Benin

There's a zoo at Marwell? Never even heard of the place... Surely Drusilla's or London Zoo would be more likely candidates for competition against Chessie in a zoo aspect?

Not much has changed then... You can but hope it opens for at least half term, if only to help the park's queue capacity...

Whoever Thorpe purchase their temporary metal fencing from must LOVE them...

Why the HELL would I want to use Ryanair?

They're getting a few new animals to come in as well you know, not just the existing mob, Giraffes are a definite, and I think Rhinos are on the way as well... Considering there's nothing like this in the UK, any scale is good...

Ahhh, so basically your view of the park was done in by how horrendously busy it was (which happened to me on my first visit of the park, but I still manged to enjoy it)... It didn't help mind about the whole sat nav issue, this is why sat navs are silly, and should be ignored... I think any busy park makes for an awful day, but when the French are involved, it makes things a bit more awful... Cos they're French...

Scared face...

Big if on the economy front... And it's not surprising that they would consider removing Neptune's Beach, it is an awful area and is completely at odds against the park's new 'look'... And the day that Storm Surge is removed will be a happy day, 99% of people seem to agree that it is probably the most pointless addition to a UK theme park in a while...

None of the parks have done well this year... Problem is for Thorpe that they had their high investment this year, whereas Chessie and Towers didn't... But as said, there are more problems surrounding our parks than just a ride not bringing people in...

The hotel is an attraction? Not for an extra £100 a night it isn't...

No, just London... Because it's blatently superior...

Day 2 The second day started slightly too early at first, with a fire alarm blasting through the hotel at around 2am, causing many tired Germans to peek outside their doors... Nothing had happened, but it was pretty burdenous to occur at such an hour, so thankful for those times it happened at uni now... We had breakfast after waking up properly and proceeded to ERT, again riding Blue Fire (twice this time) before Wodan once again... We took to riding the Mini-Monorail from Iceland to the Historama station, which we then visited... Historama Interesting this, I remember on my last visit when all the models and stuff you see in the building were in the now Volo da Vinci station... Still this place looks really classy now compared to how it used to, and the models and other things are pretty fab... Then the show part is a bit weird, with the rotating theatre and the going through the different aspects of the park, bit of them tooting their own horn really, but since they can actually back up their claims of being relatively fab, they get away with it... The show portion even included FOUNTAINS... Amanda would be proud... S'alright thing really, pretty cool and worth a look in... We then headed to Euro-Mir as it was next door, before hitting up the random dark ride... Random Russian Bench Based Dark Ride I can't be bothered to look up the name of this exceptionally random dark ride... It was just full of complete what the hell and stuff... It didn't do much and had a rather pointless photo... Complete meh... We wanted to go and see the Ice Show and had a bit more time to spare, so quickly wandered over to Eurosat for a quick go, but not without noticing the Halloween theming had begun! We headed back to the Ice Tent and realising we had more time before it started, went on Abenteur cos why not? It provided the sufficient faff time till opening... Ice Show The only reason I wanted to see this show was because of the story, and it centred around the stealing of Roland Mack's IAAPA President Gavel... I mean, seriously, that's pretty damn awesome for a park to just fully embrace that sort of thing, however the show was naturally overshadowed by the pre-show entertainment... It was your atypical mute clown (seen in America and a few other places as well) who basically took the mick out of everyone and attempted to get the crowd going to hilarious results... It is very much a "had to be there" thing really, but the highlights of invisible drum kit and people failing to clap 'correctly' went to prove that the Germans do in fact have a sense of humour, and it made a change for something to be universally understood [/ignorant Brit] The show started well then proceeded to lose the story, a shame, but was pretty good as Ice Shows go, with more than just skating and included a portion that I swear I saw at the Olympics this summer... Ah wells... We then decided for lunch and some shopping in the main entrance area, but as we were feeling lazy, we caught the proper Monorail back to the entrance from Greece, and ate at the Rock Cafe, which was pretty damn nice with Chicken Wings, Wodan Burger and some decent music... We decided to start shopping now as we would get everything sent back to the hotel for packing that night, as in the midst of our shopping, the rain decided to pelt it down upon the Germans (on holiday from flooding half of the UK I guess) and it lead us to ponder what to do next... Indeed, what we did was purchase a €1 passport thingy, and entertain ourselves by jumping across the park and getting it filled in, a la Epcot... Easily entertained we are... We went back to France via Italy (stamp cred) and then decided (for SOME reason) to ride Silver Star in the rain... In the back row... This was later labelled insanity because it was running super fast and not even trimmed... It also hurt and produced a fab on ride photo which I'll upload later... Then we did another Disney rip off ride... Universe of Energy/Dino Fahrt This is a horrifying Omnimover Dark Ride, with some retro Dinosaur theming, we literally only did it because of the rain and it's so amusing how old some of the dark rides at Europa look... Especially this one... Wonder if they'll ever revamp them in the future... We then went on the Matterhorn again, which was surprisingly smooth in the rain actually for a Mouse, before we continued our adventure around each area getting the Passport stamped... Before long we had reached the England area, and it was decided we would investigate the Enchanted Forest area (the other new area since my last visit) and it was actually pretty cool overall, decent level of theming and plenty of things for kids to do (since it is an area designed for them), we also visited another indoor attraction to avoid the rain... Brothers Grimm This is SUCH a rip off of recent Disney Fantasyland attractions it's hilarious, it had some random interaction stuff as everyone in the room (about 7) had to go up to some mirror as we had to find the wizard (yeah, I dunno why either), and once we had done the multi-lingual clock/ravens said some things and we proceeded into a mini-theatre for the rest of the show... It was pretty cool actually, with some minor physical effects (not 4D show style leg ticklers, actual animatronics) and some sheer randomness... What I liked was that it was set in the park, giving that extra bit of escapism which is cooler than just a random area of trees (*cough*Charlie*cough*)... Random and again, worth a look really... We continued our adventure into the rain (the reaction to the Grimm attraction ending and the host opening the door to the rain was hilarious), and walked through the rest of the area, they're doing sommat to it next year, but I'll be damned if I could see where... We ended up in Austria (or Switzerland? They are practically the same) and hit up the Diamond Mine walk through, which has epic smell of epicness and is quite a cool walkthrough thing, which is something Europa seems to do well, having random things tucked away that inquisitive people will find... Next up was Spain and the two flat rides there... Seastorm and Feria Swing, both are pretty much basic stuff but with quite long sequences... Filler stuff and nothing more really... We arrived just in time to catch the Three Muskateers stunt show, which was again very much worth visiting, as they used the relatively small arena to great advantage, as seen here... Stampeding horse chases on the walkway... Pretty fab, they also had a few swordfights on there as well, inches away from actual people, H&S be damned! Easy to follow even with the language barrier, and the comic relief panto-dame was pretty fab as well... Impressive stuff, and you can see why Europa's shows get a fair bit of praise... We completed the passport at this time through Holland, Norway before finishing at Iceland (again)... We were hungry, so elected to grab a Milka Donut (of nom) and drink from the Gazprom sponsorship station... Afterwards, we walked through the part-time queue of Blue Fire, which can be used as an alternative walkthrough to Wodan these days... Perfect for those who love taking photos... Like me... This makes Fanta and Oblivion look subtle We eventually arrived at Wodan and took a spin, before the exit plonked us at the Splash Battle... Whale Adventures This was cool actually, I really liked the theming of it (for example, each boat having a different model captain) and whilst it wasn't the weather for it, it was pretty decent really... It does feel slightly plonked in now with Wodan stood behind it though definitely, ah wells, I could think of worse examples... We then had a hot dog for some dinner (spicy sauce is not my favourite) from the brilliantly named Moby idiot's before a quick go on Blue Fire to finish off the second day...

The sign will light up an eerie white/blue/insert colour here...

Well, if you compare Towers' event, of course Thorpe's is going to be scarier, as they don't have the family element to consider when creating their attractions...

Or someone COULD post it on here, so I don't have to go galavanting off to some random Facebook page...

Odds on it dying on the first day it reopens... Likely...

Wasn't it the "Greatest" experience for Inferno? Cool hashtag there, #getcorrected, parks need to use social media and would not be surprised to see it constantly being plastered across the park...

New World Beating Coaster... It's like Inferno's marketing all over again

Based on previous Fright Nights experience, you can't really blame anyone for considering buying Fastrack especially when going with someone who hasn't been before... Kinda one of the reasons it does exist (even with the "HOW MUCH?" aspect and the inevitable overselling causing 3 hours queues on everything)...

It's the Daily Mail... Do we expect any different from them? And calling Slammer reliable? Even though the overall issue is S&S's fault for using air pressure for EVERYTHING, Thorpe's decision to keep it could well be a mistake if it continues to act like it has been, much more expensive to source out parts for it now than it would if S&S gave a damn about it... Half and half really... Regardless though, Thorpe does have issues with reliability, surely that cannot be denied? And Marc didn't even mention Stealth's long list of issues... (and Inferno's, and Det's, and Colossus', and so on)...

So that was the two new coasters since my last trip, now it was time to revisit the other nine and see if they've changed or if my opinion has, as it was nearby, we started with... Atlantica Supersplash The first thing you notice is the music here, how much did Europa pay for the rights of the Pirates of the Caribbean music (both film and original song appear) I wonder... The queue is still well themed and mazey, like all the newer rides really... Running 4 boats meant that if there had been a queue we would've moved fast, but since the weather seemed to be taking a turn for the worse and everyone was going to Blue Fire/Wodan we walked straight onto the back row... Up the hill to the first turntable... WHY does it rotate 1 and a quarter times? So so pointless that is... The drop was quicker than I remember, providing some airtime, and the main drop is certainly accented with the addition of Wodan diving over the track... Fairly wet really, but it's a decent water ride really... Nothing spectacular, but like many big water rides, it's much more of a spectacle to non-riders and only exceptionally enjoyable when it's the middle of summer... 7/10 Rain was starting to fall, so we quickly ran back to the hotel to grab coats before heading towards the Austria area... AlpenExpress The classic example of Europa's operational policy here... Load train, visual check, dispatch, put down any bars that might still be up as the train leaves the station... Classic and it's so amazing to see some of the operational procedures over here when really, there is no need for them (aside from the fact that the Germans have tonnes of common sense)... As for the ride, it's still one of the best Mack Mine Trains in my experience... Exceptionally themed cave section with random fire and a surprisingly big drop inside... Only 2 goes unfortunately but you don't feel too short-changed by that... Fab ride... 7/10 WildWasserBahn Didn't go on this last visit, and since there was no queue, we elected to have a quick ride on it as we were there... It gives a nice relaxing view of the cave it shares with the Mine Train, and again gives some level of dampness... Kinda basic really for a Flume ride, meander in woods, first lift, small drop, meander in cave, second lift, big drop, meander to station... Done... Next it was time to head towards the nearest coaster, the classic spinning rave machine that is... Euro-Mir Ahhhhh bless Euro-Mir, the classic track has made it somewhat of a cult ride amongst enthusiasts, especially when the layout itself isn't particularly inspiring or the spinning great due to the controlled element Mack put into it back when it opened... Of course modern Mack Spinners aren't controlled anymore, so it would be interesting to see if Euro-Mir would get a refurb with new trains (with on board music please) in the future... Anyways, the ride's famous lift hill rave sequence is always fun, with the random pointless spinning and spaceship in the middle... I totally forgot it had a trommel as well, that's awesome and should happen more... The layout as mentioned isn't fantastic, since half the ride is Wild Mouse esque with more controlled spinning, and then the actual coastery section is quite rough nowadays, although the finale helix is still pretty good, and rather intense when going backwards through it... Like any cult ride, it's not for everyone, but I find it incredibly silly and fun, one day I'd love to get a load of glow-sticks and rave it up on a night ride... 7/10 We continued on our tour of Europe to Greece next, home of one of my favourite dark rides ever, a little hidden gem if it were... Abenteur Atlantis ABENTEUR! I don't really know why, but I really like this ride and just find it so fun... Even after the epicness of Huntik's visual and physical effects, even the simplicity of Atlantis works well into the theme, story and the park... It's a little hidden dark ride guilty pleasure... It's like Duel in a way, because it has immense throughput and is relatively out the way, it never seems to get a queue, indeed, the numerous times we rode it, we walked on every single time... So fab... Shame they don't do the cuddly turtle anymore though Just so much fun, it might look cheap in comparison to other shooters, but it just seems to work for me... 8/10 After 2 rides on Atlantis, the next creds were spotted, and so for the YoungStar/Water coasters of Greece... Pegasus You do have to feel sorry for Mack sometimes, no-one buys Blue Fire, and no-one buys Pegasus, which is a very fun 'kiddie' coaster and easily better than the Vekoma counterparts... The first drop is pretty intense considering the target audience, and the rest of the ride is all overbanks and relatively tight helices... It's weird really, maybe parks don't wanna risk it with this coaster, with Vekomas being pretty well known about it... But considering the superiority, it's such a shame... Also, that lift hill music <3 7/10 Poseidon Another ride type Mack have struggled to sell well, although sometimes you can see why with these, what with Journey to Atlantis and Poseidon, it's a weird niche ride that might not fit every park... And even slightly looks out of place at Europa... It's one of the first rides on park that lacks a consistency of theme, purely because it is a tall ride compared to the rest of it, indeed, the coaster portions stick out like a relatively sore thumb, whilst the water sections and station/pre-lift are extremely well themed... It's jarring and inconsistent really, and a shame... Would've been interesting to see if they could've done sommat to make the coaster portions look more interesting, but with Pegasus underneath it now, that's not going to happen... The ride then, well it's gained a bit of roughness since I last visited during the coaster section, but it's still reasonably fun and enjoyable... Doesn't seem to get you too wet either, but it's an alright ride... Don't think it's that amazing really, looks a lot better than it rides (aside from the coaster section doesn't look that good)... 6/10 At this point we were feeling pretty hungry so dashed past Switzerland to France and grabbed some chocolate Crepes... They were naturally delicious and full of chocolately goodness, wasn't sure if it was proper Nutella or not, but still, so fab... We headed back to the Swiss area to grab the skipped creds... Matterhorn Blitz Mack Wild Mouses aren't that good are they? I think the layouts are a bit meh in comparison to the Maurer's, especially the finale section... However, the beginning of them are quite good, this one especially due to the elevator lift section of surprise if people don't know about it... Interestingly it's being used for Halloween, so the final straight of the queue had been partially covered in black material for later use, a different finale for a scare maze, they'll have to hide the house theming too so it isn't tooooo jarring... The ride was alright, kinda uses it's trick first off and then it's just a Wild Mouse... Oh wells... 6/10 Bobbahn Yay Bobsleigh coaster... I dunno really, after doing Blackpool's version the other weekend, this felt a bit too smooth and lacking in picking up any form of speed really... The use of an actual drop is good, but it just was a bit meh in the end... Some decent interactions later on but it's probably Europa's worst coaster... 5/10 Back to France for the final two coasters then... Eurosat Horray for EuroRave, such an underrated ride this is really...Whilst 4 years ago I felt the lift was silly and burdenous, I found it to be awesome... Like Mir, would love to do a glowstick rave on this ride... It feels like a Schwarzkopf really... The first drop is really good and the tight turns with the build up of speed all provide a surprising experience, very akin to Space Mountain really... Plus the retro Space theming and waving astronaut at the end are made of joy <3 7/10 Silver Star The final coaster of the trip, and we headed for the front row again... The theme as well is slightly jarring in comparison to the rest of the park really, maybe because the rest of the park is so well themed, especially Wodan and Blue Fire, Silver Star just looks a bit sterile... The ride however was much improved from my previous trip 4 years ago when the trims killed it completely, this trip, the ride was untrimmed and was a real indicator on how good B&M Hypers can be... Full of pure speed, floater AND ejector airtime, and just generally a fun and enjoyable ride... I adore the finale on this, the random tight turns providing a good balance to the airtime hills throughout the rest of the ride... 8/10 We found Silver Star so enjoyable and lacking in queue we rode it again, before we decided it was lunchtime and headed towards... Foodloop After last year's failure at visiting the original rollercoaster restaurant in Hamburg, I was happy to get the chance to experience the reasonably unique experience, with the added loop of course... So after a brief queue to enter, we were given a card and led to one of the many circular tables on the ground floor, it's quite cool to see how it's all set up and how the tracks intertwine with each other... The loop is located in the middle of the bottom floor of the restaurant and is visible from near enough every table, although it only services one table, it's cool enough to watch and pass the time over... Unfortunately the menu isn't particularly great, and still full from the earlier crepe, we only had chips and then some dessert, which was pretty good... Especially the dessert... Nom nom nom... After some food and a quick go on the Football Dodgems (very good, responsive, quick, but not worthy of an actual full on discussion), we wandered back to the Italy area to begin meandering around the smaller rides, starting with... Volo da Vinci New last year, this is a weird variation on the suspended monorail attraction, it's got a well themed station, with lots of buttons for various models of some of da Vinci's inventions, my favourite being the turtle tank thing... It looks fab... The ride itself is pretty basic, going over some of the other smaller rides, it's longer than you realise really, and with the whole extra pedal increasing the speed of it gives a weird sensation as you can certainly feel the speed change when pedalling... A decent ride for the target market... Good atmosphere and just relaxing if you want it to be... Piccolo Mondo Random small dark ride number 2 here, with the nicely themed gondola cars into the relatively weird animal version of Italian only It's a Small World... Strange ride really, but it's quite cool that Europa have these hidden dark rides in their line up... We then headed towards back towards the other side of the park, stopping off at Abenteur once again (a common theme throughout the trip upon every passing of the ride), before ending in the Dutch area... Piraten in Batavia Continuing the weird dark ride theme, here comes Europa's version of the Disney classic, indeed, it shares a fair few similarities with Drayton's Pirate Adventure in that sense, but actually has a whole load of working animatronics and actual fire coming out the cannons... Dunno if I would like to see them update the look of it, as for each bit that looks tatty (the animals) it looks just as good thematically... It's good really... Continuing our journey back towards Blue Fire and Wodan, we went through the Scandinavia area and decided to ride... Fjord Rafting Wooo Rapids, especially European ones, they are always good really, and Fjord was no different really... Good mixture of rapid parts, well themed cave part and also burdenous geysers which cause much soaking... Actually really enjoyable and an amusing exit pathway with excessive mist confusing/scaring everyone... We finally reached Blue Fire, and rode it once again, before following it in up with Wodan... This process was then repeated as we hit 6pm and the first day came to an end... Back at the hotel and dinner abounded in the Medici Restaurant, unfortunately the dinner this night was not particularly great due to the poor service we received from the staff, taking forever to serve us drinks and take food away and give us the bill... Not great but the food was good on the other hand... Right shame though from the park that meal, as it kinda put a bad end to what was a very good and enjoyable day...

Thorpe get stick because quite often it's perfectly justified, like many parks do... Indeed, Thorpe can easily be criticised for it's poor maintenance standards we have seen over the years (although 2011 was good, it has this year descended back to earlier times), going in summer and having 8 of your rides/attractions down and 2 of your working coasters breaking every so often is not good service, regardless of rides opening later on... We can also criticise Thorpe for their lowest common denominator style PR stunts, which are quite frankly, worse than Morwenna's crap she spouted whilst at Towers... My main problem with Thorpe is the distinct lack of consistency, you come out of the Swarm area into some old tatty often closed beach area, with random chart music playing at it's tinniest form... Then Tidal Wave's immersiveness is ruined by the stupidity that is Storm Surge, and then Lost City is a mess of thematic music... Of course, this doesn't matter anymore, cos Thorpe have moved away from themed areas, but the problem is that these areas still remain in a sense, so the continuity and consistency just fails... Then they decide to trial a shopping container hotel before building an actual one... Decisions like that also don't help... Most on here are good with criticism, giving justified explanations behind it, rather than go "rar rar rar #thorpeisawful rar rar"... People do give the park credit (for Swarm, for opening rides early) but there are also things the park makes mistakes on (running one train on coasters in the morning, overselling of fastrack) and hence are criticised for it... As long as it is justifiable, no park is free from criticism... Hell I'm sure I have some criticisms of Europa Park to write up about in my report, and that truly is an outstanding park, same goes for Disney... It's just up to people to actually bother to give reasons for their criticism...

So as the exit for Blue Fire spat us out at the entrance to Wodan, we elected to join the building up queue and await it's opening for a quick ride on it... Wodan Well the award for most epic ride entrance goes to this, that structure is pretty fab and certainly sets the ride up very well... The queue inside is also very well themed, with plenty of models and stuff to look at... I felt that it was very maze-like and when it runs on two trains it can feel quite a slow queue... But when on 3 trains it constantly moves, it's brilliant when that happens, but it only happened once for us... Regardless, we waited for the front, enjoying the atmosphere of the station, with the statues overlooking the trains departing and arriving, with the fly-through producing some interesting remarks from the crowd... Soon we were on and with a quick bar check (only the second ride that has physical checks at the park it seems) galloping off to the most epic dispatch music... The lift is quick, but not as quick as that turnaround before the drop, no time to waste before the huge (or least it feels huge) steep drop back into the support structure and some rockwork, before we dive up into a small airtime hill and the ride's interactive corner with Blue Fire... Unfortunately we never got any interaction, but I'm sure it can work if the timings are right... A slick drop under the entranceway is taken quickly up into the fly-through and the awkward bank it does (the second one in the ride, the first being the random outside bank that happens in the pre-lift section) with an interesting hop into an airtime hill, leading us into the second half of the ride, the twisty airtime section, a more traditional GCI thing here, with sudden directional changes and bumps... The Atlantica interaction is better than Blue Fire's, but again, never got to experience interaction, so disappoint Before long we hit the brakes though, after a good bit of airtime and twisting... A fair finale to what is initially a large and dominating looking ride... Overall, Wodan is a very solid and fun ride, which at times can be excessively wild (especially late in the day after heavy rain, as we discovered) and has a beautiful if sometimes burdenous feeling queue... It is a very re-rideable ride though, again a solid family coaster that suits the park down to the tee... Not as good as Blue Fire, but still a good ride... 8/10

European parks That station is really beautiful...

The area music was fab, the on ride music (when it worked) was also pretty good, just phwoar... I don't know where to put it on my top 10