Benin

Weirdly though the Bob replacement fills in a gap (in terms of their coaster line-up at any rate) for the younger visitors... Efteling spending more on a plussing of a pre-existing attraction than some parks spend on something brand new shows the benefits of being operated by a charity; as well as having a clear aim and goal with any project... Tough given the future plans for that end of the park they need to start looking at improving things now before they suddenly gain a million more visitors a year*... That said, any upgrade would have to be serious to be a better Vintage Cars attraction than the one at Asterix... *slight exaggeration

Keep pondering if Poland would be worth the trip given the constant expansion against a RMC and Lech Coaster...

Think Prezzy has been at the park for years though, hell his own unique ride (the Madhouse) opened in 2001! Would imagine that the fallout to removing him would be massive... The Rangers at Thorpe slowly died away once the Thrill Capital stuff started coming in under Tussauds (plus the fire probably didn't help)...

Even then regarding mascots it's only in recent years that they've REALLY become prominent, a decade ago Euromaus and co existed but purely as a walk-about character... Now they have had a 4D show, other live shows and an album! Elsewhere 10 years ago Phantasialand didn't have any dragon characters, and Liseberg look like they're starting to push the rabbits further with a new dark ride planned... Difference is that these parks have sufficient branding and support to push these characters, much like how Thorpe's Rangers used to be... They were everywhere on the park branding and merch (there's probably a few odds and sods down in Weymouth these days from my visits), similarly with the old Dr Chessington character... Thorpe (and Chessie) could quite easily create unique characters to run around the parks as mascots... Chessie tried it not too long ago with the random actors themed to the various areas (or just the general explorer motif), and of course Towers have had a few various roaming actors/mascots over the last few years... Though perhaps the difference here is that these attempts were all face actors as opposed to a 16 year old in a animal costume? Allowing for some unique interaction (BRING BACK THE TOWERS PIRATES FFS!)

Isn't the answer to this, don't ever engage with fans? Look at the state of us! I've not looked at the responses, but we live in a 'offended on someone's behalf' culture, so it doesn't surprise me such a thing exists... But those people are the sort of people who likely complain if they posted something cool with "YeAh BuT u HaVe To WaIt NiNe HoUrS fOr It!", because idiots... If people are saying it's offensive let's hope they don't have MAPs as that completely disproves Thorpe's research

That's the stupid thing, like they could've listed number of rides, or events, or number of times you throw up because you get dizzy or whatever... But instead they decided to go with intelligence? Even saying MAP holders are more attractive would've been a better idea... It's simple and easy mistakes like this that tarnish a brand reputation... It's difficult to build, but oh so easy to destroy...

Did the people who left after the Towers "better than nothing" thing end up working for Thorpe? But I guess their engagements list will be positive enough for this kind of thing to continue, even if the actual content of said engagements is mostly negative... Who has time to actually look at the content of responses?

Constructively criticising the parks for their flaws is a much better option then pretending everything is fine... It is a DISCUSSION forum after all no? At the end of the day we all want the parks to succeed, I want Thorpe to become a park I would actually plan a trip to again, same for Chessie really, as they've both regressed as parks over the last few years... It's not helped by looking longingly across the Channel and seeing the quality additions on the continent, and wondering why the second biggest theme park operator can't match even decent quality additions that some small family run parks are getting... Thorpe have a brand issue problem, not helped by their constant changing philosophies and target audience, which added onto that they actually have nothing to shout about addition wise means they haven't got a marketing campaign to speak of... Pushing for the birthday celebration would be sensible, but are the park able to get a budget for that? Do they have anything confirmed for this season events wise beyond Fright Nights? Wouldn't be surprised if they've had a review of the events last season and had a lot of question marks over their successes.. I honestly no idea of the whole year of Walking Dead or Love Island Lates were actually critical successes, especially the Lates stuff beyond goons being able to whore some night rides...

Plus a confusion over who the target market actually is... One year it's for families, next year it's the MOST TERRIFYING YEAR YET! As badly as the places are run at least Chessie and Towers have quite distinct and solid branding behind them...

Plohn's new Mack is growing:

One would presume if they're going to update the character models to be less racist, they'll be doing similar to Monsieur Cannibal? The Flemish countries are quite weird with some of their cultural things in terms of what we might construe as racist, but I guess if they're changing stuff it's to continue developing a much more wider attraction for visitors of all sorts... I dunno...

To be fair, the only real trips going on at that time of year are school ones... *shudders*

Oh it's obviously a general issue with all VR based attractions, but the majority at least clean them either in between cycles or have a bulk load of them... I mean the amount of cleaning just those crap little 3D glasses get over the course of their life (granted they can go through industrial steamers which helps) but should anything happen they've not really got a leg to stand on... Least Towers can say the their stuff got cleaned between dispatches...

Bit of an issue surely if they're not cleaning them between different groups? Especially given there seems to be a chance that two people would wear one headset given seating arrangements?

Which doesn't say it will be a failure, you proposed that it COULD fail and there were some potential pitfalls (much like most others did); but who doesn't like a good old Merlin style over-exaggeration of what was said?

I mean, it was a joke, but if you're wanting to be THAT pedantic then your first post after the official announcement from the park (there was seemingly a few discussions regarding VR in use and what-not prior to this) was as follows: Not sold = INSTANT FAILURE LOL WUT R THEY LIKE! You even said the run-down show building facade was lovely in the post after It's always interesting to see how our continental cousins rate on those old 1 star reviews, and one thing I notice beyond the usual "QUEUES ARE LONG AND PARK IS BUSY" stuff there's a lot of complaints about the smoking... Efteling is full of those kind of reviews...

Hmmmmm...

I'd rather ride Condor than Saw, or it battered me so much I literally forgot the entire experience... MP Express is a far worse SLC...

Go McDonalds then up to Blackpool Dungeons?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/whats-on/whats-on-news/what-expect-alton-towers-dungeon-15714026 Confirms 5 scenes and a boat ride, courtroom, plague and torturer scenes are the same (though courtroom will be done by a Bishop, not a judge but no doubt be played the same way), and there will be a Witch of Burslem scene (possible akin to Edinburgh or York which had a really spoopy witches scene?)... Assume the remaining 'scene' will be an introduction (maybe the lifts?)...

It'll be the Rangers because it'll be an attempt to jump on the nostalgia bandwagon and try to remind us miserable lot that the park used to be enjoyable Of course it could be something new... But with no real addition to speak of in terms of... Anything there's little else it could be beyond a few more dodgy IP tie-ins tacked onto an event or two...

Wildfire is only a short hop, skip and jump from Stockholm Skavasta airport as well... We have THREE all easily accessible from the UK...

See any company that wants to be 'relevant' and joins in any meme... Which is weird because you see the likes of Toverland showing how much the park has evolved over 10 years... But I guess the only addition of any actual worth since 2009 at Thorpe has been Swarm, so not much can be said for the past decade...

Blates +2 for my next visit Meanwhile, in Nagashima Spa Land: *pencils in Japan 2020*

Personal interaction? They'll be pushing people out the door so they can fulfill any form of throughput...