Benin

The Sun have got away with a lot worse than some sensationalism about a theme park ride...

Merlin can't clone things like Six Flags though, many of their parks are regional, so it doesn't matter if St Louis gets a Freespin as well as Great Adventure, majority of guests ain't going to go to both parks on a regular basis... Also not considering that construction tends to be cheaper in America, especially when the manufacturer doesn't have to add transport costs on top... The rumours were Merlin were looking at a RMC, but then New Texas Giant and Smiler both happened, which affected the decision separately... What Merlin need to do is approach the development of their parks differently... The tell tale is in those small investment years, and generally the lack of maintenance within the parks... The obsession of adding something new isn't too bad, but when it has to fulfil some non sensical USP thing? When people will just come because there's something new and the parks are enjoyable to visit? There are problems that are easier to fix before getting onto hardware...

Fill from the front is easier if there's a disabled person requiring the back row... That and the poorly designed station means that having some people waiting would cause a lovely bottleneck... Plus you then get everyone wanting to wait for a specific row and it's like "GUYS YOU CAN'T ALL SIT IN THE SAME ROW FFS GET ON THE RIDE!" At the end of the day some rides operate better with designated rows, often down to loading times needing to be quick and on the money, hence why Europa do it on Blue Fire and Wodan...

Weirdly though you could theoretically hold your boyfriend's hand down the street in Dubai and no one would bat an eye...

Bit like the old Pandora's Box from Vekoma all those years ago... Something for the new park?

D-; Needs further explanation to define reasonings behind personal problems.

But it's not a direct clone of it, just version 2.0.

Hagrid's cred was popular here then... They've announced the 3rd gate park as "EPIC UNIVERSE", with a piece of concept art, and no other real information... I'll be probably more excited when they announce areas... Even if Nintendo is likely on there already...

The other issue on top of that is some disabled people will require two people to transfer for whatever reason... 3 is an ok number of accompanying carers, but it needs to be flat out adhered too...

Yeah 2010 was a fab year for the park, and it really did look like things were picking up in the right direction... Unfortunately it didn't continue in that vein...

Looks like the same (if not similar) to the other one that happened... Even down to the failure point...

Kennywood is a good park, unsurprising that you adored it so much due to the historical nature of it... Phantom's Revenge and the later airtime hills are ridiculous...

Can only base the experience of Europa's (and other German parks like Phantasialand and Movie Park) on what I've seen, having not visited deliberately because of the lack of system on previous visit and lack of information on the site about an actual system it surprises me that it exists again... If someone could message me with details on it I'd appreciate it... But when the latter two just didn't have it going to Germany is off putting... Especially a park that does lack an ability to skip queues as a last resort (see Walibi Holland)...

Yeah Europa (and Germany) have essentially removed such a system since 2014 unfortunately... I think now that Blue Badges are being issued to non-visual disabilities such as Autism it would make things much easier... With the right level of PR preparation it could be changed easily (but the base response to any complaints being, "we've changed this to ensure fair and equal treatment blah blah") and hopefully the mistreatment of the system can be removed... Of course they would need to consider temporary situations such as broken legs but they could do a DLP and have a tiered system for that... The parks just need to sort it out because it's an utter pain in the arse for those who need it...

Here is the problem though with their system: "Safety restrictions provided by the TÜV (German Safety Standards Authority) state that the following attractions are not suitable for wheelchair users and blind visitors: Arthur, Atlantica SuperSplash, Atlantis Adventure, Alpenexpress Enzian, Alpenexpress Coastiality, blue fire Megacoaster powered by GAZPROM, Cassandra's Curse, Euro-Mir, Eurosat - CanCan Coaster, Eurosat Coastiality, Fjord Rafting, Ghost Castle, Matterhorn Blitz, Family Rollercoaster Pegasus - The YoungStar Coaster, Poppy Towers, Swiss Bob Run, Silver Star, Tirol Log Flume, Volo Da Vinci , Water Rolleroaster Poseidon, WODAN-Timburcoaster" So even though a wheelchair user could transfer to these rides, I think based on how some parks have reacted to a wheelchair appearing at their door they don't let them on these rides... For the UK parks, the only real system they could go to is requiring a Blue Badge, DLA or PIP... If you don't have it then no RAP for you... It's the only system that could be deemed fair and difficult to fake a form...

Europa don't do it do they? Because no German parks run an equivalent to RAP since they're randomly a few years behind in the disabled stakes... Plus I think there's a belief that wheelchair users can't hop onto rides in some cases... Which is weird... I think it's the UK culture that's the issue, as so many parks offer them, but the only other park I've seen really bad RAP queues at is DLP, and even that's predominantly BTM...

Raptor and Oblivio fly into the Western area... Themed areas clashing aren't a big thing at Garda, so it doesn't really matter... Most rides are individually themed attractions rather than areas (Raptor, Ramses, Il Cosari)...

The cohesion doesn't help when it's got a Dragon castle themed cred flying around it...

Can I blame TPR? I blame TPR... Think for us Europeans we suffer from being late to the party and the more interesting ones being built in the States, where they're often allowed to go more mental with layouts than we are... Still not ridden one, I've always disliked the aesthetics of them though... And making Mean Streak better wouldn't have taken much Overhype is probably why more of the younger goons aren't so enamoured with Nemesis, even if they're wrong...

Shame it's not a clone of a good Mack Spinner, but still fantastic from the park...

THEY WERE WAITING FOR A PART! The takeover will have had nothing to do with Wickerman reopening... Come on guys it happens...

I believe that is right Josh, for Mack the success of Blue Fire propelled them back into the industry eye, where the up and coming Gerstlauer and Maurer were sneaking into their turf... Think about the Mack installations prior and post Blue Fire... It's an amazing difference, and something we're now seeing Vekoma catch into... Regarding Merlin, no point breaking out the bunting until things REALLY start changing... Investment needs to be intelligent, and not wasting money on crap that ends up mothballed or shut in 2/3 years... Hopefully the change to private company will be a major factor in this...

I think Josh is also qualified to understand a tongue in cheek comment on his own without any white knighting.

For good companies might be worth looking on Blooloop's job section too, jobs in all sorts of leisure stuff...

It's easy to get to from centre of Paris via coach as well; people using going to outskirts as an excuse also need to consider where DLP is in relation to the city