Benin

Yeah, if one thing Dungeons taught me today was how surprisingly long it actually is... At least an hour long and actually worth the time spent...Plus, first time a staff member has picked up on my pass still being gold instead of blue... Top marks to you sir

Oh yes, damn those pesky commoners, being all... common and getting in the way of my suit as I meander around the park with my top hat and cane... Tally Ho!

Merlin making a brilliant decision by adding an attraction to somewhere else which will see a heavy amount of income in the Summer due to the Olympics?Great business decision...And people probs holiday regularly in Weymouth... It'll probs make some money...

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...