Play and Stay is changing this year and we need your help.
Been to a theme park in the last 12 months? Taken some pictures of you and your family/friends on your favourite rides? Or maybe you made a video of your day out.
We are looking for your pictures and videos to display on our all new site. So, if you think you can help, please email us at playandstay@googlemail.com with anything you think we might be able to use.
If you are stuck for ideas, check out our photostream on flickr. New photos are being uploaded all the time and we would really appreciate your help in this matter.
We also have own youtube account where you can see a variety of ride videos. Check it out.
Thanks in advance, and stay tuned for news of the all new Play and Stay site as and when it happens.
Ahhh the future, a time when we will fly to work, cloning will have wiped out hunger (ohhh controversial), medicine will allow us to live for centuries and robots will cater to our every need. I can’t wait for the future, I’ll be first in the queue for bionic implants, I’ll save long and hard for my household droid and I’ll fly my jetpack through your front garden with reckless abandon.
Until that glorious day when I get to soar like a pasty, portly eagle through private property, I’ll have to make do with this little fella. He’s not a jetpack, or a flying robot or a robot at all really. He’s an RFID (radio frequency identification) reading ticket dispenser made by NEC that allows wireless payment, something that’s rapidly gaining popularity in the far east.
Quite a few mobile phone handsets in Japan are equipped with a RFID chip which allows them to send a unique code to RFID readers, this code identifies the owner and allows them to charge things to their bank account without using a card. Clever stuff.
This reader is designed to be used at theme parks, visitors with so called ‘wallet phones’ (RFID enabled mobiles) can forgo queuing and purchase their tickets from this friendly little fellow.
Not only a cunning way to speed up ticket queues, this reader also includes face recognition technology. This allows theme parks to recognise and profile their guests in a clever albeit slightly Orwellian manner. Once the customer’s face has been scanned, the gadget can recommend specific attractions based on their apparent age and gender. Pretty cool no?
No word on when/if these little beauties will be hitting the shores of Blighty, I’ll keep you updated.
Hello chaps, since Thorpe’s last announcement regarding their new ride things have been a little bit subdued here in bloggytown. What with corkscrew closing, all the exciting halloween stuff going on, and christmas looming, I’ve been a little busy.
Not too busy to spend a disproportionate amount of time pondering the nuances of SAW – The Ride though. I’ve already mentioned the massive spinny sawblade of death that will probably be happening. THORPE PARK are making no secrets of the strong horror themes of the ride, so is an age limit likely? Probably.
All the SAW films are certificate 18, they contain some of the most disgusting and spare-pants-scary images I have ever seen on film. They were never intended for viewing by children, so it seems odd that Twisted Pictures would tone things down for the new coaster. Yes, Thorpe is a family park but they have loads of other attractions to keep the kiddies busy, what’s so bad about just one ride for the grown ups?
I think it’s fair to say that SAW – The ride is part of Twisted Pictures marketing for the latest SAW film (what is it? 5 now?). It seems very unlikely that the ride will be a toned down “SAW light” experience. That said, Candy (Thorpe’s creative lady) has a great deal of experience making rides thrilling AND relatively child friendly.
I’m finding it quite hard to decide if there’ll be an age limit at the moment but my gut instinct says there will be. Sorry kiddywinks, I reckon you’ll be sitting this one out.
After months of waiting the news is in! Thorpe Park‘s new ride is going to be called “Saw – The Ride” and it’s themed around the blood and gutfest, Saw, horror film series.
There’s loads of info coming later this week. If you just can’t wait then check out our newsfeed.
Keep checking back in for all the news, our opinions and some more shameless guesswork about this exciting new coaster.
Over the past couple of months we’ve brought you some pretty nifty LEGO® based gizmos. The LEGO toilet roll dispenser and the mindstorms Donkey Kong were particularly impressive. This week I want to go beyond impressive, past amazing and into the realm of record breaking LEGO action.
As you may have seen on the news or interwebs recently, the world record for tallest LEGO tower was recently beaten. A legion of children in Vienna have made a 96.7 foot tower, apparently to commemorate “100 years of Friends of Children”.
As usual, I have a problem with this new tallest tower. It’s only seven inches taller than LEGOLAND® Windsor’s tower, that’s just laziness! If you’re going to be mean enough to beat someone’s record at least do it by a considerable margin. The new tower is around 1,160 inches tall. The very least the Friends of Children and their army of tiny people could have done is round it up and build a 1,200 inch tower.
I think it’s for the best if we ignore the existence of this new record breaking tower until the Friends of Children try a bit harder and make it a bit bigger. Until then the record is still held (in our eyes) by our good chums over at LEGOLAND® Windsor. Here’s a video of their tower, if you want to know what the new one looks like just imagine Vienna in the background and add a few inches on top.
Really tall things are not the only LEGO records, there are also really long things, really big things and lots of little things close together. The longest LEGO structure is apparently 5179 feet long and it lives in Shopville Le Gru in Grugliasco, Italy. I can’t find a great deal out about it so I’m imagining a long string of LEGO bricks circling round a shopping centre, long but not particularly impressive.
I was intrigued, so I phoned the Guinness world record people to ask about LEGO based records and how we would go about breaking one. According to the somewhat dismissive phone wrangler I was put through to, they don’t like LEGO specific records and instead refer to LEGO as “Interlocking plastic bricks” to avoid “branding issues”. This means all speed building records are out, I have neither the space nor the supply of LEGO to attempt a tallest tower and I lack the army of children it seems to require to build most of the biggest/tallest/longest “interlocking plastic brick constructions”.
Any idea as to what LEGO records we can break here at the Play and Stay® office? We’re happy to go for non-LEGO records if they are relevant to us, theme park based suggestions would be equally welcome. Suggestions in the comment box please chaps.
Theme park they are not, but Warwick Castle also have their own events running: The Christmas Tree Forest and Halloween at Warwick Castle.
The Christmas Tree Forest looks set to be a brilliant adventure for both brave knights and little princesses alike with a menagerie of magical creatures, a 600 strong Christmas Tree forest and a stunning display of ice effect sculptures.
As well as this, there is Story Time with the Snowflake Fairy, The Christmas Tree Forest and Jack Frost’s Hunt for the Fairytale Princess. And what Christmas event would be complete without An Audience with Santa? None, you’re right. Christmas looks set to be an enchanting affair at Warwick Castle, and something that I am eagerly awaiting.
If you can’t wait that long to visit the nations favourite castle, then maybe you should check out the Halloween events being held. Perfect for both children and adults alike, Warwick Castle have got three separate events running over the period. The Haunted Castle is perfect for all ages, The Evening Package is aimed at slightly older guests whilst Warwick Ghosts & Ghouls – Alive! is set to be one hell of a spine-tingling event.
Many of these events carry extra prices, so it might be best to check out Warwick Castle’s Own site for a full run down.
Have a spooktacular Halloween and an enchanting Christmas – I know I will!
As you can see from my delightfully cheesy countdown timer it’s nearly time for the next official announcement about Thorpe Park’s new ride. As I’m sure the majority of you are already aware, Thorpe Park are making an announcement regarding the new ride on October 13th 2008. I have no idea at all what they are going to say but that’s not so bad. It gives us some time for some more unfounded speculation, something we are very fond of here over at Play and Stay®.. So here’s a few things we think they might be announcing on October 13th at good old Thorpe Park.
The ride’s real name
The official opening date.
Some more fun, fictional background. Perhaps they’ll even tell me who the heck Dylan is!
Some specs, top speed maybe?
Some more accurate concept art to give us more of an idea what to expect from Thorpe Park’s new ride.
More information about the ‘clues’ – the key, the photo etc.
The relevance of the number 13, number of inversions perhaps?
If you have any more ideas please let us know in the usual way. Personally, I think the ride’s real name is what they are planning to tell us. For no reason other than amusement here are some of the more creative suggestions from around the office.
Buzzsaw, Lumberjack’s Revenge, The Chopper, 13 (please don’t call it that Thorpe Park), Log Lover (Thanks IT, creative as ever), Dylan’s Revenge, Chainsaw, Deathsaw, The Edge, Sawmill, Drop ‘n’ Chop.
That’s about it for now, we’ll keep you updated on all progress over at Thorpe Park, just keep checking back in.
You know what’s cool? Youtube’s cool. That wonderful little website is responsible for a noteworthy proportion of my daily smiles. It has brought us such gems as ‘fat kid stuck on rollercoaster’ ,’lady falls down hole’ and ‘star wars kid’. It turns out that lovely, wonderful youtube is also a hotbed of ‘Project Dylan’ titbits.
There’s the Thorpe Park youtube channel of course, but there is also a small group of people who somehow are making simulations of what a lap of Project Dylan might look like. What programme they are using or how long it takes I have no idea but what I do know is that the simulations look pretty credible. The video is not 100% accurate of course but it’s the closest thing to a full lap of the new ride you’re going to get until next year when it opens.
If any of you clever clever readers know what technological wizardry is used to make these little videos please let me know, I’m intrigued.
Good is’nt it?! We owe our thanks to the mysterious ‘leighhills’. I’ll be keeping my eye out for her/his future youtube offerings.
Our Thorpe Park insider, Agent Stealthy Squirrel, has sent a communiqué by carrier pigeon to the Play and Stay® offices this afternoon. Written in biro on the back of an acorn it simply said,
“Second inversion nearly finished, big frame going up. Send more nibbles.”
Not being above bribing woodland critters to carry out my espionage dirty-work, I promptly sent back some twiglets and got a’blogging. After investigating Agent Stealthy Squirrel’s claims it would seem that the second of Project Dylan’s three proposed inversions is indeed pretty much done. Not content with just building a roller-coaster really really fast, those busy builders have also constructed the beginnings of the frame that will become the scary sawmill.
The fact that the coaster’s track is being built so quickly suggests to me that Thorpe Park will be putting a great deal of effort into the area surrounding the coaster. Surely this means that Thorpe Park have big plans for the sawmill and its super-scary inhabitants. Interesting…….very interesting.
Ok chaps, I’ve done some maths to try and work out roughly how fast ‘Project Dylan’ will be. When I say roughly I mean ROUGHLY. My maths is notoriously poor and I’m working with little more than guesstimates here so please, bear with me.
The nearest comparable coaster to Project Dylan is (in my opinion) Dollywood’s Mystery Mine which has 1811 feet of track with a ride duration of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This equates to 12.07 feet per second average speed. Project Dylan has 2362 feet of track with a ride duration of just one minute forty seconds which is around 23.62 feet per second.
From this we can very clearly see that Thorpe Park‘s new ride’s average speed will be almost double that of Mystery Mine. Unfortunately looking at the average speed of the ride does not reveal too much, the slow lift hills and the rapid vertical drops obviously affect the average quite a bit.
To put these highly ambiguous figures into some kind of perspective here is a list of a few of my favourite coasters and their respective feet per second counts.
Nemesis: 29 fps
Rita: Queen of Speed: 43 fps
Stealth: 50 fps
Project Dylan: 23.62 fps
So, from that we can see that Project Dylan is unlikely to break any records for speed, the drop remains the main draw of the attraction. At 97 degrees it will be one of the steepest the UK has to offer. All things considered I think it is fair to assume that Project Dylan will have a similar overall pace to Nemesis (which just so happens to be our very favourite coaster here at Play and Stay®). These numbers taken into account I’m expecting top speeds of between 50 and 60 mph and I’m pretty confidant that I’m right.
This last bit is purely conjecture, nothing more than my humble opinion on this thrilling new ride at Thorpe Park. I have a bit of a theory, Project Dylan is going to lean even more heavily on the horror theme that I originally anticipated. I predict that Thorpe Park’s new ride will be as much a grown up ghost train as a roller coaster. It will be heavily themed, there will be sections inside the planned sawmill that will probably employ animatronics or even just convincing models to give passengers a fright on their way to the beyond vertical drop. In short, this ride is going to be A for amazing.
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