Benin

The pre-show makes me think someone went to Movie Park Germany and liked the Van Helsing queue. I'm not sure what you really expected regarding a lot of the older props/ghosts. Few would make sense in terms of the new storyline (everyone has vanished, but the undertaker is still there for example) and in terms of budget I think they were essentially stuck reusing a lot of Duel mechanisms which were always cheap and somewhat off-putting. Based off POV viewing, there's a definite air of not quite completeness about it. 2 sections in complete darkness certainly doesn't make sense to me considering it's quite filled in everywhere else. Presumably timescales and priorities as with all projects. I'd imagine they'll tweak and edit things as they go. Much like the original Haunted House. From an initial standpoint though it looks a vast improvement over what Duel had turned into, and shows the difference 30 years makes.

RIP In Peace.

Easter Weekend in France if anyone fancies.

I doubt they'd be allowed to open the park if half of it was a construction site. This isn't continental Europe!

I don't really have an opinion on it. It's at least thematic to the ride but no one really pays attention to the names of shops. Towers have done their traditional spoilerific news story with ITV. Available via https://www.itv.com/news/central/2023-03-17/inside-alton-towers-newest-ride-the-curse-at-alton-manor

Park map says its changed.

Find out tomorrow. Presumably the duck rumour like with half of this ride will be a "wink wink" reference to a previous ride. Sure there'll be a full POV by half the vloggers by closing time.

BPB have announced "Technical Rehearsals" will be taking place for Valhalla in April. Completely forgot this still hadn't reopened.

It depends what happens regarding the Trommel scene. Likelihood is that the giant spider set piece will remain but different lighting/effects/etc. Probably a new recording of the "ARE YOU SCARED OF SPIDERS?" phrase added on. Based on the advert looks like the ghost corridor is getting a retheme, maybe old Bill to be replaced and additional effects added (or maybe they'll revisit the original concept for it). Beyond that in terms of big scenes just leaves the garden. Depends if it makes sense within the storyline and where things are placed sequentially. Personally I would've gutted the whole thing and started afresh.

Based upon the level of references seen so far its very unlikely that the music won't contain half of the old scores of HH and Duel. Probably contain music from other parts of the park at the rate they're going. (Yes I don't think the number of references to past and present Towers is a great thing. The sheer amount is kind of taking it too far for me and could potentially for many detract from the ride. Then again probably part of the marketing in the PR shots, but does concern me that the ride will have way too many nudges and winks to goons.)

TV ad. Seems to confirm 5 seats and spiders (urgh).

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/birmingham/2023/03/13/new-attraction-set-to-take-people-on-haunting-ride/ If you want to go in clean as it were, best batten down the social media hatches. The 'subtle' Easter eggs will be prevalent though.

Love people who say "I can't say anything" then proceed to blab out stuff.

Think a lot of their building practices is for budgetary/funding reasons or perhaps an elaborate money laundering scheme? More of those that involve RMCs please!

They'd have been making that animatronic for longer than 6 months. The park would've known about the development for around a year or so. Projects don't start when the previous ride closes. I'd imagine this would've been a refurbishment that snowballed into a full new attraction due to the way in which Merlin tend to operate. A standard maintenance budget? Not unless we can market it as new! Ghost Train redo is down to the loss of the IP. So different situation.

This could be an interesting discussion if presented in text form over a YouTube video. End of the day it's dependent on what you want from a roller coaster. Tends to be that European parks have to work with far more limitations so tend to think outside the box comparatively. Most American parks are very plonked. So are some European parks. But at the same time there are some great and iconic coasters in both regions.

The theme/IP might not scream Wild West, but at least the building will fit in.

"The rumours are true!" No actually substantial reasoning beyond the things being cleaned as well as the trough. Goes from "hopefully ready for testing" to "THEYRE COMING BACK!!1111". Don't really care if they're on or off but I mean people jumping to absolute conclusions is just weird to me.

A kids game at that. Clearly quite popular as there's different versions and shelves of it in toy shops and some gaming ones too.

Yeah but the Enterprise Memorial Picnic Area will truly be world class.

Didn't realise Dobble was THAT massive a thing to want to sponsor a ride at a theme park. Guess if they sell packs of it summat to do in queues.

Why though?

Why accept anything but mediocrity?

Wonder what percentage of those would kick off if they implemented the rules correctly and it stopped being "free Fastrack". Let alone those who abuse it generally.

THE Intimidator (for legal reasons).