JoshC.

If you mean in terms of whether it'll be open, I see no reason why it wouldn't be. Project seems to be on or ahead of schedule and could probably open to the public tomorrow if they wanted. Of course, still expect the odd teething problem as with any new thing, and expect it to be busy and swarming with enthusiasts. But I'd be very confident of you being able to go and ride it and enjoying a day at the park..

That launch track is a lot shorter than I expected (even taking into account perspective and whatnot). From my experience of Mack launches, their acceleration on the launches is always a bit of a minus point, but this looks like it could buck that trend.

A nice overview of Tiki Waka, featuring a completed lift hill... Image from Wonder World's Facebook I'm also under the impression that the layout will differ slightly to the video linked a while back, but that's not confirmed..

Couple of construction images from Toverland Fansite's Twitter... Overview of Avalon. Left hand side is Fenix's station, middle build is the new restaurant, building near the bottom is the boat ride's station. Given there's just over 4 months till this is scheduled to be open, I'm a bit concerned. Though B&Ms always seem to fly up these days.. The entrance area is coming along nicely though, with theming already showing. Feel a bit more confident that that may be ready come July 7th...

Quoting this so we can bathe in Steven's wrongness in a little over 3 weeks' time.

The park have given a sneak peek of the TUNNEL... Oh also, there's more supports.

Optimistic but realistic too. The VIP holders are too busy in the marquee enjoying their free dinner buffet and what have you to really bother with the rides. On these days there's usually quite a lot about, but you don't really notice them..

Fastrack is there for hotel guests, but that's only till 11am as per normal. And the VIP holders will have little impact Fastrack-wise.

There'll also be no Fastrack sold on the AP day. In other news, parking now costs £7 per car this season.

I think this is a point which can't be stated enough. X was a ride which could be enjoyed by children pretty much from 3-4 upwards. That has now been taken away, and actively replaced by something for 13+. Even during Thorpe's thrill capital / fathead days, things which were for the younger audience remained, it was just the less important attractions that remained. X is a huge ride for the younger audience, so having taken away is more damaging than any previous investment that knocked the younger audience. The plans said there would be no changes to the roller coaster inside. So there'll be no retracking, trick track or anything like that. We might get new trains, or at the very least a new design to cover the existing trains, but that'd be it. The Year of The Walking Dead is there to encourage people to visit multiple times, what with the combination of special events and super cheap Thorpe Annual Pass. If it gets more people buying Annual Passes this year, a percentage increase in visitors that is better than, say, 2010->2011 or 2013->2014 (the year after the 2 year push of a major addition has finished), then it's been successful. If so, it then gives Thorpe more leverage to say "look, having special events and later openings at the park works - we need more money for this!". If that's how it plays out, I'd see that as a good thing in the long run. I think this is also another issue which people here seemed to forget. In its X incarnation, there was no clear market for the ride. It had a 1m height restriction, which instantly meant to the more thrill-oriented people dismissed it even before riding it. But the loud music, the lack of explanation as to what it was made families more cautious of taking younger visitors on it. Many people had no clue what it was at all, in a bad way. Though it was an 'all ages' attraction, there was a lot of reasons why anyone of any age would be sceptical or avoiding of the attraction, especially as a first time visitor. There's potential for this to be a good experience for the scare seeking market. X:\NWO was designed as a 1.4m attraction which had multiple sections to it, including pre and post ride experiences. The roller coaster was only ever meant to a part of that. By bringing in other experiences to the ride, even if it's just a pre show and special effects on the brakes, they could create something which brings the ride more in line to its first plan. Of course, that does nothing to help the fact it reduces the family line up, but it could still be good in its own right.

Looking forward to seeing what other special effects are to come - but that does look very nice!

Another tweet: This comes off the back of Thorpe saying they're announcing the "headliner" for The Year of The Walking Dead on Tuesday.

I believe that the final part of the coaster (ie the part that is on the car park in that visual) is being re-landscaped, and there'll be a pond / splash effect around that bit. So makes it a bit better.

Six consecutive posts in one thread is surely a new record for me...Guess I'm the only one excited HYPEd for this hear... Anyways, more track: And a slightly older visual showing how it's progressed: Both from SkyScraperCity forums.

Source - https://twitter.com/veilstrup/status/965176738002161664

Whoops. Turns out the area will be called 'Exotic World'. Along with Tiki Waka and Tiki Trail, which will also go other the park's boat ride, the façades for the arena (still-disused) and Challenge of Tutankhamon will get makeovers to fit in with the area. There's also going to be a new juice and cocktail bar, and new music by IMA score, the second time the park have worked with them, after Pulsar. In other news, there's no news regarding the 2021 mega coaster - any layouts shown are just to give a rough indication of what is expected, and no manufacturer has been confirmed. But it is still going to happen.. Also, the Coccinelle kiddie coaster, which was removed to make way for Tiki Waka and meant to go next to the park's woodie this year, is apparently now going to be put in storage until that area is rethemed in 2021. So one cred in, one cred out. Unacceptable.

Great minds think alike...or at least that's how I've convinced myself to steal your thoughts... The trials were met with the same confusion that Thorpe had really, along with a fair few technical hitches. In some ways it was worse because people couldn't join a normal queue if they wanted, but it was at least all inclusive thanks to the machines outside the ride. But I guess Efteling have enough faith in the system to continue with it. Or invested too much money that they don't want to give it up so quickly.

But when some are going to the level of rolling their eyes at the 'first woodie in 20+ years' or saying it's not true because one was rebuilt, it is that level. It's a clear, legitimate fact which will capture people's attention. Why shouldn't they use that, regardless of how it looks? I get why people have concerns, and I share a few of them myself. My biggest one still remains about are we getting another Th13teen, in that people will expect too much and be disappointed. Because if they are, it'll bring success for one year, then leave a lull for a year or two where people don't bother with the park, which is the last thing Towers or Merlin want. Who knows, but we'll see. As Robert.W said, it's been mentioned on other forums that the effects are planned to be looked after by the same team who build and maintain the Scarefest attractions. Assuming they've got enough resources, this means there's a better chance they'll be operational more often, and takes the pressure off the engineers (who would normally do it). Fortunately that hype hasn't spilled over here as much. But it's crazy how people hear one person (who's probably staff at the park anyway) say 'it's got more airtime than Wodan' or 'it's the best thing since sliced bread', believe them and then set expectations higher than the moon...

In interesting news, it turns out that Efteling viewed the recent trial of a Reserve n Ride style system as a success, and will be continuing with the trials when Python reopens in a month and a half's time. The coaster's queue is receiving modifications whilst it is being rebuilt, which will include a SRQ (after successfully implementing it on Baron and Symbolica), so it'll be interesting to see whether the new queue is built with RnR in mind. Furthermore, the park will trial RnR on Symbolica on selected dates too. They want to see if it'll be successful on a ride that's more centrally located, more popular / newer and has wider appeal. Given Symbolica had a decent throughput and was still gaining huge queues, it'll be interesting to see how that goes down. The RnR system differs to Thorpe's one in 2 major ways: 1) No normal queue. You book your slot, turn up, and join a small buffer queue which will be limited to - at most - 15 minutes. 2) You can book your slot via a machine. You can either use your phone to reserve a slot, or go outside the ride and pick a paper copy of the reservation. As I've said before, if RnR is going to work anywhere, it'll be Efteling, because of their large selection of other things to do. But at the same time, I heard mixed reviews of the original trial, and I can easily see people being lost half way through the Fairytale Forest, for example, when their time slot is due...

The nitpicking in this thread is unbelievable. Imagine of forums like this were rife in the early SWs... "Europe's first inverted coaster" "but but but what about Vampire, not exactly true!!!!" "The world's first vertical drop coaster" "but but but it's only 88.8 degrees!!!" "The world's first next generation flying coaster" "but but but what does next generation MEAN, there's been lots of other flying coasters!!!" It's the first new woodie in 20+ years. It's something to brag about just a tiny bit, after fans and some of the public have wanted for ages. Better than some forced tagline, or a "so much fire is used we've had to forewarm the local hospital's burns unit just in case..." line. Also, literally everywhere makes their products look better for promotional images, not just theme parks. You going to moan that the Big Mac doesn't look exactly like it does on the board at McDonald's? You going to moan that the buttons on that new shirt you bought aren't as shiny as it was on the retailer's website? In saying that, I'm curious as to how the effects will look in the daylight. They've said they're using effects to give the illusion of fire - I've only ever seen that done in lower level lighting at a particular angle. So it'll be interesting to see how they're going to be setting fire to the Wickerman at all angles in all lighting levels.

The park have released a couple more details about the coaster, including the name - Tiki Waka: And some images from Coasters World... The area, which will be the first 'World of Walibi' to be created under the new brand, will be called Tiki, and there'll also be a jungle trail thing - called Tiki Trail - which weaves round the coaster. The whole thing looks great. I like the name, the concept for the cars are fab, the colour scheme is great. This is shaping up to be a fantastic investment.

Double post but oh well... Another photo of the photo box, showing the contents: The pin badge, USB stick, wooden block, (cardboard) photo frame and lanyard are all exclusive to the box and presumably won't be sold in any other way. You all get the certificate and jazz like that. That is definitely not as good as marketed. Sounded like it was giving you a piece of wood of a similar size to what was sold during Scarefest, a lenticular photo frame, etc. Still don't have a problem with the product, but the pricing is all wrong - it should be closer to the £30-40 in my opinion (because it is EXCLUSIVE and limited and all that). I can't see them changing the price now, but I really think they've mucked up there..

That's the way the industry is heading though. People respond best to "World's first...", "Continent's first...", "Country's first..." or "The (tallest/fastest/longest/steepest)..." or "Most expensive..." these days. It's not just Merlin who do it, you look throughout America and it's everywhere. Across Europe, the likes of Phantasialand, Efteling and Liseberg do it, but so too are the Walibi parks, the Poland parks and everywhere in between. People may not like it, but that's how the industry is responding to get the attention of the masses. So it's not really people's stupidity. Of course, the key is to build a quality park and have these attractive headlines to go with it. Get guests to come for the "world's whatever", but stay for the park..

Similar thing was done with Rise of the Demon around this time last year. Personally, I'm not sure how effective this type of marketing is, but nice to see Thorpe experimenting more I guess. Doesn't really help that people are either disinterested at this stage, or just don't know what's going on.

Pfft, Taron's first airtime hill tries to fling me into the heart of Brühl... Plus its sideways flicks make up for the lesser amount of airtime for me.. [/Leave_Taron_Alone.gif]