JoshC.

Smiler's exit platform is large, but I seem to remember the space between rows is pretty tight. It'd be especially tight if someone decided to sit down and you tried to get past. At least with Oblivion there's enough room to get through, albeit a bit awkwardly, when people are sat down. Hopefully staff do assist with bags on Smiler, it'd make sense and solve the problem quite easily. If not though..

The most recent MTDP expired in 2016 I think, so those numbers would be obsolete now, since they would have to submit plans from scratch effectively, rather than under that. The actual height ceiling for Thorpe is like 500ft, but Thorpe would never build anything of that height for several reasons. Getting anything above 200ft would be a big ask to keep the locals onside, but who knows. The length thing is self-imposed, and not really a restriction - that was more Thorpe saying to the council "just to let you know, we don't plan on building a coaster over 850m in length between 2010-2016".

The original plan was for the first launch to be enclosed, and there would be some kind of scene in there (probably something linked to time travelling with clocks and stuff), however that was cut. Whether they're planning on building that scene for next year, they couldn't get a rolling launch retrofitted into the tech or they simply decided to just cut the building and keep the stop out of silliness is unclear though.

lol... So, for those who have missed it, during the Annual Pass day this Sunday, the marque will be transformed into 'eXpo:\2018', which will be a celebration of X:\No Way Out / X. Details are a bit scarce at the moment, but we can expect a few talks (confirmed talks from John Burton, Thorpe's creative based at MMM, who will also talk a bit about The Walking Dead - The ride and from our good friend Phill of Memories of Thorpe Park), free pop badges and probably some old concept art, plans, the appearance of one of the old No Way Out cars and a few other surprises... No doubt we at TPM will provide you with all the juicy details...

Putting bags in the station works on some rides, and others it doesn't. Rides where there's plenty of space (both getting through seats and at the exit area of the station) don't see major issues with placing bags in the station as there's enough room. B&M inverts are a great example, but also GCIs and Macks too. Colossus, and presumably Smiler, will be examples where tabt doesn't work so well, simply because it's difficult squeezing through seats. There's no one size fits all approach to storing bags. But the best way to ensure bag storage doesn't negatively affect operations and guests is to think about it when designing the station / queue and working through it like, rather than retrofitting ideas which definitely won't work years down the line...

Looks good. Shame the video had those silly slow-mo bits cut in for no reason, but I digress... Yeah, I imagine this is the slowest it can go, so if anything it'll be a bit quicker / snappier. So good to see Mack goodness grace the UK

And the SPOV, for those interested..

Warwick Castle have been doing some hinting towards something new coming this summer on social media... A rather simple tagline of "A forgotten legend resurrected ... Summer 2018. Official announcement 21.3.18" They've literally been plastering Facebook and Twitter with this all month, which is unusual as - in the rare event they do do something - they rarely push it this much. Maybe they're just changing marketing tactics to get a bit more attention (in which case, it's worked, cos I'm posting it here...). Or maybe it's something a bit more exciting / interesting / expensive than what they've done in the past. It's probably nothing, but maybe worth keeping an eye on just in case...

Well this is opening very soon, and we have a press launch today. Here's a POV of the ride, with no spinning: The cars would be spinning from the moment it leaves the station. Unfortunately, however, the stop on the first launch is a thing for when the ride opens, which really kills the momentum really (the cars won't be spun back into any sort of alignment either, which makes it even worse). Still, looks like a decent enough ride, and it's fantastic to see spinners developing more. I expect we'll see a spinning POV soon enough..

By this logic, you would also have to rule out GCI, because Mack are their European sellers in effect, much like Vekoma's relationship with RMC. I see no reason why Vekoma couldn't be used. They're the company with the most coasters built (granted, that's largely down to clones, but still), so they've got the resources to deal with many many projects. Similarly with Mack too. Rita and Stealth happened in the space of 2 years, and Tussauds made sure speed was the big marketing push (Stealth has the height factor too, but speed was the main push). So never count it out! If Thorpe were to go for a much bigger GCI coaster (say market it as that "pushes the boundaries of what wood can do" or whatever). And that's true for any woodie tbf. I can never remember where I heard it, but one rumour that sticks in my mind is that Merlin aren't keen on RMC due to the accident that happened on New Texas Giant a few years back (though technically that was more a Gerstlauer fault, but I imagine Merlin aren't keen on them at the mo either..). It may sound silly, but if they've got any doubt that the company might not see safety in the same way they do, it might rule them out from the word go. At the moment, I don't see anything that B&M offer that would really fit for Thorpe. I mean, sure, they could get a 'mini-hyper' and chuck in lots of airtime, but there's plenty of other manufacturers which can produce similar rides (and arguably have a wider portfolio of existing rides which suit the size Thorpe are going for). I'm not saying there's nothing B&M can offer, or that B&M won't happen, but I just don't see why Thorpe would opt for them. I'd love to see a Mack or Vekoma personally. Their latest stuff is always looking fantastic and is always received well. Mack might be pricey, but they'll be worth it. Vekoma might be a bit of a risk, but they'll be worth it. Failing that, Intamin can produce some blinders of a ride every now and then - if we got a good one, would anyone really complain? I'm also not ruling out a launch coaster yet. I'm sure Merlin have taken note of the successes of rides like Taron and Helix, but also the popularity of semi-shuttle launches which Mack in particular are churning out. I'm sure they could create a launch coaster which isn't so fast that it negates Stealth, but is interesting enough in its own right. And I'm sure they could play on 'the fastest/tallest/longest triple launch coaster in Europe' or whatever if necessary.

It lives!

That first picture

So Efteling reportedly received 5.2m visitors in 2017, a near-10% increase compared to 2016. The park aimed to reach 5 million visitors by 2020. So clearly Symbolica and the new accommodation where a massive hit with guests, as well as their continually expanding marketing approach. The next milestone target is to safely be between 6-7m visitors by 2030, which is when they'll have fully finished the park expansion, along with plenty of other resort expansions too. If the park continues to invest as it's done over the past few years, I wouldn't be surprised if they edge towards the 6m mark by 2025...

Resurrecting this thread (and renaming it), cos we don't reallllllllly need a thread for each Six Flags park. Surprised this hasn't cropped up on here before now though... Six Flags Fiesta Texas are getting an RMC Raptor (single rail) coaster. It's started to do test runs: It looks bloody quick and intense. Ugly too. But quick, intense, snappy, and perhaps a tiny bit terrifying.

The Single Rider Queue on Smiler (and pretty much every other ride at Towers except Spinball..) is gone. One clear reason for this is to reduce staff numbers, as now the bag room and batch host are no longer there, with these lovely boxes on the station instead: Image from TowersStreet Facebook

Nice video from Energylandia, show current state of construction site: And a couple of photos posted by PabloA on CoasterForce... It's getting there. Slowly. But it's getting there.

I like how Icon and BPB are on the front row. But I've seen bin juice that looks more attractive than the colour scheme.

From Towers Times' Facebook... On that note, this Meet the Makers event did give the opportunity for those who went to ride. As such, there will be photos of the pre show, ride station and other indoor areas which people may wish to not see until they ride. If you do decide to post pictures of the inside of the experience, or explain in-depth what happens, please use spoiler tags to do this. If there is enough demand (which I doubt because interest in this hasn't exactly been sky high on here), we can temporarily create a spoiler thread for the attraction until it's been open for a couple of weeks, after which spoilers are normally fair game. *Removes mod hat* Thanks!

Oh look, the finished entrance, featuring no plain beams or scaffolding. Image from Towers Street, who are at a pre-opening event.

^And the entrance to Blue Fire is just divine too...

Good front-facing picture of the entrance feature. Image from Merlin Magic Marking's Instagram:

Must admit that my visit over Winteraum was awful. Literally couldn't load anything on my phone. And that was the same for the surrounding area too. My previous visits had been better, it was rather slow, but I could at least load stuff. So I don't know if over the past few months they've removed old stuff to make way for this, or if it just came down to luck..

The 4-10pm ticket is fantastic, exactly what they should be doing. And so cheap too! I believe Summer Nights tickets for non-AP holders were £15, that was only 3 hours worth of riding and towards the end, the event was reasonably busy. So that should be a hit once they start advertising that. Fastrack system is interesting. I know some other parks do these styles of package, where you buy X amount of tickets which could be use on a variety of different rides, the same ride multiple times or get one group onto one ride, and it seems to work well. But admittedly that's at European parks where these systems are less popular. Will be interesting to see how it operates; like will you have to choose the rides when you buy, will Fastrack tickets be scanned at the rides somehow, will allocations be less? Off peak and peak pricing is a good idea though. Regardless of how busy it is, people will buy Fastrack, yet will complain that it's not value for money if they buy on a quiet day. Reducing the cost may get a couple more people buying them, but drastically increase satisfaction of those buying them. And if the park can run properly with rides, it'll work out well..

More details on the Duel TLC, which does sound very extensive and serious: https://www.facebook.com/AltonTLC/posts/422001424893212

So Phantasialand used to have the worst phone signal in existence (and their free-to-use WiFi was poorly advertised and unreliable). But now, they've added in new transmission towers to help improve phone signals for everyone. And, to make sure it doesn't spoil the theming, they've all been disguised so no one can see them. https://phantasialandblog.de/fuer-vollen-empfang-der-unsichtbare-sendemast/ Now Mega-Lite can give us live updates of how much he loves the park during his next visit...joyous...