Benin

Which probably means that as a ride/coaster, it's pretty dull and typical... Which is of course, not a bad thing, it makes a nice change for there not to be some stupid gimmick/idea surrounding it beyond having a coaster built for the target market of CBeebies Land that has been missing ever since Beastie was spited...

To be fair, his reaction will probably remain exactly the same when the actual building is finished...

Track has arrived! TowersStreet FB Still no closer to determining for sure the manufacturer... Track looks a bit more Zierer like to me though, as the Zamperla family coasters tend to have a flat cross-rail...

Yay Zierer, very under-rated manufacturers...

How to link it to tickets? Incorporate scanning the barcode into an app, job done... Thorpe already have an app, see if they get put RnR into that...

Ahh, so it's only good because there's a good exploit for people to use, rather than it actually being useful... Much like the old style Tussauds Fastrack, where any barcode would provide you a ticket...

Tommy pls:

Is the whole City area getting a retheme or is the Friends thing just a sub area of the City? Nothing is clear...

There in lies a potential social issue, but then again, given the state of the modern world anyway, I don't think people will really care about it... Besides, plenty of time to talk when waiting for the ride as you find something to do to pass the time until you can actually do something...

Unless the locals change their viewpoint on the park (which is of course, affected by the traffic issues, which is something not entirely in Merlin's control), then the stagnation will continue... Of course, if this paves the way for parks like Paultons to catch up and provide a better experience (which based on Trip Advisor, it's already doing so), then it can be considered a positive... A Disko coaster at a Legoland is strange anyway, a 1.2m ride in a kids park? And one at Windsor would be even more unlikely given Kobra down the motorway...

This is what happens when it's over a year till the next new ride

For comparison purposes, here's how close the Efteling Bosrijk buildings are (ignore the obvious difference in quality and size): Trip Advisor

I liked how it stole Dreamflight at Efteling's music and proceeded to fulfil it's duty as a cheap and creepy European darkride...

Coaster length does not equal a higher throughput, just look at T'Ultimate to see how flawed that argument is... As said, it's the filler rides that need the higher throughputs, doesn't every major coaster at Thorpe apart from Saw get over 1000pph? Or at least relatively close to that in cases like Stealth and Colossus?

Europa, as part of their 40th year celebrations, are doing a 24 hour day in July... http://www.europapark.de/en/park/events/40-years-europa-park I WANT THIS! EDIT - Turns out it's dodgy translation, and the park will close at midnight

Thing is, you go to a Disney park to experience the "Disney Experience", which includes the Magic Kingdom ride staples like Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, etc. It is expected of Disney parks to have these rides/attractions, and even then they're not always exact clones of each other (Paris of course, getting different storylines/layouts which are arguably superior to the originals)... You don't go to a Merlin park for the "Merlin Experience", because such a thing doesn't exist, as all of the Merlin parks (bar Legoland of course, which follows the "Disney Experience" method) are unique... Gardaland and Heide are pretty much the lame ducks of the Merlin portfolio anyway... I'm not entirely sure why they still own them in a way because Garda especially is one of the worst performers in the park side of things...

Doesn't Fastpass+ essentially make you plan out your entire holiday about 4 years* in advance? Very different to what Reserve n Ride is, and indeed the entire implementation of it is different, the two are pretty much incomparable... Wouldn't be surprised if it was the big push in the near future though, given that the Thrill Paradise brand didn't work, the current brand seems so generic and bland, they will look to having that magical USP to sell the park (rather than you know, creating a great Value For Money experience that makes people want to revisit)... *Might be over-exaggerating

Heaters installed in the cave? Probably the most unnecessary addition in the history of unnecessary additions...

The new addition isn't going to be an IP... However, it can be said that Peppa Pig is clearly the source of Paulton's recent success, which goes to show that one done RIGHT can certainly make a lot of difference to a smaller park...

Mini-site confirming it's for next year... https://paultonspark.co.uk/lost-kingdom/

My only hope is that Jacky features in some queue-line videos or sommat... That would probably make me feel better about the ride...

The 'cheap' 6 seat ones are a better option for parks not entirely made of money... Indeed, if a 6 seater DM is good enough for Efteling (and Krake is also good)... Let the Americans have their over-rated giant DMs, they don't really get the point of them (I.e. All about the drop)...

I would guess they'll close BTM after Halloween, just so it's not closed on a potentially packed weekend... Star Tours getting the upgrade to Star Tours 2 would be great, as much as I love the original, it does look extremely dated... Plus the post show room is utter garbage now... Combine that with a mini-land replacing Captain EO and it'd be a fantastic little project, wouldn't be surprised if it did go through for the 25th anniversary as rumour suggests, as one would guess it could come under a new attraction budget rather than a refurb... Phantom Manor could also do with a good once over, though it's certainly not as high up the priority list as other rides should be... There's even talk of Peter Pan getting a refurb too with an interactive queue and general update... But the park itself needs some new attractions too, it has the space for them, yet nothing is added... Get me a Chiapas style Log Flume themed to Indy dammit!

Perhaps it had just fallen off due to the rot? Of course, if the park had been maintaining things properly (or in this case, actually doing so) it wouldn't have happened... Tis a poor excuse to say "It was broken earlier in the day" as surely if they noticed such a H&S risk they'd have taken measures to prevent guests falling through...

Shame about the queue losing all creativity, dodgy soundtrack, crappy supernova effect and what not then I really hope they find a blend of the positives of both whilst fixing the cannon at minimum... Bringing back the queue windows would be the best thing ever too...