JoshC.

Stick me down as a yes for now. However, if Ninjago is delayed / not open by then I may reconsider.

Luck or good planning from yours truly?

Kanonen is rumoured to be going to a small-scale American park. Which I've no idea, but it's going stateside.

I seem to be the only one the forum actually interested / excited for this, but NeuroGen is having it's media night tonight. Couple of images from themepark.nl Facebook, which might be classed a bit spoilery by some... Entrance 'Waiting room', which I assume serves as some kind of batch point Also, a video from the park of the opening ceremony... Skip to a couple of minutes in for a nice 'live video stream' between the park manager and the 'designer' of NeuroGen. And go to 3 minutes in for a nice little show...

^Probably one for the Blackpool thread...

Only ever rumoured. Internally it was always the planned opened date (and is Efteling's preferred opening date, with Baron and Joris both opening then), but this is the first time it's been officially confirmed / advertised.

The views from the top will be pretty fab. Also liking the wingrider-esque inversion at the end. Aside from that, looks like a pretty standard dive machine.

For those sensible enough to wait until a date was announced before booking a trip, Efteling have confirmed that this will open on July 1st...

Given how long it takes to get out of the car park, I suggest that any post-meet meal serves up a good breakfast.

A page for NeuroGen has gone live, and booking is available (if you're the super keen enthusiast who's already planned their visit and wants to guarantee entry now): https://www.walibi.nl/nl/rides/fun-cool/neurogen Translation of the page The attraction has a 16 age restriction, and warns that it'll contain bad language, sex and drug use. Time slots for online reservations are in 15 minute intervals, and Loopings is reporting that the expected throughput at the moment is about 60pph. They have also said that the VR film is roughly about 5 minutes. And for anyone interested, a photo from inside the attraction:

I've voted for Saturdays but I can't do Sundays. Do we know the exact date when Ninjago is planned to open yet? Last I heard it was opening "in May", but if it's opening after the 20th and before the 27th then I would much prefer the 27th for obvious reasons.

To be fair, Icon is a quick and snappy coaster name - Shambhalalalala is not Coaster has hit the nail on the head though - the name feels very forced. Blackpool do have iconic rides (not necessarily in the sense that they're good, but they are well known / have stood the test of time), so it feels like they're just trying to cash in on that with "we have loads of iconic rides, but this is the ICON"

Though they have since replaced that sign with a sign which simply says 'Coming Soon'.

Had to double check the date to make sure this wasn't an April Fool... Poor name and a weird logo.

This sort of thing is always difficult to deal with for the park. Obviously the point of the disabled queues is to ensure that those who can't queue are queueing for as little time as possible. But when 40 minutes worth of disabled people are waiting to go on it, there's not much the park can do to stop it. Even if Colossus was running 2 trains, that's still a 20 minute wait which is still too long. I'm certainly not excusing the situation, but just saying it leaves the park in a difficult situation really - if people decide to join a long queue of people for something, that's their choice. Personally, if I was using the disabled and saw that the Colossus disabled queue was from the station to the shop (as I saw it today!), I would go 'I'll try again later', rather than grin and bare it. As far as I'm aware, Samurai, Storm Surge and Rumba Rapids are the only rides that are scheduled to open late. All other rides are meant to open on time. However, if those rides are ready and the staff are in early, the park open them up early. Rush was only on one swing due to technical issues I believe and not due to the park deliberately reducing capacity. Unlike with the coasters, they cannot save staff costs by reducing the capacity, and the impact it makes to engineers for getting 1 or 2 swings ready is negligible. And as it stands, I believe the second train on Colossus still isn't ready due to problems with Intamin and not the park, and Stealth similar was due to timings caused by external groups.

Obviously the questions of why yesterday was so bad, how the park seemed so underprepared and the incredibly poor start to the day need to be asked. And there really is no excuse. However, I think it's worth highlighting that at least Thorpe acted appropriately. Not selling Fastrack for the coasters, giving anyone who wanted a refund a refund, handing out free return tickets, etc. Of course, this action should never need to be taken by a theme park, but it's at least good to see that when things do go bad, the park accept it and compensate as best as they can. Now let's hope nothing like today ever happens again...

Heide Park opened for the 2017 season yesterday, and Ghostbusters 5D was meant to open along with the park. On Thursday the park announced over Facebook it wasn't ready and would as soon as possible. So, Heide Park, who you gonna call?

To be fair, Stealth is the 3rd quickest accelerating coaster in the world (I think, haven't checked recently), so maybe not the best to do a base comparison of.

Upgrade me from maybe to yes for both please.

Intamin do make nice sounding launches. That is all.

Looopings are reporting that Rookburgh could be a...Vekoma flying coaster? http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/7351/Nieuwe-attractie-Phantasialand-wordt-spectaculaire-flying-coaster.html Would be a disappointing ride choice in my opinion, especially over a dark ride which would likely be epic. But given how tight-lipped and secure Phantasia are over their future, I'd be surprised if correct rumours leaked out this early on.. If it is true though, I expect we'll see Phantasialand management swing their full force of hatred towards fansites forever more.

Enthusiasts acting self-entitled and thinking they're better than other people 'because they're enthusiasts'.

It's 2.1 billion - http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/7326/Nieuwe-attracties-in-Disneyland-Paris-investering-van-2-miljard-euro.html Which is still obscene really. Spending on average €210 million (approx £180m) a year for 10 years is mad. To put that into some form of perspective, Merlin have probably invested somewhere between the £200-£300m on attractions in ALL their theme parks and Legoland parks in the past decade (not including new park openings and hotels). And even if you did include hotels and new investments, it can't be anywhere near the £1.8 billion Disney are planning on investing in one park...

The train for the train crash is still there; if you stand in the right place at the right time, you can see the lights for it (unless they have recently turned them off / covered them).

No water effects today, but around the ride are barrels with pieces of tree pointing to them. Looks like it could have potential for water to trickle down from the top into those barrels (be that rain water of planned effects), but not sure really. Top half definitely won't move though. It looks and feels very Chessington, even if it is a bit out of place in location, and the announcements are bit bland. It had a 10-15 minute odd queue today as well, so it's a shame they didn't get a bigger carousel to help deal with the crowds that it will get in that area.