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So Chessington do some low key theming and advertising outside one of their mazes and get slated. Thorpe and Towers do nothing but fencing and shipping containers outside and that's cool. Never happy are enthusiasts..

no.

Just to update on this, I've just sent this to Thorpe Park's PR team so looking forward to seeing all the ex Big Brother and Only Way Is Essex zelebs on the 28th!

@Han30 and myself have booked for the 12th. This is our first time doing Tulley's, so hopefully it will be good fun!

Hi all! Just a quick update regarding Fright Nights meet, I've been desperate to release details for it for a while now but we are having to wait for a few things unfortunately. The provisional date for the meet will be Saturday 7th October, but 1st, 8th and 15th October will also be in the vote. As soon as I can release more details about it I will, but it's going to be exciting (hopefully)!

Prater Trip Report So I recently went to Vienna and had some spare time so went to visit Prater. It's basically a permanent fairground with all rides being operated independently. This makes it quite an expensive experience and the rides aren't the best with quite a few Wild Mouses (should that be Wild Mice?!) but that said it was a good way to kill a few hours... So arriving at the park you're met with the Big Wheel, which is why most people come to Prater. The entrance plaza is quite nice. The map is pretty confusing. Unless you know the names of the ride you wont really know where to go. So I wondered down the right hand path and found a Wild Mouse, which I avoid like the plague, and this: a Pinfari called "Super 8er Bahn" and it is fairly decent. I remember the days of Drayton Manor's sombrero ride....and therefore decided not to give this a go. Below is Maskerade - a Gerstlauer Spinning Ride with "themeing". It starts with a vertical lift which makes the experience quite unique. It span quite a bit. When I got off the ride I realised the cashier/ride operator had decided to bugger off. Which was...reassuring. Is a Boomerang really a Boomerang if it gets lifted up both sides? I didn't ride this as I was being careful with my funds so moved on to Hollenblitz. This was by far the most expensive ride at €7! But it was also the craziest. I had to wait a while in the station whilst they waited for move people to board. The inside is best described as a drug-induced trip. The carriages free spin which provides for a really interesting ride and means you to be hand rotated as it comes into the station. So then we move onto this monstrosity...A Zamperla flyer called Volare. First you have to climb into the "seats" which isn't comfortable as you have you actually apply pressure on your feet. The spiral lift his is interesting but because of the loose nature of the restraints every inversion is ridiculously painful. I would never ride this again. Ever. Worse than an SLC. IMG_6934.MOV < - Here is a video of the lift hill if this works at all? I don't know. There are lots of "Ghost Train" style rides. I didn't ride any as I don't think they're always worth the money and I was by myself. I think they're less fun alone. Quite often I was the only one on the coasters. Like this inside Maurer spinner. This was again pretty fun. There are many other flat rides to enjoy too...like the classic Tagada. The rides have weird opening times (not labelled) and seem to just open when they want. So there were a couple of rides I wanted to do that were already closed and therefore I went back the next day. First thing I saw was this...which was closed...but still better than Storm Surge. So now it was time for what I was really here for...Hochschaubahn (catchy name!) my first wooden coaster with an on board brakeman. I got a bit photo happy so enjoy a few shots of the beautiful mountain countryside... They also have a nice looking little train that actually has a few stops, so I took a round trip. They had a lot of kiddy rides...like these plane and car rides. In which the cars go higher than the planes...alright then. Then it was on to the weirdest ride I've ever been on. Blue Plant. It's....difficult to explain and if you don't want the entire experience spoilt then don't click the spoiler! After all that I decided to round off my trip with a go on the Big Wheel. You can see quite a bit and they do pack them in. I'd say it was probably worth the money. You can get combined tickets with other things which makes it better value. And that's pretty much it. Thanks for reading!

I love watching people running to catch the Jubilee line at Stratford. I especially love it when they miss the train. I'm a horrible person.

Ah, now you're talking some sense. The Babadook is fantastic. Absolutely feckin fantastic. I could rant about it all day.

I'm not sure we watched the same film... The scares were genuine, the visuals as creepy as I hoped, everything interlocked well, and it had great little nods to other films and real life. Annabelle: Creation was fab, Annabelle was terrible, it's up there with the worst films big production companies have released. What were you expecting exactly? It's a film about a haunted doll, not the most revolutionary idea, it was great for what it was... It Comes At Night was a far bigger disappointment for me, I left the cinema not even sure if I liked it. Gimme a good old haunted house film over these frankly terrible art films that have become popular recently. Looking at you The VVitch.

Rant: Airplane edition. The fact that you have to get to the airport really early just to make sure that you clear security without problems. After that, the plane is always delayed anyway so you just end up in the airport for four hours wasting your life. You arrive at your gate, they announce boarding. Everyone stands up and waits in a line even though everyone has an assigned seat No matter how organised you are, everyone around you faffs around when getting on the plane. They block the entire aisle trying to work out where their seats are or where to put their luggage. You find your seat, get down. Staff announce boarding complete. You sit around for another half an hour waiting for the plane to do something. Plane was supposed to leave at 14:20 but its now 16:50 and you're wondering if you are ever going to leave Gatwick. The baby/young child behind you (there's always a young child behind you) decides to either cry or kick your seat. This will go on for the entire flight. Plane leaves but now you are in an enormous queue to get to the runway because this country takes decades to make a decision on where a new runway is going to be. It's now 17:45. Plane finally takes off. Some idiot decides now is the time he wants to get up and go to the toilet. Staff bombard him saying how unsafe it is to get up during take off, but he doesn't care for he is English and he is made off stronger stuff. Plane lands, everything is fine. The other country is fantastic with little queue for passport checks and you're swiftly on your way. A few days later Naturally its home time and on this occasion the plane back home is now four hours delayed so now you're stuck at Gothenburg airport, all the shops and food places are closed so now there's nothing. Just empty time. You finally get on the plane just that little bit irritable. Pilot announces due to bad weather conditions at Gatwick, air traffic controller is advising another hour delay whilst they find a landing slot. You now want to kill everyone. Thank god you are on your way, but this time you have to face the dreaded passport checks at Gatwick. Plane lands. The seatbelt sign is turned off. Everyone decides to get up to get their luggage and just stand there waiting for the door to open to disembark. This takes ten minutes. You try to get through passport control quickly but unfortunately the plane is taxied as far away from the terminal as possible so after fifteen minutes of walking you finally make it. Due to Tory cuts only one border enforcer is working. You get through, now ready for suicide but unfortunately the door to the luggage compartment on the plane has frozen shut or your luggage has ended up in Lisbon. If you have managed to get through all that, the real nightmare begins as you either have to get a Southern service from Gatwick or the Piccadilly line from Heathrow.

The ride always did the odd "shuffling" thing even in the pre-Vekoma days although I agree it's worse with the current trains it does seem to be a characteristic of that type of ride as Ninja and Iron Dragon definitely do that too. It still pains me to hear talk of a good day on The Vampire being 400-600pph... Back in the ride's early days they were getting well over 1700pph with a good crew and 3-train operations. I can certainly remember when we went in 1991 we parked in the grass car park and the queue started more or less where the gates are at the path from the south entrance, despite that and the full queue being open we were on within 30min. Heaven knows how long a similar queue would take now! Even later in the 1990s they were dispatching trains so fast that they would slow lift 1 to allow the right spacing and avoid stops in the (then) pitch dark transfer station. It was actually very rare for lift 2 to slow back then! The whole issue with the trains parking so slowly is so frustrating as it's obviously perfectly possible to program a control system to work like it worked for the first ten years of operation... to me the way the trains used to thunder round the corner into the station before the chorus of hisses and chirps from the brakes brought the train to a stop (one stop, right place every time) was a key part of the ride's theatre and obviously it helped maintain a good throughput. I know it'll never happen but for me if the park were to make a nod to their history and do a sympathetic restoration it would really bring something to the market at a time when new low-capacity gimmicks (VR anyone?) are ruining many parks. (I) ask Vekoma to engineer some new enclosed "bat" trains with their new vest style harnesses. Have three six-car trains, as this would allow some reconfiguration of the blocks to allow for all three trains to be in the station area if needed but maintain a good capacity of 1400-1500pph. (ii) install a decent control unit that parks the trains more efficiently. (iii) repaint the ride and restore the rock work around the tunnel. (iv) restore the station and use the original entrance. I can dream!!!

Why is everyone now thinking swarm is getting vr? It's a sign just showing some merchandise is discounted...

The fortune teller (Madame Mephisto) had a crystal ball in 2015. Occasionally they'd use tarot cards as well, but I never experienced a ouija board. The ouija board was the key part of Platform 15's finale - you would try and summon the spirit of the conductor of the Sleeper Express, who had crawled through a "2 mile long tunnel" to try and get help. The ouija board either appeared at the end of the tunnel (where the scare happened, but it meat only the people at the front could see it), or before the start of the tunnel (which happened later in the event).

Havin a Nice in New York n tha' - Six Flags New England, Lake Compounce & Coney Island Just come back from spending 2 and a bit weeks in America. Fantastic time to say the least. Coney Island itself is a bit of a wreck. Picture a depressed, ran down Adventure Island, and then bunch a whole ton of Russian and mob gangsters there, and a touch of history. Voila, you got Coney Island. The old parachute drop makes a real cool impression from the beach, can be seen all over the island. Thunderbolt was odd.. I really enjoyed it but have come to learn that's a controversial opinion. The restraints are a bit of a red herring, on the drop you forget the 'ostrs' are just slack seat belts, so I fully thought I was going to fall out as we went over the top. Cyclone was really good fun. I'd recently shaved my head so I had a few shocked faces when I took my cap off to ride. It's cool seeing a 90 year old coaster run so well, and it had some proper air time to it. New York is cool. I really like the city, there's so much to see. We went to a place called Do, where they sold cookie dough as if it was ice cream. That was really cool. Also, I recommend going up the rockefeller tower if you're looking to go up a tall tower. We did the freedom tower last time and it's not as good, on the rockefeller you're open to the elements and get the view of the empire state and the rest of the city much more nicely. Went and crashed at my uncles place for the rest of the time, and he live right near by Lake Compounce, so it'd be rude not to ride boulder dash.. Rode a lot less well then I remembered, disappointingly. Still masses of fun and craziness, but there was absolutely nill air time for me this time. I remember being absolutely thrown out of my seat 3 years ago, but they've changed the trains a fair bit and the rides been retracked I believe, and its left it an a disappointing state compared to previously. That, and I've developed a better stomach for forces now. Maybe I'm immune. That's sad Those premier off the shelf thingies are fun. Spent a couple days catching waves on a tube on a nearby lake, and entered on a quest to get diabetes. Then, to finish off the trip, off to Six Flag New England! I've heard horror stories about these parks, but I really liked it! Headed straight to Wicked Cyclone. What. a. ride. Pandemonium was alright I guess, but we quickly skipped over this and thunderbolt and headed to the world renowned Superman!!!...... which...was... an intamin pmbo. First drop, incredible. Thereafter, utterly disappointing. Done this in a vary of seating arrangements throughout the day (the same with boulder dash) and nothing changed. I was actually really disappointed by this. Very little airtime throughout the hills, especially compared to the intensity of Expedition Geforce, it's little sister! Fed up we headed over to the Joker. One of those icky S&S 4D things, which was actually a barrel of laughs. Really intense, good fun! Mind Eraser. Now, this is an SLC with the new vekoma restraints, so I gave it a go. Regretted it instantly. Whilst the vests are extremely comfortable and prevent headbanging, I'm fairly sure the lap bar shook the nerves in my thighs so aggressively I'll suffer from some sort of muscle deterioration later in life. Did my first floorless - Batman. It was alright, very B&My, with a super intense zero G. Other then that it was a bit meh. Only ride with bad ops throughout the whole trip. These Americans are efficient! Grabbed some really expensive lunch, and then went and whored out Wicked cyclone for the rest of the day! If there's one thing I got from SFNE it's an RMC cred that I am so thankful for. Before riding this I thought the stall looked stupidly awkward, and it makes a few noises that are... unsettling, but it's probably the smoothest, best flowing ride I've ever been on, and it was so, so intense. It has a small height restriction too which made me laugh, because 4 hours after our final ride I was still having blood rushes in my legs. In the back row you truly get thrown over the drop, and dragged relentlessly through every inversion and air time hill. Soooo intense, so fun, and utterly ridiculous and unparalleled by any other cred I have. I absolutely fell in love with the back row. I'm already gagging to go again. The upside down, side ways, inside out air time is unique, and brilliant. I urge everyone who can to get to an RMC. I am so eager and excited to try one of those big ones. They look cool. Thanks for reading, here's a dodge ass video you can watch that I made.

The sticks could also be from American Horror Story: Roanoake. They make more sense than Blair Witch returning out of nowhere, although the hat indicates that it will come back

Ahh I loved tulleys last year - imo the haunts are a lot better than Thorpe's overall. Not sure if I'll be able to drag anyone there this year or not as they'll probably say been there done that haha. I went on a Friday (14th October) and apart from the hayride didn't have to queue for anything! Chop shop was a personal favourite, I found I was more scared in the later parts of that maze than I have been for a while (excluding Tom Spindler mazes if anyone was lucky enough to go in those) the actors were terrifying!

Steel Vengeance announced at Cedar Point, looks awesome. Some facts mentioned in the live video on Cedar Points FB page: 205ft Tall with 200ft drop making it the only hyper hybrid 90 degree drop 74mph 5,740ft long 4 inversions. A phenomenal 27.2 seconds of airtime making it have more airtime than any other coaster The ride breaks many records for the park as a whole as well including: Most coaster track in 1 park: 11.4 miles Most steel track in 1 park: 11 miles Most coasters over 200ft: 6 Most rides in 1 park: 71 Most coasters in 1 park with 90 degree or more drops: 5 Really hope I can get out to Cedar Point next year. The park have partnered with Planet Coaster and there will be an update at 5:30 containing the Steel Vengeance coaster.

They're really struggling to get any interest on this. Merlin really are dragging their heels on everything their parks have to give these days. A new woodie at Alton, in the UK should be a massive thing.

Chessington are just laughable sometimes. Post on their FB page to celebrate national rollercoaster day says: "did you know in 2002 Vampire became the WORLD’s first floorless rollercoaster?!"

The Pagan-esque symbols are also carved into the wood either of the sign. I think it's fair to say that those symbols could be deciphered to say 'Be Chosen' (look in particular at the same symbol where an 'e' would be). The 3 symbols on the sign itself could be 'SW8', especially as the first symbol matches the 's' in 'Be Chosen'. Potentially something to look out for during the marketing campaign. Not unheard of for Towers to be interactive and get people to work out clues (the latter part of Smiler's advertising for example).

Since it's announcement, Star Trek: Operation Enterprise, the brand new Mack shuttle launch coaster at Movie Park Germany has been hot on my radar and we decided to tie in some other new creds and a special event at Phantasialand at the same time. Day 1 Read Mark's recent post in the rant thread to some up how our day started, Gatwick you heartless bastards. Arrived at Amsterdam airport at about 10:30 and went to the hire car people. As you may know by now we don't get on with the hire car industry. This time we chanced our luck with Hertz, as of yet they haven't screwed us over with after rental changes but I will keep you posted. We ordered a Ford Fiesta (or similar) and got a hybrid baby Toyota, despite their being 6 Fiestas in the rental bays, spite. Slagharen https://rcdb.com/4842.htm After about an hour and a half we arrived at Slagharen, the second most visited theme park in the Netherlands, I assume they use their holiday park resort stuff to boost their numbers to claim that fame because the park itself on a sunny Saturday in the school holidays was very manageable. Gold Rush https://rcdb.com/14011.htm We went straight away to the brand new Gerts shuttle launch infinity coaster, Gold Rush. The colour scheme is beautiful, crimson track and black supports, a scheme I use far too often on RCT2. Coaster itself is very good fun. Soothing first launch to get you started, exciting backwards launch with silly hangtime in the back as you go half way up the dive loop and then a thrilling final launch to send you into the full layout. A layout that has intense moments of airtime (oh yes) and lovely flowing inversions. To cap it all off the coaster uses extended Karnan trains, which means lapbars and loads of freedom, sadly it also means the seats try to cut your legs off but that's a small price to pay. Great little coaster this, Gerts have done it again, more of these please. Mine Train https://rcdb.com/1031.htm + 1 Much to Benin's dismay, after 2 laps on Gold Rush and 1 lap on the stupid Vekoma Junior and a cheese toastie, we hit the dusty trail. There was literally nothing else of interest (to me at least) in the park. Gold Rush is a damn solid coaster, it's such a shame they don't have much else for the thrill seekers. As a park though, it was nice enough, friendly staff and everything looked clean and in good shape, nice to see. Phantasialand - You've probably heard of this park, I won't bother posting the RCDB... The reason we threw this little trip together so fast was to get to experience the midnight closure, special 50th Birthday event at Phantasialand, I wish we hadn't bothered and instead just hit more new stuff on the German/Netherlands border. I wasn't really a fan of Phantasialand "as a park" from my last visit and this time further enforced my opinions of the park not being what many call "the best park in the World". I proudly repped my Liseberg shirt while on park and looking back I couldn't stand by that statement more. After about 2 hours of driving, we arrived at Phantasialand at about 5:30, to a rather aggressive parking man screaming "NEIN" at the customers trying to park, friendly! We tried to enter entrance 2 as the only new rides we needed at the park were Feng Ju Palace and River Quest, which are at the back of the park. But no, wasn't allowed, this isn't a great start. Walked a million miles to the wrong end of the park to finally enter, the 2 staff women manning the gates not even caring were fantastic. We now learned for the fireworks, "selected attractions and pathways are closed before the 11:30 show", spite... Feng Ju Palace This attraction was closed on my last visit so we made sure to experience it first on this trip. It's a very good madhouse attraction, it's just a shame the story kind of doesn't get resolved, if the pretty Chinese girl still isn't united with her lover, let it be known I'm very much willing. River Quest River Quest was also closed on my last trip and I was gutted by that, I'm so glad I got to experience this torture device. This ride is actually scary, in both the silly amounts of water it dumps on you and the stupid things it does in order to dump that water on you. We actually had to save a man's life, as he was stupid enough to stand up between the 2nd and 3rd drops, we screamed at him to sit back down and he survived, idiot. I loved this ride so much, easily more fun than Chiapas in my opinion. With the 2 new rides out of the way, it was time to ride Taron until we bled. We now ventured over to read 2 awful things on the queue screen. 110 minute queue, CHRIST! Queue closes 9:30, are you serious?!?! They were closing the queue of Taron at half 9 in order to clear the area for the fireworks at half 11. I don't care if you disagree with me here, but the fact this wasn't mentioned on the website when I ordered tickets frankly insults me. To close the queue of your major new attraction 2 and half hours before park closing, without informing the masses on your website is stupid. What choice do we have then, 2 hour queue for Taron it is! During this 2 hour queue, everyone and I mean everyone was smoking or vaping around us, it was disgusting. At no point did the staff attempt to stop anyone. Taron I'm glad to say we managed to get on the ride without serious lung damage. I'm disappointed to say either the coaster isn't as intense as I remember it or being 200 coasters up since I last rode it has weakened it. Regardless it's still fantastic and easily one of the best coasters in the World. It isn't Helix though. Knowing in order to get 1 more go on Taron we'd have to almost instantly rejoin the queue, we opted to have almost pizza from the almost pizza place near Taron, the man on the bar next to this eatery, when I ordered a Sprite in English, was a idiot. The Taron queue was now full and extended back into the area, so we opted for the single rider queue, big mistake. We queued with a fellow ride geek, I know this because she had Helix as the background on her phone, at 1 point she looked visibly upset, probably knowing Taron isn't as good as Helix and if we were at Liseberg we could of ridden Helix 12 times in 2 hours. Just over an hour into the single rider queue, I needed to bail in order to use the toilet. While in the stall, I hear knocking on the door and a German women shouting, these things can't be rushed sweetheart. 10 minutes later I emerge and more German shouting happens, to which I reply "I'm sorry my German isn't good". She replies "you must leave!", "why?", more German shouting where I'm able to make out they were closing the Taron toilets, Christ. Knowing I'm not able to rejoin the now fully bolted up Taron single rider queue, I ditch my friend and go for a walk. German shouting and hand signals informs me I can't go that way out of the Taron area, ffs. Over the next hour I walk around the park getting increasingly more uncomfortable, as they are closing paths left, right and centre and the remaining ones are stupidly busy. I opt to wait for my friend and calm down in the Asia area of the park, when it doubt, go Asian. Black Mamba Now reunited we powered to Black Mamba to see if we could get in a ride before 11:45 close. We did and I'm pleased to say the experience we had was so good, it stops me for fully resenting the time I spent in the park. The staff were fantastic and being completely over the top and excitable. Pitch black Black Mamba is one thing but the fireworks show starting as you go up the lift then on every inversion you catching the show upside down is wonderful. Add this to the coaster finally delivering the experience everyone raves about and I was very happy. We got another lap straight away without getting off, staff still going bonkers, the fireworks getting even more intense and the coaster hauling even more ass. OK Mark, I'm finally a Black Mamba fan. We caught the end of the fireworks as we tried to make our way to exit, they seemed quite well done. Cue thousands of people leaving the park all at once and an hour to leave the car park.... So yeah, once again, I'm let down by Phantasialand, nothing big and awful happened, just small issues that all add up to take you out of the moment. Best park in the World it is not. Next time, one of the supposed worst parks in the World ends up being more enjoyable than Phantasialand, stay tuned!

Caution tape from poundland, a sign made on paint and an already there fire exit sign don't count as theming. Do it properly, or don't do it at all. The difference with THORPE & Towers, is that there is nothing now, until its complete.

So I'm skipping Phantasialand because everyone knows I think it's the best and I'm behind on writing TRs and stuff. So yeah, do excuse the delay and what will be rushed TRs, which will largely just be reviews of rides in no particular order of riding them... Movie Park was a park I had reasonably low expectations about. There wasn't many raved about, and any reviews of the park I had read always mentioned long queues, that their Fastrack was a saviour and people always having a sour taste in their mouth at the end of the day. In fact the only real positives I had heard about the park was about its Halloween event. These fears weren't helped when park close was extended from 5pm to 6pm, suggesting the park would be quite busy. But for late June, it wasn't that busy, everything was manageable and it was a decent day. Star Trek: Operation Enterprise The new-for-2017, triple Mack launch coaster was the big draw for finally deciding to pay MPG a visit. Figuring it would have long queues, we headed their first - annoyingly the ride is basically the first thing you see at the entrance, but the ride entrance is in the middle of the park. Fortunately we were first in the queue. There was a few minute delay as we waited for a couple more test runs, but no issue. The indoor queue line is nice, but a bit too clinical. I get that this is the theme, but it just feels a bit uninteresting, even after a short while. What follows are 2 pre-shows, with screens which give a back story from characters from the show (spoken in Germany, but with English subtitles), as well as a staff member guiding you through. They are nice, and the rooms are nicely themed, but they do go on too long for my liking. We got to the station and were on the second train (being first in the pre shows doesn't guarantee first in the station). The ride itself is fun. The traverser taking you to the launch track is in another very white room, which again feels quite boring. The launches are nice and smooth; they're certainly not fast but that's not really the point I feel. The inversions are taken quite slowly, giving a brilliant amount of hang time. Towards the end of the course there's an amazing bit of airtime which really got me. It's over quite quickly, but doesn't leave you feeling short changed fortunately. You do seem to spend an age waiting on the break run though, which feels even longer as there's not much to look at. After our ride, we noticed there was no one in the station (people were being held up by pre show!), so we were able to get a re-ride immediately. Though this didn't happen later in the day when we rode again, it makes me wonder how sustainable the pre shows are in their current format. Staff seemed to have iPads showing where groups should be, radios to communicate to each other and god knows what else. Seemed like a very faffy system for not a lot of pay off! Van Helsing's Factory This was perhaps the only ride I'd heard good things about before visiting. And I can see why. The theming is fantastic, the layout is fun and works well with the theming. The general mood and atmosphere is brilliant. Just everything about this ride works well together. Even the queue line, exit and shop just feels so right and complete. It's a fantastic example showing that a ride as a whole starts the moment you enter the queue (and even when you just see building!), and finishes the moment you leave the shop. This was a true gem and possibly the biggest surprise of the trip. The fact that our first ride we queued about 40-45 minutes (basically the longest queue of the trip) and I loved it right away shows its quality. Plus things quietened as the day went on, meaning several re-rides. Bandit We did the park's wooden coaster in the afternoon, and the queue time was displayed as an hour. Fortunately it was no where near that (15mins); seems Movie Park just update their queue times to the longest they get all day and leave them like that.. The ride looked like it had potential, but unfortunately fails to deliver. Every time it looks like it can pick up speed, or produce a decent moment of airtime, it just...doesn't? And that's the worst thing about this - excitement builds and builds, and it never delivers. It was so uninteresting, I didn't get any photos.. MP Express This was a Vekoma SLC. It was like any other Vekoma SLC - naff. The first half of the ride was actually not awfully and shows why SLCs can get decent rides. The second half was extremely painful, and right down there with the god awful El Condor at Walibi Holland. The Lost Temple Tucked away near the front of the park, Lost Temple is an immersive tunnel themed around finding a lost temple - shock horror - and uncovering dinosaurs and stuff. It features several burdenous pre shows (one of which was a real lift which we thought was fake!), and lots of faffing around between pre shows. The 'experience' as a whole took about 30 minutes, so thank goodness the park wasn't too busy otherwise that would have been a huge chunk of the day gone. The tunnel itself was meh; the Bobbejaanland one was a bit better really. The exit pathway and queue to the ride is decent though. Bermuda Triangle Another ride tucked at the entrance to the park (and easily missed!). This dark boat ride was literally walk on. I really don't know how to describe this. The ride starts off outside, before taking you into a volcano. There were times inside when I didn't know if I was dropping, going up or what. The theming inside is good, but obviously quite dated - along with the theme itself. The finale is being taken up a lift in a very misty, very warm part of the volcano, before dropping outside and splashing down. There's usually a huge amount of mist before a boat drops down, and there were occasional fire effects from the top of the volcano. It's a really good, yet really bizarre, ride. I'm gutted I didn't actually take any pictures of it. We tried to get a reride at about 5:20, but when we got to the entrance the entrance board said it closed at 5:15 (even though it definitely said 5:30 when we went there earlier). There was no queue, and I'm pretty certain the ride has stopped running shortly afterwards. A frustrating situation. Nick Land Nick land featured some randoms kiddie rides, some family rides and some coasters. One coaster, the Jimmy Neutron themed Vekoma SFC, was closed all day. Annoying spite. One coaster was a Vekoma rollerskater "themed" to the Backyardians. We more or less got straight on. It was meh. There was also a Spongebob "themed" Wild Mouse, which was alright. We also did the Dora the Explorer "themed" log flume, which got me drenched to the bone. I don't really have much else to say. Nick Land looked quite out of place compared to large proportions of the park. It felt very run down, the theming was minimal to non-existent, and I really feel like the park could do a lot better. Mystery River This Neverending Story esque rapids ride is tucked tight at the back of Nick Land, and turned out to be a neat little surprise. I'd say it's in my top 3 rapids rides; it has a good length, decent amount of theming and an acceptable level of wetness. It's also helped by the fact that you basically can't see the ride at all from anywhere on park, so you really have no idea what is coming. The biggest disappoint is that you have to survive walking through Nick Land to get to it. Crazy Cops Stunt Show I love a good stunt show, and we wandered into this show not really knowing what to expect, aside from screeching tires and loud noises. This ended up being really good, featuring a decent level of stunts featuring cars, bikes and falls, as well as some decent effects, slapstick comedy and an easy-to-follow 'story' of sorts. It was just great fun to watch, and a great way to break up the day. It's a shame things like this aren't as common in the UK any more.. The High Fall A tall drop tower with nice views of the park, a bit of suspense and tilting seats. Pretty good fun all in all. Tip - if anyone ever visits and sees a long queue for this, just do a double check. The indoor queue is a cattlepen where one wall is a mirror and makes the queue look double in length. Caught us out first time.. There was some other stuff around the park, including a simulator featuring massive sets and John Cleese, which was meh, a few nicely themed or styled flats that we didn't bother with (Top Spin, Disk'o, Rockin' Tug, etc). But the final thing of note I want to mention... The Walking Dead - Breakout A year-round horror maze with a 5 euro upcharge, Walking Dead - Breakout felt like it had a lot to live up to, since the park was apparently good at Halloween and with its scare mazes. Plus the fact Walking Dead is a huge brand and has mazes at several locations, it felt like it had to be good for Movie Park to be a deserving park to have it. The maze is open 1-4pm, and we bought out tickets online and booked for 1pm. Unfortunately the time slot system is non existent and you turn up whenever you want. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the maze is terrible. It's themed nicely, but there's no real scares, no opportunity for scares, not enough actors, no real scary atmosphere. It's just terrible. It terms of actual frights, I'd say it's comparable to Platform 15 (a maze notoriously known not to be able to offer many scares last year). This really was a crying shame, a huge disappointment - possible my personal biggest disappoint at any park across Europe. And so that's that. Movie Park Germany is perhaps a little underrated, though Star Trek definitely improves the line up. They've got a couple of solid coasters, a decent dark and water ride collection and the odd sparkle across flats and live entertainment. Certainly not a park I'd call a must-do, but definitely worth looking into at the very least. Next up (and hopefully before Christmas...) - Efteling!

It wasn’t separated this morning, we were able to walk past the bag search queue entrance and walk directly up the left hand side and could access the toilets and turnstiles. Maybe someone had moved a fence panel but it did seem slightly easy to bypass the security checks. Edit it to add pic, red line was the route. Thanks

Though it is Daily Mail it’s good the hideous pricing is being picked up on in the press http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4806148/Merlin-charges-SEVEN-times-UK-sites.html

Certainly not a power cut; the spread of rides across the park wouldn't make sense. For example, if Detonator is closed down to a power cut, so would all of Jungle and Amity areas. Similarly, if Swarm is dead due to power, so would Fish. The wind speed issue is a hot topic in Merlin at the moment following recent events. I am of the understanding that most of the major rides have been fitted with specific wind speed monitors, that will alert when the wind speed is above a 'safe' level, which is set out by the manufacturer. Staff will then stop running the ride and won't reopen until the wind speed is consistently at a 'safe to operate' speed. The big issue is that if there's a particularly large gust of wind, this means that staff have to stop running the ride. So to stop running the ride, it only takes 1 instance of high wind, not consistent high wind. Of the rides currently closed, a few will always suffer more with wind. Vortex and Zodiac are right by the lake, where wind speeds can pick up more. Swarm also suffers similarly from this, and the majority of its full day closures have been down to high wind speeds. Depth Charge should also be understandable. And Detonator I guess. Banana Ride, Stealth and Colossus are weird ones. I guess if the wind is going in a certain direction it could cause issues with Stealth. Colossus isn't usually that bad even though it's by the water, and if that's suffering from high winds, Saw usually does too. I know people will come with the argument that 'well they've operated fine before, so why now?'. But we should of course remember that in terms of health and safety, Merlin won't want to take chances, so will be making themselves follow the strictest of rules. It's a case now of trying to find the balance of operating safely and operating effectively. Though I'd be more concerned at the fact that 3 rides are listed as Closed, indicating they won't be opening today, and that they all were yesterday as well...

DBGTROTD's merch is reduced because they'll be adding another room - and words to the attraction's name - in 2018 too I would hate Swarm to have VR - if it did, all those near misses and theming - which, rolling news channel aside, is the best in the park - would be missed. What on earth would be the point of that? Maybe they'll just call it Swarm Blaster and stick guns in front of you somehow.

Didn't they already TRY the whole "ride wasn't a success (even though the year it opened wasn't exactly a good year for tourist attractions) so let's add a gimmick to it"... The short termism is killing the parks...

I really wanted this to be true, and whilst they are similar; alas, it's definitely for Blair Witch Project. It also makes sense with a remake of the film being planned, Lionsgate and/or Thorpe will want to keep it place, much like SAW (contract aside for that). _____ So to clarify from that image, we have: - Twig dangly thing, hat, and torch from Blair Witch Project. - Pig mask from SAW - Ouija Board, wigs, hats, and striped pants from The Big Top. - Atlanta Police Badge which has now been identified elsewhere as being relevant, somehow, to The Walking Dead. Can someone shed light for me on the mannequin head? Is that SAW just because the mannequins are in the queues as it has no relevance to the attraction(s) or films?

The new maze will indeed have an SW8 link, and will be called... The Welcoming: Be Chosen https://www.altontowers.com/activities/events/scarefest/thrilling-frights/#mazes The maze has a £8 charge (£6.40 AP holders). No idea where it'll be mind, though time slots can only be booked from 5:30 onwards, suggesting it might be partially outdoors? Edit: beaten to it but meh.

It's been a lot less effort being weird.

The last scare zone that was at THORPE PARK Resort, was Dead End: Terror Zone, and it was sh*t

I feel Tulleys is more intense as well, and I didn't experience a touch scare once last year at Thorpe. The lack of actors at Thorpe means mazes are often long and drawn out without any real scares, whereas Tulleys is full of actors hiding around every corner, creating an onslaught of scares.

No doubt it looks terrible as the entrance to the park. Having to go into a porta-building to buy tickets is also bad. I don't mind as they had to put in something for this season. I just hope that because it's literally gazebos, that they are planning something more permanent. Although knowing Merlin, they will most likely just keep the festival barriers and gazebos in place indefinitely.

Felt we had a SDC topic because of Outlaw Run but obviously not... SDC are building a Mack coaster for 2018. Not much is known at the mo (an announcement is due on the 16th), but rumours are suggesting to will be called Time Travellers and that it will be a launched spinning coaster. But to add a twist to the rumour, track has started to go up and poses more questions... Source - http://www.midwestinfoguide.com/2017/08/time-traveler-construction-sdc_3.html Yep, a 90 degree drop out of the ride's station - nice way to start any ride, but a spinner? Who knows. So yeah, definitely one to watch...

Wow, this ride just looks outstanding. It'll basically be like a regular hyper, but longer, more intense and the odd few inversions to make it diverse. It all adds up to a perfect coaster. I have no complaints, give it a year and everyone will forget MF exists.

I mean it looks fun and everything, but I still don't get the hype over RMC. Some of the transitions look odd and unnatural, which is something I dislike on coasters personally. To be fair, people who have ridden them do rave about them, but I do fear they are a tad overrated. To this day, the best-looking RMC out there is still Outlaw Run...

Laughable and proves the complete lack of care, knowledge and understanding of theme parks the park has. So unprofessional!

I want to be excited for it, but can't find anything much to be excited about. My biggest concern is that this half arsed effort will decrease further the chances of the UK getting a decent woodie if it is seen by the industry as a flop.

I do remember the groundworkers being completely shocked when I told them that the countdown website to a March 2013 opening had gone live.

"World class experience" is an interesting term.... sounds a bit half-arsed to me (hashtag pessimist) Looking at the coding for the page - the background is called "wood1.jpg" so that implies to me that the coaster is going to be made of wood Agree on the branding iron vibe, I was thinking that too.

Volare's aren't that bad at all man! One of them over El Condor any day of the week. This park seems absolutely the definition of credit run, nothing worth the hassle apart from the temporary visit from Hollenblitz... On that note, I'm rather jealous of you for getting to ride that beast, I'm currently praying to Zeus nightly that it makes it's way to Winter Wonderland! Dinosaur Sub Terra does seem like a laugh though.

The way Chessington are going with removing stuff from the station, it'll be no organist eventually...

The biggest frustration with Vampire is the ride still has the foundations of a really good attraction. You wouldn't get any new Merlin-built coaster doing anything as exciting as the fly over the village, or dropping into the tunnel at such high speed. And you'd DEFINITLEY not get the drama and atmosphere in the station. If they would just hurry up and sell the parks to a firm that cares (or at least one that functions properly), then I'm sure something could be done before it's too late. I doubt you'd even need to have tire dive lifts (maybe to please the locals) but all it would really take to have less stressful 3 train operation would be a reworking of the braking structure around the end of the ride. That way it wouldn't need to stop on lift two. Still, Vampire still has far more obvious flaws than crappy block structure.

So ScareTour just posted this on Facebook; it seems Twisted Clowns will probably have 3D for the whole experience instead of it being removed. Which will be interesting, I guess it'll be better as a full experience instead of it being tacked on at the end. I do have to admit my main problem about Pandemonium was the loss of flow when the 3D glasses are handed to you, so I guess Twisted Clowns might be interesting as a full 3D maze instead of a normal clown maze with a 3D Section thrown on at the end.

Sorry for double post but tullys have released there 2017 line-up SO helliments is no more 2017 lineup's new addition is VIXI

The idea was there for Hellements, just not the execution.

Why is everyone double guessing what the theme might be when the themed structure is so obviously a bloody cow. I mean for god's sake, it's not rocket science. The udder is right there. You guys were laughing when you called the almighty M£rlin a cash cow, but with Cash Cow: The Ride 3D VR, who's laughing now?

A ride like air force would be a disastrous choice. It just has such a poor throughput. That with often slow operations just wouldn't be good for a park like Thorpe Park. It was a silly decision putting in the two kids rides in old town as it was a perfect chance to properly redevelop the entire area. Unless they plan to still do that and the two new attractions are part of whatever image they plan on moving that area to, hence why they don't fit currently.

I got my results! 2 A*s, 6 As, 2 Bs and a distinction (equivalent to an A). I was 1 UMS mark of an A in English and the DT coursework was unfairly marked, so hopefully I end up with straight As As that averages an A overall, I will be going to Six Flags Great Adventure in October!