JoshC.

*had - all their mazes have been paid for since 2015. Though they have their scare zones. Towers' mazes aren't without their operational issues though. Hour long queues for their mazes, despite the timed ticket slots, aren't uncommon, especially when it is busy.

Could work out well. One major criticism of Chessington which I have (and no doubt many others have too) is that for a family park, there is very little offering for older guests. Upcharge is a pain, but does give the scope to improve the experience, especially since the Creepy Caves location is very small for a scare attraction. The fact that it is adding to the line up as well is good in my eyes. So yeah, colour me intrigued. There's definitely potential here, and it can fit in nicely with what they have if done well and marketed correctly.

I don't think so, though presumably Icon will have lap bars. So next year is the time. Should of course remember that there are (essentially) clones of Colossus that do have lap bars - Altair at Cinecitta World being the prime example!

Nope - as I understood it, the Cabin was meant to be a holiday cabin used for secluded getaways. I believe in context of the film, it was owned by one of the main character's (non-existent) cousin?

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.