GF2021: Bigger, Longer & Uncut - Trip Reports
- Thread starter Ian
- Start date
James F
Hyper Poster
@Serena You did a brilliant job at organising the event. I do appreciate all the effort and hard work that you put into it, while I know I wasn't the most vocal of the group and I may of seemed a bit awkward at times, I had a great day at Chessington.
I think that unfortunately you were facing an uphill battle partly due to post lockdown isolation. Similar to what @Will said I initially felt a bit weird because I haven't been in a large social gathering in a very long time and meeting new people can be a bit nerve-wracking for me, but everything that you, Alex and @Slayed did such as the badges, faffle, just a minute and cred head made me feel like I was part of a community and I couldn't imagine how the day would of turned out if it wasn't for all your efforts.
oh and a big shout out to @SaiyanHajime for letting us skip that 100 minute queue for Vampire, that was the icing on the cake!
I think that unfortunately you were facing an uphill battle partly due to post lockdown isolation. Similar to what @Will said I initially felt a bit weird because I haven't been in a large social gathering in a very long time and meeting new people can be a bit nerve-wracking for me, but everything that you, Alex and @Slayed did such as the badges, faffle, just a minute and cred head made me feel like I was part of a community and I couldn't imagine how the day would of turned out if it wasn't for all your efforts.
oh and a big shout out to @SaiyanHajime for letting us skip that 100 minute queue for Vampire, that was the icing on the cake!
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SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
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Will
Strata Poster
I just want to clarify that I'm not smoking in that picture outside Tomb Blaster 
Did anyone manage to get a pretty picture of that amazing rainbow that appeared over Saw just after the lunch-break?
Herding cats sounds like a great game to me - can I play that at the next Live?
...and does anyone else feel like Night of the Living Dead today? I've done **** all and I'm ready for bed...
Did anyone manage to get a pretty picture of that amazing rainbow that appeared over Saw just after the lunch-break?
Herding cats sounds like a great game to me - can I play that at the next Live?
...and does anyone else feel like Night of the Living Dead today? I've done **** all and I'm ready for bed...
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Howie
Donkey in a hat
Thorpe and Chessie on a cold, wet crowded Halloween weekend sounds truly awful... but I am truly gutted I missed the Forum Member version of Cred Head.
Let me guess - non attendees got it full bore, right? I can only imagine some of the laughs that came from that one.
And @Slamming Coastercore - dat costume tho!
Let me guess - non attendees got it full bore, right? I can only imagine some of the laughs that came from that one.
And @Slamming Coastercore - dat costume tho!
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
So - A bit late, but I've finished my homework!
1 and 7 are probably obvious, but I couldn't get them!
I'd be happy with one of:
Or for a more family friendly ride:
or
Sorry - can't draw!!
1 and 7 are probably obvious, but I couldn't get them!
I'd be happy with one of:
Or for a more family friendly ride:
or
Sorry - can't draw!!
SilverArrow
Certified Ride Geek
I did but the forum still won't let me post photos so just visualise it. I also found a pen and filled in my worksheet so also visualise that! The Karen one cracked me up haha. My funniest moment on Sunday was the random guy who complimented Serena on her wig holding skills!I just want to clarify that I'm not smoking in that picture outside Tomb Blaster
Did anyone manage to get a pretty picture of that amazing rainbow that appeared over Saw just after the lunch-break?
Herding cats sounds like a great game to me - can I play that at the next Live?
...and does anyone else feel like Night of the Living Dead today? I've done **** all and I'm ready for bed...
Attachments
Howie
Donkey in a hat
Matt N and Tomatron. And I reckon number 6 might be Peep, not Davud m. Peep Show, geddit?
Soooo, what do I win?
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
Love the RMC schematics!!!I only had a blue pen with me, so my colouring in (completed on Saturday night at the 'lodge) was a bit mono-chrome...
View attachment 14008
Also wordsearch answers....
EDIT : and for completeness....
View attachment 14009
Drop doesn’t look very steep for a new build RMC though :/ I got 3, 4 and 5… plus 7 I pretty much got just from the images, despite not recognising the username…
The rest had to be explained
as I’m an idiot… Number 1 is genius though!!!
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chainedbanana
Hyper Poster
Thorpe and Chessie on a cold, wet crowded Halloween weekend sounds truly awful... but I am truly gutted I missed the Forum Member version of Cred Head.
Let me guess - non attendees got it full bore, right? I can only imagine some of the laughs that came from that one.
And @Slamming Coastercore - dat costume tho!
Howie - I had you on forum member cred head!!! to my question 'are they annoying?' the response was ' hmmm not generally' ...... so I thought you'd be heartened to know that at least!!
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davidm
Strata Poster
To be honest, it started out as a B&M hyper but last minute decisions were made.
I did not plan that very well.
Will
Strata Poster
Sounds like a Merlin coaster to me, so I'll give it 8/10 - loses marks for the lack of shipping container and post-apocalyptic themeTo be honest, it started out as a B&M hyper but last minute decisions were made.
I did not plan that very well.
I'm glad somebody captured the rainbow (even if I did go off them a bit last year!) - it was great to finally put a face to a name by the way, @SilverArrow - I promise I'm not usually as intense as Nemesis' first helix, that was just unfortunate timing
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MouseAT
Hyper Poster
What a fab weekend.
I'm going to have to keep it fairly brief for now, as I've not got vast amounts of free time this evening, but that Live definitely felt like an old-school GhosterForce, albeit with a slightly smaller group than usual. It's been great to meet newer members for the first time, and catch up with some old timers that I've not seen for years, even pre-pandemic.
Over the Halloween weekend, there were burdenously long queues, and unavailable rides, and quite honestly, none of that seemed to matter in the slightest. There's been a real sense of community amongst the CFers that I've met up with throughout this year, and with this Live to finish off the year, it's clear that, whilst the whole group dynamics may have been a little bit rusty in places as people caught up within their usual sub-groups, to me it felt like we weren't far off the pre-pandemic groove. Here's hoping we can get people back together a bit more next year, and keep the momentum going.
Thanks to Serena for keeping the group going through two incredibly busy days. Despite the queues and some fairly significant ride closures (including Dragon's Fury, Rattlesnake, Seastorm, and most of Thorpe at the beginning of the day), you managed to keep everything going from one attraction to another, and made it look effortless in the process. The only real issue we ran into was when we had to skip on Creek Freak Massacre due to Thorpe closing the walkthrough for an extended period, which was entirely on the park, and with the timeslot system in place, isn't something we could have worked around. Your effort have not gone unnoticed.
I did take a lot of photos, and they will eventually appear, but it's probably going to take me a couple of weeks to wrangle them into a presentable state. In the meantime, have this one to tide you over:
Seeing as we had the activity packs, I suppose I may as well finish up with the points from the final page:
Score achieved on Tomb Blaster:
15945. Apparently, Mouse fails at blasting us out of a difficult situation, and deserves to get eaten by the giant snake.
Hours spent queuing for Vampire:
Significantly less than one. Yay for Joey’s connections, and being able to get priority access to finish off the day. Big thanks to all those involved, if they're reading.
Best ride at Chessington:
It has to be Vampire. It’s running a lot better than I remember it, and it wouldn’t be a proper GhosterForce if the day didn’t end with a ride on Vampire in the dark.
Best scare at Chessington:
I may not have been on the receiving end of any jump scares at Chessington, but Creepy Caves: Resurgence is a very interesting attraction. I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t experienced it, but let’s just say that it’s not what I expected, and that makes it difficult to anticipate what’s coming. It gets a big thumbs up from me.
Funniest moment at Chessington:
It has to be some of the faffle moments. Ridiculous tat, presented in an entertaining way to a bunch of entertained and bemused CFers. It’s always a good time.
How many slices of garlic bread you ate at the Pizza Pasta Buffet:
None. I didn’t want to upset the Vampire.
Number of chainsaws encountered at Thorpe:
None. I suspect they were all inside Creek Freak when it ceased operation. Either that, or they’re all in Alton’s Toxic Junkyard this year.
How many trains were running on Colossus:
I suspect both, but it’s the one major ride that we skipped, so I didn’t pay it too much attention.
Best ride at Thorpe:
Stealth is always a highlight, but Inferno was seriously shifting on Sunday, and delivered possibly the best ride I’ve ever had on it. Also, props to Saw for delivering a relatively pleasant ride for once. I managed to avoid the infamous brain pinball, and actually enjoyed it for once.
Best scare at Thorpe:
Trailers is an awesome set up, with a great introduction, some great ideas, and a really substantial length. The best scare, however, needs to go to the free Crows of Mawkin Meadow scare zone. It’s incredibly creepy and atmospheric, and you can expect to be approached from unexpected directions as you go through.
Funniest moment at Thorpe:
Thorpe was all about the little moments. The one-liners in conversation, or some of the activity moments. There wasn’t one epic laugh aloud moment that I can remember, but I can remember being thoroughly entertained during the day.
I'm going to have to keep it fairly brief for now, as I've not got vast amounts of free time this evening, but that Live definitely felt like an old-school GhosterForce, albeit with a slightly smaller group than usual. It's been great to meet newer members for the first time, and catch up with some old timers that I've not seen for years, even pre-pandemic.
Over the Halloween weekend, there were burdenously long queues, and unavailable rides, and quite honestly, none of that seemed to matter in the slightest. There's been a real sense of community amongst the CFers that I've met up with throughout this year, and with this Live to finish off the year, it's clear that, whilst the whole group dynamics may have been a little bit rusty in places as people caught up within their usual sub-groups, to me it felt like we weren't far off the pre-pandemic groove. Here's hoping we can get people back together a bit more next year, and keep the momentum going.
Thanks to Serena for keeping the group going through two incredibly busy days. Despite the queues and some fairly significant ride closures (including Dragon's Fury, Rattlesnake, Seastorm, and most of Thorpe at the beginning of the day), you managed to keep everything going from one attraction to another, and made it look effortless in the process. The only real issue we ran into was when we had to skip on Creek Freak Massacre due to Thorpe closing the walkthrough for an extended period, which was entirely on the park, and with the timeslot system in place, isn't something we could have worked around. Your effort have not gone unnoticed.
I did take a lot of photos, and they will eventually appear, but it's probably going to take me a couple of weeks to wrangle them into a presentable state. In the meantime, have this one to tide you over:
Seeing as we had the activity packs, I suppose I may as well finish up with the points from the final page:
Score achieved on Tomb Blaster:
15945. Apparently, Mouse fails at blasting us out of a difficult situation, and deserves to get eaten by the giant snake.
Hours spent queuing for Vampire:
Significantly less than one. Yay for Joey’s connections, and being able to get priority access to finish off the day. Big thanks to all those involved, if they're reading.
Best ride at Chessington:
It has to be Vampire. It’s running a lot better than I remember it, and it wouldn’t be a proper GhosterForce if the day didn’t end with a ride on Vampire in the dark.
Best scare at Chessington:
I may not have been on the receiving end of any jump scares at Chessington, but Creepy Caves: Resurgence is a very interesting attraction. I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t experienced it, but let’s just say that it’s not what I expected, and that makes it difficult to anticipate what’s coming. It gets a big thumbs up from me.
Funniest moment at Chessington:
It has to be some of the faffle moments. Ridiculous tat, presented in an entertaining way to a bunch of entertained and bemused CFers. It’s always a good time.
How many slices of garlic bread you ate at the Pizza Pasta Buffet:
None. I didn’t want to upset the Vampire.
Number of chainsaws encountered at Thorpe:
None. I suspect they were all inside Creek Freak when it ceased operation. Either that, or they’re all in Alton’s Toxic Junkyard this year.
How many trains were running on Colossus:
I suspect both, but it’s the one major ride that we skipped, so I didn’t pay it too much attention.
Best ride at Thorpe:
Stealth is always a highlight, but Inferno was seriously shifting on Sunday, and delivered possibly the best ride I’ve ever had on it. Also, props to Saw for delivering a relatively pleasant ride for once. I managed to avoid the infamous brain pinball, and actually enjoyed it for once.
Best scare at Thorpe:
Trailers is an awesome set up, with a great introduction, some great ideas, and a really substantial length. The best scare, however, needs to go to the free Crows of Mawkin Meadow scare zone. It’s incredibly creepy and atmospheric, and you can expect to be approached from unexpected directions as you go through.
Funniest moment at Thorpe:
Thorpe was all about the little moments. The one-liners in conversation, or some of the activity moments. There wasn’t one epic laugh aloud moment that I can remember, but I can remember being thoroughly entertained during the day.
Thanks Serena for organising a great Ghosterforce. It was good to see some new faces and some I haven't seen in years. Thanks Slayed for the fab name badges!
I was worried that going to Chessie on actual Halloween weekend was going to be awful due to the crowds but I shouldn't have worried, any queue we did encounter went by quickly with the games and catching up with everyone. The games in the long queues were good ice breakers, although I think we got some proper tricky ones at the back of the Falls queue! Absolutely shaking my head that I didn't get that number 1 in the guess the CFer was Matt N!!!!
Chessington's use of fake skeletons amused me throughout the day:
Draw me like one of your French skeletons
It was nice to see an attempt at the classic "When I say Coaster you say Force!" on the pile of ship, I think the other peeps riding amongst you probably made that a little awkward so good work:
COASTER!
FORCE!
Congrats on Nic absolutely smashing everyone else's score on Tomb Blaster to win the fab crown!
Sorry to those I didn't say hi or much too, you'd think I'd be better at this after doing CF Lives for 15 years! Hope those new to the group stick around for future events.
Why is it so green?
I was worried that going to Chessie on actual Halloween weekend was going to be awful due to the crowds but I shouldn't have worried, any queue we did encounter went by quickly with the games and catching up with everyone. The games in the long queues were good ice breakers, although I think we got some proper tricky ones at the back of the Falls queue! Absolutely shaking my head that I didn't get that number 1 in the guess the CFer was Matt N!!!!
Chessington's use of fake skeletons amused me throughout the day:
Draw me like one of your French skeletons
It was nice to see an attempt at the classic "When I say Coaster you say Force!" on the pile of ship, I think the other peeps riding amongst you probably made that a little awkward so good work:
COASTER!
FORCE!
Congrats on Nic absolutely smashing everyone else's score on Tomb Blaster to win the fab crown!
Sorry to those I didn't say hi or much too, you'd think I'd be better at this after doing CF Lives for 15 years! Hope those new to the group stick around for future events.
Why is it so green?
Just stepping in to say that I think this might be of my favourite GhosterForce pictures ever. <3
Scarlet
Mega Poster
Hi Serena!
Thank you for organising, I wanted to let you know I had possibly the nicest/easiest/most enjoyable day at Thorpe I've ever had. Given the projected forecast and how little time and energy I thought I'd have, it was amazing. It's no single person's responsibility to make sure everyone has a good time anyway, but you facilitated the whole event and I loved it, so thank you.
I'm not an active member here anymore but the group that attended Thorpe, though small, was very interesting as I felt like there was a lot of conversational time for almost everyone, which is not possible during the very large groups, for me anyway.
I just found being indirectly live-streamed in a chav cattle-pen over 2 hours extremely unpleasant, and that had nothing to do with you.
It was so nice to see you, Alex, Will, Jordan, Emily, Karen, David, Tom, Mouse, Nathan and lastly Mark (when the camera is away) again.
Thank you for the amusement, thank you for Detonator.
Fabbrilous x
Thank you for organising, I wanted to let you know I had possibly the nicest/easiest/most enjoyable day at Thorpe I've ever had. Given the projected forecast and how little time and energy I thought I'd have, it was amazing. It's no single person's responsibility to make sure everyone has a good time anyway, but you facilitated the whole event and I loved it, so thank you.
I'm not an active member here anymore but the group that attended Thorpe, though small, was very interesting as I felt like there was a lot of conversational time for almost everyone, which is not possible during the very large groups, for me anyway.
I just found being indirectly live-streamed in a chav cattle-pen over 2 hours extremely unpleasant, and that had nothing to do with you.
It was so nice to see you, Alex, Will, Jordan, Emily, Karen, David, Tom, Mouse, Nathan and lastly Mark (when the camera is away) again.
Thank you for the amusement, thank you for Detonator.
Fabbrilous x
Will
Strata Poster
No, thank YOU for Detonator! During a trip that already made me feel a little like I'd been
about with a time machine, the ride/queue along with you and Barry was quite likely THE most surreal moment and I mean that in the most positive way possible. I hope you don't mind me saying that it just felt like we just naturally picked up right where we left off, even reminiscing about '73 day' - and the closing word of that post has amused me no end Even without the pneumatics, Det was still every bit as fab as I remembered too, still easily the Queen of the British tower rides Sorry I didn't get to say a proper goodbye, but I'd stayed much later than intended and as I said to Joey, I wanted to get off the car park while I was still certain which way North was! Who knows when, but perhaps some day we'll do it all again - look after yourself
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