JoshC.

Are you going to build a wingrider behind the Magic Valley any time soon for the full Toverland experience?

Is that meant to be "sec (c!)" or "sec (c)!"? In either case that random factorial makes no sense. [/BoringMathematician]

Wasn't their a rumour a few years ago that the park looked into repainting Vampire but were quoted something around the £1 million mark to do a basic repaint? Especially at that time when money was seemingly being cut left, right and centre, it's not hard to see why they didn't repaint it at the time. I'm a bit surprised they didn't do what Towers have done in the past and repaint it to coincide with a big development (Smiler and Oblivion's repaint, and arguably Galactica and Nemesis' repaint)...

Thorpe don't have any pop badges this year (or at least haven't released any yet). A couple of years ago they tried doing them with kids meals but the idea never really took off like it has at Chessington and Legoland. All of the Thorpe ones are probably considered quite rare, and aside from the Ghost Train one (which was given out when people bought their Annual Passes), most were just staff swaps. These days it's a case of just looking out for badges on staff lanyards and hoping you can swap / be given one or two from them.

Hearing rumours that this investment (new entrance, plus new land) is totalling 30 million euros (just over £25m). This is a park that isn't even receiving 750,000 visitors a year.

An image of how the new area may look has surfaced over on...shudders...Theme Park Review.. The layout of the boat ride can be seen in dark blue. The first helix does seem to take some inspiration from Swarm's helix. Bit of a shame the pathways won't go closer if that's accurate though.

Anyone who says they enjoy Colossus clearly experiences too many knocks to the head on the ride and suffers such severe concussion they forget how bad it is.

Platform was 'announced' in April last year, but that was only because it accidentally was published online. Maze announcements tend to be July / August time of late, as they can then capitalise in the busy crowds with on park advertising. Certainly the past 4 years it's been that way. Before then, announcements used to be in September!

Following the delightful announcement that Slammer is no more, I want to be that annoying guy who creates the way too keen topic about what people would like to see in its place... I guess there is a serious undertone to this though. Unlike Loggers, for example, Slammer is quite visible around the park, and leaving it SBNO is quite obvious. So presumably the park will want to physically remove the ride sooner rather than later, if at all possible. So what would you like to see replace it? Would you like a new ride, and if so, what? Would you prefer the area to become a more open space, say to be used for small events? A redevelopment of Bush BBQ to extend that area? Leave the area blank and use it if / when X leaves the park? Bring your ideas TPM...and no suggestions of spins of the top variety...

Yay it's gone. I'm happy. Never got all the love over it. Never will. A picnic area would be better than Slammer, so I'd be happy with that. New ride would be a bonus though.

The park have now officially confirmed both attractions (the boat ride is going to be made by Mack) to be forming the new land, along with a new entrance to the park. Serious investment from such a small park...

The new water ride is just set to be a calm boat ride (like Tropical Travels for example). Given how nicely Toverland theme most of their rides, there's plenty of potential for it to be lovely. Depends how much money they're dumping to the new land though, as that wingrider won't be cheap...

Well shoot me down I'm double posting... Someone (who seems reasonably trsutworthy) over on Themepark.nl claims to have seen the plans for the wingrider, and given a Paint job of what it will look like: -42m high and 800m long (about 5m higher and 25m longer than Swarm for comparison) -3 inversions -Trains would be 6 rows long -Light blue track and brown supports A very safe wingrider layout if it is the case, but certainly would add something to the park. Also nice to see the THORPE PARK inversion featured...

On top of a new major coaster, it is believed Toverland are also adding in a boat ride of some description next year: http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/7277/Toverland-opent-nieuwe-waterattractie-in-2018.html Certainly a nice addition - I did feel like a calm boat ride would be a good addition that would give a bit more to the park. Some plans for all the 2018 investments may crop online this week, but the park aren't actually going to be doing any specific advertising until the Autumn. Image from the above link: The area expansion is happening behind Magic Valley (top middleish), so will end up being a pretty huge expansion for such a small park!

^Depends on how Towers sell SW8 though. It's possible the US for it won't be 'it's made of wood', they could go down a completely different route and just gloss over the wood fact. If that's the case then other UK parks could easily go for woof and not steal Towers' thunder. I get what you're saying though. And given the lack of new wood in the UK, focusing on the fact SW8 is a woodie would be the easiest, and perhaps most sensible, way forward. But who knows with Towers...

If only Chessington had a monorail attraction that took you over parts of the zoo... I'm sure that would have been really well received and enjoyable for everyone...

I believe the photo point was removed this season.

It's almost criminal how little attention this coaster has received on here... Here's a video of some testing from the park's Facebook page: Though it's not exactly saying much given how little is going on this year, I still stand by my earlier sentiment that this is the second-best looking new coaster for 2017 in Europe (only behind the Star Trek Mack at Movie Park Germany)...

I can't offer a POV, but I can offer the first ever online review of Timber Tug Boat... It's a fun little attraction. As anyone who has been on any Rockin' Tug ever will testify, they're nothing special, but they offer a nice experience which can be enjoyed by everyone. Yeah it doesn't really fit in with Old Town, and you can tell it's not a 'new' ride, which is a shame. But in my opinion, it can't be argued that something like this improves the offering for those who visit with younger children, which happens a lot, and fills a gap in the ride lineup, even if just for a while. On a scale of 'doesn't cut it' to 'TIMBERRRRRRRR', it's a 'chop shop good effort'.* *if anyone can think of a better pun for 'it's alright', I'm all ears...

Nice video - no doubt inspired by the one Movie World Australia released a month or two back which really went viral.

It's now open up, for anyone keep track / interested in going...

Was only a joke weg...

If you need to ride a ride in a certain way or a certain seat for it to be good, then it's not a good ride.

So did Gruffalo yesterday, and it's a good enough attraction. The set pieces are good, the animations are good, there's a nice balance between screens and 'real' theming in my opinion, it flows like a book would (which I assume was the aim), and it just generally sets out what it should be achieving. The spoken audio was a bit hard to hear. This shouldn't be too hard to fix and is one of those things which sometimes can only be got right after several tweaks. And it is quite dimly lit so may freak out the younger younger audience. But again, something which I'm sure can be tweaked if necessary. However, I do have a big problem with Gruffalo. Each scene has one set in one certain position. If your boat is spinning, or you're facing away from the set, it involves awkward head-turning and re-positioning to be able to see the scene. And given the nature of the ride system, this is likely to happen a lot for every person. This is unlike Bubbleworks (old and new), because there was always something to look at, and you only moved your head because you wanted to see what was behind you, not because you had to. I get that with the theme / story they were going for, to replicate the sets either side / theme everything wouldn't 'make sense', but it just doesn't work with the ride system. It would suit a more traditional 'face forward in a boat' style ride than a circular boat one. So yeah, it's good. In terms of theming, it's some of the best we've seen at Chessington this century, and certainly a great investment for the park. I'm not completely sold on whether it'll appeal to the younger end of the target market, and it has a couple of flaws, but it's good and a hopefully a worthwhile long-term investment.