Mark9

Quite a poor way to end the series. If you didn't watch but are going to, the rest of this post will be a spoiler.My main issue is how everything is so easy. The Doctor's death is a fixed point, easy, take what was quite a poor part of "Lets Kill Hitler" and make that the conclusion to what has turned out to be a 5 month series. I think even the Flesh storyline would have felt more satisfying, even if would have been more obvious, it dramatically would have been more cohesive.More importantly though, I absolutely HATE IT when a series has to have more questions then answers at the finale.Who is Doctor Who?More importantly, who cares who he is. I've coped not knowing his name and who he is for the 48 years of series now, it makes no difference what he is or what he may have done to become a question mark. Moffatts series is to scared to even try and answer that question anyway. This series has shyed itself away from emotional consequences by having the regulars die every story that its not dramatic anyway. The timey wimey stuff is also a bit samey now. When Blink did it, it was so clever and brilliant. Now everytime it's a Moffatt script you know whats coming. Parts of scenes cut away until they are needed, the whole story never shown. Thank god the 1971 Pertwee story, Colony in Space has arrived, time for a fun, action story.

I want to play poker with gaga.

I think they should just play Hard Fi albums at Swarm. It would fit the theme and it's hardly chart music

Ignore Benin, Mr Glazed, hes a tee-total party pooper My uni did the same though, I'd have Wednesday with an optional (but we had to go to it) guest lecture, Tuesday and Friday with one lecture only on each day and Thursday which had 9-5:30 lectures with only an hour break.No wonder I gave it up for a full time job..

Tomasz

I can feel my liver reeving in pain for him.

Just to comment on what Elmer Fudd has deleted.So Vekoma came up with this worlds first before B&M but then decided to not build anymore after the initial two. Whilst the B&M flyer is going strong with tatsu, Manta and now Sky Scrapper in China. That is a concept that has legs, whereas Vekoma hasn't done anything further. So in this respect, Air is a worlds first that means something. And is a worlds first, it's the first B&M type that flies. But, say we go down the road you're walking down, you know, that long pedantic one where we have strict meanings then it makes you completely wrong about Swarm and even Raptor as every enthusiast OBVIOUSLY knows Furius Baco got their first in 2005. As to your opinion of Oblivion being ****. That means absolutely nothing really because Oblivion is still a worlds first and again, its a concept that has legs and we're seeing alterations and types of Dive Machine still being built.I wasn't trying to be arsey though, I was attempting to be more then just words, and decided to use pics of how many unique and varied ride types we already have in the UK. Not many countries can boast dive machines, inverters, flyers, launchers, ten loopers, arrow suspending, maurers and stand up types. The wing rider will add a lot. Just your claim of it being a unique worlds first, was slightly off.

Hmmm.. you mean apart from which was the first dive machine in the world orwhich was the first flyer in the world and still the only flying coaster in europe.Becausecertainly isn't even the first in the world or in Europethis is.Agreed though, it is exciting times for Thorpe.

Ah, you misunderstand. Zodiac was completely temporary and was bought very cheaply from the fairground that just happened to be in the area at the time. Detonator and Vortex were always intended to be permanent structures. At the time, Detonator was the highest ride in the park and that was the reason for its temporary planning permission. Once Thorpe got permission for Stealth at 205 feet, it seemed obvious that Detonators planning permission would/should be permanent.

Yeah actually When it was constructed it had 5 year planning permission. In 2006 the park applied to further this and here we are in 2011, celebrating (I say celebrating, I doubt anyone outside of Marc and I actually noticed) its tenth birthday.

The other answer is.. It's Thorpe and it was broken.

If its quiet they won't load one train as the effort to get all the bars up and down again is to much hassle. You consolidate all the work onto one train and leave the other empty and locked off.

Thanks for another part to your trip report Sheeps, hope things get better.As for Epcot, 100% agreed. One thing I love about your trip reports so far is how your thoughts completely echo my own feelings. Epcot isn't a conventional theme park and it doesn't have conventional rides. This works in its favour by being vastly different to the other Disney parks but also works against it if you go expecting a theme park experience. Agreed about Livin' with the Land, great ride and thought provoking and same with Mission Space. I still don't know what I think of it. Yep, 100%. We ate at one of the restraunts in the France area and it felt very lovey dovey. I await your next reports with high eagerness

Lots of rep. If someone delivers customer service like that, you absolutely should go to guest services and let them know that the staff you encountered were excellent.

The amount of times I heard on Inferno and Colossus "There is room for two more people on this train, can two people let themselves known" is astonishing. And then the onloader has to end up shouting at the queue in a desperate bid to get people on the ride. Vamp needs it because that station is so long. Is that due to cost or health and safety? Shame really because having worked on three train operation, it was a real adrenalie buzz trying to get those trains out quickly and full. Shame that Chessington see fit to cut their highest throughput coaster by a third. Ironically, that makes Runaway Train the highest throughput coaster on park.

Love these pictures of trees and small grey objects in the background by the way.

Becuase of the sensitive nature of this topic I'm not going to take any actions against posts. But three of you have seriously pissed me off. Being gay, bi or lesbian is one of the most difficult things a person can ever come to terms with. People know me as this jolly, fun loving, jovial and PROUD gay. But I wasn't always like this and I'd appreciate some manners in this topic.Thank you.

Exactly. At Thorpe you can compare Inferno to Saw and Colossus in that respect. Whilst Inferno is fast and forceful you never have to put your head forward or move with the ride as the B&M briliance takes you through its circuit perfectly.With Saw, I even know where the ride wants to kill me but it still didn't prepare me for the headache I had to embrace for the rest of its day. So with that being said Colossus isn't the roughest ride at Thorpe. But its certainly not an easy ride for newbies to brace themselves for.

It gets better.But he killed himself because of homophobic bullying. Feel a bit sick at this world actually.

I will point out that a ride that does get checked in Germany is Expedition Ge Force. And that has one of the strictest restraint checking systems I've seen.Europa is just class though, even when they check on Blue Fire, it's done in the most efficient and fastest way.

When Nemesis was built in 1994 it was almost the surprise hit that Alton Towers never expected. To this day it's still the most unique B&M built, starting off with a casual drop and then exploding into life like no other inverter out there. Even to this day, when we discuss rides like Black Mamba, European Montu and Raptor we call them very "Nemesis" as if thats the greatest badge of honour and hype a ride can recieve.But are there any other in the UK then we can genuinely call the barrier of expectation. Or is everything built since 1994 just trying to live up to Nemesis and failing?

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