JoshC.

Legoland are getting a new 4D film this year, themed around Ninjago, along with some Ninjago themed rooms. There's also going to be some American themed Miniland stuff. All in all, a decent quiet year for the park in my books.

There's murmurs that the world first claim was only meant to be used for the name announcement (to grab the attention of people a bit more), and for it to disappear shortly after. So potentially this is a load of rubbish and the change occurred of Towers' own accord.

Also, for those curious, it has been confirmed that the Rapids will be open from start of season, in the 'open by 11am' category.

Towers should invest in a Vekoma boomerang, so their coasters go back on themselves as well...

So the park are going to retheme their rapids ride, which is currently a rip off of the Neverending Story: IMA score are doing the music (after having done the music for the Star Trek coaster), and it'll be themed around King Arthur/ Merlin. An...interesting choice. Would have much preferred them to just revamp / tart up what they had rather than change it all up, but I guess we have to embrace the new. More interesting that they're going to be in one sense competing with Toverland theme-wise, since their new land is similarly themed. In other news, there's also rumours that the park's indoor water ride Bermuda Triangle, which is fab and weird and fun, might be entering its last season in 2018. If so, that's a real tragedy.

Best place to put this really... http://www.cdapress.com/local_news/20180123/best_grandpa_ever The owner of RMC's manufacturing firm is going to build a 100ft tall, 1800ft long Raptor track (single rail) coaster in his yard, "for his granddaughters" this summer. Because why not? How long till the goons knock at his door claiming to be some long lost illegitimate grandchild, just for the rare Coaster Count points?

Chessington have confirmed that Land of the Tiger and, as such Tiger Rock will be opening on May 5th. They have also said that the the for new tigers are coming from Kolmarden, Sweden. Interesting that it's taking 8 months for them to get this done. Presumably that's more down to get the animal enclosures built and prepared, rather than extensive work to the ride itself?

TUNNEL!

Should be mentioneded how this is actually an improvement compared to last season. Rumba Rapids, Storm Surge and Samurai all opened at 11am, but they're now presumably on 10am openings. The late opening of DBGT must surely partially be a response to the fact they struggle to get it open with the park. They've tried for the best part of 2 seasons to get it open on time, and it rarely did. We can moan about its lack of reliability till the end of time, but if the park have realised that, for now, they can't say with confidence they'll get it open at 10, then I guess it's better to set more realistic expectations for guests. The opening of Saw Alive is odd. Like, really odd. Though I guess with the "year of The Walking Dead" motive, scare attractions will happen. Makes me wonder if Living Nightmare, or dare I say Containment, will make an appearance or two...

Nice aerial view from the park showing the site and what track has been installed. Didn't realise how close it was going to be to Balder...

A twist in the tale... https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/efteling-gaat-uitbreiden-en-opent-nieuwe-attractie-in-2020~a73bf047/ Efteling's director has seemingly hinted that the 2020 thing won't be a coaster... Efteling are able to build up to around the 60m mark on the land they're expanding into, but that seems to be for the distant future in the remaining 5 hectare expansion. This part of the expansion will add to the Reizenrijk area, which is loosely themed around travelling, and includes the Pagode, Vogel Rok and Carnival Festival. So really, it could be themed around anything. A flying theatre would be a likely option I reckon. Suits Efteling down to a tee, suits the theme and explains the 'not small but won't make you scream' idea. At the same time, part of me hopes for something else - would love to see a log flume a la Chiapas and that'd be a great space for one...

Interesting how Towers made a Wickerman post a couple of hours after all this was announced, talking about finding a hidden clue in the poster, which was naturally overrun with backlash over this. Seen some speculation that Towers did this on purpose to try and get the powers above to give them more money so they could reconsider these changes. Those opening hours are bad. Very bad. Dread to think what the mornings will be like when one of the Intamins throws a hissy fit or or lovely new GCI has some teething problems...

Isn't it more of a sponsorship as opposed to an actual IP? Like how Skips sponsored Dragon's Fury when it opened, but it was never the 'Skips Coaster' (couldn't think of a better example, sorry).

Snow isn't stopping them... From SkyScraperCity

As far as I know, it's still standing. The chances of another park buying it are basically zero, due to the sheer amount of work it would need.

I guess Thorpe (and by extension, Merlin) have sort of dug themselves a hole with small investments. Thorpe had its accelerated growth / development period in the early 2000s, which continued for the rest of the decade, throwing in new investments every year, and each year those were worthwhile, needed investments which added to the line up and help them grow. It set them apart, in that whilst every other park would have a year or two (or longer) with nothing new, Thorpe could shout 'look at us, we have new stuff'. Do that for long enough, and the public expect something new every year. If Thorpe didn't, they'd potentially lose visitors 'because there's nothing new'. It worked well in the naughties, and it worked well in the early 2010s when Chessington and Towers adopted those strategies. But there's only so much worthwhile stuff you can add before it becomes fad stuff / short term investments for the sake of it. Very few large / established parks have good 'small years'; many will just add nothing at all. And that's fine, because they've established themselves as somewhere that doesn't need new stuff to bring visitors back every year. Merlin haven't been able to establish that thought process with their UK market, and it's what sets them apart in Europe. Thorpe have struggled the most out of the parks with small investments, thanks to changing target markets and whatever else..

To be fair, Wickerman and Icon are huge investments for their respective parks. The Safe Zone thing is a very small thing, which is more likely there to represent a 'look at us we do have something new' style investment, which Thorpe have done since seemingly forever. If you look at their other small investments, they're always announced late. And in some cases, like the original X retheme, they didn't even announce it, it just sort of...appeared..

A collection of mine through the years... And a lovely TPM thing...

Duel has been earmarked for refurbishment this winter since last closed season, and was hinted at on the TLC page a week or so ago, so a case of watch this space I guess!

So after all that, the park have decided to go back to their old slogan, Hard Gaan. Because, y'know...

More photos of an airtime hill featuring AIRTIME From Club PBE Facebook From Temleh on Coasterforce Oof.

Ooh, another thing I forgot to mention.. On the 'An Island Like No Other' track (which I believe specifically plays on the bridge?), there's a nice mix of all the sounds of the island. There's a nice section after The Swarm noise which is surely perfect for Swarm - hope that this year new music for Swarm is on the cards, and that it ends up being a longer version of what we can hear there!

The third, and final, part of Nemesis TLC has been taking place... https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=402095776883777&id=215306002229423 Regardless of anyone's opinion of how the TLC is being presented, this IS good and great to see they did follow through with it.

This ought to Mack up for the loss though... From Inawe Media I think this is largely the second half of the coaster (though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!)

Gold standard effort from Liseberg, as first piece of track on Valkyria was installed this week...