Benin

So it would appear that these are the following staggered openings: 11am - Dark Forest, Hex, Cloud Cuckoo Land 12pm - Flume, Rapids, Sub Terra, Ripsaw The late Dark Forest opening is a bit dreadful... Guess the money-men just expect people to either be in CBeebies Land or X-Sector...

Depends on who you know

Flume NEEDS to be replaced with Chiapas... Simple as...

I agree on the "it could do with maybe one or two more big set-pieces", but really, it looks nicer than most kiddie coasters... Will look even better once they've expanded the area even further and removed Spinball...

Talking of theming being sucked into the hole... Probably the best pieces of theming Merlin have done on any of their additions imo... Especially the van... Shame everything else just looks dull, they even have lots of CCTV cameras...

Looks like they're building a marquee on the ride...

New video, obviously COMPLETELY out of date since the ride is practically built, but you know

The op cabin looks so lonely...

Smiler begs to differ from this point

Train to S'Hertonbosch (or whatever the place is called), then a bus... SImples... And here's the ride's entrance:

More pics are up: Source - http://www.vijfzintuigen.nl/forum/136/24466.160 The detailing is ridiculous... Even Europa would struggle to be better than this (that said, their repainting of the Seastorm ride is equally ridiculous)...

One positive, it does mean the return of OUTRAGE bingo, especially on Chessie's one... I remember when the OUTRAGE was over silly things, like BunnyGate, rather than the parks being a bit inept at opening things... It's honestly not as entertaining now, moreso depressing as to the current state of affairs going on... Granted, Facebook (and Twitter) are more likely to get the full rage-ons, will be interesting to see their Trip Advisor pages over the next week... I do agree that the £10 return is slightly insulting given the number of major rides down... Perhaps that is acceptable if it's only Vampire down, but not when the 3 biggest rides are... Also, I seem to remember people 'jumping the gun' when Smiler got delayed to score points against Merlin and Towers, let's not defend the current situations with such an argument eh?

Earlier I was wondering if it would be possible for Vampire to undergo ANOTHER overhaul to make it more into one of the newer Vekoma SFCs... New trains, new lift hills (tyre driven, removing the noise issue) and perhaps a way in which to make the station actually make some semblence of logic and reason would certainly improve the ride no end... Perhaps next year they'll ride the new SFC at Paultons and realise what a fantastic idea this is...

The scary thing is, people earn actual money from such videos... TOP LADZ #BANTZ

It's opening day (for some rides)! Towersstreet Facebook People are getting the great chance to return to the park for a whole £10 as a result... Laughable...

Not the same situation as Blade really, since it was open for Feb Half Term, unfortunately as mentioned elsewhere on this forum Thorpe's operational cuts don't seem to be as obvious in comparison to Towers'... And Thorpe had Watchdog in for Vortex all those years ago...

Tis the bare minimum though, no shows on a daily basis (used to do that), no roaming actors (used to do that)... Chessie's Ents department is better than Thorpe's...

I think it's safe to assume you would need to be fluent in French, and probably be able to talk a bit of another language or two (German or Spanish I reckon they'd like)... No idea on anything else, most people from the UK who end up working there tend to go into the character side of it...

Towers management:

I will miss "Hip-Hip-Hippotamus" I shall admit... What I will say, is why couldn't we have the Circus show, as that was surprisingly fab (probably because you could treat it as a circus show with added Madagascar elements, and some actual pyrotechnics involved compared to the original show at Chessie)...

Nope, Phantasialand prefer secrecy, the only reason these photos ae coming out is because there's clearly an enthusiast working on the construction... They even keep trying to shut the upload site down I believe... All the better for it imo, much more interesting to see it go up and go "what ARE they doing?" rather than "Oh that's the 34th part of the 4th indoor drop"... As for the shrink wrap, I would lean more towards the protection off dust/construction crap...

*Looks at Saw Alive and the complete lack of Ents department, and the constant one train op due to a 'lack of demand'*

Again from gunmonkey, there's a poster promoting next year's additions: Thankfully, we aren't actually getting an SLC, regardless of the poster's opinion on the matter...

Few more pics off gunmonkey on Coasterforce: Certainly a very colourful addition, and it does look quite nice and peculiar... Kids will no doubt love it...