Benin

At least you know when the rides are due to open, rather than turning up at Thorpe to half the stuff shut

You see that stuff ALL the time, especially when reading Trip Advisor... It's more than likely a combination of both the park AND person in question, be it through bad planning, breakdowns or general faffage... I do love people who complain about it being busy in summer as if it's THE BIGGEST SCANDAL EVER!

If sheds are good enough for Efteling

You can tell that Disneyland was designed for a much lower figure of guests... Sure, it basically created theme parks as we know them today, but the narrow pathways are utter death in places...

Was last rotational operation in UK parks Griffins and Sea Dragons back under DIC days?

Fixed that for you...

Sounds worse than the time they were getting everyone involved in 'guest interaction' and refused to send my car because after an hour of queue I did NOT want to 'flap my arms like a dragon'... Think it's best I don't visit Chessie anytime soon, my head might just explode out of sheer anger...

Fluch is in my top 10 for the overall experience aspect, the level of theming and atmosphere it gives off is why it's in the top 10... The singing knight and the exit slide/maze also help The layout itself isn't great, but the theatre involved in the ride makes me forgive it (and it's been a while since I rode it last now so it's probably aged HORRIBLY)...

Serious question, why wasn't such an upgrade done in closed season? Was it down to the engineers having to put all focus on fixing Derren Brown? If so, then real questions over staffing need to be asked...

Polar X-Plorer is a weird one, because the coaster section is really good, but the drop onwards is awful... Thirteen's drop system is far superior in my book... Ghost is fab too <3 Should've done the SCAD Tower, certainly one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done...

Good to see someone with sense regarding Tornado... Why Intamin thought it was a good idea I'll never know... I liked Abismo though, possibly because I like any X-Car that doesn't try to squash my ribcage...

None of our parks deserve two hotels apart from Towers, the ridiculous focus on resort stuff because of the income is arguably hurting the actual park investments... I'm still annoyed Chessie removed half the bird gardens for their stupid second hotel...

Presumably Baron is unreliable because of the pre-lift stuff and that it's not got the curve of faff (different systems)... Though this is the park that had Flying Dutchman open AN ENTIRE YEAR late, but that's what you get when dealing with Kumbak... I'd imagine the Symbolica issues will get ironed out eventually like any new thing, least it's just a pre show needing fixing not the entire ride

But then the elder child of the family is bored... None of the parks in the London area provide for everyone, but only one is semi-trying to do something about it (presumably because it's the only one with any form of investment budget)...

Mark is back

People have said Thorpe need to offer more things to kids... It's just the method behind it... Josh stating the words 'short-term' is exactly the thing, although this is more a problem with Merlin as a whole rather than directly Thorpe themselves... We want the parks to succeed, but we don't want them just grabbing second hand rides from a Sea-Life, plonking them down and calling it a day...

That area of Mystic East was rubbish ever since Samurai went (and even then most of that path was just Samurai queueline)...

Damn, if only I wasn't busy over the next week...

Kinda cool with all the Tigers, losing Peeking Heights amuses me though, wonder what ride replacement we'll get?

Does that mean they'll actually get round to having a proper tarmac car park instead?

Did it work when they had Chessie on the Apprentice? I'm not sure which is scraping the bottom of who's barrel here really, if only Thorpe had an arena with which to hold this?

Gotta love a good old staff rumour...

That would mean spending money on actual effects though, rather than being touched up by a 17 year old...

Both Merlin rapids have this in place, I assume Drayton's is still closed so this has effectively come into effect on all UK Rapids rides (of this type, since Lightwater technically has one but nowhere near the others)... It might suck for a few guests (I'd assume at Towers it won't be that bad really, hence why Thorpe don't care as much), but given that this has come in through the death of the child and the park's do actually have to endure the safety of their guests, it's a measure that unfortunately needs to be in place for the time being... Sure it could happen to over 18s, but the difference in child and adult liability is tremendous... Parks have to look like they're doing something to prevent further misfortune, whether this be imposing age limits on riders or chaining up old oak trees...