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Summer Nights


MarkC

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Brilliant. Genuinely brilliant.

Well done thorpe, you're doing incredibly well this year. Persuading people to visit, persuading people to extend their visit, persuading people to enjoy visiting.

Far far better than your old view of "You'll come anyway, and we don't give a toss about you" attitude. I hope this shows back in improved revenue and satisfaction! :)

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Well 45 mins to collect your 'pre-booked' tickets this evening. The queue for ticket collection was right back to the Annual pass hut and this did not change in the 45 mins I was in the queue. I'm not impressed spending 45 mins in a fly infested queue to collect a pre-booked ticket and being told Tidal Wave was not running and no replacement ride. To then find the Swam still not running at 7.50 and when we went back later the Swarm still was not working. Thankfully we waited and got on the ride.

I made a point of getting to the park before 7PM so I had time to collect my tickets and get in for 7.30... how wrong was I.

Overall, it was very good value for money, I would do it again, BUT the only thing putting me off doing it ever again was the queue to get your tickets/wristbands. Thorpe need to sort this out.

Plus on every ride there was no queue system, it was a free for all, some people just not getting off rides, others using the normal queue, some jumping back on others opening gates to get on and staff not having a care in the world as to what was going on.

For example on Stealth, some guests using the Fast Track queue, others using the disabled queue and others just opening the gate and walking through.

There were even guests having free rides on the Games stalls by Tidal, having a free attempt on the rope ladders as there were no staff or security stopping them.

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Well 45 mins to collect your 'pre-booked' tickets this evening. The queue for ticket collection was right back to the Annual pass hut and this did not change in the 45 mins I was in the queue. I'm not impressed spending 45 mins in a fly infested queue to collect a pre-booked ticket and being told Tidal Wave was not running and no replacement ride. To then find the Swam still not running at 7.50 and when we went back later the Swarm still was not working. Thankfully we waited and got on the ride.

I made a point of getting to the park before 7PM so I had time to collect my tickets and get in for 7.30... how wrong was I.

Overall, it was very good value for money, I would do it again, BUT the only thing putting me off doing it ever again was the queue to get your tickets/wristbands. Thorpe need to sort this out.

Plus on every ride there was no queue system, it was a free for all, some people just not getting off rides, others using the normal queue, some jumping back on others opening gates to get on and staff not having a care in the world as to what was going on.

For example on Stealth, some guests using the Fast Track queue, others using the disabled queue and others just opening the gate and walking through.

There were even guests having free rides on the Games stalls by Tidal, having a free attempt on the rope ladders as there were no staff or security stopping them.

Yeah I heard the pre-booked tickets were a nightmare, tonight was a lot busier compared to when I went last week. Stealth, Inferno and Swarm all had some technical difficulties as far as I'm aware at some point in the evening and waiting for Swarm was a nightmare at the end. I'm guilty of using the disabled queue for Stealth but anyone who I saw walking through the queue I just let in front :lol: In the defence of the staff, if there is no one waiting by the barriers for your row the staff allow you to stay on, as it means the people in the station still get to ride. They've been pretty efficient at this (especially last week) and said we had to get off if there were people waiting. It was irritating with Tidal being closed though when they could have opened something else but never mind. We found we got more for our money the week before so don't be put off by it :) Oh and we didn't have to wait 45 minutes for tickets last time either!

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They need to sort out the queue for tickets, when we got there a guy got on the radio and mentioned guests were queueing all the way back to the Annual pass hut and they didn't even open any more windows, 4 out of the 8 were open.

If they could not open Tidal, I would have expected them to open Loggers as a replacement. But got 13 rides in this evening, could have got double that but we left after 2 hours.

I would have loved to have been able to do Rush in the dark, but looks like I'll not get to do that again.

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Sounds like a really unfortunate day to go.

On my previous Summer Nights, I haven't had to wait more than 5 minutes for ny wristband, and there was only 2 or 3 booths open. As for the way people were queuing, I found that the queues were so minimal it wouldn't really matter if you did go through the gates again, as there was so little queue..

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Summer Nights was dissapointing yesterday in my opinion. To get into a (and I quote from the Dome) "QUEUE FREE" event, we had to wait 45 - 50 minutes with 4 out of 8 windows open (sometimes 3).

After actually getting in the park (at about 8pm) we noticed that all the rides were running on one train operation!

This was ridiculous for a "no queue" event. If the park had been quiet enough to run one train and still have no queues then we wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't.

We didn't get on enough rides to justify the £5 event charge to be honest.

I thought that Thorpe had turned a corner by offering events like this - but it seems that on Saturday it suffered the same problems as Fastrack (overselling tickets, and in this case running the park on bare minimum).

A lot of other people in the park looked hacked off, and too right!

On top of all this, Tidal Wave (part of the ride offering) was closed for the event and no other ride was opened to compensate for this. Actually, it was closed all day.

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This was ridiculous for a "no queue" event. If the park had been quiet enough to run one train and still have minimal queues then we wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't. We didn't get on nearly enough rides to justify the £5 event charge, so I see it as a waste of both time and money.

Wait hang on. How many rides did you get on exactly?

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These are literally the first bad words I have heard about these events since they started. If it was really that bad you've been incredibly unlucky.

And that's even after I attended ;)

I too would like to hear more about what rides were done and the situation... Someone else mentioned Swarm had downtime and that was it aside from Tidal Wave... But really, for the 2/3 hours, how could you not fulfil £5 worth of rides when according to many others, the majority were a one train wait?

The 4 out of 8 booths is a problem to be fair... Though it's probably the only night they've needed THAT many...

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If people were opening the gate on Stealth then it can't have been more than 3 trains wait. The Summer Nights I went to all of the queues were a free for all purely because the only people you saw were up in the station, not in the queues. I'm sure if there was actually a queue the staff wouldn't have let people use the side gate for re-rides. And, people wouldn't be going around again without getting off it there was someone waiting behind that gate, only if that airgate was empty.

Tidal Wave closed isn't really a big issue, how many people would actually ride it? And it wasn't even on the original line up when the event was announced, that and Storm Surge were added closer to the event. Rides not opening till 8 isn't a surprise really, the park closed at 7 with queues for the likes of Swarm probably around 30 minutes, and then they have to take a car off, annoying but expected. Maybe they should have made it 8-11 to ensure all rides are ready but this is the first year they've done anything like this so mistakes are allowed and I'm sure will be looked at if the event returns next year.

Surely we should all be a bit happy that the event has steadily been getting busier as this means it's likely to return or longer opening hours will be implemented for the summer (or at least the last few weeks when it is much busier).

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Summer Nights was very dissapointing yesterday. To get into a (and I quote from the Dome) "QUEUE FREE" event, we had to wait 45 - 50 minutes with 4 out of 8 windows open (sometimes 3). It became obvious to us then that they were blatantly lying about the queue free event.

After actually getting in the park (at about 8pm) we noticed that all the rides were running on one train operation!

This was ridiculous for a "no queue" event. If the park had been quiet enough to run one train and still have minimal queues then we wouldn't have minded, but it wasn't. We didn't get on nearly enough rides to justify the £5 event charge, so I see it as a waste of both time and money.

We were promised minimal queueing, they failed to provide that.

Are you joking? Apart from the queue at the entrance which I agree is unfortunate and you should contact Thorpe with your concerns, there were very little queues on park. The longest queue I saw was Inferno which was just coming out of the volcano, which on one train is no more than 10 mins.. Hardly an unreasonable time.. Apart from that you could sit on Colossus without getting off, Stealth walk though the gate and ride again X no queue and the Same with Saw..Swarm was in the station and you waited no more than a couple of trains.. and for what its worth Colossus was on 2 trains Friday night, by around 9:30 the other was going round empty as it was just poinltess..

Obviously when the rides re-open queues form at the more popular rides as thats where everyone goes, so whilst 2 trains may stop queues from forming first thing, the people quickly even out and spread across the park within 30 mins. But if thats not "minimal queueing" I dont know what is..

On top of all this, Tidal Wave (part of the ride offering) was closed for the event and no other ride was opened to compensate for this. Actually, it was closed all day.

What a surprise.

Again, quite unfortunate but out of the 5 summer nights ive been too, Tidal wave is apart from a handfull of people riding, is sending around empty boats all night so I dont think it would have been missed.

On the flip side Stealth had been closed all day Friday and the park worked hard to get it open and managed to get it open for the event at 8pm..

Someone else mentioned Swarm had downtime

According to somone who was at the station this was caused by a guests shoe falling off and they were not sure if it had managed to wrap around the track. Apart from that I saw Stealth have a shutdown at 10ish apart from that didnt see any rides go down.

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