Mark9

You mean fricking Ripsaw and Rameses Revenge got one but the once tallest log flume doesn't even get a passing comment. What kind of Thorpe Park forum is this anyway.

Please god no. It would be two days long. Just get the Expedition guy to do it.

Will be the more public friendly alternative to Skyrush. I personally find it interesting that whilst Intamin mega/hypers are far better received by coaster fans, the sales have pretty much stopped whereas twenty years later, the B&M equivalent continues to sell so well.

Top ten Intamins 1. Taron - Top class ride. A rare ride where it's more than the sum of its parts. 2. Maverick - Awesome ride with so many different elements that work well in unison. The most un-American ride in Cedar Point and yet one of its best. 3. Juvelen - Always a firm favourite with me. Despite being a family ride is very very good. 4. Piraten - Djurs Sommerlands second ride in a row. Really excellent air-time and a good long layout. 5. Millennium Force - Maybe overhyped but I love the speed of this thing. The restraints really enhance how exposed you are at 300 feet. Unlike Dragster you can appreciate it. 6. Goliath - Under-rated gem. I much prefer this to its German brother as this has a much nicer setting and a faster ride crew. 7. California Screamin' - An odd one but full of great little elements. Yet to ride it's refurbished version. 8. iSpeed - Excellent speeder at the great Miribiliandia. Really intense and snappy layout. 9. Xcelerator - The first. The launch out of the station really sets up a ride that is only better then the next one as its longer. 10. Stealth - Addictive ride. Last year I enjoyed it more than I ever have before. Bottom five 5. Vertical Velocity/V2/Wicked Twister - Essentially the same ride. Pretty boring rides to be honest. Quite often in parks with other launches so they are redundant. 4. Top Thrill Dragster. If you're lucky to ride its fine. most of the times its closed. 3. Superman Escape from Kryptonite. impressive in '96. Not so much now. 2. Green Lantern. Gone but not forgotten. DIlge. 1. Tornado at Bakken. Awful awful ride. So painful and full of vibration. Speeding through a shed is not fun.

Vekoma have always been awesome. And that's the tea.

Gosh its weird looking back at this post knowing that all Disney resorts have been closed for at least a month and only Shanghai has any chance of opening before the end of May. It really shows the damage of the pandemic. I was doing a bit of coaster research and I found two B&M's that were built in 2015 and are still yet to open. The park is Hot Go Dreamworld and the wing rider and hyper just sit there abandoned. http://www.guoshanchemi.club/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=93&extra=page%3D1&page=6

I remember the period of around 2013-2015 where all Thorpe fans banged on about was Thorpe getting a dark ride. Josh C nailed it, they just got the wrong dark ride. I look at rides like Gruffalo, Wallace and Gromit, Symoblica and wonder why they hell we didn't get something on that level.

A tier . None of their parks fall into the A tier category. B tier . Chessington. Unlike the other Merlin parks, I feel like there is love for this place. The staff do care about what happens to it, the park has charm and atmosphere. A lot of the last decade has been spent refurbishing and bringing attractions back to life. Out of all the Merlin catalogue, this is the one that I can safely say compares to some of the European parks out there and for me there is nothing better then sitting in the Hotel bar overlooking the Savannah and seeing the Zebras and Giraffes roaming. C tier - Alton Towers - Without that coaster line up (which is the best in Europe don't hate me), this park has a lot missing and not a whole lot going for it. Rubbish opening hours and not enough filler in-between the top stuff means that a day here can easily drag by if you like variety in your day. Points forward are Hex and Katanga Canyon, points against are Spinball Whizzer, what they did with the Ripsaw space and Sub terra being abandoned. Heide Park - Suffers from a lot of the same problems as Towers but without the rollercoasters. I like Flug, Krake is okay and the bobsleigh is class but the rest of it is dross. Vekoma SLC and looper as the support coasters don't help and whole areas of the park are behind wooden walls. D tier - Gardaland Similar problems as Heide Park except somehow it has an even worse SLC, a pointless Intamin water ride (which goes on for what feels like hours). I like Oblivion and Raptor but frankly, Miribilandia is a much better theme park. F tier - Thorpe Park has become a nightmare. The park that was full of ambition and intent and drive in the early 00's has become a shell of what it was trying to achieve. Full of dark themes, run down areas, conflicting ideas of what its identity is and lots of attractions thrown at the place to drive attendance has meant Thorpe Park is well short of what it wanted to be. I like The Swarm, Inferno, Stealth and Detonator but the rest is soul-less garbage. Who builds an 85 water chute ride then hides it behind loads of game stalls. Ridiculous. Charmless. Lost.

The right decision even if it is the hardest decision. I feel for them but on the other hand, this is a long term investment. I'll be there 2021 to support them and we should all be there too. Just hope they can whether the storm (pun sort of intended) for another 12 months.

I don't think there's going to be any reliable eye-witnesses here, we're talking about trains that left two decades ago now. I remember riding it but I couldn't tell you with any pin-point accuracy what it was truly like, all I have to go on is riding similar like Vortex, Ninja and Iron Dragon and how those trains ride. I much prefer the Arrow trains to the Vekoma ones. Vampire is a somewhat unique case as its pacing is all over the place anyway whereas Vortex and Ninja in particular don't have that issue. The older trains have a more erratic feel to them.

I've always wondered why the other four Arrow swingers didn't convert to Vekoma trains. I imagine it's to do with the newer trains being slightly bigger as when Vampire was converted lots of ground work had to be completed to enable it to happen. Shout out to Vortex at Canadas Wonderland which is definitely the best swinger out there.

Classic Chessington🥰. I loved those trains, the very definition of themed attraction.

My first official Pandemic topic, here's the scenario. I'm an American visiting Europe for the first time. Recommend me twenty rollercoasters in Europe that I absolutely have to ride. Money and time are no object. Go.

5) Thorpe Park TPM meet 2013. There was something just so special about this trip. Whether it was the fact it was snowing, freezing cold, the most awesome people on a trip or just everything put together I don't know but it was just brilliant. To Peaj and Dara riding Tidal Wave and being drenched for the rest of the day or sitting in Calypso BBQ with hot chocolates and coffees. 4) Disneyland Paris Fandaze 2018. The end of the 25th anniversary celebration really but this was a trip where many rare characters made an appearance as well as meeting the (at the time) CEO of Disneyland Paris, Catherine Powell. It was a long day but a fantastic one. 3) Europa Park 2006. I met my future husband on this trip so it has many, many special memories for me. Travelling through Rust to the Lidl from the Tipi village. Getting drunk in a field and several of us falling into a lake. Getting on Silver Star for the first time. Travelling the diamond mine and avoiding the bears, seeing the metal dragon. Such a great trip. 2) Walt Disney World 2011. When building up to Florida, it was Universal and Seaworld that I wanted and craved. But once the trip was over it was the Disney parks that captured my heart. This was the trip where my boyfriend and I were chosen to be in the Jammin' Jungle Parade which was utterly wonderful. I'll need forget this amazing trip. 1) Chessington 1998. I wasn't an enthusiast of any kind, I was just really obsessed with them. I used to draw pictures of the Vampire with its classic bat trains all the time. This was a trip long time coming and I remember sitting outside the Bubbleworks, eating my McDonalds and looking up and watching this beautiful train swoop through Transylvania. It caught my attention and has shaped my theme park life really. To this day I love the Arrow suspended rides but Chessington is where it all started.

After all of this, we will see which companies really don't deserve our custom (wetherspoons, cineworld etc). I'm glad all of the theme parks have given their food to the NHS or elderly/vulnerable.

So how will you all be surviving the dark days? I am classed as a key worker so will still be at work as things currently stand. I have Animal Crossing for the Switch, a few other games to get through, Disney+ is out Tuesday and some netflix series to get me through.

My 2020 plan is to survive this year so I can go to some theme parks in 2021.

Thats what happens when a party bases their entire campaign on Brexit, when all the voters care about is getting Brexit done. This conservative government doesn't give a single toss about the population. The French government has pledged that not a single business will be lost. Our government would happily destroy everything to satisfy the big players. It's disgusting but its what the country voted for so that's what you bloody get.

They've only announced up to the 19th of April at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being June 15th.

Having ridden its brother, the Baaaa Epxress at Europa Park, I can safely say this in my top ten rollercoasters, right under Untamed.

Well this is the crux, the government is currently saying business as usual. All our parks are currently running (Blackpool with its on the hour cleaning, Paultons, Flamingoland has no plans to close) so therefore they are following what the elected bodies are saying to do. I don't blame them for continuing. I expect that to change today as the amount of deaths double and the official number of infected people jumps by around 400 people.

You were three when the original Chessington classic went. I was four. God I miss the Fifth Dimension.

It's a nasty virus that is wiping out 200 lives a day in Italy. It's a virus that doesn't show signs immediately so you can be a carrier and spread to 100's of people before you show symptoms. It has no known cure, it's not really known if you are immune once you've had it. Thats the danger. Read up about South Korea where it was relatively contained until Patient 31 spread it to thousands of people and then it became out of control.

From Monday all six Disney resorts will be closed. Universal Florida has also announced it will close from the end of this Sunday till the end of March. Every country needs to do this to stop this spread frankly. There's no point Europe closing every border and we just carry on saying 'some of you may die'. It's completely irresponsible and risks the spread carrying on for far longer.