Tag Archive for 'thorpe-park'
Once upon a time there was a big hole. �Oh,� said the big hole. �Why Oh Why Oh Why?�
Nothing of much interest happened to the hole for the next few years, apart from getting filled with water and becoming a dumping ground for buildings that had been made too small to live in.
Then the hole�s three parents � R, M and C � thought they could make the hole�s life better by adding the letter X. Unfortunately it turned out that then all the hole�s friends also starting saying �Why Oh Why Oh Why?� This was the third age of the hole.
Eventually, the hole began to outgrow the single letter X:\YOYOY stage and R, M and C found they could take care of it no longer. Its new parents were much more experienced in dealing with holes, but even they couldn�t keep watch over it all the time. Inevitably, this was the time that the hole had a bit of an accident and ended up badly burnt. However, rather than leaving it with its scars, the hole�s new parents decided to pay lots of money to make it better.
Thus, the forth age of the hole: Along came large piercings called Odyssey and Calypso, expanding its group of friends and making it popular with the trendy kids.
The hole�s parents weren�t happy that they�d done enough for their hole yet though. They knew that if it was to have the brightest possible future it would need something to make it stand out from all the other holes and their piercings. They knew that polite society would look unkindly on them if they went too far, but they saw a way through: Their hole was to get a double-size piercing nicknamed Project Stealth.
It�s always nice to start with a good story, don�t you think? Sometimes though the story doesn�t turn out to be as good as it was originally, due to the embellishments and tenuous links you try to include in it.
Let�s take Amity Cove by way of an example. Originally, Amity was home to a single ride at Thorpe: Tidal Wave. It was surrounded by a great story about a coastal town that had been devastated by a tidal wave. The surviving residents had just heard of an imminent second wave and their only chance of survival was to be evacuated by boat. A great story that fitted the ride magnificently.
However, it got a bit odd a couple of years later when the Tea Cup ride ended up in Amity too. There was little explanation as to why: perhaps the survivors were met by WI ladies handing out cups of tea?
The story has been stretched even more with the addition of the latest ride: The long suffering Amity residents are now on a day out at the Amity Speedway, apparently oblivious to the giant Tidal Wave looming over their heads.
Luckily, Thorpe Park is a theme park, not a novel. It�s easy to forgive the dubious story linkage when you are confronted with the theming and atmosphere of the area carved out for Stealth, their new rocket coaster.
Yesterday was opening day, both for the park and for Stealth. The morning dawned well with the park looking in a more (but not completely) finished state than on Saturday. With the exception of Slammer and Tidal Wave, all the main rides were ready for their season debut: Stealth was due to open at exactly 2ish.
Continue reading ‘Speeding Steaks’
Was it or wasn’t it? Has it or hasn’t it? Would it or wouldn’t it? By yesterday evening speculation was huge. With Thorpe Park’s Rehearsal Day mere hours away, rumours at the two extremes were circulating the Internet: Stealth had been handed over to Thorpe and they were planning on getting some managers to run it for Rehearsal Day, or there were still issues with the ride and it would not be available.Confirmation of one of those two rumours was given via the matrix display boards over the ticket kiosks this morning. Unfortunately it was the least welcome, rather than the fantasy everybody, secretly or not, had hoped for.
Stealth wasn’t alone in it’s non-functioning status. Accompanying it were (deep breath) the farm trains, Tidal Wave, Slammer and Rush.
I took the traditional start to the Thorpe season: a ride on Colossus (take the punishment, then things can only get better). I was OK with the ride for most of last season, but it’s become a little less subtle this year. Regrettably, it’s now time for me to join the bandwagon. Whoever described Colossus as running on wheels the shape of 50 pence pieces has captured the ride beautifully. Thank goodness Thorpe haven’t got any more Intamin coasters with the potential to become rough within a few months of opening. Oh.
After taking quick rides on Inferno (with a freshly painted chewing gum free floor, although the ride needs to bed back down - it’s lost a lot of it’s Nemesis-like forcefulness from the end of last season) and Vortex (complete with spiffy new blue seat lock indicator lights), I went to explore the rest of the “old” park.
Rush and Slammer both have their own Cherry Pickers at the moment - none of last year’s sharing. One of the engineers working on Rush was bashing the hell out of something at the top of it with a big hammer at one point - structural improvements? 
Beside Rush is our ever-present faithful friend Zodiac. Hold on … that’s not Zodiac. Imposter! Drayton’s old Cyclone is trying to pass itself off as the astrologically themed Enterprise. I say rename it Cyclodiac. Just for a laugh, you know.
Tidal Wave has got a new sponsor and a nasty green colour bridge.
I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me: the old shortcut through Octopus Garden has been closed with the addition of extra fencing and tables and chairs outside the doughnut shop.
Now read it again. It says top talent scouts, not topless talent scouts. Maybe I won’t bother buying extra memory cards for my camera after all.
After the first hour or so I bumped into some ECC peeps. We went to watch the new film, Pirates 3D. I don’t get it - to me it’s just Pirates 4D without the vibrations, wind and seagull sh … oh (again).
Before long (some would say inevitably) I found myself in the Detonator queue. Margaret D definitely has a talent for this. After witnessing the countdown stop and the people stuck at the top for several seconds on the ride before ours, I was looking forward to it even less than normal. My confidence wasn’t boosted when I sat in my seat and found the handholds had been bound up with masking tape. Damn stupid horrible ride.
The way down was much better than the way up. I’m sure I’ve never been out of my seat for so long before. Woooo! What a great ride.
Service in Bush BBQ was interesting. No food, but a mass of staff all being trained to use the till. Lucky we all appeared when we did really: it meant they could all have a turn serving customers with a huge variety of orders. Alright, maybe just coffee.
News then spread that Stealth was due to make some test runs. Time to explore the “new” part of the park.
The new Amity Cove: There’s just time for a quick car race and cup of tea prior to evacuating before the next tidal wave hits. 
Welcome to Amity Speedway
There’s a new food place too
Mmmmmm … definitely got to try this soon
WWTP Cape Radio are doing an Outside Broadcast from Amity Speedway - strangely they spend most time whittering on about back problems and something called Stealth rather than giving any race commentary.
There are some fantastic theming details scattered around.
Rita may have had the first tyre entrance, but Stealth’s is much larger and fits in a lot better. Generally more impressive.
The only non-zero-to-eighty seat in the vacinity
Flyin da flag, innit
Good things come to those who wait
Prepare for (test) launch
Go! Go! Go!
Going up…
Crawling over the Top Hat - rollback?
Not this time
Speeding towards the airtime hill
Apparently this was one of the prototype Stealth trains
This was my first Thorpe Rehearsal Day so it’s difficult to judge it’s relative strengths and weaknesses in comparison with previous years. The park seemed unready, from the unavailabilty of several rides to the half-completed main entrance gates. However, once everything’s completed this has all the makings of a very memorable season.
Thorpe Park, 2006 style. Click here for a bigger view.
See you on Wednesday!
Half heartedly in the tradition of wartime radio comedy, It’s That (Time) Again: The updated park websites have started to go live in time for the beginning of the season.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s went online a few weeks ago, showing off their new logo. Some people have been quite critical, but I think it’s good to see Microsoft Wordart still being used so many years after it ceased to be cool.[/sarcasm]
Today saw the launch of Thorpe Park’s new site for 2006. The changes are not all that substantial, probably because last year’s site worked so well in the first place. The look has evolved slightly with extra bits of Flash animation dotted around. There’s the option for non-Flash version for those who don’t like animation and a low graphics version for people who, erm, are scared of pictures hung up in the air.
Last year’s site was a vast improvement over 2004’s. This year’s promises more of the same high quality and great features, with a more substantial customer reviews feature than last year (prepare for funky database driven antics). The only disappointment is they’re still using the crappy 2004 “scary” industrial ride descriptions on a few of the ride pages. If they get rid of the last remainders of the Liquorice website and brought back the Rangers, Thorpe’s marketing would be perfection itself. OK, maybe that’s going a little bit too far…
Over the last few years, Thorpe’s websites have been a good indicator of the season the park can expect. In the RMC days, the site was basic and so was the park. Along came Colossus in 2002 together with a very innovative website (who remembers the Virtual Ride?). 2003 kept the same great site with some extra improvements and Thorpe had another great season. 2004 was a disaster in terms of season and site. In 2005 the website returned to something approaching normality and so did the park. 2006’s site evolves the brilliant 2005 site into something even better with some new bits and bobs. If anything, the flash animation makes it look a little “busier”. So, using the accurate WSP (Website Season Predictor�), I predict this year’s season at Thorpe will be even better than last year’s, but perhaps a little more crowded.
I expect the Chessington site will be seeing some changes in the next few days. It will be interesting to see whether Drayton Manor and the smaller parks have anything planned online for this year too.
I just came across this Thorpe Park bear being sold on eBay. Aside from the frankly ridiculous �10 starting price, I found the description a little odd:
“never been used. would suit any one”
How would you use a teddy bear? And what are they implying by “would suit anyone”? For what?
Oh dear, it’s off-season for another 3� weeks.
Fans of all things rockety and coastery can guarantee their place on Thorpe Park’s latest and greatest, Stealth, any day this season in exchange for some cold hard cash.
It appears the days of free Fastrack tickets are well and truly over.
The Rialto booking system is now offering an adult 1 day ticket and a paid-for-queue-jumping ticket to (near to) the front of the Stealth queue (once during the day, at a time of their choosing no doubt) for the bargain basement price of just �26.00.
When you see the day ticket price on the website this year is �19.95, you realise the incredible value. Only �6.05 for something which would have been free a couple of years ago.
But wait, there’s more value to be had! Fastrack tickets are also available in two packages - Adrenalin (Rush, Slammer, Samurai and Vortex) or Extreme (Colossus, Nemesis Inferno, X:\ No Way Out and a choice of Logger’s Leap or Tidal Wave) - for the even better value �8.05.
I’m not sure whether this is more a testament to Tussauds’ financial greed or the Great British Public’s stupidity. You pay almost �20 to get into a theme park where your admission ticket entitles you to ride the attractions for free all day but then you pay AGAIN for the exact same attactions, albeit with a shorter waiting time assuming lack of breakdowns. And people WILL pay. Twice, for the same thing. Interesting social phenomeon.
And lo sayeth the Thor beast, “I name thee stealthily.”
After much ho humming and rumour-mongering, Project Stealth is today no more. Thorpe have finally released the name for their new toy.
The name of Rita’s Revenge has been much talked about across the internet in recent weeks. Much debate ensued when a photo that seemed to show a partially uncovered sign was uploaded to the Thorpe Park website and then hastily removed. At that point everybody knew that the name started with a letter with a straight edge (ABDEFHIKLMNPRTVW).
Rita’s Revenge will come as no surprise then. Now we can all start debating what the letters stand for.
The coaster has today literally lost its project.