Mark9

Looking gorgeous so far. Love the strange shapes of track

I agree to some extent.. on the other hands seraches are necessary at Thorpe and I'd argue are needed at Alton.

So what we're basically saying here is that rides with excellent layouts, decent themes are unnecessary, all we need is a crayon and a piece of paper, draw the shortest layout imaginable and that will get ride enthusiasts and general public foaming at the mouth.I think I might become a ride designer, this ****s easy.

So went to Alton Towers yesterday. Not the best decision as another 28,000 people also decided to descend upon the park. The good thing however about visiting on the busiest of days is that you see that when the park is near capacity, it copes very well. Due to problems waking up we only left our Stafford hotel at 9:30. The drive to Uttoxeter was easy going but once we hit the small town, the road traffic to Alton stretched for a good 8 miles. This is why YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE ON TIME TO PARKS.We did eventually get to the park at 12, the monorail queue lasted 5 minutes so even when the queue stretches past Adventure Golf, it's worth getting the train to the entrance. It became apparent quite early on that the park was busy as every shop, ride, attraction seemed to be at bursting point. After queuing 15 minutes for some drinks (and encountering a flash mob) we descened upon Terror of the Towers. We queued an hour and whilst Marc wasn't impressed the rest of us seemed to enjoy it. Because it's in the Towers it does feel more epic in scale then just walking around a marquee. We next decided to go for Th13teen as Michaela had never been on before. Again, we queued an hour for the Intamin wonder. I did come off wondering why we'd bothered but alas, it wasn't completely awful.After another exciting Pizza/Pasta dinner (well worth every penny) we went to queue for Oblivion. The queue-board didn't even bother telling us the queue time so we went for it anyway. We queued pretty much from the entrance all the way up the hill. It only took an hour which in my opinion is pretty impressive. The next ride was Spinball. Maurer Sohne are just a major contradiciton. There ride experience is brilliant but everything else about them is shoddy. Next was an hour long queue for Nemesis. Bloody brilliant ride, enough said. Next was onto Air and finally a ride on Rita. Yes we only got on 6 rides, yes the park was heaving and yes the park wasn't running completely on full capacity (Several areas close early at dusk including the Gardens) but we had a great time. I was surprised the queues for the coasters only took an hour. After years of hearing nightmare stories of 3 hour queues for Nemesis and Air, to only queue an hour for things impressed me on such a busy day.

Oh my god, how many were there?! Every partnership interview I've had has only lasted an hour.Still, hope you get it, Waitrose is an excellent place to work.

Canada Creek Railway (5)Colossus (6)Detonator (5)Loggers Leap (5)Nemesis Inferno (6)Rush (5)Stealth (3)CCR +Stealth -CCR IS AWESOME!

Canada Creek Railway (7)Colossus (5)Detonator (5)Loggers Leap (5)Nemesis Inferno (6)Rush (6)Slammer (0)Stealth (6)CCR +Slammer -GOODBYE SLAMMER

Agreed. There's nothing quite like guests being stuck over gorilla cages and shouting "When I get off this I'm going to kill you all."

Canada Creek Railway (6)Colossus (5)Detonator (5)Loggers Leap (5)Nemesis Inferno (6)Rocky Express (3)Rush (5)Slammer (5)Stealth (5)CCR +1Stealth -1

I've been posting in "what I'd do to Chessington" topics about the state of the parks toilets for a few years now. I don't understand how Thorpe seemed to have changed their toilets every year now whilst Chessington's haven't been updated since the early 90's

I would but I think me and Benin posting endlessly may get rather tyring

You forgot Toadies.

Quantum had been eliminated, you reset the scores but didn't remove Quantum.Maybe Jord's opinion on neg rep is needed for this kind of situation. I may even ban you for this outrage.YOU'VE THROWN THIS GAME INTO DISRISPUTE!

For god sake Micheala!

Canada Creek Railway (7)Colossus (5)Detonator (5)Loggers Leap (5)Nemesis Inferno (6)Rocky Express (4)Rush (5)Samurai (5)Slammer (5)Stealth (4)Storm in a teacup (5)Tidal Wave(5)Canada Creek Railway +1Stealth -1

Canada Creek Railway (5)Colossus (5)Detonator (6)Flying Fish (2)Loggers Leap (5)Nemesis Inferno (5)Quantum (3)Rocky Express (5)Rush (6)Samurai (5)Slammer (5)Stealth (7)Storm in a teacup (6)Tidal Wave(6)Storm in a Teacup +1Stealth -1

Juice + Gas =POP

Maybe that explains the downtime it had on Monday and it's late opening yesterday. Once it opened it ran well. Staff there need to know their queue times a bit better though, it said the queue was 90 minutes but we queued 45 minutes including front row.It really is the best ride in the dark though, far better then all of Thorpe's rides which are lit up like christmas trees. Vamp is just pure swinging through the dark and the lights in the tunnel work well. Loved it.

Or.. its the equivalent of Saw running 1 and a half cars.

It's true what they say, annoyances are more memorable then the good.The best part was seeing you and Tommy

Chessington - erm.. today.This trip report may be slightly controversial but this really irritated me today (as some may have seen on facebook). It's no secret that we live in a country with a wet climate. Our summer lasts for two weeks in June and then its rain and overcast skies. If you are to visit Chessington on any rainy day you are pretty much screwed. The park luckily have Tomb Blaster, Bubbleworks, Hocus Pocus Hall and several sheltered areas such as the Zoo to keep you out of the wet. Unfortunately it has so many attractions that are effected by rain.Skyway trains can't get up the hill by SeastormPeeking becomes a battering storm of rain and wind VS pod.Rattlesnake and Dragons Fury go down to a maximum of two people per car, essentially making Fury have a 250 pph and Rattlesnake 175 pph throughput.Truckers is lucky to even start.For such a fantastic theme park it is an utter shambles that something hasn't been done to sort out this problem. Five of their 24 attractions affected by weather and what happens if a major ride like Vampire or Tomb Blaster goes down. Well yesterday happens with Fury having a two hour queue because when you throw reduced capacity, express pass, 10,000 gate figures, disabled riders and exit passes at a ride with such shockingly bad numbers.. its not a good thing.I don't want to make out I had a bad day, my day was great and I got on everything but to queue an hour for Fury when it should have been 15 minutes maximum is shocking. Guests around me in the queueline were naturally and frustrated but the operator of the ride didn't feel the need to make any PA announcements about why the ride was going around half empty.

There's never been a ride at Chessington called Rodeo. Someones fibbing to you.

How did you go to the TPM meet if you were at Alton Towers.I know, I know, I'm a pedantic idiot.

I am

I've just had a thought, Rooney wanted to leave because he thought the club lacked ambition. So why exactly has he signed a contract for another five years? Will they buying more world class players then as well as paying more.Is he really worth £150,000 a week?Really?Seriously?Truely?