Mark9

I love that you've made up this story based almost on entirely nothing. You could be right. But this fantasy is superb. You should work for Disney.

The dark rides are pretty alright. Never perfect, never outrageously awful. Of the newer era, Gruffalo is probably my favourite as it ticks all the targets of what it sets out to do and I find it disarmingly charming. Naturally, rides like Professor Burps Bubbleworks & Hex will always be my favourite dark rides the UK has ever had, purely from a rose tinted glasses position.

I love how wild some of those theoretical throughputs are. Colossus for example is so wildly over exaggerated by Intamin. Where is that Tidal Wave capacity from, I always assumed it was around 1000 an hour on three boats.

So I thought this was going to be a clone of Chessington's wing rider, but based on the pictures showing a lift hill it most certainly isn't. I'm even more intrigued now.

Back in the 80's Towers went from garden with the odd slide to a fully fledged amusement park. The locals already lived there and yes it caused massive issues. In the times we live in, things are very different and the locals seem much more forgiving of the noise from Towers. That being said, Nemesis received noise complaints in 2009 because of new wheels being louder. It just makes sense for Towers to get on with its neighbours. They know the value Towers brings to the area but their lives shouldn't be ruined by the park either.

Depends what they are doing exactly. And depends how good they want the attraction to be. I'm not sure how I feel about Towers opening up in 2023 with no Nemesis or Duel. It's not like Hex or Enterprise will be open and we can't rely on them getting fairground rides in again. Towers really needs to get a grip on what its offering has become. It's shockingly bad. Even going into Autumn this year with only one dark ride remaining is pretty indicative of where Towers sits right now.

I feel like I'm living in the past. If I remember correctly it was on Stealth, Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, Samurai, Saw & Vortex (maybe Rush as well). I doubt if its successful on Saw, that we will see it on many other rides, for example Colossus where SRQ was at the ride exit. I fell in-between the train once doing single rider on that because the queuing guests always sat on the left hand side of the train and the single rider always had to cross the train, normally in-between the carriages. Dangerous AF. There just isn't the space for it to be run properly at Thorpe. Even Towers which cut a giant huge hole into the Nemesis station for it, gave up after a few seasons.

I'm very excited. Very Very excited. I'm flying the flag for 8 year old Mark.

The cynic in me wants to know why a seasonal theme park needs 'scheduled closures' but I like the transparency of letting us know what planned maintenance is coming up.

Yup like I said earlier. This is why knee jerk reactions proclaiming the end of Scorpion Express aren't very helpful. This isn't the first time something like this has happened on scorpion, back when I used to work on it as Runaway Train, it was a known potential when operating the ride.

Update from today is that guests can now walk down into that area and the train is parked in the maintenance area (the lowest part of the ride, just before the station).

This is a semi regular occurrence for Scorpion, it will be a motor blow out and will require a replacement. So it will just depend on how quickly Mack can get that to Chessington.

Yeah maybe, Sounds like they got you good and proper though if the two best rollercoasters were walk on.

So this was confirmed as a B&M a few weeks back, some super zoomed in photos. It's code number is WI-R (for context, Raptor was WI-A and The Swarm was WI-B). I know this project has a lot of people who think this is a mistake. For me, I dreamed of B&M track at Chessington ever since I first saw Nemesis in 2000. The thought of this super luxury rollercoaster opening at my childhood park makes me so happy, like Chessington is finally entering the big leagues after years of being in the shadow of its sister park next door. As pure conjecture, with Legoland Deutschland rumoured to be getting a B&M wing-rider as well, it would be safe to assume that the model could be coming to several Legoland Parks across the globe. Sorry Windsor, not you.

So your ideas are for Thorpe to become completely unoriginal and just get the same rides that its sister park has got/is getting.

I personally prefer Chessington. The place has done a lot of work over the years to bring rides back to scratch and we can argue for the hills whether Runaway Train with its mountain landscape is better then Scorpion Express is with its Mexican inspired surroundings, the fact is, a lot of rides are looking really nice right now. There's been a concentrated effort and I think the park is the best its looked for twenty years. For me, Chessington is the closest we have to a theme park with European sensibilities. Where theme parks have a sense of fun and discovery.

I guess when I said at the start 'wouldn't say its a park that anyone has a huge itch to get to' I guess Cedar Fair agree too. What a shame and probably been on the cards pre-pandemic hence why Orion went to a different park instead. I can see Rail Blazer moving to another park in the chain and potentially Gold Striker. But Patriot, very unlikely and Flight Deck has limited options within the Cedar Fair chain. Demon and Grizzly are toast.

I find the Nemesis commentary quite funny actually. I don't know many rollercoasters that have reached nearly their 30th year that don't have a couple of rougher moments. It's almost like Nemesis is held to this god like standard and if there is ever a slight rattle has to be commented on. Wicker Man always surprises me. In my head its a middle of the road woodie but after getting off, I love it every time. GCI woodies are pretty special. Just a small piece of advice on your reviews, I've read quite a few of your trip reports and for each ride you repeat the line 'we decided to give it a go'. Try changing that description because as I'm reading through, its all I've noticed and it becomes repetitive.

Nope.

To be honest, I don't think size has anything to do with quality of a ride. My two favourite B&M inverters for example are Katun and Nemesis. One is absolutely mahoosive and the other is tiny. Quality normally holds out so GCI for example, generally are a excellent manufacturer whether thats Wodan or Wicker Man. B&M Hypers, I think at the end of the day is personal preference. Not much separates any of them, in fact for me the only 300ft one I've done is Leviathan and that was nowhere as interesting as Behemoth in the same park. The highest ride I've done I hated. Much love Dragster, but I hate everything about you.

I wouldn't say that Californias Great America is a park that anyone has a huge itch to get to. Unlike some others in the Cedar Fair group, its investments are on the lower end of the scale. Flat rides are the name of the game and even its planned hyper that it was rumoured to get was given to another park instead (Orion). Eight years ago, it was either this or Discovery Kingdom and bizarrely I chose DK. I thought that was a great little park, but this time it was CGA's turn. It's relatively easy to get to, sitting in San Jose and it took about two hours of train journey from San Francisco. I'd heard very little about this place before so upon arriving I didn't really know where anything was or what support rides there were. The entrance for example looks very similar to other Cedar Fair parks but also Six Flags Great America. I've since learned that and CGA were once owned by the same group. Our first destination was Flight Deck which has the distinction of being B&M's first custom inverted rollercoaster. Built in 1993 the ride features three inversions and is a very old school B&M. It looks stunning in its bright red attire and the ride looked well maintained. My first reaction was how small the station was. It's very cramped and its the same with Patriot and many of the original gang of B&M's are the same (Batman clones tend to have tiny stations too). Also, for all the criticism I saw that Emperor has no station at Seaward, well.. there isn't a station here either. Geek, be consistent. Once getting on, after waiting one train off we went. Very positive G Force heavy, really nice inversions and a well paced layout. There is an odd bit in the middle of the ride where the train travels in a straight line over the station which felt at odds with everything else. The ending is particularly great with an intense helix over a small lake. There was no second train. Unlike Cedar Point which runs three trains to a fault or Silver Bullet which had its second train in bits scattered all over the break run, Flight Decks second train doesn't seem to exist. This isn't an extra-ordinary inverter and neither is it a dud. It's a good, solid B&M which has clearly served the park well. It just made me so glad we have Nemesis. I know its very easy to compare every inverter to Nemesis but the reality is, Nemesis is outstanding. From a layout perspective, a theming perspective, an efficiency and capacity perspective. Every park could learn a lesson from our grubby white alien. I next wanted to get on Patriot but we went the wrong way and ended up exploring all the park instead. Some of my favourite flat rides passed (KMG Afterburner, Huss Breakdance) before we just ended up getting lost. I checked the app and it said that Railblazer was 0 minutes. Staying cautious we decided to take a chance. Now this has two trains running. Which is good as at 8 people a train it has serious capacity issues. We ended up waiting half an hour which I was pretty happy with. To be honest, as good as it is, it's too fast. It zooms through the layout at break-neck speed and it feels very hard to take it all on board. Air time hills, inversions. it's like a blur. No major park should get the off-shelf model. It's too popular for what it is and it just cannot handle a park with crowds. The legend that is Josh C has been tweeting about Jersey Devil, so when he reviews, I'll be very interested in that one. With that out the way we took a ride on Demon, an arrow looper. I like the old arrow loopers. Whilst rougher then most modern rides there's something about a ride with janky track design that just appeals to me. As they start to arrive at the end of their lives, I'm just glad to have got on some of them. Next was Patriot. This used to be a stand up before it got converted to a floorless (like Rougarou and Firebird). Whilst I do get why parks are running away from stand up, I dunno. The floorless train doesn't add much beyond making the ride rideable? Maybe thats the point. My husband made the observation that if it wasn't for the height restriction, this would be an excellent 'starter' rollercoaster for an aspiring thrill seeker. And it got me thinking about rides like this and Daemonen at Tivoli Gardens. And he's so right in the observation. Very few inversions, mildly intense without being mind-blowing. Considering this is a B&M from 1991, its aged pretty well from what I could tell. Still, no second train to be found. After lunch it was time for the wooden coasters. We started with the CGI Wooden coaster, Gold Striker. This had a second train! wow. This was a fantastic ride. Really fast and intense. And with most of the ride hidden from the walkways, it took me by surprise. It probably sits just under Wodan for intensity. Some of the turns it was doing, for a traditional woody, were fabulous. Heavily recommended and the best ride at CGA by a country mile. And onto our final new rollercoaster Grizzly. Quite easily the worst operations I have ever seen on a ride. It took over seven minutes to unload, load and dispatch a train. Part of this seemed to be staff training, the other part was sheer incompetence. You're running one train around your mildly interesting rollercoaster. This shouldn't be that difficult. But it was. What looked to be a twenty minute wait ended up taking around 70. I was done after this, Didn't even want to attempt the low capacity Arrow wild-mouse which was displaying a 40 minute wait. So instead we went on two flat rides including the breakdance. Every park should have a breakdance. They are the best flat ride by far. And we called it a day around 4pm. This park needs investment. On the surface everything looks fine. But it provides a middling day out in a state that has Disney, Knotts & Magic Mountain. Hard to compete, yes, but CGA isn't really even trying. It has great support rollercoasters in Flight Deck and Gold Striker but it needs that killer, triple A attraction to make the difference. And two trains on its rides.

If you like rollercoasters Cedar Point. If you like everything else Europa Park. I chose Europa but will happily say both are fantastic places to visit. I just value immersion to loads of rollercoasters.

1. Loggers Leap 51 times. Sure this could be cheating as we were doing it for charity and didn't have to get off the ride but I think it still counts. 2. Nemesis Inferno 48 times. Back when Single rider was a thing and you could notch up loads of goes back to back in the first couple of hours. 3. Rameses Revenge 15 times. But I think this was back when you automatically got a second ride after the first and it didn't require a minimum amount of riders. This was all back when I was a youth though, There's very few rides that I could be bothered to ride more than a handful of times. Driwvelwind & Velocicoaster for example. Everything else is a one and move on.

Worked in the late 80's.. 😇

I went on Tuesday and had a fantastic day. I'm so biased towards Chessington though. I completely wear the rose tinted glasses. There's clearly issues across the park but sometimes, just sitting back and enjoying the day means more. + Four laps on Scorpion. Why did I love it so much?! I have no idea + Mexicana looks great with all the new little props in the area + I love Grufflalo so much. It stands tall with Wallace and Gromit and Hex as one of the best dark rides in the country + Dragons Fury now sits in the under-rated category. What a fantastic rollercoaster + Great to see the investment in the park. New rides, more announcements on rides, new music. + Croc Drop is fine but doesn't spin anymore. + Bought loads of merchandise because it was the original 1987 logo. Shameless + Free food for the Lorikeets now. - Blue Barnacle was almost as good Black Buccaneer. Surprised how high it went actually. - Very few boats on Tiger Rock. Park needs to invest in new boats now, it's going to be awful in Summer - Tomb Blaster was rough. I don't like the new story or the guns it uses. - Queue boards inaccuracy. Said 40 for Fury, was on the stairs, Said 40 at Vampire, was 5 minutes. - Lots of the Zoo area closed for refurbishment. Pirates Cove was very loud from construction. - Maybe its my Disney exposure, but how thin are the queues. Vampire can only be walked single file for examples. it's so tiny!