The Wave (formerly known as Shockwave)

Popped in for an after school visit today. The park was very quiet. Was able to park on the first bank and there were only a handful of coaches; one of which was coming out of the exit as we went in.

Shows the re-ridability that the little lad detailed the Wave as his main ride to go on today. Except it was out of action.

When we went on the rapids you could see the train on the auxiliary, rather than the main track.
 
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Still closed

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I think it’s quite awful as on radio ads it’s saying come to Drayton Manor resort and ride the uk 1st family thrill coaster the wave and it’s currently closed.
Unfortunately, the radio campaigns can't be stop-started if the ride is unavailable for maintenance :) The campaign will most likely have a set date run.
Attractions are always subject to availability and cannot be guarenteed :(

Though, The wave has been up and down this month. Really hope it can be sorted properly soon as its not great for the park...
 
So we made a trip after school on Tuesday and the Wave was our main focus.

Few things to notice,

1. The ride didn't seem to operate at full capacity. There were empty seats whislt some folks were still in the queue. It could have been because of folks wanting to ride together I suppose (lots of school parties were onsite)
2. The two stage operation seat clicking operation doesn't seem to apply to all seats now. Some were selected for an extra pressing...not sure how these were selected.
3. There wasn't instruction to leave the restraints upright, we didn't bring ours down, plenty did.
4. There was an instance on each ride where one of the restraints didn't disengage at the end of the ride and required a firm push from a ride operator to get it to release.
5. There was an onride announcement about keeping your head back and to hold onto the handles at all times...I don't recollect this being said before?

Little lad was keen to tick off a couple of enhancements, he did his first sit on the outside and we had our first front row experience.
 
So we made a trip after school on Tuesday and the Wave was our main focus.

Few things to notice,

1. The ride didn't seem to operate at full capacity. There were empty seats whislt some folks were still in the queue. It could have been because of folks wanting to ride together I suppose (lots of school parties were onsite)
2. The two stage operation seat clicking operation doesn't seem to apply to all seats now. Some were selected for an extra pressing...not sure how these were selected.
3. There wasn't instruction to leave the restraints upright, we didn't bring ours down, plenty did.
4. There was an instance on each ride where one of the restraints didn't disengage at the end of the ride and required a firm push from a ride operator to get it to release.
5. There was an onride announcement about keeping your head back and to hold onto the handles at all times...I don't recollect this being said before?

Little lad was keen to tick off a couple of enhancements, he did his first sit on the outside and we had our first front row experience.

1 sounds like school kids wanting to ride together / not sit by someone else.
3 is interesting, wonder if they've sorted the issues there.
5 is a new one - Im guessing its to help guide younger riders or one or two have bumped their head by not sitting properly during the ride (Which makes sense with overly excited or nervous children who have never done an upside down movement before etc) - OR it was added because of the masses of school children. That also makes sense ^^'
 
Dashed down after school today. As is the little lad's latest method we headed straight to the Wave.

For once we were unlucky, the park was quite busy with school parties and the queue was quite long, there were also two outages whilst we were int he queue. Annoying but just one of those things, we have mostly been very lucky so sometimes you just have to wear it.

What the park do need to address though is that the later stages of the queue line had dozens of wasps buzzing about. I don't know if there is nest in the ceiling but there was clearly something going on.

The bloke in the control booth did on occasion pass messages to the queue urging people to move forward but they were just wanting to keep the area where they were worst clear. Needs addressing quickly.
 
Dashed down after school today. As is the little lad's latest method we headed straight to the Wave.

For once we were unlucky, the park was quite busy with school parties and the queue was quite long, there were also two outages whilst we were int he queue. Annoying but just one of those things, we have mostly been very lucky so sometimes you just have to wear it.

What the park do need to address though is that the later stages of the queue line had dozens of wasps buzzing about. I don't know if there is nest in the ceiling but there was clearly something going on.

The bloke in the control booth did on occasion pass messages to the queue urging people to move forward but they were just wanting to keep the area where they were worst clear. Needs addressing quickly.
Yeah I saw this back in April. From the outside right at the top of the building u could see the wasps coming out.
 
It was considerably less buzzy today. So hopefully sorted.

It was a busy day with school parties and a number have taken the opporutnity to scratch there names into the walls in the queues. The new displays in the final sectionin the queue lines have been ripped and peeled away from the backing in places.

Will need to be redone and possible with perspex over them next time. Such a shame that it needs to be done in this way, but similarly you'd think this would have been done first time around.
 
It was considerably less buzzy today. So hopefully sorted.

It was a busy day with school parties and a number have taken the opporutnity to scratch there names into the walls in the queues. The new displays in the final sectionin the queue lines have been ripped and peeled away from the backing in places.

Will need to be redone and possible with perspex over them next time. Such a shame that it needs to be done in this way, but similarly you'd think this would have been done first time around.
There needs to be more security, possibly remote monitoring of CCTV to catch people doing this and kick them out, if there was a deterrent i.e. you got kicked out and banned, word would get around and it would soon stop.

There just seems to be some sort of acceptance in parks and attractions in the UK that this sort of thing is acceptable.

I don't understand why as who wants to visit somewhere that's been wrecked by mindless idiots.
 
Staff do watch the CCTV as they always telling guests to get off the queue line fences/barrages but they also making sure guests ain’t got there phones out there pockets on the ride.
 
So we had a visit today and it appears that the wasp problem has gotten worse. The ride ops as soon as they realised the extent of the issue shut the wave down for the rest of the day. I’d imagine park will have to get pest control in to fumigate the queue line but here are a few photos from todays visit.
 

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So we had a visit today and it appears that the wasp problem has gotten worse. The ride ops as soon as they realised the extent of the issue shut the wave down for the rest of the day. I’d imagine park will have to get pest control in to fumigate the queue line but here are a few photos from todays visit.
Is that a swarm on in the last photo?
 
So we had a visit today and it appears that the wasp problem has gotten worse. The ride ops as soon as they realised the extent of the issue shut the wave down for the rest of the day. I’d imagine park will have to get pest control in to fumigate the queue line but here are a few photos from todays visit.
That’s where they were going in and out of the hive back in April now the Queen gone they on there own.
 
Yes it is . Hopefully they are able to sort this issue. Yesterday the wasps was landing in peoples hair and on the clothes.
Thanks for letting me knoiw. Would be good to get an update from the park when its done.
Was thinking of doing an afterschool pop up today but will give it a miss if this is the case.
 
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