Benin

The quotes were from Abdab of Terror Tomb fame. It made as much sense as most of the posts. But doesn't look like Thorpe are going for the speciality car for Hyperia this season. Otherwise they'd have gone on about it by now.

On the engineering side it's probably a mixture of factors of having lower staff numbers, poor retention of said staff, high turnover of staff over the last few years (losing the knowledge), ageing ride population and the newer rides are far more complex in their nuances. Engineering as an industry is struggling to fill in the next wave of people. Having a job offering below average wage and out in the sticks isn't particularly enticing for a number of them.

Keep the building, gut the innards and put something worthwhile in there.

Ignores also the amount of stuff that's vanished over the years. Even this year we're down 2 rides what with Blade and Clem Fandango leaving. Plus Dungeons being mothballed. Genuinely not enough to do at the park. And without things like Blade there's nothing to do with little one whilst rest of group does Nemesis or whatever else.

It's weird that these opening day queues are going back to those 90s era lengths. Thirteen's opening day waited 90 minutes with @Mark9. I don't think any major coaster or ride opening since has been that low since. That a Top Spin is getting a peak 140 minute queue is madness.

It never drains but it pours. Will probably be spending most of next weekend in CBeebies.

Goudrix has new Vekoma vest restraint trains!

Just purely on the amount of energy/force required for the short period of acceleration time on Rita/Stealth I dread to think how that would correlate up to the bigger boys. Remember going into the Rita launch room and being surprised at how quick it was, but doing that constantly must wear it out considerably, especially factoring in Ka having more trains. Then again Xcelerator was a bit of a nightmare too. Maybe American engineers are just worse than elsewhere?

I'd imagine the incidents on Bounce & Treetops also didn't help. Towers just about clung onto its reputation after Smiler, Oakwood having more incidents after Hydro was never going to help.

https://www.oakwoodthemepark.co.uk/blog/sin-categoria/oakwood-theme-park-to-close/ Closed for good. Had some great night rides on Megaphobia in my early enthusiast years.

Imagine the OUTRAGE that would've occurred when Beanoland closed for 2 months to start the Wild Asia process. Closing it for 2 years is ridiculous.

Bringing back THAT pre-show. 😬

Is Minecraft Land for 2026 or 2027? That will make a massive difference.

Rest in Pieces.

Haven't the Passholder Days historically been terrible though? For all the parks.

I'm quite lucky that I rarely have to get Monorail these days, but the one time I did last year was painful. And that was at 3pm on a Scarefest! Might go on this if the queues are short. If.

I'd be a bit peeved about Sea-Life, but I live within decent driving of 2 and they're good attractions for little one currently. Plus planning on London based nonsense later this year so always good to have some additional freebies.

The rate of expansion they were doing at the time was never going to be sustainable. Legolands and Midways everywhere. But was all short term mindset at the end of the day. The issue with the removal of attractions is then devaluing the Annual Pass. Which is basically their entire business these days. So those would likely also have to go down in price as well.

Quite bad that I genuinely wasn't sure if people meant the fake or real gift shop in this discussion.

Quick example of one of my lunches at Efteling (from the cafeteria by Vogel Rok) over my Christmas visit. Can't recall the price unfortunately but it's a definite stark difference in quality to what's on offer at Towers in particular. Woodcutters would never. The entry cost is so dependent on BOGOFs, MAPs and booking online finding value in it, however if you charge north of £50 for a standard day ticket people expect that quality regardless. Fortunately as my visits to Towers mainly center around CBeebies these days I've avoided much of the poor availability overall, but it's incredibly telling on the faces of other visitors that it's leaving sour tastes in the mouths. Especially when on a number of times both X-Sector and Dark Forest end up with nothing to actually do. The years of poor investment are coming back to roost. On top of people tightening purse strings because we're still in a cost of living crisis that seems to only be on the way of getting worse.

Hydro/Drenched was a millstone around the neck of the park for years, it probably should've been removed far earlier post incident.

As long as we get a complete layout for the next coaster.

Mornington Crescent. I win.

If it comes in without a min height restriction (obviously accompanied) then it'll fill a niche. Min 0.9m restriction and it doesn't really add anything. At least not in that area. If they were throwing it up by Dark Forest/Walliams World or Forbidden Valley then it could be an useful addition.

Could've ended the post there. It feels very pointless currently.