MikeyT

It wasn't open last week. Oblivion's Picsolve videos weren't working either.

I believe it's either used for storage, or it's a green room used for Ride Hosts. Don't quote me on that though, as I'm not certain!

Can we please all have a group hug, and make up? (Cue on of Aero's amazing emoticons!)Literally as we speak, the team are discussing how we can further improve our Mania Hub trips and help to include all of our members into the community. We're organising a series of mini meets and official meets starting after exams finish.Yesterday was unfortunate but at the end of the day, not one person or condition was at fault, but more of a series of things that all added up.

I was watching mesmerised last night at all these videos. I really want to go, I think I'm going next year so hopefully all the little kinks in Forbidden Journey will be ironed out and the ride will be running to its full potential.With a lot of their rides in the states, like Europe, I noticed very minimal physical checking of restraints. Especially on rides like Hippogriff, which makes for speedy dispatch times. That, or they chuck so many staff everywhere that everything is done so quickly!

What? And nobody took video? Shame on you all!

Haha I would hope so for $250M :)The only thing I can really comment on is the ride plot.... which seems to end so abruptly from the videos I've seen. The ride seems to be something you would dream about; it doesn't feel real. People have described the experience as Spiderman x 10.People are complaining that you can still see the show building for Forbidden Journey, and that a lot of the rooms in the queue seem to run straight into one another, rather than having corridors connecting them.Surely it's a small price to pay for such an awesome addition though!

It's good to see people are so passionate about it all, it surely means do care about the meets and have a lot to say. Lots of valid points made across the board from everyone and I'm sure it'll be taken into account when organising the next meet.I propose a mini meet before the next meet, perhaps London/ Chessie?

The camera the video was taken with was quite low quality and therefore isn't picking up all the light that will be seen with the naked eye. It's quite dark in there, but not so dark that you can't see all the epicness of it.

Looking forward to seeing the lighting change on my next visit. Not sure about it from the description, but will wait until I see it in person before I make a decision!

Haha, can you believe the Americans on some of these forums are STILL complaining. I feel like slapping them... have they seen what they've got? Are they actually seeing the same things as us? Who knows, the mind boggles! If they're disappointed, I'll swap with them, as long I get to take Nemesis with me

Oh guys. Clearly I should have been there to bring everyone together! :PIt's a shame this meet didn't go to plan as much as other ones have. Perhaps for the next one we could plan and decide on which rides we should do as a group after the initial meet and group photo. The idea of the meets is to meet other people who share similar interests to yourself, obviously if people are being excluded or left out then the point in the meet ups is diminished really.With big groups, people will always split up because not everyone wants to do the same thing, and everyone is different, it's just how it works. By the sounds of things though there needs to be more positive direction in terms of where we're going and more involvement from members who people respect.There will always be meets that aren't as good as others, I say we don't dwell on it, but we move on and try and make the next meet as awesome as it should be

Yeah I agree with you 100% on that James. It's just a completely magical attraction, I really hope I can get up there for Halloween this year!

Yeah it's definately worth a ride James! Hopefully it'll stay this way for Duel: Live in October.

I was pleasantly surprised by Duel earlier this week. It's obviously had quite a bit of attention as of late; I would say that every effect that's supposed to be there, is working.I noticed burst pipes smoking, audio working throughout the ride, smells pumping out where they should be and most of all the Skeleton Corridor working as it should be. As much as I'm bitter about Duel replacing the Haunted House, it's still a good ride.

Did they not get rid of most of the audio equipment though? The DJ was one of my all time fave features of any area, it really is a crime that it isn't still there, even if it was restricted to peak days.

Couldn't make this today due to a serious lack of funding. There is £1.25 in my account, and I don't get paid until the start of next month.I hope everyone is having an awesome day today though, I expect lots of trip reports and photos!

I had to giggle at your User name. Haha, brilliant! :PWelcome to the forums, here, have a strawberry.

So I stopped posting updates for a while because it was pretty much more of the same. But over the last few days, Wizarding World has been soft opening to select guests. Here is a walk- through of the queue for Forbidden Journey. Don't watch if you want everything to remain a surprise. I cried! Lol.

Had a shocking experience on this yesterday. I was almost embarrassed. House lights on where they shouldn't be, complete darkness where lights should be on, literally no special effects worked apart from that little generator thing in the Octagon room. Music quiet everywhere. As for the the Vault room- well, it spun, and that's about it.Poor show for Alton really.

This is still a fantastic ride, now 12 years old. The feeling of approaching that drop and just watching the track disappear, it's scary! Brilliantly designed, too- I personally prefer it to Sheikra at Busch Gardens, which just didn't have the same impact for me. Can't wait to see the ride and the whole of X Sector get that seriously deserved attention.

Finally got my chance to ride Thirteen. Absolutely loved it overall; I came off shaking the first time I came off the ride yesterday. It's such a quick ride, there's so much happening, I reckon it'll take a few rides for most guests to take everything in.I'll mention a few of the negatives now to get them out of the way; the queue is so boring, with very little in the way of things to look at in parts. There are some really small touches in the queue, but in all honesty you really have to look hard for them to find them, although there is a creepy atmosphere in the air that is sort of infectious.The black cloths on the ceiling, are, seriously, pretty awful, it's a shame because the station building is an actual scenic masterpiece apart from this, I wanted to look up and see a gothic chandelier looking all majestic and rustic. Or even just some beams or something, pretty much anything would be better.There seems to be an odd mish- mash of things going on. I heard people around the ride, including a friend of mine, mention what the tesla coil had to do with a forest, or the scaffolding, and those syringe pens that seem to be pooping up all over the Merlin Attractions.However, don't be put off, I think it's wonderful. Great fun. Highlight of the ride has to be the helix at the end.... I actually clapped, and I never do that on rides! PAH! Crypt is brilliantly themed, and actually doesn't need much more going on in there in my opinion. From videos it looks as though there needs to be more happening, but literally as you've noticed what's around you, the ride continues again.It's a fantastic family attraction, that will cover a huge spectrum of people, brilliant throughput, too. Today we queued from the entrance, with full extensions open, and waited 90 minutes. I probably wouldn't queue that amount of time again, but I was impressed at how quickly the queue moves. Can't wait to go on it again.

Welcome Peep! Hope you enjoy posting here. Alcohol, cinema and theme parks, yeah I like you already

As for the audio and elephant, I'm guessing it's a case of the engineers forgetting to turn the audio on, and the elephant is literally controlled by a tap round the back of the ride, on that particular day though, the weather wasn't the best, so I'm guessing they had it on low so not to get the guests too wet.

Just watched that CF documentary, and I really enjoyed it! It's always nice to hear Graham and Rob talk about the park, I particularly liked what Graham was saying, makes me look forward to the future even more. :)I look forward to visiting the park over the summer to check out the Savannah experience.

The thing with that announcement is, I can see what they tried to do with it, and is actually themed, unlike the generic ones. Although the generic ones sound 100% better. My main issue with it, is the bloke who did that announcement, but that's a personal issue, it just makes me cringe having to listen to him say it.The announcement was changed about half way through the 2009 season after an incident with an idiot guest who decided to be pedantic about the original announcement "please keep hands and arms inside", so, to cover themselves, they had to change it to include "arms and legs".