Benin

Maybe they'll just have it so any kids sit in the middle, hence adults will be in the way of any attempting to be thrown out of the truck... Like the Black Buccaneer system they have... Doesn't make sense though yes...

I can say that in my experience it wasn't relating to sales, but that was 4 years ago now and at a difference park... Not knowing the inner workings of Thorpe's operations, can any of us really tell why the queue times are constanly incorrect to high levels? Maybe it's a KPI thing so people can say "no, queues didn't spoil my day as I queued less than anticipated"... Of course, it might just lead to boosting sales of Fastrack... I don't truly care tbh...

BORIS PIZZA <3

How much does a massive sheet go for these days to cover the gondola? Plus, it's Chessie, no one cares

Of course there was plenty of fire and assorted insanity... Including epic cage light rig of epicness

I'm quite sure Rameses has a manual locking mechanism for such emergency issues... I'm sure as well if Chessie could have lowered the ride then they would have, why would any park want the fire services there aside from a last resort? Maybe they could get Talocan in then instead? Can watch that rot instead...

Can't see it opening for a long time (if at all this year)... It's just funny now that all this crap is happening to Chessie this year, next thing you know Vampire will throw more bolts off itself, another Fury platform will collapse and Alex the lion will get set on fire...

I went to Download Festival this weekend... It was awesome... Rammstein

Yay lapbars! Yay rolling launch! Boo crap looking trains...

As a small note towards pathways around Chessie, quite a fair few of them are affected by the ground shifting (cos of hills and nature being a bitch), hence the poor state of quite a fair few bits of the tarmac... Of course, doesn't give reason as to why the rest of the park looks so crap... Don't think it's been touched since it was redone 11 years ago...

Lift chains can and do snap... Enough wear on them after constant operation will cause potential weakening of the material, like in any situation... Moreso with the chains because they are constantly changing speeds as well... Shock absorption could be a major culprit in some cases if the ride runs onto the lift like Inferno... Not too regular an incident, but I've seen it happen mid season...

They don't seem to have built anything behind the canvas in my eyes... Yet...

Towers' coasters have never been famous for exceptional all across the board theming mind... There's always been a focal point (be it ride or station) but that's about it... Actually thinking about it then Smiler's Marmaliser was gonna be it really aside from the station... Just an observation about something I've noticed...

It's part of Jumbos and has been there all season as mentioned... Doesn't look bad in real life... Nothing to worry about yet...

A wooden coaster won't be built by a Merlin park anytime soon, the market research has put paid to that until the general public perception of them changes drastically... Would need a smaller park to build one first...

What no Atlantica Supersplash?

Day 3 – Parc Bagatelle A very early morning led to the 2 hour drive across half of two separate countries towards the seaside of France towards Bagatelle. This is rather a small park, but recently nabbed a Vekoma Invertigo last year, and was once infamous for having a scary as hell Lion show which is now gone. We arrived at the park to be greeted by a long queue, as out of the 4 cashier desks they had 1 open. And the queue barely moved due to large groups and numerous vouchers. This annoyed me greatly, and resulted in a 30 minute wait to even enter the park, with 20 of those on 1 cashier. Not the greatest start to the day. This was then compounded by Bag Express, known for its dive into a water channel, which was empty. With the gimmick gone, this Soquet coaster was utter crap, with a helix of WHY being a small highlight in an otherwise death coaster. Could things get better? Le Triops stood proudly in its orange paint, waiting for the moment to become my 300th coaster (yay). Having ridden at least 1 of these before and many other Boomerangs, I was of course thinking how crap it was going to be, regardless of Bellewaerde’s decent one the day before. Fortunately, it was similar to Bellewaerde’s in regards to smoothness, with small jolts that didn’t affect the ride too badly. We later did it again backwards first (cos Vekoma) and found that just as good. Worthy of being a landmark coaster? Best I could do at the time Onwards we went into the park before passing Aqua Bag, which was basically Bumper Boats with water pistols attached. It was amaze <3 They’re expanding it to hold more than 5/6 boats as well, which will mean in the future it will be especially mental. Les Rapids were next, another wedge boat style one with one of the most mental things I’ve ever experienced on a rapids. It has a whirlpool section akin to River Quest at Phantasialand, only faster, spinnier and the drop itself results in 5 seconds of pure confusion, fear and amazingness in one fell swoop. Aside from that the layout was pretty non-descript, but having anything more would really take the overall impact of the whirlpool section away. Further meandering led us back to the front of the park and the Zamperla Spinning Mouse, which had barely any queue, so it was ridden and was exactly the same as the one at Farup. To finish off the coaster list was Spirals des Dunes a baby Soquet coaster which was weird as hell to be quite honest. Lunch followed before we had a quick go on the Porn Ponies. The Sea-Lion/Penguin show that replaced the Lions was about to start so we watched it. Was ok, if very basic, but yay Penguins! And gigantic Sea-Lions which struggle to move! A quick go on the Vintage Cars as they were opposite the show revealed nothing special beyond lots of trees and a bridge or two. The 4D show of random Mad Racers came next, with similarities to the Simpsons ride abound due to the giant screen in front of two pods. It made absolutely no sense at all. Nicky had a go on the Eccentric Bikes before we had another go on Triops. At this point we wondered what to do next, and concluded that we’d get a snack before heading back to Calais for the journey home. So we had a waffle, got the park train back to the entrance, before having a quick go on the Pedal Karts which went past the lions before we left. That’s it really. Not much else to say for the park, it wasn’t very good overall, with two good rides out of the generic crap of it all. It even has TWO log flumes! I would say the start of the day didn’t help my mood about the park, but even so, it’s not a very good park, and they have a lot of work to do even with the recent rebrand of everything. More quality, less Soquet crap please! We made it back to CitiEurope in one piece to find it completely shut bar the restaurants. This is silly of you France, as that place attracts so many Brits on their way back from a weekend away. At least open Carrefour up! Then we discovered a train delay which made the Calais terminal HIDEOUS. Although only delayed an hour, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. With that, this report closes. I would recommend Bellewaerde but Bagatelle is bad, bad, so very bad. I’ll be back to bore you all after New York!

I guess you could ride Abenteur in between the constant Blue Fire riding then...

Best ride to start with - Blue Fire Best ride to do second - Blue Fire Best ride to do before lunch - Blue Fire Best ride to do after lunch - Blue Fire Best ride to do before park close - Whale Adventures, then Blue Fire Hope this helps...

Banned for necroposting...

Could up the photo limit on blog posts, seems that my latest one (and a few others) are missing like, a handful of photos... If we want to make blogs the place to do trip reports, it makes sense...

Day 2 – Bellewaerde Park Time for coasters! And with a brand new one it was time to head along to Belle, via several country roads and an awful diversion, we eventually arrived at the destination (N.B. There is an easier route to take to get to the park we discovered on our way back, blergh)… Formerly a safari park, this place certainly shares similarities with both Chessington and Flamingoland, but let’s not set our hopes too low, and go and ride the first coaster of the day (in order to avoid long queues later), Ladybird a Large Zierer Tivoli… Bugger. Well, these coasters are actually quite fun at times; although how it fitted into the Western theme area I have no idea. Though this thing was basically bread and butter to the usual types of this ride, so it’s unremarkable. Next up, Boomerang. It’s like the park WANTS us to hate it, but either way, this is a well themed one so at least it looked nice to ride. After Nicky’s apprehension of her first Boomerang, we were on and were surprised to find it smooth, barring the odd jerk during the backwards section of course, it wasn’t perfect. But comparatively, it was like riding a B&M. Amazing scenes! The final coaster was the brand new Huracan, an indoor Zierer coaster with random outside bit and epic dark ride section. Most reports heard before were of high praise regarding the level of theme this ride has, and this is most certainly true of the queue, station and pre-lift section. It’s pretty damn awesome, if the queue is quite bland and rather boring. Onto the ride itself and with no explanation you’re set off through various rooms with random theming in each, with music booming out of the speaker, pretty cool so far. After the wind room we’re off into the daylight (and random pointless red strobe) up the lift into the pre-darkness section. I do like the way the music fades out at this point and returns upon entry into the building, and speaking of such, the ride section is decent, but completely lacking in anything. I do like the daylight peeking it allowing you glimpses of the track, but there’s just nothing else. Even cheap cut-outs a la Revenge of the Mummy would improve things. Although with a minimum height of 1m, they put their hat on that market and went with it. The brake run laser show is quite cool, but I can only imagine what if they had decided to put in a freefall section on this to finish it instead? Then the turn back into the station to finish instead of stopping and waiting for the train in front to depart? Good family coaster mind, with some decent dark ride element to it, but it had a lot more potential that could have been realised. 7/10 Coasters done, it was time for other things, so we polished up the Aztec area with El Volador, a Topple Tower which ran a lot faster than Djurs’, and El Toro a Huss Breakdance of JOY. After which we broke for lunch. As the weather was awesome (where has Summer gone now?) we elected for the Log Flume, which had a massive ONE drop, and two lift hills… Lol wut? It was rather refreshing though to be fair, but that to me made no sense whatsoever. It was then time to meander around the zoo part, or at least part of it, as it was still reasonably spread out. But regardless we saw Giraffes, Elephants, Zebras and Lemurs for the exotic stuff, whilst goats were the more typical animal nearby. A wild Madhouse, Houdini appeared, which was promptly ruined by loud teenagers. But had an amusing clip which was as good as SMUGHEX. Further into the park we delved and found the potentially unique Bengal Express, which makes the idea of Zufari look turd, why? Because you’re in a train going right through the Lion and Tiger enclosure that’s why! Ok it’s well protected and everything, but still… Was awesome. Next up were the Bengal Rapids, my very first Wedge rapids style ride, where rather than one complete boat they’ve cut it up and had essentially 3/4 (depending on where you go) sections that can and do act separately from each other. This also means that you can be attacked from any direction which balances out the general lack of being able to have too many large drops (which was disproven by Bagatelle). Was quite good fun though really in the end. We dried off with an ice cream before doing the Squirrel Monkey island and then continuing around to the Huss Drop Tower Screaming Eagle, which was a good bit of fun as well. Next up was the Jungle Mission boat ride, after our experiences of such in Denmark, we dreaded to think what would be next, but we found an excessively random ride mixed into some animal enclosures (including Capybara, YAY), worth a go. At that point we felt like we had done as much of the park that we wanted, so we rode Boomerang and Huracan again, before heading to the shop and home. Overall I would say Bellewaerde is a good park with a lot of potential ahead. The theming it has is very well done but is rather sparse overall. They also (in my opinion) need a real stand-out ride to really reach out to a larger audience of people, with a hint of uniqueness. Probably why I think Huracan would have benefitted from the freefall drop but on the other hand it would have meant missing out on that 1m limit. I really liked the park, and whilst the zoo portion of it is tiny these days, they have some excellent viewing areas which make it rather similar to Flamingoland, only without the awfulness of being it. I hope they expand continually in the future because there is a great potential in there.

Hah, I remember how confused the people working at the outlet were when several enthusiasts were reading every detail picking out potential hints to the future... Wouldn't be surprised if the next thing was in place of the Flume though...

Isn't 199ft the height of the building rather than the actual lift shafts though?