Mark9

I'm pretty calm to be honest and I don't think I'm being that over dramatic. Fright Nights has always been an incredibly popular event and with rides running at lower throughput levels, the park being more sensitive to wind levels and more rides closed then usual, I don't think I'm far off in my assessment. All they need is for one of the big coasters to have a major issue and then the park will really struggle.

At what point does it become an issue? When nothing but the Rockin' Tug is open?

Why are we giving Thorpe a free pass over this just because it's Thorpe and they are always like this and Fright Night's are always busy etc etc. We wouldn't accept it at other parks and at Thorpe, the situation is worse because throughputs are generally down across the board, there's literally nothing else to do there apart from rides and the mazes have tiny throughputs. If they have a bad day of reliability, which is all too common at Thorpe, thats a lot people to annoy. It's going to be hell.

I genuinely fell asleep reading that post.

Slags off Bubbleworks and then says Zufari is the best experience in the park despite that ride being the only one that feels like an actual Animal Kingdom rip off. Eesh. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and it depends on your point of view. It was only ten years ago when the wheels were starting to come off at Thorpe and a lot of theme park geeks were saying they enjoyed Chessington more because it felt like a proper theme park and had a more pleasant and enjoyable atmosphere. So it's not just 90's nostalgia coming into play but for only a decade ago. Love how you bought up Circus World though, an area that few on most theme park forums wold have ever visited and an area that barely lasted. Finally, did you visit Chessington in the 90's?

Brexiteers generally holiday at PortAventura, not Blackpool.

Peeking really is trash though. Any ride that can slip out of control with a holding break on has seriously messed up in the design process.

Out of interest what happened at Inferno to make it one of the worst performing ones. In theory, that should be the best as it has one of the longer rides and one of the better ride systems.

I haven't a clue. The disclaimer above just says staff aren't required to swap pin badges.

Oh its completely Peekings fault. Poorly designed piece of rubbish by Fabbri.

Merlin should just do the Disney thing then and say that staff have to give their pins if guests ask to trade.

I do feel like Slinky is going to be a surprisingly good ride, I was't initially that interested but looking at the layout, it looks pretty Juvelen-esque which can only be a good thing.

Utter brill to operate though.

It spins out of control if you load more then 6 pods at a time.

Katun, back row on this is sublime, little pop of air time too. Wodan for some reason feels amazing and in the rain it feels absolutely out of control. Nemesis, I just love how unassuming it is. Sure it hasn't got height or particularly intense speed, but I love how the momentum builds and builds.

This was approved by the way. Good to hear..

I'm reading too many movie Park Germany trip reports this year. I call for this parks closure as a consequence.

Now that it's out there, I can finally say how frustrating it is that Merlin, yet again have gone down the IP route but this time to a film that either was a financial bomb on its remake or a film that most guests that visit the park will have never seen. It's like they decided on a wooden coaster and it was either the Wicker Man or the film Noah because they both feature wood at some point. Thats if it even relates to the film, but then why theme it on the Wicker Man if you don't plan to relate it to the feature in some way. Argh.

I said so little about Movie Park when I wrote about it last month, I thought I'd said more. I think it's an average theme park but its not awful. I think it just has a bit of an identity crisis; the part near Bandit with the drop tower and the SLC are pretty shoddy compared to the entrance area which is where a lot of the problem lies. Van Helsing is an excellent little coaster though and definitely a highlight.

I love watching people running to catch the Jubilee line at Stratford. I especially love it when they miss the train. I'm a horrible person.

Rant: Airplane edition. The fact that you have to get to the airport really early just to make sure that you clear security without problems. After that, the plane is always delayed anyway so you just end up in the airport for four hours wasting your life. You arrive at your gate, they announce boarding. Everyone stands up and waits in a line even though everyone has an assigned seat No matter how organised you are, everyone around you faffs around when getting on the plane. They block the entire aisle trying to work out where their seats are or where to put their luggage. You find your seat, get down. Staff announce boarding complete. You sit around for another half an hour waiting for the plane to do something. Plane was supposed to leave at 14:20 but its now 16:50 and you're wondering if you are ever going to leave Gatwick. The baby/young child behind you (there's always a young child behind you) decides to either cry or kick your seat. This will go on for the entire flight. Plane leaves but now you are in an enormous queue to get to the runway because this country takes decades to make a decision on where a new runway is going to be. It's now 17:45. Plane finally takes off. Some idiot decides now is the time he wants to get up and go to the toilet. Staff bombard him saying how unsafe it is to get up during take off, but he doesn't care for he is English and he is made off stronger stuff. Plane lands, everything is fine. The other country is fantastic with little queue for passport checks and you're swiftly on your way. A few days later Naturally its home time and on this occasion the plane back home is now four hours delayed so now you're stuck at Gothenburg airport, all the shops and food places are closed so now there's nothing. Just empty time. You finally get on the plane just that little bit irritable. Pilot announces due to bad weather conditions at Gatwick, air traffic controller is advising another hour delay whilst they find a landing slot. You now want to kill everyone. Thank god you are on your way, but this time you have to face the dreaded passport checks at Gatwick. Plane lands. The seatbelt sign is turned off. Everyone decides to get up to get their luggage and just stand there waiting for the door to open to disembark. This takes ten minutes. You try to get through passport control quickly but unfortunately the plane is taxied as far away from the terminal as possible so after fifteen minutes of walking you finally make it. Due to Tory cuts only one border enforcer is working. You get through, now ready for suicide but unfortunately the door to the luggage compartment on the plane has frozen shut or your luggage has ended up in Lisbon. If you have managed to get through all that, the real nightmare begins as you either have to get a Southern service from Gatwick or the Piccadilly line from Heathrow.

They deliberately stack them now. Its ludicrous but they have little to no faith in their ride systems actually working.

The rumour mill never lies.

Both of your opinions on Swarm are probably in sync with guests in general and why it's rumoured to get some kind of gimmick to try and bolster its ratings. It makes sense that out of all the coasters at Thorpe, its one of the B&M"s that get it and I've noticed a slight resurgence of love for Inferno of late. It will just annoy all of us who waited for Swarm to quieten down to have a ride because that queue will never ever come down now. Operationally, VR destroys any throughput. I've heard that 10 minute dispatches on Kraken are not uncommon, that ride must be at least double the ride time of Swarm. It really highlights how desperate Merlin are to try and make everything they do a 'success'. Ironically, Swarm which is a ride that whilst never really hitting the mark with the general public, is the more valiant attempt to make a ride with a story and cohesive theming. Even if it fails on this, its definitely a better step then things like Storm Surge.