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I hate this guy

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!

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.

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.

Hopefully it will be used to show replays of live streams where YouTubers say a ride name 50,000 times.

I would sell my soul for Exodus to open tomorrow just so we never have to listen to this nonsense ever again.

You might want to avoid supermarkets for the next couple of months m8

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!

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.

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??

It'll be called Big Bird.

That's gone well then.

I mean, she had such a huge impact in Haunted House and Duel. Pivotal almost.

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.

Piff paff wipee woo waaa. Upppppp and awayyyyyyy. Someone's knocking at your door, someone's ringing the bell. I'm loving it.

I love it when Jack comes back every year or so to complain about Fastrack at Thorpe. It's like when Steve posts every now and then to tell us how **** Merlin are. It's like a comfort blanket.

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 🤩

Ban request.

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

The twisted outerbank dive is complete!

Better late than never. Here are more photos of the site.

Nailed it 😎

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!

I've got scheduled Youtube videos predicting that vertical construction will commence the day after tomorrow for the rest of the week therefore I'll be correct for sure #Influencer #MTYMOO

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.

Sorry for the double post.

I just think it's great that Thorpe have bought back rollbacks on Stealth.

WTF were they thinking with the BK destruction? Just as they put in a highly themed railways station coffee shop, they tear out a highly themed burger bar and turn it into generic shopping centre? Spending money to make things worse is my biggest hate in Theme Parks, especially when getting funding for anything that isn't a big new thing has been neigh on impossible for decades, but with this and the teacups we have two big lumps of that here. Who the hell is running this place, and can they be sunk with the Thorpe Belle?

I can't believe the ride that everyone hates is being adjusted and everyone hates its even more.

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.

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.

Rocky Express is going in there!

Interesting.. I think I’ll go with Colossus is a good roller coaster

I dunno, I think it was a nice refreshing addition to the thread.

Natural England have today Withdrawn their objection(s) to project exodus. If I have got this correct, this is separate to the environment agency’s objection which relate more to flooding then anything else. One less hurdle and hopefully stuff starts to pick up as we reach September. Maybe a sign of things to come…. Or maybe not 😝

So let's talk Carnival, the park's other new event for 2022. The event is split into two areas. There is 'the' "Carnival" area, which is in the Lost City area (where various FN mazes have been) and there is the "Junkyard" area, which stretches alongside Ghost Train up to Trailers. The Carnival area is the main one, and features a stage, photo op point, some F&B places and a couple of extra sideshows (magician's tent and fortune teller). Things kick off from 12 and there's pretty much always something going on, or getting ready to happen, from then till park close (which is 7pm for the event!). There's a Ringleader show, showing all the acts, a mime troupe show, a set of singers, and also some circus/carnival acts (fire breathers, trapeze artists / balance performers and the like). The Junkyard area features some "carnival rejects", who are basically just a bit more shoddily dressed, treated like outcasts, and a bit more 'crazy'. All in, there's a real good variety of acts, and it's all just light hearted fun. And it does so without being cheesey or corny, which I felt the Mardi Grad stuff did too much of. I'm sure things will get polished up during the event too. The circus acts are external acts too, so are specialists in what they do. One thing I wasn't keen on was the singing aspects of the performances. It would be harsh, and wrong, to say the singing was bad, but it certainly wasn't something I would call 'good'. Obviously this is a difficult thing to do, since as people we can hear amazing singing in a couple of clicks on our phone, but it does mean there's a high bar to meet. I think the performances would be better without singing, but then again, maybe the wider audience disagree. In any case, I think if the park want singing incorporated into these acts, they should broaden their horizons and look to people with as much experience as possible. Now, onto the thing which I guess people are most interested in: Trailers - Breakout at Bozo's. This...is a thing. And it doesn't know what sort of thing it wants to be. Is it trying to be a fun and funny attraction set inside a spooky setting? Is it trying to be a scare maze which doesn't take itself seriously? Is it trying to be a scare maze which has been toned down? I don't know. And I don't think Thorpe really know what they want it to be. From what I understand, the plan was for it to be something which wasn't that scary, didn't take itself seriously and something you could have a laugh with. But then when it wasn't received all that well, and senior management realised it wasn't scary, they've tried to tweak that. Which adds to the confused nature of it. There are some fun moments in there, don't get me wrong. But none of it feels very right. And it's all just a bit of a mess, and doesn't quite flow. I also feel for the actors: it's running on minimal numbers, and only one per main scene. When most scenes were designed for at least 2 actors, and almost always had those numbers last year, it means they have a lot to do, and in weirder circumstances. Can't be easy. I don't see it being very popular now the initial enthusiast rush has died down. But with the minimal operating hours and minimal staffing, and being upcharge, I expect it will make money, and so ultimately be a plus for the park there. But still, this stinks of a decision made my people in an office with little understanding of how it would work and the consequences, leaving the Entertainments Team to just deal with it. Anyway, I don't want to leave things on a bad note. Carnival is a really cool, fresh-feeling event. It's fun, vibrant and adds an upbeat feeling to the park. At the same time, it doesn't impede on those who aren't fussed: it's a nice, harmless addition. I hope it works out well for them, and that it's something that can continue and be improve upon in the future. On a side note, with these events happening, and being a mainstay, and with shows being a thing at the park again, it's a shame there isn't an arena-like space for them to be housed, and for more work to go into them. Funny world ey.

And in an actually useful post, more supports:

I think it should be called Prime.

That new "Quiet space" spa that's free is going to become a (pop) badge of honour on the MAP group isn't it? Will be more abused than the RAP passes. I eagerly await the first "Loving the Thorpe Spa" picture followed by "were is this plz" and before you know it, it'll need it's own RAP queue.

The Curse of Alton Manor

Distinct lack of poodle images in that post.

This would never happen this way. You'd bring him to a pub, you THINK you offered him a drink but in fact you've just signed over your house, life savings and cat to him and you'd be none the wiser.

Potential Spoiler Alert Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building. Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see.

I'm sure it'll go well with the return of Terror Tomb next year. Maybe they'll bring Toyland Tours back too.