Coaster

Alton Towers (thanks to Nemesis and Smiler!) Duel or Haunted House?

https://youtu.be/jb8h0DXkmHE

I asked on their Facebook page and it's just an optional prebooking fee for the Tower Circus.

Don't they usually offer further reductions for renewals? Also seen that standard passholders no longer gain entry to the Blackpool Tower Circus - why?

I agree to extent - Ripsaw was past its best, but they need to replace it either with a new topspin or a different flat altogether.

Wow, it must have taken ages to think of such a creative name!

Because I care about the UK's theme park industry. My whole point was that Loggers probably doesn't need to be closed for a whole year, if they had the money/resources/whatever they need they could probably get it open at least in time for the summer of 2016. If reliability, capacity and effects improve in 2016 then I will understand the reason behind having one ride closed to focus efforts elsewhere, but unfortunately the underlying problems at Thorpe have been there for years, which doesn't leave me which much hope of operations improving - but hopefully I'm wrong!

Not quite! Timber Falls, Raging River, Wild Water, Canyon River and Rugrats' Lost River all operate in the UK, and there's probably a lot more than that. I understand it's more than just general maintenance, but should rides really get to the state where they are unfit to operate? If the ride is up for removal then they should just say so rather than letting people think it will reopen.

How come other parks manage to do closed season work during closed season? Do parks such as Europa shut a ride for a season for "maintenance", only to leave it alone during actual closed season? The excuse of "we don't know enough to judge" doesn't cover it - obviously we don't know the details what goes on at Thorpe during the winter, but rides should not be closed for a whole season when there are three-and-a-half months where work could be done! Surely the best time to work on rides is when the park is closed? If the work genuinely took that long to carry out then fair enough, but the park has already been closed for well over a month and has anything actually happened to Loggers yet?

My point is, why choose to keep the ride closed throughout 2016 for maintenance when it could be carried out throughout closed season? Not enough resources?

Going by the recent photo updates, it shows that, unless the work taking place on Loggers is more on the ride system/other things not visible, it has just been left to rot. I guess it must be too much to ask for them to do closed season work in the closed season, therefore having the ride ready for 2016?

Matt is correct with 1, Megafobia is amazing but my favourite wooden coaster is Wild Mouse.

1. My favourite wooden coaster is Megafobia. 2. I haven't visited any theme parks outside the UK (yet!) 3. Nemesis Inferno is my favourite coaster at Thorpe.

2

It looks better than Saw's warehouse. And Colossus's maintenence shed.

It definitely looks like Air has been repainted in a few places, which is great!

I hope it is drastically improved before March (and I'm sure it will be), because at the moment the frontage to Hobs Pit is more impressive.

It's a crazy way to run a theme-park based business and Merlin don't really deserve to do well when they have the corporate greed to run their theme parks in such a way. I have said it before and I have said it again, they would be better off having a really good year next year at the expense of making slightly less profit to re-gain the park it's good reputation and hopefully get to the stage where by 2017, it is thriving again. Closing rides down, sacking almost 200 staff members and making other budget cuts is not going to do this - and advertising general TLC is just laughable.

My first visit to Alton was around 2005/6 ish, and I wasn't really as enthusiastic about theme parks as I am now.I'm sure Towers will pull through this and start to gain customers again, but I can't see that happening in 2016 the way things are looking.

Featureless brick (that isn't even bricks) doesn't exactly scream out "world-class dark ride", hopefully there's more theming to come.

Air gets long queues at times, this was different this past year due to the park being quieter though. I can't blame customers if they choose not to visit next year, cutting another flat ride from the lineup is hardly going to encourage people back.

Yet another dark ride with a huge level of creativity ripped out in favour of laser guns! Fantastic episode though, and I can only repeat my appreciation for the time and effort it must have taken to make these.

Not great wording as it does make it sound like the park will be open, but I'm sure they just mean the AP building.

Looks very good, it's great to see them installing two coasters - hopefully this could be the start of bigger things for Paultons. Chessington, this is how you do a family park!

Mixed thoughts on this. Having all the coasters done by the same manufacturer is a little odd, and whilst opening a new theme park is a nice idea, would it actually come to fruition? A new theme park in Wales would be fantastic though and I'm sure it would be popular, it could give Oakwood a much-needed kick into action as well which would be no bad thing as they seem to have come to a halt in terms of developments.