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Slammer


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Were staff riding today? And who 'rumoured' it to be tomorrow?

That's exited me :D but I shouldn't get too exited, because it's not likely to happen :(

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Staff were ridding it for training purposes as for host training you need riders and as slammer still closed they used staff but if there staff training on it I'm guessing it wont be 2 long

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Surely if staff are riding it, it's safe enough for public to ride it, so I assume once they're trained it will be open. The fact that staff think it's open today Is also a good sign, means it could open any minute. :D

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I didn't see it testing yesterday, there was just a couple of ride staff there faffing around with the seats, couldn't see what they were doing but looked like they were cleaning them.

Would of thought if it did open, Thorpe would of put a photo and that on there Facebook?

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I would of thought, if it opened they would keep it descrete because it is liable to breaking down any moment. If it is open, I doubt they will make it public however have signs at the park saying it is open just not to get people's hopes up by putting it online.

If it does open, I hope it runs until the end of the summer as I want to get back on it but won't be able to until the summer!

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If I had a penny for every time someone's said this, I wouldn't need to take out a student loan for uni!

It does seem like Slammer will eventually be opening, perhaps in the near future.

I do expect it to open some time soonish, but I don't think Thorpe will be keeping it much longer

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They won't keep a ride that still pulls in guests? Or a ride that when it works works well.

You also have to look at it from a business side of things. It may get 40 minute queues in the summer when its working but that is partly because of its lowish throughput. However the real case is that it is normally broken and is now a ride where spare parts don't exist. If a component breaks Thorpe have to ask S&S to make a new one which will raise maintenance costs. There will only be so much money they throw at it before management says no more. I'm not saying that it will go this year but more that I doubt we will see it in 5 years time.

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Actually I do see it from a business point of view and for all we know S&S may charge a lot less than we think due the fact it's now a one of a kind and the parks kept it. The point of that is, as far as the park sees it, it's a ride that brings people in. How much they have to pay to get it fixed obviously doesn't bother them or it would have been gone ages ago. Not to mention this is the first major downtime it's had in a little while. Businesses care about profit, if fixing it doesn't cut into the profit then they really won't care.

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Actually I do see it from a business point of view and for all we know S&S may charge a lot less than we think due the fact it's now a one of a kind and the parks kept it. The point of that is, as far as the park sees it, it's a ride that brings people in. How much they have to pay to get it fixed obviously doesn't bother them or it would have been gone ages ago. Not to mention this is the first major downtime it's had in a little while. Businesses care about profit, if fixing it doesn't cut into the profit then they really won't care.

Does it bring people in though?

When ordinary members of the public visit Thorpe, what rides will they think of? They'll think of the likes of the five major coasters and Tidal Wave, since these are the rides that are focused upon the most. I doubt there's many, if any, saying 'We need to go to Thorpe Park because it's got Slammer!'.

When it is open, how popular of a ride is it? Not very. Slammer likely struggles to get above 400pph, yet I've only ever seen it get over an hour queue once, maybe twice, since it opened. I bet there's loads of other rides on park which get more people in one day want to go on instead of Slammer. I wouldn't call it a popular ride by any means.

I bet that some people will call it 'The ride that got stuck upside years ago', since whenever it broke down with people on it, it made it onto BBC news. Regular visitors will see that it's down so often that they may think it's unsafe too, and be reluctant to ride it.

Whatever way I look at it, I just can't see how anyone can call Slammer a popular ride, or a ride that brings guests in. From where I'm standing, it's not. There's surely got to be a point where the negatives outweigh the positives, and the park just have to say enough is enough. Even if the parts are cheap, there's other things you have to look at - time consumption for engineers (do you really want your engineers spending loads of time working on a ride that could break down a month later for an extended period of time?), marketing (it doesn't look good having an SBNO ride on park, especially when it's marketed on the map and the website), staffing, etc.

Given all those factors, I wouldn't be surprised if Slammer is gone soon (usual cliché, I know, I'm sorry, but it is what I feel).

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