JoshC.

The valley wooden coaster did have plans submitted in early 2003, but were withdrawn. I think there were loads of potential problems which meant the plans probably would have been rejected. Presumably they would have at one point intended to to tweak and resubmit the plans, but that never happened. I'd say Rita was a replacement for that coaster in the sense of they wanted a new thrill ride for 2005, and it opened in lieu of the wooden roller coaster, which was the first plan. A launch 'icon' coaster had long been the plan for Thorpe. Presumably that simply fit in with the direction DIC wanted to take the park in too, but likely saw changes to keep it cost effective.

Ahhh, this old chestnut. The story is quite simple, but a sort of Chinese-whispers effect has led to some confusion over the years. That image is from the MTDP from around 2003. The MTDPs only show loose ideas that the park have at the time. That drawing, for example, shows the top hat being the other side of the Stealth area. The layouts mean nothing; they're just there as a rough indication of size. When Thorpe were drawing up ideas for Stealth, they wanted a longer ride, more akin to Xcelerator (hence why the MTDP shows that). Ultimately, it never happened, for a variety of reasons: space, money, visual impact of the ride, etc. There is no online copy of any longer layout they may have considered. The "Stealth and Rita were meant to be one ride" thing is one of these 'fun facts' that the parks liked to say during behind the scene tours. However, that's very much an embellishment of the truth. Thorpe had long planned for a tall and fast icon ride and, as stated, did look at a longer ride too. Eventually they settled for the standard Intamin accelerator top hat-airtime hill combo we have. Alton Towers were in need of a new thrill ride to stay fresh and competitive, especially after encountering issues with planning for their wooden coaster. With the company in advanced discussions with Intamin over Stealth, they were able to work with them further to get another coaster, Rita. There was likely some sort of deal that they were able to haggle as well. The layout of Rita is kind of just plonked how it could fit really. It's certainly possible that Rita's layout featured inspiration from Stealth's extended layout, if the design process ever got that far. But it's more likely, in my opinion, just its own separate thing. So history would tell you "Thorpe wanted an Intamin accelerator, which eventually ended up being Stealth. They considered getting a longer one but didn't. Alton Towers also got an Intamin accelerator due to their other plans falling through, and it just so happens that the layout, with some tweaks, would have worked well after Stealth". But to say "Stealth and Rita were planned to be one ride" is a more fun story. We'll probably never know exactly how things went down (in part because we're never told these things, in part because most who were involved with it have probably moved on), and we'll never see exactly what Stealth's extended layout could have been. As touched on earlier, Thorpe's MTDP is a very loose thing. It just shows locations and vague scales of what they're considering at the time. But these ideas can and do change (Ghost Train was never mentioned in the 2010 MTDP, for example). The reason Thorpe submitted them is because it made the planning process for the rides easier, and kept up good relations with the council. When Thorpe do submit plans though, they have to stick to them very precisely. They have little room to change anything, everything must be done pretty much exactly as agreed. So they'd never be able to hide anything. Towers is slightly different, in that a large part of the park is covered by a General Development Order (GDO), which means that, within that area, they can do lots of things without submitting planning applications. This is how they were able to build Octonauts without a planning application, 'hide' some inversions in Smiler's application, and change the profiling on Wickerman's drop.

Soooooo, The Ride to Happiness, presented by Tomorrowland, anyone?

There's some rumours going around that the theming feature (which obviously once housed the stuff for the fireball explosion) is being replaced. Certainly those photos make it look necessary. I doubt the fire feature would ever return of course, but it would be nice to see a nicer looking theming feature take its place.

Picture the scene. It's some point in 2021 and you're allowed to leave your house. You might even be allowed to leave your county. Depending on how much the rest of world hates us, you might even be allowed to go abroad! And you've decided to go to some parks... So yeah, Covid-pending, do you have any parks you'd like to get? For me, the following feels pretty achievable... -UK Merlin parks -Paultons Park (for Tornado Springs) -Phantasialand (for FLY) -Walibi Belgium and Plopsaland (hopefully at Halloween) I'd also like to do Hansa Park and Heide, as well as a trip to Europa; trips which were cancelled last year. But the motivation is a little less strong due to the lack of new things they have compared to the above. After Grona Lund announced their B&M a couple of years back, I had a big Sweden trip pencilled in for this year too, but that feels quite unlikely given the situation. Obviously it's impossible to plan anything at the moment given the situation. But fortunately a lot of European trips can be planned on shorter notice, so it's nice to have a few ideas on the back burner if nothing else.

How Detonator made it to the final two is beyond me given the sillyness. Then again, I don't like pirate ships, so... Detonator: Bomb's Away (4) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (2)

The whole project looks fantastic and genuinely just one of the best complete coasters out there. In some ways, it gives me Taiga-vibes, except with Taron-esque amounts of theming. Intamin's recent track record is much more positive too. So I fully expect this will be one of the most universally praised rides out there, similar to the levels of Taron, Steel Vengeance, Helix and Lightning Rod. Especially since, like the first three of those rides, this will have an extremely high ridership across both European and American enthusiasts.

Bringing PY on board last summer does seem to have been a wonder move for this project. This is certainly the most optimistic I've ever felt about this project ever happening. And I think a large part of the reason it's at the stage it is now is because of PY's influence and lead. I still won't believe this will happen until I see construction start. And even then I'll still have an air of doubt. If it ever gets to a stage of opening, I don't see it being the quality or draw that they expect, at least for the first few years. But who knows...

Work is still happening with Aqualantis and theming, but they've also started on their mine train: (from FOMO Coaster Facebook) I've heard conflicting reports about whether this will open in 2021 or 2022. I expect 2021 will still happen, especially as it's right between Dragon Zone and Aqualantis, but we'll see

The park have been very forthcoming with updates. Here's the latest, which does come with a light spoiler warning... https://www.instagram.com/p/CJOlhaXq17g/?igshid=nyj1bqj2js1j

Track is complete: Their Spinning Sunday series (of which this video is the 9th) is worth a look for loads of updates of construction.

The name is confirmed to be Kondaa It made its first test run a couple of weeks back: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=external&v=381612839605104 It's also expected that it will form an entirely new area (which Walibi Belgium call Worlds), rather than being an extension to the neighbouring Exotic World. All very exciting stuff.

However you're celebrating, in whatever Tier, TPM wishes you all a Merry Christmas. Hope you're staying healthy, and looking forward to a, hopefully, more enjoyable 2021! Now get off TPM, ignore that silly ride game for a day 😉, and get on that Zoom call with those family members who you can't meet today (whether you want to or not!)

Depth Charge (3) Detonator: Bomb's Away (3) Flying Fish (3) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (3) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (3) Quantum (3) Rocky Express (3) Rumba Rapids (3) Rush (4) Samurai (3) Saw - The Ride (3) Stealth (3) Storm in a Teacup (3) Tidal Wave (3) Timber Tug Boat (2) Vortex (3) Stealth - TTB + Make it sillier

I guess the main one these days is the controversy which occurred earlier in the year, with people involved in the channel having allegations against them. Obviously they're not (actively) involved any more, but Shawn's handling of it was certainly far from good, in my opinion. And this even went further with some, less serious, allegations against Shawn's views, and how he acts in person to some people. Even before then, there was this anti-TPWW thing. I wonder if part of it was a little bit of envy/jealousy being thrown against him, because he was one of the first theme park vloggers, and so when it became mainstream, he was already huge. But I also think a part of it is down to how he has acted in person to some people, and it's just spiralled from there. My personal opinion is that he's obviously got a good set up which works for him, and something like that takes hard work and doesn't happen on a whim. But the past year has shown he doesn't quite know how to handle himself in difficult situations. And I'm not quite sure he has a grasp on how to handle himself around others, in that he doesn't realise how big an influence he has in person, as well as online.

Looks like only a toilet block and store cupboard have been affected, which is a good early sign considered how bad it could have been... https://www.facebook.com/DraytonManorPark/posts/10158136932472669?__cft__[0]=AZXSYkSN7nCFRlOoRuG3wsKqKZVEnmdNTqYNNSpU3SW-XqXRs1ImKigx8w45DwAuV-yulVcQEd5sBVwTE-wuMQZuMjWPCd6w6fqMOQxnlXx1KaDB7iRz-56JqU6fdBJexSOI6C60ggAJCCFQ0pZ6sKyA3PIzQJXj1EiVS1hayPjG9O3F5NC26l3AKbwAMZOdB6M&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

At least it happened whilst the park was not open. If the park had been open at the time this could be a very different story.. Hopefully any damage is minimal. If not, who knows what state the park will be in next year.

In fairness, attractions can only do so much to enforce the guidance given from the government. Realistically, no attraction is going to check the address of every person, and then check what tier that address is in. It's the same for restaurants: no restaurant is going to be actively checking that every person in a group is from the same household. This conversation is presumably coming from Theme Park WorldWide's visit to the park, despite the fact Shawn lives in a Tier 3 area and the park is in Tier 2, with his justification being 'TPWW forms his sole income, so he's travelled for work'. If you live in a Tier 3 area, you are told to avoid travelling, but you are not banned from it. So Shawn/TPWW aren't breaking any rules. Attractions and venues can, in theory, stop them from entering under their own T&Cs, but almost definitely wouldn't unless people were causing issues. Ultimately, it's a bending of the rules, not a breaking of them, and you could argue it's morally a grey area. And it shows how easy it is to exploit the government's recommendations, and how important it is for every single person to play their part, and use their own judgement and common sense.

I believe there's some sort of Tesla thing going on there at the moment, and has been for a couple of weeks. I also think the car park was used a temporary Covid testing site for a day or two a few weeks back.

I still maintain that the new prices represent good value for money if you take advantage of everything it offers. I think one issue is that people primarily buy the Merlin Annual Pass to visit the parks, and see the midways as "freebies" / bonuses, that they'll only visit because they get them for free, not using the pass to visit them because they were going to anyway. So then people see the high price and think it's very high because of how they view it. But ultimately, they have always been too cheap considering the large numbers of people who buy them. They've been in need of having to balance things up. The trouble is, if and when they did that, it was never going to go down well because people would see a price increase and no perk increase. My main issue with the new Gold and Platinum passes is I don't see why anyone would ever really want to pay extra for the Platinum Pass? The bonuses you get are: -You can visit the park on bank holiday weekends -You get three more £5 Fastrack vouchers -You get three Share the Fun vouchers (meaning 3 friends get to visit a park for £15, rather than the £30-ish online price) -You can pre-book three more days per attraction I don't see how those perks are worth £80 extra (after the sale)? I don't even see how they're worth £40 extra right now? Maybe the Platinum Pass will have more special event perks or something, but I just don't see it. So yeah, Gold is really good. Platinum, if it existed by itself would be good but expensive, but really seems pointless to me?

I think it's time to state this simply. There has been no confirmation by the park that Tomb Blaster is receiving any work, or a re-theme. It might happen, it might not. Until then, rumours are just that: rumours. It doesn't matter if Nick Hutson, Theme Park Giraffe, Doughnut Dan, Gil Lible or Professor Pepsi Burp have "confirmed" or said stuff. The best thing to do is to wait until a park confirms something before believing it. Until then, it's best to take anything else with a pinch of salt and not think something is definitely happening just because some guy said so.

I would have thought it would have been for seats to be painted / themed / styled / whatever off site / by the manufacturer, so there's a possibility that might be the final finish. But yeah, it's quite jarring and not the best look. And Chessington have done weirder things than theming seats on-site before, so wouldn't count it out just yet.

Theming still isn't finished yet and I think it looks pretty good. Looking forward to seeing the final outcome with it tbh!

Trappers Trail (5) Dino Bumper Boats(5) Mrs hippos fungle safari/ drive in the country (5) Chief rangers Carousel (5) Magic Mill/ tropical travels (5) Wicked witches Haunt/ Phantom Phantasia (5) Dare Devil Drivers (5) Viking Rowers (5) Bronko Bikes (5) Canada Creek Railway(5) Treasure Island train)5) Loggers Leap(8) Calgary stampede(5) Hudson river Rafters (5) Eclipse (3) Crazy golf(5) Dbgt (5) water buses (5) The Farm (5) Roller Rink (5) Space station Zero (5) cine 180 (5) Octopus garden (5) carousel Kingdom (5) Slammer (4) Eclipse + Slammer - I'd suggest when the reset comes to have all rides on 3 points rather than 5, otherwise this game will be going on longer than Thorpe's wait for a new coaster...

I guess it will all depend on the wording of the contracts and things like that. With something like Olympia, I'd have thought the contract would be for bringing the coaster for 5 (or however many) events, with an expectation of annual events. But obviously if an event doesn't run in a specified year, then the ride can't be bought to the event, so it wouldn't count. With the parks, their contracts would count years/seasons, and since the attraction is in situ all the time, it would be different. ie, the contract would be for the ride to be in situ for 5 years, not necessarily for it to run 5 years. This is where the wording and fine print of the contracts would come into play. Could an IP specify they want an attraction to run a minimum number of days in a season? Would Merlin agree to that? Does the IP still get paid if an attraction doesn't open? To what extent does having an attraction closed affect the brand name of an IP (I'd suspect it's minimal, but who knows)? All of these things could be different for different IPs too. I remember when Saw first opened that there were rumours floating around that Lionsgate had stated that if less than 90% of the special effects were working, the ride had to be closed until they were fixed. I believe it was absolute rubbish, but many people believed it. Personally, I'd expect the set up to be pretty basic at its heart. Thorpe/Merlin pay a fixed amount each year, and the IP get a certain percentage of the profit of merchandise related to that IP too. That would last x amount of years, and then discussions would reopen. Obviously there'd be other stuff, but that'd be the heart of it. I could be way off of course, but just what seems sensible. At this point, with Ghost Train, I'd've thought that Derren would rather not have it run a year beyond the original planned contract ending, and just cut ties with it. It certainly feels like he's no longer connected with the project.