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Europa is becoming a bit of a lazy comparison these days. It's the best theme park in Europe, possibly the world so is there much point saying Europa do this, Europa do that when Merlin are never going to be at that level. Saying they should aim to be that also isn't ever going to happen. The UK theme park market is stagnating and whilst I love the Wicker Man and I think Icon will be excellent, its a temporary positive and I think 2019 will be back to normal. Ooh go on then. Big Thunder Mountain smoke effect as well as the water splashdown, off. Snow Whites hand which has been broken for at least a year off, half of the last room on It's a Small World not working, water effects in Adventureland off, Cheshire cat's eyes off and no water effects on Alice in Wonderlands maze, R2 D2 stuck looking one way in one room, robot covered in tarp in the next room on Star Tours, no fire on Frontierland entrance sign. This is why Merlin shouldn't do the effects thing too often because they don't have the budgets to maintain them. When someone said the fire on Swarm was still on I was taken aback.

And there was me thinking I was the only person on the planet who thought both of these!! I do love Chiapas to bits but Ripsaw falls final drop truely is a thing of beauty....and you actually get wet on the ride!!!

Nemesis > Black Mamba and Chiapas is the best thing to ever grace this earth. But since you love Taron so much I'll overlook that

Went a couple of days ago and it just slowed the queue down. Doesn’t really work on quiet days. Python was stupidly smooth. I sat back row with my friend expecting head trauma and was pleasantly surprised. Baron’s preshow was everything and the ride is really fun. I wouldn’t say it was my fave. Joris and Draak were better IMO.

I really loved this park. The staff were super friendly and the park, whilst small, is super well themed! Troy is amazing and their spinner beats most Spinners I’ve ever been on to be honest. The Vekoma Bike is definitely an interesting one. The new areas opening looked stunning when I visited (from what had been completed). Gutted I’m missing the opening of them in July.

They were lights on a stick!

Comparing Merlin to Disney in some ways is a bit like comparing Tesco to Waitrose. There’s some similarities between the two, but the latter generally offers a more premium price and one could argue is more upmarket. Whilst Merlin will never be up there with Disney, there’s no doubt that they can create quality attractions. Swarm, Wickerman and Gruffalo first come to mind. However what’s affecting these are limitations in budgeting, marketing and structure. The parks desperately need a complexion of themes that are upbeat, comical and mysterious. Less-so modern day dark/abandoned and bright garish themes. I understand the demographic have previously asked for these, however what was hot topic five years ago may be relevant today. Budgeting is another thing, as the parks typically only get funding for new attractions (investment levels rotated), basic maintenance and ‘essential’ safety improvements. Sometimes the parks really have to push for extensive upkeep (see the TLC scheme) which should never have to happen like this. The under prioritised upkeep from Merlin is the real reason little things like Vampire’s chandeliers and mothballed/removed rides have been happening. Merlin have the full ability to run all parks as high-level leading european Parks. Whilst they may not necessarily reach the heights of say Efteling or Phantasialand (which are operated differently), they have the potential to be near their league if they willing to pull out the right stops. It’s such a shame they choose not to and continue to tighten already stiff budgets, just because they want to make a massive profit, please shareholders and build dozens more Legolands. The parks themselves have a difficult fime through such limited budgets, however there are people who work in these parks that are definitely trying the best they can, even though they are basically expected to clean a toilet with just a broken toothbrush and almost empty cleaning bottle.

I rode Duel mulitiple times on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. Overall, I'm actually very pleased with all the changes and improvements. The façade looks much better with the ivy trimmed back, and the new outdoor music really sets the spooky atmosphere well. On to the queue inside, the new portraits, while they are just a little too bright, are still a nice addition, giving the queue something new for guests to look at. The new queue and station music is nice too, even if I was a bit disappointed to see they had removed the old announcements in the station. On to the ride itself, there were certain scenes which had improved dramatically! The first scene with the moving walls and thunder looked much better than before. Another was the Screaming Heads room, the actual heads looked much fresher, and the overall effect was a much better experience than before TLC. Another of the areas which I really enjoyed was the garden scene, where the new lighting has been very effective in my opinion! I was also very impressed on how many of the effects were working too, although, on some of the later rides on Wednesday, one or two of the effects had seemingly been turned off or had broken. One of the best things to come from the TLC has to be the new soundtrack though. It's just what the ride needed, and anyone who isn't sure of it now, I'm certain you'll grow to like it. It really is much more atmospheric, and I found it worked very well, along with the old sound effects, and certainly wasn't too quiet, which I have seen some criticism of. If there was one thing I'd change about the soundtrack, it would be that I would bring the old spider soundtrack back to the giant spider scene, as I always thought that worked pretty well, and was actually surprised it had been removed in the first place. All in all, I'm very pleased, and with further tweaking as the season continues, I'm sure it'll only get better and better! (And I can't wait for them to get that Trommel Tunnel working again!)

Perhaps, the wording is awful though and it's a stupid thing for any social media account to say to a prospective guest... Should've just said something about "if you need to change the date on your advance ticket please contact such and such"...

Usually there’s a re-validation fee to change the date (£5 I think) - judging by the late reply I guess the responses got them to think twice on this one! I still don’t think the original reply came across how they intended it mind!

I think I'll find more intensity in checking my facebook news feed than this at midnight..

Just remembered I never really shared my thoughts on Wicker Man, so here goes: As some of you will know I get R.A.P so I didnt get to experience the main queue. From the disabled access queue, though, the ride looks amazing, and very intimidating (I was absolutely bricking it looking at the second drop haha). The audio is absolutely fantastic here, I assume it was the third track throughout the queue I've been hearing about, and I wish it was on the Internet. The audio in the baggage hold area is great also however with my ASD I'm fairly sensitive to loud noises and I didnt appreciate the sudden loud music when the doors open, I guess it fulfilled its purpose though haha. Now, I wasn't going to experience the pre show anyway, but it's not like that mattered because someone with a small child who had already experienced it just walked right through and shoved open the doors to the station, so nobody got to see it anyway. I think they should put up some signage and such to prevent this from happening in the future. This also messed everything else up, there were 4 people on our train, and nobody waiting for the next train when ours dispatched (the pre show operator's reaction was priceless though haha). The station, while great, imo is too scary for younger kids. My nine year old sister was in tears just because of the audio (she didnt go on the ride). Now, the actual ride. Probably worth mentioning this was my first wooden coaster altogether. First time round, I was pretty scared and also pulled the restraint down far too tight, and I think I was sat wrong, so my, ahem, Illacus felt like it was being torn to absolute shreds on the ride (something which I think was actually caused on Dragon's Fury). The second time round though, I loved it, for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else. For those reasons, at least until I ride some other bigger coasters, Wicker Man sits at #1 for me, joint with Galactica. Also shoutout to the staff on the ride, they are absolutely brilliant, especially the one who went out of his way to take care of my little sister, even giving her earplugs and offering her water and the like. Another standout was the guy who took me and my dad out of the baggage hold and through a "restricted access" door straight on to the ride, so we could avoid the pre show. I realise this was a wall of text and I wish I had a whole load of nice photos to share - but, I don't. So here's a photo of the statue and also a game - spot me.

I bet people can't wait to ride this indoor rollercoaster at midnight, it's going to make a big difference.

It’s not turned off, it’s broken, it will be fixed - but don’t let that get in the way of merlin bashing

I messaged Alton Towers about this and they said that marked up merchandise was better than nothing

The Worst GCI in modern history. Wicker Man will be **** we all know it. Doesn't look very interesting, not very fast at all. Just three ways Wicker Man has been described over the closed season on this forum. There's a wealth of material, of people lining up to give the first modern woodie in the UK in 22 years a good kicking. The point where coaster enthusiasts have already ruled themselves judge, jury and executioner on a ride way before anyone had even had the chance to ride. Here we are a good two weeks later from the preview event and I think there's proverbial egg on peoples faces. I remained quietly optimistic, keeping expectations in check. What I expected was a well paced, fun, mildly thrilling family wooden ride and that's exactly what I got. I knew this wasn't going to be Wodan, it wouldn't be the airtime machine that Megafobia or Tonnerre De Zeus are. But what I did get was the best rollercoaster Merlin have ever built.. Now before you decry my last sentence as hyperbolic nonsense, understand something. I love a thrilling rollercoaster but what I really love is an inventive, interactive, original layout. I love getting on a ride, hearing the people around me screaming, loving every moment, hitting the break run and then shouts of amazement, the joy that emanates from the riders. Hit the break run on Nemesis, Inferno, Swarm, Oblivion and you hear nothing, just complete silence. It's just another steel rollercoaster going through the motions. But for the first time in a long while I heard something from a UK ride. People love the Wicker Man. They can't believe that such an old looking ride (bare with me) can deliver thrills, excitement on such a scale. Europeans and Americans are used to the thrill of a wooden rollercoaster but the UK has forgotten that wooden rollercoasters are more then a match to their steel counterparts. For me, this is the first time that Merlin have hit the nail on the head and got it right. So why is it so good? To start off with, I like how little of it you can see from around the resort. There was a lot of discussion around Alton's limitations and how they get around them and Wicker Man is another example of that. The way the ride seems to work on several different levels to gather pace and momentum is right out of the Nemesis/Smiler handbook, the way the ride descends to the bottom of the Flume lake, or the oddity of the lift hill, the way the ride dips through the Wicker Man structure three times, each time getting more and more intense or the way the compact layout eeks out the ride length perfectly. The queue line which features very few switchbacks and naturally uses the terrain to get you close to the structure or the balcony which overlooks the majority of the ride giving great photo opportunities. The mercifully brief pre-show which I thought was perfect for the ride, telling us the story without getting bogged down in details. At its core, this is a very simple story on a pretty basic woodie but the ride is more then the sum of its parts. The soundtrack which I really like slowly builds up in drama the further into the queue you go. This feels like the kind of ride that you couldn't get anywhere else, tapping into legend in the same way that Hex does. This is right out of the Towers rule book and is all the more stronger for it. At the moment the rides biggest issues are operational. The park hasn't really got to grips with how to run it yet with very slow dispatches and numerous breakdowns. It only ran for two hours on my visit (didn't help that Nemesis was down all day, curse you Towers) and when Wicker Man was running trains didn't seem to go out very quickly. I don't think the way rows are labelled is very clear in the station either, the darkness and moodiness of the station means people can't see the numbers hanging above their heads and numerous times people were just wondering back and forth lost. If you've ever ridden a GCI woodie you know what to expect here from the Millennium flyer trains. They are comfortable enough to ride in whilst durable enough to take it when you go slamming from side to side on the rides cornering. I won't cover the ride in too much detail as frankly it differs massively from front to back but what I will say is that when this thing beds in, those back row seats are going to be absolutely fantastic. Our first ride was row 5 and then onto row 8 and the difference was staggering. I have two main worries. The first is the effects. Lets face it, Merlin are hit and miss with this and as you can see from the Smiler most of it no longer works. No sprayers, no screens, no car wash. The effects on Wicker Man tell a story far more then the Smiler and the danger of the Wicker Man structure having no fire or smoke must be pretty high; I'd be surprised if they still work by June. That's ignoring all the smoke effects before the lift hill, on the first drop tunnel, in the break run. If Towers want this ride to continue to have the positive reaction it currently has, it is essential they stay on top of this. That being said, I think the strong layout helps but on an effects driven ride, that can only do so much. My second concern is the rides longevity. Wooden coasters aren't steel coasters, they need consistent maintenance to keep them from getting too rough, too shaky, too unbearable. I question whether Merlin can give this ride the love it needs five years, ten years down the line. Based on their track record with Colossos for example, they let that go SBNO for two years. I don't want to see that happen with Wicker Man, in my view it's the closest to perfection Merlin can ever get. So its safe to say, I'm a big fan of the Wicker Man and I call it a triumph for the UK industry. When people were lining up to rip it to shreds, I stayed positive and optimistic and whilst I don't want to say I told you so, I told you so. My biggest hope that comes out of this wooden ride though is that parks like Paultons, Drayton, Flamingoland, hell even Thorpe and Chessington look at what can be done with a ride like this and build their own. The wooden ride genre is big in America, China, all across Europe and yet here, they are seen as dangerous and unsafe. Telling people I work with that I was going to Towers to ride a wooden rollercoaster, they thought it was a disaster waiting to happen. I can only hope that the Wicker Mans success leads to more and more and who knows what that could lead to. Thans for reading and as for a score, Wicker Man is a solid 8/10. I can't wait to get back up there. Next time I'll be Enthusiastic Icon.