Mark9

It's outrageous that Griffins Galleon didn't win this.

I'd like to congratulate Benin on finally toppling Marc as the biggest (read, most likely to post) poster on TPM. Well done, Benin. You have won a free ride on Colossus.

Is Ms Powell a special kind of idiot?

I really hate bobsleigh roller coasters, hence Bobbahn's appearance. To be honest though, after the top twenty and the bottom ten, everything else pretty much just fits around and could easily be in a different place the next day. It's very hard to start comparing things like G'Sengte Sau with Colossus for example. Two very different coasters doing totally different things.

They may want to change it on their booking website then, both dates said 10-5 when I booked yesterday.

Just like last year, is my top 91 roller coasters for the Mitch Hawker Poll. Due to the way that Mitch Hawker is set up, I've disregarded what I normally look for in rides and gone for what the ride is just about. Nemesis Alton Towers UK,y,y,1 Katun Mirabilandia IT,y,n,2 Blue Fire Megacoaster Europa Park DE,y,y,3 Shambhala Port Aventura ES,y,y,4 Kumba Busch Gardens Tamp FL,y,n,5 Juvelen Djurs Sommerland DK,y,y,6 Expedition Everest Disney Animal King FL,y,n,7 Favorite Wood Coaster Any Park Anywhere **,y,n,8 Manta SeaWorld Orlando FL,y,n,9 Black Mamba Phantasialand DE,y,n,10 Superman la Atraccion Parque Warner Madr ES,y,n,11 Oblivion Alton Towers UK,y,y,12 iSpeed Mirabilandia IT,y,n,13 Piraten Djurs Sommerland DK,y,y,14 SheiKra Busch Gardens Tamp FL,y,n,15 The Smiler Alton Towers UK,y,y,16 Dragon Khan Port Aventura ES,y,y,17 Euro-Mir Europa-Park DE,y,y,18 Speed: No Limits Oakwood UK,y,n,19 The Swarm Thorpe Park UK,y,y,20 OzIris Parc Asterix FR,y,n,21 Nemesis Inferno Thorpe Park UK,y,y,22 Rock n Roller Coaster Disney's H Studios FL,y,n,23 Chinese Fireball Islands of Adventu FL,y,n,24 Hungarian Horntail Islands of Adventu FL,y,n,25 Silver Star Europa-Park DE,y,y,26 Kraken SeaWorld Orlando FL,y,n,27 Big Thunder Mountain WDW Magic Kingdom FL,y,n,28 Minetrain Ulven Bakken DK,y,y,29 Euro-Sat Europa-Park DE,y,y,30 Hollywood Rip Ride Ro Universal Studios FL,y,n,31 Fav Wild Mouse Any Park Anywhere **,y,n,32 Dragon's Fury Chessington UK,y,n,33 Colorado Adventure Phantasialand DE,y,n,34 Temple of Nighthawk Phantasialand DE,y,n,35 Incredible Hulk Islands of Adventu FL,y,n,36 Winjas - Fear Phantasialand DE,y,n,37 Batman The Ride/Clone SF & Other Parks **,y,n,38 G'sengte Sau Tripsdrill DE,y,n,39 Expedition GeForce Holiday Park DE,y,n,40 Space Mountain Disneyland Paris FR,y,y,41 Montu Busch Gardens Tamp FL,y,n,42 Revenge of the Mummy Universal Studios FL,y,n,43 Skatteoen Djurs Sommerland DK,y,y,44 Fav Powered `Coaster' Any Park Anywhere **,y,y,45 Thor's Hammer Djurs Sommerland DK,y,y,46 Lynet Farup Sommerland DK,y,y,47 Polar X-Plorer Legoland Billund DK,y,y,48 Raptor Gardaland IT,y,n,49 Matterhorn Blitz Europa-Park DE,y,y,50 Journey to Atlantis SeaWorld Orlando FL,y,n,51 Abismo Parque de Atraccio ES,y,n,52 Crush's Coaster Walt Disney Paris FR,y,y,53 Tarantula Parque de Atraccio ES,y,n,54 Tornado Parque de Atraccio ES,y,n,55 Stealth Thorpe Park UK,y,y,56 Big Thunder Mountain Disneyland Paris FR,y,y,57 Fav Arrow Mine Train Any Park Anywhere **,y,y,58 Fav Mack Supersplash Any Park Anywhere **,y,y,59 Poseidon Europa-Park DE,y,y,60 Goudurix Parc Asterix FR,y,n,61 Daemonen Tivoli Gardens DK,y,y,62 Trace Du Hourra Parc Asterix FR,y,n,63 Mammut Gardaland IT,y,n,64 Indiana Jones et le t Disneyland Paris FR,y,y,65 Shock Rainbow Magicland IT,y,n,66 Air Alton Towers UK,y,y,67 Space Mountain WDW Magic Kingdom FL,y,n,68 Colossus Thorpe Park UK,y,y,69 Thirteen Alton Towers UK,y,y,70 Pepsi Max Big One Blackpool P.B. UK,y,n,71 Shockwave Drayton Manor UK,y,n,72 Cobra Paulton's Park UK,y,n,73 Winjas - Force Phantasialand DE,y,n,74 Steeplechase Blackpool P.B. UK,y,n,75 Cagliostro Rainbow Magicland IT,y,n,76 Vild-Svinet BonBon-Land DK,y,y,77 Rock n Roller Coaster Walt Disney Paris FR,y,y,78 Vampire Chessington UK,y,n,79 Avalanche Blackpool P.B. UK,y,n,80 Fav Vekoma Corkscrew Any Park Anywhere **,y,n,81 Cheetah Hunt Busch Gardens Tamp FL,y,n,82 Rita Alton Towers UK,y,y,83 X Thorpe Park UK,y,y,84 Schweizer Bobbahn Europa-Park DE,y,y,85 Sonic Spinball Alton Towers UK,y,y,86 G Force Drayton Manor UK,y,y,87 Saw - The Ride Thorpe Park UK,y,y,88 Sequoia Adventure Gardaland IT,y,n,89 Tornado Bakken DK,y,y,90 Furius Baco Port Aventura ES,y,y,91

I find the obsession with flat rides fascinating. How many go to Thorpe because they are desperate for a ride on Samurai for example. The only flat ride that I have ever seen maintain its popularity is Rush, everything else from Blade to Rameses, Rodeo (RIP) to Detonator always has minimal queues. It's good for ride counts but not good if a flat rides purpose is to divert queues away from the rollercoasters. And then there is the question of what flat ride would be significant, with a high enough throughput and impressive enough to cope with Alton Towers business, especially when its next to Oblivion and the Smiler.

I'm with you Josh. Compared to the horrors that Alton and Chessington have unleashed, Thorpes record is near exemplary. I bet they quickly learned their lessons when Vortex opened three months late in 2001 and since then, Thorpes rides have always opened on schedule.There's no "quick get the queue line built" like Alton.

Mack and Intamins are sinmilarily priced (depending on the kind of ride you want). Intamin work out more expensive from maintenance point of view, therefore a Mack would be a better investment. To be honest though, I don't think Drayton will go down that road.

We got more, for instance there's no metal box thing at the top of that promo image whereas in real life we do have that. We win

Does Health and safety go mad? Or is it the park knee jerking to some report it may have got somewhere along the line. A caution uneven step sign would have been more then adequate but for the park to just cordone it off with an ugly metal fence.. hmmm.

The bars did the wobble when it was at Chessington. It's nothing to worry about though, no ones plunged to their deaths yet.

I'd only get mildly irritated at Chessington, Sochi gives me the opportunity to ride Blue Fires yellow brother AND be arrested. And to make this on topic... Yay, go Liseberg. I can see my hotel I'm staying in.. just praying we have a room overlooking Helix. That would be so so so sweet.

*Cancels trip, goes to Sochi instead.

hehe, 69.

I'll try and be as polite as possible Holly. Suffice to say I don't have to go and run a business before I have a viewpoint on how Merlin operates. I won't even need to compare with Disney to prove my point either. Oh, so you mean the process of letting a rides theming getting so beyond repair that the only option is to tear it all down, replace it with the bare minimum and then stick small cactuses around it. If that's how a business works, I'm surprised my Waitrose hasn't just torn all the light fittings down, hired convicts and let them do the work. Who needs to look presentable when a cactus and a bog standard, brown repaint will do. Oh okay. Well considering the majority of us want Chessington to be a successful theme park with rides that fit their surroundings, rides that are looked after and maintained to a high quality as well as worthwhile additions maybe we are expecting too much. I'll tell you what though, if a multi million pound company like Merlin cannot afford to give Runaway Train a decent look then maybe we really are in trouble. I suppose we'll have to make do with several new Legolands in Asia to compensate. Yeah.. that sounds great. It's a brown Flying Fish with a scorpion that shoots water at you. It's not that hard to imagine what that experience will be like. Yeah, most of that is because the small businesses are not able to compete with the larger businesses that are dominating the market. Large businesses like Morrisons are down on profit because they are not adapting fast enough to an increasingly changing online market. Places like Woolworths closed down because of the size of the business being too big for the lack of profit the stores were bringing in. Go and run Paultons or Drayton and come back and tell me why they have been able to remain successful despite a biting recession and the hand of Merlin dominating the theme park market in the UK.

For the purposes of this post I'm not defending Merlin in anyway. As is said time and time again, Merlin only see themselves competing with Disney in terms of size. Merlin would never even consider spending 80 million pounds on a Vekoma family roller coaster for example, Expedition Everest would be far too ambitious for a company like Merlin that likes to spend money very carefully on safe attractions. No, it's nothing to do with Disney this. It's everything to do with Merlin and its lack of interest in its own parks. Back in 1986 when Runaway Train was first constructed, it was probably built on far less of a budget and in far less time then Merlin have had with this Scorpion attraction. In my eyes they have truly squandered an opportunity to give new life to Runaway. Where's the proper refurbishment such as a new train with individual lap bars like Flying Fish had? Where's the actual theming? That water effect and fire effect will last a week knowing Merlin's track record. So then what. I want to be enthusiastic about it I really do. Runaway was my first real ride so I have very nostalgic views on it. And I want it to be excellent. But Chessington don't seem to want to take that extra step, to even attempt to compete with European parks or even places like Paultons or Drayton.

That should be Chessingtons tagline, it's certainly the way the park seems to operate currently.

I think it is just part of the bigger problem at Chessington. It's been closed for four months, it should technically be in a nice clean state for the season ahead. But it isn't. Brushing it off (no pun intended) because there are much bigger fish to fry is exactly the reason why the park is in such a rubbish way.

I can't think of the last time Merlin built something that wasn't based around a ride and was just a nice thing for the park to have. The fountains at Blackpool come under a lot of attack but they are scenically nice. Merlin don't do that. In fact, aside from Oblivion, I don't think there's a single ride that has properly come under refurbishment with Merlin. I'm not even bothering to include Scorpion Express here as it seems unless the ride has condemned theming, the rides are just left to their own devices. Blackpool has problems but the work it has done on Revolution, Big Dipper and Valhalla is miles beyond Merlins work.

I like the first drop on that, very sweet, particularly for a floor less type. Nice healthy B&M roar too Never ever gonna happen at Thorpe, Alton or any other UK park unfortunately, it's just not gimmicky enough for our shores.

Needs more Merlin put downs. 5/10

Merlin.

So I've been reading this little number on Towers Street http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2014/animals-to-leave-alton-towers/ and I now know what my problem with CBeebies land is. It's utterly charmless. The thing with Old McDonalds Farm and Storybook Land was its unassuming nature, how it was a nice quiet area, specifically designed for young 'uns to see animals and engage in attractions which were full of character like Riverbank Eye Spy or Squirrel Nutty. When you look at the over head pictures from the TOWERS TIMES CHOPPER OF DOOM, it reminds me of the Rumba Rapids retheme in 2002, bright, colourful and utterly garish and tacky. It's not even about my lack of interest because it's not aimed at me, I thought Riverbank was a great little ride, the Farmhouse with all the animals singing together was typical of the park during the 90's and I really thought Squirrel Nutty was a top notch ride. I really fear that the IP is going to run riot like a wrecking ball in what was a great little area.

What like Bakken and a review of Furius Baco?