April 2, 201510 yr comment_206341 This thing was running again today, but really slowly, never been on it so don't know if that's normal but noticed it spinning while on way to loggers.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206344 This thing was running again today, but really slowly, never been on it so don't know if that's normal but noticed it spinning while on way to loggers.It was on really odd settings all day!!Only rode it once but it was much much slower than last year. Was still fun however I imagine the settings are slower to preserve the arm motor. The cycle started off by the main arm doing a revolution before the spinning kicked in, we did about 3 full revolutions at its "full speed" going backwards (much slower than last year) before whirlpooling at the top for about 60-90seconds!! We then went two revolutions forwards at "full speed" before they reversed the spinning again for two revolutions where you wouldn't flip due to the motors running opposite ways. The spinning was then reversed to fowards at a much slower rate for half a full revolution before stopping again. We were then held at the top for another 30secs before it took a long time to park. The settings were really long, but meant the queue was moving at a tedious rate. Didn't help there was only one staff member doing restraints and batching in the morning as well.
April 2, 201510 yr comment_206349 it seemed to be running pretty well yesterday, my pod did a fair amount of flips. However, it really didn't like parking itself yesterday was faffing around quite a bit until it lowered. Also the broken seat on Pod 6 isn't helping with batching. The second seat from the outside was out of use yesterday, don't know if this is still the case though!
April 3, 201510 yr comment_206375 It was my first ever ride on Samurai today, and I am so happy. It was reall fun, and you get great veiws of Saw It felt quite slow though, which was a shame.
June 5, 201510 yr comment_210621 Seems a random addition but guess it makes sense. Credit to Xplorer Central on FB
June 5, 201510 yr comment_210631 Return of single rider queues...? (Certainly seems random to add it on samurai and not anything else!)
June 5, 201510 yr comment_210634 Seems a random addition but guess it makes sense. Credit to Xplorer Central on FB About time.
June 5, 201510 yr comment_210641 Pretty sure Samurai has single rider ages ago right? If so, they've bought it back, put it in the same place as the Fastrack queue and basically not changed the system they operated before which was unsuccessful? Seems odd. I'm all for single rider queues if they're put in a logical place, with their own dedicated queue line, and don't affect operations of the rides themselves. But bringing back the system which didn't work for the park in the first place seems...illogical?
June 5, 201510 yr comment_210644 The only thing I can think of is maybe the ride is having problems and the pods all need to have five people in?
June 6, 201510 yr comment_210693 I don't know about the ride having problems, but last time I was on park the setting was genuinely awful, we got maybe three upside down twists and that was all, and I've heard other people saying similar. At the time I genuinely thought it had broken or something and they'd had to stop us early, but much to my surprise we were got off the ride like normal and the staff proceeded to put more people on in our place. Anyone heard anything that it might actually be having more significant problems?
June 6, 201510 yr comment_210695 So I assume the joysticks in that picture were only ever used for programming the cycles? It wouldn't be possible to go fully manual and completely mess about with the ride cycle? I think they can do manual cycles, but very rarely do at Thorpe (for the obvious reasons such as throughput, to prevent general wear and tear, etc)
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210976 From what I've heard the ride has been giving the worst cycles lately, so either it's having ridiculous problems or the engineers have tamed it down to prevent it from having future problems... I found this video on youtube of one of the current cycles (I did not film it so excuse the somewhat dodgy filming...) and noticed how awful the cycles currently are. How long have the cycles been like this for? I can only presume since it re-opened after the breakdown a few weeks back as when it opened for Easter the cycles were pretty decent.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210982 It's been happening quite a while, it was like this when we went on 13/05
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210990 What I don't get is that people say Samurai is ruined because it was used on decent settings in the past and is not designed to run all day every day. But the Beast has operated since 2001 as far as I know, all day every day and still gives a decent ride! Just two more year than Samurai which also received a refurb in 2003/2004.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210992 2 rotations each side? When I heard of an awful cycle, I didn't realise it was that bad.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210994 An SRQ on Samurai makes a lot of sense, as without one you end up with an empty seat every time there's a group of 4 (and there are a lot of them). Last time I rode (a couple of weeks ago), we requested and got setting 6, so it's not as if they can't use the good cycles. There was no queue at the time though, which might have had something to do with it.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210995 Wow, if that's the most used setting now, just get rid of it. Absolutely pointless.
June 10, 201510 yr comment_210996 Woaah that other Topscan looks mental! Not sure I could handle a particularly long cycle due to motion sickness but when you compare the 2 videos, Samurai looks bleedin' awful! I went Samurai last week and whilst standing in the queue it looked like it was pretty tame but then when I went on it it seemed like a slightly longer cycle and I felt a bit light headed afterwards - obviously it is different watching a ride and going on it (also maybe I'm just not great with forces). It's a shame that Samrai doesn't run the way it used to (at CWOA) but, as said before it is probably to stop the ride from conking out - I do hope though that when Samurai's time is up, that it is replaced by another topscan as it does seem pretty popular with the GP and is one of my fave flats at Thorpe
June 10, 201510 yr comment_210997 I think what would be better is if the park give Samurai another refurb (if it needs it) and then only run it from July to October (the busy months) and maybe also run it only on weekends throughout the year so therefore it's not running all the time therefore it gets a break and also it will always be full due to the days being busy
June 10, 201510 yr comment_211016 I remember my first ride on samurai in 2013 in july, when it was really really busy (I went for a school trip) and I must have been on it for a good 4 minutes, and it was a lot more than 2 rotations each side and it was running fast, and the queue was about 40 minutes too! it must have been on a good setting that day because I felt really sick after, it's a shame it's running so slow now :l
June 10, 201510 yr comment_211018 I've never ridden Samurai at Thorpe Park on a decent setting, I'm sorry it's always been simply the worst Top Scan around. The Beast gives an amazing ride year in year out and lets not mention Top Buzz or Space Roller (although Lightwater don't run it quite as quick!)
June 10, 201510 yr comment_211029 I remember on a weekday fright night (in 2009 or 10 I think) it was pretty much walk-on and whatever setting it was on was completely insane, that's the one ride on Samurai I've had that's always stuck in my mind, it's such a shame it's never like that anymore Also miss the mist in 2008 FN that was so dense it was floating up to the fasttrack booth under Colossus, I never went on any other rides apart from Loggers, Rumba & Flying fish (as I was a scaredy then) but the atmosphere around the ride that night was great
June 12, 201510 yr comment_211147 So we went yesterday and the chuckle was one of the best ones I've had in years, five or six or more spins on each side, I lost count. Yet today the cycle was awful, only got two spins each way, sat next to two American guys who were having their first ever ride on a top spin who came off incredibly disappointed. What is going on with this ride?!
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