Benin

Sounds interesting, looking forward to my Halloween visit...

If there's anything interesting to be built for next year, they'll do it during Fright Nights where it'll get the biggest output of people to actually see stuff... According to Zamperla's website, an Air Race 8.4 can get a theoretical capacity of 600pph... Perfect for Chessie, not great for Thorpe... Same thing goes for the Sky Fly, as fab as they are, they cannot survive in parks that get busy, it had the longest queue by far at Legoland Germany, constantly at around 60 minutes all day... Sod that...

The thing is, when the park at this time of year only gets about 200 people in the park, there is actually zero point in them runnig things in a similar fashion to a normal weekend... The park literally isn't busy enough to warrant it, even with things like Wild Asia opening at 11 the area can be fully done by 11:30 at a snail's pace... Not comparable to Thorpe's starting with one train on coasters even on weekends...

Meanwhile, in the Dark Scaffolding Land... Credit to TowersStreet Facebook Just when you thought it couldn't look any worse... Can we just get rid of Rita?

Right by the main entrance (Lodge nowadays) right by the toilets...

Our start to the day did not go well. On our way to Tripsdrill, there was bountiful traffic on our motorway exit, which delayed us by an hour, arriving at the park just after 10 when the thrill rides opened instead of the 9am arrival time hoped for. As a result, the first ride of the day was Karacho, Smiler’s German lapbar wearing cousin who’s actually still not finished at all (and won’t be fully completed till at least next year). So this was to be an interesting one anyway, as people are always seemingly up in arms over Smiler not having lapbars, would they have ‘saved’ the ride from being rough? I think the answer is no. The lapbars aren’t particularly comfy in the first place, and of course don’t limit the upper body movement, which would be fine if you weren’t riding a Gerstlauer full of tight transitions and inversions. As for Karacho, there was something about it that just didn’t click. I’m not sure to be quite honest what was wrong with it, but something was off about it. Perhaps it was the odd judder here or there, but the layout should be fine. Perhaps it was the unfinished nature of it that put me off. Either way, I was neither enamoured nor hateful towards the ride, perhaps after Smiler’s intensity levels a lack of it resulted in bland indifference towards it. A shame really, as it has the potential to be fantastic, but I would say Smiler will probably be done as the bigger success of the two in the future. Second on the list was Mammut, the Wooden coaster where the man roller-bladed on for some reason and the queue had loads of English paper clippings about it (including the Metro). Since I rode it last they’ve finished the cool pre-lift tunnel and added dispatch music. The tunnel was fairly similar to Blue Fire’s, only with a sawmill theme. It’s still a fun enough coaster; if a little bit slow around most of it compared to the sheer relentlessness of a GCI. Wonder if the price difference between the two speaks the volumes of why no-one else seems to have purchased one. The coaster trio finished with G’sengte Sau, which felt awfully familiar after visiting Klotten the other day. It’s probably the best themed Gerst Bobsled about it must be said, with the castle near misses adding a lot to the overall experience, and it’s still the fun layout you come to know and enjoy. Water ride time was next, with Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen and Waschzuber-Rafting both on the menu as the Log Flume and Rapids respectively. Badewannen is the infamous nude models dark ride section, and it also had a surprising (to me) backwards drop in it. It was alright. The Rapids were pretty dull after doing River Quest though, but I do love the random theme it was given. After a quick random veggie burger (language barrier issues), a Zierer Tivoli known as Rasender Tausendfüßler completed our cred count. It was just like every other Tivoli, but with some awesome landscaping, so it was ok in the end. One of Tripsdrill’s major selling points is the random attractions they have spawned to continue with their theme of normal life. Whilst the likes of Mammut, G’Sengte Sau and the Rapids push this point quite well, it’s in the ‘old’ part of the park where every ride fulfils this theming quality. The rides are immensely well themed as well, so we began our adventure on the Spinning Soup Pots. It was like an Onion Boat Ride but on a track and more spinning, it was weird. Continuing the weird ride trend were Flying Wash Baskets, a strange Enterprise style ride. The final piece of the spinning ride puzzle were the Spinning Wine Barrels, which were the same as the Soup Pots but on a longer track. They were also a lot more spinny to boot. We then found a random Model Walkthrough, which was typically creepy due to the designs of the models found within. This was followed by the epic slide that lives within the Old Mill, the park’s oldest attraction. Next was Doppelter Donnerbalken, the tilting drop tower, which was only running one side unfortunately but it was still the epic crap yourself moment that isn’t really repeated much. We entered the Goat Farm, where you could both feed and groom the goats, as per usual, when food was around, they went crazy, which is always entertaining. After I spotted it I really wanted to go on the StockCar Race, Tripsdrill’s answer to Autopia with a racing element to it. It was definitely weird as my car was seemingly really quick; I managed to go past the people who went off in front of us. Would be great fun in a group. Finally the Maypole Tower was ridden, which was another weird flat ride akin to those kiddie drop towers Lego love so much. After that, we were pretty much bored of the park, so we left. Around an hour later, we had arrived at park number 2 of the day, Schawben Park. In yet another weird location next door to a village in the middle of nowhere. The first thing you spot is of course the recently new Force 1 from Zierer. It does tower above the car park and indeed the rest of the park due to its location at the tippy top of the hill, which can only be considered a good thing for a family coaster. I definitely prefer those that don’t try and treat the younger riders with contempt and patronisation (I.e. Wacky Worms), and Force 1 really doesn’t disappoint actually, providing an intense (I greyed out) and fun ride with just a spot of airtime here and there. I hope these new-fangled Zierers are becoming a lot more common, because they’re fab. Walking down the hill we arrived at the next two creds; starting with Crazy Worm, a random contraption that was at least not a Wacky Worm. Second up was the Schwarzkopf Himalayabahn, complete with smoking ride ops and minimal safety standards. Love Germany. Neither ride are particularly worth discussing any further. Next door to the creds was a real shining star at the park, Bobkart. For those who have been to Oakwood and done the Bobsleigh there, imagine that but with an electrical circuit attached. This allows a more faster and forceful ride as a result if you go flat out on it, it was brilliant. We wandered past another Goat Farm which promptly produced some of the funniest antics of the entire trip. For we realised upon entering that a goat had managed to make it into the containment zone between the park and the yard. Some random girls were trying (and failing) to get the goat out so we helped by purchasing a tub of carrots for a Euro to lure him. This didn’t work of course, as all the other goats (and there were many) realised that there were carrots around and charged in, causing mass confusion and hysteria about. Eventually we did get the goat in the yard but then some stupid people left the gate open again and he once again made a break for it, assisted by another goat headbutting him. We decided to leave it as it wasn’t worth the time and we had a show to watch, but as we left a mum and her small child went in with another tub of carrots. The goats surrounded and attacked, promptly causing the little child to fall over and become engulfed in a swarm of goats, with the mum holding the tub of carrots in one hand trying to pull her child back up with the other. Absolutely hilarious. We headed into the Chimp Show which was as expected, a bit dodgy for the sake of ‘entertainment’. At least the trainers showed some love and attention to all the animals involved and weren’t too forceful when the chimps got scared. But still I can’t imagine it would sit well with the Blackfish bridage. It was then time for the manual rides again, with another Nautic Jet which got me surprisingly wet down the back and a Zip Wire, which wasn’t as good as the one in Schloss Beck. We also randomly did the new for 2014 Boat Carousel, because I’m a goon. It was re-ride time, and there were only two things we really wanted to do again, so another turn on the Bobkart at full speed was required before three goes on Force 1, which was certainly more than enough, so we headed for the hills. Overall, it was a weird day at two weird parks. Tripsdrill I feel is better in a big group, though it’s not helped by the rides being a bit below par, especially Karacho which was a bit of a disappointment it must be said. Schwaben on the other hand wasn’t as run-down as I was anticipating it to be, and the random zoo enclosures weren’t that bad either. It’s a family park first and foremost so there’s not a lot there, but Force 1 is actually really fab. Maybe Tripsdrill is just a marmite park; I just cannot put my finger on it why it doesn’t get along with me. Because it probably should as it’s weird and European. It will forever be a mystery.

Another day, another park, but this park was more of a stop-over to break up the monotony of driving all the way to Stuttgart. The original plan was to actually hit up the Nurburgring, however once Ring Racer was confirmed as spited, Klotten was chosen as the park of cred run. Whilst it is in the middle of nowhere, it cannot be argued that the location on the mountainside with valleys all around is pretty amazing. The first port of call was Heisse Fahrt, the Gerstlauer Bobsled. I’ve always found these quite fun, rather than the boredom of constant turns on a Wild Mouse, and this one itself seemed very forceful and full of bountiful airtime too. Whilst the unfinished castle is a bit of a blot on the landscaping aspect of the ride, the rest of it does fit into the park rather well. Slightly interacting with the coaster and lying in the unfinished castle is Zum Rittersturz, a very peculiar ride indeed. Certainly takes the arguments of “is it a cred or not” to new heights, but what is very surprising about it is the random dark ride section that takes place prior to the rotating elevator lift (which provides a question of, why design it to need an elevator lift that needs to rotate?). Was also rather wet which was not particularly welcomed. We then wandered around the park’s Zoo; it was alright, with most of the enclosures sitting on the hillside. Another quick go on Heisse Fahrt was had after some food before we had a quick mess about on some swings before continuing our journey along to Stuttgart. Plenty of potential lies within the park. Hopefully they can finish that castle and then push on with a few bigger rides, be they flats or another coaster. They have some space, not much, but defo enough for two decent sized coasters.

It's a week away, there is no point getting antsy about it, because if they're closed there's nothing that can be done about it... I'm sure if they reopen someone will mention it...

That's really nothing new, believe me...

I want to do a google search of a spider as a Knight who says Ni now, but I'll be too scared of the potential results, cos spiders...

The second day at Phantasialand started similarly to the first, parking in the China car park and straight off to Black Mamba. A front row ride was in order since it was unlikely another chance would raise its head, front rows are very useful wake-up calls. Over to Wuze Town, and as Fear was having the morning off, Winjas Force was ridden, followed by another go on Tittle Tattle Tree. We then rode lots of the new Wuze Town stuff that has been added over the years, starting with the Monorail, Wurmling Express, which could do with a bit of a touch-up already with its rather dilapidated owls. Wakabato, the pointless not so Splash Battle was next, with dodgy guns, broken targets and unreachable boats meant that the point of them was missed. A quick run around the Hedge Maze led us back to Wuze Town by which point Winjas Fear had opened so we rode that. Tittle Tattle Tree followed again and we managed to sit in a side we hadn’t done before, hooray! We walked past a Balloon Show on our way to Chiapas. Still fab and welcomed in the nicer weather we had that day. It was show time, starting with the Eis Show, which was the typical Ice-Skating show until they decided to SET THE ICE ON FIRE! Love Germany and their obsession over it. JUMP was next, and it was basically Stomp but with MORE Trampolining, it was ok but not really a theme park show in my opinion. We then headed off to Mystery Castle, only to be bitterly disappointed by the cut down ride cycle, as it launched straight to the top with no faffy bit prior to it. Upset by this, Tikal was ridden again to fulfil the drop tower fix. Back in Mexico, it would feel wrong if we didn’t ride Talocan and Chiapas again, especially since Chiapas has the wonderfully useful single rider queue. We were back in the plaza to watch the street shows again (mainly as one of the three they run wasn’t on the day before) and have some snack time, which presented itself via wonderful Kinder Ice Cream. Extremely tasty and nom. The shows were all once again very good and all enjoyable. After the third show we went on Maus au Chocolat again. Rode Black Mamba once more before a quick run on the Carousel for a sit-down and rest before we discussed what our last ride on the park should be. It was agreed that Winjas Fear would win the coveted role before we would watch Drakkarium and marvel at the dove that tried to kill itself during the finale by trying to fly into the nearby building. Two days at Phantasialand is certainly enough if you time your trip just right. It wasn’t actually that busy over the two days, even the Saturday wasn’t horrendously bad, although we did have some show based times as well as getting all the Dragon character photos. As I said before, fantastic park and well worth staying for beyond the coasters.

Plenty of potential in Shoreditch too...

But when they had high levels of thrillseekers the park wasn't making any money off the crowds... Thorpe have put themselves in that awkward situation as a result, and as you say, need to really go full out on attracting the family market to the park, but I can't help but feel that Merlin's reactive method to running the parks won't result in this...

Does the park really need anything new for thrillseekers though? They need to focus on getting the family market back to visiting the park, and providing a quality experience, especially given the poor numbers this year... Can't change things overnight even if Merlin think that's the only way things work (things not making enough money? RAISE THE PRICE!)

How long IS the lifespan of a dark ride though? Haven't seen Disney change the likes of Haunted Mansion much beyond updating the effects... So did Towers have to turn Haunted House into Duel? I think it's definitely a cultural thing, we English just aren't interested in dark rides anymore if at all...

Highly doubt a teacher would go out of his way to treat students badly unless they've probably given him reason to... I've been in plenty of classes where we've driven a teacher up the wall as a whole, and I've seen teachers over the years who are normally nice and whatever snap out because people are being burdenous, myself included...

Lol, clearly an insurance job, gotta pay for that new coaster somehow right?

Even Heide could manage two trains on things (apart from the things that either cannot run 2 trains or can run more than that) from opening... Thorpe's maintenance budget being low is a pitiful excuse for a major theme park...

Bla Taget from Grona Lund is a good example as a 'cheap' dark ride... But it wouldn't work in the UK as we don't embrace the crazy European nature of things... Badly done cheap dark rides can look awful though... Would love to see a Huntik style ride with or without the guns, but it would be immensely expensive, as much as a coaster and I doubt Merlin would think a typical modern dark ride would get the guests coming...

Well, there's always Sub Terra

Europa celebrated their 100'000'000th guest recently... An amazing number to acheive in the 39 years the park has been open, which on average would see approx 2.5m guests a year... Some parks could only dream of such numbers...

Day 7 – Phantastic Part 1 My last visit to Phantasialand was 6 years ago, which in some cases doesn’t tend to mean a whole lot has changed. However, here, pretty much every single area had something different about it, be it from an addition of some flat rides in Wuze Town, to replacing some tatty old Flumes, or in several cases, the rides simply don’t exist anymore. Lots of change, but would I still like the park? We parked in the China car park (due to limited space, there are several car parks, one for each area), purchased our two day ticket for the awful price of €75 (a day ticket is €45) and entered the park. Phantasialand have one of those weird staggered ride openings, with the park opening at 9, some rides opening at 9:30, then more at 10 before the remainder (water rides) open at 11. So the first ride of the day was some B&M goodness in Black Mamba. Totally forgotten one of the best things in Phantasialand are the queues (unless it’s Winjas’). Mamba’s goes on such an adventure with some decent ride based interaction, and the station is so well themed and beautiful. The ride itself starts fantastically but ends poorly, always has done to me, because I just don’t think the helixes are powerful enough to finish up the ride in a constant fashion. I partly think that they could’ve chucked in the final inversion at the end (a la Nemesis, the clear inspiration for the ride), rather than just turn after turn. Prevents it from being a real top tier B&M, but it’s still a fantastic ride. We headed over towards Wuze Town to wait until it opened, whilst I marvelled at the (new to me) entrance area. We were greeted by a dragon which proceeded to do silly things and even drop the rope to open the area. Great piece of interaction. So off we went to the Winjas coasters. Starting with Force and then Fear, I do enjoy these two a lot, with Fear clearly being the better of the two coasters. The interaction when both are running properly (which they weren’t unfortunately) is brilliant, and the trick track sections can be very surprising for first time riders. The queue has changed nowadays so not only can you take your bag with you, but also the queue splits on the stairs down into the station. Of course this does mean a massive waste of queue space nowadays, but oh well. After both were done, we quickly did the Tittle Tattle Tree, because it’s secretly fab. Next door is Temple of the Night Hawk, a Vekoma MK-200 which has had its entrance moved since my last visit, and it involves a steep hill. The ride itself is long, arduous and boring when there are no effects working on it, coupled with 3 slow lift hills. Give me Vogel Rok anyday. We then headed back towards the entrance and Maus au Chocolat, the immensely themed and fantastic Midway Mania rip-off. The theming right from the door is top standard, like most of Phantasialand’s stuff, but it just keeps getting better and better. I’ve never known a ride queue to make me so damn hungry just by queuing for it, probably helped by the wafts of chocolate scented through. Hadn’t done a Midway Mania ride till now, and I do like the concept quite well, especially when it’s as heavily detailed as this. A big bonus is the theming between scenes, which from POVs appears to be the biggest flaw of MM. Overall it’s a really good dark ride, and probably the best dark ride we did over the course of the holiday. A giant waffle happened. Now it was time for Chiapas, to which I was quite hyped up for. Chiapas looks to be the perfect modern variant on the Log Flume situation, and whilst the issues with the ride system were plentiful (year long delay for opening, because Intamin), would it provide an excellent experience? The answer is yes. Although the boats are pretty claustrophobic and small (combined with the lapbar), the ride system itself is intelligent and insanely fast at sorting things out. The drops are all good fun and provide a suitable level of wetness and of course the best part of the entire ride is the Backwards Disco scene. IMAScore’s music perfectly fits the adventure vibe the park were going for as well, especially as the music constantly changes note and style throughout the ride, and the catchy tune gets into EVERYONE’S head. Would love to see Towers look into this as a viable replacement for their Flume, it’s that good. It was then time for Talocan, which is still one of the more intense Top Spins around. Still fortunate to always get the front side of it as well, so no rubbish wall for me, always go for the water and the fire effects of awesome. It’s a shame really that the modern ones don’t seem to have taken off for Huss, perhaps because every park in the world already owned one of the originals? There might be a park in the UK that could do with one of these mind. It was show time, and we started with Seiben, which was a pretty awesome magic show with weird gothic plot and stuff. Magic is always in the showmanship I feel, and the guy was very showy with the work, and some of the tricks were pretty much “HOW?!” aside from the time when he knocked on the fake mirror in two places and they made two distinct sounds. Still fab. We then had lunch whilst watching the Chinese Acrobats, to which we’d kinda had our fill of already in the trip. Ah well, we learnt that Currywurst is actually fab, a far more interesting thing indeed. As the weather was reasonably rubbish, it made perfect sense to go on River Quest. Probably the most unique Rapids ride in that it just features special sections rather than anything resembling actual Rapids. It’s quite similar to Bagatelle’s rapids in a way, in that on an overall scale they are brilliant rapids rides, but on a water ride scale they’re both very good. Terrifyingly wet to boot as well, mainly due to the old cheese wedge boat design, allowing water to appear from pretty much wherever the hell it wants to. Drying out times required, a task which fell to Mystery Castle, one of the best drop towers around as well as one of the best themed queuelines. The bonus addition of random actors is also quite a cool thing, especially when they’re making full use of the fact that the ride was a walk-on. The ride is still great fun too, with the long climb and descent mid-way through the cycle being the real highlight of it all. Shame that there’s not too many of these ride types around as a result to be quite honest. The final dark ride was Feng Ju Palace, a Vekoma Madhouse that’s not very good. Whilst it removes the whole language barrier issue, the plot is very boring, the pre-show takes forever and the effects in the ride section aren’t very good. Big old meh. The final cred of the day was Colorado Adventure, a Vekoma Mine Train of many lifts and many sheds. It’s still good fun mind, though it’s weird that the first shed is very much in pieces due to the Silver Mine removal, so half of it is now in the light. The mountain drop by Black Mamba is excellent as well, probably only beaten by Paris’ BTM in the Mine Train stakes. Within Colorado’s final helix these days lies Tikal, a double bill of kiddie spinny drop towers which are always a good laugh. These ones also had an epic detail in their theming, as they are themed to water pumps and every time the ride drops, a water pipe is activated. Love details like that. We headed back to the Entrance Plaza, catching one of their mini street shows along the way, before it was time for Hotel Tartuff, a Fun House. It was amazing, the theming was generally fantastic throughout, lots of random stuff going on, random live actor and topped off with a giant slide (though it lost points for needing to take shoes off). So, so fab. Wellenflug, the Chairswings were next with their epic fountain related times before we watched another street show which was brilliant. Some random dog kept barking at one of the actors and they kept losing it as a result, I like shows that allow for a bit of added actions as opposed to always being the same. Some re-rides were called for, so we Chiapas as we’d just finally dried off from River Quest before heading back to Black Mamba. Whilst we were in the station boarding the ride however, someone decided that it was time for rain of the heaviest variety. Resulting in a very painful ride and a very busy exit pathway as a result. We eventually broke out to make it back to the Berlin earlier, watched the storm develop for a bit, before joining lots of people in Maus au Chocolat. By the time we’d exited the rain had fortunately let up. The day ended with Drakkarium, their major end of day show by the main entrance. It’s very weird it must be said, with several of the dragon characters turning up in massively epic designed floats/chariots with supporting costumed characters. Then it has random stunt people doing generic stuff. I cannot help but feel this is a really big missed opportunity overall, though I doubt it was helped by the rains descending upon us once more and forcing the show to finish early, so we took our leave and made a break for it ourselves. Phantasialand is fantastic. It has the theming; it has a solid ride line-up and it’s generally just fab. I’d really forgotten how good the park was originally, and the changes they’ve made over the past few years have been completely for the better. Hopefully they’ll keep pushing forwards with redevelopments (so excited for the Mystery area one) and replacing the older rides in addition to that expansion they’re aiming for. A top tier European park.

It opens up the usual can of worms though of what is and isn't offensive... Some people find the lesbian lizard/human couple in Doctor Who offensive, some don't care... Then when religion gets brought in this sort of petitions and stuff get bogged down into it... Although it seems that the guy who did the original video said it was satirical (read - I got hate for it)... Shame things like politics and religion have to just mess life about...

There's only one best 'whatever' park though, and as Europa is essentially better than CP in pretty every area aside from arguably the ride hardware depending on opinion... CP isnt even the best park in America tbh...

Flying Turns was up for best new attraction though, so was up against the likes of Banshee and whatever else opened this year... It deserves an award anyways purely based on the fact it was actually built imo... The top 10 steel coasters is crap though... All airtime machines apart from New Texas Giant, which should be in the wood category anyway if bloody Outlaw Run is in there... S'all opinions anyways, problem is that we see these awards as not meaning anything because the same things win it year in year out, so they've become a parody of themselves...