I don't mind the roughness you can sometimes get with Saw - although I did ride it 9 times in a row once and had a splitting headache - but it was worth it 

I only ride it really for the indoor part which is fun. The rest is just minimising all the vibrations and trying to enjoy the inversions. It's just annoying the newer Eurofighters are much better than this now.

I only ever ride it at the beginning of the day, just as its the one coaster that I would never queue a long period of time for. For me, its mostly fine until the mid-course brake run. That final inversion really is a killer, although I can see how people find the first drop bad, and I would have to agree with that bit being rough.

I will try and get a slo-mo shot of the car jolting on the first drop next time I go. To try and prove my point 

First time I went on saw I didn't think it was that rough. Although. After a few more visits and rides in it it's definitely a rough one! Not as bad as Colossus on back row though. I got concussion!


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After my last ride at the weekend, yes, I definitely do recognise the jolt your talking about at the bottom of the drop. That and the final inversion, easily the parts that make saw the worst coaster at Thorpe for me.


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If you want a smoother ride, try sitting in the middle seats. It's the same on The Smiler, you often get a much smoother experience.

 

That all being said, as displeasing as it is to have your spine repeatedly jammed into the base of your skull...I still think Colossus is more painful.

Does anyone know why the rotating blades are still broken?

I guess Thorpe can't be bothered to fix the blades yet, if at all. The day they fix the blades will be the day they jet wash Colossus.  I was thinking that maybe Euro-Fighters were getting smoother with better rides I've had on the Smiler. Then I had a ride on the back row that was rough as hell which immediately undid that opinion. The vibrations were horrific. Gerstlauer Euro-Fighters are horrible.  Didn't even consider going on Sore Saw the last two times I went to Thorpe.

I find with Saw it changes every time I ride it, it depends on what car you're on. Some rides on it are a lot smoother than others I think

Having ridden Mystery Mine at Dollywood multiple times, that thing is brutal, if you aren't braced then you're gonna have a real bad time, I find saw smoother than MM 

I love Saw - yes certain trains can be a bit jolty at times but honestly - I rode it 9 times one day in the space of about an hour and yes I had a bit of a headache after - but nothing in comparison to Infusion at BPB.  I've never experienced so much pain on a coaster as that one - at least with Saw you sometimes get the odd jolt - with Infusion it's constant from start to finish (and I went front row - God knows how horrific it is at the back).

I know they are 2 completely different coasters but when it comes to discomfort on a ride, Infusion is hell.  I've had my head smashed against a brick wall before and that was less painful 

From the variety of opinions on here I'd say it's subjective how much people think the ride is rough. Just saying if I could have 9 back to back rides on any coaster in Thorpe, The Swarm would be my first choice. The comfiest restraints and the smoothest coaster! 

I'd still take SAW over Colossus any day. I find I feel the jolt on the outside seat on the left of the car across to the right-middle; but not on the far right (operator side when loading). But I find it gets more tolerable moving across - probably because the jolt is on the left of the track as you drop. Eurofighter's in general seem to be rough; and get worse with age. I recall years ago finding Rage at Adventure Island quite acceptable; and then last year just finding it completely unreadable. I also think the same nowadays of Smiler; the vibrations of it take a lot of enjoyment out of the ride; and I find myself gritting my teeth through the second half (especially the Cobra and inlines). Weird though how the inside of SAW is glass smooth; as I always think surely the weather aspect can't be making THAT much of an effect on the ride experience re roughness.

 

I'd dare to also say that perhaps the final and built layout was never the most ideal. Throwing my mind back, the original layout plan was a cross shape outside; and not what we have now, which appeared to have had more room to perform the manoeuvres and not have such tight inversions (such as the first one outside, I mean, that whip from the loop is fun, but it is a *bit* brutal on a rough day).

The original layout was the same up until just after the Immelmann turn.  Instead of an airtime hill, turn, MCBR and dive loop, it was going to MCBR, dive loop, MCBR (under the first MCBR) and another dive loop.  So the inversions were of similar tightness really, and the first one outside wasn't affected at all. 

 

Then again, they did change the drop from 97 to 100 degrees at some point after the layout had been designed, so that might have something to do with the jolt. 

Saws queue time is no longer updated by staff and is calculated automatically by the number of people entering the queue line, it now displays its queue time by the minute! Wonder how accurate this is and if it'll be rolled out across the rest of the park! 

10 minutes ago, ThorpeAddict said:

Saws queue time is no longer updated by staff and is calculated automatically by the number of people entering the queue line, it now displays its queue time by the minute! Wonder how accurate this is and if it'll be rolled out across the rest of the park! 

Is there some sort of sensor detecting when people walk past which is then connected to the time of the throughputs or something along the lines of that?

Cameras around the queue line track when people enter the queue and when they leave.  This allows for the system to work out how many people are in the queue, calculate a throughput and calculate how long certain people are in the queue.  Hence it can give accurate queue times.

 

The system has been in place for a while and it seems to be accurate on the whole in my experiences (though I haven't queued since they've displayed to-the-minute queue times).  It's not perfect and I know that it has been quite difficult to implement - certainly harder than it sounds - but I hope it does work and proves to be successful.  

 

I wouldn't expect it to be rolled out across other rides immediately because of the behind-the-scenes stuff involved, but it'd be nice if it could be widespread implemented in the future.

13 hours ago, ThorpeAddict said:

Saws queue time is no longer updated by staff and is calculated automatically by the number of people entering the queue line, it now displays its queue time by the minute! Wonder how accurate this is and if it'll be rolled out across the rest of the park! 

Hoorah!  I've been saying this is the very obvious and fairly simple solution to the massively inaccurate queue time problem for years. Aside from unforeseeable breakdowns, once it is set up properly it should be pretty much infallible.  These are the things which needed to be in place before they tried to do that queue-less park nonsense.

I think they have rolled this system out to a lot of UK Merlin parks. It's done by bluetooth from people's phones as they advance through the queue, not just from the entrance. Unless Thorpe uses a different system. I don't know exactly how it works (or if keeping track of individual people's phones without notifying them is questionable or not too )

3 minutes ago, Wumbamillio said:

I think they have rolled this system out to a lot of UK Merlin parks. It's done by bluetooth from people's phones as they advance through the queue, not just from the entrance. Unless Thorpe uses a different system. I don't know exactly how it works (or if keeping track of individual people's phones without notifying them is questionable or not too )

Sounds like the perfect Merlin may of taking a simple and achievable idea (count em in, count em out, the difference is the queue) and making it a complex mess which won't really work.

Never realised Saw had a system like this installed. Found it odd when the queue board said 74 minutes the other week and this would be why!

Does the system take into account instances where either the ride is running at a reduced capacity such as Colossus on one train, as well as the Fastrack/Parent Swap/Disabled queues too? If it can calculate an estimated wait on those accounted factors as well as dispatch time in-between, that's quite impressive.

I am actually genuinely impressed. If this works

1 hour ago, Wumbamillio said:

I think they have rolled this system out to a lot of UK Merlin parks. It's done by bluetooth from people's phones as they advance through the queue, not just from the entrance. Unless Thorpe uses a different system. I don't know exactly how it works (or if keeping track of individual people's phones without notifying them is questionable or not too )

 

Thorpes is definitely different - I've seen that system at towers think - towers one also used to popup on your phone when you was at the entrance telling you the queue time / advising fastrack which you could buy on the phone using Apple Pay.

Towers' uses those phones using the app itself I think rather than like, anyone's phone... So the notifications thing will be hidden in the T&Cs...

 

I hate that idea though of getting a message suggesting I buy Fastrack, the marketing in your face strategy is going beyond ridiculous...