rctneil

Can't trust any of you escapee's from space prison. Here's another one:- Scottish Steve:

I remember doing the Stitch Encounter at Hong Kong Disneyland. It was quite well done. Nice interaction with guests and made people laugh so I guess this is a good addition.

Apparently a fire has just broken out in one of the parks cafe's: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25476397#TWEET991400 Fire breaks out at Chessington World of Adventures Police and fire teams are at the scene with drivers advised to avoid the area Eight fire engines have been tackling a blaze at a cafe at a Surrey theme park. London Fire Brigade said the alert was raised at Chessington World of Adventures just after 08:30 GMT. The Metropolitan Police said officers were at the scene along with fire crews from London and Surrey. Drivers have been advised to avoid Leatherhead Road.

What bugs me about stations is sometimes you can choose your own row and others not. This even varies between rides in a single park. I realise this can depend on the type of ride etc but at Alton you can choose a row on Nemesis and Air but are forced to a row on Rita, 13 and the Smiler. The Smiler station platform itself is not bad, but the queues all converge in a room downstairs and they are all chained across, the single riders, disabled, fasttrack and normal. Now, the ops release the chain from one queue at a time but all people have to walk to the right to drop their bags off at the counter and turn 180 round walk back past everyone and up the stairs. No one keeps their queue position (not that your position changes massively but can be annoying after a long wait). I'm sure a bit of extra thinking could have avoided this. I also hated the queue up to Space Invader 2. Very very claustrophobic. The queue for Wild Mouse also at Blackpool is very narrow. Airs station regularly confuses people due to the dual station approach and how people should get off the platform up to the shop. I guess this comes down to people not reading the signs. Oblivions station has a strange design but works quite well although a lot of people moan to ops as they don't understand it. The design allows two shuttles to fill up at the same time but hold 4 shuttles worth of people in the station at once: ---------------------------- < 1 < < 2 > ---------------------------- ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ The queues for 1 shuttle alternate between the first row for the front and back and then the second row for the front and back. Not seen any other ride use this and it's works nicely.

^ Yep, That is way up there for best adverts! and great us of POV's.

That would be cool to see. Anyone have any pictures? From RCDB: I know that it is at least featured on Sierra Sidewinder, Pegasus and it's clones, Twist and Dwervelwind. A similar system to this is also used on Pepsi Max Big One in Blackpool. The train in the station can be lowered into the maintenance bay underneath or (I think, can be raised up to store another train above but not 100% sure on this second one)

It's a Mega-Lite. End of.

I forgot Flyers. Love those rides. Not been on many of them though and I wish the UK would buy more of them. Oakwood now has a set and it's awesome. Not super snappable but near enough. Rita is one of those rides I always seem to ignore and just sort of toss the thought aside when someone suggests riding it but then I go and ride it and forget how much I actually enjoy it. I guess it's just too short.

I visited the Gadget Show in Birmingham at the start of this year and a company their was showing 720p cameras in a set of glasses (Robb's glasses were way better spec though) and they were showing off coaster POV's they had recorded at Alton a week or so before the show. A very very mini ride on kiddie coaster simulator at the local cinema also played POV's on coasters at Blackpool.

At my home park, I like to ride Hex. People really underestimate it but I try to ride once every visit. The theme and location is unique, superbly done. Yes the ride part itself needs some work (as in maintenance work, as it squeaks more each year, never lines up correctly and is just not as perfect and convincing as it used to be) but I love riding it all the same. Best to ride Hex with people who have never ridden one of those before and watching their expressions. Another ride I really enjoyed (took a few laps though) was Sindbads Storybook Voyage at DisneySea. and Scooby Doo at Movie World, I thought that ride was amazing.

Thanks for the look back throughout the construction of El Loco. Looks like a nice twist to a standard layout model. Quite clever tweaking an off the shelf design to fit the location.

I would say POV's give a nice view of what to see during a ride and where you will go. But there is no idea on g force, what is to the left and right and then above you. Shaking can sometimes be noticed like on the older woodies and knockoff Chinese SLC's but can be hard to notice. The above seems to apply to the best quality POV's where the camera is correctly pointed and mounted securely and firmly. In any case, go and ride them if possible. You will enjoy them far more!

The Marmaliser theming element within the middle of the Smiler at Alton Towers has a 360 degree screen that highlights each stage of marmalisation and other supposed facts. Every once in a while a photo of the front of a washing machine is shown. This is a homage to all the many rumours circulating during construction of a washing machine element being involved in the ride.

Liseberg seem to be doing a spectacular job with this project. The ride looks epic and nicely designed. Really can't wait to get there and ride it!

Don't think i'd like it but at least it doesn't spin laterally which is the one that kills me. If I knew the cycle was going to be insane I guess i could be persuaded to give it a go just to say i've done it. People on the China trip know how much I love flat rides: Moser Energy storm at Happy Valley, the afterburner, that other flying circus crazy flat ride and the horrible not quite a waikiki wave at Victory Kingdom. But that top spin was mental. Props to the guys that did ride it.

The ones that come to mind are: I drove to New Southport Pleasureland a month or two ago only knowing about the Spinner and the Wildcat, both ended up being down so I found 3 others, a Go Gator, a Wacky Worm and a Grand Canyon so I rode those instead. All the kiddie coasters on the China trips! There were a lot of Sliding Dragons there. Also, getting on the kiddie coasters at CGA, Worlds of Fun and Knotts! oh and driving two hours in Cyprus to ride a Blizzard! Had no idea if it was still there, operating or anything, just got up that day and decided to go. Was a beautiful drive along the coast though so even if it had been closed I wouldn't have minded.

I like the cars on Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster:

Yes, I think it was, and the bobkarts were pretty good too, I remember. Yeh they were. Those were my first ever bob kart track, they are so awesome. They eased the pain of riding the loopsscrew beforehand

UK: Favs: Nemesis, Wild Mouse, Megafobia Worst: X, Pepsi Max France: Only been to Disneyland Favs: Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Cyprus: Lucky Star Park Worst: Blizzard US: Favs: I305, Thunderhead, Medusa, Tennessee Tornado, TTD, Apollos Chariot Worst: Legend, Hurler, Hades, Batman China: Favs: Bullet Coaster, Dauling Dragons, Fireball, Wood Coaster, Sky Scrapper, Fly over Mediteraenean, Mega-Lite Worst: Looping Tobbogan, Knock off SLC's Hong Kong: Favs: Hair Raiser, BGMRMC Worst: Dragon Taiwan: Favs: Gravity Max, Space Mountain, Insane Speed, G5 Japan: Favs: Kawasemi, Dive loop ultra twister, dodonpa, Space Fantasy, Veil of Dark, Raging Spirits Worst: Fantastic Coaster Rowdy, Eejanaika, Wild Mouse Australia: Favs: Scooby Doo, Tower of Terror Worst: Thunderbolt Overall I have enjoyed every country I have visited and each has it's good and bad rides so visit as many as you possibly can! Edit: How did I miss out the Mega Lites!!! Updated with them included

HORRIBLE RIDE, DEATH TRAP, PAIN, ENDURED ONCE NEVER AGAIN Oh how much I enjoyed some of the Chinese knockoffs we were subjected to on TPR's China trip! But yes, at least the restraints locked on this one. And wasn't it this park that had the bobkart track just opposite?

It was. They did it superbly we'll and I think they managed to reinforce to people that alton.towers has not lost its magic. The atmosphere was amazing, staff great, excellently organised and the fireworks were really awesome.

As a big Doctor Who fan, a ride based on it would be excellent but if you think of the amount of potential content a ride (of any type) could have, there is an abnormally huge amount. If a ride were to be built, I guess it would have to be totally filtered down to one theme within the doctor who universe for it to work successfully. I can think of so many ride concepts that would be amazing but I guess executing them well would be very difficult to please the die hard fans.

Blackpool's Wild Mouse is an amazing ride and love riding it a lot but boy can it be nervewracking at times. Especially the final two turns! Is ^ like Excaliber 2 at Camelot (or what was Camelot)? If so, they are scary rides too! I can agree with the sentiments of drop towers too. I always ride them but they are 1 of the ride types that makes me legitimately nervous on the way up to the top!

Here's a video that Alton have just published showing this years Ultimate Fireworks.

If I had had enough case space i'm sure I would have purchased multiple Shiriki boobleheads. And Ken is right, there is nothing like standing and looking at Mt Prometheous whilst eating popcorn!