Benin

Always reason to update it, but there's only so many ways one can say it looks fantastic... It's not even a surprise the details come coming...

>Accuses rides of being over-rated >Rates Millenium Force(less)

There's Dragon Khan as well to consider...

There's a reason why no other park in the world has built a ride like Baco... Even Intamin know they messed up...

Well given that Duelling Dragons no longer duels because of people deliberately throwing coins into the other train........

Fury used to be aimed at 600-700 an hour too... It's depressing to see their new throughput goals in the op boxes, given that there's usually a few hundred chalked off the majority of rides... So many rides there have needed replacing with better throughput ones for YEARS...

Nemmie's been closed for two days... Not two weeks...

In happier news, Avengers Age of Ultron is out this month... And the Russos are writing the Infinity Gauntlet films...

Be interesting to see how busy Drayton is during those hours between 5 and 7, just to see if it's viable for other parks to open that late on a more regular basis... Ideally, the standard hours should be 10-6 like the majority of Europe...

One wonders why they didn't expand the current building or build a new building to house the maze... Then they could've designed it all to a reasonable degree and had the doubled up rooms and hence an improved throughput... If there are problems with the park, there should be complaints... But they NEED to be constructive, moaning that the attraction is poorly designed in regards to getting a decent throughput is constructive... Probably not helping if Thorpe are doing their usual upselling of Fastrack though...

Fastrack on Skyway? Merlin, you don't have to keep giving me reasons to not care about me lack of renewing my MAP, you've done enough already...

Cattlepens are crap... Just a fact of life really, especially given that we end up spending a LOT of time in such queues, it'd be nice if parks provided either some interactivity or something beyond the dull, flat cattlepen... Something that was once something very important, the differences between Colossus' queue design and Swarm's are astounding...

I believe it was meant to be a Stand-Up coaster (ew, ew and thrice ew) going into Katanga... Doubt they'd put a Floorless coaster right next to Nemesis either...

I think Varney only stated it would be a game change in regards to the UK, especially since Universal already have a SFX coaster... Being a game changing dark ride in the UK isn't particularly difficult though, given that most are around 20 years old...

Walking into this topic like: Josh posting the picture of the Swarm mood board where it distinctly says "we've teased the geeks" is exactly what's happened with this topic... £3 million on the entry plaza sounds, strange to me... That's a tenth of the apparent cost going into that... Assuming that the ride system is one of this new dynamic dark rides but creds things, which will probably cost around half of the total budget... Maybe Merlin Studios have put their prices up again? Sometimes the way in which Merlin parks seem to spend their budgets is just as confusing as their operational standards...

Don't the T&Cs pretty much state that things can change without warning? It's a generic thing to have in any company...

Golden Horse pretty much rip off every kind of Vekoma ride type.... That's what happens when your country is lax about copyright and what-not...

With theming, the devil is usually in the details... Oblivion (in a surprising turn) has a LOT of these details in fact... People have banged on about the big theming elements around the drop, which are all awesome, but there have been pretty much no mentions about how the floor next to the hole is also warped towards it, and the fencing, and the lamp-post, and even the grating... That sort of detailing is what separates good theming from great theming really... When I do my full on report, I'll chuck some pics of those details in, because they complete the area... The queue is basically Smiler's concepts taken to the nth degree (even if, in an unsurprising turn, some of the effects were broken/not working)... Whilst I didn't spend much time in it (I.e. first ride, so walked right through it), there's LOTS of things going in various different ways... Plus it's actually got air con in it, meaning that if you are stuck inside for ages, you don't DIE like in Smiler's... The ride itself is good fun, which is simply at the end of the day what one wants from a ride (or at least I do, since there are those out there who like Baco)... One issue I do have is the real lack of viewing area for the drop (in the same vein as other Dive Machines), presumably because it's built on the hillside and hence a proper viewing area wasn't able to be built... Elsewhere, I have to make the comment that this is probably one of the most Merliny parks there is... Upselling is constant throughout (in that very pushy sense), and I've found a park worse for upselling Fastrack than Thorpe! Every single coaster had 1 shots being sold, and combined that with their new AP unlimited Fastrack (like our VIP, but an add-on for ANY pass holder) meant that some Fastrack queues were actually just as long as the advertised queue length (Raptor advertised as 40 mins, we queued 30 with Fastrack), which isn't very good when you've purchased one that is meant to be unlimited... Tis a shame that Merlin have that money-grabbing side to them, and have pretty much meant that any busy day at Garda this year will be horrendous for everyone... Imagine if the UK parks did an unlimited Fastrack add-on for Annual Passes... There would be no point even visiting...

Not like miniland looks crap in several places... Mark is right, meeting the standards of the Lego brand allows the place to reinvest in infrastructure and tarting up... Though of course, said infrastructure results in hour long queues for everything because of dire throughputs, so that's a consideration...

Entirely depends on whether I do Munich & Austria this year... Besides, I'm aiming to pretty much finish up the England creds this year, so that'll add up

I'm in Italy right now this second... Katun is calling me...

I miss that voice... "WOOOOAAAAHHHH, you shouldn't have come this way"

Fastrack users will be using the exit if (like on most off-peak days) there's no staff member on merge... Thorpe have been doing that for years, as have Chessie...