Full Gallery (lots of crappy pictures): http://imgur.com/a/egn5o
Old Swarm Opening Day Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/Os5pI
Old SAW Opening Year Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/36Hwe
I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I'd have hoped - we were pretty tired with the humid weather and the travelling (+ lack of sleep) I've uploaded a couple more albums which has more pictures of the rides you guys mentioned Also Turbo they've grown the trees out the back of the SAW queue line so it's really difficult to get good pictures of the majority of the layout - again check out the older galleries! (I appear to be missing a few albums probably due to me getting a new PC at some point however)
So we went literally the last weekend before the summer holidays which is your last chance of avoiding horrendous queues I imagine. The weather was horribly muggy and hot - with it threatening to rain all day - however it didn't which was a bonus.
We arrived to the park a bit later than planned at 10:30 so due to everyone flocking straight to Swarm (90 minutes queue by the time we got into the park) we hit up Stealth instead.
Stealth is the best launch you'll find in the UK - it's basically a half size Kingda Ka which basically epitomizes the difference between US parks and UK parks. Pretty good fun and one of those rides that you just wish they'd been able to do more with it!
From here we headed towards Nemesis: Inferno - however it was temporary closed so we carried on passed Slammer (only remaining S&S Sky Swat in the world!) and Samurai (Top Scan model - doesn't run an especially fierce programme) and got in the line for SAW: The ride.
This Eurofighter is themed around the movie series and is a decent attraction. The layout features an initial indoor section with a sharp steep drop and a heartline roll over this guy spurting water at you.
You then ascend the classic vertical lift and navigate the rest of the ride. There's a cheeky airtime hill out in the back with a lateral turn just as you exit it which is a nice touch. This ride felt less rough than other times I've ridden it but the first immelman is pretty rough - best to brace!
After this we hit up Colossus with the plan being to hit up Swarm as everyone else went for lunch (turned out well!). This is the feature 10-looper with a quad-heartline roll towards the end of the ride. Again this ride is pretty rough - and if you sit in the rear seats don't expect much leg room!
This ride is ride has some really good east-asian theming throughout the ride and the queue snakes round the ride and through some tunnels making it actually fairly bearable. It means you get to see the ride from pretty much every angle too!
Before lunch we quickly jumped on Rush which I failed to take a picture of hah. I was hungry. This is an S&S Swing that was installed with Slammer in 2005. Great ride although one arm seemed to be operating a bit inconsistently - wouldn't be surprised if it saw a bit of downtime later this season. After this we headed towards Swarm!
Since I rode this last they've switched round the back 2 seats to face backwards which is a bit of a gimmick but is actually pretty fun. First time I rode this it was my favourite ride in the park but it due to the style it does lack forces and on the day I preferred Nemesis! In the UK there are generally only front row special queue lines - however they were swapped for Swarm to be for the back two rows. It's amazing how little people care about the front row when they're told its nothing special as the front row queue was the same as for any other row!
I like the theming on the ride too - its not as dense as Colossus but it's pretty consistent and with the new billboard it definitely looks fairly good from the entrance! After this we decided to jump on Nemesis: Inferno despite the lengthy queue!
This B&M invert is a pretty decent ride featuring 4 inversions and lots of close to the ground interactions. The ride is very compact and has loads of quick changes of directions and some okay forces (last helix is probably the only decent area for forces however!) I like it - it's definitely different to its sibling at Alton Towers however (and not as good!)
We finished off the day with Detonator which is a neat little drop tower! Overall it was a pretty fun day - and was glad to finally get my first theme park visit of the year under my belt hah