We all arrived in time for the Early Rider and went in for the ERS on Colossus shared with season ticket holders, this was quite good as it was not too busy and I managed 2 rides before the general public were allowed in. It was also organised well because although the general public were allowed in at the same time, they had to go through the normal queue and were held up till 10AM when we were allowed through the Fasttrack entrance. Colossus was still running very well even though its getting a little bit rough and the back seats were superb feeling a bit smoother than normal. Also noticed that 2 seats near the middle of one train were closed off all day yet I dont know why???Prehaps the Restraints were not locking properly??

As for the Crowds, It was quite busy. Maximum Queue times that I saw were Vortex 45 mins, Quantum 20 mins,Eclipse reached 20 mins, Colossus 60 mins,NI 30 mins,Detonator 35 mins,Depth Charge 45 mins,Tidal Wave 10 mins. However thanks to Single Rider Queues and Fast Track Tickets for NI and Colossus I didnt really queue long for anything. I think my ride count at the end of the day were NI 7 Rides overall, Detonator 3 rides,Colossus 4 rides overall,Vortex 3 rides,Quantum 3 rides,Eclipse 1 ride and Zodiac 1 ride so not a bad days work.

Quantum was on a good ride setting today(at least 4-5 full rotations each way) so it seems they can change the setting to however they want it, much better compared to the start of the season when it was only on 2 full rotations each way. Took another ride on Eclipse which was good but we only got 1 full rotation which was a bit of a shame as there was no queue when we went on it, Oh well.

Had some good rides on NI and it keeps getting better and better, I'm also pleased to say the effects of the steam and Red Lights were fully working today, and the steam was really overflowing out of the tunnel which made for a superb effect if you were sitting in the front seat and it was so heavy you could not see your hand in front of your face, Great Stuff :)

Also on the day, we had lunch at the Bush BBQ which was nice and we had a talk on Top Thrill Dragster from someone at thwe club who had ridden it. We also had an unnoffical takeover of Quantum which was really good fun as well.

Other Park news - The Flying Fish was closed all day with the Train stuck just before the station, I have no idea why it was closed. Zodiac appeared to be running fine all day which was good and the same goes for Tidal Wave. Also on Vortex The Single Rider queue was being run properly this time with single riders getting priorty over the single seats unlike last time when the normal people queueing up were getting the priorty. The SRQ got quite long at one point but there was pretty much 1 or 2 single riders on each ride so it was'nt too bad.

To round off the day, we all had an ERS on Inferno although it didnt exactly go to plan, the ride broke down just before we were due to go on it and because they didnt know how long it would be, the management opened up Colossus for us for a while until it was operational, However 10 mins after everyone left NI was back up and running so everyone was soon back over, which left us with about 30 mins on Inferno in the end. I managed 4 rides on the ERS until it broke down again with me and other stuck on the brake run and we had to be evacuated which was fun. Also Thorpe were nice to let us queue up at the exit unlike Alton who make you run round to the entrance again.

Overall a fantastic day, It was busy but we all had a good time, The staff were superb, the lunch was nice, and top marks to the Thorpe engineers getting Inferno back up very quicky for our ERS and top marks to the Infenro Staff for staying on a bit later than normal for the ERS and keeping us entertained while stuck on the brake run(One staff came round offering us Skittles to eat)

Anyway some pics I took at Thorpe yesterday including some shots from Eclipse can now be seen at the address below :)

Thorpe Pictures 10/5/03