Mark9

Qui a besoin du monde, quand tout ce que vous avez besoin est une terre When choosing the trips for 2013 there was two that were outright yes's and two that came about quite by chance. Disneyland Paris was not an all and all winner, in fact Chris and I were putting off Disney until our California trip next May. However with Disney extending their 20th Anniversary celebrations and with Chris feeling a little Disney craving, we decided to go for Paris even with no Ratatouille. After a speedy 2 and a half hours of Eurostar fun we arrived at the resort. The first thing that hit me is how immediate Paris is compared to Florida. I think inevitably, Florida may crop up again and again as it my theme park benchmark and for me holds a lot of loved memories. Whereas with Florida, a long journey from the airport gets you just within the gates of the World, here you stumble out the station into the Downtown area. I somehow missed the tower despite the fact it was my most eagerly anticipated ride. We made our way to our hotel, Sequoia Lodge, a hotel themed around the Wildnerness. Bambi seemed the most prominent character Checking in complete and with a bit of Mark9 persuasion, Chris relcutantly said we could have a go on Tower of Terror and also the Army Man parachute thing. The first because it's my favourite ride ever and the second ride was because the next day it was to be closed the rest of our holiday for refurbishment. Our first stop however was the Early of Sandwich which is better then the other fast food offering at the resort. TASTY. Aww. When walking into Disney Studio Park the first thing that really struck is how it is pretty much Hollywood Studios but on a smaller budget and much smaller. The Tower immediately dominates the entire park, hell it can even be seen from Big Thunder Mountain and the Alice in Wonderland maze. The other thing that hit us what the park was busy. We checked out the queue boards and 35 minutes for Rock 'N Rollercoaster, 60 minutes for Army Man Parachute ride and finally a cool 80 minute wait for the Tower of Terror (Which was only running two out of three lift shafts) mmmm 80. After a bit of wondering checking out just how small the place truly is, we settled for Army Man parachute ride, considering it would be our only chance to ride it. The first thing I have to say is that the queue really was 60 minutes so it was accurate at least. The second thing is that the queue line really was too wide allowing Spanish families to queue jump at will. You may think I'm generalising but the majority of the time it is Spanish groups who create problems at theme parks and after all, I have experienced PortAventura where queuing isn't mandatory. The ride itself is okay but not worth an hour waiting time. We had a wonder around Toy Story Playland including seeing Rex, leaving Toy Story Land to see Ratatouille construction and then re-entered Toy Story Land to leave for Tower of Terror. The Tower. Ey Ey Ey. It is my favourite ride bar none and is truly exceptional. All of the Tower staff need to be paid more for their efforts for example. They don't just work on a ride, they act the part of creepy bell-hops, grinning oddly at guests or deliberately running through the lift doors in utter panic scaring guests silly with their screaming. They help to make each ride that little bit different. The ride itself, well I was reading through a few other trip reports and saw a lot prefer this tower to the Florida one. Both have so much merit but I actually ended up preferring the Florida one. Sometimes the waiting around for a lift in Paris got a bit tedious, what with this tower using two different levels of loading. The actual ride experience is probably just that little bit better then Florida however but ultimately Florida's to me feels more efficient and looks far more interesting then Paris's more blockier, blander look. I still love both though and could photo it all day. And with our rides ridden, we decided to go back to the hotel and get myself a hair cut before heading to Annettes for some food. Themed around an American diner, this wasn't bad food and I liked how some of the staff went about on roller-skates. Bed time, ready for a full on day at Disneyland Parc.

Point is though Josh, there was a six year gap between Hydra and Hair Raiser. Not proof that a Stand Up could become a potential ride, just proof that rides do come out of limbo.

I'm with Pluk here. Lets protest, lets chain ourselves to the singing tractor. OLD MCDONALD HAS A FARM!

Send that message to Thorpe Park if I were you. Although I'm amused that you'd rather spend a whole lot more money on petrol and a hotel rather then an extra fiver to get into Thorpe.

Don't get the logic here. We shouldn't get an 150 foot ride because it will affect the look of another ride?

http://mark2262.wordpress.com/2013/09/02/why-ive-turned-a-corner-why-ive-seen-the-light/ Once upon a time I hated Intamin. And now I don't. Find out why in this amazing, one of a kind blog. Comments welcome on here or on the page.

Shame.. you shouldn't have bothered with Matterhorn Blitz and ridden Eurosat instead. Out of the two, Eurosat is a far superior ride. Hey de ho.

It's more that they find it boring then they find it stressful. You are naturally interested in rides (I presume ) so have a vested interest in hitting throughputs and working hard all the time. These people living in Staines, going to College or University probably could care less that there are people queuing hours out there for a single go on the ride (I know they should care but you will always get the bad egg in a group). Best way of motivating the staff is to do these power hours. I used to do it at Fury all the time, by essentially bribing the staff with a reward such as a round at the pub (or a nice coke for those under 18's ) for the group or the person who works the hardest getting something for their efforts.

Rollercoaster is a toss up between Furius Baco and Tornado at Bakken. Any other ride.. Top spins are pretty much universally boring whether they are Huss or Fabbri and I despise Storm Surge.

Thorpe fanboys then.

Seems fine to me. Power hour at the rides busiest hour, trying to get the highest throughput recorded on Inferno. Not a "we will work poorly for the rest of the time then really hard for an hour" like some of these ex-ride staff seem to be saying.

I'm reposting this from Dar on Towers Street, it represents and epitomises the problems that are like a rampant curse at Chessington these days. it's proove that the park desperately needs another high capacity rollercoaster more then any other investment currently.

100% Agreed. I'd spend a long time at Oakwood just for Speed and especially Megafobia.

I'm only semi serious. I just couldn't begrudge £5 for what is essentially 5-10 minute queues for the parks main rides. I find it hard to think of that as poor value when you could pay £6 to ride Brighton Piers Turbo once or the amount people pay for Chessington to get on Seastorm and Skyway. What Thorpe offer looks like great value to me.

Would you mind answering my question on how many rides you got on please. MY GOD NO! NOT A TWO MINUTE WAIT FOR A ROLLERCOASTER! No wonder you are outraged.

Wait hang on. How many rides did you get on exactly?

Batman La Fuga and Superman de Acero in the same park is 132 centimetre height restriction and Oz'Iris had a sign saying it was 1.3 metres So they are out there.

Literally just explained that isn't the problem. You can have 15,000 people in a theme park getting on several rides but if the operations are rubbish then they aren't getting on anything.

I quoted your whole post because.. well I can. Thing is, I Disagree. B&M have proved that they can cater the hyper to smaller sizes, take Hollywood Dream at Universal Japan. That's a maximum height of 144 feet and takes many of its air time hills just above pathways and buildings. Thorpe, if they wanted, could easily ask for it to be similar height to The Swarm, make the trains shorter and then woolah, you've got a mega coaster. B&M are not against shortening trains or fitting into tight spaces either, take Dæmonen with its six row floorless trains or the way it was wedged into Tivoli Gardens. The thing with Universal and Busch is that it doesn't hold much weight. Universal built Rip Ride Rockit which does intrude on that side of the park, Busch Gardens (I know you specified Tampa, but I'm talking the company in general) have the stylised Apollos Chariot or Kumba and Sheikra. Even Disney has the high rides but it has the dollars to build a ridiculous amount of theming to hide the height. They even sold Expedition Everest on the back of its expensive installation costs. The Sore thumb. Mack can surprise you. Back in 2009, no one thought Blue Fire would be able to be as fantastic as it could be and there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't build a mega coaster if they were asked to. Afterall, rides with air time are in vogue at the moment, the success of Shambhala, Leviathan, Intimidator305 and the likes of Piraten won't have gone a miss.

The difference is Matt, Thorpe has had the Lions share of the investment over the last ten years whilst Chessington has been left to crumble into the state its become. It's all coming to a head this season. Ironically, the one year where they get a new attraction and good weather is the year that Runaway and Rameses becomes SBNO. If it was at Thorpe, it wouldn't matter if Flying Fish spent a year out but because it's Chessington where Runaway is one of the higher capacity attractions (at 650 pph), having it closed has a major knock on effect. Of course, I'm not saying its just Runaway, it's a culmination of Vampire being condemned to two trains, lower attendance's when the park opened in March leading to budget cuts through the rest of the year and a park that is basically falling to its knees. What they really need to do is get a high capacity rollercoaster like Pegasus or Juvelen in, a ride which gobbles through people but the park won't do that so it's a waste of time going down that road and even if it did get one of those rides in, it would be run so dismally that queues would be two hours long and it wouldn't help in anyway. Talking about Chessington just brings people down in other words, lets discuss a park that gives a toss like Thorpe or Europa Park.

Wow. Not even the busy (Or what I would have considered busy rides back in 2005) rides done. Crazy.

Very busy is my best bet. Last few days of school holidays, potential of good weather. Perfect recipe for busy.

Boring, rubbish looking ride. Colour me not interested in these inverting woodies.

SO FIT! (Thanks to Theme Park Collective)

When's Batman going backwards out of interest?