pluk

Stuff... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3fkuaQNGHI They certainly seem to be convincing themselves that people want to visit Pandora, as it is said about 5 times in that little clip! Looks like a whole lot of fibre optic lighting, and that does indeed look like a work in progress of a Soarin'-a-like in there.

I have 4 free Sun tickets for this Friday 18/10/13 and am not going. Anyone want them?

From Mack facebook, I thought it already had but apparently construction has just started...

Ah, that's what I presumed and it makes more sense. I've heard people mixing them up as one attraction, that's what was confusing me. It does sound pretty spectacular, even if I know nothing about potter at all.

I'm a little confused by all of this, probably because I've never read a page of Potter in my life. Does anyone know what this thing actually is? Is Gringotts(?) coaster one thing and this train another? I've heard the trains themselves described as a coaster, that can't be right, can it? It looks more like a slower transit system to me. The carriages are a funny shape though, something is going to be going on in there!

Saw Rush yesterday, and it was pretty damn awesome. I recommend, whether you are a fan of motor racing or not. And if this doesn't sound like the plot of the best movie ever made I don't know what would be... Oh yes, it's Harry Hill!

I would love a Shaun area! Crated, made, owned, by Aardman though, so surely not the BBCs to sell? In the same way I'm pretty sure BBC had nothing to do with W&G at Blackpool, it might have been made for them(after the first one), but it isn't theirs. I guess they have figured out what they can and can't do, Nick land made it work with the same problems after all.

What do they own then, what are we likely to see? I don't quite understand how this will work from a licencing point of view, if Cbeebies content is made by outside producers; Bob the Builder - HIT entertainment (also shown on other networks outside UK) Tweenies - Tell Tail Productions (also shown on other networks in UK) Postman Pat - Various production companies, including Dreamworks! (only ever shown on BBC though) but already licensed to Longleat. etc etc I don't understand what it is they have actually got, it could be a real rights minefield and result in things having to be quite temporary (and therefore cheap/poor quality).

And if they can't open bubble you'd have to wonder why, surely they wouldn't be touching that with all the other work going on already?

http://www.banksy.co.uk/2013/10/13/central-park Love it, imagine being one of these unsuspecting buyers. About £20,000 each they reckon they are worth!

This is the big one, isn't it. Alton have shown what can be done when you have to work around tight physical planning restrictions, but one which trys to prohibit any actual growth of the business is going to be a killer. What can they do about it? Is there any possibility of opening up another entrance from another road? How did they get planning for Zufari though, if that restriction is enforced? Maybe that's the reason for the preshow, to keep people away!

Good luck first timers finding your way anywhere using that!

That still doesn't make it right! They could get just as much coverage with money off vouchers, targeted at off peak so it works better for the park, and meaning the headline price wasn't completely fake as it is now.

My point isn't that it is too expensive, as Benin said I know everyone uses vouchers and no one pays that price. So why is that £50 price there? Why is it any different/better than this? The price structure is a shambles and only exists to be discounted. That can't be right.

http://www.coaster-net.com/news/2242-six-flags-responds-to-lawsuit-in-new-texas-giant-accident/ Looks like 6 flags are trying to put responsibility for the Texas Giant death squarely in the laps of Gerstlauer. Unsurprising I guess, I wonder how well Gerst will be able to cope with a big American lawsuit if it goes that way.

Hmm, when it happened with me on track it must have gone straight back to auto as the cars stacked in front were emptied, filled and dispatched in rapid succession on reopening. It's not something I was looking for the rest of the time though to be honest (the dispatching was sporadic at best all the times), so maybe that is what was happening.

http://www.themeparktourist.com/news/20131012/14713/artwork-avatar-animal-kingdom-expansion-details Still think this is sucky idea, who gives the tiniest crap about Avatar? At least they're doing it properly I suppose and the other changes to the park that this brings sound great, but I really wish they were doing something else entirely.

It is like the system crashes and they are just waiting for it to reboot or something. One theory I had is it being an overspeed issue. The one time it happened while I was on the ride and we were the last ones to pull into the station it felt to me like we took the corkscrews at a hell of a speed, as if the trims on the airtime hill had failed. If that happens maybe they just let it do a self test? Would seem like a bit of a big problem to be happening that frequently though, the sort f thing they'd have to fix properly before opening it.

Does anyone know what the actual problem(s) causing the breakdowns are now? It was odd when I was watching from various points of the queue Tuesday, not like any other breakdowns I've seen before. The ride would be going round normally, then it would stop dispatching until all cars made it to the final brake run where they sat loaded and the breakdown message played. There would be no visible activity from anyone in the control booth nor any engineer going to any visible point of the track, then after about 5 to 10 minutes it would start up again immediately with full trains, no empty ones would be sent. Odd. Twice I saw what I think of a more standard breakdown, where the ride is evacuated and empty test cars sent.

If you are going to build an elephant that size you better put a massive slide in its trunk.

£50 is a daft price. It is totally unrealistic and only exists to be discounted. This bogof situation is crazy and doesn't serve the park well as the bogof vouchers are flat dated. I'm sure the extortionate base price puts off nearly many people as the vouchers entice, and I doubt anyone is thinking they've got a bargain as they know the game. With a lack of anything big and new at any of the parks next year it is a great opportunity to use the advertising budget to promote a new sensible reduced price, £25 maybe. It doesn't need to mean the end of the vouchers though, they can still be given out in papers for all that free advertising, but they would be money off for off peak days only which would surely help the parks manage demand and level things out across the season.

So, at last I have ridden The Smiler and to honest I'm still not entirely sure what I think about it. First off, reliability is still clearly quite a considerable issue. I had about 7 or 8 goes on it yesterday, wasn't really counting, with wait times varying between 5 mins and 30 mins. It was no problem really seeing as it was a quiet day but I would honestly guess I spent more of that time waiting for a closed ride to reopen rather than waiting for the open ride to process the people standing in front of me. The thing was continuously going down for between 5 to 15 minutes, when numbers start picking up again into scarefest I imagine the queue times will not be pretty. I don't know if it is deliberate but the queue line itself seems like the first optical illusion as when people are streaming through it without having to queue it feels like it is some sort of mirror maze, very disorientating. It is a shame the mesh has gone over the whole thing, I bet the views of the ride soaring overhead were stunning originally. The indoor queue section is a neat touch and keep the wait interesting, although all the projectors on the right hand side are about half inch out, spoiling the effect and a concerning little movement in the building maybe? I love the score which sounds stunning throughout the queue. Up into the minimalist station and ready to board... By pure chance all of my rides were in either the front a back rows. I'm told the ride start is supposed to be accompanied by a blast of smoke, but all I ever got was a bright light. Why do we find such simple little effects so hard to maintain? So we are off with little fanfare into a drop and the first inversion which should be dark but isn't as the building seems to be coming away from the ground letting in a swathe of light. The front row gives a neat trick of not being able to tell which way up you are once you've levelled out but it doesn't work at all in the back. The direct comparison has to be with the Saw indoor section and this is a bit of a non event. It's a shame there isn't more of it and more of a shame that what is there isn't properly dark and doesn't just look like a dank dull space. Up the standard lift hill (with a rather neat quiet anti rollback system) and the main event begins. What I was expecting was a sequence of inversions that felt shoehorned together to meet the magic number, but it is better than that. A lot lot better. The sequence flows really well and the inversions all feel natural. It is incredibly disorientating and even with my knowledge of what was going to happen I still had trouble identifying what I was doing at any given point. Then the half way brake run, which is screaming out to be enclosed, dark and with an effect or two, for more of the same on the other side of the vertical hill. As a ride, I loved it. It is relentless and goes on and on without becoming overwhelming or dull. By far the highlights for me are the two final corkscrews, the airtime hills and the dive loops, some beautiful manoeuvres. But it is far from being perfect... There are two points on the track that are very unpleasant to get through, the lesser being the exit of the first corkscrew with a nasty jolt and the greater being the deep thud that slams through you in the cobra roll. They wouldn't be acceptable in an old ride, they certainly shouldn't be in a brand new one and knowing the one towards the end is coming is always in the back of your mind. They also exacerbate the other huge issue, and that is the restraints. On a ride like this even on sections of good track the tight transitions are always going to cause your head and upper body to shift about, what you don't need then is a big slab of useless hard plastic an inch away from your face and torso. The result is obvious, and should have been to the fool who decided not to go with lap bars. My wife hit the side of her head so hard the back of her earring pushed into the side of her neck cutting her, she also has sore visibly red shoulders, I just have some tenderness to my neck. The other problem with the restraints is whatever they have made them from stinks, a vile musty damp smell that you can't escape on the ride and gets in your clothes to follow you round for the rest of the day too. Rough and unnecessary. My other problem is with what should be a massive strength from the effort that has gone into it, and that is the theme. A great man recently said what is important to an experience is a story, a narrative. So much effort has gone into the theme of The Smiler; the marmaliser structure and elements, the tricks in the station entrance and exit, the MoJ back story the relativity few who saw them gave. But what is the story? Why are we there? Why are we riding? The story has a middle, where you are on the ride and being marmalised, it has an end where you now belong to The Smiler, but it doesn't have a beginning so the rest of it doesn't mean much. There needs to be a point to the whole thing, as it is it has a style more than a theme even if it is a good one. TL:DR - It's a good ride which could and should have been a lot better with a bit of thought. It is like it is trying to sabotage itself and not give the amazing experience it surely could with the many things it has going for it. At the same time I somehow loved it but struggled to actually enjoy it.

Amen to that.

It looks like a fair amount has changed in the 6 years since I went, and mostly for the better. Is there still the insanely good Chinese acrobatic circus type show near Khan? That was a highlight of my visit and would be a shame if they had got rid. Aside form the rides themselves a lot of the place looked a bit tired and rundown back then, your photos and positivity seem to suggest that is not the case any more. I was in Spain recently and didn't bother, regretting that now. Think I'll start looking with next year in mind, where was it you saw that offer so I can look out for anything new?

Really? My first thought was no one that had anything to do with making this has never been on any other Safari ride ever! It is so full of obvious mistakes, and as you say the lack of use of the driver means the thing might as well be on a track anyway. A big wasted opportunity that probably just about slips into the 'good enough' category of guest satisfaction for them not to bother with improvements.