JoshC.

Nice overview of the construction site:

There's been a lot of crazy out there announcements this year, but I think this one takes the prize for the top one... Vulcania, a French educational 'theme park' (that currently has no rides) about 90 miles from Lyon (ie - middle of nowhere) have put in plans to install an Intamin launch coaster with a drop track section! Vulcania is all about, unsurprisingly, volcanoes and other natural disasters like earthquakes, and features 4D cinemas and interactive experiences, but no rides. These "edutainment" style parks are really popular in France, and they're slowly expanding into the 'proper' theme park more. The coaster is the first step into the theme park set up for Vulcania, with drops towers and rapids planned for the next decade too. The launch coaster has a launch speed of 34mph (lol, but keeps with the style of the park I guess), max height of 16m, and a drop track of about 5m in height. It'll be themed to (surprise) volcanoes. Here's the plan: Despite the unimpressive stats in comparison to other coasters, it still seems a perfect fit for the park. Also, Intamins aren't cheap, so it's a statement of intent if nothing else. In other news, Bosnia and Herzegovina - a country not known for theme parks - look to be getting a theme park! Little details are known, however the park are going for a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter and a Vekoma sit down looping coaster: Hard to know whether this will actually happen, but that Vekoma looks pretty damn good!

Who doesn't love a good pun...

It's the most wonderful time of the year - it's the Thorpe Park Mania Awards! As ever, we are using SurveyMonkey to collect the results. If you've never used it before, don't worry - it's dead easy! We've condensed things down a bit this year, to spice up the competition... PARK AWARDS: -Best UK Park -Best UK Coaster -Best UK Flat Ride -Best UK Water Ride -Best UK Dark Ride -Worst UK Ride -Best International Park -Best International Coaster -Best New-for-2019 Attraction (can be in the UK) -Most Disappointing Merlin Moment 2019 -Best Looking Attraction for 2020 -Best Manufacturer FORUM AWARDS: -Best Member -Best Team Member -Best Quality Posts -Most Knowledgeable Member -Most Dedicated Member -Most Sarcastic Member -Most Likely to be Banned in 2020 -Funniest Member -Biggest Fanboy/girl -Sexiest Male -Sexiest Female -Storm Surge Award -Member you'd like to see more of  And here's some clarifications in case any of the above are confusing... You don't have to vote for all the categories if you don't want! Please you forum usernames rather than real names - makes things easier For the park awards, feel free to vote for parks / rides you like the look of the best (especially the case of International Awards, where members might not have been on many / any foreign rides). Storm Surge Award: Vote for the member who you think reminds you of Storm Surge or should be awarded a Storm Surge for their efforts in TPM. Member you'd like to see more of Award: Vote for the member who you'd like to see post on the forums more often / see at meets / generally get to know a bit better! These are of course meant to be a bit of fun, so just enjoy the ride! Link is HERE! Voting will close Wednesday 18th December, 8pm, with winners announced at a point after. Any questions let me know. Get those votes coming in!

So Tayto Park ultimately decided to put in a set of new plans for the combined coasters, which they hope to open in 2021. Plans can be seen here: http://www.eplanning.ie/MeathCC/AppFileRefDetails/AA191588/0 They're still going for a Vekoma Suspended Thrill Coaster (STC) and Family Boomerang combo that are intertwined, but have made some minor changes, including a shorter and rather different STC. Main stats: STC: Length: 728m Max speed: 80kph (~50mph) Height: 31m Duration: 99secs Boomerang: Length: 244m Max speed: 58kph (~36mph) Height: 21.8m Duration: 70sec The coasters that were originally planned for Tayto are ending up at Tripsdrill and opening next year (something which was apparently rumoured to happen before all this happened). Hopefully this is enough to convince the council of approving it, and it looks like it'd be a decent investment for the park!

Blink and you'll miss this construction... (From Flamingo Land Crazy Facebook group, because Flamingo Land fansites are things now apparently...)

Shouldn't that be €ft€ling But actually, that's a wonderful idea, maybe that's now done (for Merlin at least...)

Unknown. Plans obviously said it would be silver/grey, but I don't know how strict they have to be to that. I certainly would have thought it was easier to paint it before erecting it but who knows. I do hope they clean it if they don't paint it though..

Update! The trains were revealed at IAAPA last week. Personally I think they look dreadful. And some construction from the past couple of weeks.. And it has been recently topped off:

An unsurprising lack of interest for this..

Also: 😍😍

Some higher quality pictures of the Rookburgh Gazette: source Some further highlights from the paper: -The Charles Lindbergh hotel will have 114 rooms: 106 of them will be individual cabins for 2 people, and 8 of them will be the equivalent of two cabins and be for 4 people. -Uhrwerk will be the restaurant for the hotel for breakfast and dinner, but will be accessible from the park for guests during the day for lunch -Bar 1919 is a bar area on the lower levels of the hotel, and is exclusively for hotel guests Roughly, the story of Rookburgh is a 1920s Berlin-themed area with a focus on transportation and, naturally, flight, with a steampunk twist. So Rookburgh will be a 'sub-area' of the current Berlin area, much like how Klugheim is a sub-area of the Mystery area. And, in an amazing piece of detail, the newspaper is written with 1920s German spellings, colloquialisms and grammar. It's a subtle difference, but something which is truly fantastic imo.

And we have a name reveal and concept art: The STC will be called Hals-Über-Kopf, which literally translates to "Neck over Head", but is also a German phrase to mean 'in a hurry', 'headlong' or 'making a rash decision'. The Boomerang will be called Volldampf, which is "Full Steam" and feels a bit nicer to me!

Whilst I totally get your point of view, this is a very different thing to staff being rude to guests. The general comment was that staff are quite friendly and nice to guests. How they treat people behind the scenes and in their personal lives is very different, and not something that can really be judged by people who don't work there. Equally, it's not really fair to tar all staff with the same brush because of bad personal experiences you have had.

Enthusiasts can be way too critical. Regardless of your opinion on the individual rides, a top 5 coaster line up of Colossus, Inferno, Stealth, Saw and Swarm is a good, varied line up which do offer a lot of thrills. Couple that with some of their flats and support rides, and they do have a very good thrill line up. It's certainly not difficult to justify it as the best UK park for thrills imo

I dunno, the rides are pretty thrilling tbh...

We have a lift hill...

And this is why we quote hilarious typos Charlie 😢 I wouldn't expect anything crazy though Matt. I fully expect that it's just a grab and go sweet treat place with a name to match the theme of the area.

Phantasialand opens for Wintertraum today, and the park are stepping up Fly advertising with the 'Rookburgh Gazette': (Picture from one of the park's marketing team) Included in the paper is reference to FLY, Hotel Charles Lindbergh, the restaurant Uhrwerk (Clockwork), as well as newly revealed things Bar 1919 and Emilie Chocoladen & Candy Werkstatt (Emilie's Chocolate and Candy Workshop, which will presumably be a sweet shop)

>Theme park reduces opening hours to save money >Less people visit theme park because of reduced opening hours >Theme park keeps reduced opening hours because less people visit them >People continue not to visit because of reduced opening hours This is the problem with looking at attendance figures for deciding opening hours.

Which is ridiculous if true. They're a family theme park which caters for everyone. The opening hours should match that. Longer opening hours won't alienate the pre-school market, it'll just get more people in. But it's much more than a group of small enthusiasts. It's pretty much anyone else who doesn't go to school.

Towers is a park that attracts people from across the nation. Plenty of people are willing to drive 2-3hrs for a day trip there. What incentive do people have to visit the park on an off peak day when they're going to spend almost as much time driving as they are at the park? And if people don't want to go on a peak day, then they just won't visit.

The final wall is going up... Source

*blows dust off and chokes* In case you missed it on our social media pages, we'd love it if you could spend a few minutes giving us some feedback on the TPM social media pages and website. As ever, we're always open to suggestions and if there's anything you can think of, always feel free to message one of the Team! Much love x

Oooft, ermm.. Thorpe Park x15 Chessington x4 Alton Towers x4 Legoland x4 Phantasialand x2 Walibi Holland x2 Paulton's Park Linnanmäki Movie Park Germany Walibi Belgium Hellendoorn Slagharen Duinrell Drievliet Belantis Freizeitpark Plohn Karls Erlebnis-Dorf Elstal For rest of year, might hit up Chessington and Winter Wonderland but that'll be it. Solid varied year. Don't imagine next year will be as varied or exciting, but we'll see!