JoshC.

Phantasialand opened for it's main season today. There's plenty of stuff to take note of: Rookburgh Rookburgh is now vaguely advertised on the park map. No opening date is mentioned. The wall at the Fantasy area is complete: This empty raised space is new, making some speculate a new small attraction could be placed there in the future Taron Work has been done on some of the rock work (where the waterfall is after the second launch) to improve the look of it. The ugly extension area is receiving new theming and covering, which should be finished soon: Black Mamba Black Mamba is continuing to receive new rock work, from Universal Rocks: Chiapas The bell tower, which is a focal point near Chiapas' main drop, has seen the roof replaced. Last season, the roof was looking very shabby with chipped paint and was very faded. The new roof is a different shape (and imo looks a bit worse, but ah well): Comparison can be found below: [spoilers] [/spoilers] Temple of the Nighthawk / Crazy Bats Some are still living in hope that this has been some elaborate April Fools prank. The park map still lists Temple of the Nighthawk as an attraction. The ride, however, is closed, with most signage removed, except for what is below: This is what the park's queue boards say: Other -Most food places now take card (they used to be cash only in most places) -The Phantasialand annual pass has been rebranded as the 'Phantasialand club' -Aside from Temple, no rides have been closed. There had been plenty of rumours of either Temple/Hollywood Tour or the China area being demolished for the next big thing after Rookburgh All images from Christopher Kenny's Twitter.

Based off previous tweets where they've mentioned times, they go off MST (since Tornado Springs is American, etc). 5pm MST is midnight tonight. So if something is going to happen, it may well be then. I'd personally only expect a hint at another ride and name rather than anything full blown though, if that.

Whilst we're on the topic of train fronts: Taiga is currently having a couple of cars pulled through, and it's looking fab. Image from the member Jussunen on Huvipuistofoorumi

"Alive like no other" sounds like it was written by a non-native English speaker who doesn't fully understand the difference between 'alive' and 'a life'.

The green side of the crazy Intamin duel is now testing: I still don't think it's confirmed these coasters will run at the same time, though one would certainly hope so..

Plohn's new Mack BigDipper is testing; here's a fun POV: Front of the car, as posted by the car, is also explosive...

In a left field turn, Phantasialand have announced they're changing Temple of the Nighthawk to a VR coaster over summer...

Nah, Swarm's station looks DREADFUL. Not even just the beams, but everything else is peeling away, chipped, broken, and dire. Inferno's gum station, faded colours and supports aren't much better. The dome is seems to split people 50/50. But to me currently it's just bare. Signage is nice enough, but it's such a mashup of themes and styles right now, that it just feels awkward.

Thorpe deserve some credit for a lot of the small things they've done over the closed seasons. New restriction boards for basically all rides, signs around the park directing people, continued good quality landscaping around the park. Then the small touches of paintwork are good. Sadly this is largely lost and overshadowed by the big things, like the state of Colossus, Inferno, Swarm, the quality of audio, the dome's stripped back emptiness, etc. And these are the things that truly matter and should be focused on. Hopefully the small touches are a sign of things to come. But when they're easy things to get right, and the big problems have been problems either for years or a long time coming, I remain cautious.

Meh, double post in two hours but screw it. Turns out Scott from the Making of videos has his own Facebook page, and oh boy it's good:

From TPM's Facebook: This suggests at least that Jungle Escape will have some changes from I'm a Celeb

Another tweet: Hint at IMA score? Though equally, a hint at wood too. Park are playing with us just a bit... ?

80 degree drop calling

Underneath Fujitsu is 'squall storm', which is a 'sudden increase in wind speed which last minutes' (as opposed to a gust storm which is an increase in wind speed for seconds). Everything else is pretty meaningless without further context. The V=Dr^2h formula could be related to velocity of a tornado I guess. 6a^2 speed could be anything. So yeah, nothing really aside from fast tornadoes. That in itself could still be a hint towards a launched spinner though I guess.

Potentially some news on Tornado Springs coming Sunday...

I think a partial reason why people are experiencing fatigue with the UK parks, and in particular Thorpe/Merlin, is due to the complete change in pace of investment. Look at Thorpe in the 2000s - large investments regularly, and good mid-sized investments every year. It was unsustainable in my opinion - in that they couldn't continue doing that indefinitely - but it's now gone the other way and the investments are small and feel short term (even the likes of Ghost Train 3 years later feels ultimately limited in life span now). Really, what have you missed if you haven't visited Thorpe in the past 5 years? Chessington has always struggled with new investments: 3 *new* rides since 2005 (I think?) in Peeking Heights, Kobra and Zufari (excluding shows and Adventure Tree, since that was a like-for-like replacement of a carousel). Everything else has been a retheme, which can only captivate people so far, even if the quality is great. Again, compared to the early 2000s, and the promising resort developments it made in the early 2010s, it's a shame. Towers has been topsy-turvy, not helped by Smiler, though I do feel that the crash at least masked some problems which were coming their way anyway. Legoland is the only one in recent years that's made more captivating investments imo. Mia's, Ninjago, Monster Party have opened the park up to a wider audience, and despite their problems, I think it's a positive on the whole. On the other hand, they still have limited appeal as a park. And aside from Paulton's (which, in fairness, has been rather child-focused until very recently) and Icon, this past decade has been very meh in the UK. And compared to last decade, where Drayton, Flamingo Land and Blackpool had some decent-ish investments, it feels a bit worse. You then only have to look across into Europe to see the quality and quantity invested by parks of similar (or smaller!) sizes to feel all the more disappointed. I think the UK is on the up though. Paulton's is growing into a true family park. Flamingo Land might be throwing themselves back into the mix. Dreamland is making a slow recovery for itself. Yes, Merlin still have their problems, but there's still rays of sunshine in their dark clouds. So yeah, rambling post I know. But I guess yeah, I can see people's disappointment and fatigue. But equally, I think there's cause for - cautious - optimism for the future.

Fenix is getting its pre show fitted for this season, as well as a new height restriction of 1.32m (previously 1.4m): https://www.toverlandfansite.nl/persberichten-2019/dit-staat-bezoekers-van-attractiepark-toverland-dit-zomerseizoen-te-wachten It's actually a bit of a darker feel than I was expecting. The indoor queue for the coaster is quite dimly lit, and has some creepy things, but this feels a bit darker and different (although maybe that's just me ultimately not getting the theming / experience I guess). It's a shame they couldn't get it ready for opening last year - the shed view was poor - but great to see something which appears to be of high quality still. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Steel Curtain, the 9 inversion S&S coaster coming to Kennywood, is growing quite nicely... (image from Kennywood Connection) Still not keen on the aesthetic mind...

On top of all the above, Rulantica opens on the 29th November..

When Merlin first introduced the refill capsules for passholders, it worked similar to that. I feel like at first it was £10 for a whole season, before slowly rising to £16. They eventually changed it so it was £1.50 for the bottle and then 75p(?) per refill, an idea which wasn't too well received.

Last year, a refill capsule (which just had Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Fanta and Oasis I believe) cost £8. £2 extra for all the different flavour combinations isn't bad I guess. In that sense it's pretty reasonable and in line with similar all-you-can-drink offerings (probably cheaper than it is in America actually?) It does sound pricey when you first hear it though, so I fear it may put people off. But I hope it does work out for them as something like this is a really neat idea.

It's been topped off, as seen in these photos from HAPA Forums... Anything which makes Karnan looks small is impressive.

2019 map is now live, as posted by pawel98123 on CoasterForce: Confirms that the RMC will indeed be called Zadra (which was previously on announced as a codename, and is Polish for 'Splinter'). Given the map marks Zadra as a 'New', and the rest of the Dragon's Castle area as 'Coming Soon', I guess it's still possible for Zadra to open this year. As an aside, let's just appreciate how nice the Energylandia map is. And also, the space occupied by the Energylandia logo and underneath, as well as what would be space to the left of that, is all just empty field belonging to the park, which they will expand on...

The project was dealt with by the same people who deal with midway investments, designed by the Dungeons team, etc. In that respect, it was dealt with as a midway. However, midways are usually separate entities - things like the Sea Life Centre at Gardaland for example are completely separate to the park. As the AT Dungeons at within the park and you can't do it by itself, Merlin won't view it as a 'midway'. I imagine Merlin will pick and choose how they view it. If its KPI scores improve the overall Dungeons KPI score, for example, they'll include it within the Dungeons/midway data. If it improves to overall Alton Towers KPI, they'll include it there. Equally for spend per head, ROI, etc. If it doesn't, they'll probably just leave it limbo or exclude it and call it a joint venture so can't be properly placed. In this this, I am under the impression that those who decide the worthwhileness of midway attractions weren't consulted about the AT Dungeons in any way, so I'd be surprised if, officially/publicly, any of the financial stuff came via midways, even if there are backdoor arrangements.

Just out of interest, do we know what isn't finished (if it is indeed unfinished)? As for the unthemed areas - as has been mentioned, everywhere will have unthemed stuff, but you're simply (and subliminally) drawn away from it. Will be interesting to see how big an issue it is (as most reviews I've seen haven't commented on unthemed walls - how much of that is down to new thing hype and influencers not commenting on negatives, however, remains to be seen)