Benin

Isn't Splash Mountain technically part of Critter Country anyway? They'll just theme it to the neighbouring New Orleans Square. Nothing else needs changing in that regard.

It's put me off going that's for sure. No point visiting at all if I'm not going to be battered. A worry really since the park gets low numbers before putting off a number of visitors by not having the major draw open.

To raise the online booking price when EVERYONE will have to book online is dodgy however you slice it.

Infinity looks like a Slug & Lettuce.

The government doesn't appear to know what they're doing so the parks (and everyone else) are buggered.

Where has the viewpoint that Efteling has numerous themed queues when it has some of the blandest cattlepens in existence in Dreamflight and Carnival Festival? Even Baron and Symbolica queues are outside sets of cattlepens with little to no themeing. It's still iffy, but Efteling have never been great at queues. Dutchman seemingly is the exception rather than the rule.

Awww did we disagree with you? I mean, sure, you could try and defend your corner and continue the conversation. Forums aren't dead because people disagree with opinions, they're dead because people don't seem to like being disagreed with.

It's a lot to get worked up considering it's a pair of Mack powered coasters. No idea if the ride area is soulless without being there. I mean Bob didn't have any presence beyond the station building because it was hidden in the trees (and I'm sure when it first opened it looked empty too). Given that this was an addition that was unexpected, and fills a gap for the park, and no one is particularly excited about it why we have to have such nonsense like "ThIs Is JuSt A bIgGeR fLyInG fIsH!" just confuses me.

It's weird though because Efteling never had a real entry coaster for a family park (the closest being Vogel Rok), so the logic behind this addition is sound. Think too many people are hung up over Bob being demolished for it. At least Efteling were open about it closing.

To be fair the smoking thing is stupid at the American Disneys as there are no smoking areas anywhere on park, meaning you have to leave the gates in order to do so. I might not like smoking but it is a daft method. Even Legoland has a smoking area.

Why not just delay until you have the new signs turn up? That's the logical thing. If you don't have the materials to complete the job, don't have arse it. I'd be crucified if this my project and the result even temporarily looked like that.

I doubt anyone wants to spend Christmas time at Blackpool willingly.

Good shout for the park, even if the bitter winter winds might be slightly off putting.

🚮 I mean what else is there to even say?

As long as someone is happy to never be critical about such a product (and presumably likes to SHOUT a lot as seems to be the trend on YouTube) then of course a company will use them for free PR. I just won't ever listen to their opinion.

I miss the days of the bad Thorpe Park ride names. Boretex, Zodicrap, Thrush, Colossus, Sore, etc.

Futuroscope's first ever cred appears to be on the verge of opening. Must say it does look cool. And a suitable level of ride for the park's first foray into the coaster side of things.

Coaster groups are very white male dominated. Especially the forums. Only about 1 or 2 forums actually have a half decent female presence, but that is down to a fair amount of work on the members part to become an established part of the community and then part of the site's team. A lot of the time the females at meets have been dragged into it by boyfriends or family members. Very rare to see girlfriends dragging their other halves along (does happen though). BAME is even lower in numbers. I might not even need additional hands to count how many I've seen or met on meets over the 17 (Jesus I've been in this game a while). At the end though you cannot flat out force people to join a forum on what is an incredibly niche interest. People like theme parks as a general visit thing but do they LIKE them? It's an incredibly difficult situation for many industries. Engineering has a very similar issue in terms of a lack of numbers in diversity as it was always seen as a bloke's thing to do (current company has 1 female in the engineering side, the rest are admin or finance). And with a lot of management at the companies being an old boy's club made it hard for any women involved to advance unless you had the right people in charge (this isn't a point at the running of this forum). But you've got to build the interest in it first before demanding that there be diversity, as you are then potentially promoting people to senior roles who aren't always best suited for them as a tick boxing exercise. If there's one thing I have noticed about the coaster community; it's the very prominent number of LGBTQ+ members. Which is a fantastic positive to consider.

To be fair no show is better than whatever they replaced Disney Dreams with (yes I am still annoyed). They've also cancelled the Parkrun event in September. But I'd wager people will visit anyway because desperation of things to do (not that we can go anywhere abroad anytime soon).

In TPMs side of things, who are prominent members of the forums who are either BAME or female AND are suitable candidates for working on the team? If the numbers aren't there then the representation won't be. And having a situation of putting someone on the team purely as a tick box exercise isn't the point of racial or sexual equality. It's precisely the same issue with football managers. Between the ridiculous amounts of money making teams believe they would be taking a risk with younger managers; how many BAME people are going through the coaching system in order to get those roles? Not enough.

Intamin have fixed the Maverick problem by never doing something so stupid again. Though Jesus that video in question is extremely geeky, and does worry me that Americans are obsessed with throughputs. This will probably run like Taron on 4 trains. They might try and squeeze a 5th in there somewhere. Once the initial hype dies down it'll probably be ok.

Least you're not the people who think bare coaster track has no place in a "world class theme park".

Can they theme it to make it fit into the park as well? Weird that it can't run 2 trains though. Maybe Vekoma can do some magic.

You really think that the McCann case is more important (the front page is THE most important story of the day after all) than the two MAJOR events currently going on?

Yesterday's front pages annoyed the hell out of me. Two massive worldwide issues going on atm. The UK Covid numbers are more than the rest of the EU combined, then we have the numerous protests in support of those across the pond. Our media ignores those and looks at a 12 year old case about a middle class white girl who died due to the neglect of her parents (even if they didn't kill her themselves, they left 3 children in a hotel room alone, but of course they don't get blamed for that either). And some say we're better than the Americans.