Mark9

Trust me, they load it as fast as they can but because its such a **** ride, you can't go any faster.

Electricbill.You are exactly right on the point it is just a sign. But the thing is, this sign hasn't been working since you were six years old. Ever since 2004, fanboys and enthusiasts have been banging on about the magic being lost at Thorpe, how a simple thing like a sign not working is evidence of the management not caring about their park and letting it fall into disrepair. They fix it.And on the official fan website which is practically dedicated to Thorpe Park as it is, with all its members and links, only two people can be bothered to say that the sign is properly working again. And I get mocked by you, but its exactly this lack of appreciation by its most loyal fan group that makes me wonder if they read this and think "well why should we bother fixing effects if no one is going to notice." The everyday guests aren't going to notice something as trivial as a sign flashing again. So am I really asking so much that people recognise the effort and dedication put in by Thorpe and its management team to get a sign working. If it wasn't for the lack of caring maybe we'd see things such as the Water-tower splashing water all over the place again. But if no one comments then how are Thorpe going to know people care.

To be honest it has nothing to do with the "what ride" factor. It's where people are heading. People always gravitate towards the newest ride and then go on from there. They don't usualy think "well we'll do Saw then go and do Stealth", it's always go from one ride to the nearest one. You can see this at Alton quite easily as Th13teen and Rita will without fail have epic queues compared to the dead Forbidden Valley. Colossus will struggle to get through queues as its the lowest throughput big coaster at Thorpe. Plus its ride system and Trains are rubbish!

I agree with letting people into the dome as it gives people a bit of space to breathe... although there may be issues with capacity in there. I don;t think Early ride time is needed at Thorpe as it already has very good hours. Currently its 9:30-8:00 which is a good 10 and a half hours. It doesn't really need extra time and the staff would be exhausted working a constant 11 hour day.Maybe in the quiet time, but then you wouldn't need early rider anyway as the park would be so dead.

*sighs*People for years have been moaning about ride reliability and the effects at Thorpe not working. Reliability is 100% better and effects that have long been off are finally fixed and no one notices or bothers to comment.

That's thE alignment gate which is fired with compressed air. Fury's is quieter just because the queue doesn't run directly pArallel with it. It's actually just as loud as Spinball.

Thats all well and good.. but did you spray the riders of Incredible Hulk with silly string?

Happy Birthday Benin, cya on Saturday

Only extended opening by half an hour?It's things like this that makes me so glad I never work at theme parks. The glory of working on good rides means nothing if you just get hours of abuse for something totally out of your control.

Two of their highest throughput rides, their newest ride and with their other high throughput ride on reduced capacity....oh dear.

You mean...You don't...Oh MY GOD!

Because you posted a picture of it, you and Ricky are the ones who noticed it.

Here is an excellent example of why Thorpe should just downright ignore its most loyal fans. After years of being off they have finally fixed the Tidal Wave sign fully. And exactly how many posts have been made congratulating them for getting it going again?Two.

How often does Thorpe actually have two hour plus queues?To be honest I see your point about staff talking to each other but the thing is we are human beings, we by our very nature are social and sometimes we do talk to each other. For them it makes their day go faster. I find more often then not that Thorpe and Alton work very hard constantly to get people on the rides. Rarely do I see them just talking.

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.