Benin

Double post but hey, I have a review here...So I popped to the Dungeons with John (peep) so we could investigate the new ride and see what Neil said was true... But not before I got picked for the torture sequence earlier on which provided much merriment, even if the girl refused to hear my retorts :DThere's two major differences in the first bit before Vengeance compared to the last time I went a few years, and that's the new positioning of Fire of London, which is very jarring and random and doesn't really do much... A bit poor considering how major the thing USED to be... The other is the new style surgery room, which is a lot more intimate and works much better, although not when the actor fails to close the curtain correctly at the finale :lol:Oh wells, Vengeance, which happens straight after old Sweeney Todd and involves just a small corridor with a TV saying a few bits about Berkeley Place, which is something I am not personally aware of in the long run, but still, sounds like a decent enough idea for an attraction in the Dungeons, but more information on the house rather than snippet based sentences (in varying languages) would have worked better...We get batched into the room and any bags and loose items are stowed in some boxes to the left as you enter, before you board the surprisingly comfy seats and everyone pulls down their bar (really, no automated stuff? Dungeons are poor on this lazy buggers)... We don the cardboard advertisement glasses, remove our guns and the ride begins...Now, I'll start with the postives, the spinning was a hilarious addition... Actually rather forceful and the noise it made wasn't toooooo bad as people seem to make out, too busy laughing about the force tbh... The animation was iffy but at least the extra effects worked well on everyone, and the 3-D wasn't bad either... But the guns are completely pointless... They don't do anything, there's no scoreboard, why they exist? I know not... This attraction would work perfectly without the guns and it seems that it was atypical Merlin thinking that they needed a World's First to attract new guests to the attraction... I don't mind such things when they make sense or work well, but the guns are just pointless... Still, I thought it was fun... It's not terrible but it's not amazing either... A solid 6/10 but needs more story behind it (like the other rides have) and needs to give reason for the guns... After that, the new Jack the Ripper is rather entertaining now (even if the pub scene was apparently there when I last went, I forget it personally, maybe due to the awe of the FIRE), though after the second room I was worried that it would be rather anti-climatic... But it wasn't...Then Bloody Mary involved John being the heretic (I blame him not liking Lord of the Rings personally), and hence being burnt at the stake... Again a new section to me and really amusing indeed... Though I don't know why they have barely changed the old Fire of London area... It makes no sense and just atm seems to filler between Mary and Extremis... Shame...I love Extremis, though toooooo much airtime due to a fatty in our row... Such the opposite to Scream at Heide which made me laugh... And the new pre-queue area works well... Overall, a very enjoyable tour of the Dungeons... I should go more often really... The actors were rather good (as well as the ride staff on Traitor), and I now have another Bear to add to my ever-growing collection (taking me up to 6 now)...

My favourite announcement is South-West trains beggar related one...So much win...

Needs MOAR pics...From what we can see so far, typical high standard expected from Phantasialand though... Why can't we have nice things?

Dear jobs I apply to,It would be nice if you actually did as you were meant to an send me an e-mail reply to me stating whether or not I have said job or not, rather than me have to chase your HR up and ask... Surely you're not that useless?Regards,Benin

^Whilst a ball coaster would fit, I would rather Thorpe build something with some actual throughput instead...

Day 2 – HamburgSo after a very nice day at Hansa Park, it was time to pack up and head for the city of Hamburg itself, with a quick plan of what we were going to do, we set off back to the station and said farewell to Sierksdorf...When we returned to Hamburg, we were unsure if we could dump our bags at the hotel (as it was one designed primarily for business people in mind), so we used the MASSIVE lockers located within the train station for 5 euros for the rest of the day... Rather decent pricing considering we fit two suitcases into one locker...One sorted, we headed to the U-Bahn and attempted to work out what train ticket we needed, as they seem to go more by zones rather than destination... Rather than risk it, we took the middle ground although we were only on for about 4 stops, better safe than sorry...We arrived at Rödingsmarkt and headed towards our first landmark, the St. Michaelis Church...It seems to not be a good idea to be a church in Hamburg we later discovered, but this is the most famous of them all, and we gave it a jolly good bombing back in the war what-what... Hence why the tower is blackened (and indeed, this seemed to be a trend throughout the city)... Not being much into the religion times (and the church not being Catholic) we continued our walk towards the Hamburg History Museum... We managed to get student discount to go in, resulting in only 10 euros for the two of us, which made me happy as that meant I wasn’t spending so much, and after we dumped off our bags in a locker (no other option but at least these repaid you your euro) we delved deeper into the museum... It was about this point that two things happened, firstly, two security guards made some conversation with me about not having flash photos (which, as most of my pics prove, I didn’t, dam ISO), which was rather confusing and tbh flustering... Don’t like security needlessly bickering at me in another language, let alone my own... Then I felt really sick, not sure if it was the fact that the museum was boiling or stuffy or what, but I felt like I was going to heave... Brilliant... However, we soldiered on up to the 3rd floor to investigate something that the Germans are also very famous for, a model railway... They only demonstrate it a few times each day, presumably to save energy as these things probably drain electricity like there’s no tomorrow, but regardless, it was still a rather impressive bit of kit... Least we thought so that day... After a while, we left and quickly went through some other parts of the museum since I was still feeling like crap... We went towards the St. Pauli station (which is the relatively famous red light district of the city, so typically European in the fact they promote it as much as ‘normal’ attractions), ended up helping some other tourist with the machines, before retrieving our luggage back at the Hauptbahnhof and retiring to the hotel and watching English Sky Cinema... Huzzah!Next time, more Hamburg...

This...January Jones and Jennifer Lawrence

Council estates normally...I can see it similar to the Child-Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...But, at the end of the day...

Sounds like it's rather unfulfilling, but it's hard to judge when initially you ended up skipping it and had to complain to get a chance to experience it...But what's the point in laser guns without a scoring system? Let alone a reaction one... Though knowing me, I'll still probably jump at it annoyingly... Rar...

Fair idea, are they actually now up and running?Having lockers in the major park areas is a great idea though, and having them as e-lockers helps (hopefully) ease the usage of them...

http://www.thorpepark.com/downloads/plan-your-visit/bus-950-timetable.pdfFull bus timetable as from the park site...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/offbeat/a-rollercoaster-ride-in-silence-16008694.html#ixzz1Oae25gYfSince we're obviously only allowing constructive posts, here's an actual news source people can read...Again, it's just another off a long line of Merlin PR stunts, excuse me for not being excited/interested/rude about it, but considering they're also doing it on a midweek, not exactly something that will be grabbing everyone in the area with interest...

I am... unsure what to think of it (and the name)...I needs me more info, but the news of big 3rd party games coming onto it is good, shame Batman and Assassins Creed are both out this year and hence will have already been purchased by EVERYONE with consoles that aren't the Wii...

PR Stunt...And well... Woo? I don't make noises on rides anyways, and the only noise usually uttered at Thorpe is "URGH"...

Actually read it? We weren't in Hamburg at this point, there wasn't much else to do in the area, and so what if we had to pay? It's a holiday, we knew that a Sea-Life would provide at least an hour of amusement and interest to us compared to the other option of just sitting in the hotel room doing nothing... In regards to it having Paul the Octopus... Wikipedia says no... Oberhausen is not Timmendorf...

Potter > Twilight...In fact, EVERYTHING > Twilight...

If anyone cares, Human Centipede 2 will not be released in the UK for being stupidly well, sickening...http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=31162Now tbh, these days horror films seem to focus more on the gory side of themselves rather than trying to scare people... It's a poor state of affairs that the content described by the BBFC would actually come out of someone's mind (in a similar train of thought, A Serbian Film)...Horror should scare people, not shock...

Someone’s future dinner... Fortunately, unlike Towers, this still has their Ray pool... They had some uber comfy chairs looking into the big tank with the tunnel, as I am demonstrating... Yes it has a tunnel like every other Sea-Life... Part of the brand these days...And that’s it... Would I recommend it? Only if you were really excessively bothered and had a few hours to spare... I couldn’t see much else to do in Timmendorf but we didn’t really explore far as we had a bit of a time deadline on going into the Sea-Life... It could be done in an hour and there wasn’t much there I hadn’t seen before, but I do enjoy going into Sea-Life’s as I do find them relaxing and it was good to get out of the sun for a bit... Next up is definitely Hamburg...

Day 1 – Sea-Life TimmendorfYeah I lied when Hamburg was next, as me and Nicky decided that after finishing at Hansa at around 3 we would search for that Sea-Life we saw advertised on our walk along the sea the night before...So a quick walk back to the train station and a few minutes later we were on the quick journey from Sierkdorf to Timmendorf Strand... We knew the Sea-Life was on the coast, so we began walking down towards the sea, keeping an eye out for any signs that would help us...We ended up going through a rather nice little park area heading into the main town centre, and a few right turns lead us to... Now on the UK Annual Pass website it tells us that we can get 50% off international Merlin attractions, so we naturally queried this to the gentleman at the desk, and unsurprisingly this confused both him and his colleague, who proceeded to phone up their manager to find out about it... This is kinda typical of Merlin I fear, as a lack of communication seems to be a rather regular thing, as no-one knew about this rule in Germany (we meant to check at Hamburg Dungeons as well but didn’t), so is a bit of a fail... However, as we must have been so nice about it, we got in on BOGOF... Winning! This Sea-Life is underground, and isn’t very big, probably just slightly bigger than the park versions over here, however, end of the day, Sea-Life is a Sea-Life is it not? And it’s always good to see how they run them differently... Case in point, stools for younger children to stand on... Brilliant idea, needs to happen more really...So the doors opened and we were greeted by... Otters! New... Never seen them at a Sea-Life before...Usual good standard of theming around when it was around... Another interesting thing that Nicky is demonstrating here is that they had a cold area with a lot of condensation going on over the glass, so they had some wipers primarily for the kids to use... Decent idea... But the numerous high amounts of condensation was a bit too much...Ahhh, more spider crabs (and condensation), but with an actual well designed tank for them as we could actually get close to them without having to sit on the floor... No idea what this is doing... Anyone know their crustaceans? Fish doing a Queen tribute it would seem...

Funny how that's always an answer when people don't want a certain thing to be picked up on when it has been...Jokes, are usually funny...

Was that part of your post even needed?I'm sorry Will, but just because people have a different opinion on certain things to you doesn't mean they are against you... What a silly point to make at the end of at what was a decent post until that...1 - Neither 95 or 80 percent are accurate figures... However, the majority of people are just there to be on tv, you can just tell...2 - Nothing to say on this, as I don't follow pop music and what else is considered mainstream these days... But tbh all music is starting to be recycled band rubbish now... 3 - So they are doing very low key things (and appearing on an ITV show is not a major coup)...4 - Of course it's hard to, but if you have the talent and drive to get into it nothing should stop you and you shouldn't need a tv avenue... Nowadays it's hard to get into any industry because of the economy, music isn't the only thing being cautious...

There’s been a distinct lack of Fluch photos in this haven’t there? Time to sort that out...At this point we decided to do the Log Flume, which annoyingly got me wet, but had amusing rats in the station that attacked the boats as they went through... Not a fan of having to leave bags on the platform though... Nicely themed and longer than realised...We then decided to go and watch the Sea-Lion show as we predicted that it wouldn’t matter toooooo much as we didn’t particularly understand much of the German language...That was to be a mistake...For you see, as part of their pre-show entertainment, they pick members of the audience to answer questions related to sea-lions and some other aquatical beings... And guess who the first person was?Nicky...Much lulz was had by myself as this happened, though later I had my own question which had no choice of answers and had to scroll in order to fit the screen, kinda unfair on me tbh but still, I wasn’t first...The show itself was good, if small and it was very funny when one sea-lion refused to participate to balancing a ball on his nose... Crafty old bugger that it was... The best part was when they got some kid on his birthday in there to drive around the arena in a boat and feed the sea-lions and help them perform tricks... It was a nice touch and something you rarely see in America (where these shows are king), and it ended up with him being smothered by a sea-lion...We did Fluch twice more before calling it a day, but we first had a parade to catch...Ok it ain’t Disney, but what you gonna do? Least they’re trying and doing very well for a family based park...Overall, Hansa was a very enjoyable place, very relaxed with a good mix of rides, just the old areas clash a lot with the new areas, Schlange is between about 3 of these areas and really does show the class between the newer rides and the old... Hopefully the park realises this and has plans in place to put some more theming about on some rides or just retheme them... But it is a really nice park with a good atmosphere, nice and relaxing park with a touch of quality in Fluch... Highly recommend this park to one and all...Farewell Hansa...But before we go...Next up, Hamburg...

Weirdly, Fluch’s exit delivers you into the park’s Mexican area, which is essentially where the park’s new aims collide with a lack of them... I’ll let the pictures speak...As you can see, there is such a good level of theming in the area, but the rides (which sit more outside the area) aren’t really themed brilliantly... The Bell ride is the most themed out of the 3 in the pics above, but even then it is rather minimal... After being on Fluch, I can only hope the park has massive plans to over-haul the rest of it, as it doesn’t fit well...The next ride on the list was a water ride, Rio Dorado, which is of course, a Rubber Dinghy ride akin to Oxygenarium at Asterix and Storm Drain at Thorpe...Aside from the whole rainbow lift hill, it is themed really, really nicely... It also gains some epic music on said lift hill and was actually a lot longer than I expected it to be... But once again, you don’t get wet... I kinda don’t really see the point in a water ride that doesn’t get you even moist... But that’s for another time...I have to give special mention to Die Glocke (The Bell) although I didn’t ride it... It deserves something for having the worst ride capacity known to man... 6 people per ride... Let’s just be lucky Hansa is small enough to get away with this... Imagine if a UK park got this... Oh dear it would be horrible... But it did look cool and also randomly had fire and water effects... We then had a quick look at the rather closed looking Schlange von Midgard, the new Gerstlauer kids coaster, again similar to Fluch, it was heavily themed and... unfinished...So unfinished we watched a bloke paint it, seeing as we had some time before it opened, we headed off to another coaster...Crazy MineA standard Sohne Wild Mouse here, essentially Rattlesnake, without the snakes... Some theming is similar to it but there is less to some degree yet more in others...As I’ve probably made no sense, it’s 6/10...We did the StarFlyer afterwards, I like these, and the location surrounding the ride often helps it a lot in these cases... Overlooking the Baltic Sea indeed helps this one, even if you do get bored after a while of general, nothingness...After some more faffing in the Adventure play area thing which involved bridges, climbing, obstacle courses and many other things that we didn’t do, we noticed that the Schlange was testing, so headed to it...Schlange von MidgardThe newest coaster to the park and it is a hard one to review, simply because it just wasn’t finished in regards to the theming... I feel loathe to review something I haven’t had a full proper experience of, and as the doors weren’t operating, bathing the pre-lift scene in sunlight, the scene itself wasn’t done, and the way in which we weren’t sure if the animatronic was still saying the same thing the second time around, I can’t really give it a proper review...However, I can say that it will be a very different kids/family coaster when done, how many do you know that has a pre-lift scene with an animatronic? Exactly... It was a solid kids coaster ride wise, very smooth and nicely themed so far... But I don’t feel like I can give it a rating due to how unfinished it was because it would be unfair to it...Now that all the coasters had been done, was time to relax around the park and enjoy some of the other areas... On the way around we discovered a Huss Pirate Ship with some interesting rules...If you can’t understand that, 6 to a row, under 8s need an adult to ride... In other words, no minimum height restriction... Astounding the difference going across the pond can make to such simple things...Regardless of rules, we went on the random little boat ride next door to the pirate ship which was in the process of re-planting...

You want a report that delivers?You want one that gives you Fluch?Here you go Day 1 – Hansa ParkA misty morning greeted us on the coastline, and after a quick grab of breakfast we began the 30 minute walk to the park from the hotel... A really nice walk actually to be quite honest, helps save money from the rather dis-regular bus services that do run along the main roads to the park from the area...At 9:30, we arrived at the very grand entrance...Hansa of course used to be a Legoland of all places, but is now a family run park with some real things to say if the last two additions have anything to say about it...After faff getting the tickets due to a distinct lack of staff, we entered, and immediately I discovered my first costumed characters of the tripThe entrance of the park is a very small main street plaza thing, which has some work being done on some of it, but it suits the recent aim of the park for theming and I was very impressed...Ohhhh, I spot coasters in the distance, Nessie and Rasender Roland, a Schwarzkopf Looping and Vekoma Mine Train respectively that interact with each other heavily...Now as Nicky was on coaster #97 before this trip, we decided that Fluch von Novgorod would be #100, so we did Nessie and Roland first...NessieThis is a weird one tbh, I wasn’t sure what to expect from it when we went on, but one thing I definitely didn’t was the excessive CLUNK this ride made at the top of the lift hill... That could have set the scene enough but at least lap bars prevent stupid amounts of head-bashing... Some impressive moments of interaction with Roland and a few strong helixes and small bit of airtime are all that follow after the initial strong loop... There’s just something different about Anton’s loops... Bless him for them as they are so different and forceful... The final plunge into a fish mouth (Krake didn’t do it first) was amusing as well before those BRAKES...It was fun certainly, so a solid 7/10 for me...Rasender RolandA rather winding queue with the first of many animatronic bands in this park led us to this custom Vekoma, and like most of their mine trains, it was just kind of bland without an excessive about of theming supporting the attraction on a whole... Again the interaction with Nessie is there and the water-splash was at least a good attempt to putting some theme to the ride, but it just had nothing around the main area of the layout, and hence didn’t really do anything... Aside from be different to picture...Measly 6/10... Two coasters down so now it was time for Hansa’s biggest investment in the past few years and probably the biggest it has ever made, the Launched Eurofighter epic that is known as...Fluch von NovgorodTo think this opened the same year as Saw... Granted back then it was opened unfinished and they didn’t finish the interior theming until sometime last year, but, the result is nothing short of fantastic...The result this rides gives is the atmosphere of Hex, with theming that would impress Disney, and finished off with a quality smooth ride... The backstory for this ride is... Well complicated, especially if you don’t speak German fluently, but essentially bad things went down and unsurprisingly, we get stuck in the middle of it... Time for some photos, and since I only took photos of the outside queue (as they ask no photos inside) and only a third of the ride actually takes place outside...And the inside got even better, with several interactive elements, including a animated tapestry, finger slicer, talking statue head and falling chandelier, brilliant theming from floor to ceiling and just is generally amazing... The one flaw is that there is a lack of space, as the queue splits into 3 (and is generally split into 2 for the most part) near the station for front, back and single rider, which can be very claustrophobic and involve much elbow bumping and the like... But in the overall grand scheme of this ride, it is a tiny, tiny flaw...So we reach the station, and it is small yet grand, with a single car loading and offloading at one time as there is no need for them to have multiple cars doing so, especially as they were only running two anyways... But regardless, ravens caw as cars return from the ride, screams can be heard from the ride, and the epic chandelier really helps finish this setting and cement the theme... Once on board the traditional Eurofighter cars, the doors open (as the Germans do love their doors on dark coasters) some epic dispatch music plays, the lights go on and off and you leave into the darkness...Now this part will be spoilered as I will be saying what happens in the ride, so if you don’t wanna know, skip, if you do... Read on... I could not speak highly enough of Hansa’s effort with Novgorod... It is absolutely fantastic from queue to exit shop... Even the exit is an adventure, as you can even use some steps or a slide to descend into the maze of an exit, and then a crystal covered mine shaft leads to the shop... The theming literally doesn’t end and to say that this ride needs more recognition is such a shame...The ride itself is forceful and smooth, no roughness or tearing itself apart, the story is complex and really engrossing regardless that I couldn’t understand it, the soundtrack (which is purchaseable) is also brilliant...I don’t give rides perfect scores often, but this one thoroughly deserves 10/10 for pure adulterated effort and joy...Rest of the park to come in Part 2...

So me and Nicky went to Germany last week (hence the lack of sarcasm on the boards, I will make up for it ), and since it featured coasters here's the report, have fun...Day 0 – Flight in and Travel to SierksdorfAn early Sunday morning is not always great, especially when you feel ill, but it was needed to be done, as there was a holiday to go to and coasters to ride... So a wake-up, bag-check and money-sorting and off to Heathrow’s Terminal 5 at 7 in the morning it was! Horray for sleeping all the way in the car I tell you, I like sleep...Anyways after checking in and finding out me and Nicky would not be sitting next to each other (evidently we picked the flight with the highest amount of single travelling people ever), we had breakfast, pondered around and eventually sat on our plane for the next 90 minutes... And naturally had to queue for the runway... Always bloody happens, silly planes...Although 30 minutes later than the expected arrival time, we landed in Hamburg, a new city for me and it wasn’t long before we encountered their Bahn machines (which, usefully are multi-lingual) and headed to the S-Bahn to get to the HaupBahnhof for our next proper train which would head us up towards Sierksdorf...Sierksdorf is the nearest station to Hansa Park, only about 15 minutes walk from the park, and is about 90 minutes train journey from Hamburg itself, including a change-over, which isn’t bad... But it is amusing to see how the train tracks all go to single rail, aufsteig rechts indeed...However when we arrived at Sierksdorf our mission was to find the hotel, so we walked towards the Baltic Coast and along the sea-front until we arrived at our destination, Hof Sierksdorf... Huzzah, a nice little sea-front hotel was to be our home for the next two nights, although my rather broken German didn’t seem to be particularly welcomed by the man who owned it, oh wells, at least the ‘rooms’ were nice...Yeah, more of an apartment than a hotel room, rather unexpected to get cooker hobs and a dishwasher included... But cool nonetheless... Dinner time called to us and after a steak and pork combo between the two of us a walk was elected to investigate the area further... Useful thing about the hotel was that they gave us a beach pass, which we obviously would have used more if we had been interested in that, but we weren’t but still a useful thing though...We also found MERLIN! They really are starting to take over the world now... We actually did go to the Sea-Life so that will be after Part 2, Hansa Park and FLUCH!