January 18, 201312 yr comment_148194 I dont think they can afford to loose both out of the line up due to the knock on effect with queues with other rides and the fact the public will see two rides gone and not replaced thats not good for business just look how blackpool has suffered!
January 18, 201312 yr comment_148196 when they closed samurai to fix it, there was a sign saying closed, open again for 2013 season... and they did it quick enough to open it for fright nights, so I'm pretty sure the repair/maintenance was more of a permanent fixture. Oh yea, I forgot about the sign Guess I will take a trip to thorpe this year and ride samurai and detonator all day I found a video on youtube of samurai being run with 2 rows blocked off, this would mean that it would be only about 20 people per ride and a throughput of 300 people per hour! I wonder why the rows were blocked off... Here it is anyway, I didn't know how to post the video on so I put a link
January 25, 201312 yr comment_148960 Anyone who allways wanted the samuari theme with playing its only a dream from that screaming girl heres the download http://www.mediafire...da1zmnh75z7m2rh
March 10, 201312 yr comment_152638 This ride is getting embarrassing now, picture it: Very fast music pumping through the speakers (sounds great), the ride lights on creating lots of atmosphere But the ride, a little to the left, little to the right (repeat a good 10 times) *Music ends* Then the announcement "Your restraints will be released shortly" while guest are up in the air and the ride does more attempts to park than a very bad driver. Then repeat "Your restraints will be released shortly" then after a few more wiggles to the left and right, it parked. It seems to take longer to park than complete a cycle. I saw this happen at least three times today. Now you can see everyone looking at the ride wondering what is wrong with it and the people on the ride look shocked then they are told the restraints are going to be released shortly. Are this rides days really numbered?
March 10, 201312 yr comment_152639 Also adding to the state of which Samurai is in, besides it twitching left and right several times every time it was parking, I noticed that when it parks, the seats on rows 5 and 6 are a LOT higher up than usual. When I went on it today, I had row 5 and the seats were at least 1 foot further up from the platform than last year. This is quite obvious for both guests and the staff members, as many people I saw were struggling to get into the seats, including myself. Maybe the angle of the platform is slightly steeper than usual? Or is it that the ride system/structure hasn't been calibrated (if that's the correct term) properly yet? Little bit annoyed that Samurai's original, piano loading theme has disappeared once again and replaced with the current one - "Your restraints will be released shortly..." which is repeated twice. To me is a little dull compared to the original one.
March 10, 201312 yr comment_152643 The worst thing about row 5 is you can't touch the floor with your feet, but the entire gondola leans forwards and you struggle to hold yourself in then the ride staff ask you to hold your hands out and the restraints are lowered
March 10, 201312 yr comment_152651 My mate is so tall that during loading and offloading, he can sit in the seat with his size 15 feet firmly on the ground, and tilt the pod to help others easily get on and off.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152656 That would be handy, but is he above the maximum height requirement for the Swarm, I was looking earlier and one of the hosts was way over the maximum height, do they check the maximum height... well that's for the Swarm Topic.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152658 Remember, today was a PREVIEW day, so issues like this can be ironed out for the new season
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152660 In all fairness Marc, the ride was out of action at the back end of last season only opening for fright nights. There has been 4.5 months of additional time to get these problems sorted. I know there will be teething problems and I observed staff being trained, but the parking issue has been there for a while now as mentioned in previous posts. It is a shame as it puts a downer on the ride.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152684 I wonder if it struggles so much without any guests on it. There are some rides where no matter how much testing you do with nobody on it, the secon weight gets added to the equasion it dies.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152727 Remember, today was a PREVIEW day, so issues like this can be ironed out for the new season But this is Thorpe Park, is that possible? What exactly was wrong with Samurai when it as down before Fright Nights?
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152729 I only saw Samurai briefly yesterday but it was looking very nice with the lights on!
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152789 Sorry guys, don't know how to put a proper video in: Most of this video is actually the ride trying to go down! Most of the guests who ride samurai will not have a clue why it isn't going down and why they couldn't have been having a longer cycle instead of all the faffing! It's such a shame that samurai is so bad these days...
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152797 Never thought I'd say this, but at the moment it would appear Slammer is outperforming Samurai!
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152808 Or half the season! Let's hope Samurai has a reliable season, the slowness discussed is bad and at least it's still running, but there's a part of me that's convinced it will go down for weeks or months later this year. The signs are there, the mighty warrior isn't as mighty these days. If it did pack up altogether, I'd like to see Thorpe do a Zodiac with it and get another topscan, rather than remove it altogether. Thorpe must realise this rides popularity.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152822 If it did pack up altogether, I'd like to see Thorpe do a Zodiac with it and get another topscan, rather than remove it altogether. Thorpe must realise this rides popularity. I quite agree, but rather than buying another knackered one like they did with Zodiac it'd have to be a new one with something as forceful and maintenance hungry as a topscan. I don't know that that would be viable financially for something they couldn't really advertise as new.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152824 I wasn't visiting the park regularly when Samurai arrived at the start of 2004, was it advertised as new? I do recall seeing some photos online of some banners about it getting a new home, not sure which park.
March 11, 201312 yr comment_152825 I think when it moved to Thorpe it did go to Mondial to get a full refurbishment because Chessington obliterated it or something
March 12, 201312 yr comment_152831 Yes, it was taken back to Holland for most of the closed reason where it received a major overhaul, and a new settings system I think. Here is the Thorpe Park newsletter sent to employees in January 2004, complete with pictures of Samurai in pieces at Mondial in Holland. Click here for the full page of its deconstruction from Chessington in November 2003.
March 12, 201312 yr comment_152833 Samurai has had the parking issue for *years* now. I really can't believe they still haven't sorted it. It was quite frustrating how on Sunday there were so few people in the park that they ended up closing Samurai (at least for a while) so they didn't have any breakdown issues with half loads! The ride I ended up getting in the morning was once again 30 seconds of good action and then 30 seconds of lame slow rotation, followed up (by no exaggeration) *3 minutes* of it trying to park! And yes, we also noticed the ride is parking much higher/at a different angle to the platform. Even though they were Annual Pass holders people waiting to ride were all commenting on how they wouldn't be able to reach the seats!
March 12, 201312 yr comment_152878 Yeah, isn't Hex still being a b*tch parking? Yes. It's still taking it's time to right itself. Was like it last season aswell
March 13, 201312 yr comment_152938 That zeroing issue will be good fun during peak season if it's not sorted! I'm not a Samurai fan per se... it's resulted in my Burger King making a reappearance a couple of times in the past
March 13, 201312 yr comment_152995 I hope they do sort out the zeroing issue, one time I was waiting for 3 minutes for it to zero and It was on its weakest setting, which was annoying
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