Benin

The best solution would be to remove the piece of crap in the area, and then there won't be a need for the scaffolding...

Something that only really happens in the UK, most other countries actually repaint their rides...

That's cos it's behind a massive mess of track... Not plonked down...

That's why you get changed in the loos beforehand

And the stupidity of not wearing practical footwear when you're walking around all day... Then again, I saw someone in a blue dress you tend to see on nights out at Thorpe Saturday, so people have no sense...

To be fair, I do remember going on Banana Boat a few years back during Fireworks and it was playing Cha Cha Slide... To which we danced to... It was fab <3

The problem with the station is because it's so big and has a vast expanse of plain concrete it looks so plain... Needs sommat to break it up more than the piping... Fake windows would have been a start... EDIT It LIVES! ATG

With the way the English weather is, are we surprised only about 2 proper water rides in the country actually get people soaked?

Advert being filmed tonight then...

Actually, I've just remembered that Treasure Trove used to have music, whatever happened to that?

Can just see the guests looking confused as they try and go on the running ride only to find a half finished construction site... Then they'll trot over to Guest Services to express OUTRAGE!

Weirdly on my visit (however briefly) on Saturday, only Stealth went down...

Maximum possibility of 360 riders per hour? Not a great idea...

Space and money would be my guess... Chessie have neither...

It's partly momentum, but the brakes can and do slow the train down (in the same fashion as any MCBR would)...

Merlin aren't beating their own record though, beating Tussauds'... [/pedant] Towers are really struggling to keep stuff quiet it seems this year, with the leak of the Sanctuary video, the papers releasing the Smiler story quickly, and now Krave... 14 inversions is a big thing, especially considering the space they had available... I think for me it's the way they've used the space that's the most impressive aspect of the entire thing... Inversions are easy to market and as Marc said, it looks like subtle gimmicks aren't successful over here, so we have to be more in the face of people...

Double post, but whatever... Yeah it doesn't stop on the brakes anymore (kinda, it still stops on the 3rd one which I think is down to stacking), making it weird tbh... Does it make a massive difference to the experience? Based on what someone else on my train said, nope, it's still turdio, they might have polished it but it's clearly still not good enough for the main target audience...

I seriously cannot get over the artistic beauty of this sign... I mean, so imaginative, the colours a perfect blend with the font... Quite simply, PHWOAR...

???

Think it's more that no-one cares about it... Is it open today then?

You cannot be prepared for every single potential delay... The main issue for Smiler was the groundwork, where they thought they had a certain soil type, turned out they didn't, hence the numerous concrete retaining walls we've been given... Since the groundwork is the longest part of ride construction, and the type of issue involved has resulted in this... Unfortunately this has been a result as well of Merlin's shorter construction time frames for rides, whereas before we would've had a couple of years preparation, this has been done in the space of about a year and a half... I doubt they will go for a later opening thing on all rides, as Towers has been dead due to Smiler's delay... Would not be viable business wise to keep doing that...

Well, shipping containers ARE the future...

I feel like they should be closer (and might well be, may be so far apart because they were put on by individual rows)... Meanwhile, ATG posted this...

Transportation to the park would depend on how much faff you want to do... Booking a shuttle would be painless but expensive... Buses/Trains/etc would be painful but cheap... Europa themselves say:

So the ground playing up and the site being sat under a fair few inches of snow aren't valid problems? It's weird how spoilt we are in the UK really, there are loads of parks in Europe and America which open their rides later in the season (Plopsaland are opening an entire new area in July, and that's a Splash Battle and Disko Coaster)... Construction projects get delayed sometimes, some more than others, unfortunately Smiler has been hit the hardest of most UK projects ever...