Benin

What's so confusing about trying to beat Disney via building world class attractions? I'd like to know how that doesn't make sense... Also, as the second word in my post stated, it was my 'thought' that Merlin's end goal was to be better than Disney by providing high-quality products that would directly compete with them... If their aim is to saturate the market with bland carbon copy Midway attractions, dead IPs and Legolands, in correlation with poorly run parks, then I'm clearly not cut out to be a sensible businessman...

TowersStreet Facebook Did they steal the Daisies from Cloud Cuckoo Land?

The props/traps used aren't exactly what one would call original... The storyline (in perhaps, the earlier films more than the later ones) is what slightly took it apart from the rest of the other cliched ridden horror films of the time, and the context for the trappings, but I'm sure some of the traps appeared in Home Alone in some variation...

Talking of the park making space... Silver Mine is dead...

I thought Merlin's end goal WAS to have world class theme parks/midways in it's portfolio? What with them constantly harping on about being number 2 and aiming for the Mouse since they took over in the first place... Six Flags is a great comparison to Thorpe, especially the sudden realisation that the teen market isn't lucrative or good for business...

Blood writing on the wall counts as theming? Must be the same for Thirteen then... Think that list just shows how generic Saw actually is... Swinging pendulum blades? Well they're also used on a Scooby Doo themed ride in Australia, so it's very easy for those with zero interest in the film to not notice the relevance of such a thing (and TVs, and a computer, indeed, lots of generic stuff around)... Of course Billy and the phrases are known enough outside of the films, but I was more focusing on the queue element in my 3 sets point (the chair equalling the rack, but it's a chair first and foremost) that are clearly directly related to Saw... The ride portion itself only really has the bathroom (which you can barely see because they didn't think to continue the building to the base of the lift for some reason) as a really big relevant link... The crossbows on the MCBR are another rather tenous link to the films because they were used once or sommat... Eh...

On quiet days its lucky to get 10 people riding it all day... Always been one of the first rides to be dropped, many years ago it was on dual operator with Sea Dragons...

I prefer the Dark Forest to be rethemed to Plants Vs Zombies tbh...

Saw's building from the outside just looks like a warehouse though, I thought the point of that was that it was more of a stand-alone thing (hence the numerous pieces of traps junk in the queueline that don't link to the films)... Even on the inside there's what, 3 thematic 'sets'? The guns, chair and barbed wire man... And some TVs, which I guess are as much part of the theming as the CCTV cameras on the outside are... I remember seeing the concept art for some indoor queue bit and it was tonnes better than the stairwell of why... I dunno, it's links to Saw itself are pretty limited in number, since the only direct links are the TVs and puppet for those who haven't seen the films... The theming is almost extremely generic... Then again, I don't think much of the films anyway, even after watching them...

There was one summer where there was park wide stuff going on I seem to recall... Then one day I got to ride it at the end of the day after being nominated as the best platformer... But then the focus was all customer interaction at the expense of throughputs... Even extending to Fury where the batcher was so engrossed in talking to guests he didn't load a car until it was at the dispatch point, and the fabled time the staff wouldn't send the car until we "Flapped our arms like a Dragon" and we point blank refused to after spending an hour in that queue... Customer interaction should never be at the expense of platforming a ride... I don't mind interaction at times, but it should just be those positions which have constant long points of interaction, like at the batch gates (especially now on Vampire since there is no constant stream of people going on every single train)...

Especially if you phase out needing staff to sell ORPs...

Well, I'm sure the Merlin hotel vinyl theming will make it look less cluttered...

Q-Bots are a decent system in my experience... Would love to see Swarm's batcher deal with them though, they struggle enough now with the non time-consuming Fastrack tickets now in use...

There were targets, but more guidelines than actual targets...

An educational coaster would be a boon for Thorpe indeed, though I'm not sure how it would fit in... Even so, the topography of Thorpe itself isn't much to really play around with is it? I mean it's not like Towers and you have a giant valley, a terrain woodie wouldn't really have much in the way of terrain...

If this is happening, then the removal of Silver Mine (the old dark ride of looooong) will go a long way into creating the space... I think with Chiapas, I expected more dark ride stuff... As fab as the disco cave is, it really wasn't what I was expecting to see... But nothing hurt for a ride to have a very light-hearted take on matters, especially given the park's themes being rather dark (and Talocan already existing in the Mexican area)... I look forward to returning to the park this year, especially with Maus au Chocolat on the menu too...

Won't be paying £10 for an ORP... Amazing difference when you go abroad and see €6 a photo... Or indeed at Plopsaland you get a full digital video and 6 photos for sommat stupid like €2... The photopass value has also decreased, even if it's still decent value... Real shame...

2/3 days is probably best, especially if you wanna go all the rides and all the shows... Can do a day at each park at a chilled pace and then use the 3rd day for re-rides... Stay at whatever hotel suits your needs, they're all equal really aside from the distance to the parks, but a 20 minute walk from Santa Fe is still fine... Plus with Extra Magic Hours you can whore out Fantasyland completely...

Yep, the quality of the ride staff is the issue... I stand in that queue seething with rage everytime I visit these days... Especially when the bays spend most of their empty because the outside batcher is rubbish... It's so bad... So so bad...

To the average guest though, Swarm and Inferno's seating arrangement are different enough to have 'a place' in the line-up as it were... At SFMM there's 3 coasters that focus on multiple inversions (Viper, Riddler's and Scream), but the park is big enough really to get away with that (plus Viper has a lower height limit, whilst Riddler's has the stand-up feature/burden)... Problem is at Thorpe, Colossus is the world record breaker, and I don't feel that the Floorless idea is enough of a differentiate for guests (aside from the fact it won't attempt to break your neck) to give much of a damn towards a ride that lacks much in the way of a gimmick in comparison...

But they do move when they're not broken, like any animatronic... River Caves has a lot of still models with a smattering of animatronics with a lot more simplistic movements... I don't get your point... Unless it's that Chessie's maintainence is dire, which we all know anyway...

The finale would be better if they timed the lighting to turn off when the strobes were on, like it used to be before it got ducked up... The lack of Imperial Leather stuff in some cases is hilarious, like one of the pictures in the stations looking like they let a toddler paint over the logo with a big paintbrush...

Clearly filtered...

Floorless in Spain, however, I feel one at Thorpe would clash with Colossus, due to only being a looping coaster with a gimmick which doesn't add much overall to the product... As for spelling, that's a given on any forum, if it's bad I'd hope the person gets a word in the ear about it...

Indeed, so detailed, right down to only employing black people in the Africa area