Benin

If it was a coaster there would likely have been a noise report in there based off another ride (like Smiler had Saw as a basis for noise issues)... Even though it's indoors, the noise could travel to the outside if there's loud music or effects... So a coaster would need to pretty much be implicated directly in the plans...

Lol this thread made me laugh, great entertainment for a Friday night... I have this image of LC stood outside Pizza Pasta next year with a placard stating "Bring back Pizza Hut, Merlin suck" whilst having paid for his MAP and entered a place he seemingly hates... There are plenty of rides better than what you get at Thorpe over in Europe, in parks that provide a better overall experience... Save your money, don't buy a MAP, go to these other parks and then everyone's happier...

As predicted, new show (maybe it'll have more than a singular pyrotechnic?) and a revamped Penguin Cove... Such an exciting season to look forward to eh?

So it would appear that the UK had now embraced all the traditions of Black Friday, including the whole people looking like complete and utter idiots in order to buy some randomly branded TV for £100 less... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30241459 This is why I shop online...

McDonalds was at Towers and Chessie LONG before DIC ever got involved in Tussauds...

Given that at Thorpe you could eat at Bar 360 or Ranger BBQ for a lot cheaper than Pizza Hut (which was always packed solid in the first place) isn't stupidity, but sensible... And 30p saving from 20% discount? Dunno what maths you're using there, but if we say that it costs £10 for the buffet, then with the MAP discount of 20% that's £2 off... So you're basing it off the separate pricing structures (Pizza Hut was £11 last year right? And the others of a similar pricing?) which will be made redundant once the change comes into place... Is it a bad move to change to all in house brand? Doesn't do many other parks that use all internal food much harm... And clearly people don't have too much issue with what's being made available at the parks, otherwise we'd see tonnes of people with picnics and brought in food instead (like people used to for Drayton Manor)... Also, the amount of spelling mistakes makes me want TPM to do a Secret Santa just so someone can give you a dictionary or spell-checker...

There are very few parks with the same level of quality and level of offerings that the Merlin parks do provide... I'd rather have a Merlin quick service restaurant than a Disney one... But whilst the full service restaurants at Disney are amazing, they are also stupidly expensive... It's that tricky balance that very few parks actually can get right... Had a Burger from Legoland on Fireworks night and I was actually surprised by it being edible... I hated Burger Kitchen on my first visit, but I never tended to visit BK or Pizza Hut cos lack of discounts...

It is pretty much generic though, styled with some gladitorial-esque look... Kinda the level expected from a Six Flags park... Style over substance...

Hence why my entry says "Benin" for everything...

MIB's vehicle is also a lot more open than Spidey's which is probably the reasoning, maybe once you were able to, been a long long time since I've been... Lockers are a better option than bag drops though certainly, if used in the same fashion of being free and of benefit to the guest's day, rather than 90% of the parks in the world where the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks tend to force you to pay for lockers on a constant basis (literally every major coaster allows no bag in the queue at all, and you have to pay for the locker every time, not great)... Although bag drops allow you to have items in the queue, so that's one major benefit, especially if the queue is long...

Talocan's 'plot' (assuming one actually exists) is barely explained in the queue... It's extremely loose and whilst does have something to do with an angry god, there is no explanation for it... As an example of how badly such a plot is used, why is the batching point in a wine cellar? Questions asked, very few answered... Ride experience on one side is fantastic though, fortunately I've never had to go on the backwards bit... Also the queue is always FILLED with people watching it with no interest in riding, that's one of the most annoying things about it...

You can take your bags on Spiderman if I recall correctly though (of course, since most people will have ridden Hulk prior to it, the bag will likely be in a locker anyway)... Makes sense for it to be on the coasters given their attention to throughputs (especially RotM)... Though that system is not without it's flaws, a reader in sunlight for example can cause a lot of problems in my experience with them... Also because people are always desperate to get the lockers closest to the entrance/exit there can be bottlenecks (though nothing as bad as Swarm's bag drop I must say)...

Apparently the plans have already been pulled off the site... Possibly an admin error or sommat... It's somewhat daft these companies can't file things properly...

The trains are utterly vile...

Actually, there is nowhere but the floor to put your bags on Tower of Terror, Space Mountain and Rock n Roller Coaster... Hell, can even take your bags on Winjas and Crush's Coaster... This having a bag drop points to it having a bit of Sub Terra about it, needing to get people in and out of the experience quickly and efficiently...

It's still in the negative for re-using every single marketing tactic ever

Be interesting to see how it's taken in a Dive Machine train, even if it is a 6 seater one... Also, points for it not being a Krake clone...

What would be the point in opening a ride that within a year would be (hopefully) made to look cheap or outdated? Whilst there is still a place for Ghost Trains with modern effects (Bla Taget at Grona Lund is a good example), with Thorpe planning a multi million dark ride, a old style ghost train isn't what's needed...

One would hope that Thorpe would be aiming to reinvigorate the UK dark ride industry with something more elaborate than a Ghost Train like attraction...

If Universal can't afford the rights to LotR then Thorpe won't be anywhere near that... Dunno why there's this obsession with the minimising of risk on family aimed attractions, you'd think after Smiler's branding success they'd feel confident in their ability to take things further and continue the trend of unique and creative branding... Indeed, surely an alternative method is to save the money on aquiring the rights on an IP and invest that into the ride to make it better... Given Merlin's addiction to budget cuts to attractions and parks themselves, you'd think that spending millions on an IP would take away from the amount of money available to the ride itself... That a dark ride is considered an actual risk for the park shows how far behind the rest of the world the UK industry is...

Answer is simple, do it like Heide do on Flug von Damonen... Or even Raptor at Gardaland... Only that doesn't have a single rider queue if I recall, so I'd rather Flug out the two...

Apart from the sheer mayhem and unbalanced way it's done on Swarm, because they tried to fit in the bag drop and front row/backwards queues causing the hold-ups and on quite a regular basis unbalanced levels of queues inside... It's amazing the difference between Swarm's batching to Raptor and Damonen, purely because they lack both a front row/backwards queue and the bag drop is located in the station (where Heide's uses the superior, "why don't other parks use this system?" rotating bag lockers)... As for pre-shows, what's the point in a 30 second one if it's in a separate room? If they're gonna have one, it'll be a couple of minutes long, and perhaps they'll have two, but if the attraction ends up being actor based, then it'll clearly be one, because budget...

That plan is just depressing now, stupid groundwork people screwing everything up The queue will be stop/start movement since batching, bag drop and pre show... Hopefully they'll batch it well, but can't help but feel Thorpe haven't learnt from Swarm's problems..

This is what happens when you're the only people on Tower of Terror...