JoshC.

I'm with Marc here. It's a sense of being realistic. They didn't repaint the whole of Inferno's exit fence for whatever reason. And it looks terrible. And is in an area which several thousand people will notice. Let's assume it's because of cost. How on earth are they going to get the money to repaint a whole boat, which isn't being used for guests, for a location which significantly less people notice? Keep in mind that, despite it's location, a lot less people pay attention to the boat, and even less use that walkway. And during Fright Nights they can (and, if they're sensible, should) block that pathway off entirely. This isn't to excuse it. But when we're in a time where the park isn't fully repainting exit pathways, removing bridges because it's cheaper than repairing them, etc, etc, is them not repainting an SBNO attraction really something we should expect, or be worrying about?

I visited Walibi Belgium last week, and honestly, this park is turning into a right little gem.. New Stuff -Popcorn Revenge is absolutely brilliant; up there as one of my favourite dark rides. A ton of fun, great theming and really re-rideable. A bit hidden away and was very quiet despite the park being busy, which is a shame. -The recent rethemes of areas as part of their 100m Euro overhaul are great. Karma World (which has Popcorn Revenge) is great. Fun World is a nice kids area. Exotic World is beautifully themed and really added a different dimension to the park. -The Gerst bobsled in Exotic World, Tiki Waka, is really nice. Not the greatest bobsled in the world, but nicely themed and a perfect fun-for-all ride. Existing stuff -Pulsar, the Mack Supersplash that opened in 2016 (see start of thread), is brilliant. Arguably should be their icon ride right now. Sure, you get soaked at the back, but it's a REALLY fun ride, and I'd love to see more of these. -Challenge of Tutankhamun, their other shooter, is still great and doesn't feel like it's 16 years old.. -The park has a solid rapids and log flume -They have an Vekoma mine train, SLC and a Boomerang, none of which are great. I imagine they're staying for the foreseeable as they're in the park's long-term plans (and the Boomerang has been repainted), but they're okay fillers I guess. Hopefully we can see the back end of them soon-ish though. -Their Vekoma woodie, Weerwolf, is still decent. Much better than Robin Hood at Walibi Holland ever was. I've heard the park aren't considering RMCing it, but after seeing Untamed, who knows what they'll do... So yeah, Walibi Belgium have really gotten their act together. It's great to see them adding new stuff within their constraints and working on the existing park at the same time. Really would recommend people put this on their radars! As for next year, the park will continue with their refurb of the park, redoing the entrance (which isn't awful tbf, but could be better), and the currently not-really-an-area area of Pulsar, their log flume and their Schwarzkopf shuttle launch, Psyké Underground.

Thorpe require a letter from a GP. But most GPs will do it with no questions asked (even though technically you should be charged). I'm sure you can easily forge them as well. Having an on site doctor is not feasible in any way though. Nor should it in any way be considered. The big issue is that Thorpe and Merlin have tried to be as accomodating as possible to disabled guests, and in doing so, have been too accommodating. If you reverse the decision and make it stricter, it'll be a PR disaster. Can see the tabloids now: "Thorpe Park said my son wasn't disabled enough! Discrimination!!". Merlin won't want to risk that backlash now. They've dug themselves into a hole and I don't see how they'd get out of it. I know that Phantasialand do offer a version. A very strict version mind, and if you qualify for it, you can't do most of the rides because as you say there a view you wouldn't be safe to do so. They got into some heat a while back for refusing to let a blind guest on coasters - but most of the media sided with the park..

A nice graphic of the new coaster: However, there's some reports the ride will now open in 2022 rather than 2021, due to some issues with some trees that have to be removed for the ride. Be a shame to have to wait another year for this awesome looking ride..

Group sizes are about 20. 20 groups in a day. =£1000 a day Say actors get paid £9ph. Probably 8 actors a day for Dungeons working 7 hours a day, £504 a day. Plus ride staff to operate the boat ride (they won't be actors, just ride staff in a character), engineers/technicians getting the ride ready, plus the actual running of the attraction probably adds another £100-150 in simple terms. So yeah, it'd make a couple of hundred quid if it ran at full capacity.

School kids get £2.50 entry to the Dungeons at the moment. Equally I believe that there is (or at least, was) an offer through the app which meant AP holders could get a Dungeons ticket for £2.50. The sign of a popular attraction no doubt...

https://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?s=d0cc464ea23d9140ebe26edfb100da95&p=160510030#post160510030 The lift hill / stall combo looks stunning.

After visiting Walibi Holland last week, I got to do an attraction that I've been keen to try for quite a while now...NeuroGen. For those unaware, Walibi Holland is quite an..in your face park. They quite clearly are targeting the young adult market, and are unashamedly brash. Think of what Thorpe was doing in the early 2010s with the 'fatheads', except not quite as awful, and with the balls to follow through and stick with it. Their current slogan of #HardGaan (Go Fast) keeps in line with that, and you regularly see 'F#CK FEAR, HARD GAAN' plastered around the park. They're not a park to shy away from doing something extreme, as seen from the likes of Untamed. In 2016, they introduced a new, critically acclaimed, alone-experience to their Halloween line up: The Clinic. The Clinic sees guests visit a hospital, before quickly being strapped to a gurney, and having the rest of the experience take place strapped to said gurney. In 2017, the park introduced a year-round spin-off of the attraction: NeuroGen. Here's how the website describes the 16+ experience: So far, all pretty standard wording and hype for any scary attraction. But equally, this is a good (albeit roundabout) way of describing the experience: it's like a 4D cinema, except with VR headsets (which is actually filmed and not CGI) instead of 3D glasses. Oh, and you do it alone. You wait outside the building and are taken in one-by-one. You're guided into a hospital waiting room, told to walk through a door and someone is waiting for you round the corner. A walk through a corridor with some special effects (loud noises, bright lights, mist) eventually leads you to a very bright, very clinical circular room, with a doctor to greet you. You're asked to select a treatment ('beach' or 'waterfall'), and then one of 12 doors around the room opens, which you're told leads to your treatment room. Spoilers here just in case: For the tl;dr version: basically the VR film shows you taking drugs, tripping out, being in a car crash and drowning. And, what's remarkable is how realistic it felt. I haven't experienced any of those phenomena, but it certainly felt like this was as close as I could get to it without experiencing it. And that made it pretty hard-hitting. It's a very different type of scare experience, and one which I imagine could really affect some people. It's pretty dark, and pretty bleak, which I guess makes it all the more appealing for me. The fact this is a solo experience really adds to it as well. So yeah, easily the best executed VR experience I've done, and something really rather out there too. It's brilliant to see these sorts of experiences offered in a more mainstream setting, despite being for a very niche market.

A wild Fright Nights social media post appeared: It wasn't very effective.

An interesting sticker has appeared over by House of Monsters: From Towers Street FB The sign previously said 'this' instead of 'next'. If there's a plan for a maze to return in 2020 but not in 2019, there's some (fair) speculation that it could be because the building / surrounding area could be receiving some work. Given it's in Cloud Cuckoo Land, could we maybe finally be seeing the illusive, long-rumoured CCL retheme?

Car park has seen some continuing improvements this season: The car park has never been good, and I don't think they can ever make it perfect due to being green belt land(?), but it's great to see them making the best out of a bad situation.

Following from the successes of Legoland Water Parks at Legoland Resorts in America, Merlin are expanding the idea and incorporating the idea of a Legoland Water Park into Gardaland's resort offering: https://www.traveldailynews.com/post/gardaland-resort-announces-the-opening-in-2020-of-the-first-legoland-water-park-in-europe I know some people will immediately jump to the conclusion of 'this is happening because of the recent takeover'. But just to be clear: this is in no way related to the recent takeover. This has been planned for significantly longer and is purely coincidence that it's been announced now. It's perhaps unsurprising that Merlin have decided to go down this route. -They love IPs -They love the ideas of resorts -Gardaland as a resort has over 3 million visitors a year and was always 'more than a theme park' for Italians Using Lego means they avoid using an outside IP (saves money) and introduces the Lego visitor brand to Italy (since there's no Legoland theme park or Legoland Discovery Centre). And it expands the resort offering further and differentiates them from other theme parks more.

I did this last week. And yeah, it's meh. There are two rooms you tackle, and they contain 2-3 puzzles. From what I can gather, the puzzles are simple or require silly logic to solve; no in-between. Almost half the experience time is faff with actors / pre show which doesn't really fit given its an escape room. I'm normally pretty positive to seeing actors in the attractions and think that, despite the obvious costs involved and the criticism Merlin come under for actor-led experiences, they normally do a decent job. This is not one of those experiences sadly. The idea of pitting two teams against each other is good, but falls flat given how unpopular that attraction is at the mo. So yeah, a shame this. It had potential, it still has potential, but there's not enough puzzles or escaping for it to feel like a good escape room experience.

Cohesion isn't necessary imo. I'd rather have a nicely themed ride than a half-arsed themed area. Admittedly, it's odd of the park to do this after focusing on areas a bit more (Maya the Bee land, Heidi area and K3 land in particular), but I don't have a problem with it. I'm still a bit confused why they haven't gone for an IP for the retheme, though not complaining!

Loggers building receiving some work. Imagine the meltdown if Thorpe hadn't announced it is dead...

Dino Splash is open. Keep in mind the theming still isn't finished: I'm not quite sure what's left (I believe more dinosaurs and more animatronics), but damn, yeah, this is impressive. And all for €5m. Source: https://www.looopings.nl/weblog/12514/Rokende-vulkanen-en-brullende-dinos-Plopsaland-opent-Dino-Splash.html

Seems to be you who's been smoking the funny stuff.. Saw has always been mixed, but it's been pretty damn consistent the past couple of years. Was my favourite of the bunch last year too. It's not gotten particularly better or worse imo, but it's just a well designed maze, with good sets and it's easy to get scares out of it. Means that regardless of quality of actors, you could get a solid experience. A shame to see it go. Wonder if the boat requires (more) money to fix up and the park aren't prepared to stump up the cost?

That potentially might be it in fairness. I've always been unsure on RMCs and whether I'd actually enjoy them. Some of their unique elements look simply unenjoyable to me. I've warmed to the idea more recently and it's hard to go 'I don't think I'd enjoy this manufacturer's rides when they're so universally praised'. So it's been a weird one in that context I guess. The thing is for the past 2-3 years in particular, I've seen RMC praised as this company that have revolutionised the coaster industry by creating world class rides and creating experiences that no other manufacturer could dream of delivering. That wasn't to do with their ability to convert rides or anything, I had seen time and time again that if you just go up to an RMC and ride it without knowing it's history (if it's a conversion), you will be blown away and get a ride which is completely out of this world. I didn't get that with Untamed. I got a very good ride, but it's nothing that changes the industry to me. It sounds crazy saying Untamed is 'just very good', but when I had seen for years that RMC creates rides that go beyond 'just very good', it's left me questioning where the hype is? Based off my experience, RMC just create good rides: that's great, but nowhere near the level of hype I've heard about it. Of course, one ride isn't enough to build a full opinion. And maybe Untamed isn't the best example of what RMC do when people say they've revolutionised the industry. But equally, I can only go on what I've done. Very good point, and something which is easy to lose sight of when these have become much more common. And yes, from this point of view, they have really revolutionised the industry, they've created something special, and they're just damn good at making good rides. But from the context of those rides themselves being industry-changers in their own right, I'm less convinced.

Let's talk Untamed then. It's really bloody good fun. It's glass smooth, has loads of really good airtime, some quite floaty, some really aggressive, and the inversions are great. The second half in particular is full on and relentless. It's truly fantastic and I reckon anyone who goes on it will enjoy it, even if that type of ride isn't your thing. What it did leave me wondering though, is: what is all the fuss about RMC? Yes, Untamed is fantastic, but this didn't feel like anything particularly groundbreaking? If you'd commissioned, say, Mack or Intamin to do this exactly same layout on a steel coaster, it'd feel exactly the same. There's nothing I saw our felt that made me think "wow, RMC are special" like half the enthusiast community seems to think. Obviously it's great they convert rubbish woodies to amazing rides, but that's it. So yeah, Untamed is fab. I love it. And I'm looking forward to trying similar rides. But it hasn't made me think 'RMC are gods' or anything crazy.

Fantastic looking addition to the park. And the park did a great job of realising the Lost Kingdom artwork, so I am confident this could be the same. Really looking forward to this developing further!

Annnnd it's open. Media event was this morning, and it opened at approx 3pm Netherlands time to the public.. I'll let you know how it rides Thursday (assuming it does RMC itself and die before then...)

Wicker Dude reopened today.

I can't seem to find where I saw this (I may have simply been told it verbally by someone who I found trustworthy so I always believed it), so take with a pinch of salt: despite Europa's and Mack's success, the company saw the development of a launch coaster as a huge make or break moment. They needed something new, fearing that as a manufacturer they would be left behind in the industry. And if this something new different work at Europa, it could hamper the development of the park in the long term, as well as damage the reputation. It was perhaps too fearful from them, but they certainly felt that if Blue Fire didn't work, it would have lead to a slump for them. As I say, feel free to take it with a pinch of salt. I get one guy saying one thing on the internet has little value, but I've never had any reason to doubt the story.

Tbf Merlin will have always been aware of what Europa Park are doing and their insane levels of quality. It's not something they've done overnight, it's been something which has happened over the past 20-25 years, at great levels of risk. If Blue Fire hadn't been as well-received as it was in industry, things may have taken a turn for the worse from what I've heard. Merlin will never be able to match Europa in any way, shape or form. Very few parks can or will. And that's fine. Just as long as no one is thinking that Merlin parks can magically fight the quality of Europa after one visit.

I think taking it at face value - 'offer accepted for Merlin to be bought' or similar - is perhaps misleading. As others have said, it is a case of existing shareholders buying more shares so they have the majority stake. Arguably the biggest and most important outcome of this is that Merlin are going back to being a private company rather than a public company. Of course the biggest problem with being a public company is that you have to answer to people who simply want profit: in their eyes, if something won't make profit, why should money be spent on it? A private company will have a more sensible outlook. Kirkby have said they've no plans to sell anything within Merlin and that there won't be substantial changes. It'll likely just be a different decision making process towards how to spend money. It'll be interesting to see if there's any changes to the hierarchy, be that by adding an extra layer (hopefully not..), a reshuffle/change of the top layer, or what. Not that this should need saying, but this obviously doesn't mean a switch is going to flicked and we're going to see huge investments every year at every park. However, I'd expect that if there's a different outlook and different decision making process, there might be more opportunities for money to be invested..