March 1, 201411 yr comment_177464 I unfortunately wasn't able to attend Thorpe Park last year so to hear that Vortex wasn't reaching a full height is pretty surprising. I'm guessing there was some kind of mechanical limit they'd put on it to reduce wear and tear or had wear and tear meant the ride was struggling to reach it's full height? The ride in general felt like it was just struggling to operate in my opinion. It felt very 'juttery' in its operation, so we it swung in a different direction, it felt very unnatural, forced and that everything just wasn't quite right. Whether that was something enforced by engineering to try and reduce wear and tear or not I don't know, but either way, the way it was riding, it needed a huge amount of attention, which I'm glad to hear it has!
March 1, 201411 yr comment_177465 Well the max hight you got last year before it started to stop. That's only half way through the new cycles New cycles? Are they a lot longer?
March 1, 201411 yr comment_177466 I think the actual length of the cycle will stay the same... But last season it spent a really long to try and get to maximum height (which wasn't very high) and then would slowly end the cycle - this season sounds like it will reach its maximum height much quicker to give a longer section in the middle where you're at max height
March 1, 201411 yr comment_177471 Yeah I thought it would stay the same because otherwise they would have to change the theme music and that, but would of been good if they did
March 1, 201411 yr comment_177478 Yay! My favourite ride will be working properly this year! Glad to see thorpe finally giving her some much needed love
March 1, 201411 yr comment_177480 Think same thing needs to happen to MMBR as that is very juttery and has not reached maximum height recently compared to the pirate ship at Paultons which is the same model.
March 13, 201411 yr comment_178174 Yer running it today and well it's was ok to start with but it's gotten back in to its old ways
March 14, 201411 yr comment_178231 ... What on earth happened in the space of literally a week or so for it to change so dramatically?
March 14, 201411 yr comment_178239 Probably wrong here but would it be possible for Thorpe Park to tweak the settings to something less intense I.e. less strenuous on the ride, for the purposes of reducing maintenance costs?
March 14, 201411 yr comment_178243 That is how they manage Samurai, but as Vortex is largely gravity based (ie you can't slow down the downward movement, and the bottom of the swing is the point of highest stress) it isn't really possible unless they drastically reduce the swing height. I wouldn't want them to do that.
March 14, 201411 yr comment_178320 I'm not to sure why it's reverted back but they look at it and they have an idea about what might be causing it when there weight on the ride but don't think it be all done by weekend of by Thursday TBH
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178335 I'm not to sure why it's reverted back but they look at it and they have an idea about what might be causing it when there weight on the ride but don't think it be all done by weekend of by Thursday TBH It SHOULD be done by Thursday, what with it being the park's official opening...
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178378 The ride was, a shock I think is a fair statement. Myself and Han are not 'swing ride' people but both seemed to end up on Vortex today; and the ride was notably juddering more than last year, both through ride vibration and structural movement. The ride cycle seemed to take a fair time longer to gain any real height, and be over in mere seconds from that. The only credit I can give it is that it seemed to be spinning quicker than normal, and offering every seat a 'at the top' swing if albeit at different heights of swing. Improvement? I think not.
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178382 The ride was, a shock I think is a fair statement. Myself and Han are not 'swing ride' people but both seemed to end up on Vortex today; and the ride was notably juddering more than last year, both through ride vibration and structural movement. The ride cycle seemed to take a fair time longer to gain any real height, and be over in mere seconds from that. The only credit I can give it is that it seemed to be spinning quicker than normal, and offering every seat a 'at the top' swing if albeit at different heights of swing. Improvement? I think not. Sounds pretty disappointing to be honest seeing as they've spend all season trying to fix it, will try it out tomorrow
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178384 If the ride is not gonna get any better then maybe the park could maybe think about getting a KMG XXL (a huge version of an Afterburner!) I hope it gets fixed in time for the 27th cause I wanna go on my favourite ride!!!
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178387 It looked pathetic. I'm glad I was too fat in the end and had to do the walk of shame (I wasn't too fat, my light was green, but it wouldn't start and they didn't know why so they wanted to push it down more which I think would have stopped me breathing! So I got off instead, before the person who was actually too big got off as well. I digress). It was barely getting to 90 degrees. we noticed it got markedly higher on one side than the other, suggesting it is only powering one way with gravity alone doing all the work to get it back up the other side. That could explain its general crapness.
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178399 It's a real shame that Vortex still hasn't been fixed and running properly for the 2014 season, as I really hoped Thorpe would fix the height and stutter problem it had last year. Considering other rides had difficulties today, I think Thorpe need to take a long good look at how all of their rides operate and look in presentation at some point and realise that instead of using their budget on a "new" ride/area in the park to gain higher gate numbers each year, they should spend it to get these rides running to their full potential and look more appealing to a guest, especially considering some of these rides are getting to a stage where it isn't even worth queuing more than 5 minutes for now. I'll give Thorpe another week to fix these problems, but honestly, I doubt they will be fixed anytime soon.
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178401 It's a real shame that Vortex still hasn't been fixed and running properly for the 2014 season, as I really hoped Thorpe would fix the height and stutter problem it had last year. Considering other rides had difficulties today, I think Thorpe need to take a long good look at how all of their rides operate and look in presentation at some point and realise that instead of using their budget on a "new" ride/area in the park to gain higher gate numbers each year, they should spend it to get these rides running to their full potential and look more appealing to a guest, especially considering some of these rides are getting to a stage where it isn't even worth queuing more than 5 minutes for now. I'll give Thorpe another week to fix these problems, but honestly, I doubt they will be fixed anytime soon. Erm, they took it down, sent it back to the manufacturer who dealt with it and completely rebuilt it again. I think you can safely call that taking 'a look' at how it operates...
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178403 Erm, they took it down, sent it back to the manufacturer who dealt with it and completely rebuilt it again. I think you can safely call that taking 'a look' at how it operates... I understand that Thorpe do this to their rides every year. What I don't understand is why problems such as the height and judder still remain present when they obviously shouldn't be there, even after it's been "completely rebuilt" again.
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178404 Erm, they took it down, sent it back to the manufacturer who dealt with it and completely rebuilt it again. I think you can safely call that taking 'a look' at how it operates... I hope they got a receipt for that then!
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178405 I understand that Thorpe do this to their rides every year. What I don't understand is why problems such as the height and judder still remain present when they obviously shouldn't be there. Except no, they don't take them down and send them back to the manufacturer every year, it received *special treatment* (ooh!) this year and there is only so much that they can do with it. Fairground flat rides don't last forever. I'm not saying it's acceptable to have all the flat rides be giving second-rate experiences compared to what they used to achieve, but don't act like they didn't bother. Who knows, maybe the engineers can play with it for a bit and it'll improve it again, these have been the first few days for it with full riders.
March 15, 201411 yr comment_178407 The weird thing is we were running it 2 weeks before preview day and like my comment a whole back it was all working and swinging along nicely because I know every one on the park walk over to see how good it was it really look amazing but on the Wednesday this week it kind of started falling back into what some of you rode today so I'm baffled as to how it's change so quickly
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