JoshC.

Went to Phantasialand this weekend and just, damn, I always forget how incredible this place is. Firstly, Rookburgh: no photos from me. However from the outside there's little to be seen since the last update. The glimpses are saw though are exciting. Next, Crazy Bats - the VR experience that at one point Phantasialand said they'd never get. It's a weird one: the VR headsets are good, and comfy - the first VR coaster I've ridden where I haven't needed to hold onto the headset. And the film itself is good. It's humour-filled, well done, has some nice tricks and fun to watch. But I did come off feeling a bit queasy (something VR hasn't done to me before), as did everyone else in my group. I think that's at least in part down to the sheet length of the film. The other issue, unsurprisingly, is the throughput. It's completely destroyed. A ride that could easily churn out 3-4 trains without stacking now just manages to send 2 with no stacking (which for a 4 minute + ride isn't good). And the first and last car were out of use throughout the duration of the visit (I don't know if that's a permanent thing or not, but that takes out 8 people a ride). And the clever conveyor belt cleaning system they had seems to no longer be used either, which is sad. The really surprising thing, though, is the popularity of Crazy Bats. The public were lapping it up. It regularly had the longest or second longest queue on park. People were willing to wait over 2 hours to ride this. Now 2 hour waiting times aren't uncommon for UK rides, sure, but in Germany you rarely see those sort of waits, except on exceptionally busy days. It's crazy. So clearly this has worked for the park. And that brings me onto the next point: the park was hugely busy this weekend. I've visited this weekend in January for the past couple of years, and whilst it's been busy, it's never felt mad. This year, however, it was heaving. The park coped very well and queues were all manageable. But it was a massive shock to the system to see how busy this tiny park gets, whilst still managing to deliver incredible experiences. People were queueing to get into the viewing area of the park's finale show (which, tbh, is a bit naff) an hour before it started! But yeah, despite the busy-ness, the park was brilliant. I can't recommend their winter event enough.

Abyssus update, now that track has started to be installed: Looking forward to seeing this develop!

Very much depends on who makes contact and generally what the contract is. Some IPs do make contact with parks as they see it as a way of pushing themselves in the limelight more. And for the right price any park will say yes. Obviously it's more common for parks to contact IPs and go from there. But even then, an IP company is willing to spend some money for the initial investment so it matches their standards. Usually a park will pay a flat rate to the IP each year, then there will be extras on top based on merch/photo/food sales.

I've never done it personally (but know of people who have), but Plopsaland is feasible if you are down south and can drive. Either get an early morning Ferry or EuroTunnel to Calais (or Dunkerque if Ferry-ing), then the park is less than a 45min drive. Then travel back in the evening. You could probably do Bagatelle in France in a similar fashion if you wanted (not that I'd recommend that mind...). I'm sure I've also heard of people doing Walibi Holland in a day. There's early morning flights from Stansted to Eindhoven and if you hire a car you can arrive before opening (it's about a 90min or so drive), and there's plenty of evening flights back. I guess you could do Tayto Park too but I don't know what flight times would be like. At a push you could even do Walibi Belgium in a day if you got the EuroStar to Brussels and travelled by public transport to the park, but you'd almost definitely arrive a couple of hours after opening and so would have to go on a quiet day. Off the top of my head, anything else would be a stretch tbh, usually because most parks are far enough away from airports that travelling between the two eats into valuable park-time. There's also the fact that a one day trip is quite expensive for what you're getting. If you're willing to stay one night, that opens up plenty of opportunities. It means you could do one and a half days at city parks like Liseberg or Linnanmäki, for example, and don't have to worry about the faff of hiring a car.

Gangsta Granny seems to be the headline attraction of the area; presumably a new dark ride! At a guess the old Wobble World site or 4D cinema would be suitable locations..

https://www.e-pages.dk/irishtimes/1997/article/1064276/14/6/render/?token=00ce01be065816f85730cda08caced2b&fbclid=IwAR2vzrBxyCPAqiMcFSDgmoYflNbXVkess-_qqLYVq1XaS5h9S-qhhxw5g68 A couple of people have lodged official objections with the council regarding the new coasters, which could cause delays stopping the rides opening from 2021.

M&M is coming along nicely... And we have Part 2 of the Making Of...

Internally, there's been a huge push for lifeguards in the Beach for many years now. Up to now, staff have required no different training or qualifications to any other attractions and it can make people feel uncomfortable to work on it. A huge bonus of having lifeguards is that it means the Beach can have deeper water and more extreme slides if the park choose to. Whether they do is a different matter of course, but it opens up a realm of possibilities. The big issue is that lifeguards are more expensive and in greater demand than ride hosts (who need no previous skills or qualifications). This makes the Beach more expensive to run and harder to get staff for. I do hope that the park are planning changes for the area, since I imagine very few trained lifeguards will really want to work for minimal pay to watch over an outdoor swimming during summer..

The Snapchat update shows a very old aerial view of the park (from 2015; DBGT isn't built yet). Those images mean nothing.

I don't think anyone is getting too excited here, which is of course sensible. The park usually do things like this, and it can be for a variety of reasons: 1) It is good practice to keep these not used areas reasonably tidy so that they can be accessed when needs be 2) It gives the Landscaping team something to do to test out new equipment / train new staff with low pressure, or to give them something to do during quiet periods. 3) To test the land We saw them go some tidying of the grassy areas by Loggers last year which of course meant naff all. The fact this happened in June and so few people noticed when on park shows that this is not as noticeable or extreme as Google Maps suggest either. Of course, if the park were to open a new coaster, that space is one of the most obvious spaces to go for. But at this stage, we don't know how far away that could be, so who knows.

Indeed, that is true. But in can be used for as a paper trail too if needs be. Ideally, there shouldn't be many copies printed and a missing copy shouldn't be shrugged off as nothing, but what happens in an ideal world isn't always reality!

And X, Cabin in the Woods, Dodgems and The Big Top all wept at being forgotten about

Health and Safety documents such as COSWPs (Code of Safe Working Practices) can be printed out any number of times and given to any number staff at any one time. When printed, they live in a sort of uncontrolled state (in the sense that they cannot be edited after being printed). So it makes sense for there to be very few printed out to ensure that new versions don't get muddled. When staff have them to be trained from / to read over, they sign a document to say what COSWP they're reading, what version they're reading and what times they read it from and to. This sort of thing is rarely done in a classroom setting though. So in that sense, they're 'signed in and out'. But it's more in the sense that there's a paper trail that shows where any copies would have been at any given time, rather than a central document .

Been officially confirmed that Condor will get new trains for 2021... Booo (I'd rather see it ripped out)

As part of the 2021 Drop Tower ride investment that is replacing Rameses Revenge, the flying elephant ride is being relocated to behind the main shop (roughly where the old Carousel was) for 2020. The ride will be rethemed to the children's story Elmer the Patchwork Elephant... This seems to have more been leaked than officially confirmed, but expect news from the park soon...

Track is complete: As heavily thought, it is a clone of Baa Express at Europa Park

The bit where they mention about crane and containers near the site of the proper hotel is also used regularly for storing, well, 'stuff'. Could literally be anything at this stage, especially without seeing what it was. Over closed season, there's plenty of cranes and containers making the rounds at the park.

The seatbelts serve 2 main purposes: Purpose 1 - In case of an evacuation, it gives greater control to staff. 'Please don't undo your safety belt', etc. Purpose 2 - A visual check for guests to know they're secure. As time has gone on, Purpose 2 has become more redundant as guests generally know they're safe. But 20-odd years ago, seeing a seat belt was a big thing. Purpose 1 only truly matters when there's people sat in the seat. Plenty of parks around the world don't bother doing seat belts on empty seats. And within Merlin, it's a ride-by-ride thing. This is not an example of H&S standard slipping. The only thing that's extremely shocking here is the amount of time you must have dedicated to try and find another crazy thing at Thorpe to complain about.

It's that time of year again: what parks / attractions are you planning to visit this year? For me.. Definites -UK Merlin Quartet -Phantasialand -Europa Park (finally!) -Port Aventura (finally) -Gardaland (finally) -Movie Land Italy Probablies -Paultons -Blackpool (finally!) -Flamingo Land -Lightwater Valley Maybes -Heide Park -Hansa Park Longshots -Skyline Park -Legoland Deutschland -Energylandia

Attraction doesn't mean maze necessarily. I'd more expect a second sit down show over a new maze right now.

It's only the first post of the decade but I reckon it'll be one of the best

Found via CoasterForce... It looks more and more likely this will be a completely separate coaster now, with the current rumour being it'll be a non-inverting, airtime focused ride (something which hasn't really been done by Gerstlauer on a big scale before).

Most people don't travel from that far frankly; I reckon at least 90% of people visiting live under a 2hr drive from the park. Leaving at 8am is hardly an unreasonable hour. The trouble with closing later is a culture thing. British culture very much revolves around 'get in early, get out early' so people can do other things with their evenings. Convincing people to stay at a park later in the UK is difficult and, to date, the only thing that really works is Halloween / firework events. Outside of that, it's tricky to convince people to stay. Is there a difference between cleaning the park before it's open as opposed to after its closed? Either way you're having to pay for staff to be there for the same amount of time.

Looks like a great coaster for sure. 6-7 inversions (depending on if the Banana Roll counts as 1 or 2) is mental really. I stand by my earlier point from when the plans came out re the fact that this will completely change the feel of Plopsaland. This is a monster of a coaster going over a lake pretty much in the centre of the park. Plopsa is quite a quaint park as it is, so this could really ruin that, and I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

Annnnnnnd confirmed: