Benin

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...

Today is, putting on the ride car day... Towersstreet piccy 25 days of testing yeah? May half term is gonna be a hell of a push...

From a member off CF, gonna put this to bed before it continues... Pisses me off that people find it funny to post fake imagery on sites...

Because it's going to be left like that isn't it? There were already pics of an extended support in the same style of the unconnected one... Unsurprisingly with construction, not everything gets done 100% correctly all the time (for various reasons, mostly seen in this project), and as such solutions to problems that cannot be experienced until the thing is put together in real life are done... You can test calculations 100s of times on a computer, then when you try and build it in real life it won't work, that's engineering for you...

Something something of course it's a female that's why it's always grumpy joke...

Think that's to stop any 'newbies' posting topics that already exist... Don't think any member aside from Mods and above can create a new topic in the Thorpe side anyways (I can't for example)...

They need to invest in both sides, as the zoo is still a very good pull for guests (as many older guests remember when it was just a zoo)... Defo a swift kick up the arse regarding overall investment on new rides and renovating old ones though... Whilst Falls and Runaway are a start on that, half the park still looks shoddy and/or crap... And a lack of new high throughput rides is a problem... And they need to try and think things through a little bit more... Zufari being a prime example of this...

208 people can stay at this 'hotel' at any one time... No wonder it's making a difference to the park attendances...

Do people EVER read the signs though? In my experience, barely anyone does...

So this was posted on YouTube yesterday... Interesting since I'd never really seen how the ride went along originally... Although the finale is just so random I must say...

If we're going down this route of pedantry, it'd make sense that it'd be a two way system with a secondary monitor showing the status of the pre-show room... But really, that issue is definitely the least of the pre-show's problems...

Surely some smoke effects can still cause flare ups of things like asthma and similar reactions? Indeed, it might be due to the ride that an asthma attack has occured...

I do love a good bodge job... At least it's not sinking into the ground though...

The afternoon thing is so true, yesterday on our second ride everyone couldn't be arsed... It can detect it because there's a person doing the speech (hence why most of the time the lemur, referred to a he by Chase, then sounds very SARF LANDAN female)... It's a very, VERY poor imitation of what Disney have been doing on Stitch Live and Turtle Talk... Whilst kids love it, I can't help but think it was a needless (and poorly thought out, just look at the loading procedure for it) addition to the ride (which to some degree, actually sums the ride itself up)...

Madagas.... Oh...

I truly hope that park is a success, whilst it may not be perfect according to some reviews of the dark rides (I India apparently is a poor copy of Soarin') and many other rides are cheap knock-offs... It's a MASSIVE project for the country and I don't want to see another B&M go to waste...