2018 General Discussion

[Kiino]

On 25/03/2018 at 10:21 PM, Flipper said:

Can’t speak for Colossus but the 1.95m restriction was in place in previous years when I worked on Stealth and Swarm alike. So if you’ve been riding and you’re over that height then you’ve got away with not being checked.

They were always doing it for Swarm but there was literally never signage or measurement on Stealth the multiple times I visited last year and the sign in the annual passes room that listed all height restrictions only included one for Swarm - if it existed for Stealth then the park were not communicating in any meaningful way.

[Stuntman707]

So I’ve seen quoted on Facebook that The Living Nightmare Extreme will have more actors than any other scare attraction in the U.K. Another ridiculous claim then unless really will cram 30 or so actors in there. Tulleys def. has a lot of actors in their mazes. Way more than any Fright Nights mazes.

[Marc]

As it will be the only maze open and one of the “pulling points” of The Year of The Walking Dead and of course an “Extreme” version I’m sure we will see more actors in there than you would of a standard Fright Nights night - there’s quite abit of open spaces within there which you could fit in a decent amount of actors!

[JoshuaA]

The Colony at Tulleys must have like 30-40+ actors in its never ending duration. I would be shocked if they beat that- Living Nightmare is also very short, so I think thats probably just the usual marketing mumbo-jumbo.

 

Anyway besides that, I actually really enjoyed Living Nightmare so I'm excited to experience it again.

The theming was lush and I remember the acting being brilliant- so if they do add a few more actors in it could pretty fun.

 

[ProudToServe]

On 3/30/2018 at 2:26 PM, Marc said:

As it will be the only maze open and one of the “pulling points” of The Year of The Walking Dead and of course an “Extreme” version I’m sure we will see more actors in there than you would of a standard Fright Nights night - there’s quite abit of open spaces within there which you could fit in a decent amount of actors!

Sadly, more actors doesnt mean its going to me more scary. too many can make it less scary. element of surprise is the best scare. if there's a maze full of actors standing in a hallway, the surprise element is gone.

[Marc]

Yeah agreed - I guess you could have a herd of Walkers in there - although not sure theres the space to make the effective enough. 

 

On the subject of Living Nightmare theres a skip outside it full up.- not sure if its related to the maze or not - I guess we will see in May!

[WWTPRadio]

3 hours ago, Marc said:

Yeah agreed - I guess you could have a herd of Walkers in there - although not sure theres the space to make the effective enough. 

 

On the subject of Living Nightmare theres a skip outside it full up.- not sure if its related to the maze or not - I guess we will see in May!

Don’t worry Marc. Seeing as it’s the same building as XNWOTWDTR that skip will be full of....

 

 

 

 

[Flipper]

I never ever noticed those X’s in the queue, whoops!

 

And it may be actors vs space (square feet) which makes it actor intense kind of thing.

[Cal]

10 hours ago, Flipper said:

I never ever noticed those X’s in the queue, whoops!

 

 

 

I believe these were only added last season 

[WWTPRadio]

11 hours ago, ThorpeAddict said:

 

I believe these were only added last season 

Correct. Slight waste of effort and money but hey, what can you do 

[streetmagix]

I don't know if this has been spotted before but on the page for Summer Lates it looks like Annual Pass Holders will need to pay £10 on Fridays and Saturdays, Thursday will be 'free'. The ticket link just shows the normal tickets currently.

 

I assume it'll be like Fright Nights, extra for Standard and included for Premium pass holders?

 

https://www.thorpepark.com/events/summer-lates

[Coaster]

What on earth was going on at Thorpe today?!

 

Breakdowns on Nemesis Inferno, Colossus, Stealth, The Swarm, Depth Charge, Derren Brown's Ghost Train.  Samurai closed all afternoon/evening and Walking Dead: The Ride failed to open!

 

Got an E-stop in the final brake run of Inferno, noticed it had done that earlier in the day as well.  Fog looked great in the queueline and tunnel though, haven't seen it working that well in years.

 

Overall a very average visit, ride availability was terrible.

[Mattgwise]

52 minutes ago, Coaster said:

What on earth was going on at Thorpe today?!

 

Breakdowns on Nemesis Inferno, Colossus, Stealth, The Swarm, Depth Charge, Derren Brown's Ghost Train.  Samurai closed all afternoon/evening and Walking Dead: The Ride failed to open!

 

Got an E-stop in the final brake run of Inferno, noticed it had done that earlier in the day as well.  Fog looked great in the queueline and tunnel though, haven't seen it working that well in years.

 

Overall a very average visit, ride availability was terrible.

Agree with Jamie. Certainly my worst visit in quite some time. Got on 5 rides all day due to numerous break downs. I was very unfortunate to have it happen after queueing some time and always when at the front of the queue. 

 

At one point nine rides were unavailable!

 

Inferno in particular was suffering badly and stopped many times at the start of the brake run. Haven't seen so many issues on Inferno since its issues in opening year. 

 

You missed Rush off of the list above just to add more ammunition! 

 

On a more positive note the eXpo event was great. Well done to Phill for that,  you did a fantastic job. 

[Stuntman707]

Have to say, operations today were very poor. I’m pretty sure nearly every main attraction was down at some point during the day. The queue times were a complete mess, no accuracy. Waited 15 mins for an advertised 45 on Colossus. All of the photo scanners for the main rides were not working so couldn’t get any on-ride photos. Not sure what was going on with Inferno’s brakes, never seen a B&M so unreliable as this one today.

[Mattgwise]

And coasters went down to one train in the evening (except for maybe Colossus), leading to Inferno and Stealth to have 45 - 60 minute queues later into the evening (then for me to get to the front and them both break down again!!!!!)

[Stuntman707]

We just joined the Inferno queue for the second time when the train kinda jammed into the brakes again. Just looked up, turned around and walked away again!

[Mega-Lite]

Totally agree with what's being said, Thorpe were having a total nightmare!

 

Nemesis Inferno had the WORST rides team I've seen in years (insert witty comment about PortAventura just to annoy you), prancing around, at one point all the platformers were in position with dispatch buttons pressed, while the op chatted on the phone for over a minute, finished her conversation, then finally thought "oh maybe I should actually do my job now", shocking stuff. Can you blame the ride for constantly killing itself, I know I wanted to... Does anyone know what causes Inferno to repeatedly anchor itself and stop dead in the first set of brakes (I was lucky enough to get to sit there for 15 minutes!), my guess would be some sort of over speed alert being thrown up, but you guys being the Thorpe die hards might know.

 

Stealth went down while I was in the queue, then when I returned much later it was down again, didn't bother me though because it's only Stealth.

 

Ghost Train went down while I was in the queue and when I returned later, we waited over 20 minutes to be batched in, I've no idea how this thing operates, so you can decide whether that was yet more issues or rather it running on a lower capacity (if it can?).

 

Walking Dead was down all night, like I said in the official topic of that, how have they broken what is essentially a super reliable jumped up Vekoma Junior?

 

Detonator took over 10 minutes on 1 cycle to start, can we still blame the staff being new or was this just awful staff?

 

Swarm which before the event started had a train going up the lift every 10 seconds, was put on 1 train by the end of the event, why?

 

Rumba Rapids closed half an hour earlier than advertised, which annoyed me a bit, because as has been mentioned elsewhere, it appears to have been intensified.

 

Quantum, which was advertised as open, was in scaffolding, which was incredibly disappointing because it's fantastic.

 

Regardless I had an OK time, it was a free event after all.

 

The worst thing all night easily goes to the surge of the VIP pass holder, the scourge of the Earth...

[Coaster]

I forgot to mention that on my ride on Derren Brown's Ghost Train we ended up spending 5-10 minutes waiting in the ride "show building" after the pre-show, as about 20 people boarded the first train and the ride staff said "sorry guys, you'll have to wait for the next one" - more broken headsets?

 

Agreed about the ride staff on Inferno, dispatches were SO slow!

[JoshuaA]

Inferno was dreadful on Friday too.

I could of played a game of chess on the brake-run.. 

[Marc]

Ride availablilty wasn’t great yesterday - which is a shame as they seem to have the worse luck especially when it comes to their annual pass events (remember the 2 ghost train events where it failed to open?!) 

 

Fingers crosses Walking Dead isn’t down too long - especially over the final week of half term!

[JoshC.]

2 hours ago, Mega-Lite said:

Totally agree with what's being said, Thorpe were having a total nightmare!

 

Nemesis Inferno had the WORST rides team I've seen in years (insert witty comment about PortAventura just to annoy you), prancing around, at one point all the platformers were in position with dispatch buttons pressed, while the op chatted on the phone for over a minute, finished her conversation, then finally thought "oh maybe I should actually do my job now", shocking stuff. Can you blame the ride for constantly killing itself, I know I wanted to... Does anyone know what causes Inferno to repeatedly anchor itself and stop dead in the first set of brakes (I was lucky enough to get to sit there for 15 minutes!), my guess would be some sort of over speed alert being thrown up, but you guys being the Thorpe die hards might know.

 

Stealth went down while I was in the queue, then when I returned much later it was down again, didn't bother me though because it's only Stealth.

 

Ghost Train went down while I was in the queue and when I returned later, we waited over 20 minutes to be batched in, I've no idea how this thing operates, so you can decide whether that was yet more issues or rather it running on a lower capacity (if it can?).

 

Walking Dead was down all night, like I said in the official topic of that, how have they broken what is essentially a super reliable jumped up Vekoma Junior?

 

Detonator took over 10 minutes on 1 cycle to start, can we still blame the staff being new or was this just awful staff?

 

Swarm which before the event started had a train going up the lift every 10 seconds, was put on 1 train by the end of the event, why?

 

Rumba Rapids closed half an hour earlier than advertised, which annoyed me a bit, because as has been mentioned elsewhere, it appears to have been intensified.

 

Quantum, which was advertised as open, was in scaffolding, which was incredibly disappointing because it's fantastic.

 

Regardless I had an OK time, it was a free event after all.

 

The worst thing all night easily goes to the surge of the VIP pass holder, the scourge of the Earth...

 

Sorry for not splitting the post up into sections, but just a couple of things..

 

-Inferno's dispatching has been terrible this year I agree.  The operator talking on the phone could have been for any reason though (speaking the management, engineering, H&S, etc), and they can't dispatch the train until they say that silly safety announcement, so can't send a train till they've finished on the phone.  It's stupid though, I agree.

 

-Long wait between Ghost Train disptaches could have been down to a short delay (which wasn't announced to the queue), overbatching in the building (see below) or reduced capacity (which it can, but I'd be surprised if it did yesterday).

 

-Quantum has been closed basically all the season.  It's about time they mentioned it online / on advance.  I miss their daily 'resort information' tweet which they did last season, telling you opening hours, known closures, weather and hints/tips for the day.

 

-I'm glad that others see it as a 'free event' too.  This is a rearranged day for the preview event that Thorpe weren't really under obligation to do.  Far too many passholders see these things as a right of passage where everything must be perfect.  Obviously it's not good that things didn't go to plan for the event, and reliability was poor, but yeah, it's an added bonus where people at least got the chance to do some night rides a few months early.

 

 

1 hour ago, Coaster said:

I forgot to mention that on my ride on Derren Brown's Ghost Train we ended up spending 5-10 minutes waiting in the ride "show building" after the pre-show, as about 20 people boarded the first train and the ride staff said "sorry guys, you'll have to wait for the next one" - more broken headsets?

 

Agreed about the ride staff on Inferno, dispatches were SO slow!

 

That sounds like an issue of too many people being batched into the building in the first place.  It will be down to broken headsets, but staff who batch you in will be told how many to batch in based on the number of working headsets.

 

If too many are batched in, or another headset breaks during a cycle, you'll have an overbatch so will naturally leave people waiting.  If this is done a couple of times it really causes a nightmare.

 

In other words, the fact you waited so long inside the building is more likely down to poor staff than headsets breaking.

[Matt 236]

Shame to hear that reliability hasn’t been all that good yesterday.

 

Operations have been a general mixed bag of late. Last time I visited Swarm and Stealth operations were pretty good, however I will say Inferno’s operations have been rather poor lately. Once upon a time it was the best main ride for operations, but might now be the worst. The safety dispatch announcement could be the prime reason, however there’s surely some reason behind this. 

 

As Baron has mentioned operators will use phones to contact management, engineering or any other concerned parties. It could relate to anything from  operational issues to staff allocations.

 

Rumba’s closing early is an interesting one as I’m pretty sure the park mentioned it closing early, largely down to the ride not being permitted to operate at dusk. The attraction is generally complex and requires an engineer to shut down.

[Stuntman707]

As for The Walking Dead, the triggered scenes on the ride are now linked to the rides safety system. Therefore any problems with these new scenes will now e-stop the ride. This is primarily to prevent people from trying to stand up / leave the ride when it stops in the mid-run sections if the scenes don't work. Secondarily, the ride would not be up to standard without the scenes anyway. They are fully focused on fixing this as soon as possible especially after DBGT's horrendous opening delays.

[CallumSyxr]

Although it was a free event, reliability and operations were very bad as everyone has said in the chat.

The event was re scheduled and was the 'TWD:The Ride Preview' in which didnt open all day including the event.

Inferno was the worst ive ever seen it closed for a couple hours dispatches taking 5minutes as the operator is not doing there

job and when I was on it they had to re check the restraints 4 times.

DBGT took ages to go into the pre show.

Quantum has been down for the start of the season.

Swarm had one train in the evening.

Samurai was closed all night/afternoon

Rumba opened late and closed early.

Stealth broke down and plus we had to wait 15-20mins because 2 people were fighting in the queue.

Rush Broke down.

Vortex broke down in the morning.

 

E:xpo was good little farewell to X and X:/NWO and with parts of Thorpe Parks Past and Future.

Vortex was running very good apart from the break down in the morning and it had a mental cycle due

to the wind sensor still broken therefore lifting the gondola higher which made it more intense of a cycle.

 

Overall for a free event it was decent the sunset was amazing, it was okay and got some nice rides in the dark

+ weather held out on the day.

[Charlesberg]

I did originally post this in the park operations topic, but then I noticed everyone was talking about the pre season event in this topic so this post has been put here instead (and of course deleted from the other topic).

 

My visit yesterday was rather eventful...

 

I made a last minute decision to go to Thorpe Park for the annual pass event so on arrival I headed and waited for Stealth. I went in the front row queue but then about two pairs before my turn the ride broke down. Engineers came but this was taking ages so they told us all to leave and gave us priority passes. This took probably about an hour in total.

 

I then decided to try out Colossus (to test whether it wasn’t only good in the front row) and I was able to get a ride on it. Except, it then got stuck on the brake run for about 10-15 minutes. Fun.

 

I thought the eXpo:\2018 was brilliant with the two distinct talks on the current and former lives of X. Plus many aspects of the original versions such as the old trains, signs and on ride photos were highly fascinating.

 

After the expo, I headed back to Stealth as I was kinda desperate to get a ride on it (it’s my favourite ride at the park), this was a chance for me to use my priority pass. This time it was dark so I went in the front row queue again and managed to actually get onto the train, but to really troll me it broke down for a second time and I had to leave my seat and go behind the gate.

At this point there was no way I was leaving the queue because I was getting my front row night ride on Stealth no matter what. So the same engineers returned to fix what was likely the same problem. After about 40 minutes of waiting (by this time there was only about 6 people in the queue) the ride was finally fixed and I got my front row night ride plus 3 more rides in other seats.

 

There was now about 20 minutes left which gave just enough time to finish with Saw and Swarm.

 

Now, this is a tad ridiculous. 3 breakdowns right in front of me is just bizarre. Even worse, there were more long term breakdowns that day (not effecting me directly) such as Inferno, WD, I think DBGT and possibly more. I hope this was a one off because if it wasn’t, TP and Merlin really need to get their act together, I think that has been said enough.