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Looks like the parks speaker system has had yet another overhaul! Swarm island and saws speakers have all been replaced with rcf p series and monitor Q series which sound amazing apart from saws station which has no bass but I think its due to saws speaker system still not being finnished leaving some areas without audio (by the way hello zepp it now played on dispatch!) and that they have left the old bose subs remianing making me think they are still keeping them but they have not be turned on yet. Infernos old soundtrack is back with them new rcf subs that are pumping out the sountracks low frequency beat and lost citys speakers are sounding amazing with that great imascore sountrack. The parks amtmospere has changed alot with the new speakers giving it a refreshed feel, its looking like its going to be a great season!

Was a nice day overall and whilst it was far too busy it was still a good day. Throughputs were not great but it is only four days in so fair enough. Availability was good with only Dragons Fury really going down for a couple of hours. Audio is a bit messy in places. Dragons Fury and Rattlesnake has no music, though the latter only ever had music in a couple of spots anyway. Scorpion Express was playing station announcments in queue instead of he station and Carousel was blasting out of the entire adventure point area. There's new Mexicana and Blue Barnacle audio is different and appears to be a new mix of call to adventure that plays in turn with Croc drop and vampire mixes too at the lodge entrance area. A shame that Monkey Swinger was without its water jets but hopefully this is just a temporary thing. It was great during Howloween with them all recently fixed and being held on for long periods of time! On a more positive note it was lovely to see some new signage and refreshed Mexicana looks nice. Croc Drop is a great addition for families and certainly going to be a hit. To finish a few pics of the ridiculous amount of fast track and high number of RAP users today. Oh and perhaps Forbidden Tomb is back... Love the new signage...

Right. So Wisey & myself took a little trip to Chessington today, which would be our first trip and park visit of the year. To Sum Up: Park is the best it’s looked in years, from areas such as Mexicana and Land Of The Dragons receiving noticeable touch ups Park Audio was rather messy and untidy in several places, maybe there’s issue All key eating places were open, although the surprise lack of outdoor seating was a little disappointing Majority of staff were friendly enough, although there were some issues with one or two Blue Barnacle is alright, least they replaced Buccaneer Zufari has interesting amendments Park operations left room for improvement, with rides stacking and breaking down often. Maybe these are start of season glitches but they still need addressing. RAP needs sorting because it’s getting a bit out of hand now! The park definitely warrants 7pm close, was very busy today! Finally tried Croc Drop too. It’s a nice enough addition and looks visually pleasing (from the front). Nothing ground breaking but fun all round.

We will get Bouncezilla and Gamefx back if we are lucky If Loggers came back, I'd be a dutchman's uncle. They are probably waiting for it to just collapse to save on the good old demolition costs knowing them.

Hey! I thought Id just tell some stories of what I gathered from things friends and employees used to say about the reason it closed. I really have no idea how much truth is in this (its probably very little so take it with a grain of salt) and I assume a lot of you are quite a bit more knowledgeable about this than me. Essentially, in the early to mid 2010s legislation in regards to the operation of water rides and attractions were updated, something to the effect that water rides at parks needed to guarantee a level of quality in the water used. I think it was along the lines of if guests get wet enough the water must be treated for health and safety reasons. For Tidal Wave, not a problem as it already uses treated water in the splashdown but, obviously, with rides that used open-water systems (Rapids, Loggers and the Flume etc) Merlin would need to make some adjustments. You can see this happen on pretty much all of the flumes in the UK and I guess I dont know enough to outright say if these updates included changes to water treatment but: Pirate Falls became Dynamite Drench, Dragons Falls received a mini-update removing some of the rock work, the Flume closed completely and Loggers.... well I'm not sure of specific details in regards to the breakoff point to when this supposed restriction may have occurred but Thorpe held onto Loggers for as long as they could before officially going in for the rework in 2015. The plan was to keep it closed for 2016, and start work on it before the 2017 season. Now I dont think there was any planning permission applications and any evidence of this wouldve been dug up quite quickly so that makes me a bit sceptical of the whole thing, but then again if the update was just closing off the water system and slapping 'Re-Drenched' on the sign maybe it wouldnt have been necessary. Then we all know what happened in 2016... Supposedly the budget went to the DBGT rework ROTD in 2017 instead and Thorpe, not knowing what to do with it, left Loggers hoping that theyd be able to work on it soon enough. This may explain why for a while afterwards the park were still insisting it would reopen, but as we know that didnt last. The ride began to literally rot and reached a point where they just had to abandon ship. I think this would explain a lot of the blank spaces left but I dont know. The park definitely knew that Loggers was incredibly important that we know for sure. Its just a shame that it didnt survive longer. Oh and by the way you can identify a lot of the changes made to Congo and Rumba removing a lot of the features and effects that would soak riders in order to avoid having to update those as well: Rumbas waterfall into the tunnel, the sprinklers on the lift and the bucket next to the camera, I believe Congo has also become much more 'tame' in recent times but I'm not sure on specifics. Anyway, sorry for the long read. I hope it was entertaining and please feel free to debunk it, Id like to know more about Loggers as well.

Seeing reports of 1hour+ long RAP queues. It all seems to be getting a bit out of hand now and I feel sorry for those who need to use it. The bar has been set too low and doctors are more than happy to write a note for anything nowadays. Personally I think there's only one way out of it which is to abolish queuing all together and have time slots. However thats failed in the past. Also seeing a lot of comments about fast pass being prioritised etc, I thought that wasn't possible with only 1 RAP group allowed per train due to evacuation reasons.