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Showing content with the highest reputation since 08/02/20 in all areas

  1. I hate this guy
    10 points
  2. I'll be making my television debut and appearing on classic quiz show Countdown! My debut is this Friday (Oct 28th), airing at 2.10pm on Channel 4, and of course available on catch up after. There'll also be a bit of geeky chatter and roller coaster puns, because of course they run with me being a roller coaster enthusiast and turned it into my entire personality (not far wrong tbf). Would be lovely if anyone gave my episodes a watch!
    9 points
  3. Have removed a couple of posts from here - Regardless on your opinions on Nick’s music - fair play to him for organising this - just looked and I saw he’s raised almost £600 to donate to a mental health charity and no one deserves to be berated for that - that’s significant amount especially during these times from such a niche market. Whilst I get it may not be everyone’s cup of tea I think it’s great people when people l come together and do things like this which will ultimately benefit others more in need, especially in times like this!
    9 points
  4. For £10 I will expect to have a ball gag in my mouth, made to squeal like a pig and crawl around on all fours whilst being pushed about and then have a big fat man dressed as a baby put a custard pie in my face and throw straw at me #BigTopBraveItAlone #TheGoodOldDays #SharedBallGagNotCovidSecure
    9 points
  5. God he's good. Must be why he's a mod. Waff zooooooom splosh splish splash I was takin a bath rub a dub dub things are lookng UP. I'm desperate, so where can I.P. We need more time, lord.
    8 points
  6. JoshC.

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    I predict that construction for Project Exodus will go vertical on Monday 9th October. I reckon the first supports will go in sometime between 11am and 1pm that day.
    8 points
  7. MattyMoo

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Looks like a load of dumped shingle/hardstanding to me, almost certainly for storage, site offices etc. One would assume the loggers trough that's underneath it next to the CFM/LL station building will be the very last piece of Loggers that'll be removed (and then cut into slices to sell as merch innit). I eagerly await the Peepy Poop guy to say something along the lines of: Exodus has something in STORE, and the ROAD maybe shorter then you think. Buckwheats or out of luckwheats Rocky or just rocks Time will tell. Who's Ghost Train is it? (oh hold up went off on a tangent there)
    8 points
  8. pluk

    2021 Season

    I imagine next year will be a near repeat of this year. TWD, DBGTROTD, BM all closed. Capacity issues elsewhere. If only they had a nice open space like a farm to relax in, a large capacity train ride to take you there, an event space like an arena where people could be spread over a large searing area, or a log flume where each riding group could have their own socially distanced ride vehicle.
    8 points
  9. Hopefully it will be used to show replays of live streams where YouTubers say a ride name 50,000 times.
    7 points
  10. Mark9

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    I would sell my soul for Exodus to open tomorrow just so we never have to listen to this nonsense ever again.
    7 points
  11. 7 points
  12. You might want to avoid supermarkets for the next couple of months m8
    7 points
  13. ben199

    2021 Season

    Not once did D.M.K mention crowds or the park being busy as a source of disappointment. All the issues raised were operational and customer services ones completely in the parks control.
    7 points
  14. JoshC.

    2023 - World of Jumanji

    Where have I heard these things before? Let me ask my buddy, Derren: "I don't know Josh, I just don't know..."
    7 points
  15. JoshC.

    Sparkle Project

    I went on the BTS tour of the park today. Great tour it should be said; it was headed up by Russ, who is a fantastic speaker. I did mean to ask about the screen, but honestly forgot. It does seem like it won't be fixed for start of season (I believe the park said this in the passholder group a few weeks back too). A real shame. Hopefully they can hide the dead pixels with whatever they put on the screen. Okay, now time for some updates. Everything is still a Work in Progress it should be stressed Toilets Loo enthusiasts rejoice. All the toilets have received some love. Swarm toilets. The walls have been painted green (originally white), and no more foot pedal sinks Megastore toilets are nicely themed Tidal Wave The rebuilt bridge, with the original Pier 13 style. The fire effect is proving very tricky to implement, but is being planned still Big Easy Boulevard Stealth Colossus The park have released that the entrance is a bit flat, and so are looking to add more colour/depth to it, although this will happen mid-season. The shop front looks nice. In terms of the rest of the repaint, and indeed a Sparkle Project continuation, the park hope to do that either next closed season, or the closed season after. The park want to do it regardless, and recognise they need to keep up appearances - literally - now that they've started to do this. Personally, I hope it happens next closed season, as it does look a little jarring in places. The park is looking lovely though, with the Hyperia area coming along and looking smart. There's other small updates too, such as KFC getting refitted and other new food places. Some parts of the park are still a bit tired looking / haven't really been touched. Rumba/Inferno is the big example I would say. And the Sparkling up does highlight how tatty some parts of that area, and the likes of Swarm and Saw, look. I do wonder if this means that, come opening, some enthusiasts will focus too much on those and not the fab stuff that we've seen heavily documented and shouted out about. But yes, it's clear to see the park have put time, effort and money into things this winter, and they're taking strides in the right direction. I'm excited to see what will happen and hope their plans pay off!
    6 points
  16. PCCDN

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Pretty cool how clearly you can see the inversion from Staines Lane. Just walking to the site now to take some pics. 😁 EDIT: Extra track piece going in This part's gonna be so weird but thrilling 🤩 Other piece going in now Slowly but surely Final photo before I post the rest. They positioned originally but then took it back down after. Looks like they're securing it into place now.
    6 points
  17. Being serious for a moment though. I sense most of the negativity towards the name is because of it being similar sounding to Hyperion at Energylandia Lets be real though, what percentage of the people walking through the gate at Thorpe on any given day actually have heard of even Energylandia let alone Hyperion??
    6 points
  18. It'll be called Big Bird.
    6 points
  19. Benin

    Colossus

    That's gone well then.
    6 points
  20. I mean, she had such a huge impact in Haunted House and Duel. Pivotal almost.
    6 points
  21. JoshC.

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    You've had some fun silly posts, but there comes a point when you cross a line and it just reads like a spam bot. This is the point. Let's stop the overt obtuseness now please.
    6 points
  22. MattyMoo

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Piff paff wipee woo waaa. Upppppp and awayyyyyyy. Someone's knocking at your door, someone's ringing the bell. I'm loving it.
    6 points
  23. So I was recently lucky enough to head across to Poland to visit Energylandia In Zator. The main reason to visit the park ofcourse was the hotly anticipated new for 2019 RMC Hybrid Zadra. So for this write up, I will be sharing my full thoughts on this well received in the coaster community coaster and where it matches up to my top coasters. A brief history and background!! Zadra is Rocky Mountain Constructions second “hyper hybrid" ibox track coaster with the first being my personal number one coaster Steel Vengeance. It is also the third RMC installation on the continent behind Wildfire at Kolmarden and Untamed at Walibi Holland. Zadra is also the very first RMC Ibox track coaster to be a ground up installation. Previously, RMC would use the “topper track” design that features on rides like Lightning Rod and Wildfire for their ground up designs whereas the “Ibox" track design would be used on conversions of pre-existing wooden coasters. So this was the first use of Ibox track for a ground up model. At opening, Zadra would break the records set by Steel Vengeance for the tallest and fastest Hybrid coaster by a whopping 1 FOOT and 1MPH. Zadra will lose the record for fastest when Iron Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa opens (also by 1mph!!) and will see its height record matched by the new Florida hyper hybrid. It will also lose the record it shares with Steel Vengeance for steepest drop (90 degree) on a hybrid when Iron Gwazi opens by 1 degree!! Zadra initially was going to open at the park in 2020. However, as a result of it being completed ahead of schedule, the park was able to open it at the end of August 2019. This is even more impressive given a portion of the structure was blown over in a storm during its construction!! Heading to Zadra/ Dragon Zone Zadra is located at the very back of the park in the new expanded area the park has built into. So on entering Energylandia and walking through what could best be described as a glorified fun fair, you will find an underpass to take you to the other side of the road and into “Dragon zone" (or Dragon Castle) and you will find a new Medieval themed village with a few stores and eateries with Zadra towering above the lot of it on the right hand side. This area is charming enough with its audio (featuring an appearance from Hall Of The Mountain King!!) and the odd show going on. This area also features two family coasters and a kiddy flat ride. To get to the star attraction, you will walk through the entirety of this themed area where you will then find the entrance to Zadra on the right. The queue!! There has been a lot of enthusiasts who have visited the park and cried blue murder over the sheer length of Zadras physical queue line and I can now safely say, they are not unjustified in their comments!!. I have ridden many coasters in my time and not once have I found a coaster that has a queue of such a ridiculous length to walk through than what Zadra takes to navigate. Coupled with the fact there are NO short cuts whatsoever to cut off some of the queue, you WILL have to deal with this walk every single time you ride Zadra. This massively hurts the rides reliability unless you are as fit as a fiddle and just enjoy walking for a ridiculous amount of time. The queue takes 5-7 minutes to navigate and I kid you not, equates to half a mile worth of walking when you convert steps into mile. If you are familiar with the FLY queue and the length of that queue than that may give you a slight idea what to expect with Zadra. It also does not help when theres a fair few stairs to climb up and down to get to the ride aswell. So yes. I would advise getting fit before heading out to ride this thing However!! Whilst the queue is insanely long, it is relatively aesthetically pleasing on the eye with the medieval style walls in certain places and also allows for some wonderful views of the coaster. So this is a big positive for those who enjoy video taking and photography. The lockers So after finally reaching the station buidling for Zadra, you will be faced with the locker area. Energylandia offers a fairly decent locker set up in where you pay around the same as £1 and you are given a wristband for all day lockers. You will scan your wristband and then you will be allocated a locker to store bags and loose belongings in. The lockers are double sided so you will collect your belongings from the other side of the wall on exiting the ride. No belongings are allowed to be left in the station. Operations/batching On placing your items in your locker, you will climb the stairs and head to be batched. Zadra (as well as Hyperion) uses a pretty neat loading system where there are four screens which count down the amount of riders who can go through into the station. One screen is for the front row line. Another screen is for single riders and two more screens are for the rest of the train. Once the counter shows theres seats for you, you will go through to board the coaster. A tip if you want the back row. Try to make sure you get yourself in a position where you are in front of the door to the station and as soon as it opens, make a beeline for the back. You can NOT request a row from my experience whilst in the station. Depending on what mood Energylandia are in, they will run it on one or two trains. So if you are wanting the front row, be aware that you will be waiting a long time if they opt to run it on one given the length of the coaster. Operations on Zadra was very bizarre on my visit. They opened on one train and then when the queue got longer it put a second on but then half an hour later, they took the second off when the queue went back down. Then the real “what the hell!!?” moment came later on where one hour before closing, they swapped trains around which wasted well over 15 minutes of my time. Its also worth noting that if the ride is walk on, they will wait until the train is near full until they send it. So abandon any hope of a “zen ride" on it before going to ride!! A part of me feels the train swap I mentioned earlier was a way of building the queue up a little. The trains So after all the effort it took to get to this point, it is now time to head into the nicely styled station of Zadra and board the train. Zadra ofcourse uses the standard RMC trains so you will be greeted with the usual policy of fasten your seatbelt but let the operator put the bar down. Although on my rides, the staff insisted on doing the seatbelt aswell. The trains feature the standard RMC restraints of a lapbar and a pair of shin guards. As I have mentioned previously with my reviews on the other RMC coasters, these restraints cause me personally no bother at all. However, if you are a larger rider or have larger legs then they can cause major discomfort. Its also worth noting that the shinguards on Zadra are slightly thicker than the ones on Untamed and Steel Vengeance. So be aware of this if you found the restraints on those two painful. The operators on my visit also seemed to be hell bent on causing me as much pain as possible. As in, literally slamming the restaint down on me and trying to put it as far down as possible. Compared to how I was treated on Steel Vengeance and Untamed, this left a very sour taste in my mouth. Hopefully in future visits, this wont be the case. The coaster itself After being given the clearance to dispatch, you are on your way!!. The train glides out of the station and dips down to the right before latching onto the loud (the mark of a Hyper Hybrid lift hill!!) 206 foot lift hill. Ascending this hill, you are greeted with some amazing views of the area around you. With the local countryside to the right and front of you and the new Dragon zone area to the left. You also will get some views of the all new Aqualantis area. The train ascends this lift hill at a quick speed and sooner than you think, you reach the top and hit the 200 plus foot vertical drop!! This drop is a pure and utter stunner!! You are raised out of your seat the whole way down regardless of where you sit and as it drops into the wooden structure, it creates one hell of a head chopper moment. This drop feels exactly the same as that on Steel Vengeance in terms of the physical sensation and you WILL feel the force at the bottom of this drop but given the head chopper at the bottom, this rides drop just about edges that on big Steve!! Speeding through the woodwork, you will turn slightly to the right over a small speed hill where the camera for your onride photo is to the right. This speed hill is then followed by the highlight of the coaster. At a massive 76mph, you will bank upwards aggressively to the left in a massive turn around before levelling up at the top before plummeting back down to ground level. This element is an amazing combo of intensity and airtime. As you bank upwards, you are right on your side feeling grey out level of force and when you hit the top and drop down you get a beautiful sustainted pop of ejector airtime. This is the absolute show stealer on Zadra. On exiting this element, the train will shoot up into the Zero G Stall and boy is this a cracker of an inversion. You enter and exit the element at a great speed and experience some stunning hangtime. The height of this element also adds to that hangtime sensation massively. The best inversion on the coaster. Still travelling at a breakneck pace, the train then sharply turns left into its outwards airtime hill which sharply throws riders from right to left before navigating some turns before hitting the massive airtime hill. This airtime hill is utterly brilliant. Going through it offers a good mix of ejector and floater airtime and is a good solid intense moment. Following this, the train shoots up into its second inversion which is a Zero G Roll in the middle of the wooden structure. It takes this element at a quick pace and coupled with the rider being surrounded with the structure, it is a real disorientating element and offers great headchoppers. Yet another great element. Speeding out the structure, the train shoots through a double down element which offers two pops of solid ejector which feels like shades of the Untamed and Steel Vengeance airtime. The ride will then race through an S turn which throws the rider around even more before it enters a very fastly taken Zero G Roll before turning to the left and into the very aggressive breaks. Brace yourself for these breaks as you will be lunged right forward into your restraint. Let the speed it hits the breaks at tell you how fast this coaster navigates its 1316 metres of track!!. The ride then heads back into the station and you are free to exit and ride again!!....if you really want to make that walk again that is!! Overall thoughts Zadra is incredible. Absolutely incredible. I at the time of updating this have now done three trips to Energylandia and each time it has got better and better. Whilst I do not think Energylandia is a particularly great park (for now!!) Thanks largely to its glorified fun fair feel, they have absolutely struck gold with Zadra. Zadra is a perfect mix of intensity,airtime,hangtime,speed and transitions. Loads of people have been dismissive of the airtime on Zadra by watching POV videos of it but let me tell you that the airtime on this should not be underestimated. It is not all about the airtime like what Untamed is but my lord it still has some strong moments of it. What makes Zadra great to me is its use of speed throughout the whole course. It really does not lose any steam from drop to breaks and of anything, it could have gone on much longer if it wanted to with the speed it hits the breaks at. It really is paced wonderfully and has a flawless layout. Surprisingly, I found the front row of this coaster to be the best row on it by an ever so slight margin. With Untamed and Steel Vengeance, I go for the back but on Zadra, I found the front to be where its at. You still get a good drop there and you feel the speed and airtime very well in the front. The back row however gives one heck of a pull over the drop and over the massive turnaround element. So both rows definitely excel over the other in some regards. The million pound question when Zadra came around was “is this going to be the Steel Vengeance killer?”. In my own personal opinion, the answer to that is no as Steel Vengeance has all of whats great about Zadra AND Untamed in one package. The extra 30 plus seconds on Steel Vengeance is to me is what clinches it. Whilst I prefer Steel Vengeance, it is by an ever so slight margin and if Zadra lasted an additional 15-20 seconds, it may well have been the coaster to displace Steel Vengeance. On my initial rides on Zadra in 2020, I was also convinced I also preferred Untamed over at Walibi but having now done additional trips to both of these hybrids, it really is now a no contest that Zadra is not only the best RMC in Europe but also HANDS DOWN the best coaster overall in Europe. It really does offer such an unrelenting ferocious coaster in what is a relatively short ride time. I personally would rather a 40 second coaster that has no dead spots and ferocious pacing than I would a coaster that is a minute and a half and farts about for most of it. So Zadra to me is just ideal. One negative as I mentioned earlier is that the rerideabillity of Zadra is greatly harmed by the excessive length of the queue. Even if you love riding a coaster over and over, its just so hard to motivate yourself to walk all the way back round Zadra to do so. The other silly negative negative is the fact front row riders are required to wear goggles in the front. This is also present at Hyperion. To the best of my understanding, this was in place BEFORE Covid but was bought back post Covid (it we can call it that) so makes zero sense how we could do without them for two years but magically need them now That being said, Zadra is a stunning coaster and takes its place at number 2 on my top coaster list. It really is a great coaster from start to finish and once again showcases that RMC are the top dog in the coaster industry and that other manufacturers need to up their game to keep up with them. Please get yourself out there to ride it whenever you can and you will not be disappointed in this absolute masterpiece. 10/10
    6 points
  24. Mark9

    Islands of Adventure

    Has there really not been a post here for over a year, even with Velocicoaster opening. Wow. So I managed to get over to Florida after a two year delay and part of the trip was to give Universal a bit more time to enjoy. I usually give the whole resort a day to do everything but this time each park got a day. Which I think is more than enough as with good planning you can get on everything you want really easily. Whilst everyone rushes to Hagrid's and Velocicoaster, we started with Hulk, Spiderman, the Seuss rides, Forbidden Journey and Jurassic Park before 10:30. Which is the ideal order as it covers over half the major stuff before going into the longer waits. Baring in mind, the last time I went, the Dragons had only just stopped duelling so majority is new. So:- New Hulk- Rides better then the previous version and the soundtrack really adds to the ride. I still maintain that the last third of the ride are a complete waste of time but the first two thirds are so snappy, precisely paced and hit after hit that I am more forgiving than I was in 2012. Spiderman is great, still remains a revolution in dark ride design and is a lot of fun. Seuss land is nice. Forbidden Journey has aged really well. It is a lot of fun and now that it doesn't command an hour queue at a minimum, its so much easier to ride and a lot less is hanging on the ride experience to deliver. My fiancé doesn't understand a thing about Harry Potter but appreciated the effects and ride experience. I'm completely biased in saying River Adventure is one of my favourite rides at the resort. I love dinosaur themed attractions, I love Jurassic Park and I love the variation and story telling of this attraction. It's so much fun and the physical precense of the dinosaurs really adds to make this a 10/10 attraction. So there. So to start.. Velocicoaster. So this is one of the best rides in the world. I think we all saw this coming but it further refines the successes that Intamin have had with Maverick, Taron and Taiga and I think adding this in a Universal park, one that commands huge attention in the theme park industry will bring Intamin a lot of success. We got four rides in various rows and it delivers in every seat. It feels like what would happen if Taron were more refined. Thats not to say that I think its better then Phantasialands ride (The jury is still out on that front) but the two are very similar in terms of sensation and pops or airtime litter both rides. Pacing is important to me and this ride has it in droves. The theming is okay, I think the story itself is a bit forgotten the moment you complete the first launch and it just becomes another rollercoaster albeit this has a beautiful location over the lake. Next Hagrid's motorbike thing. We waited an hour each for both of our rides and this ride is okay. It throws every Intamin trick in the book at you and its frankly a miracle that this works. I don't think its the greatest ride in the world because the Harry Potter implementation is a tad too weak for a Hogsmeade ride and frankly a lot of it is just a bit meandering. I admire the ambition if nothing else. So thats IoA for another decade. A great visit. 26F85C4E-CCD9-4EB2-801F-3CFE4F83D57B.heic
    6 points
  25. pluk

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    It's loggers, isn't it? 😄
    6 points
  26. JoshC.

    2021 Season

    I believe it is currently waiting on a part. I think it's been removed from the app, so will probably be down for a while. Rotten timing given the weather and it being half term. This is a dreadful idea in my opinion. Despite what many people think, queue prediction is hard. Few parks actually manage to do it well in my opinion. At the moment, it is even more volatile thanks to Covid and social distancing (or lack thereof). I imagine this idea is being tried for the following reasons: 1. They don't know what the queue times are when they're very long 2. They're getting a lot of complaints because of long advertised queue times When it comes to solving problem 1, there's not much they can do short term. The park is busy, queues will be long. But that in itself is a problem. A quick look on social media suggests that plenty of people feel that numbers aren't being restricted enough for Covid. Should the park, in future, be restricting numbers more? Should they now be looking at relaxing social distancing measures on rides (filling up all seats / rows)? The second problem is more insightful to their thought process. Anyone who's filled out one of the park's survey machines will know that you're asked a question to the effect of 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. This is a pretty big KPI that all the Merlin parks (and likely parks outside of Merlin) are interested in. Presumably, at the moment, they're getting a very high percentage of people answering "Yes" to 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. They've probably also noticed that "Rides per head" (the average number of rides each person has ridden) is low. As such, one possible conclusion that could be drawn is that "People aren't riding rides and saying that queueing has spoilt their day. We're advertising long queue times, so maybe people are put off by the long queue times". The solution there is then to not advertise long queue times, but instead advertise a minimum waiting time. That might not be what has happened. To be honest, I'd be surprised if there's people looking into KPI scores and probing in that way to come to that conclusion in that way. But it's a possible thought process. Equally, it could just be that they're getting a ton of complaints of 'The queues are all saying they're 2 hours'. As Matt says, people will not see the '+' here, and just assume a 90 minute queue. People leave common sense at the door when going to a theme park. There's another problem I've skirted around here. Operations in general. In my experience this year, they've been a mixed bag. Certainly not as bad as they have been in recent years, but not as good as they should be. Why that is, I don't know. But they need to come up with practical solutions to be able to get more consistent operations that are sensible and in line with what the rides can achieve, and with what the park needs. As for the more specific topic at hand... 1. If this is a trial to see if '90+' works, I hope they see it doesn't work, and they see that quickly. 2. If there's concerns about accuracy, introduce broader time frames, especially for higher values. 3. Work on actually make queue times accurate. More on this below. 4. The park need to understand that, ultimately, long queues are happening To expand on these points... 2. Perhaps they should introduce ranges like '90-100', '100-120', '120-150', '150-180'. When a queue is at that high level, it doesn't matter if it's 120 or 140 really, it's still a 2-2.5hour commitment of your day. Next to no one is going to enter a 140 minute queue, and then check their watch just before boarding and go 'Ooh, well that queue only took us 137 minutes, great job!' 3. I'm sure some remember a trial that happened on Saw a few years back to improve queue time accuracy. This would display queue times accurate to the minute, rather than in increments of 5-10 minutes. There's more details on this technology, provided by a company call Headmapper, here: http://www.headmapper.com/case-studies Interestingly, there is also a report which outlines how successful the trial was in 2015, which is largely positive. The technology was again used in 2017 for another trial. One reason why it didn't seem to carry on was costs involved with the product. Another is because it's a bit of faffy system which requires fixed cameras at certain locations (when usually, cameras are need to be moveable for security purposes)....so it would involve the costly installation of more cameras. So if the park really wants to improve queue accuracy and have a positive impact on people's day out, they could put their money where their mouth is and fork out for this. But then that still doesn't address the above point. And why spend out so much for something that doesn't tackle all the issues here. There are alternatives though, which are much cheaper. However, getting people within the park to get on board with the idea that queue accuracy is important is much harder than one might expect. So unless there's a shift in philosophy on that, this will never happen. 4. I'm not saying that the park don't know that long queues happen, or that they're bad or anything. But from my experience, there's a certain fear in acknowledging that the park will have long queues, and that this impacts that all important aforementioned KPI. Instead, there's an over-focus on improving queue accuracy, short term incentives to ride staff for improving throughputs and other weird stuff. Instead, there should be an acceptance that queues will be long as it stands and looking at ways to sustainably ensure that this causes minimal impact to someone's day. This should include making queues more interesting to be in, investing in the park so there's more things to do and making the park a more pleasant place to be in outside of the rides. And that should happen on top of the park improving queue accuracy and throughputs. Even if that should be a secondary focus. --- Wow, that was a bit of rambling rant. I'm sure some people on here know this is something I've had prior involvement in in one way or another. and even if not, it's probably clear I have some level of interest in this at a deeper level. Obviously there's many issues here, and many of them are long term, costly things to sort out. It's worth looking at short term alternatives, as well as little things that can be trialled in the short term to get a gauge on if they work. But honestly, this is the equivalent of sticking a used plaster on a wound that needs stitches. In short, the park need to acknowledge that they will always have long queue times, invest in the park to improve the number of things people can do, have queue lines be more interesting to be in and put some actual thought into how to estimate queue lengths over just picking a number out of thin air
    6 points
  27. Mark9

    Unpopular Opinions

    2021 Edition Part two. The other day, someone said Steel Vengeance was over-rated. I'm going to stand out here, shout to the world that if you decide to refer to something as over-rated then you have no critical discourse whatsoever and you need to pick up a thesaurus and learn some new descriptive language. Saying something is over-rated is the laziest critique anyone can possibly muster up because it requires no explanation and only looks to disregard peoples opinion. It says to others, 'sure you like a ride but thats only because you're following the crowd. No, I am the only true oracle, the only one that can see past the rose tinted glasses of hype and I stand before you now to tell you that you're a blind sheeple. Follow me, I declare that Steel vengeance/Taron/Nemesis/anything people quite like isn't as good as you think it is'. Under-rated is different. There are so many attractions out there (Alpina Blitz at Nigloland for example) that fall completely under the radar and deserve to be spoken about more. The term under-rated is actually quite nice because it can be used to inspire people to try something or go somewhere they wouldn't necessarily go to without the recommendation. Over-rated is an awful awful phrase and looks to just belittle others viewpoints and enjoyment.
    6 points
  28. You also get a prime view of the mass refurbishment that is happening to transform Tomb Blaster back into Terror Tomb for the 2021 season.. I heard dan from the donut stall is happy to give more info
    6 points
  29. MattyMoo

    Sparkle Project

    Sparkle Project update here, courtesy of Jack Silkstone's Twitter - lovely to see an easter egg of a mini replica of the Swarm station being installed outside Tidal Wave 🤩
    5 points
  30. Matt N

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    If anyone's interested, I decided to have a bit of fun this evening and cobble together a rough Planet Coaster recreation of Hyperia to gauge a rough idea of the sort of forces and speeds we might be hitting through some of those elements. I'm aware that the profiling and such aren't perfect, and as such, I'd take some of the exact g-forces with a pinch of salt (for instance, I don't think we'll be pulling 5.6G at the bottom of the dive loop...), but I built the large elements to roughly the same sort of height as they will be in real life (lift hill 236ft, Immelmann 157ft, large outerbank 164ft, dive loop 137ft, small outerbank 65ft, final airtime hill 48ft), so I think it should give a rough ballpark idea of speed in particular. I hope you like it! Here's a POV and some cinematic shots of my creation: And if you don't want to watch the video, here is the heatmap of vertical g-forces throughout the ride: As well as the heatmap of speed throughout the ride: And the stats of the ride: And just for fun, here are some shots of the layout in the day and at night: In terms of speed and forces; I think it paints a very promising picture! If my recreation is at all accurate, it suggests that we could be absolutely flying through the Immelmann, with the ride maintaining a speed of nearly 50mph even at the Immelmann's highest point! The other two large elements maintain speeds of 35-40mph at their highest points. In terms of trimming in the splashdown; I erred towards the more fierce end of the trimming spectrum and went for a deceleration rate of 4m/s2, which reduced the speed by 10-15mph. And even then, the outerbank and final airtime hill still appear very potent, with negative g-forces of nearly -1G still being registered in both elements! So overall, then, I reckon Hyperia could pack some brilliant g-forces throughout and hold its speed really well! I hope you like my recreation! I have to say, this has also reminded me just how much fun getting stuck into a good Planet Coaster build is... I really need to get back into Planet Coaster, as I haven't really had too much time for it as of late and it shows. I haven't updated any of my ongoing park projects for the forum in nearly 2 years! If you'd like to play with my recreation yourself, here's the Steam Workshop link where you can download it from: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3113374891
    5 points
  31. JoshC.

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    The twisted outerbank dive is complete!
    5 points
  32. PCCDN

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Better late than never. Here are more photos of the site.
    5 points
  33. JoshC.

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Nailed it 😎
    5 points
  34. MattyMoo

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Just had the message straight from the groundworkers on site - and am incredibly excited to reveal as a MTYMOO83 EXCLUSIVE that Project Exodus will be going vertical on REDACTEDday the REDACTED of REDACTEDber! About time!
    5 points
  35. Note: I intend to keep editing this post as time goes on and more years are released. Hi guys. During the coaster consultations in 2021, Merlin released an attendance graph showing all their parks' attendance figures since the early 1980s. I had some time on my hands yesterday evening and decided to try and extrapolate some slightly more precise guest figures for each park from this graph to try and determine the precise(ish) attendance trajectory of each UK Merlin park from the earliest year listed here (1984 for Alton Towers and Chessington, 1983 for Thorpe Park, 1987 for Windsor Safari Park and 1997 for Legoland Windsor). For some idea, this is the original graph I was working with: https://www.cwoa-consultation.com/proposals?lightbox=dataItem-komw1163 To make things easier for myself, I divided each million on the graph into 8 rows (thus leaving ~125,000 guests per row, as my rather crude MS Paint annotation indicates): As such, I then decided to extrapolate a precise(ish) figure from the graph by looking at what row each park's figure fell within. All of these figures are rounded to the nearest 31,250; I know that sounds oddly specific, but it's 1/32 of a million, and a quarter of one of these rows, so it's the most precise figure that remains easy to determine by eye. It also keeps the margin of error to only 1 or 2 percent in most cases. The precise(ish) trajectories that I managed to extrapolate for each park, including percentage increases and decreases for each year, were as follows: Alton Towers - opened 1980, first year on graph 1984 1984: 1,843,750 (first year, #1/3 on graph) 1985: 1,812,500 (-1.7%, #1/3 on graph) 1986: 2,250,000 (+24.1%, #1/3 on graph) 1987: 2,312,500 (+2.8%, #1/4 on graph) 1988: 2,875,000 (+24.3%, #1/4 on graph) 1989: 2,437,500 (-15.2%, #1/4 on graph) 1990: 1,937,500 (-20.5%, #1/4 on graph) 1991: 1,843,750 (-3.6%, #1/4 on graph) 1992: 2,625,000 (+42.4%, #1/4 on graph) 1993: 2,843,750 (+8.3%, #1/4 on graph) 1994: 3,312,500 (+16.5%, #1/3 on graph) 1995: 2,843,750 (-14.2%, #1/3 on graph) 1996: 2,875,000 (+1.1%, #1/3 on graph) 1997: 2,875,000 (0.0%, #1/4 on graph) 1998: 2,875,000 (0.0%, #1/4 on graph) 1999: 2,593,750 (-9.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2000: 2,437,500 (-6.0%, #1/4 on graph) 2001: 2,187,500 (-10.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2002: 2,656,250 (+21.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2003: 2,562,500 (-4.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2004: 2,086,750 (-18.6%, #1/4 on graph) 2005: 2,187,500 (+4.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2006: 2,218,750 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2007: 2,250,000 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2008: 2,593,750 (+15.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2009: 2,656,250 (+2.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2010: 3,062,500 (+14.0%, #1/4 on graph) 2011: 2,687,500 (-12.2%, #1/4 on graph) 2012: 2,406,250 (-10.5%, #1/4 on graph) 2013: 2,593,750 (+7.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2014: 2,312,500 (-10.8%, joint #2/4 on graph) 2015: 1,968,750 (-14.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2016: 1,750,000 (-9.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2017: 1,875,000 (+7.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2018: 2,187,500 (+16.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2019: 2,500,000 (+14.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2020: 968,750 (-61.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2021: 2,343,750 (+141.9%, #1/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 3,312,500 (1994) All-Time Low (excluding 2020): 1,750,000 (2016) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 3,062,500 (2010) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,750,000 (2016) Chessington/Chessington Zoo - opened 1931, first year on graph 1984, first year as CWOA 1987 1984: 625,000 (first year, #3/3 on graph) 1985: 562,500 (-10.0%, #3/3 on graph) 1986: 500,000 (-11.1%, #3/3 on graph) 1987: 875,000 (+75.0%, #3/4 on graph) 1988: 1,187,500 (+35.7%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1989: 1,250,000 (+5.3%, #3/4 on graph) 1990: 1,062,500 (-15.0%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1991: 1,437,500 (+35.3%, #2/4 on graph) 1992: 1,218,750 (-15.2%, #2/4 on graph) 1993: 1,531,250 (+25.6%, #2/4 on graph) 1994: 1,687,500 (+10.2%, #2/3 on graph) 1995: 1,875,000 (+11.1%, #2/3 on graph) 1996: 1,812,500 (-3.3%, #2/3 on graph) 1997: 1,843,750 (+1.7%, #2/4 on graph) 1998: 1,843,750 (0.0%, #2/4 on graph) 1999: 1,656,250 (-10.2%, #2/4 on graph) 2000: 1,562,500 (-5.7%, #3/4 on graph) 2001: 1,531,250 (-2.0%, joint #3/4 on graph) 2002: 1,281,250 (-16.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2003: 1,312,500 (+2.4%, #4/4 on graph) 2004: 1,218,750 (-7.1%, #4/4 on graph) 2005: 1,093,750 (-10.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2006: 1,031,250 (-5.7%, #4/4 on graph) 2007: 968,750 (-6.1%, #4/4 on graph) 2008: 1,250,000 (+29.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2009: 1,343,750 (+7.5%, #4/4 on graph) 2010: 1,437,500 (+7.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2011: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2012: 1,406,250 (-6.2%, #4/4 on graph) 2013: 1,531,250 (+8.9%, #4/4 on graph) 2014: 1,562,500 (+2.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2015: 1,437,500 (-8.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2016: 1,437,500 (0.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2017: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2018: 1,593,750 (+6.3%, joint #4/4 on graph) 2019: 1,656,250 (+3.9%, #3/4 on graph) 2020: 500,000 (-69.8%, #4/4 on graph) 2021: 1,281,250 (+156.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2022: 1,468,750 (+14.6%, N/A) All-Time Peak: 1,875,000 (1995) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021, including pre-CWOA years): 500,000 (1986) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021 and pre-CWOA years): 875,000 (1987) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 1,687,500 (2019) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,281,250 (2008) Legoland Windsor/Windsor Safari Park - opened 1970, first year on graph 1987, first year as Legoland Windsor 1996 1987: 812,500 (first year, #4/4 on graph) 1988: 875,000 (+7.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1989: 968,750 (+10.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1990: 1,062,500 (+9.7%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1991: 1,031,250 (-2.9%, #3/4 on graph) 1992: 968,750 (-6.1%, #4/4 on graph) 1993: 937,500 (-3.2%, #4/4 on graph) 1994: N/A (-100.0%, N/A on graph) 1995: N/A (0.0%, N/A on graph) 1996: N/A (0.0%, N/A on graph) 1997: 1,468,750 (first year as LLW, #3/4 on graph) 1998: 1,312,500 (-10.6%, #3/4 on graph) 1999: 1,500,000 (+14.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2000: 1,687,500 (+12.5%, #2/4 on graph) 2001: 1,531,250 (-9.3%, joint #3/4 on graph) 2002: 1,593,750 (+4.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2003: 1,437,500 (-9.8%, #3/4 on graph) 2004: 1,437,500 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2005: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2006: 1,625,000 (+8.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2007: 1,500,000 (-7.8%, #3/4 on graph) 2008: 1,875,000 (+25.0%, #2/4 on graph) 2009: 1,906,250 (+1.7%, #3/4 on graph) 2010: 1,906,250 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2011: 1,906,250 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2012: 2,031,250 (+6.6%, #2/4 on graph) 2013: 2,312,500 (+13.8%, #2/4 on graph) 2014: 2,312,500 (0.0%, joint #2/4 on graph) 2015: 2,343,750 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2016: 2,187,500 (-6.6%, #1/4 on graph) 2017: 2,312,500 (+5.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2018: 2,125,000 (-8.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2019: 2,062,500 (-2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2020: 687,500 (-66.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2021: 1,562,500 (+122.7%, #2/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 2,343,750 (2015) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021, including pre-LLW years): 812,500 (1987) All-Time Low (excluding 2020, 2021 and pre-LLW years): 1,312,500 (1998) Peak Within Merlin Era (2006 and later): 2,343,750 (2015) Low Within Merlin Era (2006 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,500,000 (2007) Thorpe Park - opened 1979, first year on graph 1983 1983: 843,750 (first year, #1/1 on graph) 1984: 1,031,250 (+22.2%, #2/3 on graph) 1985: 1,093,750 (+6.1%, #2/3 on graph) 1986: 1,093,750 (0.0%, #2/3 on graph) 1987: 1,093,750 (0.0%, #2/4 on graph) 1988: 1,187,500 (+8.6%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1989: 1,343,750 (+13.2%, #2/4 on graph) 1990: 1,000,000 (-25.6%, #4/4 on graph) 1991: 968,750 (-3.1%, #4/4 on graph) 1992: 1,093,750 (+12.9%, #3/4 on graph) 1993: 1,281,250 (+17.1%, #3/4 on graph) 1994: 1,218,750 (-4.9%, #3/3 on graph) 1995: 1,125,000 (-7.7%, #3/3 on graph) 1996: 1,187,500 (+5.6%, #3/3 on graph) 1997: 968,750 (-18.4%, #4/4 on graph) 1998: 875,000 (-9.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1999: 906,250 (+3.6%, #4/4 on graph) 2000: 937,500 (+3.4%, #4/4 on graph) 2001: 1,187,500 (+26.7%, #4/4 on graph) 2002: 1,437,500 (+21.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2003: 1,531,250 (+6.5%, #2/4 on graph) 2004: 1,468,750 (-4.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2005: 1,562,500 (+6.4%, #2/4 on graph) 2006: 1,812,500 (+16.0%, #2/4 on graph) 2007: 1,843,750 (+1.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2008: 1,843,750 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2009: 2,125,000 (+15.3%, #2/4 on graph) 2010: 2,187,500 (+2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2011: 2,125,000 (-2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2012: 1,843,750 (-13.2%, #3/4 on graph) 2013: 1,786,250 (-3.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2014: 1,843,750 (+3.2%, #3/4 on graph) 2015: 1,531,250 (-17.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2016: 1,625,000 (+6.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2017: 1,562,500 (-3.9%, #3/4 on graph) 2018: 1,593,750 (+2.0%, joint #4/4 on graph) 2019: 1,500,000 (-5.9%, #4/4 on graph) 2020: 562,500 (-62.5%, #3/4 on graph) 2021: 1,218,750 (+116.7%, #4/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 2,187,500 (2010) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021): 843,750 (1983) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 2,187,500 (2010) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,500,000 (2019) To sum up each park's trajectory: Alton Towers may have been top dog for the bulk of the years since 1984, but it has also had the most volatile guest figures. It has had peaks as high as 3.3 million in 1994, but also troughs of only slightly above 2 million in the mid-2000s or even slightly below in the early 1990s and mid-2010s, with a nadir of 1.75 million being reached in 2016. At that point, it was well away from #1 and almost rubbing shoulder to shoulder with #3 park Thorpe. Interestingly, its peak was early, in 1994, and only 2010 has ever come close to that since. Merlin have attained fair growth at Alton Towers; between 2007 and 2019, attendance grew by 11.1%. Chessington started off fairly well, attaining steady growth from 1987 up until 1994, where it stayed at its peak until about 1997. However, attendance dropped through the floor from 1998 onwards, hitting a low of under 1 million in 2007, so it's fair to say that Chessington's trajectory has been far from uniform, although things improved notably under Merlin. Interestingly, Chessington is the park that has thrived most under Merlin, with attendance having grown by 74.1% between 2007 and 2019. Nonetheless, the high water mark was hit quite early on at Chessington, with that near 2 million peak guest figure being all the way back in 1995, and no year post-1997 has yet come close to it. Legoland Windsor has had the most consistent growth trajectory of all the parks. With its low back near opening in 1998, its peak in 2015 and no particularly catastrophic attendance drops (COVID aside), it's grown fairly consistently over the years. It's also a park that has thrived pretty well under Merlin; between 2005 and 2019, attendance grew by 37.5%. Thorpe Park has had a bit of a roller coaster of a growth trajectory. The 80s and 90s were a little bit choppy at Thorpe Park, with peaks of close to 1.5 million and lows of under 1 million. The park really hit its stride from 2001 onwards, maintaining a near perfect growth trajectory right up to the park's 2.2 million peak in 2010. However, things have been a bit of a struggle since then, with guest figures having almost consistently declined since 2011 right back to a low of 1.5 million in 2019. The park has comparatively struggled under Merlin, with attendance having fallen by 18.6% between 2007 and 2019. I hope you find this interesting! If you don't agree with something I've done or notice any errors, however, don't be afraid to flag them to me.
    5 points
  36. tactic

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    Sorry for the double post.
    5 points
  37. Mark9

    Stealth

    I just think it's great that Thorpe have bought back rollbacks on Stealth.
    5 points
  38. 5 points
  39. JoshC.

    Thorpe Park 2023

    The "we're a small park" excuse is rubbish. Go back 20 years, when the park was (excluding The Farm) technically smaller, and they had defined areas, with portals and signage. Look at a park like Phantasialand, which is small and compact, and they have some of the most well-defined, high quality themed lands out there. The simple and honest reason why the park don't do themed lands is because they don't want to. That's fine too, if that's the case. But let's face, it's not because they couldn't.
    5 points
  40. I will not be contempt until I see JK SLKSTN in a neon Thorpe branded T-shirt riding a wrecking ball into Loggers Leap shouting “EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS EXODUS…” 1000 times. I hope Shane Sandwich gets first dibs on the obsolete signage.
    5 points
  41. Interesting.. I think I’ll go with Colossus is a good roller coaster
    5 points
  42. I dunno, I think it was a nice refreshing addition to the thread.
    5 points
  43. I wouldn't say that Californias Great America is a park that anyone has a huge itch to get to. Unlike some others in the Cedar Fair group, its investments are on the lower end of the scale. Flat rides are the name of the game and even its planned hyper that it was rumoured to get was given to another park instead (Orion). Eight years ago, it was either this or Discovery Kingdom and bizarrely I chose DK. I thought that was a great little park, but this time it was CGA's turn. It's relatively easy to get to, sitting in San Jose and it took about two hours of train journey from San Francisco. I'd heard very little about this place before so upon arriving I didn't really know where anything was or what support rides there were. The entrance for example looks very similar to other Cedar Fair parks but also Six Flags Great America. I've since learned that and CGA were once owned by the same group. Our first destination was Flight Deck which has the distinction of being B&M's first custom inverted rollercoaster. Built in 1993 the ride features three inversions and is a very old school B&M. It looks stunning in its bright red attire and the ride looked well maintained. My first reaction was how small the station was. It's very cramped and its the same with Patriot and many of the original gang of B&M's are the same (Batman clones tend to have tiny stations too). Also, for all the criticism I saw that Emperor has no station at Seaward, well.. there isn't a station here either. Geek, be consistent. Once getting on, after waiting one train off we went. Very positive G Force heavy, really nice inversions and a well paced layout. There is an odd bit in the middle of the ride where the train travels in a straight line over the station which felt at odds with everything else. The ending is particularly great with an intense helix over a small lake. There was no second train. Unlike Cedar Point which runs three trains to a fault or Silver Bullet which had its second train in bits scattered all over the break run, Flight Decks second train doesn't seem to exist. This isn't an extra-ordinary inverter and neither is it a dud. It's a good, solid B&M which has clearly served the park well. It just made me so glad we have Nemesis. I know its very easy to compare every inverter to Nemesis but the reality is, Nemesis is outstanding. From a layout perspective, a theming perspective, an efficiency and capacity perspective. Every park could learn a lesson from our grubby white alien. I next wanted to get on Patriot but we went the wrong way and ended up exploring all the park instead. Some of my favourite flat rides passed (KMG Afterburner, Huss Breakdance) before we just ended up getting lost. I checked the app and it said that Railblazer was 0 minutes. Staying cautious we decided to take a chance. Now this has two trains running. Which is good as at 8 people a train it has serious capacity issues. We ended up waiting half an hour which I was pretty happy with. To be honest, as good as it is, it's too fast. It zooms through the layout at break-neck speed and it feels very hard to take it all on board. Air time hills, inversions. it's like a blur. No major park should get the off-shelf model. It's too popular for what it is and it just cannot handle a park with crowds. The legend that is Josh C has been tweeting about Jersey Devil, so when he reviews, I'll be very interested in that one. With that out the way we took a ride on Demon, an arrow looper. I like the old arrow loopers. Whilst rougher then most modern rides there's something about a ride with janky track design that just appeals to me. As they start to arrive at the end of their lives, I'm just glad to have got on some of them. Next was Patriot. This used to be a stand up before it got converted to a floorless (like Rougarou and Firebird). Whilst I do get why parks are running away from stand up, I dunno. The floorless train doesn't add much beyond making the ride rideable? Maybe thats the point. My husband made the observation that if it wasn't for the height restriction, this would be an excellent 'starter' rollercoaster for an aspiring thrill seeker. And it got me thinking about rides like this and Daemonen at Tivoli Gardens. And he's so right in the observation. Very few inversions, mildly intense without being mind-blowing. Considering this is a B&M from 1991, its aged pretty well from what I could tell. Still, no second train to be found. After lunch it was time for the wooden coasters. We started with the CGI Wooden coaster, Gold Striker. This had a second train! wow. This was a fantastic ride. Really fast and intense. And with most of the ride hidden from the walkways, it took me by surprise. It probably sits just under Wodan for intensity. Some of the turns it was doing, for a traditional woody, were fabulous. Heavily recommended and the best ride at CGA by a country mile. And onto our final new rollercoaster Grizzly. Quite easily the worst operations I have ever seen on a ride. It took over seven minutes to unload, load and dispatch a train. Part of this seemed to be staff training, the other part was sheer incompetence. You're running one train around your mildly interesting rollercoaster. This shouldn't be that difficult. But it was. What looked to be a twenty minute wait ended up taking around 70. I was done after this, Didn't even want to attempt the low capacity Arrow wild-mouse which was displaying a 40 minute wait. So instead we went on two flat rides including the breakdance. Every park should have a breakdance. They are the best flat ride by far. And we called it a day around 4pm. This park needs investment. On the surface everything looks fine. But it provides a middling day out in a state that has Disney, Knotts & Magic Mountain. Hard to compete, yes, but CGA isn't really even trying. It has great support rollercoasters in Flight Deck and Gold Striker but it needs that killer, triple A attraction to make the difference. And two trains on its rides.
    5 points
  44. JoshC.

    Hyperia - New for 2024

    PLANS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED. Some highlights: -The ride will feature trains of 20; 10 rows of 2. The trains will have lapbars. *Not too surprising, but nice to know. -No manufacturer is confirmed; this is not of interest for planning permission, but it is acknowledged it is of interest to roller coaster enthusiasts. Equally, the application just mentions ride comparison are done to a 'similar ride in Europe' -The ride will reach a maximum speed of around 130km/h (though this is not definite) -The ride will have a light track colour high up, similar to Stealth *This was mentioned in the consultation period. I haven't found confirmation of *what* the colour is for the high points, or the low points. This is usually contained within there somewhere. -The ride's highest points are: 72m, 50m, 48m and 43m *This puts to bed an initial thought I had that the park might try to go for the world's tallest inversion record. -Lots of trees will be planted around the station building -During construction, the lake will be infilled partially. Originally, the supports were meant to go into the lake, but it looks like they will go into a small part of land within the lake. I guess this is a compromise between having a nice looking lake and ease of maintenance. -The expanded construction area appears to just be for the *full* demolition of Loggers Leap, as opposed to just the bits in the way. So no extended layout. -Construction should start late this year, and the whole process should last 16 months. So Spring 2024 opening Now some more photos: An interesting look at an alternative layout Trees In past applications, we have gotten a look at the design of buildings, etc. But I can't find any of that. Usually we'd even get fencing plans, saying the style, height, material of every fence in an application. Again, doesn't seem to be here. Interesting, in a geeky sorta way. All I can say about the station is it has walls and a metal roof (a roof shouldn't be taken for granted). So there's no clarity on theming, style, colours or anything. Random note: the transfer track is after the station and at the start of the ride, as opposed to at the end of the ride / before the station. Somewhat different.
    5 points
  45. Roses are Red Violets are Blue I have limited patience... ...for lame cryptic Clues
    5 points
  46. JoshC.

    Black Mirror Labyrinth

    Oooooh, I think I get the honour of writing the first full Black Mirror Labyrinth review online. What an exclusive! I should start by giving a disclaimer: Yes, I attended a preview event which invites celebrities and influencers, and the intention of these events is for such people to share positive thoughts about the experience. If you want to see that stuff, check out TPM's social pages, and a review will be live on our website later. What follows is a balanced reflection of my genuine thoughts of the experience. As always, whenever I attend these events, I try to give my feedback to staff/managers/creators too, good, bad, or ugly... Slight spoilers follow. --- "It's...interesting" That was my immediate reaction. It doesn't sound very positive, but it's also not very negative either. I guess a good way of describing it is a grown up Hocus Pocus Hall. And that's not a bad thing. It's a multi-route experience, with dead ends and multiple special effects. There is a mirror maze in there, yes, but that is just one part of the experience. Your name and face is used at a couple of points too. The story is that the Labyrinth is an AI creation which has become self aware. It's stolen all its information about you, and now wants to 'delete' you. So the premise is original, but slightly Black Mirror in tone. It's a fun experience with some quirky moments. We got lost a few times. We became disoriented. There were some moments which were a bit of a surprise. There's nothing special, but it all works and flows pretty nicely. After having done the experience twice, though, I'm not clambering to do it again any time soon. That's just the nature of this experience - there's not enough multiple routes to keep it completely fresh each time, and it is kind of 'one and done'. That's not a bad thing really, as it is an enjoyable enough experience in its own right, but I don't think it's what Thorpe need right now. Some assorted Q&As: -Is it scary? No. And I wonder if that will lead to complaints with people expecting a FN like maze... -What is batching like? You're batched in your household group exclusively. And it seems like it will be a group every 90 seconds. -What would batching be like without Covid? It seems like there's space for 12 people per group normally. That would give a throughput of 480pph in theory. Bog standard for a Merlin maze really. -What are Covid rules like? This is a weird one. You have to remove your mask whilst your photo is taken (this is for a special effect). And inside you naturally end up touching things as you find your way round, and you may come into close contact with people due to the non-linear route. I expect this may make some people feel uncomfortable. Some fun facts: -Figment Productions have been involved with parts of the experience -The experience was rethought and had extra money put into it last year, since they had extra time -Though nowhere near as much was invested as in a new ride, a lot more was invested in this compared to a Fright Nights maze (about 7-10 times the budget of a maze I believe) -There's a couple of little Easter eggs about (and some I probably missed) There's a couple of photos on TPM's Facebook, I won't post them here because effort. So all in all, the premise of the experience is interesting. As I say, it's not something I'm itching to get back to doing again, but it's a fun experience. It's another indoor experience for the park, which is needed, but ultimately it is very much a 'one..possibly two... and done' type thing, which is perhaps not what the park needed. I'm very much worried about how this will cope with the crowds. It seems like an operational headache. However, given it's going to be Timed Tickets for a while, and it should be pretty reliable, hopefully it means physical wait times are minimal for now, if done right. So definitely worth giving it a crack when you're next on park.
    5 points
  47. Mark9

    Black Mirror Labyrinth

    Closed by 2023 is all I could think of to be honest.
    5 points
  48. He, much like other YouTubers, are slaves to the algorithm. Stop posting videos for a bit and then suddenly your viewership (and revenue) drops considerably. I think he's one of these people who became a bit of a favourite whilst working at Towers, and he took full advantage of that, allowing his fanbase to be in a good position when vlogging became such a major thing (I remember when the "Theme Park Room" was one of the most cringiest things to ever cringe). My experiences of him have been limited (even if I accidentally appear in one of his vlogs in the background), but it's not been great admittedly. Being loud and annoying in the middle of Nemesis entrance area and then kicking off because he and his group weren't allowed to be the first on MRAWS. There's certainly an edge to him which was put under the spotlight this year. Unfortunately (and this is a larger trend), the fan base of said creators are perhaps some of the strangest of beings. The mental gymnastics they will perform to support someone because they've gotten involved in shenanigans is often a sight to behold. All in all, even if it was technically work related, travelling across the country in the current climate is certainly not a great idea. Though half the issue is down to the poor handling of this pandemic from our dear leaders.
    5 points
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