Benin

Overselling suits the current "I want it NOW!" culture in the UK... You'd ho home though if that queue greeted you... Sod that...

Located near Kidderminster, WMSP's main draw is of course the car safari, but it also has a few coasters and rides to supplement the day out... NOW, they're applying for permission to build an indoor water park and hotel to improve the offerings, images below: It does look very good, whilst the ride selection (and ticketing system) is a bit poor, this will hopefully give the place a bit of a kick-start at least, especially as they're apparently also looking to later expand with a Spa and Conference Centre... No plans for the hotel as of yet, though I suspect it'll have rooms overlooking parts of the safari... Would be shocked if they didn't use that as a selling point...

Given that's it's in the height of it's Halloween event, and in Spain, it'll be open just as late as some summer hours...

Fixed that for you...

Back when the parks (looking at Towers and Chessie here) first started, was there a demand for a theme park of the levels they built the rides at? The current namby-pamby safe option choices is more of a hindrance to the parks development than actually helpful... It's a similar situation with a wooden coaster, the parks won't build one because they don't think the GP would enjoy it, BUT if they took the risk on a modern one, then the odds are that the GP would enjoy it and then suddenly your park is behind the one that built it first... In this modern day of advertising as well, there is zero excuse for Merlin (or any park) hiding behind the "there is no demand for this style of ride", because there is only no demand because it either doesn't exist, or the experiences of the visitors are limited enough that they don't care for it... Perhaps instead the park should look to what Towers and Chessie did back in the days of their growth, where they pretty much expressly told the guests that these are the top class rides you can expect from us... Give people something they never knew they wanted, rather than just a tick box exercise, and things become a LOT more interesting (but of course, an unique idea isn't as marketable as Dr Who, it is a shame that parks in the UK are solely marketing focused)... Also, will cost affect it? Whilst Thor's Hammer wasn't the best dark ride in the entire world, it's still better than anything the UK can put up against it... The cost? $8.5 million... If the budget is £30m (though knowing Merlin, that'll be the entire total budget, not just the cost of the ride), then they could buy 3 Thor's Hammers! The only thing stopping Merlin from creating such an attraction is their own personal limitations that they seem to put on their projects to stop them from being 'fantastic' instead of 'good'... As an aside, I like Sub Terra, I liked that it was something different, that it was story-driven and more of an experience with a ride... Also the internal theming is really good... Shame they ruined it with a cheap corridor...

Merlin BLAMED Swarm for the lack of success, forgetting that one new addition does not a park make... 2012 was a crap year for all the parks as well, but of course it was the new ride's fault rather than the biggest sporting event in the capital taking place (and the crappy weather)...

One of those at Thorpe would be horrific with the throughputs... 300pph? With Fastrack? Based on the one at Legoland Germany, not the right avenue to go (however the Sky Roller than apparently gets 720pph odd would be a potential option)...

GIVE US OLYMPIA LOOPING OR HOLLENBLITZ!

Sitting in the very front makes a big difference for the record... The speed that you can get is truly something, as I found out to my cost at Legoland...

Sometimes it might not always be someone who's drunk (although by the ride/attractions rules and regulations, those under the influence shouldn't be allowed to ride), it can just as regularly be someone who reacts to being jump scared by flailing an arm or two and catching the actor right in the nose with some force...

Good, they're fab things <3

Smiler didn't take 5 years to plan out, about 3 years tends to be the average these days...

Whatever the new ride is will seemingly be part of it's own new area... The possibilities are quite endless atm for what they could be building...

Shame, certainly used to be the case... Oh well, more time for people to visit Efteling then...

A brief update, not that much else has happened... Source: Coasterfriends.de According to ParksMania and an interview they did, this will have multiple inversions...

Tell you what, I was impressed by AI when I visited Sunday... It does rest upon the ride staff, who clearly do enjoy themselves there, and when there's interaction (or #banta) it doesn't feel forced or annoying in the same way that I've suffered stuff at places like Chessie (Fury staff and the 'flap your wings like a dragon to dispatch' debacle)... The guy on Skateboarder especially was hilarious, as he used the height stick as both a guitar and microphone throughout the day... Park was very clean, only disappointment was that Sky Drop was dead... Would really like to see the park expand more in the future, especially given how the indoor area construction seems to have completely halted, which is strange... If people moan about closed season this year, this will be one of the parks I recommend people visit during that time...

Chiapas, Helix and Krake would all like to point you in the direction of their queue-lines...

Traveller weekend was the last weekend... Only dodgy people attending this weekend are enthusiast groups

Considering it's for 2016, planning permission would only turn up midway through next year anyway... As an aside, who's to say that the MTDP hasn't changed? That stated a coaster to be built on a new island, yet there's not much work happening on said island? Plans change, especially in theme parks...

This is what's been mentioned elsewhere on the forum since someone took the pics of the Arena seats being removed... I've seen £30m being chucked around as the budget, and Dr Who as the IP... Plus read about what the ride type could potentially be, including something akin to Canada Wonderland's Wonder Mountain Guardian, which combines a coaster (barely) with dull interactive 3D shooting ride screens (I.e. no actual physical theming)... If it ended up being that, themed to Dr Who, then I wouldn't really be that impressed, as Wonder Mountain Guardian looks absolutely horrid... If it was something like Huntik/Thor's Hammer (I.e. Cheap Spiderman), then I might be more intrigued over it... But would Merlin WANT to build a ride like that when 3D screen based rides are just SO much easier to maintain in the long run... Also, the theme areas might as well not exist these days... Especially after Thorpe's best one in Amity has been butchered so much over the recent years (via Storm Dirge and Angry Birds Land) shows a lack of care in that regard... So it'll be an IP in the same way of Angry Birds, plonked down in the middle of the park with little to no transistion of area...

Pfft, Time Voyagers could get you wetter than a go on Tidal Wave...

It's quite likely that they just skim read it as positive feedback and gave a generic response (like most business' social media)... Although I've just noticed that Thorpe are also guilty of putting 'trail' instead of 'trial'... #rage

OUTTA NOWHERE!