definitely know which one's better to watch and be on . (For reference: Can't compare the first cycle on Rameses, purely because it's **** and Ripsaw doesn't have one like it.. best one to compare is programme 7, look on towers street forum to see which one that is).