Benin

I think it's a case of whether or not people care about the mazes, or count lighting as theming...Towers was very well lit last year, but... The theming around the park was sparse and didn't really have much 'effort'...I dunno, since I don't bother with the mazes so probably that's where all the theming was hiding... Thirteen Live was done well though...

A quiet day means 15 minute queues on all major rides?Mer hasn't been to many quiet days at other parks

Wish they had listened to it... [/obvious joke]Yeah, it's a very random one, and not exactly challenging and on a really random dead day... Why not do it to drum up interest for the actual summer season?

OMG JADEY!!!!

Bloody enthusiasts desperate for some silly bit of 'exclusive' merch... Probably the same people who are ripping the Fanta wall apart in Oblivion's queue...

http://www.thegravitygroup.com/Images/PR-111808.pdf Remove Rita, replace it with an epic valley based launched wooden coaster... It's easy this idea malarky... World's First and innovative (Since apparently that's the only thing that makes a good coaster)...

It works for Heide Park

Because that's what I want to experience at a theme park...If I wanted to go to a rave, I wouldn't go to Thorpe...

If Towers got an exact clone of Fluch von Novgorod, they would see a profit...Our park attitudes stink... Don't want stories, hence minimal theming, too busy focusing on gimmicks instead of quality now...There's a reason Nemesis and Oblivion are world class...

You don't have to build something innovative or new to build a good ride...And surely parks should be attempting to challenge viewpoints... As Sheepie said, Tussauds of old just focused on providing the best rides possible with the advice of people who know what they're talking about, if Nemesis, Oblivion or Air weren't around I doubt people would think they would be 'safe'...

It should be one of the top priorities park's focus on when adding a new ride...Look at how shocked everyone was by Thirteen's immense throughput on opening day... A full queue-line posted 90 minutes and the queue reduced to 20 minutes later in the day...An great throughput means less queueing for everyone, which makes everyone happy... Queues are always better when they are constantly moving, I will compare my experience of Thirteen and Air's queues on my last trip... Air's was so bloody slow and made everyone irritable and unhappy, yet Thirteen involved lots of jokes and merriment... Not hard to tell why...I would say major coasters for a park need to aim for over 1000 pph MINIMUM, whilst support ones between 600-800 pph... Look at how depressing Fury's queue is to see why this should be...

Swear from all the reactions I've read you're the only one who likes Laser Raiders ;)Did you enjoy scanning for fish as well? Submarine Voyage looks pretty decent...

KrakeSo the newest addition naturally had the longest queue (90 minutes), and the queue is very boring, with just a view of the brake run, and neither is it well designed, with many hidden cattlepens and lack of shade... Did they use Thorpe’s ideas of queues?Eventually we reached the bag drop area, where you get lanyards (a weird idea), and you eventually head into one of the most disorganised stations I’ve ever encountered...Firstly, it’s compact, with very little room to breathe at the bottom of the staircase (especially with Q-Bot merge coming in at the same point), but the main problem is that every single person is waiting for the front row... Which causes a bottleneck of people waiting for it, then no-one heading into the other two rows... Why the hell they don’t have a member of staff allocating seats is beyond me, especially when you are used to decent German efficiency... It’s actually terrible and I don’t think even one of the UK parks would allow it...Since we couldn’t be arsed, we headed straight into the empty back row on the left hand edge, and after the incredibly quick lift hill and turn, we found ourselves semi-cresting the drop (a common problem with 3 car Dive Machines), and after 3 seconds, the rather forceful descent happened past the mouth of the Kraken before we hit the splash zone... Which resulted in me getting lots of water down my back due to my seating position, which was beautiful... Then the loop happened followed by the floaty airtime hill and we hit the brakes...Now Krake is a hit... Plain and simple, enthusiasts may not like it, but the Germans LOVE it, and that’s not an understatement... Everyone in the area was watching or riding it, and they were all so excited about it... Heide have a real gem on their hands, but was it as good as Blivvy?No... It definitely isn’t, but it is still a really good coaster in my view, it felt more forceful than SheiKra and didn’t outstay it’s welcome in a similar way of Oblivion... It is also nicely spectator orientated with the splash and drop being visible from all around the lake area... Unfortunately the Krake mouth does look rather pathetic in its current position, and hopefully they do fix that, because I reckon this ride would gain an extra point or two if that happened...8/10 This was the result of my sitting in the back edge... Cannot stress how nice it was in the heat... After Krake, it was certainly time for some lunch, so as we walked towards an Information Centre in the hope of finding out when the park closed (which didn’t work, some poor organisation again), we passed a small BBQ area, which had epic Bratwurst... Caption Comp much?After lunch, more meandering followed, looking at the general niceness this park had in places... And the fact that Germans can be trusted not to try and drown themselves... Vekoma corner is not my favourite place...With more long queues around the park, we decided that more Intamin would happen, so we hit up...ScreamThis is their noisy Gyro Drop Tower with awesome soundtrack that Det stole a few years back... With the queue snaking around the base of the ride as well, it provided some amusing times with the reactions of people coming down off the very tall drop... At one point the staff had rage towards silly guests who HAD to sit together... I do dislike people like that, cos when you’re on the ride it won’t make a bloody difference if you’re together or not... Gah...Anyways, we got on, and after the long rotating ascent, the spinning stopped, and the drop began...And kept going...And still kept going...It was just so constant... It kinda got boring after a while because you just hit terminal velocity and it seemed to last about 3/4 of the way down... Give me Det (or Extremis) anyday of the week in that regard...Still, another solid ride...7/10 After again ignoring the Vekomas, we headed towards their Aztec show (which in hindsight, was a mistake), which lacked ANY shade at all... I’m all for park shows, but they need shade/shelter to make it actually enjoyable... It was a pretty decent show with some random stunts and clever ideas, but the unbearable heat of DOOM didn’t help...After the show, we headed towards the entrance to investigate shop based times, and I brought a Krake hat (too late to prevent anything though) before it was time for some credit whoring...IndyblitzCha-Ching, it’s a kiddie credit, and not a very good one at that... Regardless, we went on it and then straight away ran off to avoid any strange looks...It’s not even greatly themed tbh... And it’s just... bland... I dunno... Just a bit blergh about the whole ride... Oh wells...5/10 So after this, it was time for a Vekoma, this one was...Big LoopOh boy... This needs retracking/removal... This was rough... Corkscrew was smoother, and now one of it’s trains is on it... Bugger...Yeah as soon as you hit the loops that was it, rough, rough, rough... Not a lot else to say about it really aside from OW...5/10 After that we elected to queue again for Krake to finish off the day... Still good but lack of organisation... We then returned to the room when the sunstroke finally hit and completely killed me... Urgh... The lack of shade was not a good thing throughout the park... It was so weird in that respect because it was very much a mis-mash of all our Tussauds parks... It had a bit of each with both pros and cons...Final part of Heide and the trip is next...

So the morning came along, and Heide opens the park at 9, yet opens the rides at 10... Since hotel guests don’t get anything ERT based, we decided we’d go in at 9:30 thinking it wasn’t going to be busy... Oh....Turns out half term started the same day we were there... Meaning THIS... On every ride... In the entire park... Why on earth the Germans have their half term start in the middle of the week I don’t know, but this was NOT the best start to the day... Still, Krake looks very good... Impressing everyone in the vicinity... But as we did not approve of the long queue, we went elsewhere... It’s a nicely landscaped park here... Another ride with a queue leaving the entrance... Urgh...I really don’t see the point in parks opening the entire place up for an hour... There was certainly enough room further from the entrance to have a rope drop like thing a la Towers/Chessie... But... This lacked that, and as a result, hotel guests get absolutely no benefit from the super secret entrance bar getting to Krake first, if you’re up at 9 of course...Rant aside, we eventually found a ride that did not have a long queue in the sun...GrottenblitzWooo Mack... This powered mine train was interesting... And not really in the good way... After NOT having our bars checked (taking one man op to the next level) we dashed around a helix and headed into a tunnel, where the ride just got weird as...You see giant horses fighting, with some form of small bear (I think, I was too confused to care) in the middle as you do a MASSIVE helix around this cave before leaving and repeating the circuit once more...Tbh, this is one of the worst types of this ride I’ve been on... Even Runaway Train at Chessie is more fun than this... It’s definitely precisely average and nothing more...5/10That out of the way, time for a proper coaster... ColossosHeide is a strange enough park, but using music you’ve heard at Thorpe forever is really strange, especially as this is a relatively silent (bar the top of the airtime hills) woodie... It also stands as the only ride at Heide that displays a queue time at the entrance... That’s not a good thing to be...After a 30 minute queue, we boarded on the back row, expected that our idea would backfire on us... And once at the top of the quick lift hill, the slow turn over towards the steep as hell drop was cool, then... SMOOTHNESS...Yes, I believe this ride has no soul, as a wooden coaster is not MEANT to be smooth, it’s meant to have that rickety feeling, but this lacked it... Only in the random helix did it rattle, but every hill was taken so smoothly you’d be forgiven for thinking you were on a B&M hyper (aside from the fact it makes silly noises at the top of each hill)...Not to say that it’s a bad ride though... It is actually good fun, and fairly more re-rideable than some other wooden coasters in the world... But... To me, it just isn’t a proper wooden coaster... Even in the back row it’s smooth... That’s wrong...8/10 Not sure why, but it seems parks around the world seem to be developing Intamin corners... So our next stop was the Rita clone...Desert RaceIt’s weird seeing this... It looks so tiny in comparison to Rita, but, at least it has a covered station and the most epic bag cage system I’ve ever seen at a park... This has one of the old X:/NWO soundtracks, which is very annoying after 10 minutes, let alone 30 or more... Regardless, we got up to the front of the train, and got to see the bag system in action...Essentially, they have several turntables which are split into 3 sections... 1 empty waiting the next lot of riders, the next is hidden away with the bags of those currently on the ride, and the final section holds the bags of those on the exit... It’s a brilliant idea and saves having to have extra staff giving out stuff that could be lost...The ride itself was a surprise... It was SMOOTH! Two smooth Intamins in an hour is bad enough, but this is a Rita clone... Considering how much I despise Rita, this is the complete opposite, and was actually really enjoyable... A shock... 7/10 So after that, it was time for a meander and search for short queues... Which didn’t happen, but we did find this... Ich liebe Germany...Since everything I was interested in going on had a long queue, the bullet was bit and we headed into the Krake queue... Or we would have done if it wasn’t outside the entrance...

Day 4 – Heide Park Part 1So after our arrival at Heide Park we did naturally go around and investigate the rather impressive looking hotel... It rather reminded me of both of the Towers hotels, with the look and style of the original one with the restaurant style of Splash Landings (with an overally expensive buffet or a la carte options for food)... But I did like the theming throughout, however, having just one lift in the reception area doesn’t work in a busy hotel... Plus having only BBC News and CNN as the only English channels was just a chore...Oh wells, pictures! Why is it always gone? We got a room with a view... NOM! As you can see, the rooms are very well themed... Soooooon... Familiar looking idea... Just outside the hotel... Home of the super secret hotel guest entrance to the park... Quick view of the restaurant... Reception seats...

^Thing is, they don't NEED all these surveys and market research...Essentially, they just need to build A new ride, market it as A new ride (without the extra crap like Thirteen) and BAM, people will turn up to the park...Parks don't need to add world's firsts or make each ride seem like the best thing ever to get new guests... People will come because there's a new ride... Dunno WHY Merlin fail to see that...

Tonight's topic... PA systems...Basically, Chessie are having some right trouble with many ride PAs atm and need them sorted... Here's my list...1 - Vampire station - This is the WORST one... Firstly, the music is deathly quiet... Secondly, the operator PA is DEAFENING... And when you get operators who love the sound of their own voice, this is a recipe for depressive times... Especially when you're stood under one of the speakers... Someone needs to sort this out ASAP...2 - Tuk Tuk Turmoil - PA was randomly quiet as hell now... No idea why... But needs to be fixed so you can actually HEAR the announcements... (Also, why do we not play the loading announcement anymore?)3 - Griffins Galleon - The ride music hasn't worked all year... Why? Pre-recorded announcements don't seem to work either... Again, needs sorting, because it's actually rather unprofessional...4 - Dragon's Tale Theatre - For some reason the actor's microphone was really quiet... So another sound issue...Don't think there's any others... But it's really poor show and there are a LOT of deafened guests in Vampire's station atm... So it's not just us people who actually give a damn...

The surveys are very much more a Merlin thing and have only really become a much more recent development into how they choose their attractions (I.e. I doubt Towers did a survey about Nemesis, Oblivion and Air, just went for it)... Since this was alllllll the way back in 2003, I'm gonna guess (as my history is unsure) that that was about the time DIC took control of Tussauds and caused a gigantic shake-up which probably meant that the coaster would never see the light of day...

Grey = Priming colour... You don't just paint metal with your final colour... Need a base coat, second coat and so on...I.e. People got excited about B&M track that had not been finished in the painting regard...

In case anyone cares, here's some planning stuff for it...http://planning.weymouth.gov.uk/WAM/findCaseFile.do?appNumber=11/00512/FUL&appType=Planning&action=SearchNotice photo op, pre-show and the fact that it's one of them ordinary Observation Towers...

I remember being in awe of the idea of the double drop into the valley... But definitely yes, people wanted it because it was a wooden coaster more than anything, and can we be blamed?Someone from Towers needs to go on Mountain Flyer in China, and then straight after coming off ring GCI and say "We want one"...But, knowing Towers, they won't be allowed to cut down the trees required for it... Hell they had enough trouble with Thirteen...

I used the toilets that were on there once before as well...I'm still not sure if it going from Education Centre/Toilets to Saw Alive is an upgrade or a downgrade though...

It's the 'in' thing now though...I bloody miss it being regarded as a theme park... The entrance theme was bloody epic and was 10x more pumping than listening to what is effectively Heart FM...