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School visit- 17th July

M

Maya

TS Member
Yay for school trips!
We're probably going to be arriving at about 9AM for ERT, and leaving some stupid early time of about 3/4pm.
I'm probably going around with my brother & a few other friends who want to go on all the coasters, especially The Smiler.
Considering the queues we had when we visited 2 years ago on the same date, we're anticipating it to be packed again- I think all the coasters had 3 hour queues (full of chavs!!), so we might stretch on buying a fasttrack if we have too.
Which rides in which order would you say we should go on?
 
The 19th wasn't too bad last year. The weather was nice and the longest queue for The Smiler was around 90 minutes. Everything else was between 10 minutes and the occasional 45.

I'd suggest:

The Ruins
The Gardens

I can guarantee they'll have no queues as well, which is another great bonus!
 
Maya said:
Yay for school trips!
We're probably going to be arriving at about 9AM for ERT, and leaving some stupid early time of about 3/4pm.
I'm probably going around with my brother & a few other friends who want to go on all the coasters, especially The Smiler.
Considering the queues we had when we visited 2 years ago on the same date, we're anticipating it to be packed again- I think all the coasters had 3 hour queues (full of chavs!!), so we might stretch on buying a fasttrack if we have too.
Which rides in which order would you say we should go on?
Click to expand...

You think 3/4 'o clock is stupid early? Went on a school trip last year in October, we arrived between 11:00 and 11:30am, and we had to be back at the coach at 3:00.

:/
 
RMT
Oblivion
*End ERT*
The Smiler
Rita
TH13TEEN
Air
Nemesis
Ripsaw
Blade
Sub-Terra
Duel
Rapids
Flume (If you're one of those people)
Marauders Mayhem
Sonic (If desperate, it will be RAMMED)
Enterprise
Hex
Twirling Toadstool

I'd give that a stab, if I were you. Single Rider Queues are mandatory :p
 
Hi, thanks for the replies!
We got the letter from school last week & it looks like the plans have changed- we now leave school at 9.15 to arrive at the park for probably about 11ish on a coach from Shrewsbury, and then will leave the park at 5PM.
I think poisontom's plan is great and will probably still try and follow that as long as the queues are short and my friends aren't wimps!
 
Hi! It's nearer the time now and I'm really excited!
It looks like a very hot day (sadly!) which probably means bigger queues :/
After looking at the queue times this week though, it seems they peak around 12-2pm and then die down after 3 or 4, probably when most schools leave. Luckily, we're leaving later at 5 or 6, so it should be quieter then for the last few hours!
 
You're going on the busiest school day of the year. Literally one of the busiest days outside of Scarefest/Fireworks.

Don't expect to go on many rides, so plan what you want to do carefully :)
 
In other words, AVOID THE SMILER. RITA's queue always looks shorter than it is too, I've queued for about 20 minutes from under the launch scaffolding, bare in mind.
 
Ok! Me and my friend are going to buy fast track for either Nemmy, Air & sub terra or Thirteen, Rita & Oblivion. Which would be best? I was thinking thirteen Rita & blivvy because if we get to Forbiddion Valley at the start if the day it will be quieter.
Also, do how long will the fast track queue be?
 
It's simple - if you are going to buy FT, buy them for the lowest throughput rides. That would definitely be the one including Rita in your case.
 
Also don't just turn up and buy fastrack. It always makes me laugh when you see people in a queue at 9am buying fastrack, then the day is quiet and you have just wasted your money.

Give it at least an hour and then see how busy it is. I suggest you head to valley or forest first, and xsector later in the day.

You shouldn't need fastrack for sub-terra or oblivion, both are usually quiet, and nemesis is also quite at times. But Rita and smiler could be needed. I just suggest you head to Rita early, or late if you are on park all day.
 
As mike says above - there's definitely no need to rush into buying Fastrack. Get the Valley done first thing and then check on a queue time board to see how things are panning out.

There are Sales & Information kiosks in all areas of the parks so there will always be an opportunity to buy :)
 
Hi everyone! Todays visit wasn't the best, but we still got on quite a few rides. Getting into the park at 11:30 was disappointing as the queues were already about 40-60 minutes for all big rides, with the smiler around 120. Still, we headed over to Air, and waited about 45 minutes. It was as good as always!
After, i wanted to go to Nemesis, which had a 45 minute queue. But after a moaning, annoying group member, we didn't, and spent ages in the arcade instead :(. After I dragged her out, and she'd finally won a toy, we saw that the sub-terra queue was only 5 minutes, and considering in previous visit's I'd queued 30+ for it, I thought it was worth a shot. They both were terrified, but I thought it was okay, nothing exceptional. Dual was next, again, only 5 minutes. The other girl in our group was too scared to go on it though (still a bit shaken from subterra!) so me and Gemma enjoyed it. The audio wasn't that loud and slightly out of sync in some parts, and I'm sure my gun was faulty as a score of 7000 is very low for me! We ate lunch at the Burger Kitchen in Mutiny Bay, which took forever to be served thanks to rude chav's pushing ahead.
By this time, everything was an hour or above, so we resorted to Fasttrack. They'd sold out of Adrenaline, and to buy separate, we'd had to ride Rita at 5:30PM, which was after we were going to leave. Instead, we went with Oblivion and Thirteen, £5 for each ride, which was disappointing, as for only an extra £2 we could have gotten onto Rita.
After queing 20 minutes to actually buy the tickets for two of us, the other group member, Gemma decided that she wanted to buy a FT for oblivion. 10 minutes later, in the queue, she told us she didn't want it anymore and was scared.
So Rebecca and I, at 2.00 already cutting it a bit short for our allocated time of 1:30-2:30 for Oblivion and 2:00-2:30 for Thirteen headed over to Blivvy and instructed Gemma to stay put where she was (i'm sure you all know whats going to happen next...) We had a great ride on Oblivion, my 2nd time, and I was very tempted to buy the photograph just for the hilarity of Rebecca's face! Got outside, looked around, and no Gemma. So we texted and called her, no answer and looked around the area until about 2.15 when we decided we had to go to Thirteen or we'd miss our spot. We also thought she may have been waiting over there. She wasn't. Anyway, we both really enjoyed thirteen, and it was probably the best ride I'd had on it, with the other few times certain effects in the crypt not working, or the door not shutting.
Fed up with looking for Gemma, we went over to Hex and queued about 10 minutes for that. I know there are a lot of big fans of Hex, but after about 10 rides on different visits, it just gets a bit boring. It was funny though, seeing Rebecca's face as she gripped onto her bags and the seat thinking she was going to fall out!
We spent another 15 minutes trying to get hold of Gemma, phoning her sister as well, but with the terrible signle at AT, not one of our calls or text's got through to her. We presumed that she'd found other people from our school and went around with them.
The queues were still over 60 minutes, and we knew the only ride we hadn't done that was on our list was Nemesis, so we headed up to FV, not thinking to have a look at the fasttrack kiosk in mutiny bay first... So after walking all the way up, my legs feeling very achey (I'm not a fit person!) we got to the FV kiosk, to be told the soonest time for Nemmy was 4:45- the time was had to be back on the coach. Instead, we got one for Sonic Spinball, whose queue was building up rapidly so people could get their last ride of the day. So we walked all the way back down, and got onto spinball almost instantly.
It was 4.15 by now, and we didn't really have much to do before we had to meet back uo at the coach. We had a look in X sector, and to our frustration, the queue for the smiler was at the shortest it had been all day- 45 minutes. If only we'd just had an extra bit of time!! We decided it would be smart to head back u p Towers Street now, because there were hundreds of school kids anyway searching for their teachers! On the way we stopped at the donuts place, where I bought a coke and an ice cream- according to the man my name was Darren and my friends Paul! (on the 'share a coke with' thing). After looking for teachers for a while, we finally spotted one of ours, and followed them to the meeting point. 45 mminutes later, we left, only because some very selfish year 0's decided to get in the Oblivion queue just as the teachers were getting off the ride, at half 4. Apparently, they were advised not to go on it because of the massive queue, but did it anyway.. Needless to say, they were told off a lot!
As it was my friends only trip, we thought it would be not as bad to splash out on fasttrack, and were lucky with the ride count that we got, considering the queues. Talking to some people on the way back, they weren't so lucky and well prepared and only got on a few rides- a big group of people only got onto The Smiler, queueing 3 hours (or so they say.) Others said they only got on the flume and subterra.
Anyway,m from this, please listen to what I say and AVOID THE LAST WEEK OF TERM TIME for your next visit!! It was jam packed, and just not as nice an atmosphere as it usually can be with screaming teenagers everywhere.
 
Maya said:
It was 4.15 by now, and we didn't really have much to do before we had to meet back uo at the coach. We had a look in X sector, and to our frustration, the queue for the smiler was at the shortest it had been all day- 45 minutes. If only we'd just had an extra bit of time!!
Click to expand...

I saw that too, there was no way that queue was 45 minutes. I don't like how they seem to underestimate The Smiler's queue length. It never dipped below an hour 15 today IMO.

Maya said:
Anyway,m from this, please listen to what I say and AVOID THE LAST WEEK OF TERM TIME for your next visit!! It was jam packed, and just not as nice an atmosphere as it usually can be with screaming teenagers everywhere.
Click to expand...

Not bad after 4:30 when all the schools have gone though, pretty much dead and everything walk on for over an hour! ;)
 
Maya said:
Anyway,m from this, please listen to what I say and AVOID THE LAST WEEK OF TERM TIME for your next visit!! It was jam packed, and just not as nice an atmosphere as it usually can be with screaming teenagers everywhere.
Click to expand...

Nah, you just went on the peak day for school trips. :p Went on Friday with a couple other members and we got everything done, as well as taking it easy.
If you know how to work it, you can do plenty of rides on a busy day.
 
To agree with Panda, Friday was nice and quiet, no effort and arrived at half 11 and still got 18 rides. The Smiler SRQ was 10 mins or so.....

Nemesis x 5
Oblivion x 2
Enterprise x 2
The Smiler
TH13TEEN
Rita
The Blade
Ripsaw
Hex
Duel
Charlie
Twirling Toadstool

However, a friend went Thursday and got Smiler, Oblivion and Hex only.
 
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To be fair, Friday is the last day of school, so naturally most schools will actually be in school.
 
Not always. Some have broken up Wednesday, Thursday and some schools in my area don't break up until this Wednesday. Although, in my old school, the trips were on the second to last day. Not always on Thursdays! Guessing this year the majority broke up on Friday.
 
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