Mark9

We do not have a topic for Merlin's second best opening hours theme park?! How is this possible. I;ll start us off.If you know me, you know I hate Legoland. With its branding getting in the way of interesting and original themes, it was never my favourite park to visit. On my first visit, queueing 40 minutes for a Rocky Express clone seemed ludicrous, an hour for a wildmouse that dies after its first drop? Seriously?So we wind round to 2012. Since my last visit to Legoland, I've got a bit older, that bit wiser and was willing to give Legoland another chance. One because its had a few new rides and two, the boyfriend forced me to go.So we rolled up about 11:20.I give em one thing, they've got the best entrance area of the parks. I adore the view over Windsor and the castle. So onto the first ride, the Viking Rapids ride. Like the majority of UK rapids its the little things on the side that get you wet, nothing to do with the actual ride. A shame and Chris wasn't exactly pleased with his level of wetness.Next was the Spinning Spider, not bad! Had some good moment and the staff member was incredibly jolly despite there only being five guests on the ride. Onto the Jolly Rocker, a ride which takes the adult on each side of the boat to the absolute exteme. Who introduced this ridiculous rule? Was it Helath and Safety or the parks own stupidity which has meant what is supposed to be a high throughput flat, has become a five minute nightmate. I despair for the staff who have to use the whole area PA system to beg any adults within a five mile radius to have a ride. Must be an absolute nightmare in school weeks.Next! The Dragon. I love the Dragon and think it is the very best family rollercoaster in the country. Forget Thirteen and its attempts at thrilling you by banking very oddly on a straight bit of track, it's all about The Dragon. That castle theming is exemplary, it's station is gloriously gloomy and its pre lift hill section is inspired. The air time and speed through the rides relatively short coaster section is punchy and perfectly pitched. They were running two trains and it was just great. Legos star attraction.Had a go on the Rocky Express ride (it's name escapes me) and Dragons Apprentice which is very good for a junior coaster. We then headed off to Pirate Falls which consists of that parrot just telling you which way to go, getting you to your destination and then telling you to go back. Just bugger off. The ride is severely lacking in a proper storyline and with only one drop, it feels a bit half hearted. It's a very wet flume though which gives it cred points.Next, after narrowly avoiding a camera disaster it was Laser Raiders. Now apparently this ride is hated with a passion met only by my hate for Saw the Ride. I really liked Laser Raiders. sure, it's just a rip off of Tomb Blaster (with less detail) but at least it had pace and shooting things caused amusing movements in the props around the ride. I found it slightly bizarre that the railway line goes through it's queueline. Must admit that I've never seen that before at a theme park. The final ride of real note at Legoland is that Atlantis Submarine Voyage that is actually just a disguised Sea Life centre. Lets be honest here, the joy of the Sea Life centre is taking your time by looking at the creatues. Legolands doesn't bother with this and encases you in a yellow submarine which literally goes round one corner and thats it. It's a huge waste of time because of how short the ride is. The noises in the submarine also distract you from the fish anyway. Just stupid. Much prefer Chessington's and Alton Towers's sea life centres.So has my thoughts on Legoland changed much? Yes actually but it really is a park you need to go to on a quiet day. Visting on a day with 14,000 other people is an absolute nightmare as the place just doesn't have the rides or throughputs to cope with such a huge weight of people.

Not all disabled people are unable to walk.

The best opinion so far has got to be "Ok just got off NST. Urm… Urm..urm.. I now like Charley and the Chocolate factory."

Nemesis has a zero queue in comparison. See, this is why I try to avoid Alton Towers open days as best as possible.

The first indication I've got of Sub terra from facebook is slightly to rude for me to post on TPM.Let us just say he didn't like it and leave it at that.

Can tell you weren't around in the days where Dragons Fury opened 7 and a half hours late..

So whilst we are enjoying our new B&M wing-rider, so are the delightful people at Dollywood. Theme Park Review descrive the POV shots as AMAZING which is a sentiment I don't really believe they hold but I digress...Luckily, whilst we get a band that no one really knows, Wild Eagle gets the amazing Dolly Parton to open the new ride, well I guess thats what happens when you name a park after yourself.Thanks to TPR.

I really would just jump in the Nemmy queueline and go round and round and round. Especially with all that mist.

Now now Benin, I never gave my opinion on Colossus, I just said it's running well around its circuit. For the record though, I don't feel any of this roughness on Colossus that some do. I think it's running the best it ever has actually and certainly doesn't share the problems of rides like Blue Tornado, Rock 'N' Rollercoaster or Rita. Imo of course

Thing is though, Swarm is new, it is bound to have these problems (even if the ride technology isn't that overly complicated, it is still new for the park)Everything else is 3 years old or more and their downtime is small little problems. According to staff, Colossus went down four times yesterday due to sickness. I can believe that as in my opinion, the ride is running very well and very fast at the moment, especially through the inlines. Saw keeps having small little problems and Inferno and Swarm both had ill trains at some point.Stealth is.. well it's Intamin and sometimes you just cannot forgive poor ride systems ;)One thing I've found on my visits this year so far is that with five major rollercoasters now all running (for the start of the season I might add ) and because of the relative size of the park, if a coaster goes down its effect has become far more negliblie compared to the days where losing Stealth meant Colossus and Inferno would be rammed 10-6. It has become a far more balanced park with Saw and Colossus on one side, Stealth and Swarm on the other and Inferno slap bang in the middle.If it helps I'll be Stealth/Swarm/Inferno/Detonator side of the park for the majority of my visits.

Well firstly, thank you very much to Thorpe Park for hosting the ERT. People are very quick to jump down the parks throat when actually, majority of the time they go out of their way for enthusiast groups. So thank you and I hope the staff enjoyed their donuts.For everyone who turned up, thanks for coming. There was around 40 of us or so which is TPM's biggest amount by far for a meet. I saw a lot of familiar faces and a lot of them and due to the over whelmingness of so many new faces at once, I did feel a bit shy and closed up slightly, more then I normally would have done. But I hope you enjoyed the ERT nonetheless and stick with TPM. There's far more to come

I can see it now, "Just stick a bit from Madagascar on the end and job done!"

D'aww, shame really but then it's okay because we're all different and all that. I don't think it's a Nemesis beater but it's a beater of 90% of the Uk rollercoasters. So thats a major plus for it.

Oh Sidders, Inferno ERT is basically going to Thorpe Park and heading straight to Inferno. Just stay on it for an hour. Lush

Thats okay, Marc wears Reading stuff. We're used to it.

Theme Park's facebook pages are seriously annoying."Hannah Severns Would be if it wasn't so expensive"Predictable"Phoebe Love Womack I am but not excited bout the price. :/"Predictable"Matt Robinson Nemesis was the last good ride you built...And that was 15 years ago!"Dull"Manda Jane Halstead thought there was a Nemesis already"

I'm a big believer in honesty from the parks. With this ride, we have to bare in mind that for Thorpe, this is new technology. There may have been a problem with the train which they did not know how to fix or that would have rendered the whole ride un-operational if they had attempted to keep it on the circuit. They did try and get the second train going round and that obviously failed. Whilst it's a pain, the operators don't actually have any obligation to tell you the problem with the train. Technical difficulties covers every aspect of problems with the rides.I agree they shouldn't have kept you in the dark in the way they did. A PA announcement every few minutes keeps you informed without telling you information Did they do that or was it complete silence from the moment the ride ceased operating?

We should count ourselves lucky it isn't one of theseor one of theseOr this evilnesswait a second.

They are all funfair versions. Vortex for example, was the first park built KMG afterburner for example (They typically have 16 seater or 24 seater models). Samurai is just a typical top scan. Hence why it's stacking up the downtime at the moment.

There's always one that comes along and ruins the birthday celebrations isn't there

A big happy tenth birthday to Colossus.

That is what they've been doing since it moved to Thorpe from Chessington. It's been refurbished 3 times since its move I believe. It's got to be bared in mind that a funfair version is taken apart at the end of every stint. They aren't supposed to be active for 7 months of the year, constantly.

Clearly taKen inspiration from Disney then.

I share a birthday with Alan carr and Paul O'Grady. The 14th June is now gay birthday day.