Benin

To celebrate my birthday there was only one park out of all the ones we visited that made sense to visit in the area we were in, and that was of course, Legoland Germany. With German MAP in hand, we headed in, though their gate organisation is a bit burdenous, as you have to use certain gates if you have a MAP, but this is a lottery when you’ve never visited before and you can’t see the signs to direct you when the main gate is down. The opening ceremony was cute though, with the Ollie the Dragon character coming out in a wizard costume and using magic to open the gates. Neat little touch really. We grabbed our QBots for the day and went for the first coaster of the day. One of these rides is not like the others… Jr Dragon isn’t actually on the QBot system, so it made sense for it to be our first ride as it had all the hallmarks of a One & Done, being a Junior Gerstlauer. It decided it didn’t want to work just as we were about to board for some reason, forcing the engineers to turn up and fix it. It was an acceptable kiddie cred, but there were bigger (for Legoland) rides on the horizon. Fire Dragon is pretty much the staple of any Legoland park these days, and this one started interestingly in the queue, as some American woman decided to yell loudly at the person at the batch point to go through to spite us QBot people. It’s a shame the ride host didn’t come back earlier as he looked very confused as to why people had been entering the airgates area without his permission. I felt sorry for the woman at the front who clearly didn’t want to go in because Germans are sensible people, but the loud woman was very horrid. I had hoped we’d spite her later on in the day, but we never saw her again. Onto the ride, it starts like all the others, with a dark ride section before a hidden drop under the dragon leads you to the outside portion. I think this was a Zierer, so it’s like a weird variant of a Vekoma Roller Skater. It was alright really, with again a bit of surprising force hidden within the ride, and again it’s not a kid’s ride that patronises that target audience, which gets bonus points. Up next was Hero Factory, the Kuka arms things that Lego also seem to like (apart from Windsor). I adored the ones at Billund, so it was disappointing to discover that you couldn’t build you ride setting on this one. Coupled with the awful throughput as half of it has been spited it was a good thing we had the QBot. Setting 5 was good though, and it does have a ride photo, but I just missed the brilliant very Lego concept of making your own cycle. New for 2014 and the spiter of the other half of Hero Factory is the X-Wing Exhibition a huge Lego recreation of the Star Wars ship. It looked amazing to be fair to it, though I do hope that when it eventually moves on they’ll replace the Hero Factory stuff back (most of the circuitry is still there). It was then time for Flying Ninjago, a Gerstlauer Sky Fly, which I loved at Nigloland, and this would get the same reaction. Probably because I have a real knack for getting the spinning aspect of it right (dat BEng degree). I’d like to see more of these built, just wish they had a higher throughput. Walking back to the entrance I grabbed a birthday badge cos I’m cool like that. We also had a snack and a sit-down. The final coaster of the day was Project X Test Track, a crappy Mack Wild Mouse. We were once again glad of the QBot as the queue for this was awful, certainly worth the purchase of the MAP on this trip. We did the Teacups afterwards because they were also on the QBot. Off to the Adventure themed area, which started with another staple of Legoland, Temple Expedition, the interactive dark ride. Again this appeared to be an omnimover, so I have no idea why they stopped building them for Sally variants. It wasn’t great though, so perhaps the change was to produce a more immersive theme around the ride, rather than big mostly lifeless rooms. Next on the agenda was the Jungle Expedition flume ride, which was actually fab, and yet another reversing section was found within the heavily themed indoor bit. There were also Lego dinosaurs, which always gains extra favour with me. Finally we hit up the Safari Tour, having never done the one at Windsor, it was good to actually do one. The animatronics were ok and we produced an entertaining (but not enough to purchase it) on ride photo. We then did the Observation Tower, which really showed how tiny the park is and how far away the resort area is from the park. Time for a show, and this time it was brought to us by the Cuban Circus, who were rather entertaining it must be said, with some decent acts and some great crowd interaction which the Germans do seem to love. It also seems that Lego here gets loads of different acts over the year to come along as part of a touring section. Good idea really. We decided to go on Flying Ninjago again, upon which the ride op gleefully yelled out Happy Birthday (indeed, there were lots of staff being all interactive with me, guess they’re not used to adults having a badge and just automatically do it all) before I proceeded to go absolutely mental sitting in the front. It just started spinning and then got FASTER, hence I aborted and ended up having extended upside down times as a result. Ew. Lego Frabrik followed because I needed to get my head back in one place, so a fake Factory Tour was exactly the ticket required. Had a cute little video to start it off then a ‘tour’ of a ‘working’ ‘factory’. Still informative and had the actual machines that they use giving practical demonstrations, which got the engineer in me all excited. After our informative mini-tour we re-rode Hero Factory before heading to the Boating School, which was actually fun to ride one again since I haven’t done it for YEARS! I think Windsor’s was a lot better though, but I literally cannot remember it. We then had some ice cream as we explored Miniland, time for a photo attack! A quick run on the Lego Express happened, which essentially showed us most of Miniland again and some backstage sheds before we hit up the Kid’s Power Tower, which was full of manual labour and effort. We re-rode Fire Dragon and the Boating School before heading over towards the Pirate Ship, which was a Heave Ho clone and a bit meh. We also had an epic meal at the Dino Grill, which was basically a mixed grill of various meats, it was so nom I wish we had one over in the UK. We re-rode Jungle Expedition and Hero Factory again before doing the Spinning Knight Ride, which was surprisingly intense for a Legoland ride and went both forwards and backwards for extended periods of time. We finished the day off on the Fire Dragon once more before heading to the shop and heading back to Stuttgart. I really did enjoy my day, although this was heavily helped by the QBot being in my possession, as the park was very busy. But like most Legoland’s is has a decent lot of theming dotted around and this one probably has some of the better ride options around it, particularly Jungle Expedition and Flying Ninjago. Though small, there’s a fair amount of stuff to do but I think it needs something like Viking River Splash (which I honestly thought they had in the first place) and another high throughput cred just to keep things fresh.

No one would visit Thorpe because of a Top Spin though... Not a big nor interesting ride in comparison to the other flats available already and not unique, even if they added theming to it... As said, stuff aimed at the middle market should be Thorpe's prerogative right now, if they're intent on keeping the family market intact...

Not if you're on the front facing side of Talocan, those fire effects are Top Spins are one of those rides though which always gain a crowd to watch it, rather than ride, and I can rarely be arsed with them when visiting any park... Even Talocan rarely gets a proper queue once you realise half the people down the bottom are actually just watching it...

Why does everyone suggest that all future rides should have some link to Swarm? Like, can't we have a brand new idea that'll be half baked and poorly visualised by Merlin?

Hardly anyone rides Griffins full stop...

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