Benin

I bet that this will be successful and Disney will plot a replacement for Florida and Paris in the future... If so, the apathy that many groups put on this "because it's only California" will bite them all on the arse...

Is Mack's mob even that good at rendering realism though? Like surely the point of the second VR should be to continue the well done portion in the first one? Also, budget would probably dictate the options... Merlin do love a good deal but as in a lot of situations cheaping out on something centrally important to the concept can be a poor overall decision...

Concept Art: Promotional Art: Working for Merlin's Marketing team for new attractions must be the easiest thing ever... "What's the selling point of this attraction?" "No-one's done a Gruffalo ride before have they?" "That makes it a World's First right?" LUNCH

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That V2 is so fab as well, damn the spite </3 I liked DK, though I dont' remember thinking it was particularly compact... I'm also not a fan of them spiting Roar cos that was really fun, but jeez a fair amount has changed in that corner by V2 and Joker, Superman is the 3rd coaster they've had there since I went almost 10 years ago!

God it's bad that I remember pretty much most of those attractions existing... #soold

Europa are apparently going to remove the VR off Pegasus next year because of throughput issues and stuff... Not that it'll affect the whole thing, but it's something to note...

To be fair, he also goes on to say about having 'a screen on your face', so I think its not about having screens in general, but just having them on your face meaning that parks don't need to put the effort in for those portions of the attraction (or the whole thing)...

There's a distinct lack of direction throughout the parks in general, though I can agree that moving the Carousel is a good move, hiding behind the shop was always a weird place for a ride type that is usually front and centre in parks... Perhaps attaching animals is the only USP they can get away with? Saying that Market Square could easily be changed into an old England Explorer base camp without much grasping at straws... There's a lot more that needs doing in the park though, unfortunately as it's mostly infrastructure it won't be...

Once VR is widely available in the home (I.e. Once PSVR drops like a stone in price), then the fad will end very quickly before a park can actually implement it in a consistent and unique way...

As with all Plopsa's work, looks very good indeed and sure the kids will love being part of the world of the show...

Phantasialand's existence basically destroys that argument... Any good park works within their limits to produce a quality result, and a small kid based flat ride is not going to demand the removal of say, Colossus... Far from it! As Josh says, parks need variety, Thorpe lacks it because of having the majority of rides be thrill based or scary... It's part of that age old question of what can a park provide after eating lunch? Thorpe provides Angry Birds 4D or perhaps IAC as the answer, which clearly is the worst answer ever...

Transylvania, like most of Chessie was once fantastic, sure Bubbleworks has always been 'odd', but the concept of the original just worked so well... Butchered scenery and design choices have really brought the area down completely...

LEGOLAND is for kids, Chessie seemingly stuck in an even worse set of crossroads of confusion of direction as well... This splitting of the demographics to go to a specific park is also a problem (and kinda has been since Tussauds initially purchased Thorpe), as what do groups do when kids are bored of one but unable to experience the bigger attractions? Families are more likely to spend more money on the higher ticket items like merch and what not... Plus more likely to buy sweets, drinks, etc in higher quantities... I'll never understand why families with babies visit the place, but they do, and I'll wager there's a fair amount of complaints that come with that due to a lack of things to do (especially for those kids who have to pay for entry but aren't tall enough for anything)... Yes its awful that they cannot be bothered to think these additions through, but the park have been suffering for ages because of a distinct lack of customer spend and trying to get the disillusioned groups back into the park...

Changing back to more families has nothing to do with Smiler though, just years of driving away the one demographic that actually spends money... Same thing happened with Six Flags in some cases... Even at the height of thrill marketing families STILL visited the park, so there is a demand to add some attractions for them, although that wasn't realised by those in charge hence the constant removal and really badly thought out additions (Storm Surge, Angry Birds)... DBGT shows the utter confusion of direction too, as dark rides tend to be the best sort of family ride, yet the USP decided it must be scary and hence unsuitable for that market... The parks are at a massive crossroads right now, just need some actual consideration to the future, which I fear is unlikely...

Just admit you saw it off my Twitter Ryan, it's ok... I too fear that this is going into Heide, such a waste of the technology involved and it's generally so awful looking...

Nothing ever goes wrong when people pin insanely high expectations on something new... Nothing at all... As for best park Josh, Thorpe still had equal shares of problems, Mothers being closed, continuation of breakdown issues that have plagued the park for years, Darren Brown in general and probably some other issues... Towers still trades off the name and history, which is still probably the best overall park in the country even through all the issues...

Time Machine is dreadfully vomtastic, and also it's at a park that isn't Thorpe or Merlin so it's not got a good ridership on here... Not a good flat ride...

Two things tonight then; Russian ambassador in Turkey shot and a hostage situation going on... Berlin marketplace gets a truck ploughing through it, currently 9 confirmed dead at time of writing... 2016 has been just dreadful...

I'd guess even a full queue would only take about 15 minutes with 5 trains on German efficiency... Also omg contactless creds <3

Yes, but it buggered up the building because LOL MERLIN...

I've not been since the fire was added, so I'm gonna assume the screens are used as fire effects? Probably the best way to do them imo given they can't use real fire and other methods can look really cheap and awful...

One person's acceptable is another's awful... And let's be honest, things being 'acceptable' is half of the problems within the parks atm... I've not bothered because the crux of the attraction literally doesn't interest me, and that the main technological draw of the whole thing doesn't work otherwise it destroys the building says it all about the project...

Problem is that County Hall does not lend itself to a sensible layout (similar to Blackpool's really), so there's so many dead spots throughout of just walking from scene to scene... This can help with throughputs but at the same time it's just very much a drag due to the constant stairs and whatnot... What's actually wrong with the Ripper scenes now? I remember being much more impressed when it first opened there as they pretty much did exactly what the scene needed, opened it up to more scares that weren't obvious due to the fencing on the ledge... I also don't remember that many screens Jamie I must admit, unless its all the head projections for most scenes? Certainly an improvement over the bland talking man videos in the old place...

Sentiments sound similar to my reaction when riding it in Vienna earlier this year, it is overhyped, but I believe that is more so down to it being the biggest travelling cred around... It's world famous in coaster circles which in itself is no mean feat... Saying that though it is a ride which I could happily sit on for ages due to the smoothness, and is just great fun... It's not a top 10 ride but I never expected it to be that in the first place so it never worried me... Like most Schwarzkopf rides there's also an air of legacy around them and tales of intensity, plus with this being a relatively rare cred there was probably a lot of "boasting" about it, which was really funny when last year was meant to be it's last Oktoberfest and now it's in London... Foolish smug goons... One thing I have seen though is that it's location at Winter Wonderland is bloody awful... At Vienna it was right at the very back of the park with nothing really around it, akin to a Disney castle of all things... You saw it from afar and just kept getting closer and closer, in London it seems like it's been squeezed in at a detriment to the ride's look and draw, which are the most important factors for a fairground ride... A shame really as it was impressive to watch...