peep

Where does one begin? First I suppose I'll say what I think will happen over this closed season. I'm also only thinking about stuff that is actually possible- Addition and expansion of toilet facilities- Improvements to both car parks (we already know this from the planning application)- General spruce up of the park, lick of paint here and there, general maintenance on the rides- Bubbleworks de-branding- Toy Town getting a re-theme- Possible changes to Vampire to celebrate 21 yearsWhat I'd love to see happen at the park over time:Transylvania (to become part of Europe)- Vampire getting a massive theming overhaul everywhere- Transylvania to get a bat cave- Bubbleworks to get ripped out and replaced by a new horror theme and ride system, the same as Phantom Manor at DLP and taxi ride at Madame Tussauds London. That would highly improve capacity issuesPirates Cove (to become part of Europe)- Games building to be taken down and replaced by a pirate-themed play area for kids- Part of the grass area becomes like a Pirate village - act as an entrance to new ride- New ride to take up most of the grass area (still thinking up ideas)- New 'sets' to hide boring areasToy Town - to be rethemed to one of the other areas- Toadies to be replaced by two flat rides, one themed to the rest of the area and one themed to Mystic Asia/Wild Asia- Trucks to make way for new grand entrance to Land of the DragonsLand of the Dragons (to become part of Europe)- New retheme to make it a more of a medieval European town- The main building should be gutted for new restaurant, exterior themed to a castle - New restaurant will be themed to like a grand knights victory dinner, type of food would be burgers/meat etc like the bbq places in the other merlin parks. It would also have two floors to make room for more table space- Cafe nero would be gutted to make way for the kitchen area for the restaurant. - The show area would become a shop for the area, selling fake knight gear (plastic swords etc), princess dresses and dragon stuff- The canopy capers would change layout and become the castle fort walls with some bridges and stuff- New entrance that replaces truckers would have a drawbridge and small moat- Fury would now travel through the castle wall with some lighting effects, make the second lift hill a bit more interesting- Griffins Galleon would now be outside the castle walls with water now surrounding the ride, meeting up with the moatNot sure if the above is possible but it'd be coolWild Asia - now incorporating Mystic east- Peeking Heights replaced by a new ferris wheel that works and can load fully- Berry Bouncers moved to and re-themed, hidden inside new tall pagoda building near the ferris wheel- Rock work to return to the falls. - See-through wall at the top of falls to be replaced by fake fibreglass wall with fake backdrop behind it- Inside dragon there needs to be a new wall so corrugated metal can't be seen- Silly gold mining thing to go making way for new cascading waterfall down new rock work- Waterfall to flow into existing water feature in the area causing a new cool bridge to be made- New toilet building create near Falls building, heavily themed- New thrill ride amongst the trees where the walk between the two areas currently is, where the railway used to run. (would tree clearing be excepted though)- New heavily themed rollercoaster behind the Lorikeets area - themed to a very wild Asian jungle, think Anubis meets Nemesis, basically Gertslauer launched coaster dug into the ground.- Temple of Madness or whatever it's called to be replaced by new Vekoma Madhouse with several pre-show rooms and a very cool storyForbidden Kingdom - Becomes part of the Africa continent theme which also consists of Wanyama village and reserve- Toilet and first aid buildings to be moved to the side to make way for new grand entrance to Wanyama expansion.- New jeep ride for Wanyama behind new entrance- Tomb Blaster and Ramses Revenge to get a major overhaul in maintenance and theming departmentMexicana- Runaway mine train is given a new lease of life with a complete overhaul of rockwork and theming- Games and photography building along with the Children's zoo removed- A new animal enclosure opens that fits within the theme - buffalo?- A new thrill ride also opens with lots of 'sets' to give the area more of a Spaghetti Western town look- Rodeo site expanded and new big building housing a proper Mexican restaurant opens- Current diner and game stall removed to make way for a family friendly flat rideOther- Safari Skyway needs to be completely re-routed, re-tracked and given new cars which don't feel like they're going to fall apart- New route would go over the bird and monkey garden and towards the Wanyama VillageThat's all I can think of at the moment but I think that should be enough to think about for the time being

That is the sign from that pond isn't it?I think it's great that the park hasn't stopped touching the park up during the season. So much has changed, it's fantastic to see. I'm intrigued to see this 'new' banner at the top of Falls.

Sorry for taking so long to write up part 2 but I'm struggling to find time to write it all up at the moment (doesn't help I'm off to Sweden at the weekend lol). So lets stop faffing and get on with day 2...Sunday 29th AugustWe awoke at our hotel to a rather dismal-looking day, the grey clouds of patheticness were looming, threatening to ruin our day with rain. But after getting ready we headed downstairs for food to set us up for the day. That's what I like about these cheap Ibis hotels, you can just fill yourself up on the buffet breakky in the morning to help prepare yourself for a long day ahead. This one had cake/sweet-bread on offer which was nom, I wanted to go back for more but time was running out and we were starting to run late already. Off to the car it was.On our way to the park we were coming up to a toll booth but it didn't look like there was a barrier and seeing as we had just gone through another one we thought that there couldn't be one and that the booth was closed. However as we were still at some speed and getting very close we realised that there was in fact a barrier. So, in a moment of shock I pointed out to Richard our impending collision course. This resulted in Richard slamming on the brakes and yet we still went "Hello barrier, we want to be your friend". It was f*cking terrifying (I was in the front). I seriously thought that the barrier was going to come through the window, instead it just bounced off the car and swung to the side. There was angry man driver behind, but he seemed more annoyed that we had stopped rather than smashing through the barrier lol. Richard drove over to the side car park, inspected the damage (a mark on the screen, how the hell?) and went and spoke to the French lady who didn't seem to be concerned about what happened whatsoever. So yeah, barrier rage happened, it was scary, but it woke us all up lol.Some time later and we were arriving at Europa Park! I was looking forward to this park so much, I'd never been before and all I'd heard was that its amazing. I was shocked to see Silver Star literally over the car park, it looks great but considering hearing so much about theming within the park it just stood out as a bit weird. However, apart from Silver Star, I was distracted by the masses of peeps that had also decided to descend upon the park. We had arrived about 45 mins after opening (09:45) and although it looked really busy we had purchased our park tickets and entered the park very quickly, German efficiency: I approve.Neal had decided to wear his Fawlty Towers T-shirt which was probably not a great idea. Basically it has a pic of Basil (John Cleese) with the phrase "Don't mention the war". I can totally see the funny side (I love Fawlty Towers) but I was concerned at other people's reaction. The only noticeable reaction was when Neal purchased his ticket and the ticketman was friendly, then noticed the top and then gave him a dirty look.Will and Richard ran off to the loo so Neal and I watched the live band for a bit before having our pic taken with the two mouse characters. So what be the first ride of the day? Silver Star of course! There was a fairly long queue (out of the building) but it did move and, as usual, the banter amongst the group made the queue feel even shorter. We got on back row and wow, just wow. I absolutely loved it, some great floater time on the hills and the random bit near the end is really good fun. I heard peeps moan about trims but I didn't noticed a single one on there.On the counter where they sold the on ride photos Richard noticed they sold coaster Top Trumps. He purchased them and we all got rather geeky and excited about playing them. The next queue we entered was for the dreaded EuroMir. The queue was stupidly long but the newly purchased Top Trumps kept us more than amused and entertained. Yeah we got some strange looks from some people. We quickly picked up on some of the key cards for certain stats which resulted in very funny reactions. No one wants you Jimmy Neutron coaster of WHY. We also quickly picked up on the one stat that EuroMir was good on winning..time of ride. I couldn't quite believe it took the time it states, however once on I still couldn't figure how it could take so long, then the never-ending lift hill of dizziness occurred and the World made sense again. The coaster itself seems a bit pointless and isn't really any fun apart from that one main drop, shame because you'd hope for a bit more after all that annoying build up.The weather was getting a bit better now with the sun shining with the occasional cloud. We made our way over to Blue Fire. I should probably say here that the park is absolutely stunning, just fantastic theming everywhere you look (apart from at Silver Star). The area Blue Fire is in is just something else, it looks so awesome and the coaster itself looks fantastic. The queue looked long but its another wonderful attraction with a queue that just shifts all the time. Which, in a way, is a shame as there are 3 360 degree cinema rooms that you walk through, all with a unique element. It took me by surprise and it looks cool, I suppose it's meant to give it more of a story etc but I wasn't paying too much attention to that, just looked at the visuals which looked great. The first room had a vibration effect in the floor, the second room had mist fall from the ceiling at a certain point in the film and the third had a wind effect. I really liked it and was something very different and unique. The rest of the queueline meanders around the course of the coaster which is fantastic for taking pics etc of the ride. Anyway after a while (and more games of Top Trumps ) we were on the ride, front row too. As soon as I got on I loved it, the seats are really well designed, audio speakers (nice bonus) and then the restraint has a pulse reader, how fecking amazing is that? You then go through a short dark ride section (backing up that oil-type story again), smoke comes from the ceiling and then you launch out of the building. It's a great fun launch, one I'll compare with Anubis at Plopsaland. It also makes me ask, why can't all launches be like this? Anyway, the layout was uber smooth, fun and just really entertaining, with the cool soundtrack playing in the background. It's just such good fun and I can see why it's raved about. It's a shame there was a queue, I would have loved to just ride it again and again. However, there were still loads of attractions to explore and time was precious.We were near the rapids, so they had to be tried out. The queue was very long and it had the thin, horrible cattlepen of evil. It was a fun rapids ride and it got all of us quite wet, but mainly for Richard. We were getting hungry so we decided to find food in the England area. It's really nicely done, if a bit small (or maybe we just didn't explore it enough). I had sausage and chips and we kept getting pestered by wasps, oh I hate wasps, they can go away. So apart from the wasp infestation the food was quite nice.We then did the Bobsled coaster which was good but I'm still not a fan of this type of coaster. I feel like they should do so much more, I find the layouts quite boring. This one did have the highlight of that drop, that was good fun. Neal and Will go off to the sports bar to watch the F1 (yeah, I don't understand either). So because they went to watch F1 we went back and did Blue Fire again. The queue was bit longer than earlier, oh wells. There is a food and drink stall half-way through the queue and Richard opted to get something, we then lost our place in the queue causing some faff and confusion. Oh well, soon enough we were back on, this time back row. Still absolutely amazing, I still resented the fact that there was a long queue.This year they expanded the area Blue Fire is in and it looks great, it includes a splash battle. This resulted in Richard using the guns on the side to get peeps on the ride soaked, this didn't quite go to plan and Richard actually got quite wet. It was great fun to watch.We then went to check out there other new attraction for this year. It's a new museum of the park which is actually quite interesting. Lots of awards but no sight of the CF award from a couple years back. We then found ourselves in this room with some nice seats, looked like it was going to be a short film of the park's history. However it then turned into some awesome show using pretty much every cool dark ride effect. There were talking statues (of the owners), lasers, water effects, projections and some great footage of the park over the last 35 years. I was so shocked by the amount of effort that had gone into such an attraction and it just looked outstanding. Just wished I knew German so I could understand the narration. We then headed over to the Alpine coaster.I enjoyed it, the theming was fantastic and that smell in the cave, can I get that as a scent for the house, it was lush. There was also a small fire effect and that's always a huge bonus for me. I had pointed out to Richard that I had spotted a shooty ride earlier in the day, as we making good time with everything we headed over to it. On the way we spotted a little puppet show which we stopped to watch for a bit. No idea what was going on, but it was no Team America.Anyways, the entrance to the Atlantis-themed shooting ride was very subtle, just a little door in the side of a building with a tiny sign up in the air, very missable. As soon as we got into the queueline I was glad that I noticed it, such a great themed attraction. It uses the same cars as Buzz Lightyear: Laser Blast at DLP and uses the same shooting system as Ramses at Gardaland. Therefore, it was amazing. I found that there were almost too many targets and it became a bit of a distraction at times. Apart from the epic theming and great ride system I found it felt quite short, but still very enjoyable. If you can make out the score in the below pic, I think you can see that I won (my score is on the left, Richard's score on the right).The exit of the attraction led us to Poseidon. There was hardly a queue (just inside the station) and the entire queueline theming is so immense, I love it so much. Even the trident in the station had little details like the LED lighting down the middle. Then we got on the ride. I was expecting to get soaked and I didn't, just got a nice spray. I really enjoyed it, the coaster section was fun and the massive drop and hill before the main splash is awesome.The exit of Poseidon then led us to a really small madhouse. The pre-show room was just a heavily themed room which was too small to fit everyone in and had a voiceover which I, for obvious reasons, didn't understand. The ride itself was a bit boring if I'm honest. However everyone started screaming towards the end and we don't know why, just didn't make any sense. My theory is that there was an effect that was just broken on our seat.The exit of the madhouse then brought us back to the Atlantis ride again, much to our amusement. There was now only 4 coasters in the park I hadn't ridden so next up was Matterhorn Blitz. The queue was long and evil and lots of games of Top Trumps were had to help pass the time. It's a very painful ride, it's rough and just horrible at every turn. However the lifthill is cool, I liked that.We were doing well for time (or so we thought) so back to Silver Star it was. We did the back row again and it was amazing, just so much speed, love it. However the weather had decided to turn against us and was starting to rain lightly.On our way out we looked for Neal and Will in the queueline, we spotted them and arranged to meet at the exit at 6pm (what we thought was closing time). However we were unaware that it was already 5 mins to 6 as everyone else looked like it was still open for some time. We went and did EuroSat. My question to Mack would be...WHY!? It's just a horrible ride, there are some cool light (multi-coloured lasers ftw) and sound effects but apart from that it's just pain, especially the brakes at the end, even more painful than any of the brakes on Rattlesnake at Chessie (now that's saying something).After that let down of a coaster we headed over to Pegasus. It's a family coaster so I didn't really have any high hopes. The theming in the area is nice, even if it lacks in some areas. The coaster itself is really nice though, uber smooth and just a joy to ride. There is nothing outstanding about it but it's just very nice.We then went back over to near the exit, stopping off at the observation tower. The weather was still quite bleak but we could still see the really nice views. You also get a great shock when you see how huge the park really is.We still thought we had time so we went into the Spanish haunted house looking attraction. We walked straight on, which was nice, but it was like a huge Phantom Manor rip-off with no story, just a random jumble of scenes. Oh wells.We then wandered over to the exit finding a Will and Neal. Hurrah, that worked out well. So back to the car we went and the long drive to the next hotel happened, this time it was an ETAP. Hurray for twin rooms. We got a good nights sleep that's for sure. Once again, thanks for reading and all comments appreciated. The next part of the trip report should crop up at some point next week.

It's an unusual park and I'd say that if you were in the area you should check it out but there just isn't enough decent attractions to give you enough reasoning to travel hours to go there. The park was fairly busy when we were there and everyone else seemed to be enjoying their time at the park so I hope Monster is just a sign of things to come. If you want to ride an epic European B&M, go to Mirabilandia in Italy, they have Katun, it is amazing.

Friday 27th AugustDuring the day at work I was quite restless, the excitement for the impending trip of awesomeness was getting too much for me. Luckily work was great and the work load was small (yeah, I'll do a quality control on a film thanks). As soon as 6pm hit I was out of the door, suitcase in tow and I made my way to the annoyingly busy tube station at Oxford Circus. Underground trains + evening rush hour on a Friday = death.Eventually after what felt like forever but was a mere 10 minutes I was at Kings Cross station. I had yet to purchase my train ticket to Richard's place and the queue for the ticket office was long and just wasn't moving. I started venting my anger/impatientness with an elderly lady that was waiting behind me (you could tell she was one of these old biddies that loved to moan, unfortunately once she started she just didn't stop, so from now on she will be known as Pringles lady).I ended up moving into the ticket machine queue which was actually moving. While in the queue I made a phone call to Will to track down his location, it appears this is a very hard task as Kings Cross (unbeknown to us) is a maze made of why. I purchased my ticket and ended up meeting Will outside the gate to our trains platform with minutes to spare. We ran and just about managed to get on the train. As it was a Friday evening rush hour train we also had to stand which was unpleasant, especially with suitcases. The train journey was ok and we managed to talk enough rubbish to make it seem like 10 minutes and not 40. We arrived at Cambridge with a basic set of instructions on how to find the Wetherspoons Richard and Neal were hiding in. It was quite a pleasant little walk and we found them quite easily (well, they were sitting at the table by the front doors ). We all ate food and had some cider. After our meal we continued with a couple more drinks (apart from Will, who doesn't drink any more). After a while a conversation broke out about Batman films, not sure how it started and then out of nowhere came a ridiculously long argument between Richard and Neal about Batman films. It was a silly argument but funny to watch. After some more time we decided to call it a night and walked to Richard's place. It was a long walk. When we got there we watched a bit of TV and arranged where we were sleeping. Not long after we were ready to sleep and we would have gone straight off to sleep too if it wasn't for some random babble about F1 (a common theme on this trip).A couple of hours later...Saturday 28th AugustThe alarms went off at something like 3am. Urgh, only a couple hours of sleep and yet we had such a long day ahead of us, how will we cope? Well we got up and ready and left within 30 minutes. We then set off in Richard's Mazda of rage (more on that story soon). We drove straight down to Dover and made it in time for our very early ferry to Dunkerque. On the ferry we had some breakfast which was nice and it gave us some energy which we definitely lacked at this point. We had a little walk around the ferry before sitting down at a table for the rest of the journey. When we arrived in Dunkerque peeps were clearly very eager to get off the ferry as a mass car horn honking session began much to pretty much everyone's amusement.We were very awake now and the epic part of the journey began, a long 4 hour drive to Luxembourg. The conversation in the car was very active, especially after Richard put in the magical CD that revealed his new 'Name the CFer' game. It was fantastic fun, basically we just had to name the Coasterforce member who the song may reference in some way It killed that journey extremely well and before we knew it we were in Luxembourg!We parked up in an underground car park. We wandered over to this cool bridge we saw as we were driving around. It was epic so we walked across it. The views were stunning, we'd been in Luxembourg 5 minutes and we already loved it, it's just such a peaceful and beautiful place.Richard gets ahead of himself and walks across the road when there is a red man, resulting in drivers rageWaiting for the green man is a safer ideaAfter walking back across the bridge and looking out from another area over the lovely scenery we walked into the town centre in search of food. We ended up at a little sandwich and cake place. We sat on a bench in a park near the car park to eat our foodage. I had something to do with chicken in a baguette, it was nice. The park was really pleasant too, I think it was Neal that pointed out that it was like a rich man wanted a stereotypical English park in the centre of Luxembourg and so created what we were sitting in. We had now eaten and time was a ticking so back to the car to continue our journey. However on the way out of Luxembourg I spotted a huge ferris wheel and spotted a fun fair sign next to it so we made some huge detour and ended up parking near the fair. We thought it be worth a look, see if there was anything decent around. We were all amazed by the quality of the fair, beats UK fairs by a mile. Neal was happy...We walked past some great looking flat rides and an amazing looking haunted house. However we were fairly pushed for time and when we arrived at the other end of the fair we became the happiest peeps ever.HOLLENBLITZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Wow, I had heard so many things about this travelling coaster and yet I was still completely blown away. It cost 5 euros to get on and it was every cent. Just the fact it had lots of theming, spins and has a massive waterfall cascading down the front of it was enough for me. The layout was pretty cool and it did go on for some time. There were tonnes of lighting effects inside which I thought were really cool and then fairly near the end we were on a straight bit of track, span round a little bit and .... FIRE! It was so cool. On the way over to Hollenblitz we had noticed a spinning mouse coaster so Richard and Neal wanted to go on that. It looked quite unpleasant, as do all spinning mouse coasters. There was only one other ride that had at least one of us interested and that was this random go kart track. I decided to bag lady as I didn't want to spend too much money so early on in the trip. However it did look like fun and both Will and Richard managed to spin on the hill which I thought was quite an achievement. So, that was our time at the fair in Luxembourg. We now got back in the car and made our 30 minute journey back into France for our first park of the trip, Walygator Parc.As we got near the park we could see Monster from quite far away which got us all quite excited, well it would wouldn't it, it's a giant B&M. We arrived at the park's gate about 5pm and got our entry straight away. We were also informed that there would be fireworks in the evening (yet they failed to mention what time they were and where lol). The park's layout is a bit of a mess and so it took quite some time to get over to Monster as it's right on the other side of the park. When we arrived there was a horrible queueline. It's clear that they haven't completed the attraction yet as the station is just a basic metal structure and there isn't a proper queueline, just a few metal barriers on a wide pathway. It was a horrible queue as it was so wide it made it easy for peeps to queuejump and annoy us, we then created a human barrier much to the annoyance to some of the other peeps in the queue. However the plan was flawed, when we got to the staircase (which is very thin) it got a bit mad and we were nearly split up. Somehow we managed to stay together though and we were finally on the ride, back row. It's a great coaster, the first drop is awesome, very similar to Mirabilandia's Katun. I found the inversions intense and fun and the MCBR-but-not gave some great force when we went down the curved drop after it. So I really enjoyed it, yet another B&M that impresses me. It's a shame the area isn't finished and the queue would have benefited from either a fixed queueline and/or the second train that they were painting and putting together lol. Oh well, a great addition to a park that was clearly dying on its arse.The second biggest attraction in the park is Anaconda, a large wooden coaster. The queue wasn't too bad, moved quite nicely. However the ride itself I found to be horrible, it just shook me around too much and I managed to get quite a horrible headache afterwards. The others seemed to enjoy it though.There was a third coaster in this area, a little kiddy apple credit. Glad to see the park notices that it is there purely for coaster credit reasons...Lol, anyways, what can one say about said credit? It's exactly the same as the hundreds of similar rides around the World with added apple of pointlessness. There was a Michael Jackson show about to start so we ran over to it, annoyingly we missed it by a few minutes. Oh well, it was next to the Vekoma credit, Waly coaster, so all was not lost. There wasn't much of a queue and as most outdoor Vekomas are evil and rough our expectations weren't high. Surprisingly it wasn't rough and it was really enjoyable, very smooth and just fun to ride.The next ride on our agenda was the rapids. It was getting quite late now so it was no shock that the ride was basically walk on. It was great fun and Richard got quite wet which is always amusing and it also meant that we discovered Neal's rapids laugh in which he sounds similar to a goat which in turn amuses me and sets me off into a fit of laughter.We were getting hungry again so we went in search of food. We ended up at a burger place. The food was not of the greatest quality and they used a horrible sauce which myself and Will hated with a passion. The ice cream made up for it though. The price was about average for park food.Next up was Terror House. We weren't too sure what it was (walk-through or dark ride) but Will didn't like the look of it so opted to be bag lady. There was a bit of a queue but it moved quickly. When we got in we wondered what the hell was going on, it was like a random UV horror walkthrough done extremely badly. Effects were not working/broken and you could see over the maze's walls making it such a laughable experience. We then went through a door and thought "was that it? lol" and then as we got further down the pitch-black stairs we noticed strobe lighting and eerie music coming from the next room, it was clearly not over and I have to admit I was a little scared, because after going through something that amuses straight into a proper walk-through is actually genius. The strobing was going nuts and the first room seemed quite empty bar the scared peeps in front of us. It actually went on for quite some time, some rooms scarier than others, then again it didn't help having either the group in front screaming at nothing or Richard trying to make us all jump lol. So overall I was very happy about the attraction, putting you into a false sense of security before giving you the proper scares, excellent stuff. Could have done with maybe a bit more in there but it was a good effort in my opinion.It was getting late and we were getting very sleepy so we headed for one last ride on Monster before we left. On the way we got distracted by a shooty ride but as we got in the pre-show room they closed the attraction for the night, bad times.The confusion on Will's face says it all and Neal expresses how we all feltSo let down by lack of shooty ride we continued on to Monster. The queue was of a similar size of when we did it earlier in the day. As we got to the stairs it was just horrible and we got split up several times. On the staircase we ended up having a large group of French girls between us and Richard shouting down to me and Will resulted with them laughing and trying to create a conversation with him with very mixed results. At the top of the stairs we asked the ride host if we could wait for front row, he agreed and started up a conversation with Neal and Richard, not sure what about as I couldn't hear. However after all that faff we were on the front row and climbing up that huge lift hill. It was even more amazing. Absolutely freezing in that night air, especially at the front but it was insane, just intense, fast and just a fantastic ride.Well we opted to leave the park (was about 9pm, the park closed at midnight). As we were leaving the fireworks show began. They were decent fireworks but we were so tired and our hotel beds were calling. Goodbye Walygator parc, you were interesting.A short drive and we arrived at our first hotel of the trip. A small Ibis hotel with very standard rooms. The hotel was fully booked due to some event in the area which meant that we had two double rooms and not twins. This meant that Will and Neal had floor based times, but they were given sheets etc. Oh we got off to sleep very easily that night.And that be it for day one of the trip. More reports from the trip will filter through when I have time to write them and a video will be made sometime in the near future. Congratulations if you read every word of the report. Comments are always appreciated.

Nice Photo trip report Mister Benin, was indeed an awesome trip. Asterix loves life.@AstroDan...I didn't find the park 'hell' when it was busy, yeah it meant my ride count was small but it in no way did it stop me from having an epic time (unlike Thorpe park which suffers heavily when it's busy). There is so much theming and fun to be had at the park that crowds really don't make a difference to the trip. Also, not many amazing rides? It has Zeus, Cesar and Grande Splash with some great little attractions (and some other painful coasters) but the gems of the park are the shows (dolphins and two stunt shows) and the atmosphere of the park with all the characters running around, it doesn't need some huge ride list with every one of them attempting to be the best attractions ever built. Of course they are rivals. Asterix was finished in a hurry so it could be open before Disneyland Paris. Construction started on Disneyland Paris in 1988 (it was announced in 1985), Asterix opened in 1989. Asterix is also seen as the national park and has always been quite a rival to Disneyland paris. After a little look on Wikipedia, it agrees with you that they have a symbiotic relationship (like all the parks in Florida) but imo, that still doesn't mean they are not rival parks, it simply means that some people plan their holidays around both parks and not just one of them. Meh.

It has been the Merlin parks procedure for a couple of years now. That 'salt' you mention is like a powder or something which is used to soak up the sick but people have to clear the area as it has to sit there for a while and, if I remember correctly, it can be harmful to breathe in? It takes ages but that's the routine procedure when someone throws up. Seems like the staff member was a bit rude though, should have at least given you exit passes or something.

I love the new lighting. The main red lights maybe need to be dimmed a bit but I'm sure that'll come naturally when dust fills the light filter :PHowever the new lights on the organist are fantastic, add so much to the station. Another great touch-up by Chessie

^Where did one get such info? Hope it is true, Toytown needs to be revamped into something better. Chessington have done such an amazing job turning Beanoland into Wild Asia that I'm really excited with what they'll do with any of the other areas of the park, especially Toytown.

I believe it was a themed picnic area or something along those lines. Never seems to be any images of it. Strangely it still exists behind the rodeo site. I took a pic at the weekend to show you guys. There is no way of getting to it but you can clearly see the themed buildings sitting behind the medical centre in Forbidden Kingdom (where you can also tell the railway line used to pass through).

I think everyone has summed up most things. I'd recommend getting the fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain though, if it's a hot day that queueline is not where you want to be for over an hour (talking from experience here). The Studios park is mainly shows but every one of them is worth a watch (if you have time), Cinemagique topping the list.May I ask what month you are going? If you are going late August you can experience the new Toy Story Playland (3 flat rides) in the Studios.As mentioned before about Honey I shrunk the audience being replaced, 12th June is when Captian EO is opening. It's a film made in the late 80s/early 90s that stars Michael Jackson in a Sci-Fi directed by Francis Ford Coppola (Godfather trilogy) and produced by George Lucas (Dude behind Star Wars).Food wise there is something for every budget. If you want a big meal for about 18 euros then I recommend the buffet services, absolutely lovely food and it's unlimited. My fav buffet place is in Adventureland, just by the entrance of the area, Agrabah cafe. Another great one is Plaza Gardens which is at the top of Main Street and on the right.For cheaper fast food within the parks I suggest you DO NOT go to Pizza Planet (bad food apparently) and the Hyperion (gets too busy) in Discoveryland. However most of the other fast food places are nice and are great for the amount they cost. If you want to go all out money wise then check out Walts on Main Street, very fancy but very tasty.The food in the Disney Village is great. Annette's Diner is my fav and sits opposite Planet Hollywood. The Rainforest cafe is another one I would recommend, great atmosphere in there. Also note that they have a McDonalds and a Starbucks in the Village.For more information on everything then check out www.dlrpmagic.com

I work in post production for TV and film as a runner. I basically get tea/coffee/food for staff and clients (sometimes very famous ones). It's a meh job but I get to sit in with editors and that and I'm being shown how everything works etc, which is very cool. I work with some great people too and we usually have a good laugh. I've also just spent the last two weeks helping one of the top guys in our VFX department on some important documents which has been cool (better than making tea and coffee ).

Hello all, I'm peep from London. You may recognise me from forums such as Coasterforce, the Ride Guide and Photosmagique.When I'm not at work I'm either drinking alcoholic beverages with friends, at the cinema or at a theme park. I'm a Chessington and Disney fanboy and I look forward to posting here on the Mania forums.