Benin

So Europa are all like, you know what we really need? A virtual pop band based off the characters in the park... They started that last year with a collab with some random bloke (probably famous on the continent) but now Rustis are going forward... For the serious amongst us, the following link is a Swiss article about Europa and the Mack's in general, which is quite interesting and it proves their knowledge of the industry and why their park is quite frankly the best in Europe... http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2F2013%2F28%2Feuropa-park-rust-schweizer%2Fseite-1

Probably to do with queues, but at the same time this causes a build-up of queues at the Doughnut places (where I waited 10 odd minutes just to refill my drink because those have the worst queues on park really)... Might as well just let everyone refill at any place with the ability to do it, saves people having to search for that specific place...

Apparently said person has since been sacked, so clearly Towers agreed that it was way beyond what any sales person should be doing... Seems it might well have been the person's idea, rather than the park itself (though of course, that goes against the Merlin = bad thing)... Thorpe are stupid for being selective in their drinks place choices though, causes more queues at specific places and if I recall Glass House doesn't do it, meaning that I wouldn't want to eat there because I'm not paying extra for a drink when I can get it for free elsewhere... See also Kebab place... It's a daft choice and bollocks is it against wasps...

But that must mean the design contest isn't real... #falseadvertisingOUTRAGE

*Puts up Facebook page* Is there an actual source to this story btw? Or are we re-hashing the one from Towers years ago? EDIT - Chessie have practically confirmed it themselves through responses... Although have seriously opened themselves up for further crap... Can pages not approve posts before they actually appear publically these days?

Sigh, why can't we have nice things?

Methinks some people do not fully understand Mark9's post... He was referring to the post he quoted (and edited), not the actual ride itself...

Leave Beanoland alone, it was fab when it opened Things actually worked and they had (for the UK) quite good shows of varying types... Of course in the end it needed redoing because it was old and not suiting to the park's new brand or the guest tastes...

Mushu

Hence how we ended up with the best ride at the park right in front of the entrance area, yet it completely gets ignored at opening because of Crush's Coaster... Such poor planning... Maybe they did Zufari as well?

This... A LOT...

Knowing the way the parks operate currently, I wouldn't be too sure

None of the others I've ridden have one, so you might well be on to sommat...

When Smiler opened didn't Towers say they wouldn't sell Fastrack for a reasonable amount of time? 10'000 was probably an over-exaggeration, hell I didn't even notice they used the term 'without queueing', which is completely shooting themselves in the foot if there is any actual queueing... But let's remember, this is Merlin (and Blackstone, who are probably the bigger villains in charge of the Merlin puppets), if the event is popular enough (and why wouldn't it be to the main public when they've stated that there will be NO queues whatsoever) then they might well have a rather large limit...

+1 not going to pay £16 for 3 hours of ride time... Of course, they SAY limited, but of course this limit could well be 10'000 tickets... Or more... Just because it says limited doesn't automatically mean there will be no queues, they have to make such events profitable...

I believe those images were of the prototype set at their Utah base, even so however, Astroworld's SWAT (now defunct) was built in 2003, so unless Slammer was an adapted version, it was just as reliable as the American one...

>Become known as "THRILL CAPITAL" >Change audience due to the teenage market being aimed at not being successful >Change to families who might have been disillusioned by the original "THRILL CAPITAL" marketing >Aim to draw in families with low quality product I'm more towards getting in the quality, getting a new coaster in 2015/16/17/whenever isn't the thing (blah blah airtime machine blah conversation is overdone somewhat), but to invest further into something like this when you also want to bring in the families who will want space to stay in and a quality product is insanely confusing... Unless the family market thing is now being reverted... It's a confusing decision to go for the CrashPad expansion (sans losing money to the original runners) when they might as well go for a full on hotel experience instead, since CrashPad is doing so well and the 'trial' it was must have been insanely successful to prove to investors that a hotel is a viable option...

The weird thing is, they have SPACE for one, so why they didn't think to put one in is interesting... Though really with the lack of seatbelts and reasonably quick changeover rate when it comes to loading/unloading I don't really think it would make THAT much of a difference to the overall throughput and timings personally... I sense the high sales of Fastrack are purely down to the money the park didn't get due to the later opening... As I've said before, their sales teams aren't very good when it comes to selling Fastrack... I think the amount of blocks might be the limiting factor towards the throughput, since really you can only have 3 trains actually on the track at any time... So as per any Gerstlauer we'll never really see an amazing throughput level...

Ah yes, I remember the smooth sailing of Stealth's opening year (and beyond)... We gotta be honest, this (and last year) for the park have not been great in regards to constant busyness like the years gone by, especially when you look at said northern park which seems since Smiler opened (since lots of people held their trips off, as predicted) extremely busy everyday... IF they are looking to really bring in the high end premium family market from now, then how is adding MORE cheap as hell shipping container hotel boxes going to promote this change? A theme park hotel should not be looking to be a direct competitor with a Travelodge, it should be better than one at minimum (which cannot really be said of Towers' two mind, but at least they don't have a Little Chef as the meal option)... Will more rooms really bring the price down? What evidence actually provides this idea? As for opening the hotel with a new coaster, there is logic, but what if said coaster fails? Then they have a problem in too much expense too little return, it's a risky strategy unless the new ride was a definite hit with the public... Also, how does this cost them £9 million? Like, seriously? £9 million on shipping container rooms? HOW? Surely filling these things with IKEA furniture can't cost that much? Mental costings if true, because that's £9 million that could be spent on tarting the park up more to help bring in those new market audience...

Hah, I predicted that they'd rather expand Crash Pad over a new hotel because it's cheaper to create for a quick opening... Temporary build my arse...

Stay at halls, worth the experience if anything... This time last year I was graduating... Jesus...

This is gonna look sexual

Newcastle under Lyme? Good nightlife? Methinks you be in the wrong Newcastle...