JoshC.

But why? Ferrari Land / PA are wanting a launch coaster that goes very high. Why go with B&M, who have only made one launch on a coaster, when they can go with Intamin, who had a proven track record in building exactly what they wanted?

Last season, a summer event was always advertised, though it was never clear if it was a replacement for Summer Nights, or an addition to it. Thorpe did seem keen to mention that whatever it would be called, it would follow the SN pattern of opening for a few hours in the evening with a selected line up. It seems that once they decided on how to market Island Beats, they decided to keep the Summer Nights name too. This year, they haven't advertised any particular summer event, so it seems unlikely that there will be one at all. A real shame, but not necessarily surprising. @Coaster Jamie: I was more trying to say how I hate people moaning about parks being busy. If a regular visitor doesn't want to visit when it's busy, then that's fine, but don't complain that the park is busy, thriving and doing well. Should have made that clearer.

I thought that too (especially in the first one), but I just don't think the picture could be that badly compressed / taken from a bad angle to make the track look that bad. And the second photo shows the track not looking that straight either! Even if they correct it though, it still seems really uncomfortable - you come down a 300ft+ tower, travel along a straight bit before going up a comparatively small hill and hitting brakes. Sounds like a recipe for pain to me!

So after Intamin were involved with the technical and engineering masterpiece of Taron, they give us this: (From TPR)

True. But as we've seen with Legoland, if a council believes that adding (major) additions to the park will make the traffic worse, then they will do as much as possible to limit new additions.

I always hate seeing people saying about how they won't visit theme parks they regularly visit when it's busy. Almost comes across as people saying that they don't want to see parks being successful? Equally about not renewing passes. I'm disappointed that this has happened, but not surprised. Especially after the bad year Merlin has last year. But as has been argued many many times, there just doesn't seem to be demand for people to stay so late in the summer. I don't get why that is in some ways (especially when people are happy to stay late at Fright Nights), but it just seems to be the case. Hopefully we can see it return / being built upon in the future. Or even return this year if there really is enough demand; after all, Thorpe have been willing to change stance on things like this if the public shout loud enough.

Adam has ridden Talocan. Adam does not like rides which spin. Adam does not like top spins. Adam was not Talocan's biggest fan.

Happy birthday to Coaster Jamie; hope it's a Big One!

Thorpe have confirmed via Twitter that Summer Nights is not planned to be returning this year.

To be honest, given they've gotten rid of that step, they could theme it a strawberry field and I wouldn't care.

No more nasty step: (From UK Theme Parks FB).

Interestingly, mindswanted.co.uk has disappeared, and is now redirecting to the ride's page on the main TP site: https://www.thorpepark.com/rides/derren-browns-ghost-train-arriving-spring-2016/

Consistent? 2 B&Ms 4 years apart followed by a presumably naff Fabbri spinner doesn't sound consistent to me.

Good to see the station is getting the attention it needed! The track is looking good too so far, and I believe it is also getting a 'rust effect' of sorts added on as well. Glad to FV is getting a decent spruce up by the looks of things.

Sorry for quoting an old post... I had always been assuming this, but it turns out it's not: http://www.chessington.com/2016/ So it's an original show, except for Easter when Po is about. So that's good, if not a bit odd.

The competition closes tomorrow at 23:59. The winners aren't announced until next Monday (22nd)

Do you mean the floor in this photo? https://www.instagram.com/p/BBsME8gkgH0/ If so, I'd be surprised if that was accessible to the public given the spaces between the poles (and there's some sort of chain hanging from it too?). If that is the case, they've probably just taken a photo of it so they can say they've posted photos from inside the building, without giving anything away. Otherwise, the actual fences seem fine since there's the mesh fencing between the poles.

Sort of surprised it hasn't been mentioned here that Gardaland are getting a new coaster... Then again, it's only a spinning wild mouse from Fabbri... (Image from looooooooooooopings.nl) The park are opening up a Chinese themed area with relation to the Kung Fu Panda films (which is Dreamworks, of course, and has a new film coming to cinemas this Spring). The name of the coaster is 'Kung Fu Panada Master' according to RCDB...

I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's a shame that the idea never really worked out, as pay monthly things do work in a variety of other situations (and I think some parks do have that system for their Annual Passes too?). Then again, the idea never really appealed to me since I was happy to just pay a lump sum each year.. Good that they're offering 6 months free, and apparently they will honour the current sale prices to anyone who wishes to change from a Merlin Membership to an MAP until November time. So they've handled this well.

There's several possible reasons for the enclosure of that piece of track. The main one of course being that River Quest is in the Mystery area, whereas Raik is in Klugheim, so they'd either have to retheme RQ or just enclose it and make it look mysterious (totally the wrong word to use but you get what I'm saying). And of course, with Phantasia having to minimise noise, it's only natural many of their rides are enclosed in one way or another. So any resemblance is more than likely coincidental given what they can do.

A picture from INSIDE THE BUILDING

I was about to mention Swarm here, but then I realised one could probably class Swarm as a good few years ago. I'm beginning to feel old. But I wonder definitely agree with you that whilst not world class by any means, this is definitely a good-looking, seemingly completely themed, and most importantly fun investment; something we don't see enough of in the UK.

I'd like to know what rock gardens you're visiting to see the likes of a crashed plane... However, I must admit my big fear with this has always been that the dinosaurs will always look a bit too plasticy and 'fake' when seen in the area, and perhaps stick out too much compared to everything else (which feels a lot more 'real'). At this stage I'm happy with that there is at the moment though!

Couple of photos of Raik, which is now complete, from the best Dutch website ever looopings.nl: The last photo shows the park removing some of the rockwork theming which was in way of Raik. Whilst there's no photos of it, the lift hill and end of the track have apparently been fully enclosed.

Theming update: http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/5001/Zeecontainers-als-decoraties-bij-nieuwe-achtbaan-Walibi-Holland.html Let's not bother with the "With all those shipping containers, I thought this was a Merlin park lol" comments shall we, even if it looks a bit tacky at the moment...