Mark9

There's a pun in there, screaming to get out.

When I next plan to go to a park, I'll be messaging you to make sure you aren't going on the same day... just to... you know... make sure...

Looking forward to this immensely. I do love a B&M invert. Also hoping for the old restraint system which are perfect for the ride type. The new ones are ride destroyers.

I love this. You should have asked to speak to the Engineering manager.

Easy thread for today. What rides have you been stuck on and what rides have you been evacuated from? For example I was stuck on Inferno's break run for twenty minutes once. So.. *coughs* - Icon. Stuck on the break run in the pouring rain for ten minutes. Got given a poncho. Nice. - Detonator. Stuck at the top for fifteen minutes. Had to be winched slowly down. We ate cookies that I had in my pocket. Got comped a free ticket to come back. Cheers Thorpe. - Dragon Falls. Boat stopped at the bottom of lift one. Got an exit pass. - Stealth. Kind of launched but then slowed immediately and stopped on the launch track. Eventually made it back to the station and got let off. - Indiana Jones Adventure. Got about half way through the ride when the house lights came on, walk ways sprung up and slowly got evacuated through the ending of the ride. Makes you realise how steep everything is and how most affects are just black light paintings. Got given a free Fastpass for re-entry. -Peter Pans Flight at DLP - Got to the final scene when all the lights came on. Cast Member in a hat came round declaring we'd lost our pixie dust. No gifts. - Dragons Fury - Numerous block shutdowns. Makes sense when I worked on the thing I suppose. - Autopia at Disneyland California. A car stopped in a bad place so we had to walk the track to get out.

In 2005, I was fortunate enough to attend an ECC meet up which featured a meal and talk with the Bryant family that owned Drayton and back then, their hopes were high. Hotels, big coaster investments the works. The years have't been kind to the park truth be told and I think when G Force closed, the early warning signs were there. It's somewhat of a shame that its come to this. Their heavy investment at the turn of the millennium with Apocalypse, Maelstrom, Stormforce 10 and G Force showed a park with intent but it never recovered from the Smiler's crash effect on the industry or the death on Splash Canyon. Whilst it will never get that level of investment again, at least jobs have been saved and the park can continue to function.

I really enjoyed the twitter enthusiasts trying to make it a meme yesterday and failing miserably.

I think it takes massive guts to name a rollercoaster 'the Smiler', brand it the way they did and even after a horrific first year and an awful crash that sent Merlin into free-fall, still come out of it as one of the strongest visual images the company has ever had.

So here's the Thorpe problem in a nutshell. Their investment in the 2000's was big. it was exciting, it was dynamic, it was a dream to be a Uk theme park fan with rides left right and centre. But the Thorpe problem comes down to a lack of space and a lack of diversity. They've got themselves into a rut when The Swarm kind of failed. Their target audience demands the newest, most exciting attractions. Who cares about Colossus and its measly ten inversions when The Smiler has fourteen.So then when they fail to grow, they start to downsize. The problems start to increase. The lack of investment means a lack of return which just spirals until we get to now. Thorpe doesn't have the advantages of the family market. Chessington went through a similar slump when it left the thrill market altogether and turned to family. The difference there though is that the family market spends money. Kids demand toys and treats. Ap family holders are all too happy to grab a nice meal and a pint with their family. They like staying in an over-priced hotel. Kerching. Thorpe's target audience doesn't. Thorpe AP holders are happy to only spend a pound in the park all day. It starts to cost too much money to remove the SBNO attractions. Just build a wall. Who do you target at now when the bulk of your attractions are thrill heavy. Really there is absolutely no reason why the park couldn't build a family rollercoaster or some entry level flat rides (give me a breakdance you cowards). But they won't because all they want are headlines and aren't interested in sustaining the park beyond the end of the financial year. So we get short term rubbish like I'm a Celeb or Black Mirror instead of attractions that stand the test of time. I'm amazed that Chessington actually replaced Black Bucaneer and are replacing Rameses with a generic drop tower AND redid Tomb Blaster AND built a Rainforest area, refurbishing Toadies and building a Log Flume at the same time. This stuff never happens at Merlin, it will certainly never happen at Thorpe because the idea of cookie-cutter attractions would never fly. So instead the current attractions just age away and nothing gets built or done. If you were to ask me what Thorpe should do, I'd go with refurbish attractions, build rides that attract a wider audience and beef up that awful entrance with a new look and better security stations. Inferno shouldn't be turning green, family rollercoasters are awesome additions and a stabbing should never be able to happen again. There is absolutely no point in building an RMC or B&M Hyper if the rest of the park looks like a rubbish dump. Putting a bow on trash is still trash. And that for me is the Thorpe problem.

The problem with agendas is thats its very easy to see through them. No it isn't the parks fault that someone got attacked. Your equivalency with a terrorist attack is ridiculous or are you saying it's the airlines fault for 9/11 and the plane hijacking. That last sentence by the way, all park queue times across the board are up. I never used to queue more then 10 minutes for Nemesis (alton towers for all those that call Inferno the wrong name) and now queues sit at half an hour at minimum. Thats what happens when you social distance and clean the seats and restraints every half an hour. Thats something the park is doing for guest safety so to sit there and say the park doesn't care about care and experience is so wildly of the mark its in Brazil.

Nemesis made me feel alive after months and months of constant depressing news. It is unlike any other ride for me. It's the small things. I love how the top of the lift hill is at ground level which is just pure uniqueness, I love how its first drop is so gradual and then it just throws you into the tour de force of element and element, getting faster and faster until the vertical loop. I love the terrain, the way you explore every element of the ride and are up close and personal with the trains. I love how this is a B&M that they will never even attempt to build anything like again because of the difficulties with the ride and it's shifting environment. I love its unique theme, how the station is the monster itself or how its just a capacity machine with a queue that never stops moving. I love how 26 years later it is considered to be one of the very best rides B&M have ever built and one of the best rollercoasters ever made. I love how it can be endlessly compared to its younger brother at Thorpe and how we have two rides with the same elements in a completely different order. I love how it only came about because of two cancelled projects and the launch of Batman: The Ride in Great America, without all these things coming together, we may have never got Nemesis and Alton Towers would be a vastly different place. When I think of perfect rides, only Nemesis can ever fit the target. For me its what rides are supposed to represent and be all about, the passion, the drama, the soul of creativity. Long live the queen, the Jurassic Park of 1994.

Are you trying to get more members to leave or something?

No they're on. It's also the ride most affected by social distancing with the lowest capacity and longest queues on park. Definitely recommended to get it done early. Sometimes a maximum of six people were being loaded onto each train from the main queue.

Two seasons on and I think Wicker Man has embedded itself as one of Alton's best coasters. At first it may have been the novelty of a wooden coaster at the park but now, it's up there with Nemesis and The Smiler for me. it was running very well at the weekend.

The last thing they would want is Peeking Heights back, it was by a long shot, one of the more complicated rides at Chessington and could be incredibly dangerous if it started to spin out of control.