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Definitely due to visiting midweek. I was there Friday and the park was significantly quieter (queues no longer than 30mins) compared to the weekend. The park is of course extremely busy during the 12 days of Christmas, then dies down again for their open weekdays afterwards, but the weekends hugely pick up again.

Derren Brown's Ghost train....enough said

Went to Phantasialand this weekend and just, damn, I always forget how incredible this place is. Firstly, Rookburgh: no photos from me. However from the outside there's little to be seen since the last update. The glimpses are saw though are exciting. Next, Crazy Bats - the VR experience that at one point Phantasialand said they'd never get. It's a weird one: the VR headsets are good, and comfy - the first VR coaster I've ridden where I haven't needed to hold onto the headset. And the film itself is good. It's humour-filled, well done, has some nice tricks and fun to watch. But I did come off feeling a bit queasy (something VR hasn't done to me before), as did everyone else in my group. I think that's at least in part down to the sheet length of the film. The other issue, unsurprisingly, is the throughput. It's completely destroyed. A ride that could easily churn out 3-4 trains without stacking now just manages to send 2 with no stacking (which for a 4 minute + ride isn't good). And the first and last car were out of use throughout the duration of the visit (I don't know if that's a permanent thing or not, but that takes out 8 people a ride). And the clever conveyor belt cleaning system they had seems to no longer be used either, which is sad. The really surprising thing, though, is the popularity of Crazy Bats. The public were lapping it up. It regularly had the longest or second longest queue on park. People were willing to wait over 2 hours to ride this. Now 2 hour waiting times aren't uncommon for UK rides, sure, but in Germany you rarely see those sort of waits, except on exceptionally busy days. It's crazy. So clearly this has worked for the park. And that brings me onto the next point: the park was hugely busy this weekend. I've visited this weekend in January for the past couple of years, and whilst it's been busy, it's never felt mad. This year, however, it was heaving. The park coped very well and queues were all manageable. But it was a massive shock to the system to see how busy this tiny park gets, whilst still managing to deliver incredible experiences. People were queueing to get into the viewing area of the park's finale show (which, tbh, is a bit naff) an hour before it started! But yeah, despite the busy-ness, the park was brilliant. I can't recommend their winter event enough.

He does now. I also appreciate the last post before Josh C was 10 and a half years ago.

The seatbelts serve 2 main purposes: Purpose 1 - In case of an evacuation, it gives greater control to staff. 'Please don't undo your safety belt', etc. Purpose 2 - A visual check for guests to know they're secure. As time has gone on, Purpose 2 has become more redundant as guests generally know they're safe. But 20-odd years ago, seeing a seat belt was a big thing. Purpose 1 only truly matters when there's people sat in the seat. Plenty of parks around the world don't bother doing seat belts on empty seats. And within Merlin, it's a ride-by-ride thing. This is not an example of H&S standard slipping. The only thing that's extremely shocking here is the amount of time you must have dedicated to try and find another crazy thing at Thorpe to complain about.