CGM

Love it!! The monorail station looked like it was straight out of Thunderbirds and the way that MK was presented made it look more like Patriot Land than Disney Land. I can never watch the Hall of the Presidents clip without thinking of the simpsons version. I found it hilarious when the Jungle Cruise guide pulled out a gun from nowhere and shot the hippo! You certainly wouldn't get that nowerdays in a theme park!

I don't care what Claire From GCI says, Intamin woodies are wooden coasters! Do you know why? Because they are made from wood! It doesn't matter how it is made, it's a proper wooden coaster. If you build a bridge out of wood only you build it in the factory first and then lift it into place, does that mean that the bridge is now a steel bridge? No, of course it doesn't! If you were to say that Intamin woodies are not wooden coasters built in the traditional style, then that would be correct but I'm sorry, if it's not a proper wooden coaster then what is it? Anyway, Troy looks awesome. I really hope that European parks continue to buy GCI coasters as they look to be really smooth, really high quality woodies. If only I could have ridden Roar in 1999, I was too short!

Doesn't Gardaland's SLC had a bonus helix? Anyway, looks like you're all having a great time, I'm looking forward to the full updates. I wish I was there

Am I the only one who hates good Goliath's colour scheme? They could have painted it any colour, but they painted it green and dark purple! Why? I think that most of the Batman coasters look better in yellow, it may not have much to do with Batman but it looks much cleaner and is deffinately more interesting than grey

That looks like a sort of Balder meets El Toro. It starts out like an out and back but then goes into a Balder like series of turns and airtime hills. That first drop looks insane and I like the use of the terrain as that's a first for Intamin prefab woodies. Surely this will be one for the top ten wooden coasters. Korea certainly seems to be getting some amazing coasters at the moment

No, I can confirm that Air and Dæmonen are both very forceless and reports say that other new B&Ms in Europe are too. So forceless B&Ms are deffinately not restricted to the US

Now that looks like B&M - old skool style. You can just tell by watching it that that's one intense ride. If you compare it to footage of Silver Bullet and Patriot, it's running much faster through the inversions and the final helixes. Could it be that B&M have started making forceful coasters again? The fact that the riders in the video came off staggering is very promising. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is one of B&M's best inverts to date but as always, the proof is in the riding

This is your classic example of a member of the GP who thinks they know it all just because they can use the term "suspended coaster". They have a memory span of about 5 minutes when it comes to rides and immediately crown the last coaster they rode with the title of Best Ride Ever. There are quite a few people at my school like that - it really annoys me. I mean "every time a suspended coaster is built, the themepark world comes to a halt" ? Yes, maybe back in 1992

This is the perfect example of over excessive safety features that can do more harm than good. If it weren't for those catwalks, they may have faired better. I think that it may be a good idea to temporarily remove Togo standups from service until the problem is properly identified and changes are made if need be. It may seem rash, but a train derailing to this degree is pretty serious and I'd rather miss out on a few credits than this happen again

I'm tired of hearing this. It's not as simple as snugging the wheels up to the rails, that gap's there for a reason. If the Wheels were touching the track all the time, the coaster wouldn't be able to go in any direction but straight and it wouldn't allow for expansion at all. Most coasters have a gap there, it's just not always as obvious as on the SLCs although some manufacterers have managed to get the gap down by spring-loading the wheels

1 ) Alton Towers = Tivoli Gardens 3 ) Terra Mitica 4 ) Disneyland Paris 5 ) SFDK 6 ) Great America 7 ) Walt Disney Studios 8 ) Flamingoland 9 ) Cadona's 10 ) Carousel Park (A pathetic park on the Bridlington Promenade) I have been to more but in many cases, I was too young for me to remeber now

1 ) Nemesis, Alton Towers 2 ) Dæmonen, Tivoli 3 ) Kumali, Flamingoland 4 ) Air, Alton Towers 5 ) Big Thunder Mountain, DLRP 6 ) Spinball Whizzer, Alton Towers 7 ) Rutshchebanen, Tivoli 8 ) Crazy Train, Cadona's 9 ) Indiana Jones et le Temple du Perile, DLRP 10 ) Magnus Colossus, Terra Mitica (It gets in almost by default) Wow, is that my top ten? It sucks! I'm going to have to work on that this year

I'm sorry but I don't know quite how you can judge a coaster from a crude model. The layout looks fine to me, pretty unique with the helix in the middle of it and lots of elements over the water. The absence of a Dive Loop doesn't really bother me as there are a few B&M sitdowns that don't have them yet are still great rides. Correct me if I'm wrong but, I couldn't see any MCBR which would probably mean that the train flies through the final helixes. I must say that I hate the colour scheme though. For some reason, white B&Ms just don't look right to me, they look a bit bland and become dirty quickly. Why when there are so many colours to choose from choose white? I thought that that was something normaly reserved for Japan

Yes, the coasters still clunked, particuarly the Crazy Train. To be honest, Looping Star probably isn't as bad as I made it out to be. I came off it thinking that it a pretty average coaster with not much wrong with it apart from a few violent headbangs in the last few corners. It certainly wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was only later when I got a throbbing headache that I started thinking it was a bad coaster. So overall, not a coaster that I would ride more than once but worth it for the credit

Hmmm, not sure about the location of Infinnito, I liked Egypt as it was, with no rides in the entrace area. I hope that they theme it well as it would be tragic if all that hard work were ruined by a badly themed ride. I presume that the paint balling will be going in the Pyramid of Terror. I'm hoping that it will be virtual paint-balling as real paint-balling would be a bit tacky for Terra Mitica but then again a laser-tag style attraction would be very simular to Labarynth of the Minotaur. I wouldn't be surprised if this were another pay-per-ride as capacity is always bad on this style of attraction. However, I'm very exited about Inferno. Whilst the ride may not be that spectacular, I'm hoping that Terra Mitica's amazing theming abilities will make up for it and it will be interesting how the catapult theme will fit in with the ride style and the area. This year's certainly seeing a lot of changes for the park, I hope that in the next few years, we'll perhaps see another major coaster

For me it has to be B&M, their coasters are just consistantly good, even some of the "new skool" B&Ms. Their rides are always smooth, reliable and with the exeption of the standups, comfortable. they also age brilliantly being as smooth ten years on as they were from the day of opening. Intamin have built some great coasters but not all of their rides are up to that standard. They have built some truly terrible coasters. Then there's reliablbility, many of their rides have epic downtime years into their operation and they don't age all that well. Some of their coasters have started to become rough within months. Many may not think that how a coaster looks is important but Intamin coasters can look very ugly, the most notable examples being Tornado and Volcano. B&Ms on the other hand always look fluid and graceful and I would never describe any of their coasters as ugly

I was generally miserable because I was travelling all over Scotland but visiting neither M&Ds or Loudon Castle which at the time I thought were the only parks there. However, whilst in an Aberdeen Tourist Information I saw a leaflet with a Pinfari coaster on the front of it. At first I thought that it must be for M&Ds but then I flipped it over to discover that there were credits just around the corner! I immediately ordered my family to scrap whatever they had planned and arrived at the park a few minutes later. The park isn't anything special, in fact it's really a load of indoor attractions with a small amusement park outside but it should be said that it's by far the cleanest British seaside park I've been to. If Flamingoland can be described as Vekomaland, this is surely Pinfariland (which is worse I'll let you decide) as it has it has a ZL42, a Mini Apple and a Mini Mega coaster. The Mini Mega was actually pretty good and was a very powerful ride for a family coaster, particuarly in the back seat. Looping star was pretty much what I'd expected, aching ears and a headache for the next two days and the Mini Apple was like any other. Anyway, on with the pictures And to finish, the Mini Apple coaster Once again, the UK shows its sense of political correctness I think that this photo pretty much sums up my life There's me really looking forward to riding my first ZL42 They tried to hide it up on the roof Looping Star- a coaster so bad, they used Gouderix on its logo This photo does not make sense. It says Pinfari on it and I'm smiling! This helix was verging on forceful This coaster has some great head-choppers The Wimpy Burger Crazy Train! It features Blackpool-esque blue dye water This park has a seriously awesomme Crazy Golf course

No, it certainly doesn't feel that slow. I hear a lot of complaints about Air on here but I think that it's a fairly decent coaster. Although the "on your back" section doesn't really fit on a flying coaster, it's a unique and fun element and it doesn't spoil the ride in any way. Plus Air is the only flyer that brings you close to the terrain in the way that it does so that it feels as if you're skimming the grass with your fingers. It may be fairly slow but I would never describe it as boring, it's not meant to be the next Nemesis, it's designed around the concept of flight which I think is something that all other fliers have failed to pull off. Anyway about the video, I for one liked the music, partially because it once featured at Alton's firework display and because for some reason it goes with the park. Some nice footage of Nemesis in particular, I love backwards POVs

Still not as nice looking as the park was back in the Marine World Africa USA days but it's definately an improvement on what it was. I'm not entirely sure that I like the signs, they look a tad plastic for my liking but I can see what they were going for. I'm hoping that Six Flags will keep on making these changes over the next few seasons until the park looks as good as it once did

I once made a home made coaster when I was about 12. Nothing special, just a 9 foot ramp propped up on some bricks that lead into a brake. It was basically two long pieces of rectangular wood nailed together in a track-looking way and a modified skateboard with some skids on it to keep it locked in the track. The brake was just two pieces of wood nailed into a wedge shape and then nailed into the ground with tent pegs. It all worked pretty well and smoothly apart from the brake which worked a bit too well usually resulting in me flying off the end. I'll have to dig it out of the shed and give it another run some time. Maybe even add to it! I did have some photos but unfortunately I can't find them now

They have had chance to appeal and they've suceeded in the past meaning that AT has had to shell out quite a bit to meet the requirements set by the court. When this has already been done, I'm afraid I can't feel too sorry for them and believe me, I know all about what it's like living next to noise. I live next to a main road and a railway. You learn to get used to it and since the Ropers own a very loud pottery factory, who are they to complain?

Just to clear something up, the Ropers have lived there since before Alton Towers became a theme park so the argument about them choosing to live there is completely void. And as for the comments about everyone in the area being rich, I don't know what you're on about. Why would they be any richer than anywhere else in the country? I know someone who lives close to AT and they're not by any means rich. But yes, I do feel that the Ropers are taking this too far. This must be about the fourth time they have made an appeal for restrictions to be changed and they're strict enough as it is. 40 decibels is probably about the least you can run a themepark at. The proposed 28 decibels is rediculous

Wow, that really is huge! Particuarly for a GCI. It looks to be a fast-paced layout with lots of twisting and low-to-the ground turns. I hope that we get even more GCIs in Europe over the next few years

Thankyou but I don't need the physics lesson, I understand how to calculate forces, that's irrelivant. All I'm saying is that the amount of Gs a ride pulls doesn't necissarily determine how forceful it feels, it's the time that the forces are held for that does. Anyway, back on topic, I remain impartial until I have ridden both of the coasters but I think that people are being a bit harsh on Nemesis' theming. People are acting as if it's some kind of landfill site that surrounds the ride and while it may not be anywhere near as good as Mamba's, it isn't bad as theming goes. It is a little confusing now the story line has been taken away but there is an incredibly sinister atmosphere surrounding the ride and it's all tied in to the area very nicely. People may think that the fences have become rusty, but in many cases, that's the original theming and the military vheicles, crashed tour bus and blood waterfalls add a touch that not many other parks would put in

When will people understand that it isn't the amount of Gs a coaster pulls that makes it feel forceful? It's all to do with how long the Gs are sustained for. Dæmonen pulls 4.5 Gs but since this is only for a split-second, it's hardly noticable, however, Nemesis probably pulls much fewer Gs but since the Gs are sustained for quite a long time, it is much more noticeable. Besides, the data on RCDB is wrong anyway; Nemesis' train is 8 cars long whilst RCDB lists it as 7 and Nemesis actually pulls somewhere between 3.5 and 4 Gs