Mark9

Love the colour scheme and am intrigued by the wing rider restraints being bought over to the inverter. Also intrigued by its finale, that slow inline twist looks cool. The rest is generic American over-sized B&M but on the plus side it could be a very intense ride. :-D Good to see another Inverter as well, we've had few and far between since Phæton opened in 2007. Thanks to Theme Park Review

More like England according to Americans...

It's always this quiet at this point in the summer holidays as lots of families go on foreign holidays. Towards the end of the holidays we will see a much busier park.

Benin. I was only responding to TPJames who was on a downer about this entire thing. My positive comments back to Thorpe was meant in the way that enthusiasts, at the very least welcome an increase in opening hours. Granted you had a less then perfect trip because of lack of information but I wouldn't want that to stop Thorpe going ahead with this kind of thing in the future. I hope you did relay your comments back to Thorpe's Guest Services when you visited.

I had all that stuff Benin. Wristbands at the entrance, ride queue board working with rides available on it, advertisements around the park saying the top 7 coasters and Storm surge + Tidal wave available. Sure I can be picky and say things like why wasn't Saw and Colossus available dead on 7:30, why was there only three people serving Summer Night tickets at admissions, why were the staff having so much fun on park, why were we forced to go around Tidal Wave for a second go, why at 10:30pm were there only three staff members serving a large queue of people in Bar 360. But I'm not going to be that guy because Thorpe threw on a great event with the park being the best it has been for ten years. They learnt and adapted from the week of your trip and from what I gathered, I visited on the most successful of the days. There are far more important issues within the Merlin group that I could comment on..

You what?! I'm so happy with Capaldi as the twelth Doctor. I've no doubt that he can turn rubbish writing into something genius. He's that kind of actor as whatever I've seen him in, he's class. For those saying he's not Matt Smith, thats the point of Doctor Who.

The point of the event was that there were going to be no queues; on that promise they succeeded. Yesterday, if anything was the true example of it actually being a success. There was about 5 minute waits for Swarm, Stealth and Colossus at points, people were dotted around and enjoying the warm evening. All the park can do is trial the hours and see if people want to stay. All we can do is relay positive feedback to the park and it may return in 2014. It's already provided us with Vortex and Depth Charge opening till 8 (or was it 9) for the rest of August for example.

As an enthusiast thats an easy one. Before, you could tackle the second and third busiest rides in quick succession then a quick skyride over to Forbidden Valley to get a go on Nemmy and Air before facing the crowds at X Sector. Putting you in Forbidden Valley means you are at a slight disadvantage. Do you stay put and get Air out of the way or face the crowds at Rita or The Smiler. It's compounded by being in Forbidden Valley, walking all the way down to Katanga Canyon for Duel and Mine Train means you are in completely the wrong place for when the park does open and you need to get too the busier rides before the crowds too. In other words, not much point in doing ERT anymore. #firstworldproblems.

You're right, I didn't moan when Oblivion left ERT (or when Rita was replaced by Thirteen) because with Smiler still in construction, there was obviously issues. That was one issue, I don't lose it with the one issue. It's when you couple it with other issues such as the poor reliability this year, the loss of hours, the replacement of attractions on ERT with less important (in the eyes of the park) rides. People voting with their feet doesn't work, we've seen that in 2012 when the park was doing ridiculous things like opening Air and Thirteen at 11am or planning on keeping Submission and Enterprise closed for an entire year. I don't really care what the issue is with getting Air open for 9am, the fact is it should be happening as standard. Maybe its to do with the lack of people using ERT to actual ride on the attractions, they would rather queue for Smiler. Air would help matters in getting people to buy into ERT, encouraging people to head over to Forbidden Valley and relieve Smiler for the morning rush. This is supposed to be the UK's premier theme park but they certainly don't act like they are.

I don't know, it was a year ago that Thorpes fright night hours became 10-9. My point really was that you've become somewhat excusing of Towers for their recent decision making, especially when it comes to the perks that are gradually being decreased month by month. As Thorpes hours grow and grow, Alton's are getting worse. It's worrying when the Uk's premier theme park can't open more then one thrill rollercoaster to its ERT line up or keep hours longer when its just opened a brand new, super duper rollercoaster and Thorpe seem to add and add to their offering...

First you were fine (on Towers Street) with the only major ride on ERT being Nemesis (when this time last year we also had Rita and Oblivion) and now you are fine with them yet again reducing the opening hours for its premier yearly event. How far will Towers go before you actually find it a problem that they are taking away and giving nothing back. If it was Thorpe you would be right on their case.

Thinking about it, in the last month or so, Nemesis is the only roller coaster at the park that hasn't had a long period of downtime. It well and truly is the parks star ride

Three very popular rides currently closed. They are having a bit of a mare at the moment.

Forums are about listening to other peoples opinions, responding and having reasonable discussions with like minded people who share the same interests and are able to engage with others without taking offence. People who tend to put their fingers in their ears and say, 'No you're wrong, I'm right' tend not to last very long or even enjoy reading them..

Its currently open..

Nope. If anything it made me want to live there more.

Just came here to post that. Damn it Benzin.

Can't wait to see everyone bright and early tomorrow morning.

According to Ride Times, the queues at the park are very light anyway. Nemesis 5 minute wait.

It's been a bad week for theme parks in general, particularly at Cedar Point. Not only did their boat ride have a narrow escape but a guest was taken to hospital after riding Gatekeeper and a staff member was injured during the night whilst working on Millennium Force. http://www.sanduskyregister.com/article/cedar-point/4292906

What you are looking for is "American B&M"s that are actually half decent"

Ooh... Gamechanger much.

Isn't the Six Flags system flash-pass where an extremely limited number of them are handed out so the park can control how many people go to a ride at any particular point. I admit I know very little about how the system actually runs but I've never heard that it effects the queue lines in an adverse way. Fastrack is always a contentious issue and I know I've been outspoken about in the past. I believe it to be too cheap for what it is offering and is in too high quantity meaning that whenever something does go wrong (for instance, The Smiler today) then the park falls into chaos. Guest Services answer to everything is to give out free fastrack to anyone who makes a complaint. They then help bump up the queues even more. Then sellers are sent to all entrances to sell even more of the things. And then parks offer free fastrack for Oblivion if you prebook tickets for a group of four people. It just becomes a vicious circle where the only answer to anything is fastrack. Even if our parks built a ride like Euro-Mir or Silver-Star they would fastrack the hell out of it so that a ride capable of getting 1,800 an hour, still has a 90 minute queue because no one seems to give a damn about the actual operation of the attractions anymore. It's a ridiculous situation.

I don't really understand why they restrict the capsule in the first place. Surely you buy the thing with the idea that anywhere that does a machine should serve you the drink. We got refused at The Smiler for example, in a two hour queue in the boiling sun. Just seems like a very odd policy to sell you the thing but only let certain places refill it.

Park closes at 10:30. I'm not really in the mood to begrudge the park for not opening that extra half hour when a month ago they weren't even doing this event in the first place.