Mark9

Their passes are awesome. Free parking too If you can ignore the slight scent o cheapness running through their parks, you can have a great day too.

Interesting post, I don't necessarily agree with what you're saying though. We've had female mods in the past and we're likely to have them again. I'd like a personal message from you about who you think has a problem towards female members and what evidence you have because that's a pretty serious accusation. My final thought on this before you message me, looking at the TPM team page, two of the mods (Tom and Pluk) were brought on through blind applications when a female member said the next mods should be chosen democratically. Ian, Marc and I are the founders of the website and Peaj was given the role of TPM trip organiser a couple of years back and there is no question that he has done and is doing an excellent job and has been crucial in bringing new members onto the forum. The rest of the mod team are here because they have put time and effort into building Thorpe Park Mania and the forum. If we want to represent the rollercoaster community I'd want it to be based on their passion and love of rides, not because they are female or gay or Italian.

That's excellent news to hear.

They don't but to be fair to them, they've never pretended otherwise and North America is a pretty big continent so the same ride thing becomes irrelevant.

I always thoroughly enjoy your trip reports Ben and this is up there with the best of them. Only ride I can really comment on that you spoke about was Raptor, agree with your view. Even though it's the smallest, it definitely fits my idea of what a wing-rider should be. Ironically enough, its the only one that is all about the near-missed as every other one has gone for the height approach. I'm intrigued by the ten looper, although improved, still being far away from a perfect ride.

http://www.awesomeocean.com/2014/12/04/four-reasons-condemning-seaworld-really-bad-idea/

With so many rides closed and the big players on 90 mins/2hour queues what else can you do? You either do nothing or queue longer for a Dodgems. How busy actually is Chessington really, what gate figures is it currently getting?

0/10 The worst ride in Europe, possibly the world. It's only redeeming feature being the exit into a wine shop.

Herein lies the Seaworld dillema. When in the media you have this image of animal abuse how do you get away from that. Still, I've never understood why people are so up Seaworld's back about the Orcas when zoo's across the entire planet are pretty much left alone. Seems like a massive double standard to me. Take this rhino at Berlin zoo it's completely contained in a dirt mound and a tiny enclosure. How is that acceptable and yet Seaworld isn't.

I've no problems with the Dome and it doesn't look aged to me. It serves it's purpose very well IMO.

Wasn't Wild Mouse rumoured to go three years ago but nothing came of it. Has something happened recently for these rumours to surface?

Chessington in 1998 was the park that threw me into the throes of enthusiast culture, particularly the old Vampire trains falling from the second lift hill into Transylvania and Dragon River boats going into the dragon mouth. I'd visited the park a couple of times previously and at that time had fond memories of Fifth Dimension, Runaway Mine Train and Jumbos in Circus World so knew that I loved the place. But 1998 was when I truly fell in love with the escapism and whimsy of a theme park. That time was particularly special with the introduction of Rattlesnake and then Samurai in 1999.

Truckers queue is the biggest oddity in the park, it springs from 5mins to 40 mins with one cycle of the carousel. A lot of guests do the two rides together so the queue for Trucks goes from very few people to the 70 people from Carousel. Flipping nightmare to keep that queue board updated I can tell you and it doesn't help that the queue-line for Trucks was extended a few years back.

Queue time reduced by 30 minutes.

Were you comparing Paultons to Haunted Mansion in Florida where you can see the ride building behind the facade?!

Because we need to make digs at Thorpe at every opportunity no matter how unrelated it may be.

I know it's your opinion. That's all TPM is, a place of opinions and viewpoints. I'm throwing out the opposite view which is based in fact. Thorpe has had massive rollercoaster investment since 2000 and even though you've jumped into rides since 2009, you've still had massive rollercoaster investment compared to anything else. Would another rollercoaster be the answer to all of Thorpes problems?

If it helps Dean, you've had 15 years of Thorpe building things purely for a thrill basis, maybe now is the time to try something a little different. Still I like the word spited, as if five major rollercoasters in ten years was the industry norm.

Go and spend a lot more money I suggest, might encourage them to open longer hours. Five years ago we didn't even have Tues/Weds/Thurs opening.

Mainly because the block system that rollercoasters employ is infallible. Block breaks automatically close until the next part of the track is clear and this is what happened at The Smiler because we know from witness reports that the train was stopped on the lift hill. What shouldn't be possible is that you can just over-ride the safety systems particularly in the event of a stalled train.

Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland.

I don't even see why Chessington has to open weekdays through September and October. It's guest numbers barely reach 500 at that point.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3207431/Two-workers-quizzed-human-error-Alton-Towers-horror-Engineer-turned-automatic-safety-lock-operator-let-truck-slam-stalled-carriage.html Looks like the Daily Mail is the first to run with the story; human error.

Josh C linked to the artwork on the previous page of the kind of thing we should be expecting.