OlivusPrime

Speaking of track repaints, what colour was Vampire's track originally? From what I remember of photos online, it was red with black supports? If so, it's aged horribly. In fact, I don't remember a time when the track wasn't a weather-beaten pale pink colour with dark brown supports.

Paultons is a perfect example of a park that features animal exhibits without them affecting the rest of the theme park. Their bird gardens are lovely to visit in between rides that have little to do with them, and it never feels out of place. I can't stand the "Wild Adventure" brand that Chessington have gone with, especially when considering how vividly realised the themed areas were beforehand. Theming it as a £20 budget Animal Kingdom was one of the worst things they could have done with this park. It was fine before when it was a WORLD of Adventures - you hear that Merlin? There are continents outside of Africa!

If TLC was of a higher budget, Th13teen's building sticks out as something that could do with the work. The front facade looks lovely, but it's just bizarre how it transitions to rubbish scaffolding before becoming a tin shed at the back. A decent family coaster, but I wouldn't put it anywhere near the park's best. I still think that it would have been a far better choice for VR over Air (imagine speeding through the woods or through the tunnel with wraiths chasing after you).

Looks like something out of Nara Dreamland, not a top-end, currently-operating theme park...

As long as it's marketed as a family coaster if it turns out to be one, I'll be happy. Families deserve a major new addition like this, what with all the mid-tier rides being removed over the past few years.

Where are the official sources for these? Phantom Manor's scheduled for an extensive refurb later this year I believe, though I don't think any details have been disclosed, and the last I checked the Marvel news for Studios didn't detail any specific rethemes.

Visited Towers today (or rather, yesterday... darn this need to work overnight...) on a rather enjoyable "research trip" for my dissertation. Nemesis continues to look better with each lick of paint, but looking at last year's side suddenly made me realise - a lot of wear and tear happens within a year, and I'm now wary about how much the final year's worth of paint on the alien will contrast to the side that was repainted first, which will then be 3 years old. I also feel like clearing all of the overgrowing vegetation in the ravine would make a huge difference to the ride's appearance, but I assume that this isn't a likelihood as it probably "makes it look natural". Regarding Hex, the changes are mostly good and will be excellent with some tweaks. The new lighting in the queue provides a nice transition between the daylight and the darkness of the preshows, and the sound in the preshows is now nice and loud (though so loud that it can be heard in the courtyard next door!). My only complaint would be in the Octagon, where the main lights don't fully turn off until the entire room's power cuts out, meaning that the room is still pretty bright when the equipment is malfunctioning, somewhat dampening the tone. The new smell does smell strongly of Listerine at first, but it grew on me. More than anything, it's nice to have the ride back! With Duel, the lighting is worse than it's ever been, so I can completely understand and respect their decision to TLC it this winter, though I do pray that we don't end up with another 2016 Tomb Blaster. I also really realised this time how much the park needs to bolster its supporting rides lineup. Over the past few years, we've seen its water rides, dark rides and large flat rides cut down by half each (Flume, Sub-Terra and Charlie, and Ripsaw, Toadstool and Submission closed/removed respectively), meaning there's very few major all-ages rides to do aside from roller coasters. If I were in charge, I'd include a flume and Charlie retool/heavy rework in whatever they plan to do with Cloud Cuckoo Land (fat chance, I know), reopen Sub-Terra and Toadstool to fill up their respective areas a little more (even if both are only temporary), and put a couple of new flat rides in, perhaps one in X-Sector and one in Dark Forest. EDIT: Forgot to mention that I saw two people carrying a wooden bench out of Sub-Terra, so I'm assuming it's just being used for storage at the moment.

(For me, at least) it's less about nostalgia and more about a ride's identity as a piece of work. Like I said, I wouldn't not change John Williams' Star Wars score out of nostalgia, but rather out of acknowledgment that it's one of the collaborative elements that makes the work what it is. Hey, it's early in the season, making assumptions is why we're here!

It's really a shame, I'm reading "Theme Park Design and the Art of Themed Entertainment" at the moment for my dissertation (really fantastic book - would firmly recommend to any enthusiast), and every mention of Chessington's "theme" regards the "Wild Adventure" brand they've got going on, with no mention of the park's dramatic origins. Such horrendous management for the park to have nosedived in critical eyes like this. Considering the worldwide respect for both, I'm relieved for the refurbishments to Hex and Nemesis, but equally bitter that such attention isn't being paid elsewhere.

While I think area themes can be treated slightly differently, I think music themes for individual rides are much like movie compositions, in that they shouldn't be permanently removed/replaced. Sure, shuffle it around for special events and overlays, and maybe even create remixes/rerecordings of the original music, but a music theme that has been associated with a ride since its inception shouldn't be replaced simply to make the park seem more robotically homogeneous.

I understand that, but my point was that Vampire's change could be classed as a restoration insomuch as the existing trains/tech were wrecked and needed an update in order to reopen. For 99% of us, it's by no stretch of the imagination a restoration on the whole, but for marketing execs I'm sure they class it as a mid-lifespan refresh.

They kind of did restore/change Vampire, back when the trains got changed... ...Though it certainly wasn't a refurbishment that benefited the rest of the ride.

^ Apologies if my above post made it sound like I'm okay with the cost-cutting - I was merely channelling Merlin's perception of the general public!

I think most wouldn't have minded if this had replaced Storm Surge instead.

Does anyone know if The Swarm got its additional theming in the end?

Jeez the chandeliers aren't even there anymore... With all of the substantial improvements being made at Towers and Thorpe (particularly Hex and Nemesis), I have a minuscule glimmer of hope that they may restore Vampire as Chessington's "heritage ride" (seeing how the other contenders for such a title sit wrecked beyond recognition, and no such large-scale work has been performed on Vampire yet). Then again, this is Chessington, so we may just have to make the most until Vampy finally closes his coffin.

I kind of like the new muted colour scheme for Rumba (similar to what I imagine Thunder River looked like), it just needs more props to make it visually interesting!

I suppose the question is, if you took out the brief part with Derren Brown where he mentions the attraction, does it work as good hype? Not particularly, since the scenario otherwise is pretty generic. Even Sub-Terra's marketing is a good counter-example - scientists traipsing around with a gruesome looking alien egg is much more visually unique and mysterious than a bunch of people jumping at unseen VR in a halloween decoration cupboard.

I've never understood why they don't just consider X part of Amity - the science facility/nightclub theme seems more suited to a town setting than that of a lost kingdom. Ghost Train being part of The Jungle raises similar questions.

Not sure if that's especially true, and I think that's the problem behind many of these recent changes. I never went on the original Vampire but even the watered post-refurbishment station was enough to capture my imagination at a young age and influence me to follow theme parks much more closely, and that's likely because 1. I didn't know any better, and 2. the original elements that remain still shine through in how high-quality they are. Keep just enough of the original, inspiring features for the attraction to still feel above-ordinary, and cost-cut the rest. As long as there's an organist still sitting in the Vampire station and the music plays, nobody will care that the brilliant extras are being trashed or thrown out.

Thought this was the case the past few times I've visited, but wasn't sure if I was imagining things. Bizarre that this is the case when Graham Smart's remastered version is also available for a couple of quid on the net.

For god's saaaake...

As much as I hate to continue being a downer on this park (especially seeing as it's Chessington), those photos just show how extremely tired most of the park is looking, and how low-budget patch-ups (please Merlin, cut it out with the flat and sterile graphics, and for heaven's sake stop making crappy piecemeal additions to Vampire) aren't making things any better. Rameses Revenge looks completely dire (which has been a while in the making), and even Land of the Dragons looks like it needs a deep clean/repaint (though I suppose it's now 13 years old, jeepers...). That having been said, the Adventure Carousel certainly looks lovely, and it's nice to see Black Buccaneer getting some attention.

Genuinely phenomenal, though I vaguely remember the other eye looking somewhat different to that one?

To be honest, most of the creepier Haunted Hollow stuff requires active participation (e.g. going into the mirror chamber, looking into the sarcophagus), and the route will probably feel much less spooky with hordes of families heading through it to Katanga Canyon.