Coaster

I never thought of that but actually I can see it working, and it would make sense with the "you won't know what's real and what's not" idea. I'm prepared to give Ghost Train a chance but the idea of Virtual Reality in a theme park just doesn't appeal to me, hopefully this attraction will change that though!

I doubt the council are forcing them to bump up the price to £6 though. £2 was acceptable, but then it went to £4, £5 and now £6... The way Thorpe implement it is awful as well - the last thing you want at the end of a day out is to have to queue up in traffic to get to an understaffed barrier. With a price increase I think it is fair to expect a suitable number of staff manning the barriers, as the traffic delays caused by passes/tickets not scanning with only one person to help are unacceptable. The same issue occurs at CWOA on a regular basis with no-one staffing the exit barrier (at the back of the grass car park). Regarding reinvesting the money, CWOA need to do something about the exit from the grass car park, I hate to think of how many cars have been wrecked on that awful mud road! Also, as has been mentioned, the lighting in Thorpe's car park is a safety risk aside from being a pain to find your car in the dark!

No, BPB is anything from £5 to £10 depending on how busy it is! Although in fairness if they didn't charge for parking then people would use the spaces for everywhere else in Blackpool, and their car parks are limited in space. Regarding Thorpe, it's not great when you are parking there solely to visit the park - people wouldn't park there for any other reason. I understand the comparison with football stadiums but there's plenty of theme parks which don't charge for parking, such as Oakwood & Lightwater.

Car parking has risen to £6 for this year, because £5 clearly isn't enough.

I hope not, but this definitely suggests that VR headsets will be worn for 10 minutes; As for the ride being split into multiple sections, I would much rather have one well done ride rather than a more disjointed attraction, but maybe that's just me. Regarding the train carriage, could it be possible that it will be split in half once inside? Therefore they could have two "shows" (or whatever they want to call it) taking place in the train carriage to increase throughput?

So 10 minutes of the entire 13 is VR? What happened to real dark rides?

They went quick! Wonder if the Derren Brown Ghost Train preview will be during the day or an evening event? EDIT: Probably during the day going by the above Tweet.

I understand the logic but I think they would be better off lowering the price significantly (both on the gate and online) to encourage people back - especially as they're essentially offering a hugely reduced version of the park this year. 6 rides closed and a price increase just doesn't add up.

How on earth can they justify increasing the gate price?!

Alton Tweeted a while ago that The Smiler won't be renamed in response to someone asking. Great news that it'll be ready for opening day!

Finally some good news regarding BPB, Firework events are returning in 2016! https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/late-night-riding-and-fireworks/I bet they'll be using the concrete site of the new ride for these fireworks.

Latest photo from the Towers Loving Care Twitter feed;

Ryan brought it onto the site, which is strange considering that he took an issue with me bringing something similar to the site back in January.

The theme looks a bit uninspired - and it annoys me that they've removed a classic.

Sad news, I really enjoy log flumes and The Flume was one of the best standard ones IMO. I do think that a bit more care could have kept it running for longer, the trough looked very tired in its last few years.

That half looks great, but it will look strange this year with only half of it completed!

I don't understand why they put these pictures online if they don't want people to find them? Surely they would have known better after last time?

Not a fan, but it looks slightly less awful than the previous logo IMO.

Nice to see them celebrating the 20th year of their signature coaster! (Taken from their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/oakwoodthemepk/?fref=ts)

Confirming it at all would be nice, I'm still waiting on this "January" announcement!

Thanks for the feedback, I'm experimenting with photographing rides currently so was just trying some different angles.

I agree that the scaffolding was up for far too long and it should have only been up for a few months as a temporary measure, but it's nice to see that AT listen to feedback and change things for the better, even if it takes much longer than it should do in some cases.

Finally! Hopefully "many" suggests that there will be other significant improvements to the area as well.

They would be very silly to remove Towers Street, it's a very impressive entrance to a theme park and the shops/food outlets surrounding it must make a fortune each day.

I agree to an extent, but I quite like closed season updates - although advertising shutters being painted is a bit laughable. After looking at an older photo, Ice Age looked much nicer before with the detailed fence rather than just plain blue! As for painting being standard closed season maintenence, it should be, but Alton was looking very shabby in the past couple of years so hopefully this will help to give the park a much needed refresh. The bigger refurbishments such as repainting Nemesis are worth advertising IMO.