JoshC.

Unless I've missed something, I see no cynical responses?

I kind of feel like Derren is being used as the 'John Wardley' of this project. Thorpe and Towers in particular loved having someone, usually John, to present to the public / press and say "This guy created this". Of course, most of the public wouldn't care *who* it was, but just lapped up the idea that there was someone. This is a different, in that "the guy who created it" is a big name, and hopefully a big draw. It makes me question whether Derren will feature in the attraction at all, and is just being used now for marketing purposes. And then in 10 years time, Derren's involvement will be little more than a piece of trivia. I hope it doesn't turn out like that, as I think having him in the attraction in some aspect would be brilliant, but I do wonder.

In fairness, from beginning of 2014 to May 2015, Smiler was a well-received, fairly reliable coaster, which was a massive draw for the park. I think it's easy to forget about that. It's biggest flaw was the low-ish throughput for a major coaster at a place like Towers.

The Derren Brown reveal was always meant to be in October. That way, Derren could advertise the idea during his show by means of the scratchcard / leaflet. The photos just got out a couple of days early. The next clues will probably have little meaning to the attraction itself, except the last one which will presumably reveal the name and maybe even the ride system (though I doubt that). The main point of the clues is for the competition; it just happens to serve as a nice bit of filler advertising.

Topics merged. I can sort of see why Legoland would want to keep their pop badges local. Lego have been doing the pop badges for years, so there's plenty of ones to go around. Also, some of the kids who would be trading them would surely have no interest in the likes of Thorpe and some Chessington ones I'd assume?

Mark raises a good point about staff numbers for the rides; would make sense given what we've all heard. Hex is of course going to be the biggest missed on the list. But even the closures of NST, Ripsaw and Flume are going to be missed by a fair few people. By biggest worry about all this is how it takes a good chunk away of the non-coaster options from older visitors. Of course, rides aren't everything at a theme park, and Towers still have the gardens, but aside from the coasters, there's not exactly much which entices me at the moment. Curious for an official announcement, to see what the park themselves say.

Surely the budget can't be that big though? The rumoured Zamperla WaterMania thing surely can't have been that expensive, so the money that would have gone on that isn't going to stretch far. Great to see improvements to rides if it happens, but as always with Chessington, it's only a case of believe it when I see it now.

Ouch. Hopefully the issues can be resolved and we can see the place reopen at some point in the future; would be nice. But things don't exactly look great.

The Japanese have: http://rcdb.com/6453.htm

Curious that you call Efteling an under rated park, when basically everyone who goes sings its praises till the cows come home. Ravelijn is a weird one. Great effects, sets and the like, and I didn't find the story that hard to follow in all honesty, but it's let down by the fact there's too much going on at any one time for you to truly appreciate it all. It's definitely a bombardment on the eyes to say the least. Aquanura is fab as it is, but if the original version is much better, gutted I missed out on it..

Could the spinning car on Blue Fire by an indication to Walibi Holland's Mack coaster next year? There's been rumours of a spinning coaster for a while, but also rumours of it being a Mega coaster... Couple of other things of note: -Few more images of RMC's new track design (awfully called T-Rex track) -New S&S launched El Loco trains (sort of like a Premier Sky Rocket) revealed. -The Walking Dead dark ride. Will post pictures later (unless someone beats me to it).

That quad down and drop after the lift look pretty sweet! The banked turn things are a bit odd though. Then again, I've always been dubious of them.

I have experienced one recliner sofa before. I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed by it. The reclining feature was rather juddery, and I found it difficult to get a happy medium between being reclined and upright so I could watch the tele. The theming I experienced on said reclining sofa was rather poor as well, and it's grey colour did not match the décor of the living room it was in. I couldn't brave it backwards either. So, in my limited experience, this is not true However, I will now endeavour to venture to my local DFS store and try out a variety of reclining sofas and see if what you say is true. Look out for my trip report!

Construction of a dark ride is boring, let's face it. And to be honest, we've had the most 'exciting' part, in seeing the site being cleared and the frame for the building put up. And to call that exciting is clutching at straws. You can see part of the building from Monks Walk, assuming there's not many trees in the way and the like. But all we'll likely see is some cranes moving stuff about and some exterior theming being put up in January / February time. Next clue is actually due very soon (they said middle of November I think?), but I assume it will just be a very small, teasing, clue that has next-to-no details about the attraction. I'm expecting another code with a picture and a paragraph of text for all us fans to over-analyse for another month to be honest.

Swarm had Fastrack from the word go. Saw introduced Fastrack about mid way through the season (but then again, I don't think it was on full capacity at first?). Unsure about Th13teen and Smiler, but I think they were introduced shortly after they opened.

I think a lot of the most recent discussion has seen a lot of blurring between 'the ride hardware' and 'the ride'. In terms of ride hardware, I assume that is 26 years old and is naturally reaching the end of its life. However, there should - hopefully! - be no doubt in anyone's mind that it has been safe to use, and let guests ride. From that perspective, Loggers Leap is well-maintained. This is what I was trying to get at earlier when talking about comparisons to Europa's log flume; it will surely be easier, financially viable and commercially sensible for Europa to upgrade, update and maximise the ride hardware than it would be for Thorpe. However, the ride itself is less well-maintained. From things like tunnel-gate, the station building, the smell, etc., these are not so good. It's easy to say that, from that perspective, Loggers has not been maintained to the standard it should be. If what others have suggested is true and the other Merlin parks are closing their log flumes, it'll be interesting to see what their reasons are.

My point about the log flume at Europa is simply that it's owned by Mack. I don't know how exactly things work, but surely it's easier and more financially viable for Europa Park to do upgrades and refurbs than it is for Thorpe? I just feel a bit wary of making comparisons of Mack rides at other parks to Mack rides at Europa, that's all. Also, is it possible that Loggers being situated on a lake and using lake water all the time with no closed cleaning system could be a cause of some problems? I don't know enough about water rides in general, but it could be a contributing factor?

Yep, they're all fine comparisons. I wasn't disagreeing with your point in principle, but I just think that using Europa's log flume in this case is perhaps not the best example.. Hopefully in the long run this can end up being like the case at Phantasialand. Didn't their old log flume get condemned to closure which eventually led us to Chiapas? (Not saying the two situations are the same, but if it's the case that Loggers isn't reopening, I'd love to see an Intamin log flume replace it).

There have been many small issues that have cropped up with the Thorpe Hotel which is why we've seen so many delays. Plans were first submitted in 2006 for a planned 2009 opening, but they fell through for some reason (don't know why). New plans were submitted again in 2009/2010 I think, but despite them being approved, some of the smaller details of the hotel were not finalised or something, and some possible problems with the piping / sewage arose (from what I understood anyway). Then there were concerns about whether a hotel would be financially viable given the economic climate, Thorpe's target market, etc. So, to test the idea of on-site accommodation, and because there were problems with getting plans re-submitted for the hotel, we ended up with Crash Pad / Shark Hotel. Eventually we've ended up where we are now, with plans for the Thorpe Hotel submitted and approved, all little details sorted, and are on track to have construction start next summer. Touch wood that it little over 2 years, we'll see that infamous Thorpe Hotel!

Maybe I've missed something, but have Thorpe actually said anywhere that Logger will reopen in 2017? All I've seen is 'Loggers Leap will be closed in 2016 for maintenance' (or words to that effect). I haven't seen them say '...but will be back open in 2017'. Granted, it makes sense to assume that the ride will reopen in 2017, but I haven't seen the park claim anywhere that it will be open in 2017. Kind of feel like it's a bit unfair to compare a Mack log flume at a park owned by Mack to a Mack log flume not owned by Mack. I get what you're saying, but the comparison is just a bit off really.

I don't know much about how they work, but yeah, basically what you said - in terms of future developments, it's non-committal and outlines many possibilities that the park may consider in that time frame. It helps makes planning permission easier on those areas too I believe, since they will have pre-agreed certain restrictions. The MTDP will be a bit stricter about certain things though (I think things like they impose a maximum average gate figure, environmental targets, etc.). Unfortunately most of the original documents from the most recent MTDP seem to have disappeared off the council's website, so can't read through all the boring details to find out exactly. Anyway, my point was basically if they plan to not reopen the ride, they'll probably want to replace it within the next few years, so they'd want to earmark it for development to the council. If they planned to reopen it (even with some minor changes), they probably wouldn't earmark it for future development.

If the plan is to keep Loggers SBNO until removal, I would expect to see it earmarked as a possible development area on the new MTDP. As we've all seen, the MTDP doesn't tie Thorpe to do anything in particular; it just gives the council and locals an idea of what is possible in the next 4 to 5 years. If Loggers is closed for good, Thorpe will surely want to replace it with something before 2020/2021 (which is what the next MTDP will take us up to), won't they? Even if it's an unexpected decision, they'll be able to edit it into the MTDP between now and submission (if they do indeed plan to do the logical thing and remove / replace in the next 6 years, of course).

I've been under the impression they do so every closed season, but they only accept applications from people already working within the company?

There seems to be loads of different rumours flying around from loads of different sources. I wouldn't be surprised if Thorpe still haven't 100% decided their plans for the ride. Just remembered that next year Thorpe will likely submit an MTDP to the council. Might give us some indication as to their plans for Loggers / Canada in general.

Oops. Clearly caffeine deprived. Fixed.