Benin

Not exactly a great way to introduce guests to it. But the ridiculous amount of netting also hates it when it rains too.

Going to be a few of these sad days where once iconic rides bite the dust.

Depends. Given most will work in and around Midlands, you'd have to move closer to Bedford, and would the wages be better or as good as anywhere you could get nearby? Universal have their own creative team. They don't need the minds behind Hyperia.

Mean Horizon has gone very quiet. Thing is currently with Towers, the current problems cannot be solved by throwing big investments down. The general experience of the park is the main issue that requires work on. Why is Paultons so well liked? Because the atmosphere is pleasant, they're not obviously attempting to fleece cash off you at every opportunity and queues are manageable. Towers doesn't really do anything of the sort currently. Work on maintenance, operations and support infrastructure/rides before we start building something "big". The entire top end (Dungeons/Walliams) needs reworking, Dark Forest and X-Sector DESPERATELY need support attractions, Blade needs replacing and we need a need flume ride somewhere. Most that'll happen is prices get knocked down as it moves from the currently advertised "premium" product it apparently is.

The sources in that BBC article just sound like people who they probably found lurking around the fence trying to get first glimpses. Feel sorry for the security if/when construction gets started. Having to deal with certain influencers appearing almost daily.

Always assume sarcasm. Like any project anything could happen to it. But once Universal had to reveal their hand it had far more chance than London Resort ever did. Everything crossed.

6 years is a long time. Plenty of chance it does a London Resort.

Got dragged/forced to the last You Me At Six gig tonight and they played The Swarm song. It amused me. Carry on.

Yep, tear it down and build a proper coaster instead.

You know things are bad when the joke account is being serious.

Depends if it keeps valleying.

Not for a very long time.

Managing expectations. It'll open or it won't. Such is life.

Wasn't the lift hill a bit of a prototype from Mack? B&M might've built an entire layout too 😉

See they're doing lift hill walks for Hyperia. For £120. And you need to have done a track walk on Colossus, Oblivion or Swarm within 3 years. Seems a bit off to enforce that.

Visited yesterday. Was fine overall since didn't set foot in X-Sector or Dark Forest (a recurring thing). Probably should've had some alarms when parking in what is usually the coach park rather than the disabled/express area, but there was a queue so directed elsewhere. Didn't bother with Toxicator as queue was consistently long. As per most of the thrill attractions on park. Wickerman batcher wasn't doing a great job as wasn't actually batching the main queue just RAP/Fastrack. Which meant baggage dump was a mess of people. Ended up waiting over 30 minutes in a fairly quiet Rollercoaster Restaurant for food. Think it went missing on system as food we did initially receive wasn't ours nor table next to ours. Who ordered after us but got food first. Burger was actually decent but seemingly toasted within an inch of its life? Skyride was testing and staff were training on Rapids at least. No Hex wasn't too problematic for us since not taking lil one on it. Spending most of our day in CBeebies Land really does mean we miss out on most of the problematic issues currently at the park. The sheer lack of support attractions is so telling though. No Blade meant faffing about doing nothing whilst others went on Nemesis, and also why we don't bother with 2 major areas of the park. It's daft and needs sorting not just from my selfish side but also to ease the pressure on the coasters in those areas. Justin's House is absolute chaos though.

Learnt that trick off Towers.

Good for them. Though why they're announcing something for NEXT year so far in advance is very Blackpool.

The quotes were from Abdab of Terror Tomb fame. It made as much sense as most of the posts. But doesn't look like Thorpe are going for the speciality car for Hyperia this season. Otherwise they'd have gone on about it by now.

On the engineering side it's probably a mixture of factors of having lower staff numbers, poor retention of said staff, high turnover of staff over the last few years (losing the knowledge), ageing ride population and the newer rides are far more complex in their nuances. Engineering as an industry is struggling to fill in the next wave of people. Having a job offering below average wage and out in the sticks isn't particularly enticing for a number of them.

Keep the building, gut the innards and put something worthwhile in there.

Ignores also the amount of stuff that's vanished over the years. Even this year we're down 2 rides what with Blade and Clem Fandango leaving. Plus Dungeons being mothballed. Genuinely not enough to do at the park. And without things like Blade there's nothing to do with little one whilst rest of group does Nemesis or whatever else.

It's weird that these opening day queues are going back to those 90s era lengths. Thirteen's opening day waited 90 minutes with @Mark9. I don't think any major coaster or ride opening since has been that low since. That a Top Spin is getting a peak 140 minute queue is madness.

It never drains but it pours. Will probably be spending most of next weekend in CBeebies.

Goudrix has new Vekoma vest restraint trains!