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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Re: Thorpe Park

Sam said:
Rowe said:
If it only it had a slowly tilting back/forth regime with doors endlessly clapping open and shut :p
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Do you mean like this Rowe? :D
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YES. Just like that, it would be pretty cool. It would be even more cool if it were actually hanging off the top of one of the Swarm's buildings or even on the bridge (though I imagine H&S would scream their innards out).
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Swarm today had a THREE HOUR wait time.

What a wonderful day guests must be having!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 
Re: Thorpe Park

AstroDan said:
Swarm today had a THREE HOUR wait time.

What a wonderful day guests must be having!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
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And I bet that it's on single train operation as well. :-\
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Rowe said:
Sam said:
Rowe said:
If it only it had a slowly tilting back/forth regime with doors endlessly clapping open and shut :p
Click to expand...

Do you mean like this Rowe? :D
Click to expand...

YES. Just like that, it would be pretty cool. It would be even more cool if it were actually hanging off the top of one of the Swarm's buildings or even on the bridge (though I imagine H&S would scream their innards out).
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That would be awesome! :) However I agree with the fact that H+S would have a fit about it!
 
Re: Thorpe Park

AstroDan said:
Swarm today had a THREE HOUR wait time.

What a wonderful day guests must be having!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

There is no way a B&M with that capacity should reach 3 hours unless they are over selling FastTrack.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Dave said:
AstroDan said:
Swarm today had a THREE HOUR wait time.

What a wonderful day guests must be having!

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

There is no way a B&M with that capacity should reach 3 hours unless they are over selling FastTrack.
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At full capacity, with three hour queues, it should have 3,600 people waiting for it.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

3 hours for a ride in mid week that's special would have like to have seen the rest of the park. Personally I would never go near a 3 hour queue in a theme park
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Personally, as much as I love the Swarm, it's not worth a three hour wait! And I've never been to Thorpe where there has been a three hour queue - two hour queue at the most.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Three hour queue.

For Saw.

Easter '09... It was hell.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

I'm guessing for The Swarm to have a 3 hour queue it must have been on one train. Even if there were lots of fastracks I can't imagine The Swarm running at full capacity having a 3 hour queue, that would be madness!

:)
 
Re: Thorpe Park

If the whole queue was full and with 50:50 fastrack to main queue I'm pretty confident it could have been 3hrs. I waited nearly 80 from the shop with only the bridge extension open on a Saturday in April - never again :mad:
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Nice to see the ambulance has been added - even if the money had been allocated and the piece agreed before opening, I wouldn't have put it past Merlin to pull the plug and attempt to recover their pennies to offset the bad season!

I hope the level of detail is echoed in Merlin's future investments, as well. I don't actually have reason to doubt them - notably they opened Battle Galleons with impressive theming, altered and massively improved Krake this season and have now added to Swarm.

Really hoping the news of 3 hour queues today means the end of their low attendance figures for the season... However, I'm praying we're not back to the 'old' Thorpe, where a trip to Guest Services was a staple part of the day for clear cases of poor throughputs, overselling Fastrack and ride downtime ???.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

It's great to see that something new has been added to The Swarm's island, and as with the other big theming set-pieces in the area the ambulance's battered, blackened look is very good.

I think it could've been thought out better though. Firstly I don't think it looks right barely embedded in the ground. I can see why they've positioned it the way they have as I'm sure standing it up that way looks much more striking than putting it on its back or side, but if it's meant to have landed with insufficient force to embed it any deeper than that it should probably have toppled over onto its back just after impact. Ideally I'd have positioned it upside down at about 45 degrees from the ground with either:

  • The rear almost fully buried (so that the rear doors are barely visible), while the cab, about half of the roof and the entire chassis stick out of the ground. To avoid digging a huge hole for this the ambulance could've been cut at the back to give the impression of much more being in the ground than is actually there.
  • The ambulance fully exposed in a bigger crater with a debris field of mechanical components around it, partially lying on its roof with the cab and front of roof above ground level as before.

Also, getting completely carried away over something trivial now, is the back left wheel missing or just partially covered? It's hard to judge from Wilsy's photo and the one on TPM. I now think it's probably just covered; not something I've ever seen on a real ambulance but potentially an original feature. However, I initially assumed that the bit of wheel you can see behind it is on the other side, and that somebody had removed the wheel and fitted plating right over the wheelarch. If somehow the latter (very unlikely) posibility judged from two photos taken from similar angles is correct, that just seems plain daft and makes the wreckage a lot less believable in my book.

I feel a bit awkward about picking holes in a new item of theming for an excellent new coaster, as it still looks pretty good and you could easily argue that the park didn't need to add it. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Thorpe and Merlin Studios to consider how they could achieve a more convincing result just by spending a bit more and doing things slightly differently. The key to The Swarm's island is that although the situation is fanciful, the setting is fairly realistic and I feel that all of its theming should reflect that.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

I like it, it gets the thumbs up from me. Does anyone know if like the fire engine it will have sound, light and smoke effects? Also will we see fencing around it or will it remain fairly open? If so, have they considered if it's used as a climbing frame?

As I stated when I went this time last week, queues are bad at Thorpe recently. I can only imagine that the school trip season, combined with a couple of days of relatively dry weather have resulted in high queues.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

Thomas said:
...have they considered if it's used as a climbing frame?
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It seems they certainly have, and it clears up the rear wheels query too. The below photo was posted by Thorpe Park Mania on their Facebook Page.

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As the ambulance doesn't have any fencing around it, the wheels and chassis have obviously been covered to prevent guests climbing it or fiddling with rusty mechanical bits and hurting themselves. Very disappointing from an aesthetic perspective, but an entirely understandable precaution when they're allowing guests to go right up close to it.
 
Re: Thorpe Park

For anyone interested, Thorpe Park was featured in a recent episode of Blue Peter, investigating if the rumour if rollercoasters do actually increase people's strength and reaction times.

There's a few good shots of the Flying Fish and The Swarm in there so it's perhaps worth a quick look; http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01l3411/?t=1m43s
 
Re: Thorpe Park

I quite like the new ambulance, the bottom of it looks a bit odd, but I suppose unless they added a fence round it (like the lorry) they dont really have a choice as people would jut damage it.

I like how they have added the black burn marks all around the floor as well as the broken first aid boxes. There is so much little details around the swarm island.
 
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