JoshC.

ha, that's a neat little video. Nice to see them building hype up - should be remembered that a large proportion of the general public still would have no idea that Cabin wasn't returning. I still wished they'd just announced the IP already, since if it is what all the clues point to, it'd be a big enough draw and the park could spin it enough to build hype in it's own regard for the next few weeks. But I'm sure they know what they're doing. Does anyone recognise the music used in that video btw? Is it standard creepy stock audio? Related to any particular IP? Would be nice if we could get another FN IMA Score soundtrack!

Concept art for the new entrance... Hopefully this is reflected in reality!

Yay, more construction updates, this time from PhantaFriends.de... Twisty track More supports! Really expect this thing to...F.L.Y. up...

I like it - it's more a fresh take on the Colossus theme, including the 'Sound of the Island' tune, as opposed to a completely new soundtrack.

There were extremely high wind speeds round Thorpe for a short period of time, causing the majority of rides to shutdown. The only rides unaffected were X, Ghost Train and I'm a Celeb, however Ghost Train had an issue at the same time. An unavoidable issue unfortunately. This is also a prime example of why queue times shouldn't be available outside the park. Overkeen enthusiasts follow them too much and judge them despite not knowing any context (seen plenty of 'enthusiasts' slamming the park on FB).

It's been posted on the Official MAP Facebook page by them. I was half-expecting it to be taken down this morning and some sort of 'sorry we were hacked' post, but alas not. So yeah, it's not fake, which is even more concerning.

I had a brief browse of the Facebook pages and missed that post completely, hence my scepticism! But yes, certainly gives off a darker tone than any other Chessington attraction I can remember. Not sure that they attract enough people interested in 'scary scary' mazes to warrant an attraction, so it'll be interesting to see what they're doing.

Is there anything to suggest that this is for Chessington? It's just a get a very Th13teen vibe off that image. That and it looks like it was done in 5 minutes, which makes me question it's legitimacy whatsoever.

They have said they're 'dropping...a world first' this summer, which doesn't necessarily mean they're opening one. It could just be an announcement of a world's first attraction. People need to remember that social media posts, especially ones like this which clearly aren't meant to receive much attention, will be very vague in what they actually say / mean, and shouldn't be read into that much. This is especially true when 99% of the park's audience don't know about this apparent world first. The Transformers Tour is weird; it seems to be going round the country and just gives people the chance to 'see' one of the things from the films (I believe it was / is at Paulton's?). It's a minor thing but surely both parties should know when it's happening, so it'd be better for everyone to reveal the dates sooner rather than later.

I'm guessing you didn't do Jungle Mission at Bellewaerde? A shame if so, since that's easily the best ride there. I found Huracan a bit of a disappointment, the queue a pre-lift section are fab, but the coaster section complete wastes the theme and is very average. It's just so sad. Sounds like you had a bit of bad luck with Plopsaland. My first visit (in 2015), we had a few shutdowns and rides not open, and last year was a bit lacking with no Heidi and Vleermuis. But generally operations have been decent and quick - especially considering most of their rides are 1 man ops - so it's a shame to hear you didn't see that good side.

WE HAVE VERTICAL CONSTRUCTION! Source - https://forum.nolimits-exchange.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4789&page=23#Item_14 Pretty much confirms Vekoma too.

WE HAVE VERTICAL CONSTRUCTION! Source - https://forum.nolimits-exchange.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=4789&page=23#Item_14 Pretty much confirms Vekoma too.

Basically nothing makes sense if you think about. And if you don't think about it everything is fine. But we can all agree American-voice man has an annoying voice.

The videos in the queue constantly refer to Thorpe Park. 'There's been an explosion at Thorpe Park, a Surrey-based theme park' 'We now have a resident from Penton Park on the phone, which is just opposite the park' 'We now go to our correspondent live from the park' You can totally rely on suspension of disbelief to gloss over it. Especially since the idea is more 'The Swarm are attacking everything that is seen as safe' and the videos were an afterthought. As far as I'm concerned though, if you can gloss over that, you can gloss over the fact it's an American accent (even if it sounds very grating).

The Swarm is set AT Thorpe Park. It is essentially about an alien race invading the park. Yet the station is a church, a building you would rarely see at a theme park. That's surely a bigger issue than an American accent? NB: I have no problem with the church, I find the whole idea / context brilliant. The big issue is how they thought 'let's set it at the park to try and make it relatable'.

>People moan that there's an American announcement for a coaster with a story set in Britain. >People don't moan that a coaster with a story set in a theme park has a station themed to a church. Good to see consistency in people's logic...

Cameras around the queue line track when people enter the queue and when they leave. This allows for the system to work out how many people are in the queue, calculate a throughput and calculate how long certain people are in the queue. Hence it can give accurate queue times. The system has been in place for a while and it seems to be accurate on the whole in my experiences (though I haven't queued since they've displayed to-the-minute queue times). It's not perfect and I know that it has been quite difficult to implement - certainly harder than it sounds - but I hope it does work and proves to be successful. I wouldn't expect it to be rolled out across other rides immediately because of the behind-the-scenes stuff involved, but it'd be nice if it could be widespread implemented in the future.

If you look at these types of rides at many other parks, they rarely have any queue most days. Look at the Merlin parks for a good example - you'll rarely see any of their Frog Hoppers or Rockin' Tugs with queues. And the only reason Sea Storm and Knight's Quest get queues is because they'd be considered as 'bigger rides'. Having small queues as opposed to no queue (and no one riding them!) shows that there is demand for them, and the right level of it too. Same with you!

For those interested, the rotational operation on the Old Town rides has been scrapped. Currently Rocky Express opens at park opening, Timber Tug at 11 and Lumber Jump at 12. The area is reasonably lively, with all rides having smallish queues - the demand is there!

Don't get me wrong, the theming in the queue is great. But it never felt like it fit in with the ride to me; it feels very disjointed. Maybe it's because I've always been on it when it's walk on so have never had time to truly take it in. But the ride itself is so disappointing anyway that it can't be saved by a good queue. I didn't find the good cycle theatrical, but I'be only had it once, so a reride would help in making my mind up there.

Are they finally building a high speed rail link to Chessington then? I remember a lot of people saying that Thorpe would look terrible compared to Universal when both parks did the Cabin in the Woods maze. But, at the time, people were impressed by Thorpe's effort and photos did make the two seem of similar quality. And Thorpe's scare tactics are very different to Universal's, so the way they are received is wildly different. As ever, any IP will have input into the quality of any attraction they're involved in. So there might not be any room for Merlin to muck up.

I never find Raik that good as an actual coaster. For the complete experience with the theming, effects and interaction with Klugheim, it's good. But the coaster experience is very average and I preferred Ben 10 in all honesty. Mystery Castle is highly overrated, I genuinely don't understand why people enjoy it. Plus the stupid different cycles that run randomly is mind boggling. Talocan is like every other top spin in my mind, it just so happens it looks a lot prettier. It's a shame you couldn't get River Quest or Maus done as they are 2 of the most memorable rides there - at least it gives you an excuse to go back...not that you need one!

Inferno has aged brilliantly, which is something so many people forget. It has a nice setting, some really forceful pops and a decent enough layout. I prefer Swarm, and that is also aging well (yay for B&M quality), but it's not surprising to see so many people loving Inferno. Just a shame it always feels like the middle child of the coasters.

Big Top and Saw Alive are confirmed to return, as they were mentioned on the website before the change, and also mentioned on the actor job description. Platform 15 was all but confirmed to return in our interview with Show Services: There's been no official confirmation on number of IPs though. Remember that if the park were to introduce a scare zone (be that a 'proper' scare like Towers have introduced / seen all over in America or a 'Merlin' scare zone like Dead End), they would no doubt class that as an attraction.

After another refreshing night at our hotel, we trekked on over to Plopsaland de Panne for Day 2. I'll keep this brief as I've babbled on about this loads before... We arrived at the park to be greeted by loads of school kids swarming about, so we headed straight for Heidi - The Ride, the park's coaster which was meant to be open last year but had loads of noise issues. It's a lot of fun. It holds its speed for most of the ride, features nice pops of airtime and the odd intense. It's practically a clone of White Lightning at Fun Spot America, so anyone who's ridden that will no doubt know what to expect. It's a bit on the short side, and it's a shame they didn't do more sound tunnels during the ride given all the extra fencing required. but it's still a very, very good family coaster and just what the park needed. We rode it 3 times during the course of day, including front and back, and it remained equally fun at all points - woohoo! One sad thing was how the ride opened on one train (fortunately we arrived just before all the school kids arrived to the coaster), and I imagine any sort of queue would then be painfully slow. Not to mention the queue is just a wooden, indoor cattlepen. It was also a 1-man op job at the time (like most of Plopsaland's rides!). However, it did go up to 2 trains later on, and at one point had 3 staff working on, easily the most I've ever seen working on 1 ride at Plopsa. Area looks nice They play the Heidi TV show in the queue, which has hilarious screenshots. We also finally got to do Vleermuis, the park's twin suspended batflyer coasters, which had been SBNO on our previous 2 visits. These had become a bit infamous for me, as they always looked 'fun' and odd, but their life at the park had come under question several times over the past few years. They're fun enough little coasters, even if they do kill you legs thanks to to tight restraints - worth a try if you ever visit I'd say. (I didn't get any good pictures, so check out RCDB for photos - https://rcdb.com/932.htm ) With the new stuff ticked off before 11, we then had 7 hours on park to just go around and enjoy the park, which has a solid selection of rides. Their Gerstlauer launch coaster Anubis proved great fun again, though I've noticed it can give uncomfortable rides on the back row which is a shame. Their Vekoma rollerskater, Rollerskater, had received some new theming which was nice to see. And despite all the school trips, and warm weather, we never really had to queue that long for anything, which is always a Plopsa plus! We then left and made our way to Leige, where we stayed in another hotel which looked like a prison on the outside, but was nice enough on the inside. We went to McDonald's for dinner, which served macarons as a dessert - good ol' Europeans! Day 3 then arrived, and it was time for another new park - Plopsa Coo! Plopsa Coo is situated in a very hilly (and picturesque!) part of Leige, and getting to it felt like going to a more complicated version of Alton Towers. The entrance to the car park appears out of nowhere, so the park is very well hidden amongst the countryside. Since we arrived super early, we had a wander around the car park and surrounding area, and accidentally stumbled upon the park's bobsleigh - literally the 'ride area' could be easily accessed from outside the park... Deciding not to venture any further to make sure we weren't kicked out before we even got in, we headed to the entrance, where the park promptly opened at 10am. Unsurprisingly, lots of school kids were about, and most headed straight to the park's headline spinning coaster, Vicky - The Ride (more on that later). The bobsleigh hadn't opened due to the rainy weather, and it didn't look like it would open any time soon (with rain and thunderstorms predicted for the whole day!). So we headed to the park's charlift... The chairlift was built long before a theme park existed on the site, and takes you 220m (~722ft) high (and the park itself is 240m above sea level!). At the top of the chairlift is a tower, which allows for some fantastic views of the surrounding area... You can vaguely see the park here. To the left is their measly 60m tall star flyer. The small hill on the right is where the bobsleigh is located. All in all, our time on the chairlift and tower took us about 45 minutes, which was a great way to start the day. Unfortunately the weather was still drizzly, so the bobsleigh still hadn't opened, and the front part of the park was swarming for kids, so we trekked to the back of the very small park. We ticked off a water slide and log flume, which were nice but nothing to write home about, before moving onto Halvar, the park's oldest coaster. It's a bog standard Vekoma coaster, but basically completely hidden behind loads of trees and such, which made the ride a bit more fun than it otherwise would have been. I didn't take any photos unfortunately, so check out RCDB - https://rcdb.com/931.htm We then moved onto the nearby Labyrinth, which was a big surprise of the whole trip really. It's an outdoor maze, made out of really tall wooden fences...with a twist. Throughout the maze are a series of locked doors, which you need a code to open. The code to each door is found by answering a question at a dead end of the maze. We had no idea what was going on until half way through the maze (thanks to us just following school kids through unlocked doors). Once we knew what was going on, it made the maze very interesting, and it's certainly a concept I'd like to try again! A question with 3 possible answers and corresponding codes. After a spot of lunch and some general wandering around the very small park, we headed over to Vicky - The Ride, which still had a very long queue. This Gerstlauer spinning coaster opened in 2011 and was pretty much our main reason for knowing the park existed! It looked pretty interesting, and had potential. After going through the very slow queue (we were essentially right next to the station and it took a good 30-40 minutes...), we were on, and were left disappointed. The layout doesn't lend itself to much spinning. The huge cars with inward-facing seats makes it difficult to get a good weight balance. And in general, it just felt a bit bland and meh. Maybe expectations were a little too high, but it was disappointing... Because of the constant on-off rain (though fortunately no thunderstorms!), the bobsleigh still wasn't dry enough to do. So instead we ticked off the star flyer (which felt so tiny thanks to our views from the chairlift), and the FREE mini golf, which was surprisingly decent with a variety of interesting holes, including this one which had no hole... It was now just after 3, and the park closed at 5. The rain had held off for a long time. We headed back over to the bobsleigh, where plenty of drying of the track was going on - things looked promising. After some lurking about, our prayers were answered - it opened! The bobsleigh was set on a really tall hill, and featured a random backwards incline to take you to the top, and 2 slopes to take you down. I've no idea how tall the hill was, but the slopes were 600m each and it was reasonably steep at some points, so it was quite cool. There's some awesome turns and fun spots, and some neat points to really gain speed. Unfortunately on my first go there was a crash in front of me about half way down, which really killed the experience. Fortunately we did a second run later on, and I got pretty much to the end before encountering a kid who had stopped on the tracks - joyous. Nonetheless, these were truly a huge highlight of the park and one of the biggest hidden gems of the trip! Between our rides on bobsleigh, we did a second go on their waterslide, but also did their FREE go kart track. Unsurprisingly it had a long queue, but you got 3 circuits on a decent length track in some cars which picked up an okay enough speed for what they were. Was certainly a pleasant surprise to be able to do something like this for free. After park close, we made our way into Germany and the wonderful city of Koln. Our beautiful hotel was situated nicely between two very explicit adult shops, our room offered a lovely view of the bin storage area of the hotel, but the beds were super-comfy and the room was huge, which was 2 things the previous 2 hotels didn't have. Woohoo! It was also a 10 minute walk from Hard Rock Koln, not that the restaurant chain interests me that much. So all in all, Plopsa Coo is a very nice and quaint little park. At one point we were concerned we wouldn't have enough to do, and then seeing all the school kids we were concerned we would be stuck in queues all day. But the park offered a great balance for us so we were able to comfortably do everything in the 7 hours the park was open, without rushing or feeling bored. Sure, it's not a must-do park, but it's certainly a nice park and definitely worth considering if you're anywhere nearby and want a little theme park fix. Next time, Day 4 - Phantasialand!