Benin

That is one example though, there's not much on that site that also backs up the claim you're making (not that I know what it actually is tbh)... For that Noah Ark place, there's also a few 'traditional' theme parks being built across the world... Hell even Poland opened a new one recently... 'Theme Parks' is quite often a misnomer when used in press situations as well (Harry Potter Theme Park being used a lot when Hogsmeade was being built at Florida)... Themed attractions and Themed parks will both continue to exist as separate entities on the whole...

Drenched apparently had a lift-chain issue (I.e. it snapped)... Think that's a sufficient excuse for it to be closed imo...

It's more the lack of really pushing the theme forward, so we've ended up with a bland concrete exterior and poorly executed explanation to what's going on... The theme itself, is a fantastic original idea, but it's just put forward in a haphazard way...

N.B. The Blog seems to dislike the majority of my pics, so have a pic-heavy topic instead! Day 1 – TusenFryd The hype for this jaunt to Sweden had built to unbelievable levels. A massive group of coaster goons, 3 Swedish parks, with Helix at the forefront of this trip, meant that the flight to Gothenburg went pretty quickly. We start our report in Norway though, as a few of us turned up for the weekend trip early for cultural times (of which there are no photos, but Gothenburg is alright), and Norwegian creds. First thing you do notice about TusenFryd is the location and surrounding area. Its hill-side forest setting gives the park overall a lovely bit of presentation, however in a fair few areas this doesn’t extend to the park internally, which is disappointing (Speed Monster’s area being a real bad example). Up the entrance escalator and straight towards our first ride of the trip, Speed Monster, an Intamin Accelerator that created the Norwegian Loop. We took over the 12 seater train and we were off, with the launch feeling quite weak in comparison to other bigger variants on the Accelerator, the loop was quite decent though, but in typical Intamin fashion as soon as it did any form of tight transitional turns (2 in a row as well </3) the restraints ruin everything. A ride of two halves really, as the start until the first twisty hill is quite good and enjoyable. But then it all goes to pot. Shame really. Minimal theming is, minimal We then headed further into the park to find our next coaster, the world’s smallest one in fact, Den aller minste. Coaster enthusiasts generally have little shame in getting kid’s creds, and usually ones of this size generally frown upon adults riding without kids. Indeed, the man operating it took one look at our group and clearly knew why we were here; his exasperation wasn’t hidden in the slightest. At least the seats were comfy and spacious, a rare thing amongst kids creds. There’s little else to say about a ride which is literally a flat oval. Up next was Thundercoaster, the first wooden coaster of the trip, and it was to be a Vekoma. Yay? Actually I did like Loup-Garou back at Walibi so this one being slighty bigger and using the terrain slightly more intrigued me. The burdenously long queue that we walked through did not impress me though (I.e. no shortcuts </3). It’s certainly a ride that when you come off you know you’ve been on one. Which might be a bad thing for some people; it was certainly flinging itself around the track in a wild manner. I found it neither awful nor amazing really, just a reasonably decent ride in the end of it all, with some good airtime about, with the irony that the recently retracked section was probably the roughest part of it all. https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/q71/s720x720/10417707_10154455377210220_4140049616716512199_n.jpg?oh=6e867f81457b3371fddc86f9e81621e5&oe=54560BFA[/img] Cows on a cred! There was a bit of faff as the area at the bottom of the giant hill where the Supersplash and Thor’s Hammer are located (think Legoland Windsor style) opened at 12. We eventually headed down the long walk which was awful due to the weather, and headed straight into the cave of Thor’s Hammer. This was probably the second ride I was most excited about on this trip. A dark ride themed to Norse mythology using a cheap version of the Spiderman ride system set in an actual cave (no sheds here). The theming within the ride is gloriously beautiful, unfortunately not everything comes up to that same high standard they set themselves. It was really, a disappointment to me and others who were hyped for it, for the ride has a few small flaws that prevent it from being amazing. This are namely down to broken screens; a lack of urgency from the speed of the ride car; a lack of ‘extra’ effects (such as water sprays/heaters) and the odd bit of non-sensical positioning from the car (Why are we still falling on the screen before continuing? Why are we flying?). This was probably the biggest shame of the weekend. Sue was excited because there were rocks Next door to Bore’s Hammer was Supersplash, which I think was actually the first Mack Supersplash in the world, hence why it doesn’t have any turntables or funky lifts or stuff. I also think it basically has the whole “if you’ve ridden one, you’ve ridden them all”, it’s still fun though, but not really reaching the spectactular. We then broke for some lunch, before heading back towards the entrance to pick up another stray goon. I watched a Spongebob themed show at this point, which made zero sense to me, having neither watched the show in the first place and it also being in Norwegian. We rode Speed Monster again which was still yay to meh in 10 seconds, before popping over to Loopen, an old Vekoma Tornado (I just looked it up, apparently 3 were built). It had a curved station, of which there need to be more of them because reasons, and the ride itself was mercifully short, though also one of the more smoother classic Vekomas in the world. One and done. The heat of the day was getting to all of us, so the Toomerstupet was done. It was a singular drop Log Flume with mincy bit in the trees prior to the drop, and one boat got stuck in the dual loading station of random necessity. Was certainly required though. We started the long walk up the main hill (more hills than Towers this park) and diverted at the SpinSpider, a MASSIVE Frisbee ride that has a Danish cousin at Bon-Bon Land. It was (like Bon-Bon’s) a brilliant ride, where the ridiculous height prevents a large level of intensity from being built up, and it just becomes completely enjoyable. At the top of the hill, antics were had, as was a character photo! We then continued to the Western themed area to hit up the last coaster, Western Expressen, which had been moved from Mirabilandia in Italy a few years back for some reason. It was meh and unexciting. We headed BACK UP the hill and rode Space Shot, their S&S Launch Tower which was ok. Some people did SpinSpider again on the way back down the hill before we went through the Eventyrstien kids playground, which helped us get back to where we wanted to go in a much more enjoyable (and shaded) fashion. We found ourselves back at Thor’s Hammer so a few of us re-rode it, where it still suffered from the same issues as earlier. We then went back to Thundercoaster, which was running a bit rougher than it was earlier in the morning, many of the group did not approve of this factor in the ride either, but it didn’t bother me too much. MEATBALLS! Some people wanted to ride Nightmare, which was an apparently better version of Vengeance with a long wait in a hot pre-show room. Some of us didn’t, and we discovered a brilliant way of cooling down in the weather. Finally Speed Monster was done once more, and we headed back to our cars for the long drive back to Gothenburg. Overall TusenFryd was a mixed bag of a park. It had an ok line-up of attractions, some awful ones, some mediocre areas in amongst the woodlands and LOTS of hills. I wouldn’t necessarily be running back desperately to the park it must be said, although that might be an opinion spoilt by other rides that were done later on the weekend. Good, but not great really, and some areas of the park need a LOT of work done on them.

A well presented park would get more people willing to return though... Parks should be ALL about the presentation/look/state of the park... A run-down looking park with rust, peeling paint and poor design choices won't get people directly coming back to it...

Dreamland is also a completely different kettle of fish... Especially given it's 'falter' was mostly down to dodgy businessmen... Found a pic of the planned Paramount Park for Spain btw: That's a theme park, and is potentially what we in the UK could get... But we might not... Paramount might design a park based upon our crappy normal weather, perhaps even providing a park that is able to open all year around... But we might not get even that...

Well if one cable breaks, all of them need to be checked to ensure none of the others will do the same thing...

The concept art would've resulted in another dull destroyed dystopian ride theme from a Merlin attraction... Whilst Smiler's existing theme is flawed in many ways, I prefer the originality...

I think some people should look towards the Spainish Paramount Park that's also in plans (and stalling fast)... If they did that in the UK version, it would certainly fulfil the traditional theme park stereotype people have...

They do have a base of operations just down the road from Chessie though... Dunno what though, since never go down that way...

I've never seen staff be horrible to kids about being too short, indeed it is arguably one of the worst aspects of being a ride staff member, as you can regularly see the change in excitement to disappointment to utter devestation, especially worse on the close calls... Perhaps a staff member would be horrible to the adults if they've acted in a stupid manner to the idea that their child cannot ride (hell, I've seen one parent physically hit their child after being denied by myself, which shocked me immensely)... Now of course, I've looked onto the forum and noted that seemingly they DID do the right thing and go to GS and get the wristband measurement, but where then denied even with that... That is perhaps the aspect that he should have focused on, rather than the whole "she's done these rides already", which is the most classic ruse played by parents in the whole thing to a staff member when attempting to convince them that the child can clearly go on when they cannot... The way Alvey is known to deal with park issues though is too well-known however, and the way he has presented his arguement is slightly ridiculous... How is height-checking a child a route cause of a "money-grabbing" park? What level of physicality were the park staff using in the whole "pushing her head down" situation? Perhaps that was due to ensuring that the child wasn't on tiptoes or whatever, I don't think a person pushing you down on top of your head can actually make you shorter... He's gone about this complaint completely the wrong way... But as according to someone on TPR, "Well, Robb isn't one to stir up drama when it isn't needed"...

Don't think we're laughing at the child, moreso at Alvey and the inevitable tirade of abuse he will send the park's way as a result of it... Though, as Goliath and Viper have the same height restriction, it's a peculiar situation... Perhaps it was an enthusiast who had been banned from TPR for disagreeing with Robb once? Surely he should know full well that the best course of action would be to go to GS, complain there and get the kid height checked officially? Moaning on the internet and (assuming here) getting your forumites to send abuse to the park isn't particularly constructive and is pretty childish... I can't imagine people would boo a child not tall enough for a ride though... That element seems far-fetched to me, having had to reject many children off rides, I've never seen it happen... Unless they were booing Robb for kicking up an enormous fuss over the situation...

Just did Trananananananananan at Skara Sommarland this weekend... It's secretly fab and more parks should build them, but bigger and better!

Helix is utterly fantastic, they took the greatness of Blue Fire and multiplied it by 10... At night as well <3 Straight into the top 10 when I rode it first thing, cemented itself into the top 2 after night happened...

An 'extravagant ride' could be a dark ride, which of course on concept art of the park would just be a giant shed... Coasters were on the concepts as well...

Nice to see B&M expanding their own horizons...

I wouldn't say a staff magazine is the same as the public domain though...

A step back in terms of the number of rides available, but a step forward in having those with the highest levels of popularity open...

OMG SOMETHING IS HAPPENING AT CHESSINGTON! Just updates on the hotel extension restaurant though... Can't tell if the wall is actual stone or one of those awful new vinyl things...

The park will be just off the M25 (South side of Dartford Tunnel), it's not exactly in the wilds of it, and is right next to Ebbsfleet International (I would assume they'd run buses to the complex if built from there)... A long way away it is not... Merlin invest more than any other UK park because they're backed by Blackstone... The rest are mostly independents, or in the case of Oakwood, just not invested in for some reason... Who's to say Paramount wouldn't undermine Merlin's pricing? They could easily say "Oh, these guys charge £X, well you can come in for less than that"... Then they have a marketable "quality product for cheap price" thing going on for them... Paramount Park will be equi-distance for me driving there in comparison to Thorpe and Legoland... Just because you won't visit often, doesn't mean everyone else has the same options available as yourself... Given that the Merlin parks aren't particularly high up the positive review ends after the recent TripAdvisor stuff, maybe they do need to change their approaches to running the parks (on a park-style basis, I.e. improving the overall day for guests)... They've really not done much to fix a lot of what was broken by DIC either, with some poor operations on rides, over-selling on Fastracks and rather over-the-top upselling... Plus the constant rising prices of everything... The other major companies not investing are different to Paramount here, because they ARE taking the risk to build a new park (as all new parks do carry)... Disney and Universal are essentially irrelevant to the new development... The point is that Merlin should be sufficiently prepared should their arrogance be somewhat misplaced and the Paramount development both occurs and is a great success for them... Indeed, I think the hope is from many that it will give the UK industry the kick-start it needs again, as it has truly lulled behind investments everywhere else in the world over the past several years...

Ahhh, lovely arrogance there from them... That sort of response it what annoys me with Merlin really, because it sets them up for a gigantic fall should their prediction be completely wrong, and then they'll be in full on panic mode... It's a very poor mentality... Especially given the assumption that if it doesn't fail, people will return to Merlin parks anyway because of... Reasons I'm guessing (Nemesis mainly for me, though I'm not in any rush to do anything Merlin related atm)... They should be preparing plans to put into place should Paramount be allowed to build their park that lets them get up to the potential new standard that will be brought along into the UK market... Not flapping their hand away and assuming it will either fail or not affect Merlin numbers if it is a big success...

Depends if I'm in a Spanish park or not tbh...

TowersStreet Facebook #smug

A ride shouldn't just be good if you ride it in a certain way though... Always ruins any enjoyment for me if I have to deliberately braced myself...

11am if I recall, but as per the norm it would probably work out quicker to walk over to the Valley as the queue will be horrid...