Mark9

Ah... just in time for the end of the summer holidays, excellent.

Went yesterday with Marc and had the best trip I have ever had to Thorpe. One of the biggest niggles with Thorpe has always been its reliability issues. Anyone who was at the open day last year would have encountered Rumba, Loggers, Slammer and Stealth closed all day, Samurai opening at 12pm and Saw and Colossus having queueline evacuations at the same time leading to Saw being unavailable for the rest of the day. That was the moment when the park finally stood up and noticed that Thorpe had to change. Gone was Thrill Chill and up went the maintenance budgets. And you know what? I have been rather a lot then usual to the park this year and not once has a ride been closed all day. To think that this was a park that everyone decreed as having a damaged reputation, has picked itself up and has become over one closed season, a world class park.And I am bloody impressed. There are still technical problems, but they are so minor these days and sorted out so quickly that I can only be impressed. So yesterday, we arrived at 10:30 and headed straight for Stealth. The queueboards declared Saw at 75 minutes and Colossus at 90. What makes it overly stupid is that Inferno was at 30 minutes. Stealth was 10? The park really is odd actually and so uneven and it actually became a recurring theme throughout the day. Next was Rumba, god its got bad again. We took a wonder over to the Fish and taking on other attractions in the park. Had a meal at the Glasshouse before going to Vortex. We were there for about 5 minutes when some kind of medical problem occured with a guest. We were given an exit pass which covered Vortex, Samurai, Slammer and Rush. I think it's great that Thorpe have narrowed down what rides you can use exit passes on. Having operated Fury for years and having people use exit passes from rides such as Runaway Train and Black Buccaneer to gain access, they've really wised up this year. The oddest thing is Vortex's queue was walk on so really they could have just told us where to stick it. But they didn't so another plus for Thorpe. We used the exit pass on Samurai for another random spin. Samurai is so weird these days and I never know what to make of it anymore. Next was Saw where we queued about 90 minutes including a breakdown. Was a laugh though. It's nowhere near as good as Speed at Oakwood but it is still a good ride and doesn't deserve the bashing it gets from some people. So we then headed over to Rush and Zodiac. Rush's queue board said 45 minutes wait when in reality the queue was about 10 minutes. Zodiac's queue was 45 minutes whereas it's queue board said 00 minutes. Thorpe need to get on top of that pronto as it can create really bad experiences. Inferno also said 40 throughout the day but its queue was more like an hour. At around 6 the park died down and the good times really happened. We rode X:\ No Way Out twice and it's such a bad ride and yet I do not see how people fail to have fun on it. It's laughably bad and yet so entertaining. The operator at Rocky Express was class, playing Simon Says with the guests. We took on our final rides on Stealth. I haven't ran to a ride for years and I'm not ashamed to say I ran for a second evening ride yesterday.I hate being gushing but it was a genuinely good day, far better then all my Alton trips this year thus far. They've got their acts together on so many levels and with the onset of the 2012 B&M, I can hardly wait.

Agreed, its a very sweet looking logo, far better then the old one which always looked a bit crap.

I've always described Th13teen as the definition of average and naturally that will divide people. Anyone who calls the ride total garbage does just not understand what Alton attempted with the ride. I do personally think they have failed as it is such a ride of two halfs that don't really blend together very well for me.Whether it's a worthy replacement for the Corkscrew, well thats another thing altogether. Remember for the last 14 years Corkscrew had been overshadowed four times over and before it was announced that it was to leave it was constantly attacked for being rough and boring. It's only with hindsight that people seem to think it was a decent rollercoaster.

Yup. Its one things that puts B&M and Mack above intamin as I seem to get leg cramp on a lot of Intamin rides.

Definitly, it treats its guests with respect and it delivers excellent rides for its target audience.

It's also a lot more professional; you treat how you wish to be treated. It's why I hated the Black Buccaneer because people just fight and fight and everytime on one man op you have to fight so many times to try and fill the thing up. You can be as blunt and defensive as you like but the guests will also fight back meaning you get nowhere, time is wasted arguing or trying to explain why they have to fill the seats and the ride goes from a walk on to ten minute queue. The Air gates would reduce this as people would know where they are sitting whilst the rideis moving. As it stands people are trying to find their seats and competing with each other and it takes an age to load it.

I didn't know that and I bet 100% of my friends didn't know that. I actually appreciate information like queue times and unlike yourself who chose to not tell anyone, themeparkmad has done me a good service.

Yay Rich, welcome to the winning side. We are the cure to the high rate of teenage pregnancy

Definitly worth a trip. There's no denying it is a kids park but that doesn't mean you shouldn't go. Kobra and Edge are very solid rides and their Griffins Galleon type ride (It's name escapes me) is an awesome ride. For those that think Griffins is a bit shoddy.. they need to get on Paultons version as it is incredible.

Ok look, if he got kicked in the head by someone on Inferno he would have have been killed... very possibiliy decapitated. The nets on Inferno have always been up ever since day one.

Paultons Park updates in 5.....

It wasn't amazing by 1996's standards either...

Because it is broken, there are supposed to be air gates there. I actually think air gates should be there from a comfort point of view, trying to board it at the moment is rather nasty because it was built with air gates in mind.People will wait for the back row but as it stands trying to get people down to the front just to fill middle rows is so time consumingthat it holds up the ride hence the second platformer. They could kill all that unnecessary waiting by having people fill rows up at gates whilst the ride is moving.

I sort of agree with you Josh, it looks like marketing speil because of the amount of exclamation marks that have been used.To be honest its not the way I would have written the article... but then I wasn't asked to either so

I loved Grffins. Could spend hours down there and not see a single person. Marvellous doss ride.

1. Inflation, new additions, staff wages have increased, ride maintenance costs go up as rides get older. They are expensive but only in relation to say.. doing nothing. I personally think the costs for Chessington anyway are good value. Thorpe and Alton not so much...2. Queues aren't so much shorter, it's just staff are more aware of queue busting and efficiency since Tussauds of 2003 becamse very aware of the bad publicity queues have.3. Gate Figures are far higher then you realise, the park is doing very well actually.

Corrected for you.

I don't see all those publicity stunts, in fact I only find out about one or two of them from forums like this. It's very hard for me to put into words but I shall try anyway.The focus on these publicity stunts is always completely irrelevant to the park itself. It should be the rides and attractions and things in the park getting the publicity. The Th13teen one around the election was a good one for instance because it involved something relevant and the ride itself. In their latest one, what exactly is being publicised? The park? The Hotel? The Alton Towers resort? The fact that they have beds you can have sex in?I think saying "it works" is so lazy, its the equivalent of saying 'kk' on msn or texting one word replies to people. Is it really getting people to the park or are the parks doing well because of new rides which should be creating the hype not Mark no longer getting a happy time during the night.

I can sort of see this topic being a natural extension to what I posted in the Parks, Coasters and News topic. The problem with records is that everyone has rightly said they do bring people to the park which brings in more money for future investments. And this is not a Thorpe only want the records thing, this is every single park in the world which wants to have the worlds largest of something. Corkscrew was Britains first double looping rollercoaster, Vampire was Europes first suspended rollercoaster and Loggers Leap was the UK's largest log flume.My problem is back in the older days of coasters you also got a good enough ride to justify its existance. Vampire, for all its faults tries to do something with the ride, its theme is still considered Chessington's best by many and the layout, for all its clunkiness and weirdness is still very enjoyable, 20 years on.It's inevitable that for every new ride we get there will be some kind of angle, although if you can tell me what exactly the angle is for Kobra at Chessington then you get brownie points.

Does anyone remember when Alton Towers used to do decent publicity? Before they turned ****ing crazy and started banning Speedos, employing rain gods and banning sex in its hotels. I remember the days when they added outstanding rides to but thats another story...

Better when they were at Chessington

Wait...so let me get this straight. It's the fault of people who think smoking is cool that have caused people to smoke and to continue smoking.

2008 season, regular 16,000 gate figues.Althoguh that year was just the best Chessie season ever from a personal stand point, as well as a commercial one.