Thorpe Park Resort

[Adz]

It will be a pretty controversial opinion. It's certainly not the most intense, but for me also it is the best coaster in the UK. The uniqueness helps an awful lot.

[AstroDan]

I am really looking forward to riding although on first look, the idea of this toppling a ride with the legacy of Nemesis seems incredible, but i'll see what Swarm has got!

[Vladimir Bobinski]

One thing not Swarm related I want to point out is the MCBR on Saw wasn't kicking in at all today - which made the drop in to the last inversion a little painful. In fact, I think the whole ride is aging badly quite quick. I now prefer Colossus over Saw!

Christ I noticed that, it snapped my neck back.  A lot of these rides have aged so badly, even stealth had a bit of a judder on it.

[DiogoJ42]

I'd say that in terms of intensity, Nemy still wins, but for fun, and theming, and everything else, Swarm is easily the best UK ride.

[SpinballEdders]

Really pleased to hear positive reviews, as it being better than Nemmy, I'll have to wait and see. ROLL ON SATURDAY

[Vladimir Bobinski]

Did any one come from the midlands/north via the M40 today and have that 2 lane closure at Junction 7 to deal with?  Didn't get to TP untill 12PM, was aiming for 10.30-11. 

I was half expecting to find to find a 40 minute queue there where I got there, nope it was about 5 minutes.  First impression, the theming is absolutely excellent.  The pictures don't do justice to the attention to detail in simple things like the rending on the church, the debris around the plane.  The only let down was the queue line itself but I hardly paid attention to it briskly walking through it.  They have certainly built it with extra cattle area to open up if they need to.

The effects that were working today, smoke/ice from the plane wing, swarm sound effects at certain points in the ride, smoke/ice/water spray from the fire engine.  Also the water jets from the surrounding fire engine/chopper.  These seem to be disappointing weak at the moment and mistimed.

Walking into the church I absolutely love the open roof, it works so well.  The sight of the train coming over your head which is always in time with the restraints being checked is such a strong visual sight.

I do have a small concern how well they are going to deal with Front Row queue when the queue line is really tested, it was easy work for them today.  I'm sure it has already been explained with the batching but I can easily see it being timed badly with slotting people back into the main queue.  It looks well laid out though and I can see why they didn't go with SRQ, as cynical as I may me on fast track, I don't think it would work for this ride.

With such a dead queue, I had to do front row queue and I think was a bad decision having rode it 5 times in the day.  I'll reserve my opinion of whether I would bother with front row in peak season, but I believe even with the visual element up front, it loses out in the ride experience at the back.

First and foremost, ignoring the fact that this is new, the ride stinks of ride quality in pure engineering, the way you are moved out of the station, the chain lift so smooth and effortless.  The magnetic brake section are so smooth and impressive, even the friction brakes are barely noticeable.  It's no wonder B&M are called the Mercedes of rollercoasters.  The hardnesses are extremely comfortable and don't have the fixed locking positions that air has.  I think it is more accommodating for the large person than it actually looks because of the lack of hard over the shoulder restraints and this flexible locking position.

The overall ride experience was and wasn't what I was expecting, the front wasn't as intense as I thought it would be, in fact, it felt like it was stalling in many sections while waiting for the rear of the train to catch up, it was a start stop affair. 

The positions are worth exploring, but the inner/outer seat makes little difference.  The rear seats offer a much more intense experience, my favourite seat personally was overall the rear left seat, there is a much stronger visual impact in the close encounter church section than I was expecting.  If I'm honest I don't think I ever noticed the chopper/engine on some occasions, perhaps from the angle I was looking, but that didn't take away from the experience.  The biggest difference was I noticed that position never stopped moving right from the moment over going under the track which was so strange, there was no stall it kept up the pace so much better in a constant intense way. 

It's not a B&M Invert Intense, I was never expecting that, but it's a constant smooth intense.  It is not in boring in the way Air is, it's a constant visual rush.  It is so much fun.  For me, this coaster is right up there, they have done such a fantastic job.  I am so tempted to say better than original Nemmy if wasn't for the overal quality of that ride, but this easily the best ride in the park.

The overall experiance of overall quality, ride experiance, ride uniqueness, visual elements, attention to detail makes this a 9/10.  It was the disaspointment of the front row experiance that let me down slightly, but more I rode it, the more I loved it.

This is a fantastic addition to the park and I feel makes TP a much stronger candidate for a must visit attraction which for me, is a pain to get to depending on my luck of a driving run from Warwickshire.  I really don't think many people will be dissapointed, young or old.

On a random note I see it had a few teething issues, it stopped several times for about 5-10 minutes every hour.

I noticed the sensors in the station on a mount that has a slot that allows them to be adjusted, which I guess is there for setup and adjustment to allow for manufacturing tolerances with the train and track.  My guess is the train isn't stopping exactly in place with the electrical contacts to release the restraints because of sensor miss alignment.  It became obvious when the engineer came to manually force the station motors to nudge the train forward, 10 seconds later the restraints opened. 

I presume though since the train went "missing" in a sense, the system stopped and left the next train that was on the lift hill at the time stuck, which made the news.

I enjoyed a comfortable sit the front seat for 5 minutes in the station after my first ride and got to admire the station more closely.    A lot of staff were in the control booth today, guess they are still training.

I've taken a couple of decent pics of some of the overall site and will look to upload a bit later.

[Jordan]

Have to say, I was pleasantly surprised today with The Swarm.

The theming was much more impressive than I expected, and the atmosphere in the area was fantastic, especially with the live music and lots of actors walking around the area and the wider park. The ride staff were very friendly too.

The ride itself has quite a kick to it in places, depending on where you sit, and it was noticeably more intense later in the day. I agree that it feels like Air, with a bit more bite, and some great speed towards some of the end fly-bys.

The theming is incredibly detailed in places, like the station, and the queue-line videos are very cool indeed. It's certainly set a good bar for SW7 to try and beat

[Vladimir Bobinski]

Ooh I forgot to mention the live bands, despite they didn't get much attention, it was a nice touch.

Who blocked up the swarm's toilets? 

[Jiminy Cricket]

any pictures or any videos of the effects? are we sure there is defiantly fire effects?

[Adz]

The fire effect is mounted on the top of the fire engine and is clearly visible. However as of yet it has not been turned on.

As mentioned previously, Merlin Studios are on site and working on the effects.

[Vladimir Bobinski]

any pictures or any videos of the effects? are we sure there is defiantly fire effects?

I have a video taken from standing between the plane and fire engine, I'll look to upload it later, it's raw AVCHD at the moment and too large to upload.

I'm confident there will fire effects later, the is definitely a rail on the fire engine that you would typically associate with a controlled fire.

[Jonny.F]

Has anyone got any idea what the throughput is like on this? Presumably not as it sounds like it was pretty quiet today, and Saturday will really put it to the test. It's a great shame there isn't a single rider queue also, on Raptor it worked so brilliantly at filling up spaces and made the ride practically a walk on all day!

I'm really getting excited for this now, seems like it rides a lot better than it seems to!

[TB2]

Has anyone got any idea what the throughput is like on this? Presumably not as it sounds like it was pretty quiet today, and Saturday will really put it to the test. It's a great shame there isn't a single rider queue also, on Raptor it worked so brilliantly at filling up spaces and made the ride practically a walk on all day!

I'm really getting excited for this now, seems like it rides a lot better than it seems to!

It was averaging 1000 an hour today which is very good for a ride on its first proper day of operating with normal park visitors. Hopefully, they'll be able to push it past 1200.

[AdrenalineAlex]

I'm so excited to ride this but I can't find my annual pass which is such a bummer! I wanted to go during the week but it's just gone, good thing it expires on the 4th of April but means I can't get any extra trips out of it if I can't find it

[Sam]

I will post a full review tomorrow. However my initial review is that it's good but not incredible. First drop and inline twist over the station are amazing. The rest is boring. Very Air like. Beautiful theming but not top 10.

[air_head]

Quick question for anyone who's been today. On Nemesis/Oblivion, I need to use the big seats, as I have a big chest and shoulders. What do you think my odds of fitting on The Swarm are? It's a long drive from Stoke to not get a ride!

[Vik]

My thoughts on The Swarm :-

Theming around the area looks much better than many of the photo's I had seen suggested.  The ride itself kind of grew on me over the day.  First ride I thought was OK, but riding it in a variety of rows/seats, including back and front, by the end of the day the overall impression I came away with was a positive one.

It certainly isn't intense, though there is some speed there.  More graceful if anything.  I kind of thought it Air on steroids.  The first drop is excellent, and not what I was expecting.  My preference is for back row, it just feels to pack a bit more of a punch there.  Although the ride looks short, it doesn't really feel it.  I would suggest maybe it is just about right.  Get some mild vibrations from the outer seats, which gave me a bit of a bad head late on in the day, but not really noticeable most of the time.

Certainly a good addition to Thorpe Park.  Hopefully it should prove to be a good workhorse.  Despatches seemed quite quick later on in the day, with the train being despatched from the station as the train on the circuit was coming in to the final brakes just before the station.  There were a few breakdowns, which took around 20-30 mins to sort out,  but generally ran fairly well.  So, so far reliability is looking good.

[Vladimir Bobinski]

Quick question for anyone who's been today. On Nemesis/Oblivion, I need to use the big seats, as I have a big chest and shoulders. What do you think my odds of fitting on The Swarm are? It's a long drive from Stoke to not get a ride!

What problem do you have normally, is it bulky shoulders or a waist line?  These aren't over the shoulder restraints, top build doesn't seem to matter.  The lower part of the restrain doesn't need to click into place like say air does, as long as you can get the belt in, even at the tightest squeeze, you will get on.  The chairs them selves are quite deep and accommodating.

I personally think it's more flexible but it's hard to say.

[air_head]

It's usually my chest / shoulders I have trouble with. I can't get on Colossus because of it, but I can get on Infusion at BPB at a push and usually no problems with Saw or Stealth. I dunno, will just have to hope!

[Vladimir Bobinski]

They haven't all uploaded yet, but my album is here.  Another 6 are uploading now including shots of the Fire Engine and Chopper.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78022869@N ... 228695132/