JoshC.

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but following bad weather on Friday (including lots of rain and wind), Dreamland Margate has closed all outdoor areas this weekend, but is hoping to reopen on Monday. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/dreamland-shut-all-weekend-40695/

Very weird about the 10 person rule - last month I did it in a group of 6 and they seemed to have no problems. It was at the start of the day and we must have been either the first or second group to go in.

One thing I've noticed in The Sun / Thorpe Park promotion currently being advertised on TV is how they now refer to the attraction as the 'I'm a Celebrity Experience', rather than the 'I'm a Celebrity Maze'. A very small point to raise I know, but many - including myself - were worried calling it a maze rather than an experience / attraction wouldn't reflect fairly on the attraction and cause false hopes, so it's nice to see this subtle change in the marketing of it in my opinion.

*cough* Slammer *cough* Just as a passing comment - anyone can tell that you must enjoy the parks to a certain extent, otherwise you wouldn't keep visiting. But for the most part, your posts just seem to be criticism after criticism, moan after moan, niggle after niggle. It becomes easy to see it as Merlin bashing - there's mostly negativity with little positivity, so of course people will question why you continue to go. Complaining out of caring is a good thing, fair criticisms of a park are a great thing, but you do have to ask yourself: if you're criticising the parks so much on here, do you visit them because you actually enjoy them, or because it's become habitual? I don't think anyone here is claiming Merlin are perfect, or even anything close? However, it seems like every time something goes wrong at any park, or any ride is closed for a brief amount of time - especially at Thorpe - people jump on the wagon and start bashing and hating. Doesn't always seem fair, does it? Merlin do have many flaws, from some of their investments, possible even to to their budgets and operations, and some may even their whole ideology of how to run theme parks is flawed. But they still do have a lot of positives - some of their investments are very good, some of their attractions are great, they do provide some fabulous - and unique - experiences, they do give good opening hours for the UK, etc. It's easy to forget the good things they do at times though.

The closed rides, one of which is down for long term maintenance. Stealth will probably be back up quickly, Storm Surge usually isn't down for long. It's not great, but not exactly anything to worry about at the moment.

After a fab night's sleep in our lovely hotel, it was Walibi Belgium day. Out of all the park's we were visiting, Walibi Belgium was the park I was most 'meh' about visiting. All the other parks had one or two attractions that I was really interested in trying out, and in some cases, were parks I wanted to try out for quite a while now. Given how I'd only heard about Bellewaerde a few months ago as well, this perhaps shows how blasé my expectations were for the park. We set off, giving ourselves what we thought was plenty of time to make the half hour drive to the park for 10am opening. Unfortunately, traffic had made other plans for us. Despite being informed the night before many times of loads of roads being closed, we didn't really think it would affect our journey too much. We were very wrong. With traffic being reminiscent of the M25 at times, we crawled through Brussels and had plenty of time to take in the lesser beautiful surroundings of the city (as well as slowly pass plenty of news crews..). Anyways, we eventually made it out of Brussels and made some good time on getting to Walibi at about 11am. Unsurprisingly, the park was relatively busy, and there seemed to be a lot of school trips going on. With the major coasters at the front of the park, we decided to leave them till later and head over to the back of the park. Our first stop was Challenge of Tutankhamon; A Sally Corp laser shooter dark ride. Unsurprisingly themed around Ancient Egypt, the ride only had a 5 minute wait, and so was a good first ride choice. It was a fun ride, with some great theming. It was nice that not all of the ride involved shooting, giving you a chance to appreciate the actual theme and story. Not a huge fan of the guns and shooting system, but I assume it's the same for all Sally Corp rides? Following rides on Octopus, a weird but fun spinning ride, and Salsa y Fietsa, the quirky-named Teacups, we moved onto the first coaster of the day. It had to be none other than La Coccinelle, the park's kiddie cred. It had no queue and the op didn't seem to mind 4 adults having a go on the ride. Nothing more than one for the coaster count to me, but it was a bit of a laugh... Octopus Some wandering round happened, before we opted to do Flashback, a log flume. It had quite a long queue, and most of it was in a horrid indoor cattlepen which was quite warm and sweaty. There was some bits of theming and it was out of the very warm sun though, so it could be worse I s'pose. The ride starts off in a great little tunnel section which all of us adored. It was a decent log flume too - three drops, including one backwards one, and a suitable level of wetness for me. Certainly my favourite of the 3 we had done so far. I had a little nosey at construction for their coaster on the way to Flashback. A sorta-view of the main drop of Flashback, featuring styled bins! Next up was Le Palais du Genié. After reading about the ride the night before, we realised that this was another Vekoma madhouse. I was excited to try out another one! I felt like that the standard pre show for it was a bit long and laborious, but maybe it was because I put less effort into trying to follow along with the French sections (I think the talking was done in French and Dutch?). However, I really enjoyed the ride segment; everything just seemed to work well and it just had a nice little set up. But what really surprised with this was how, at the end of the ride, people started clapping. It was a loud clap of appreciation and utter joy. It started mostly from a group of school kids, but everyone else - who had seemed to enjoy the ride as well - started to join in shortly afterwards. I've never experienced something like that away from a large group of enthusiasts. So I think that shows that the ride is fairly decent. It's not a Hex-beater for me, but I still think it's very good. I think we were contemplating lunch now, but the lure of blood was too big a temptation, so we headed over to Vampire, a Vekoma SLC. Once again, another first for me and, much like with the Vekoma Boomerang, I was a bit unsure what to expect after hearing many mixed reviews. We joined the 25 minute queue (which was quite a bit shorter than the other major coasters and nearby rapids at the time) and started moving along relatively quickly. Then, in a similar vain to what happened on Niagara at Bellewaerde, a staff member comes from the adjacent station building, calling for any 2s or 4s. We happened to be in the right place at the right time yet again, and managed to skip about 10-15 minutes of the queue and got on the next ride! To put it simply, I wasn't a fan of the ride. It was quite uncomfortable, especially on the lower back, for the majority of the ride, which made it hard to enjoy. The thing is though, I think for a coaster of this size, the layout is actually alright, and if it was a bit more comfortable, I genuinely think I'd enjoy it a lot more. A shame really. Also, one other thing, a red and black colour scheme does not suit a ride called Vampire... After a spot of lunch, we made our way over to the wild west themed area, and did another coaster - Calamity Mine. It's a Vekoma mine train, with two lift hills side-by-side (which kind of almost race each other to the top if the batching is right, though there's little duelling between trains). The layout and surroundings are quite fun; indeed, it's probably the park's most fun ride to look at in my opinion. The ride experience was alright, but, for some reason, I just didn't get that smile on my face that everyone else in the group got. It's especially odd as I normally love these sorts of family coasters. Ah well. Wild West areas need more Calamity Jane references. Next up was the small matter of Dalton Terror - a 240ft drop tower (making this the tallest ride I've done!). It was good fun; it's nice to finally experience a drop tower with a long drop time. In terms of drop towers, I still prefer Detonator for the force of it, but this is still a great ride experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the better ones for mixing imposing-ness, whilst not having a drop which feels 'too long'. We moved onto the adjacent, but hidden away, 3D walkthrough, appropriately named Walibi's Secret. It's basically like Hocus Pocus Hall meets Freakshow 3D, in that it's a fun walkthrough which makes use of paint which becomes 3D with 3D glasses. Except it's got a more fun feel than HPH. It had some nice little scenes (my favourite being a ramp which looked like a ladder), and it really is a neat little secret on park. Definitely something wroth trying out if you ever visit! It even featured some optical illusions! After a long ride on Gold River Adventure, the park's boat ride around the lake, we then headed over to Psyké Underground, an indoor Schwarzkopf shuttle loop coaster. The queue for it is really weird, since you enter the building, go underneath the station, then go back outside, only to queue in a partially-enclosed area, before entering the building again. It was nice on a warm day to be able to queue outside but in the shade, but it just felt so random and odd! I sort of liked the ride itself though. It's got a bit of a club/party atmosphere, in a similar fashion to X, and whilst the ride is starting, the staff get everyone the train to clap along to the music, which is a great touch. Jack and I were in the front row for it - the launch was fun and the vertical loop was a bit disorientating with the lights. But it just felt like it needed more. The ride itself feels very short (even shorter than you expect, even when you watch it whilst in the station), so I felt like it could do with more lights, louder music, maybe another effect or two, just to further distract you from the shortness of the ride. It's a fun little ride, but it just needs MORE. On our Gold River Adventure, we encountered baby ducks and fountains. Some of the odd-but-neat posters in the Psyké Underground queue line. With time pressing on, we were a bit unfortunate in that biggest rides that we had left to do were still quite busy. We moved onto Radju River, the park's awesome-looking rapids. They were very rapidy, of a decent length and in general very fun. The operations on it were a bit weird, as they kept stopping and starting the station turntable, which was causing stacking of the boats a lot. Not sure if this is normal or not of course, but it would explain the long queue either way.. Now it was gone half 5 (where did all that time go?!), and the queue lines closed at 6. There were two casters left to do - Werewolf, the park's woodie, and Cobra, another Vekoma Boomerang. Cobra was closer and was saying a 25 minute queue, and the operations looked slower than at Bellewaerde. Not wanting to run the risk of missing out on the woodie for the sake of a another Boomerang, Jack and I headed over there, whilst Adam and Peaj risked it all... Not today thanks. So, we headed our way over to Loup-Garou / Weerwolf and joined the ugly cattlepen queue. Given that the only woodie I'd done so far was Antelope at Gulliver's Warrington, I was really looking forward to this, and it was a fitting way to try and end the day. We missed out on back row, as one train's back row was out of order, and there were loads of people waiting for it, but still got quite near the back. One thing I loved about the ride was how the bag drop point in the station had lids that would 'mysteriously' open and close - it was a neat little effect that I really appreciated. Now I think with this being my first big woodie, I perhaps over-rated it, but I really enjoyed it! Super comfortable seats, a decent layout with good length, and not too 'rough around the edges' meant it was just a great ride that I really enjoyed. Even looking back now, I just remember feeling a huge smile beam across my face. We noticed that Adam and Peaj had just about made it into the queue - last ones in in fact - so they ended up getting one up on us. We waited around for them, and even lurked around the exit to see if they would let us on if there was space; no such luck there though. After they had their ride, we begun to head to the exit, when we realised that the chairswing, Wave Swinger, was still operating and still letting people join the queue. We decided to go for a quick spin for the sake of it, and it was a nice way to end the day. After a bit of shopping in the Wab Shop, we left and set ourselves on course for, Cologne Germany. A couple of hours later, and we arrived at our hostel. Much like with our hotel in France on Day 1, we were greeted by a locked door and no response when we knocked and rang the door bell. With no telephone number to call, we seemed to be quite stuck. A little while later, one of the other people staying eventually came out for a cigarette and let us in. We knocked around the rooms and eventually found one unlocked with 4 made beds, so decided it was our's. We found another guest who was able to give us a telephone number for the owners, who told us that they thought we weren't coming because we didn't arrive in the check in time (even though online, check-in was until 11pm, and we arrived before 10). In the end, we were told the room we had found was indeed our room and we continued the night we no problems. We wandered around the local area, and I grabbed a currywurst and chips for dinner - was very nice. We found a local supermarket and stocked up on some drinks (500ml bottles for 99cents; bargain!) and some snacks, before heading back to our hostel. It had been another long day with a lot of time spent in the car, but we knew a longer day was coming, with Phantasialand open 11 hours tomorrow, it was time for some sleep. Final Walibi Thoughts: For a park that I was a bit meh about visiting, I was pleasantly surprised overall. It had some decent rides which were fun and there were some nice bits of theming scattered about. The park atmosphere was a bit lacking on the whole; something just felt a bit missing from the place. What that 'something' is though, I can't quite put my finger on!

The construction site isn't that interesting at the moment. Just clearing out for the hole and some markers for the building I think at the moment! As for marketing, I wouldn't be surprised if Thorpe go for a more subtle and mysterious style for the ride. They won't want to reveal what the ride is and probably want to create more intrigue for the attraction than hype. I'm partially not expecting anything else till September/October time. Then again, Stealth didn't have that much marketing at this time in 2005 (just a couple of infographics mentioning it will be tall and fast) and Saw's first teaser video happened around now in 08. So it's not really much different to other major projects yet. The VooDoo dolls have been on sale for a few years within Thorpe. I think the own toppers related to Thorpe's rides are just a neat bit of new merch. I'd be surprised if they were related to the new ride at all!

Find it very curious about the meaning of LC12, since I've long believed that it meant 'Long Count', in reference to the Mayan calendar, as seen by this image (thanks to TTP!)... Maybe it's just one of those things that has multiple different meanings, and has a given one depending on the situation used?

Probably a reference to Towers' half 4 closures. Let's not forget that parks don't shorten their opening times for the sake of it. They've had the intention of opening at 7pm but obviously realised that the predicted crowd numbers aren't enough to justify that cost. It's not good that they've cut an hour away, same for Chessington, and it's probably ringing just as many alarm bells for the parks as it is for us. Let's hope that at least the park does decide to stay open till 6:30/7pm on some nights if there's demand. At least they've changed their opening times in advance as well. For example, when some of us visited Bobbejaanland a couple of weeks ago, they had it on their site they were open till 7, but then one small poster hidden by the entrance said that park close had changed to 6. Not the best thing to find out really. So there's at least been some thought that's gone into Merlin's decisions.

Those who were at the meet this past weekend may have seen my Colossus ORP on the screens and taken great pleasure in my face of pure pain. Unfortunately I didn't buy it, but here's a similar one from 3 years ago showing how much I 'love' Colossus on a rough day... At least I could manage the ride without holding on back then...

Fair point. I guess it comes down to the park and it's opening hours. Still doubt many people will take it up at Thorpe, but nice to have the option available I guess. I'd be very surprised if they reduced hours back to 9pm. It wasn't a popular decision in 2012 and there were a few nights that the coasters and mazes stayed open till 10 anyway. The park are still opening late with Island Beats, so I don't see why they wouldn't match that with their biggest event? Nothing wrong with the event being a similar scale to last season - last season's event was huge and one of their most popular ever! The Lionsgate films will still be a huge draw, and Towers' re-investment and Chessington's new attraction won't detract that much from Thorpe's crowds. Fright Nights has always had high attendances and low throughput attraction. Reserve n Ride was trailed on 3 days of a 16 day event. Fastrack, on the whole, was probably no worse than any other of the past few Fright Nights. If you really think that anyone who went last season won't have the incentive to go this season, you are very much mistaken! And don't forget, there will be thousands of people itching to go to their first ever Fright Nights, or their first Fright Nights in so many years. Fright Nights has been the park's busiest periods for years, one slightly quieter year won't change that. I also don't think it's wise to right off this season's event yet. In all likelihood, we'll see something done to 'Fright Night-ify' I'm a Celeb. I'm personally expecting Studio 13 (or The Motel) to reappear in some way. If My Bloody Valentine is going to go over to the island next to Swarm, which is a possibility, then they'll probably want a second attraction next to it to make it worth people's while to travel that far. So I do think that we will see something 'new' in some sense. There's still plenty of time for us to be surprised! Also, a serious question for you - if you believe that it will be the case that there's not "much incentive for anyone to return for another go", will you be going to FN again this season? If so, why?

You see, this is the thing I love about the attraction the most. I've done it 6 or 7 times now, and every time, it's been quite different. It makes it 're-rideable', since you're never totally sure what to expect. Unlike with horror mazes, say, where you know roughly what will happen, I'm a Celeb seems to keep you on your toes, meaning it's great for regulars, but also the quality is about the same for new-timers. The changes are also quite cheap as well, so it's not like it's a bad thing to do. I haven't had a scary run through yet, though I do wonder why they're doing it on an irregular basis. Find it even stranger that they're doing that now given you usually only have 1 actor guiding you through the entire attraction!

Ooft, looking good! Sometimes I forget this is actually an Intamin.

I did notice a sign about a buffet breakfast in Fins one morning when I arrived once, but I'm not sure if that was something more aimed at hotel guests that just hadn't been taken away? Regardless, no one goes to a theme park and had straight to a food place for breakfast!

Day 2 of the trip got off to a slightly bad start, with no where around our French hotel seemingly being open for us to buy breakfast (despite the internet and shop signs saying they would be open..). After much wandering around, we found a nice little bakery where I couldn't resist getting anything other than a croissant. After food was sorted, and a nice 30 minute car journey was had, we arrived at our second park , Bellewaerde. Now, before I start, I should probably confess that I hadn't really heard of Bellewaerde at all until Adam suggested it be part of the trip in its early planning stages. I remember hearing about their signature coaster, Huracan, being built a couple of years ago (indeed, if you dig round on the forums, you'll probably find it being briefly because of its epic opening ceremony), but I didn't exactly think anything of it other than "Oh, that's an obscure park I've never heard of and probably won't visit any time soon". Fast-forward to now and I'm here, with said coaster right before my eyes. We were directed to park by the Mexico entrance rather than the main entrance, which straight away took us to the likes of Huracan and some of the other big rides on park. Huracan opened at half 10, so we decided to wait around a bit, and Jack and Peaj went on El Toro, the park's breakdance to pass the time... They weren't overly impressed with it. We joined the queue for Huracan, which was stated to be about 30 minutes. Given this was the park's headline ride, we decided to brave it expecting it to be longer later in the day. The entire queue is indoors and very nice, though slightly boring to wait in admittedly. This is saved by the epic station area, which is nicely themed, very atmospheric and has awesome lighting and sound effects. The coaster starts off with a dark ride section, taking you pass a waterfall and many large temple-like statues. I think the ride is meant to have on board audio, but unfortunately it wasn't working for us. Whilst the theming here was something special, the lack of audio obviously meant something felt like it was missing. The lift hill then takes you outside briefly, giving a lovely view of part of the park, and the warehouse the ride is held in, before dropping you back inside. There's some cool light effects in there, and the layout is fun, but again, without any audio, it feels like a lot is missing from the attraction. The ride ended and left me saying "Is that it?". As an overall attraction, it's probably great when everything is working, but it just didn't do enough for me on the day. A real shame. Entrance / outdoor section Atmospheric station is atmospheric. We then moved over the El Volador, a Topple Tower. Infamous rides really, and whilst I have wanted to try one out for ages, I was a bit unsure on whether the ride would be any good. The ride experience is weird, as it's not dull, not exciting, but it just happens. Very unremarkable in my opinion. I guess for me they're a lot like top spins in that they're fun rides to watch, but that's about it. It was time to move onto another coaster, with Boomerang just around the corner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a Vekoma Boomerang. It's the first one I've done, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it after hearing many bad reviews. Alas, even if the long-ish queue gave me plenty of time to hear the rattlyness of the ride, I went in with an open mind. Admittedly, I didn't find it as rough as I was expecting, but it wasn't a comfortable ride. Coupled in with the fact that it's an intense ride mean I didn't enjoy that much. To complete of Mexico, we watched a French showing of the park's new 4D film, Le Petite Prince (we could also have watched it in Dutch if we wanted, but chose against it. It's got a fair few special effects, and the fact we were told to keep our bags away from the seats should have been an indication of what to expect from the film. The seats move in all directions an awful, awful lot - the effect is a lot more over-used than any of Angry Birds' effects, for some perspective. The film itself was alright though. After about 2 hours in one area of the park, we finally moved along to the Far West to do River Splash, the park's log flume. It was a very warm day once again, so I was hoping for a reasonable splashing. Unfortunately, despite having a nice bit of theming and style to the ride, it was quite short, relatively dry and all in all, just a bit meh. Final drop Adam insisted I take a photo of the bin, because "no one would believe they have themed bins here if we didn't take a photo". After a spot of lunch and making priorities of what we should get done, we headed over to Jungle Mission. Bellewaerde is a theme park and zoo integrated into one another, and Jungle Mission is one of those rides that mixes theme park and zoo perfectly (sort of like what Zufari tries to do at Chessington). It's a boat ride that lets you see multiple animals exhibits, but also has a variety of special effects that make it feel like a fun boat ride. It was my favourite attraction of the day probably, with the effects being great, the theming being great, and decent views of the animals too. The station area had loads of these cobwebs on the ceiling - I'm still not sure if they're theming or real... Next up was Houdini, a Vekoma Madhouse. The pre-show was interesting with lots of good bits of theming, and I think we were able to be able to pick up the general gist of the story. The actual ride section was alright, but not to the standard of Hex, unsurprisingly. Still, a fun ride in its own right. This was followed by the Bengal Express - a train ride that takes you through lion and tiger enclosures. Again, another fun ride, but the heat meant that the (obviously enclosed) train carriages were quiet warm, and the animals themselves were more lounging around staying cool. With time ticking on, we went to the Canada area of the park, with a Shoot-the-Chute style ride, Niagara, on the cards. Now, I'm not someone who likes get drenched on water rides unless I'm in the right mood (for context, I haven't done Tidal Wave since 2009 or 2010, despite many opportunities to). So I gave this one a miss, but did queue with the group. Somehow we were lucky and skipped a good 60 minutes of the 80 minute queue when a staff member from the station shouted for a group to come forward to fill up a row (why they got a group from near the end of queue instead of the front I have no clue, but I guess we weren't going to complain...). After seeing everyone after the ride, they didn't look that wet and I kind of wished I done the ride now, but ah well... Looking pleasantly wet-ish. A go on Screaming Eagle, a Shot n Drop tower, followed. Once again, it's a type of ride I'd never done before, but had wanted to try. It was okay, but I think I prefer ordinary drop towers to be honest - they provide a better, and more comfortable, experience really. With 5pm approaching, we headed over the Gold Rush Stunt and Dive Show, new for this year. It was really good fun, with great special effects, a decent run time (25 minutes or so) and some good stunts of course. Being a stunt show meant it was very easy to follow as well, an added bonus for a park which is trying to cater for 2 different languages. It bought back some memories of Thorpe's stunt and dive show too; forgot how much I missed it! With the show over and the 6pm close looming, there was only really time for one more ride, and we opted to do Bengal Rapid River, unsurprisingly a rapids ride. It was a really fun ride, with it being quite 'rapidsy', a good level of wetness, with some nice bits of theming and scenery scattered around the course. Also slightly strange to see a rapids ride have its station on a slope (though, as we'd find out during the trip, not exactly uncommon!). First time I'd seen a rapids ride with the 'wedge seat' boat design too! Final Thoughts: Bellewaerde is an odd park in some ways. It's a mixed bag between having some quality attractions (Jungle Mission, Bengal Rapids), but then some attractions which feel like they have missed opportunities (Huracan, River Splash). Maybe on a different, slightly quieter, day, I'd feel different about the park. But even then, I still feel like the park needs a little bit more to feel complete. It's a park I'm not exactly desperate to go back to any time soon, but a park I'm glad I've done. One final thing I want to mention is how friendly and generally great the staff were - also an added bonus that many spoke English, which was much appreciated after some of my failed attempts at speaking French! We then set off to head to Brussels, which was meant to be a relatively nice journey. Unfortunately, roadworks on the motorway had other plans. A journey which should have taken us just over an hour ended up taking us 2 and a half hours, thanks to single file traffic and an accident. Joyous. Fortunately, when we arrived at the Meininger hotel in Brussels, we were greeted by great staff, a huge room and a Hard Rock Cafe a very short walk away! Would highly recommend this hotel for anyone planning to go to Brussels. There was also a fabulous atmosphere in the city centre with many celebrating the closure of roads happening in the area for an 8 month trial period (to help the atmosphere around that area or something; not too sure on the actual reason). A beautiful panoramic shot of the group in Brussels

Depends on the family. If you're a family with kids aged over 8, you could feasibly have just as fun a day out at Thorpe as at Chessington. If you're a family with kids aged over 10, Thorpe looks more and more like the better option of the two. Thorpe has plenty of family rides, it just has a thrill focus - nothing wrong with that!

Their target market nowadays is families with older children / up-for-it families. Press releases make it seem like it's children of age 8+, which seems to fit. Island Beats seems more aimed at a slightly older audience than that to be fair, but it would be nice to see even more variety in the acts.

Nothing exciting in particularly, but in case you didn't pick up on any hints, next year's woodie is confirmed to be GCI: http://plopsafansite.be/Nieuws/2015-07-20/werken-houten-achtbaan-plopsaland-starten-na-zomer/ Still not much known, but I'm feeling a trip pack here next year when it opens up.

1) Baron was getting very big queues at the start of the day whilst we were day (peaked at 150 minutes). Could be down to the fact it opened that week, but I reckon most people will still end up going there straight away in November. I'd personally recommend going at around 2-3ish to Baron. 5) It took us about an hour to travel from Toverland to Efteling by car, and there were very few obvious public transport systems near either park. Google maps is suggesting it's about 3 hours by public transport to get there from your hotel. If you were prepared to go through the hassle of travelling, you could do it, since you wouldn't need 8 hours on park to get everything done in my opinion. To be honest though, the effort and cost of that travel probably wouldn't be worth it!

True; which is why I said official opening time. They weren't under any obligation to open at 9:30 until now to be fair to them. As bad as it sounds, I do hope this is more just Merlin cost-cutting to help get the money back lost from Towers' closure, as opposed to the parks struggling.

https://www.thorpepark.com/resort-information/getting-here/ Changes to opening hours for August - park now officially opens at 9:30, but chooses at 6 (an hour earlier than previously advertised). Only half an hour lost, and technically makes Summer Nights better. A shame about earlier standard close mind! :/

Does this mean we'll get months of hype from enthusiasts about the Air tunnel being sorted out, only for them to leave it blank due to budget cuts?

It's been back for quite a while now; was only removed for a week or two I think.

I'm banning the shovel you use to dig out all these dead topics.

Despite his username's suggestion, the above member is, in fact, not a toothpick. I was personally distraught when I found out about such deceit.