Benin

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...

Hopefully their recent troubles with Cobra and T'Edge and the locals have been smoothed over enough for them to get another cred... Would be a shame if the park couldn't capitalise on the success of Peppa Pig...

Guess who just won the Golden Ticket for Best Amusement Park? This one... Presumably annoying all the Cedar Point fanboys in the process and the only European park to actually win one (making a change from, none)... Excellent news, even if the awards don't really matter... Tis a testament to how good the park is...

Depends when you go, but yep those 3 have the biggest queues... It may be worth investing in a qbot if you're visiting in busy season, if only so you don't have to queue for the crap creds at the place...

Pro Tip - Don't ride River Quest if that's your fear... Of course, a waterproof bag or placing deliacte objects in those little plastic bags you get in airport security (or IKEA) are other options available...

Blackpool used to be like that though, since I dont visit if often (nor care how it operates), and given that its the only UK comparison to Liseberg's pricing structure, does it really matter?

LotD 'stage' and Madagashcar are the most likely areas for any shows... Unless they do a temporary job...

http://liseberg.com/en/home/Amusement-Park/Tickets-prices1/ Gotta buy park entry AND ride wristband like Blackpool, which equates to £42 odd...

There is a bus straight outside the arrivals area that stops outside the main entrance... Forget how long it took though, probs 30 odd minutes...

Never really understood why they kept the original name, and why they didn't try to theme it to Canada Creek (which in turn would have meant that the original Haunted Sawmill concept for Saw would have been kept as well)... No point doing it now though, although wouldn't put it past Merlin if they're struggling for filler ideas for next year...

Wouldn't say Cedar Point is in the middle of nowhere, given that it's located on one of the biggest tourist spots in the state of Ohio... Problem is with Towers is that the locals would probably oppose any form of later opening, plus it's not easy to tell whether or not people would stay till 9pm either, given that even during Halloween events the latter hours (apart from the REALLY busy days) tend to just have people leaving rather than staying around... Wouldn't any extended opening times be put up on the big old queue boards? Perhaps they need the Europa method of deciding on the day and then sticking up a piece of paper by the op box on every single ride...

I like how Blair Witch has a brand new ambient soundtrack, because that what made it so awful...

Swear Universal hold exclusivity rights on any Robo-Arms on track for ages...

Hey look, it's a park that markets stuff towards enthusiasts as well! (from Twitter)

Messers B&M, your seats are now reserved on Furius Baco in the back row...

Movie Park Germany was the park of the day, having been a stone’s throw from it the day before, so it was a bit weird to drive to it for a second day in a row. Upon arrival I grew frustrated by the park not opening up the turnstiles prior to the official opening, mostly due to the lack of space available to the large crowd building up outside and the low number of actual turnstiles available. Does annoy me greatly when they could instead let people into the park, get some early sales from a cold and miserable rainy day and reduce the crowd issues. Oh well, first port of call was a shop to pay an Express Pass. For €25 you could buy an unlimited one for all but two of the rides in the park (Jet Ski ride and the 4D Cinema), a ridiculous value that either the Germans don’t buy into because they don’t like the concept or they sell barely any of. Either way, judging by the early crowds, this was to be quite an intelligent investment. So to the rides and the first on the list was Van Helsing’s Factory, the indoor Gerst Bobsled which I had heard many good things about. We entered through the side door of the massive shed and quickly onto the ride, the station and ride cars are both nicely themed, and I do wish I had actually seen the queue line proper. The ride starts with some faff before the first lift hill, still quite well themed before the ride begins proper. The usual stuff really from this ride type, with swooping drops and turns, and naturally the wild mouse style turns in the dark (with no brakes) made an appearance before the second tyre lift hill. Some dodgy animatronics later we’re launched up into the rest of the ride, which I have no real recollection or knowledge of as it was all dark. Eventually you hit the brakes after defeating the evil vampire. This ride is good, very good. It’s fun, enjoyable and quite well themed throughout, with some decent effects to boot. Solid coaster to their line-up. Unfortunately, the horizon for coasters didn’t particularly look great, so we had a quick go on the Jet Ski Patrol because of the wish to delay the inevitable. It was time for MP Express, a Vekoma SLC. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t very good. But the worst was still yet to come. The next coaster wasn’t open yet, so we decided to go on High Fall, an Intamin Stand-Up Gyro Drop Tower. Oh boy was that a mistake. Combining the tilting motion with the drop and the brakes and all of a sudden the entire ride is screaming in pain and agony. The most entertainment the ride presented was the subtle change in noise as the ride hit the brakes. Again, awful. Then it was time for Bandit, my second RCCA Wooden in the space of a month, and this was a clone of Coney Island’s Cyclone. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Turns out, everything. Bandit is by a far, far margin the single worst ride I have experienced. It’s that simple. Worse than Coaster Express, worse than Baco, worse than a Volare, worse than a Screaming Squirrel. It was violent on a constant basis, shook around at every corner, juddered about and for good measure did the odd slam into the side. It was at this moment exactly that the Express Pass value came into being, as I didn’t have to queue up for the worst coaster experience of my life. I wish I had been able to burn it down; it would certainly be worth the arsony racket. Another go on Van Helsing was needed to experience what a good coaster was, before we headed over to Nickelodeon Land to grab the kiddie creds. Starting with Backyardigans – Mission to Mars, a Vekoma Junior, Ghost Chasers, a Wild Mouse and the infamous in German Top Trumps Jimmy Neutron’s Atomic Flyer. They were all as to be expected, though Atomic Flyer was easily the best coaster of the three. Next up was Ice Age Adventure, an indoor dark-water ride combo. It followed the plot (loosely) of the first film, with some typical dodgy animatronics and theming throughout. The interesting part came with the drop, which essentially made it a cred. Was pleasantly surprised by it. Time for a random crappy flat ride in Splat-o-Sphere. Had never done an Aileron before, probably won’t ever again since it was pretty dull. We saw a couple of shows around this time which were all pretty standard theme park affair (at least, with those who care about shows, not UK park level). Then it was time for the Van Helsing Show. Impressive set aside, the show fell quite flat. Lots of dialogue, weird plot and a really bad werewolf costume mixed in with some rather poorly done fight scenes made it quite a disappointment. Points for trying/effort, but not much else positive. As we were walking past it would have been rude to not ride Van Helsing – The Cred again before heading back to the main entrance where (strangely) two big rides sit. First up, was new for this year The Lost Temple, to which I was very excited about, and it was probably my most anticipated ride of the entire trip. And whilst it is not a flawless dark ride, it is still entertaining, and above all well themed. I think the major flaw with it is the actual ride system. It lacks throughput and if you’re sat in the very front (like myself) then you lose quite a lot of what is actually going on around you. That being said, the theming within the queueline and pre-shows are brilliant, and it has an actual lift rather than a fake Sub Terra style one (indeed, the ride does share some similarities with Sub Terra in some aspects). Good addition to the park and hopefully more a sign of things to come from them. Next door was Alien Encounter, a quite randomly themed water ride with extended dark ride (and backwards) sections. It was quite cool it must be said, with an awesome Pepper’s Ghost effect, but it is also very dated at the same time. We caught the parade (which was generic) before having a go on Time Riders, featuring John Cleese speaking German. It had an obscene amount of pre-shows that ended in a random tiny simulator. I remarked at some point that it reminded me of the Batman simulator at Madrid, turns out it WAS one once upon a time. It found itself in a similar position to the Batman ride in Madrid, so crap it was actually funny. Though it felt so wrong hearing Mr Cleese speaking German. We rode Van Helsing again before seeing the Crazy Cops Stunt Show, which was alright and typical of your basic stunt show. The guys did well in the very wet conditions mind. Least there wasn’t any audience participation faff this time. Van Helsing was ridden again before some food and show times again. Afterwards we did Van Helsing again (a pattern emerged very early on in the day it must be said, not helped by the central location of said cred). We had a look towards Lost Temple again but unfortunately it was shut (it’s been having LOTS of problems this year), so Jimmy Neutron was ridden again (for some reason, I’m still not sure why) before we did the Fairy World Spin Teacups, which were generic as well. Van Helsing was ridden again before we rode the Crazy Surfer Disko Coaster (which had a lot of bounce to it) and the Santa Monica Pier Carousel, which was actually a Chairswing. The hope was to finish the day on Van Helsing but unfortunately they had seemingly closed it early. Sad face. We stopped off at the Happiness Station for epic ice cream before heading home. Movie Park is ok, just full of utter, utter crap for the most part. The layout doesn’t help it much, since half the park is pretty much dedicated to Nickelodeon (Ice Age and Mystery River aside), two major attractions at the entrance is also a weird design choice. The major issue is that only one of the coasters is actually good, with the two big draws being crap, some future choices would be served well into getting some good adult rides, as the park is pretty well served for families/kids. Removing Bandit, High Fall and MP Express would be an excellent start and getting some heavily themed coasters that are good could help put the park on the map a little bit more.