JoshC.

They should be 'metal ropes', so ropes would be a correct word. And if not maintained properly, or used too often or whatever, they will snap just like any other rope. Though tbf, if it's a cheap / knock off ride, they could quite literally just be 'strong' ropes. An incident at a fairground in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where a girl fell out of a pendulum-style ride: (incident around 50s) The fairground didn't have appropriate permission to run, nor did they go through proper safety set ups / checks. Haven't found any word about the condition of the person.

For the first time in like 2 years, I've actually finished a trip report *dies of shock* Plohn jumped into my attention because of their new Mack Big Dipper, Dynamite, bursting onto the scene. We thought visiting in mid-May would be safe enough for the 'Spring opening', but sadly we were 6 days too early. Major spite. Nonetheless, it looks good and I'm sure it'll be a hit for the park. Onto the rest of the park: El Toro A GCI woodie that opened in 2009, El Toro was a curious surprise for the trip. It's tucked away in the corner of the park, and though you don't really see it, you can certainly hear it. And even when you do see it, you don't quite realise how long it is, and how much it packs into a small space. It has a fair few airtime moments, which are all 'nice' and 'floaty'. It twists around a bit and has a nice bit of interaction near the park's log flume too. But ultimately, there's nothing particular interesting about it: it's just a bog standard, run-of-the-mill woodie. Miniwah and The Secret of Gold Creek City Now this was a surprise! Miniwah is an indoor Mack powered coaster, with a custom layout. Set in the park's wild west / mining area, the entrance is tucked away and, thanks to the facade, it'd be easy to think that there wasn't a ride in there at all. The queue is really well themed and surprisingly atmospheric. The ride itself is fabulous as well. The ride does 3 laps: the first lap is taken incredibly slowly, and gives you a tour around Gold Creek City and it's mining area. The second lap speeds up as it becomes clear the mining area is about the explode. The final lap is then taken even quicker, with the mining area fully exploded and causing havoc throughout the city. It was beautifully done, and a really interesting way of using a powered coaster. As from that, the park have 3 other coasters: some Zierer over water which was painfully slow, a Wacky Worm and an SBF spinner, all of which aren't worth me trying to find the names for and simply were coaster counting. The park have a surprising decent dinosaur/prehistoric themed section of the park. It features a family spinning drop tower (themed like Tikal), a raft tow boat ride around a lake with some dinosaur and caveman-like statues, and some pedal rafts on the same lake. This part of the park is away from the rest of the park and in dense woodland, which really added to whole vibe. Looking at the park's website, some of these rides are named after the Flinstones too, though I didn't notice this, and I'd be very surprised if there was any official tie in... The park also features typically European stuff, like a random un-manned funhouse area with some really fun slides (and like 5 floors tall), and a Efteling-inspired Fairytale forest which was pretty rubbish tbh. There was also the 'Ghost Mill', which was a haunted walkthrough attraction which was basically hidden by the log flume. You would basically walk through the building and certain effects (loud noises, wobbly floors, etc) were triggered. It was odd and different. Probably the highlight of Plohn for me is the park's two water rides. Firstly, there's their log flume, Wildwasserbahn mit Geiserbahn (literally Log flume with Ghost Train). The ride starts off in a dark tunnel, which I guess is meant to be the 'ghost train' of the ride. It wasn't scary at all, just very random. The ride then goes outside and just does standard log flume stuff, interacting with the woodie, itself and the surrounding area, and features a couple of fun drops. It's nothing special, but just done well and a ton of fun, which gets you the right amount of wet. Log flumes, great rides ey? And finally, the highlight of the park: Fluch des Teutates. This is a ride very similar to Storm Surge: you sit in a raft, climbing up a low lift hill, and spin down a slope. It's obviously by a different manufacturer (no idea who), as the boats are like rapids boats rather than dingies, and a slightly different layout for the drop. In particular, during the drop, there are 'mini drops' which give little extra pops to the ride, and splash you. Simply put though, this ride is crazy: the boats spin a ridiculous amount on the way down, you get a good level of wet and it's just a ton of fun. It's a really unassuming ride, and just a fantastic surprise package of a ride. So yeah, that's pretty much Plohn in a nutshell. The park wasn't busy at all (it was Mothers Day in Germany, so I can't tell if that should have made it busier or quieter). But we never saw El Toro have a full train. Staff at Miniwah seemed genuinely surprised when they saw us arrive in the station. The park felt really dead, and even going slow and doing lots of rerides, we barely managed to stretch the day out to 5 hours. The park felt very fairgroundy in places, which was a shame as well, given they've got some nice theming scattered about. It's in general a shame, as I thought this Plohn could be a park I'd really like, but I ended up feeling very flat because of it. And, even worse, that means I probably won't ever return to get Dynamite...gah! And yeah, that ends the theme park side of the trip. We spent the Monday exploring Berlin, and tbh, it was a very meh city for me. It felt very 'European' and not very 'German', which is totally fine, but as someone who likes Germany and wanted to explore more German-feeling stuff, it was a bit disappointing. I did try a Berliner though, which is sort of doughnut, hence the imaginatively named trip report.. So yeah, Berlin isn't the best trip for a theme park run right now. Belantis and Plohn are very meh and offer little. It says a lot when a strawberry farm is the best place for coasters near Berlin (though the strawberry farm is brilliant and should be visited if you're ever near Berlin..). But yeah, ticked off a few creds at least..

^Tbf there's been very good reasons why enthusiasts flock to Europa and Phantasialand. ngl I thought it was much closer to Paris.. #basic #JeNeParlePasFrancais

In this warm, muggy weather, the sheer thought of Chiapas is just brilliant Best ride, best soundtrack, best food. Just the best.

I wouldn't say it's underrated? It's got a reputation as a good park, with a good selection of rides which are well themed - essentially what the park is. I guess it hadn't attracted huge attention because the last major ride they added was Oz'Iris (Pegasus was a family coaster which missed the mark ultimately), and that's what draws the most attention for us as UK enthusiasts. Plus going to the outskirts of Paris is a bit of a pain compared to some of the other nearby European parks. So yeah, the park is rated fairly, and it'll come into the spotlight more when their big Intamin starts being built sometime next year. Points for the clickbait title though, fair play...

Meh, double post, but more details from the park via their blog... https://phantasialandblog.de/crazy-bats-facts/ The park have confirmed the VR headset will not use smartphones, but rather be 'proper' headsets. It also talks a bit about the quality of the images. So hopefully we should see something a bit better than previous VR coasters. And an advert:

I'm guessing it and Hollywood Tours will be staying for a while. The next big project is still likely to be the China area, so I guess there's that. As for Crazy Bats, there is a preview for Annual Passholders tomorrow, and the ride is expected to open to all later this week. A bit of marketing spiel..

Testing, 1,2, testing Still not certain on this, but a decent-looking first test run is promising..

And it's open: I read a statement whereby the park claimed it had 300k guests on its first day. Somehow I don't think so..

And another Making Of video.. This series has probably been my favourite construction video series in recent years!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-48700496 Merlin have, after many years of planning, moved two whales from an aquarium in China to a whale sanctuary in Iceland. Animal welfare is still a developing issue in China, and aquariums/oceanariums with whale shows aren't unusual. Merlin bought the Changfeng Ocean World Zoo in 2012 and rebranded it into a Sealife Shanghai, and committed very early to improving animal welfare and ultimately moving the whales, despite the massive popularity of the show. Indeed, Merlin don't actually list Sealife Shanghai anywhere on the Sealife website, and you have to do some digging to find out that they own/run it. The movement to the sanctuary had hit a couple of delays and was an expensive, logistical nightmare, but is now finally done. I don't know the long term plan for Sea Life Shanghai, but I imagine they're going to continue bringing it in line with other Sea Lifes, and further push education of animal welfare in China.

You say that like it's a bad thing? A poor man's Helix is still at least a good ride, possibly very good. And supposedly this only cost half of what Helix cost (likely cos it isn't built on a massive hill), I'd still take that!

Some people may be aware that a couple of weeks ago, TowersTimes had a Q&A session with Thorpe. An brief summary from someone who attended, found on CoasterForce: So it certainly seems like the 'next big thing' is a while away. It's no secret that Thorpe's non-big things over the past decade have left a lot to be desired, so it'll be interesting to see if they can change that. And also it's questionable whether the park can truly remain fresh and exciting without adding a major new addition for so long. And forgive my pessimistic scepticism, but I see little to be excited about. The park have see-sawed between families and teens/young adults again and again it makes you wonder if they'll ever get the balance right. Saying the park will look unrecognisable in 10 years time is a bold claim which requires a substantial amount of money to back it up (Walibi Belgium are doing something similar and spending at least 100m euros) - and this is during a time when Varney has said that Merlin will be investing less money in theme parks. It all sounds very much like Thorpe have been looking through rose-tinted binoculars and what the future could be like.

June is the month of POVs; here's Fury's... https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157148899100822&id=25556630821 Looks decent, though a shame that the final set of brakes makes the spike pointless.

A little Zadra update..

And it's what you've all been waiting for, a Taiga POV.. Today was the press event, with the ride opening tomorrow. Unsurprisingly, all reviews have been positive; good amounts of ejector airtime and some good intense moments. The stall inversion after the top hat looks bloody brilliant too. And if that's not enough to whet your whistle, here's the beautiful advert... Heading out here in September and I'm seriously hyped already ?

Too soon

Some extra hype with a back row POV...

Nice to see it back (wasn't working Friday so obviously very recently fixed!). On a different note, has anyone else experienced a juddery ride on Swarm this year? I've had 4 rides this year (both in inside and outside seats), and have noticed a judder / bounce every time; usually after the billboard and up to the final inversion. Made the ride significantly less enjoyable every time!

Did this the other day with a group of people who had no idea what to expect from it. General consensus was it was 'good', but felt like it missed the mark in a few places. Weirdly as well, the final scene played (all audio and effects), but the demon didn't appear. Certainly felt flat and even those who had no clue what was happening realised that something was missing. Hopefully a one off mistake and not a regular issue..

I guess I should have worded what I said differently. Opening a ride / part of a park 3 hours early is an incredibly difficult thing to do which isn't always going to be feasible. Of course, given the popularity of Harry Potter, it's something which should have been seriously considered, but I don't think it's 'bad' thing against the park that they couldn't; just a 'not good' thing. Hagrid never soft opened. It had its press preview and that was it. The plan had been to soft open it (I believe around the beginning of June), but there have been plenty of issues which stopped that happening. I did hear there was a possibility it may not even open on time. And since opening, there have been quite a lot of teething problems and it's still running on reduced capacity. It shouldn't be a surprise that an Intamin with 7 launches, omnimover station, special track features and the possibility of running 14 trains is having teething issues. But that would normally be ironed out during a soft opening. So it's a lose-lose situation for everyone at the moment.

An interesting take on things. I certainly don't doubt that the park could have done more to reduce the queue time, but in fairness: -Opening a ride 3 hours early isn't exactly a feasible thing to do -It's sometimes better to not introduce added complications like virtual queues at first -Weather was affecting ride availability, which no doubt contributed to the high queue time -There were many rumours about the ride actually being delayed, and a murmur that it's fortunate this opened on time. That could explain reduced capacity/number of trains Certainly not saying it's good or excusable, and I've no doubt they did it for a marketing thing, but I don't think it's all as doomy and gloomy as that article makes out. On a side note, this whole investment supposedly cost $300m. Just wow.

Fury at Bobbejaanland is testing... It already looks really fun!

I'd hazard a guess that this hasn't been as popular as the park had liked, since it has now seen a £3 price reduction: https://www.thorpepark.com/events/jungle-escape Pay on the day: £7 Book in advance: £6 Passholders: £5

Worst of school trips is in July. Late June is usually manageable; wouldn't expect queues to peak at longer than 30-45mins at worst. And if you're sensible and don't do Swarm first, don't do DBGT when it opens, etc, you'll be fine.