Benin

I found the guy who escorted me around Matlock Bath lovely actually. I even sent a thank you email afterwards. That being said I'll certainly be offering a trip to the new Gulliver's with the nieces and nephew when it opens

If one thing is for certain you can tell the VR was added incredibly late on, even if it's the main part of it. The whole thing sounds like it was designed in a day.

#doitforthecred Could be worse, could try and steal random children to get the cred like the Americans do. P.S. Log Flumes aren't creds.

Seen it mentioned on TowersStreet by relatively reliable people.

I'm sure you'll be able to ride these rides (not sure on the flume tbh), just expect strange looks as you try to squeeze in the Bouncers seats. Didn't even realise Chessington Buzz was still a thing 😂

Millennium Force is rubbish though.

I would say the issue lies in it feeling like they're fitting a randomly spare ride system and cobbling together something; rather than designing something completely ground up and unique for the park. Or the theme came first and they were struggling to fit into the limited budget when someone found a spare dark ride down back of sofa in Poole. It's just... Weird. Like half the new additions to parks have been nicked from Sea-Lifes!

Think a key thing with parks is how they deal with overcrowding, a well designed and operated park can even on the busiest days be a pleasant day out for everyone. Disney are very good at this, as providing alternative forms of entertainment and pushing throughputs are two key solutions to the problem. They are the pinnacle mind, shortly followed by Universal (in terms of big business quality). The problem is however that whilst our continental brethren have pushed forward in additions and once small parks have become big players over the last few years, the UK has stagnated. Possibly on the back of heavy expansion in the 90s and being a leading player then. But now it's a bit sad and depressing. Paultons being about the only bright spark currently. When small independent parks like Toverland or groups like Plopsa are adding well themed and decent quality additions we get a dark ride that wasn't even planned for Towers, the third/fourth retheme of flats at Chessie and Thorpe have nothing. All parks should aspire to be like the pinnacle. They can't, but operations wise it's bloody easy to.

Choice to have this when the other major coaster is Speed Monster... But I liked Tusenfryd, so yay...

Such a gorgeous park

Need to come visit me so can introduce to the joys of Mingo 🤨

It probably depends, obviously lots of companies pay others for presence of their brand so could be either way.

Concerts work in places like Liseberg and Tivoli, although the wristband system helps with that. You do get the odd big name playing them as well. Doing a "park and concert" ticket at a raised price would be about the only way Thorpe could do it (plus a charge for MAP holders). Would require good organisation though. Tbh I'm not sure how Liseberg et al. do it.

Legoland Billund is another shout, the airport is literally over road. Plopsa is definitely doable. Though I'd probably get a second driver just to share the load as last time I was dead (left home at like 5am to pick everyone up). Least Plopsa is very much a chill park in my experiences.

Be better off removing the beach and adding in something that can be used all year round no? As naff as the tent thing in Walibi Holland looks, was certainly popular in Halloween. Especially with the rave going on.

*books trip for opening day*

Yeah this has been happening for years; hell I remember not doing seatbelts up on empty seats on Vampire when working on it... Closed season really gets to some people I guess... This is something that happens worldwide...

Flamingoland is a definite. Other UK parks may happen, depending on time available. Looking at Poland but there's no real good cheap time to go by my reckoning atm. Annoying. Phantasialand will be happening as Cologne is perfect Stag Do location. Honeymoon is Vegas and Southern California, so that's something to keep the darker months of the year (November) a bit brighter. Might try and sneak a cred run in the UK somewhere, and maybe Tayto Park but it's all up in the air really as most of my holidays are taken up by the big trip.

Looks vomtastic. Not convinced on inversions and spinning, not one bit.

Maybe they'll make it rideable and not akin to jumping off South Pier into the Irish Sea?

I've planned when I'm going to Thorpe next year!

The sarcasm award is mine and no one else is allowed it!

How many parks in the world have a truly standout coaster for enthusiasts? What even IS a truly standout coaster for enthusiasts? By that reckoning you'd rule out a good number of parks because others already have bigger and better variants of their rides? No point going to Walibi or Parc Asterix or Mirabilandia or Port Aventura then. You can't say that your local park has a good selection of rides and then also say they're not good enough (well, Colossus and Saw ARE terrible). It's complete opposites to what's being said. Even having 3 good solid coasters is probably about average for an European park who doesn't really have the space or ability to build high or long. Walibi Holland only got that number this year after Untamed! And it's arguably better than the amount of solid coasters at Phantasialand. Just sounds like jealousy that the park is standing still, but like I said before, it did it's mass development the decade before, when the biggest ride was actually Loggers Leap when I grew up with it. It was going to stop sometime and unfortunately has coincided with some weird managerial decisions and mismanagement.

Oblivion has a better impact than most other Dive Machines and is the shortest. Don't @ me.

I'll travel for a Wacky Worm in the arse end of France, so not sure where this enthusiast elitism is coming from? Half the guests probably won't know about Cedar Point and the like, does it really detract from their personal enjoyment? I mean the most liked ride by guests at PA is Baco! And 90% of us know that's wrong... Thorpe (and Merlin parks as a whole) have remained pretty stationary over the years in the last decade that's true, but mostly through have consistent expansion the year before and some mismanagement... Several parks in Europe especially have taken advantage of not having much prior to this decade and going "right, this Gerstlauer is cheap but is interesting, let's buy that as our new signature ride", much like Bobbie Jobbie and Walibi Alpes have done... On the other side the likes of Walibi Holland and Phantasialand already had a strong base to begin with, though Phantasialand was more about complete redevelopment of existing areas of the park... Walibi have just chosen two fantastic rides to compliment their pre-existing icon that is Goliath (though Untamed might become the new one)... There's many things to dislike Thorpe for but the ride lineup isn't one of them... Think a lot of this is the realisation that the UK parks have sat still whilst the world adds a higher quality of ride comparatively...