Mark9

So.. a bit of history. I've had quite a busy year on the theme park front, tackling some of the greatest known parks in the world by some of the most dedicated owners. Disney, Universal, Sea World have been visited as well as three amazing Italian parks. In that time, my visit's to Thorpe, Chessington and Alton have decreased quite a lot due to money, time and lack of pulling power. The last time I went to Thorpe was back in March and since then a lot seems to have changed and all of it for the worse. I just cannot fathom how a park like Thorpe has slipped so quickly in six months. After my four month break from Chessington, the park felt rejuvinated, everything was fun again and exciting and all the new little theming effects enhanced the experience slightly.No such luck with Thorpe. So where do I start?Music is a good one. Back when I was an avid visitor in 2004 every ride had its own soundtrack, dedicated announcements and more importantly, it all worked. These days, chart music blasts out everywhere. Now, I don't mind it at the entrance, because it greets you with something to get into before you enter a different world. But it's not the case anymore and I can't think of much worse then riding Flying Fish with Cheryl Cole being blasted at me. Why am I not launched to Inferno's dispatch music anymore? Why does Colossus now beatbox at me? Why do I get Ashlee Simpson singing about her boots at me in Canada Creek as opposed to the gorgeous, WESTERN sounding Dolly Parton. Even in the restraunts you just get the Box channel playing the top 40 hits. Sex in an elevator? No thanks, not at a theme park.Reliability. Why is it I can visit parks all over the bloody world and yet I return to Thorpe and am immediately greeted with Slammer and Samurai will be closed all day. Last time I visited Samurai was closed all day and on my first visit of the season, Slammer was down all day. Can Thorpe just give up on those two and add something that works. Please.Ride look. Inferno is green, Vortex hasn't seen a tin of paint on its ride structure in ten years. Colossus is brown. Rumba looks attrocious. Wheel covers not on all parts of Inferno, ride seats closed off on Vortex and Detonator (Out of use). The rides at Thorpe have no stories, no real theme to them. With the exception of Tidal Wave, every single ride at Thorpe is a quick blast of thrill and then you move on. There's no atmopshere, no feeling of involvement, no story. It's just a train going through the motions getting people on and off as quickly as possible and with as little feeling as possible.You'd argue that the people at Thorpe don't care abput stories or rides looking like crap or music not being themed. Then why did Thorpe, in the mid 2000's bother to do any of this kind of stuff at all. And why are they insisting on creating a well themed, atmopsheric, story based ride next year. If Swarm is going to have even 10% of the quality of Raptor it's going to make everything else at Thorpe look outdated, tired and dull.And maybe thats the kick up the bum it needs.

Alas no. I went for a rather stunning on ride photo instead. I'm cheap don't you know

So.. to those in the know. Any reason why on the quietest day I've seen at thorpe for a while, why they now give you a Vortex ride in which it only does one high swing and then stops. One top swing?!

So two months on, covers don't seem to be back on. Did they break them, do they think it doesn't need it, do Thorpe think Inferno is superior to every other B&M inverter in the world and that the wheel covers a commodity not worth having?And another question, all those that wanted Colossus re-painted. Well why is Inferno's track more green now then red.

Not much to go on so far on Avatar: the area but it does fit into Animal Kingdom well. It was my second favourite park out there as well so I'm chuffed that some time in the future it will have a major franchise thrown it. I'm intrigued as to why they didn't use something like Poccahontas which runs along similar lines as Avatar but maybe they just needed something more recent to compete with Harry Potter.Woo

Thank you for the compliments I would personally go for Italy, although that depends on whether you want to include Rainbow Magicland in your trip. The problem with Madrid is as good as Parque Warner is, if you've done Kraken or any B&M inverter it isn't going to feel that amazing. Parque de Atracciones de Madrid is quite an odd park to, essentially Rainbow Magicland with less theming.I do feel we take Europe for granted sometimes, we've got so many different cultures and awesomely different ride experiences just a plane ride away.

The rest of GardalandThere is only one issue with Raptor at the park. It highlights just how awful the rest of the park is if I'm honest. Raptor, from a ride stand point, is absolutely perfect. It has the theme, the ride experience, the whole ambience that would make it fit right into Europa Park. The rest of the park just doesn't and it is hard to believe that a year previously would have seen an SLC and a Vekoma looping coaster as the main line up. A good example of a park that attracts an audience purely through location alone.So to carry on the theme, lets start with the SLC called Blue Tornado. Despite all the Beemers and Maurers I've had the pleasure of riding, I'd never been on an SLC before. Sure, I've heard about the pain and the headaches and the bad restraints. Nothing can quite prepare you for what is about to come. So the positives? It keeps its speed very well, its farely compact and it does give a good range of inversions in quite a restrained footprint. It also looks rather pretty.The negatives? Well it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be but it lacks the punchiness of a B&M inverter. My experience wasn't as negative as I thought it could be. But as a star ride to a well known park? Not a chance. Blue Tornado - 5/10Right next door is a Vekoma Mine-Train named Mammut. It was okay, the queue moved very quickly because of two trains being loaded swiftly and it was themed quite well. No where near the standard of a Thunder Mountain or Colorado Adventure but suitably enough. And only a little bit of roughness. Probably the parks second best rollercoaster. Mammut - 6/10The Rapids were again another highlight, themed incredibly well as a lot of the ride takes place in a Volcano with suitable lava effects. I do get on well with a rapids that gets you wet via the ride and not water jets on the side of the trough. And this scored plenty. Was very well themed, very fun and very welcome on a 35 degree day. Jungle Rapids - 8/10A major dissappointment was Fuga Da Atlantide in which you start of well and then drift aimlessly for a while before repeating the same trick and drifting again. I didn't even know this ride existed before the trip so it was a surprise. Even with that it still failed to impress. The main issue with it was the lack of story. It hits you straight away with a fantastic, air-time filled drop and then you just float along for a few minutes. Theming is of AMAZING standard, seriously up to Europa and Disney but because there's nothing to grab your attention you just lose all interest. The ride repeats the same first drop and then its back to drifting back to the station. Such a shame because at its core is a decent ride. It just has no cap in its feather, no finale. Fuga Da Atlantide - 3/10So off round the park we go and gasp, whats this we spot?YAY PIRATES, JUST WHAT EVERY PARK NEEDS. Hidden below the ground of Gardaland is an amazing dark ride which I will only spoil if you read the next few paragraphs. Essentially, this part of the park is close to local houses and so the park have done a Nemesis and hidden a pirate themed dark ride below the surface. It's amazing that you really cannot see the joins, that is how well its hidden. Its a wonderful dark ride to with some great effects and a story thats accessible even if you dont know much Italian. Worth the fee and probably Gardalands second best ride. So off into the park you go and whats this round the corner?Yes, its the combination you never ever wanted to see, a Vekoma looper wrapped around a screaming squirrel. Somewhere, one day, the theme park gods were angry with Merlin. We chose Sequioa Adventure first.This thing is genuinely an actual joke and frankly ridiculous. For instance whilst they may have 5-6 cars on the track, only one can actually be killing its riders at a time. So you just sit in the station as your car moves forwards at a snails pace. First you pass your bag over and sit down. Then you move up a space. Then you move up another and your bar is locked. And then you move up another so you're about to leave. And then in what feels like the time it took for the Roman Empire to rise and fall, you're sent out into what can only be considered a torture device. The car ambles up the lift heads off and tips over the side taking you upside down. It's just ridiculous that this concept even got off the drawing board. It then flips back and as if to tease you, does the same trick again except decides to slow you down to Oblivion top of the drop pace. Swearing and screaming you eventually make it back upright over a small air time dip before tipping over again. The b.................ds decide to take your photo at this point as if its some kind of joke. Thankfully the ride only bothers to offend for three drops. You get off wondering if your brain deserves that much blood rush. You may need to sit down, you may need to call A+E, I dunno. Thank god this concept turned into the El Loco. I've never done it but anything must be better then this piece of crap. It's worth doing once and then avoiding for the rest of your life. *shudders* Sequioa Adventure - 2/10So remember queuing for that damn Squirrel. Well now its time for Fanta the ride. Oh its called Magic Mountain? I'd have never have guessed. Oblivion at least managed to keep its identity during its Fanta spew fest, Magic Mountain's fate is so much crueler. Fanta logos are over the supports, the ride structure, the trains, and all along both sides of the station. No wonder I wanted a fanta afterwards! I have to admit I rather liked Magic Mountain. But then anything would seem half decent after the S&S travesty. Magic Mountain had some good speed, inversions and a bit of much needed air-time. Not world clas by a long shot but not bad either. Magic Mountain - 6/10Two other notable rides was the log flume which managed to get us soaked in such a random place and the dark ride called Ramses in what would be Tomb Blaster if they had kept the rock and roll elements. Wasnt bad actually, very nice. Oh and of course the pervy wizard madhouse. God that was shocking...So to essentially conclude on Gardaland, without Raptor I don't think we would have thought of the park nearly as highly as we eventually did. There just seemed to lack a second star attraction or any noticeable back up attractions for the park. It's water rides were of high quality and its dark rides are of a high standard. But people expect these rides to be there anyway, its the coasters which mainly do the talking. And Gardaland wasn't saying much.

Kingda Ka is apparently down for the rest of the 2011 season.Intamin.

Updated from May1. Expedition Everest - Disneys Animal Kingdom2. Hollywood Tower of Terror -Disneys Hollywood Studios3. Superman de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid4. Katun - Miribilandia5. Nemesis - Alton Towers6. Blue Fire Megacoaster - Europa Park7. Black Mamba - Phantasialand8. Manta - Sea World Orlando9. Space Mountain - WDW Magic Kingdom10. Euro-Mir - Europa ParkAs I probably won't be riding anything more thats new or comparable to those top ten a bit of analysis for fact fans. Disney have three attractions enter my top ten, whilst Swiss company B&M see two of their rollercoasters join up with Nemesis, Black Mamba and Superman de Acero to create B&M rollercoaster dominance. Mack, despite being my 2nd favourite rollercoaster company only have two entries. And with Intamin's only bright spark being I-Speed, it had no chance against the quality of the Beemers, especially with Oblivion bubbling just under the top ten.

A Lift hill? Lad, we don't need no stinking lifthill for our wing-rider. I'm thinking a funky lift from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with lights and lasers and effects. Would be AMAZING. If people cared that much about the updates, they'd go to the park.. or wait for a handy TPM update

Asleep whilst waiting for Mammut. Awww.

Hes hinting at the excellent Raptor announcements declaring THOSE WITH WIDE GIRTH MAY BE UNABLE TO RIDE. And yes, Raptor is pretty restrictive in the large department and just gets tighter as the ride goes on. I'd imagine Swarm will do the same.

Gardaland - The Merlin wonderAfter another morning of getting hopelessly lost, we finally arrived at Gardaland with time to spare. With paying for parking done our first moment of intrigue was not being directed where to park. It was a free for all so I chose near the entrance. From the moment you hit the park there is the sense that this is a sort of prized possession with Merlin. With Alton Towers you get greeted by people trying to sell you photo passes and drink capsules and fastback. At Gardaland you get treated to a show with the parks mascot dancing with some dressed up females.With confetti exploded and the Italian national anthemn played, you're let into the park and it was without a shadow of a doubt which ride we would go to first... and of course the only ride people will really care about as I saw when I entered TPM chat on Friday evening.As you may be aware, Thorpe is getting one next year. With Raptor looking so gorgeous during construction, it became the main reason for the trip, the reason we left Gardaland till last. And so, the first thing you really see of Raptor is the Jurassic Park like fences that try and keep you out. It creates the excellent effect that this really is a caged animal trying to keep you out. Of course, curiosity gets the better and you enter the area. It is just incredible how small and compact the ride area actually is. It looks massive in pictures but actually it zooms back and forth, covering the same area. The only part that leaves the plaza is the first trip and its return over the rides entrance.The queue line is very similar to Saw efforts with barbed wire over the top of chain metal fences. Whereas I always find it a joke at Thorpe, it becomes menacing when you couple it together with Raptors concrete bunker. Loading is very effective with 14 people sent to each side of the station to board the train. It is so easy to get front row on Raptor due to their being no front way queue. I got on it three of my eight rides.Seating is atypical B&M. Seats are comfortable and the restraints are remincisent of Air but slightly different. The jacket that moulds itself around you can become quite tight during the ride, but that is the only flaw with it. It's very strange riding at the same level at the track, particularly as it feels like you could just touch it. You're let off to the sounds of a Raptor roaring, round the corner and up a speedy lift hill. It's very short actually, getting you up in half the time of a normal inverter. The back seats get the wonderful air-time, its in bucket loads on the first drop, whilst the sensation of speed is amazing on the front. Some vibration can be felt in the centre of the train as it turns back on itself and curls into a corkscrew. Some of the supports get so close to the train you can almost feel your feet being taken off.A small air-time hill takes you over the rides entrance plaza, a trim tries to slow the train down to any barely effect before the train helixes over a pond with water effects taking on the right hand side riders. These effects are excellently executed, each one sending a small trickle onto its riders. It always get you by surprise to. The ride eventually enters its swan song by doing an elongated inline twist through some supports, a tree and a small cage to capture the creature. Unfortunately for me these near misses didn't really do anything for me. But the inline twist was absolutely gorgeous. Think Colossus's hang time but take out the pain and add in glorious sensation as you meet with the top of the restraint in an aerial move that is slowly performed but brilliantly executed. Definitly a round of applause moment for a very daring ride. There's a very good reason why the B&M wing-rider has sold four in two seasons whereas the lone Furious Baco continues to attempt mass murder on Port Aventura visitors. Raptor is sheer quality from start to finish and Merlin have done an admirable job and definitely their best large roller coaster to date. There are obvious limitations with the wing-rider, it can't perform its aerial dogfight at fast speeds and it certainly needs near misses and obstacles to maximise the ride position. It also doesn't help that Gardaland have hit every target with a bullseye when building Raptor. It looks the part, it sounds the part and more importantly, It rides the part. It will be interesting to see whether Swarm, Wild Eagle and X-Flight will be able to deliver as satisfying an experience as Raptor has proven to do.Raptor - 8/10I shall cover the rest of Gardaland later.

To be honest thats quite understandable; even though we like all kinds of rides as enthusiasts, there needs to be that starting hook to really get you in the mood to pay a lot of money to do something. Before this year, there was only really Katun and as awesome as that ride is, the cost to do it would not have made the trip worthwhile. With a second B&M and a brand new park, it suddenly become far more worthwhile then just visiting Europa Park again (As much as I love Europa.. even that needs a break sometimes)And with that being said, the next part of the trip. So we had a few more hours in Miribilandia, a quieter day for the park where we found out some rides open up to 2 hours after parks official opening time. Case in example, Reset. Now Reset, is awesomely themed and has its own little area tucked about behind a Depth Charge clone. But it has a major problem in its execution in that the ride story is not made explicit in the ride. Now, even if the story was shouted at us in Italian we would have been no closer to understanding it.. but it wasn't. The queue line videos seemed to imply something with a scientist but we didn't queue, so you miss it. The ride makes no effort with tales of death and destruction. That and the shed is so obvious. Reset - 5/10With Reset done, we had lunch and left the park. The temperature was now at a soaring 39 degrees so I picked up a coffee, we aired out the car and off to Verona we went. The drive was pretty good, despite taking a long detour around Ferrara. Eventually we did find out way and ended up in a rather lovely studentesque hotel room with a balcony. A trip to the shops were had where we stocked up on Kinder goodies, Milka bars, cheese and all those all important beers for me. After a week of sobriety it was time to relax. Long coaster discussions were had overlooking Verona. One of the best parts about being a coaster enthusiast is that it isn't just a geeky hobby we do on the internet, it introduces us to new viewpoints, new people and builds bridges across forums. We're lucky to have a fandom that just loves to have fun whether it be being bashed in the head by a Vekoma SLC, or being inverted beautifully on a B&M wing-rider. After attacking Benin in the night with a Miribilandia duck, we slept and used the next day to rest our feet and chill out whilst watching Total Wipeout and X-Men. We took a trip into Verona the next day to see Juliets windowsill and to try and sneak into the George Micheal concert, to no avail. And then it was sleepy times and ready for the final park, The Merlin wonder that is Gardaland.

It is.. absolutely gorgeous isn't it. Really wanted a Fanta afterwards as well

Exactly. Cold be worse..

One of my favourite quotes of the year was "If I wanted grass and trees I'd go to a garden centre"That being said, every park I've ever been to as large grassy areas and trees. Thorpe is the exception.

Thats totally what I was thinking.

Looks gorgeous. Will they be closing Blue Fire and Atlantica to complete it?

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Day 3 - Driving to Revanna.Having experienced nearly 12 hours of Rainbow goodness, the day consisted of driving over to Revenna for hotel number 2. As the driver, I couldn't photo much. SO I'm hoping Benin will be able to cover this part adequately. The photo I did take was after walking for what seemed hours to find McDonaldsThe drive itself tests every part of skill you can muster, driving up and round hills, through Italian revines and around epic mountains. All this while being menaced by Italian drivers. And the best part? The road we had chosen took us past Miribilandia with Katun and I-Speed goodness poking into the sky it certainly built up the excitement. Ravenna had epic food times where we had amazing Chip, Sausage and Ketchup pizzas and the most amazing Gelato I will ever have. So good. Day 4 - MiribilandiaThis park is probably the second most known park in Italy and it's a bit hard not to see why. The park really came to light when Katun opened in 2000. It was followed up in 2009 with I-Speed and both rides do very well in the Mitch Hawker poll with Katun at number 9 and I-Speed at number 10. I'll speak about these later in the report.In we go and to start, the new ride for 2011 was Master Thai, an Intalian made ride in which cars almost duel around a very small compact circuit. It's the kind of ride that has the best of intentions but probably isn't what the park expected. An intriguing thing is that the ride is a bit like Grand National at Blackpool. You start on one side and come back on the other side. You don't even have to get off, they just send you round again. Which was interesting. As a family rollercoaster it fits the bill well with only one real wet bit.The next two rides are very Chessington esque with one being essentially Rattlesnake and the other Runaway Train. Except both lacked that little magic. Explorer, the mine train clone is just awful. Yucky bucket type seats, a very slow ride, no theming and an exit line longer then the main queue. It was just abysmal. Pakal was a little better. Better throughput then Rattlesnake and very nice and fast. It's only flaw is that it took the last few corners with little to no braking and it hurts.The Rapids were very solid.. and came off much more favourably then Rainbow's purely because we didn't queue 90 minutes for it.. The Auto-Splash log flume less so. I dunno, a log flume really has to do a lot to impress me, especially after Splash Mountain and as wet as we got... it was just a bit weedy. We had a go on the other rides around park, watched the stunt show which after the language barrier, was far better then other parks equivalent. Lots of effects and things going on to distract. And funny as well.And now we hit I-Speed. This Intamin is relatively young and has some awesome things going for it. It's very well paced with the train maintaining a very fast speed throughout.. living up to its name. It's got an awesome lay-out which feels long and dangerous, taking you through really air time packed hills and brilliant inversions which take you by surprise even after your third go. It has an excellent throughput to. It was only running two trains when we went but the queue moved consistently. It seems to have the ability to run three trains for those extra busy days. And it looks the part to, the bright red top hat pointing into the sky, daring you to ride. But it has one flaw.The restraint system. It is ludicrous that after five/six years Intamin have not attempted to change their awful restraints on these rides. Rita wouldn't be that changed by new restraints because it's an awful ride anyway, but I-Speed is so utterly trashed by the restraints trying to behead its riders and it was the one time where I would have given I-Speed a 10 purely for its excellent pacing. But Intamin just do not have the ability to see it through. I've seen in Blue Fire that these launch rides can work with a simple OTSR system that doesn't restrain you at the neck. Especially as the two rides were built in the same year, it really lets I-Speed down. I wanted to give it a 10 but riding with a grimmace throughout the whole ride brings it down to a low 8 Such a shame. I-Speed - 8/10And finally Katun. It worked out to be my 100th rollercoaster and what a ride to hit the century on. The appearance of it is more akin to American B&M's. It sticks out over the rides entrance and you'd think it would lack the theme and cosnsitency of rides like Black Mamba and Nemesis. Not the case, Katun looks wonderful with its Stargate's wrapped around the lift and break run and its Aztec queueing area and station. The ride can run three trains but on our visit it only needed one. The queueing area can only hold about four trains worth of people anyway making some other queuelines look like monstrosities (Rita and Nemesis Inferno). The ride team would only send trains when they were completely full so on the quiet days it took a while for the first train to leave. But eventually it does and for our first ride we chose the back row. I'm so used to lift hills being short and breezy. Not the case with Katun as it works its way up the 164 foot lift hill. A short pre-drop lulls you before dropping majestically to the left. My god. The first drop is just amazing, a sheer wonder making the swooping drops of every other Inverter I've been on look crap. Somehow, there isn't much room for the pre-drop so the train sorts of ambles down, throwing its riders to the side and delivering some gorgeous air time. This is rare on Inverters and was so good. Reminded a lot of Superman de Acero in Madrid. The ride drops into the fairway into an excellent Vertical Loop, full of g force and out into a wonderful in-line twist. Normally in-lines are quite low to the ground, but not this one. The train rises a good 60/70 feet tempting you with its negative g's before throwing the train upside down and out. Beautiful. You drop back down, bank to the right before dropping even further down into a small cavern and up into a Cobra Roll. With Stuntfall, Dragon Challenge and Katun under my belt, I can safely say I prefer the inverted cobra rolls which have a little kick as you head upside down. Sit down rides just feel to slow in comparison. The ride drops out, into a MCBR which was working over time to keep the train at the right pace. Another pop of air time before two corkscrews, a rise and down into a ground hugging, forceful helix and into the break run. After my first ride I was a little taken back. Katun was quite unlike any other B&M inverter I've done, and I've certainly done quite a few these days. But Katun was something different, something special. We all came off quite taken aback. In some way's its the absolute polar opposite of Nemesis. Whereas Nemmy hugs the ground at relentless speed, Katun sticks out and knocks you aback with intense moments that come out of nowhere. It makes for an awesome comparison as both rides are seen as the best of their class and both rides compete for the highest position in coaster fans top tens. For me it narrowly beats Nemesis purely because everytime I rode Katun I came off feeling absolutely exhausted and blown away by the rides sheer quality. I only wish it was in the UK so that I could ride it every week. Katun - 10/10