JoshC.

CHIP 7706 is a staff thing and has absolutely zero relation to Thorpe's next big thing.

Just because a maze hasn't started construction yet, doesn't mean it won't appear. Big Top V1 (or should that be Big Top V0.1?) didn't start construction until September 2015 (and it was basically mid-September too). And equally, just because a maze hasn't been advertised yet, that means little too - it's not uncommon for mazes to be announced in September. Admittedly, the rumours are cause for concern - there's no smoke without fire after all. And also the lack of any sort of advertisement until the past couple of days is a bit unusual - with The Year of The Walking Dead, in theory, attracting people who love scare attractions, it would make sense to push what's happening at Fright Nights a lot sooner? So yeah, there's cause for concern, but let's not completely rubbish the event until we hear something more concrete.

Says a lot that all the replies to the tweets are talking about potential IPs for a new attraction (none of them Blair Witch). Thorpe have conditioned their audience to expect IPs now, completely killing any potential scope for creativity beyond an IP now.

It's true that, this time last year, the Big Top tent was built and maze construction had started. Equally, when Big Top was on the beach, construction didn't start until early September. Let's not jump to conclusions about what that means, but just look at the gulf in quality between Big Top v1 and Big Top v3, and let that speak for itself for now. I hope we get something in the way of marketing soon. Whilst I hate making comparisons, Towers have announced their line up, given a tease of their new attraction, and been building for weeks now. Fills me with more confidence that their event will be under control, that's for sure.

Now that they've introduced a 4 bat rating (rather than maximum 3), hopefully that should go some way in making it a bit clearer that it's scary. Hopefully they haven't toned it down either.

Daily Star: OUTRAGE as theme park website hides reference to devastated Smiler crash.

I don't really see the point of this maze tbh?

I'll try and appear regardless of what date is chosen, though it'll probably be an evening appearance!

It's probably the unfortunate case that you've seen all the internet has to offer about the original X:\No Way Out. The theme and story was always very loose, even back in 1996 it wasn't the clearest or most obvious. The computer theme was just a case of responding to what was trendy at the time, and what teenagers thought was cool. No super deep backstory out anything of particular excitement related to anything else. It very much split public opinion, with some finding it dull and boring, some finding it sickening and some enjoying it as a fun novelty. It had to go through so many changes before they eventually had to give up the ghost and change it to X. And even then, it arguably only truly peaked in 2017 (and 2013 was a good year too tbf).

So I did this for the first time the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. Zombie Hunt is a fun, funny, family-friendly scare attraction. There were kids in my group (I'd hazard a guess that they were as young as 6), and they enjoyed it all - even the very loud ending. The main problem is that it is very formulaic, and there aren't enough actors. It's 'walk into scene, actor appears, shoot zombie, move on' six times. Something like this should be more 'free', with a lot more characters (given the space they had, 15-20 actors would have been perfect imo), giving more scope to 'hunt' and take advantage of the laser gun system more. I'd also have liked more of a score system involved, but I imagine the tech involved in doing that is beyond the scope of the clearly limited budget this had. So yeah, all in all, decent little attraction which hits the spot. But there's room for it to have been SO much more.

Getting the exact same grades as me in those subjects when I got my results 6 years ago. Copycat. Also thanks for making me feel old.

Looks like a faster paced version of Lost Gravity, which is only a good thing in my books.

One theory I've heard is that the angle of drop was changed after the design phase. Originally the ride was meant to have a 97 degree drop (like almost all other Eurofighters), but then in mid-to-late 2008, it was announced it would have a 100 degree drop. The element immediately after remained the same, so the curvature of the drop and the curvature of the entrance to the inversion are slightly different, causing the jolt.

For this year, yes. It has always been the case that every day in October was a FN day and it was Friday, Saturday, Sunday plus half term.

The yellow crane on the right hand side of the photo has also been taken off site, paving the way for the launch track to be built.

The problems with that are: -You have to keep staff later, meaning you have to pay them more. -You alienate anyone who isn't planning / able to stay till end of the day. -You eat into the time after park close that engineers have to do daily maintenance to the ride, which could result in more problems the day after. It does solve some issues that the current set up has, but it creates many many more. The trouble in the past is that Priority Passes were handed out like water. This year they're more like Coke - still on tap, but hidden away and a lot more restricted.

*20 seats in operation

I s'pose last year we had the world's worst kept secret with Walking Dead, and the previous year Platform 15 was announced in April. This year there's nothing, and any rumours that have surfaced have been uninteresting. Hopefully they can pull something out the bag, but I imagine it'll be difficult.

Presumably the park will take the decision to close 2 hours early because those extra 2 hours don't particularly add anything extra. Of course, longer on park is always a good thing, but sometimes it isn't necessary. It's something the park has to consider on a case by case basis. For staff, look at it from a different perspective. What is more preferably - spending two hours in the rain, entertaining very few guests for minimum wage, or having a couple of hours extra to relax on a Sunday evening? It can be very demoralising doing a minimum wage job in poor weather for very few people. It's not always as black and white as 'it means you're getting paid, don't moan'.

If they make that call early enough in the day and advertise it appropriately to everyone there, I don't see an issue with it. If the weather is terrible, there's so few people there and they're not making any money, why should they stay open for so long? It won't exactly benefit the people who are there (at best, staying open till late on a wet, windy, stormy evening will give a few extra rerides, but not much else), and it'll help the park in terms of staff morale and budgets. Plenty of small parks across the world will close earlier than advertised if the numbers aren't there, especially if it's because of the weather. Blackpool are a small park so aren't going to be any different. I do agree that they should change the wording on their website though if they are still saying 'earliest possible closing time' or whatever it was.

I imagine / hope they'll do that, or have a holding area within Rookburgh itself accessible from all entrances to the area.. One thing I forgot to mention though - Berlin Street now plays pop music in the afternoons and evenings. General cheesey pop music from recent stuff (Despacito) to more 'classic' stuff (Mambo No. 5 springs to mind). And, surprisingly, it works really well. It made the atmosphere so much more enjoyable, helped by loads of entertainers / performers dancing, playing jokes on guests and just generally be a good laugh to watch. We probably spent close to 10 minutes just standing round there, soaking up the atmosphere and just laughing at all the performers antics. And that's how you run a theme park folks.

Wow, I've been slack lately - rode this over 2 weeks ago and still haven't posted a review... Fenix is decent. Good pacing, looks absolutely stunning and flows well. The turn into the dive drop is great as it really picks up some speed going into it; proper nice little whip round. The queue is beautiful (though, bar an extension, entirely enclosed, making it hard to gauge queue times since there's no info board). They're currently using a token system for front row rides similar to Swarm in its first season (you're batched up to the station), so be interesting to see if that works long term. Two minor complaints - the pre lift sequence isn't ready yet (should be ready by end of season apparently), meaning it's effectively a shed at the moment. Also, the exit stairs from the station are VERY steep, and dimly lit, with a spinny turnstile thing at the bottom of the stairs. Definitely almost tripped down them more than once... Merlin's Quest is nice, with a nicely themed indoor section. Maybe a bit too long. Avalon does look beautiful, and I'm sure once it's settled down a bit more with vegetation growing, it'll feel really complete. The new restaurant, The Flaming Feather, is very nice too and reasonably priced! Port Laguna is a great new entrance portal and again looks beautiful. They've got interactive wands you can buy (for an expensive 25 euros) to interact with the area more. And they've got an indoor attraction / show which shows the technology off more (I assume similar to Ollivander's experience at Wizarding World of Harry Potter?). We went through it (despite it being entirely in Dutch, obviously), and it did seem it needed some more work to it, as many people seemed very 'meh' throughout it. The park have actually since closed the experience to improve it. So yeah, all in all, a fantastic investment for the park. The park was, unfortunately, very quiet, with Fenix effectively walk on by the end of the day. And the park have said to Looopings that gate figures aren't as high as they hoped after the introduction of the new areas. But it's hopefully just a slow bloomer for the park - after the risk they've taken with this, and their long term plans for expansion, I really hope it proves to be a success for them!

Tbf, if they ever wanted to bring back that type of ride, it would probably be cheaper to buy and build a new one from scratch than fix the old one, especially if you take into account the cost of (re)theming. I imagine that would have been true at the end of 2016 / start of 2017 as well.

Back up now. The flames clearly were hungry.