JoshC.

You'll also have had Amity Kebabs and Colossus Hot Dogs open, as well as Coffee Shack in the Dome, which is run by the F&B department. The place outside the BBQ which serves Proper Cornish might also have opened for a couple of hours too. All other places do open on busier days. Still, your point stands that the choice isn't the greatest, and certainly a lot more limited compared to previous seasons. Hopefully with Sticky Sisters and The Grill (replacing the Hot Dog place in Old Town) coming soon, that'll add to the choice, and hopefully quality. Don't think it's been mentioned in the forums yet, but the Coffee place by Tidal Wave is being turned into a place that serves churros!!

The packages for the rides let you 'mix and match' what rides you go on, and have no time restriction on. For example, their roller coaster package gives you 5 Fastrack rides, and you can choose to do 1 ride on each coaster, have 1 person do 5 rides on 1 coaster, have 5 people do 1 ride on 1 coaster, etc. Must admit I was dubious about it at first, but they seem to have got the numbers right. And if it works like many other European parks who offer similar Fastpass style packages, where they've taken inspiration from, that's only going to be a good thing.

Not that I disagree, but I do think that having multiple queuing options can work provided those lines are designed and managed properly. This is where Merlin parks falter in particular - they've either retrofitted Fastrack and Disabled access queue lines into their attractions (major rides pre-2004 for Fastrack, and arguably all rides pre-2013 for Disabled access) or they're managed poorly, with staff doing terrible ratios. I must confess that Thorpe's new Fastrack system has worked well so far this year. Admittedly the system hasn't been put under the pressure of a hugely busy day yet, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes then. A good system is a good start to ironing out the flaws with it all.

In fairness, Europa, Phantasialand and Efteling are three of the biggest-investing parks in Europe. They're all super easily accessible and are almost always guaranteed to deliver great rides and great days out (unless you're @Mega-Lite and you're trying to use the toilet at Phantasialand apparently ). I agree there's plenty of quality parks often overlooked - Parc Asterix was ridiculously overlooked last year with Pegasus Express, even if reviews of it ended up being lukewarm. Hansa Park is probably another park you throw into the almost completely overlooked category. But I guess that's the beauty of Europe. We've got plenty of big name parks that deliver, but then we've got lots more smaller scale parks which are equally capable of doing something fantastic.

Thing is, Walking Dead was never meant to be available for the Annual Pass Preview Day before season started. It was just an extra bonus, since there was never a plan for there to be an AP Preview event for the ride (which in itself isn't great, but neither here nor there). It's good to see them continually try and push the value of an Annual Pass with this exclusive perks, especially when it's so dirt cheap, but I do agree it seems silly having a big push on The Year of TWD and then cut it off for non-AP holders at special events. Cutting off the nose to spite the face springs to mind.

During my visit last year, staff were very happy to staple you in on Helix and Balder (though didn't bother to check bars on Lisebergbanan lol). Never recall hearing that in reviews before, so I wonder if it's just something people overlooked / didn't affect them, or if that was a new thing last year ish? Could be an overarching explanation for the seatbelts though. Internal reviews showed that guests wanted / needed to be felt more secure on those rides, so they've made car checking more obvious, and now added a tertiary restraint to Helix to drive it home?

It's not exactly a flattering angle, is it - especially up close. No GCI, but an RMC..

The drop is finished! Posted by Testing Attractions on Facebook.

Just another reason why Taron is better than Helix now But yeah, that sucks. Goodness knows why they'd do that to be honest...

The conversation with myself continues... Posted on SSC That drop is BEAUTIFUL

The park have released a small 'backstory' to Valkyria, as well as the area it forms with Balder and Loki: https://www.liseberg.se/valkyria/backstory/ Always nice seeing these little tidbits!

Some noticeable progress in Rookburgh..

That is without discount, but that is indeed available.

Tried Sombrero's Burrito Bar for the first time yesterday, and it's pretty decent. The burritos are big, completely filled and filling. It's a bit pricey (£5.95 for a burrito by itself, £8.50 for meal with nachos and a drink), but you do get a lot for your money. The biggest downside is that extras for the nachos (cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole) all cost an extra £1 per extra. Bit cheeky that.

It's interesting, because I saw a Blackpool TV ad a couple of weeks back (the first time I'd ever seen one actually..), but no mention of Icon. No mention of special offers. Literally just a bog standard 'Come visit Blackpool Pleasure Beach's advert. You'd think, even with no opening date set at the time, they'd be pushing a huge new coaster any way possible. But no.

She grows...

Off the top of my head, I don't think so, but I'm not certain. Usually with these sorts of things the parks set a date as to when they'll open them during the winter period, and then do work (repainting / deep cleaning) up until that opening date. Unfortunately that means when we get nicer weather earlier in the year, the parks can't open them.

The beach is not currently open, and probably won't be until sometime in May (likely May half term if previous years is anything to go by).

99% certain the grey is an undercoat.

I can promise you that it was just lights and sticks. There was no train front, no cut out or anything like that. It was lights and sticks and nothing more. I've tried looking at POVs to try and show it, but I can't find one that gives a decent view of it. It caused problems for a variety of reasons. It not triggering, for no reason, was a big one. It's like it had a mind of its own; throwing a hissy fit and not moving. Whether it was lights on a stick or a train front would make no difference, since the mechanism and arm that moved it would be significantly heavier and the reason for it not working. I really hate to bang on the same point, but it definitely was just lights on a stick. The fact you thought otherwise shows just how good that illusion was, so the ride must have been doing something right

I love that touch of interactivity - each tour has its own thing: Music tour has the instruments, Hero tour has fighting knight armour and Treasure tour has some magic diamond. Certainly not underrated by those who have ridden it, but I'd say it's being overlooked. I think it's a fantastic dark ride that really showcases modern technology and super well-themed. Yet it just seems to have slipped under the radar for so many across a large part of the enthusiast community, for...who knows why.. I agree that the touch screens are a bit pointless and confusing though. Story is fine though - you're going to meet the King, Pardoes comes along and takes you on a secret tour, things go a bit wrong, but it ends up okay and you meet the King (and he's probably too drunk to even notice if anything went wrong...)

Fenix is making real progress...

The park will extend closing time if they think the park is going to be significantly busier than expected, if ride reliability has been particularly poor or if there's been other issues. It's usually up to the duty manager of the park for the day to decide if closing is extended. Today the weather was very nice and the park started off very busy (apparently there were extremely long queues to buy tickets?). So they probably decided to err on the side of caution, stay open later (to a time which until this year was actually standard for them really), and deal with guest complaints before they even happened. Good move really.

What did you think of Symbolica? That ride is a genuine masterpiece in how it looks and flows, but feels criminally overlooked at the moment with so much other exciting stuff going on in the industry..

For those planning an opening visit, Icon opens on 25th May...