JoshC.

Are the results going to be revealed tomorrow evening as well? If so, would people by up for an 'Organised Chat' tomorrow evening to have a joke about all the results and that?

Colossus (6) Depth Charge (5) Detonator (5) Logger's Leap (5) Nemesis Inferno (6) Quantum (4) Rush (5) Samurai (4) SAW: The Ride (5) Slammer (5) Stealth (5) Swarm (5) Tidal Wave (5) X (5) Depth Charge + Quantum -

I've pretty much got a summer 'internship' sorted out! I'll be doing a small research project at my uni for a few weeks over summer. I've found a supervisor, so just need to formalise a topic for me to do then send off the application for the bursary I'd get and it's all sorted. Not really your standard internship, but at least I've got something productive to do over summer!

Big update - http://www.chessington.com/updates/ So apparently it's now a £14 million investment! RMT is now called 'Scorpion Express' (as had been alluded to by a couple of people). Themed around a train which was in Scorpion Valley, it will go around abandoned mines which are now protected by a scorpion. Looks like Mexicana could get a name change then? But THIS is what I was talking about; this is the sort of thematic idea the park should be going for. There's also a 'treetop adventure', where you can play with monkeys, which seems to be a new extension to the Zoo. This seems promising, so let's hope Chessie pull it off!

I think it was something like. I remember them mentioning it after there was loads of controversy over MAP holders having to pay for parking too.

The trouble is, even though the areas I mentioned have different themes, they're only skin-deep and cosmetic. Look past the low-to-medium quality theming, and you have the exact same idea, just dressed up differently. I want to see loads of different things in one park, not essentially the same thing over and over again. Maybe I have too broad a mindset? Yes, the entire park is about discovering and exploring different lands and cultures, I totally agree. But half the park just feels like 'Oh look, there's an old / lost world, it's found and we're safe, yay', then the other half is actually 'Let's take you to this area so you can explore it in it's own right and have fun' (what I'd want) or just generic. Just a bit of outside thinking and creativity would do wonders and make each individual area feel a lot different and a bit more special. It isn't exactly Chessie's speciality though. As I say, not too fussed for a hotel (it's nice it even has a theme I guess), but if the next big thing goes for a lost / ancient world, it will likely feel like all the other lost areas dressed up a bit different. Chessington need to be a bit wild, a bit daring.

Feels like they're trying to compete with Chessie's Facebook and Twitter pages, seeinghow they mentioned about the secret of RMT. I do like how the non-Merlin parks try and capitalise from the Merlin parks' advertising; LWV has been particularly good at it actually. But this shows how Chessie is a much easier target than the other Merlin parks...

The way I see it, we have: Wild Asia, Zufari, Forbidden Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, Mystic East all themed about around a lost / ancient world which has been discovered. That's pretty much half the park, and is most of the park's major rides as well. Yes, all the areas are very different, but the core of it is the same. Having yet another idea about a lost / ancient world bores me. When half the park is all about it, I'm really not interested in discovering yet another lost civilisation. I want to go exploring elsewhere, in a much more modern time. That's why I like areas like Transylvania and Mexicana; even though they're cheesey, they offer something which is completely different to the rest of the park (though, in saying that, Wild Asia is my favourite area of the park because it is done so well). To be honest, I'm not overly fussed by it all. It's a theme for a small hotel extension, which I will likely never need to use, and won't have the same 'story' about it as a park area does. But if the park do go for another one of these lost / ancient world themes for their next big thing, I'll likely be bored of it before it even opens.

Unfortunately it looks like I can't make this now! Have fun everyone; see you in March for Thorpe!

Cornflakes and James & Co. are happy that no one is getting them confused with one another! Wait a minute...

Dragon's Fury (6) Vampire (5) Rattlesnake (6) Runaway Train (2) Dragon Falls (5) Bubbleworks (5) Black Buccaneer (5) Kobra (6) Monkey Swinger (5) Peeking Heights (3) Rameses Revenge (6) Tomb Blaster (5) Safari Skyway (5) Seastorm (5) Carousel (5) Flying Jumbos (5) Jungle Bouncers (5) Madagascar Show (5) Tuk Tuk Turmoil (6) Griffin's Galleon (5) Canopy Capers (5) Toadie's Crazy Cars (5) Hocus Pocus Hall (5) Zufari (5) Peeking Heights + Runaway Train -

I've also got the paperweight (£14.40 with AP discount). It's made from glass and got a really decent weight to it! Definitely think £18 is a reasonable amount to pay for it; £40 would have been a huge no from me though! I've never got why the parks started charging for digital downloads. I mean, like seriously? If it was 50p or something, that would be more okay, but £2 a photo!? Especially when people can scan them up if they really want (even if you don't have a scanner at home, I bet people could find somewhere where they could do it). And it's not like a scanned copy is much worse than a digital copy (I notice next to no difference between the ORPs I've scanned up and digital copies I've seen of others), so I really don't agree with that one. THAT really is penny pinching...

The thing which always makes me think when people say about the park's non-coaster year investments: What worthwhile addition could Thorpe add? Thorpe have quite a large variety of flats; I can't think of many flat rides the park could add which aren't overly similar to other rides on park and which would be a good addition. A dark ride is missing from the line up, but where could you put that? All about the right place at the right time for that. I think a couple of smaller things (return of cinema, CCR, a show, etc) would be great. But you can bet your bottom dollar that if that's what Thorpe did one year, people would moan it wasn't 'a good year of investment' or something like that. People can say about the park losing the ability to add rides outside of coasters - but the question is, what can they add which will satisfy everyone?

Aren't special editions of Monopoly usually £20-£25 at least anyways? So £30 is, whilst on the expensive side, reasonable.

To be fair, some (but by no means all) rooms probably do give you a nice view across the lake, and a little outsidey area looking onto will be nice. May as well give it a name which reflects those opportunities. Then again, it will have NOTHING on the lovely views the Chertsey Travelodge will have overlooking an average gym and an accountancy firm...

I think (read - hope) that one of the reasons for the shipping container hotel, if you will, is that there are troubles with the building of the actual hotel. The fact that it's been in their long term plan for so long, and they've gotten planning approval for a hotel twice (I think?) says to me that there must be something big up behind the scenes that we don't know about, and it's not just the cost (even if it is a contributing factor). I'm pretty sure the Snoozeboxes wouldn't have been cheap to hire from the company (I think it was Sidders who found out they cost Silverstone £15million a couple of years ago or something?). Whilst it's risky for the park to take it into their own hands, hopefully the full control they can have will work in their favour. Crash Pad / Waterfront Hotel / whatever is, and hopefully always will be, a temporary - almost kneejerk - solution to the problems that the proper hotel has been plagued with. It's probably also a kneejerk to the bad year Thorpe had last year as well. The whole thing does really feel very sprung on and out of the blue, but I really do hope it turns out the be a short term thing. You could view it as polishing a turd I guess, but it is at least making the best out of a bad situation.

So, some good news about all this... Thorpe are changing the colours of the Waterfront Hotel to fit in with the idea that it's on the water front: http://planning.runnymede.gov.uk/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/Generic/StdDetails.aspx?PT=Planning%20Applications%20On-Line&TYPE=PL/PlanningPK.xml&PARAM0=186334&XSLT=/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/SiteFiles/Skins/Runnymede_AA/xslt/PL/PLDetails.xslt&FT=Planning%20Application%20Details&PUBLIC=Y&XMLSIDE=/Northgate/PlanningExplorer/SiteFiles/Skins/Runnymede_AA/Menus/PL.xml&DAURI=PLANNING Whilst it will be made exactly the same (ie shipping container esque), it won't be painted grey, but instead we have: 'Wedgewood blue' containers, with 'Saphire blue' doors and a wavy canopy on the top painted in a nice 'Cornflower'. So, the colours are a lot brighter and will hopefully look more inviting. Also, as the park are planning these top canopies instead of 'steel solar sheets', it reduces the maximum height of the containers by almost a meter (max height 6.1m instead of 7m). Not exactly anything which will shake the earth, but nice to see better colours which reflect the overall idea are hopefully going to be used!

Couple more pictures from the minisite - http://www.heide-park.de/wingcoaster2014/baublog/ Dat ruined church-esque feel, ey? Bag drop in the station area. Apparently, you drop your bag in one section, and it then rotates around so it is safe and the next person has a free compartment to use. It then rotates again when you arrive back in the station for you to collect. Seems like a nice idea - hopefully it will work out (and it can then be installed in Swarm's station )

Going for another lost / ancient world theme for Chessie then? If they invest in another theme like this any time soon, my days I'll scream.

Amazing piece of marketing is probably the wrong way to word it actually. What I mean is they've created a story which no one knew was fake and, in turn, drum up plenty of attention. They've got loads of support from people, and for those who they annoyed, they can show they're a 'good company', which might help them in some ways. They made it into the papers and multiple online sites even after the park had closed; surely that's something? I do agree that there's other, less controversial, ways they could have gone about it. The 'movie studio' idea could have been milked so much more for example. That said, if the park did make up the initial compliant (which is how I've understood Chaz's post), then I'm pretty amazed at how they've pulled it off.

Wait, so are you essentially saying that Thorpe made up the initial compliant?! And then let it build from there and just continually market it? Or that they just capitalised from the initial complaint to market Asylum? If it's the former, then well done Thorpe for creating an amazing piece of marketing...

Let's not expect it to return. They're going down the film route. If rumours are to be believed, it was meant to have a retheme this year anyway. It's all but gone in my opinion.

Santa does seem to have gone on an extreme diet this year!