JoshC.

Surprised no one mentioned this, but this happened yesterday... Source: TST FB Apparently the ride was closed for a couple of days prior as well. Oops.

Almost 3 weeks later and Heidi still isn't open. Why you ask... As of 2 days ago, the park no longer has a valid environmental permit. The park remains open, but by the park's director's own admission, they are open against the law. As such, the park could face a large fine or even closure, at least until they get a valid permit. And with some lawyers encouraging locals to make complaints about Plopsaland, things are looking a bit worrying for the park at the moment. From what I can tell, Heidi is now ready to open, but they don't want to risk it in case it agitates locals. Plopsaland are also looking into taking legal action against the company they hired to look after all their environmental issues. Sources: http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/5770/Plopsaland-open-zonder-vergunning-Ik-heb-slapeloze-nachten.html http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/5780/Plopsaland-durft-nieuwe-houten-achtbaan-niet-te-openen.html

Don't see why people would, or indeed should, be annoyed. This event is happening after the opening of the ride, is free to enter and is more than what we were expecting at the beginning of the season.

I was under the impression that Thorpe were planning on revealing Platform 15 at ScareCON (in late May), but decided against it because of Ghost Train and wanting to keep the focus on that? So it wasn't necessarily the marketing campaign that was delayed, just the reveal to (scare) geeks. Not that I can recall, especially for a specific maze. Probably the only major campaign for FN that happened before August was back in 2005, when they bought Freakshow 3D back in summer, and pushed the fact they were getting 2 new mazes, so this was people's last chance to have a go!

https://www.thorpepark.com/events/fright-nights/ Platform 15 teaser! The FN push is coming early this season! There's also posters on park advertising P15, and VIP experiences, including Face it Alone, BTS of mazes and a new Zombie Academy thing.

Lost Gravity is very different to the two Eurofighters I've done. Lost Gravity wasn't particularly intense, just fast and fun, with some nice pops of airtime. The Eurofighters I've done focus more on intensity, and of course the signature drop. The restraints also create a completely different feel to the ride as well. So really they're pretty incomparable, but if you had to point a gun to my head and ask which coaster I preferred (ignored theming), it would go in this order: Saw, Lost Gravity; Typhoon.

Walibi Holland was the only new-for-me park of the trip, and there were two obvious draws for visiting: the new Mack coaster Lost Gravity, and Goliath, the Intamin mega coaster. We seemed to get lucky with our visit, as the park was very quiet, and we didn't queue over 15 minutes for anything if memory serves me correctly. Overall impressions of the park are quite mixed for me; there's some great attractions around the park (and of higher quality to Walibi Belgium's offerings), but there's still a fair amount of trash about that makes it difficult to praise the overall park too much. Anyways... Xpress: Platform 13 Located by the main entrance to the park, but before the 'containment gates' into the main bulk of the park, this opened up at least 15 minutes before the park opened. And my god, this was a massive gem, probably the biggest surprise of the whole trip. The coaster itself is almost a clone of Rock n Roller Coaster (I haven't done RnRC myself, but that'll not doubt give some indication to the quality of the coaster to those who have done it). But the reason for this standing out so much was because of the atmosphere in the queue line. Themed around a mystery train disappearance, the queue line feels exactly like an abandoned train station, and features plenty of scares, a creepy atmosphere, surprises and excellently themed sets along the way. Dare I say, the queue line is a better scare attraction than many scare mazes that the UK theme parks produce at Halloween! An unassuming entrance Lost Gravity With surprise opening out of the way, we headed over the Lost Gravity, which opened shortly after the 10am opening. Words cannot really describe this ride. Whoever designed this must have been high on a cocktail of drugs, but they've managed to create a ride which chucks together loads of random, somewhat incoherent, ideas, and makes it work for a fun ride. The queue is weird and features a couple of wtf moments, the theming is odd, the effects make no sense (including the huge flamethrower effect which makes even the staff jump as there's no rhythm to it going off). The ride itself - first drop is fab, airtime hills are fab. The top hat thing is weird. The second half of the ride is really slow and killed by the MCBR, but at the same time, is still alright. I definitely think the outer-left seat is going to give the best ride experience. All in all, this attraction makes no sense at all, but is still a fun little thing. It's nothing *special*, but definitely a great concept, and hopefully more parks invest in Mack BigDippers in the future... The top hat looks very square from this perspective... Escalator theming the queue because...reasons? Goliath The main thing I remember about Goliath is how painfully obvious this was a ride from the Six Flags era. No theming, awful-looking queue, no audio in the surrounding around, unimaginative name, awkward location. That's not to say it was a bad ride, but I guess because I always look for a more overall experience than *just* a coaster, the lack of overall experience will stand out to me. The coaster is pretty fun, offering nice moments of airtime and intensity, and has a decent-ish layout on the whole. We had a ride on it in the hail, which was both painful and awesome in equal measure. We ended up riding this a few times during the day, so I guess that shows how loved it was by the group as a whole, but it's just a shame there wasn't more to go with it! From here, the park goes a bit downhill. Robin Hood, the park's Vekoma woodie, is alright, and has a bit more airtime than it's sister Werewolf, and is good in its own right, but failed to leave much of a lasting impression on me. Speed of Sound, a Vekoma Boomerang, is one of the better Boomerangs I've done in fairness, but the transition between the cobra roll and vertical loop is rather unpleasant. The soundtrack is annoyingly catchy though. Coaster-wise, we also did kiddie coaster Drako, which wasn't terrible. El Condor The final coaster we did at the park was El Condor, a Vekoma SLC. I heard bad things about it, so wasn't exactly looking forward to it. But dear oh dear, this was dreadful. The OTSR actually squished my ears due to the lack of room they provided. The ride was rough, rattly and in general just uncomfortable and awful. And this was in the front row too! Honestly, I cannot think of a worst (notably) coaster I've done. One can only hope this is on the chopping block for the park (hopefully for their 2019 coaster...) This is not BaronC. approved. Outside of the coasters, there's little of note really. Merlin's Magic Castle was a largely forgettable Vekoma madhouse, though did feature a nice bit of misdirection in the main ride show. Their rapids and log flume were fun and featured some quirky signs (though are clearly nothing to write home about as I've forgotten their names, and I'm too lazy to look them up...). And aside from a couple of smaller rides, there's not really much else on park. I'm probably selling the park a little short here, but time constraints, laziness and a general mediocre reaction to the park isn't really encouraging me to go much further. It's evident that the park's recent investments have been very good for the park though, which is only a positive sign. The lack of indoor rides was something that really stood out to me (especially given the pouring rain!), but hopefully next season's 'thrilling dark ride' will help with that. One final point - the park's direction. Walibi have made is obvious that they want Walibi Holland to be a thrill park, focusing on teenagers and young adults. They pretty much said as much when they closed down their 4D cinema for next year's apparent new attraction. And, much like Thorpe at the beginning of the decade, they've tailored their marketing and general park atmosphere to that market. From "#HardGaan" ('#GoFast') plastered all across the park and live DJs playing music across the park (with many songs featuring plenty of swears), they know what they think this market wants. Oh, and there's this charming t-shirt, which many staff wear, and is also on sale... Subtly, not Walibi Holland's strong point. I'm by no means a prude or anything, but this whole style seems very theme park unfriendly. And it's nowhere near as clever, subtle or humorous as some of the stuff Thorpe did during their fathead phase (the 2011 fireworks event 'Thorpe Park BLOWS IT UP / BLOW S#!T UP' advertising was something which I genuinely found amusing and clever, and still brings a smile to my face thinking about it). Part of me hopes it works for them, as I think turning Walibi Holland into a thrill-focused park would be great, as they have plenty of opportunities (much more so than Belgium and Rhone-Alpes) and a firm foundation already. But at the same time, we've seen plenty of parks try this strategy, before realising alienating families is never a good thing. So who knows. Anyways, enough rambling. Platform 13, Lost Gravity and Goliath were all fab coasters in their own right, but everything else is a bit drab. Hopefully we can see more fabness in the future. Next time - Germany, and Phantasialand of awesome-ness...

In fairness, power faults are usually external problems and when they happen it's difficult for parks to do much.

If you're with @J.S217, ask him what his Top 10 favourite coasters are every 10 minutes. By the end of the queue, you can guarantee it'll be a completely different list to what it was at the start. If not, just find all the 4.5s in the queue.

An indoor flume ride isn't a dark ride in my books. If it is, then that would mean an indoor coaster is one too, which I think is absurd.

Early rumours suggested SW8 would open in 2017, and this did fit in with the original 4 year investment cycle Merlin seem to like. However, it seems that plans have changed, for a variety of reasons.

This past week, I hit up a few European parks in search of some new creds, and to go back to some places I enjoyed last year. Just thought I'd throw in a few thoughts from my visits... Plopsaland de Panne Went here last year, and had a lot of fun. With Heidi originally planned to open July 1st, we decided to return for some wooden coaster goodness. Alas, it wasn't meant to be as Heidi Spiti is too loud at the moment, and sound barriers are still being constructed. Looks like a fab little coaster, and I'm sure when it opens - and is fully themed - it will be a great addition to the park! Also new since my last visit was the gigantic castle housing a restaurant a teacups: For what it houses, it's pretty insane. The level of detail and the sheer scale of this is completely unnecessary for a restaurant and teacups. Hopefully this is a good sign of things to come in the future from the park, but one can't help but wonder if the investment would have been better placed elsewhere in the park. I had hoped to try out a few more attractions we missed out on last due to closures (namely their starflyer, Disko and The Bat; their random suspended coasters). Unfortunately, both the starflyer and Bat were closed, despite being listed as open on the park's website. A bit disappointing, but nothing major. Their disko was open though and has a nice, lengthy cycle, and is nicely themed. The true highlight of Plopsaland though is Anubis: This Gerstlauer rolling launch had a lot to live up to after I ranked it so well last time. Fortunately it still delivered. The exit from the launch is a bit rougher than I remember, but otherwise this is a solid coaster, with a very punchy launch, pops of airtime and a nice bit of intensity blended it a brilliant 'older family' coaster. Actually, I don't have much else to add (for longer review, see my trip last year: http://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/693-belgerand-day-1-plopsaland-de-panne/ Walibi Belgium Walibi Belgium was a weird one last year. We visited on a very busy day (thanks school trips!) and arrived over an hour late to the park (thanks Brussels traffic!). We managed to get most things done, but it was all a bit of a rush. It wasn't a park I was dying to go back to, but it fit in nicely in the trip as a last day, was a chance to get the Boomerang cred I missed out, and also do their weird-looking new coaster, Pulsar. Speaking of Pulsar, that's where I'll start. For those who don't know, it's a shuttle coaster featuring 3 launches (2 backwards, 1 forwards) gradually increasing to 62mph and a small airtime hill. On, and one Tidal Wave sized splash. It's one of those coasters where all sensible thought said it'd be naff, but I just felt like it could be great fun. And you know what? It's fun. The launches are both fun and a little bit punchy (and great with lap bars), the airtime is alright, and the splash gets you wet. How wet does depend on where you sit - the back leaves you rather soaked, the sides wet and the inside sprayed. Front row was blocked off due to loads of water spilling into those seats during the ride - hopefully that's an issue Mack can correct soon! Geeky techy specs were about too The turntable system for loading (meaning the coaster has 2 cars) is really clever, and it means that one car is ready to go before the other has even finished. No doubt this is thanks to Mack's brilliant engineering and clever way of locking and checking restraints. This meant the queue was really quick moving and it must get a really good throughput (I believe they're aiming for 800ish and I can see them reaching that easily!). The turntable was the cause of a couple of breakdowns during the day, but I imagine these issues will be ironed out with time. The combination of the ride experience, theming, slight story and music means that Walibi are onto a real winner with this attraction. It feels different enough to their other shuttle coasters, and is a great family attraction. Hopefully we see more of these pop up across the world! Another cred for the list was Cobra, a Vekoma boomerang: It was rough, awkwardly intense and just not a fun ride. So glad I didn't waste 20 minutes of my life queueing for it last year. I won't really bore you with the rest of my trip. The park was very quiet (longest we queued for anything was about 10 minutes for Psyke Underground), so we managed to get everything done, and some rerides of some stuff. My opinions haven't changed much from last year (see here - http://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/699-belgerand-day-3-walibi-beglium/ ). Would like to add that I still enjoyed Werewolf, despite now having done other woodies, though naturally not as much as my first ride. Something I'd just like to throw out there was the atmosphere of the park. With generic chart music everywhere (except Pulsar pretty much), a few rowdy guests who seemingly would never follow instructions (people standing up on their extremely rapid rapids rather dangerously) and the like, the atmosphere felt a bit dull and meh. A bit of a shame, especially since last year's visit was overall much nicer despite the large crowds. I feel as though I've properly 'done' Walibi Belgium now. With Pulsar, Psyke and Werewolf, they've got 3 coasters I enjoy, and the likes of drop tower Dalton Terror and madhouse La Palais du Genie are fun rides, but there's just not enough to entice me back any time soon. Not a bad thing of course, it's a nice enough park, just nothing all that special. Next time, a new-for-me park: Walibi Holland, featuring Lost Gravity and Goliath...

This was rumoured to be the case a few weeks ago - it wasn't just a case of dodgy translation I believe. But like pluk says, they have simply split into a rides division and a non-rides divisions. They have cited that they've had poorer sales than predicted in China recently, hence why the rumour they would stop dealing with rides was somewhat believable.

Inversions were considered on suspended coasters, prior to the opening of the first one (The Bat at Kings Island in 1981): For the reasons stated above, the idea never took off and inversions on suspended coasters were never really considered.

Looks like a solid 4.5/10

Isn't that the same video they posted on their Facebook in late April / early May? Why have they uploaded it to their YouTube now?

I don't think anyone's getting stroppy about it? It's more just that this is a thing where keeping the secret is part of the fun and, dare I say, the overall experience. By laying out every minute detail online, regardless of the location, spoils that fun for no real reason in my eyes. Before anyone else goes with the 'it helps for people who are unsure on riding' thing, I don't see the point in that. If you're of that nervous a disposition you shouldn't be riding it. And if the vague description has got you scared - then good, that's the point!

I believe that the actual ride section of Hex is in a custom made building separate to the Towers themselves? But the transition is done so well and the building is hidden enough that you don't actually notice it. In any case, I can't see this being a demolition and replacement of Hex. When the time comes to completely get rid of Hex, I'd be surprised if they replaced it with anything to be honest.

The trouble with soundtracks for Merlin rides is that each ride seems to just have one or two pieces of audio in them (queue line / ride area and station). That in itself is not enough to warrant a CD in my opinion. So if they were to sell any soundtrack, they'd have to do a whole park (or area, at a push) CD. But given the various different people / companies behind all the different pieces of audio, I imagine that'd be difficult to sort out. It wouldn't go a miss having any Merlin park sell some of their ride music, but I can't see it happening any time soon, more for logistical reasons.

The 5 things were grand illusion, 4D special effects, next generation tech (VR), live action and physical transit.

Ghost Train is an attraction in a similar vain to Derren's shows - spoilers are explicitly asked not to be shared. And when you see any review of Derren's shows, there's never any major spoilers, aside from the odd mention of the odd set piece. It was always going to be a big ask for people to not go into insane amounts of detail about the attraction online, since that's what happens with every major ride around the world these days. And I doubt people truly expected it to stay a secret for so long. However, I do agree it would have been nice for full out spoilers to stay out of the public domain until the ride officially opened.

You just have to look at how little Marcus Willis' incredible Wimbledon run was covered to realise that people only focus on football in this country. It's a true shame that one of the sports we're worst at gets so much attention and money.

Klugheim is brilliant; by far the best themed area I've ever been in. Raik is alright, but Ben 10's layout is better in honesty. Overall experience is great, and the station has a lovely dial that follows the ride. Taron is truly brilliant. Speed, ejector airtime, intensity, near misses and some curvy moments. I disagree with Mark and Benin about the lack of definedness and 'break' moments; there's a couple of times which let you regain composure throughout. So no complaints from me there. Stand out moments are the first air time hill, second launch and follow up, and a few real ejector turns. Couple of 'negatives': station is not very atmospheric, it can be a bit samey at times and an inversion or two wouldn't have gone a miss. The trains are super comfortable, back is better than the front, throughput is fab and it does warm up as the day goes on. Unsurprisingly, Phantasialand are onto a winner with this area. Everyone was loving it and I genuinely would encourage everyone to do everything in their power to get over as soon as possible.

Visited the park today; Heidi still isn't open. Fences are being put around the ride to dull the noise, as it's currently too loud for the neighbours liking. Temporary queue line and everything else is ready to go though. The Princessa castle looks phenomenal in person, but it's completely ridiculous for a set of teacups and a restaurant (no walk through in sight). Hopefully some other places around the park receive attention soon.

I've actually not had a problem with chart music taking over the park after park close, but do think it is a bit sudden it happening dead on park close. 30-45 mins after park close would work a lot better in my opinion.