JoshC.

Wooo! Getting very excited for this; hopefully we get some testing soon. And having the ride open by early September would be very nice thank you very much...

Surprised they didn't use Smiler in a sense of irony tbh

I guess it also comes down to context a bit. RMC's most notable accidents are almost definitely as a result of a manufacturer fault, as opposed to how the park has operated / maintained the ride. For a new company, that could ring alarm bells to potential clients. Other manufacturers will have plenty of incidents attached to their rides, some as a direct fault of them, some as a result of the park (I'm willing to bet that a greater majority are down to park error). But they will all have a much larger track record of success, and Merlin will have an established working relationship with those manufacturers. Of course, we don't know what goes on behind closed doors, at both ends, so who really knows what they think. Maybe Merlin have no concerns about getting an RMC. Maybe we are getting one in 2020. Fairly certain that when Heide Park announced they were reopening Colossos, they said they considered making it a hybrid, Which almost definitely would have meant RMC would have been involved, but they decided to keep it as it was or something? At the same time, if Merlin didn't want to go to RMC over concerns about the safety record at the moment, I could see why.

It just always strikes me as odd that when one park does something well, it always has to be justified further by saying "Well, it's better than this". You don't watch a great film, say it's great, then say "and it was better than a rubbish film". Yet it seems almost normal to do that with theme parks. I just don't get it.

Very pretty:

That's arguably the most pedantic ever raised in regards to Loggers Leap. It's quite clear what the meaning of the tweet is.

Difference is that the Spinball incident happened at Towers and Merlin know what caused it. They hear that a manufacturer has a big new ride, and on its opening day, two trains bumped together. This follows another incident where they got another manufacturer involved in one of their rides, which directly caused the death of a person. They might still go for an RMC. But you can understand why they'd perhaps be against introducing one of safety grounds.

The boat ride area and surrounding lake has been filled up: It's all coming together!!

Don't quite see what Towers' rapids having less boats than normal has anything to do with Europa's rapids being open?

I don't agree with the way they handled the announcement, etc., but I highly doubt their logic was simply "we are opening a new coaster, let's rip one down to balance the books". Wild Mouse had plenty of issues and H&S problems related to it, all of which are expensive. Especially considering how much H&S is in the spotlight at theme parks, you have to wonder at what potentially spending hundreds of thousands of pounds becomes worth it, when they are going to have to do it again and again. And then what would happen if it ever became listed; they could potentially end up with a ride which isn't safe to run / too expensive to repair, but can't be torn down. Things like this aren't black and white. It's a shame what's happened, but you have to wonder how much time Wild Mouse really had in it. Maybe it had to go this year, maybe it didn't, but it really did seem like it could cause the place more problems than it's worth.

Tonight:

Trains are on the track! First test run either took place tonight or will take place tomorrow.

Did this the other day. It's fair to say that chucking more actors in a maze doesn't always make things better. However, the second half the maze (the Asylum-inspired section) is certainly a lot more intense, being surrounded by multiple actors and attacked from all angles. It's a shame there's still not a real ending though. The pre show is a mixed bag. Not having people knell loses the big Walking Dead/Negan link, and it makes it less dramatic. However picking people off one-by-one / in small groups is clever. Giving Negan a microphone is a welcome addition though (at least, I don't remember the actor having one last year?). It's hard to judge how popular / well received the maze is at the moment. Lots of people queued outside waiting for it to open, there was a reasonable sized queue all day, etc, so that's something. Whether it's proven to be a successful decision for the park we won't know until Fright Nights I guess.

This has been worked on for quite a while; good month or two. That news report came out within the last week, so just coincidence. But yes, fantastic to see, and certainly a step in the right direction (and in the 21st century).

It's not going to be that simple though, really, is it Coaster. The UK public best respond to new things being introduced within the park. Merlin have arguably dug themselves into a deeper hole by always adding new stuff too. Imagine if the park didn't introduce I'm a Celebrity, The Walking Dead The Ride, Living Nightmare Extreme and other small investments with potentially limited lifespans and high operation costs, and that money was saved over, say, 5 years for opening Loggers. There would be less guests coming, guests would be less satisfied since there's nothing new at all, and the money that would have been invested elsewhere still hasn't made its way into Loggers yet. That means less profit for the park, which means more cuts, and more pressure to spend money on a quick fix to help make a long term plan actually work. There are of course other potential things to invest in, which may last longer, but I don't think Thorpe are in a position to simply not invest.

This week is clearly the week to be finishing off European coasters.

If any attraction isn't open for whatever reason, they close the queue line so no one can enter. They're logic, quite sensibly, is that if an attraction is unavailable, people shouldn't be able to join a queue for it. It's probably nothing serious. Mazes stop running for a variety of reasons, maybe an actor was accidentally hit, maybe someone was too scared and ran and tripped, maybe a lightbulb needed replacing. It was open again so it's no big issue and nothing to worry about.

The start section after the Negan pre show was sort of multi-route for a bit (though they ended up creating a more forced route later in the event I think?), so that might be why you've seen extra rooms. The chair scene isn't new, though I never had any interaction with it during my run-throughs last year.

It's (essentially) finished! Source - SkyScraperCity About bloody time too!

The ride did in fact re-open later as well!

You won't get permission to film on the rides. Usually they only give permission for big companies / shows, and you would have to go through significant H&S checks before filming on each ride.

Exact source unknown

I imagine it's more a case of something they've been able to print overnight. Certainly not a sign you print out as a 'just in case'.

Much like every other year, I stopped paying attention after December. 4th is still Champions League though right...

Europa's website and app are experiencing some difficulties, but here is what their temporary website is saying