pluk

Indeed, although I was more than happy driving around rural France, if I had driven into Paris itself I have no doubt I'd have abandoned my car there and walked back to Calais. Absolute chaos! Around main tourist crossings there were police traffic control standing in the road waving their arms around incomprehensibly. I would have had no idea what to do with them had I been driving, but they kept the traffic flowing well. Another thing you just don't see in London where we let it all just snarl up instead. The more I think about it the more this country sucks at everything compared to France.

After that we really needed a day no where near a theme park, which was handy as we had one planned. The 20 minute train ride to the centre of Paris was a pleasure on a clean, fast, busy and incredibly cheap double decker train with a guard in each carriage, makes you realise what a pathetic train system we have in this country. On to the metro, which is very easy to navigate yourself around even if it does feel a bit dingy, we wandered around Paris without any agenda other than taking in a few of the sites and a couple of drinks. It was my first visit since a school trip in the mid 90's as a 14 year old, of which I remember very little anyway as on that trip I discovered lager and that Frenchmen would serve absolutely anyone, so I was eager to try and take a bit more in this time. No one needs telling that Paris is a nice place to be and that there's plenty to see and do, so here's a couple of the bits we got up to. Notre Dame Cathedral. A beautiful building which remains remarkably peaceful even when it is huge cavernous space is packed with people. Religion is not my thing but at all, but this does feel like a special place. Drinking is more my thing, and there are a plenty of bars, cafes and restaurants along the Seine. This one was opposite the Notre Dame and very pleasant, where we got chatting to some Americans travelling Europe. This sort of thing happened a lot in Paris, with other travellers and the French themselves, something I rarely see in London. I can't work out how the French have got such a bad name for being miserable and unfriendly, that stereotype appears to be bollocks. This might be well known, but it was new to me. One of the bridges over the river has attracted some sort of tradition of people attaching a lock to the mesh with a message written on. Such a quirky little idea and fascinating reading some of the messages, we loved it. Another stroll along the Seine, another bar. In this one my 20 year old GCSE French failed me and I accidently ordered 1.5 liters of beer. Shame that! Paris feels like a much more lived in city than most others I have visited, it is alive and vibrant and full of people going about their normal French lives with tourists among them, whereas many cities feel like almost like a theme park, like they exist only for tourists and the natives are only there to serve the tourists and find a way to take their money. We approached the Eiffel Tower just as children were leaving a junior school, literally in its shadow. The Mums, all immaculate and stylish, collecting their kids, walking to the boulangerie to pick up their fresh bread for dinner then walking or cycling off home weaving between the sightseers. It amazed me to see them going about their lives in such a typically traditional French way right in the heart of Paris. You can't visit Paris without doing the Eiffel, this incredibly wonky photo was taken by more friendly Americans we stumbled upon. Some sort of development work is going on in the tower, resulting in only one of four lifts working and a huge queue for that lift, so we took the stairs, all 1336 of them. The views from the top though are well worth it. After all that climbing felt we deserve dinner, so we went back to the Latin Quarter which was on our way home and took our pick of the many lively and inexpensive restaurants lining the narrow streets, settling on this one. It seems the French will not put up with crap food but the competition keeps the prices down, the food was delicious and cheap in a restaurant in the heart of Paris.again something I think you'd struggle to find in London or many other big cities. The meal was of course accompanied by a bottle of red or two!! And then with a quick stop for supplies at a supermarket and it was back on the train out to our hotel, feeling entirely safe with the guard presence on the train even with the train leaving from an undesirable part of town with a couple of slightly unsavory looking characters on board, and our day was done. If you're planning a trip to Asterix or Disney it would be criminal not to make the time for a visit into Paris itself while you are so close. A day isn't really enough and we plan to return. The other thing I got from this day of our adventure was a feeling of total faith in the French train system. I would be more than happy now to take a Eurostar into Paris without planning the onward journey and just take it from there, it is very easy to get around and travel out of the city to Disney or anywhere really. That was the end reality on this trip for us though, and tomorrow the fantasy land of Disney awaited.

CONEHEADS! I WANT CONEHEADS!!! Really, I do. But as that will just be me I think there are are plenty of interesting options other than obvious Star Trek. At a glance I'd say War of the Worlds, Mission Impossible, Friday the 13th, Titanic, Alive, Pet Sematary, Hunt for Red October, Ghost, Top Gun (dueling wingrider!!), Days of Thunder could all work well. And of course all the kids stuff.

Indeed it was, but it was structured in such a way that Hard Rock could just remove themselves and their licences in the event of things not going to plan, and that is the problem with building a park under someone elses name. If this was Paramount Park being built and operated by themselves failure would not be an option, as a licence holder only they could pull the plug with little or no hardship to themselves if this deal isn't just right. I'm sure and hopeful it can be done, but they better do it right.

And I've had plenty of stuff I've ended up getting used to being pointed out as infuriating by non enthusiasts, but we digress. Competition I'm sure will be only healthy in pushing standards upwards. Paramount Pictures have a crazy huge back catalogue, some of it could be very exciting if used well, although how much of it is actually wholly owned by Paramount I'm not sure, some of it might not be available to them. A big concern for me with this sort of IP stuff though is how robust the legalities and security of it is. I don't know a lot about the distribution / ownership / copyrights system, but it sure as hell is complex. I'd hate to see another HardRock / FreeStyle Music Park situation, where so much effort is put into theme and experience which all has to be torn out when the relationship with the rights holder goes sour or Paramount withdraw (something they've done with parks many times). Paramount need to be committing to it financially to the extent they can't really let that happen, at the moment it seems they are merely allowing licence of their name and works.

Spinning tunnel, designed to confuse you by tricking your eyes, taken while you have a bag on your head. Genius!

Less than 3 hours on a not that expensive train door to door - it could actually do them good. Turn our corner of Europe into a theme park destination. Busch Gardens make good trade off day trips from the main parks of of Florida, that's a similar time journey away.

I will be at work so unable to attend, shame as I like a bit of behind the scenes action. As a non attendee it doesn't affect me, but may I suggest the places when limited in the extreme like this be given to repeat meet peeps / frequently active posters, rather than first timers who may join for this perk never to be seen again? Just seems fairer to me. Sorry for sticking my beak in, as you were.

I will be @ work @ halloween Will go to scarefest. From what I've seen on offer I can't be bothered with any others this year.

Not sure this is the best recreation possible. I find the layout kind of odd, but can't put my finger on why. Not saying it does not look rather good though!

I can't believe that ever existed! Looks like a replacement couldn't come soon enough.

Sounds specifically like there's not a ride if you ask me. Having 'lots planned' could mean anything, like a hotel and more club nights for example!

What the hell is that? I've not been to legoland but that big empty grey floor, faded red circle with a crappy spring toy in the middle surrounded by worn out kerb with paint missing and weeds growing between them look shocking. My local free kids playground looks better than that.

There is nothing in the article I have not seen speculated on anyway, it is just the way TT have posted this in news (which therefore suggests it is fact) that is the problem. It is still not fact, just a stronger theory. They could have posted nearly the same thing worded slightly differently without causing all this spoiler problem and no doubt pissing of Towers no end (again, if it is correct). Of course people are going to speculate, that is healthy and part of the fun of new things turning up, but big sites like TT have a sort of duty to the park and readers not to do this and to behave sensibly with the info they receive. Just a poor editorial choice by whoever posted that as news.

This needs to happen. The shot it would give the whole UK industry would be a huge benefit to us all, time for Merlin to wake up.

There is a very important question mark in that 'news' article. It's still a rumour, even if one with a bit more weight behind it now.

I think according to the plans the actual ride itself goes through just three enclosures, each marked as for one animal. That might be wrong and they'll mix a few up in there so that'll be much better, just seems for a little extra effort it could take in so much more. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea and think it is perfect for the park.

I think you are saying the same, but they wouldn't have bought the winter maintenance forward without being forced into it by some sort of part failure. So it has failed when it shouldn't, but whether that is the parks fault for poor maintenance or something unenforceable/unmanageable I guess we won't know. The one thing that never feels right for me anymore on this model are the restraints. The amount of lateral movement they have is disturbing, although I'm sure they are quite safe. When it was at Chessington the restraints were solid and I have never been on another model with this problem anywhere near the extent Samurai has. Makes me feel uneasy.

Fixed. That's what gets me from the plans, it is not worthwhile at its current size. Maybe that is unfair American comparisons at work, but it does seem small with three proper enclosures taken in.

My Disneyland Paris report follows on from this and is incoming..... As a preview, the longest I queued for anything was 15 minutes for Thunder Mountain without fastpass once, walk on every other time. McDonalds, the one time we went mainly for the wifi, was practically instant with their fancy touch screen ordering system. It is not a race to the bottom, one place giving you poor service does not give everywhere else licence to be ****.

I thought that was about the time it managed to park so badly one of the arms smashed into the railings and floor? But yes, it has had periods of extended downtime before now.

Kind of that, yes. But a park can still be busy and run properly and although it is never ideal I've had many a good day at busy parks, even parks that I'm visiting as a one off. There are just so many issues of totally basic service and operation being wrong or nonexistent here that I imagine anything other than totally dead will be frustrating at best. The list of why? includes: Closed queue extensions when overspilling No overhead cover in any queue line No staff / barriers / attempts to manage queues and queue jumpers When it is quiet ramming small boats to capacity No live and very very few static queue time markers No maps and little directional signage Poor layout creating pinch points at Dolphins and Grand Splash and a lot of dead ends No places that sell only drink, so you have to wait for food ordering faff ahead Painfully slow operations on anything that is not coaster shaped Goudurix existing Overall, too much is wrong with the place to make up for the good bits and with a few hundred miles between me and it I can't ever plan to go there again incase the same thing happens again.

But even lunch wasn't something Asterix was able to provide without a huge unmanaged queue snaking across one of the main throughways in the park. It was clear they weren't expecting it to be busy (they obviously don't watch weather forecasts) as most of the little food and drink booths were closed, but again there was a lack of any attempt to to manage the queue with some barriers or serve people with any sort of speed. This is just a little booth with the total number of options being hotdog or tradition sausage with a drink but they still couldn't manage it and it took nearly half an hour to get our snack. It was decent value and tasty though. Now I was starting to get worried I we wouldn't fit in both OzIris and Zeus before the day was out so we decided regardless of queue length to just do them, Oziris was nearest and just as we had seen at Zeus the queue was spilling out of the entrance and even out of the ride area all the way past the the pathway under the logflume. That is a long long way. As ever totally unmanaged, people cutting in all over the place and infuriating to be in, it took us about 50 mins just to get into the main queue. After about two hours we made it to the ride itself. There is no denying the area and ride itself are stunning. Beautifully themed, especially once in the indoor queue. I didn't much care though, two hours wait is too long for me in any conditions but surrounded by the stench of the French in over 100 degree heat with no cover whatsoever I've probably never been in a worse mood getting on a ride. Look at the huge amount of space there. Why are there not tensa barriers or something used to make some sort of queue line when it is this busy. They just make no effort with operations whatsoever. After all that moaning I can't deny the ride itself is near perfection. Enough people have said enough good things about it without me being able to add much insight but the standout for me are the zero g rolls, which are just so perfectly executed. I've never felt anything like it, they seem to last forever in a little bubble of floatiness. The whole thing flows beautifully and is so much fun to ride, I'm not sold on the lack of pre drop but that is probably just a case of getting used to it, other than that there is not a single moment that does not feel just right. Our back row seat was almost worth the two hours wait. Almost. After this we were desperate for a drink but guess what? Asterix didn't want to sell me one. It took ages to even find a stand open and then 20 minutes to get served, all the time fighting off people who wanted to push in front of me. We had only a couple of hours left so decided we had to do Zeus and from what we had seen of the queue earlier, that would be about it. Walking back down to the other side of the park we took a look at what we were missing out on which included a kiddie barrel coaster, a StormSurge-a-like (meh) and a decent looking log flume. Coming across the bobsled coaster 'Hourra' with only a small overspilling queue and a sign declaring '20 minutes from this point' we thought we'd be fine. Just over an hour later when we finally got on I was properly worried about not getting to Zeus on time, again taking away from how much I could enjoy the ride itself. I have something of a soft spot for Mack bobsleds and this was the best I've been on, I loved the length and feeling of out of control speed it gives. Why aren't there more of these about? Not knowing the queue close policy we quickly made our way to Zeus, again going passed things we wouldn't get a go on; Grand Splash, a magic carpet (meh) and a dolphin show which just started to spill out hundreds of people into a narrow pathway causing utter chaos (who the hell designed this place) to find Zeus looking exactly as it did earlier in the day but with no one telling us not to join, we did. This time there actually was someone at the entrance stopping the constant parade of queue jump attempts and as a result after 15 minutes or so we were through the legs of Zeus in the queue proper where we found every extension closed and we were on within 45 minutes. What a stupid way to run the place - build a queueline, keep it closed and let everyone line up zig zagging across a busy pathway. Utter morons. I love wooden coasters and had been looking forward to this for a long long time. Having said that considering its age I didn't expect Zeus to be right up there with the best of the modern stuff. How wrong I was. Again heading for the back I could not believe as we crested the lift hill how huge it was, so much of it being hidden away. The first drop into the tunnel is a stunner and it does not let up until the final brake run with huge amounts of airtime and a pleasing roughness giving it some real character. I seemed to spend just as long out of my seat as in it and as it pulled into the station I had the most ridiculous grin on my face. My top ten would be very much troubled by this ride. I could have ridden in over and over again. Except I couldn't as we emerged to find the queue line had been closed even though it was still about 10 minutes to park close. Assuming the day was over we wandered back towards the exit where we found Grand Splash was still open with very little queue, so we had a go on that too, which felt like a bit of a bonus really. Not a bad ride with some good water effects on the way round but ends with a poor and anticlimactic final drop. And with that our day was over so it was back to the car for the short drive back to the hotel, which may have included me getting entirely lost and finding out that driving on that side of the road in the dark in small villages is less easy than in the daytime. So what do I think of Asterix overall then? It is a very good looking park, a lot of the theming is spectacular, immersive and well maintained and it has two of the very best rides I have ever been on with Zeus and OzIris. But what is the point of all that if it is absolutely impossible to have a good time there? I know I was unlucky with the weather causing crazy busyness but when you are visiting from so far away, with all the cost and effort involved, it is a risk that is not worth taking if the park can be run that badly when too many people turn up. Most annoyingly it is very much designed and run with the queue jumper in mind, but unfortunately for helping them rather than stopping them. I vowed at the end of the day I'd never go back, which is kind of shocking for a park that has rides entering my top ten twic, but I don't feel like I have actually been to Asterix and experienced what it has the potential to deliver, I've merely been on some of the rides there. Now I've thought about it a bit I probably will return one day but I won't ever base a trip around it. If I am passing I will consider it but if I turn up to 3km queues on the way in I will drive right by to somewhere that can be bothered to actually run their park rather than just open the doors and hope for the best.

So the next morning it was an early start to try and make the most of our single day at Asterix. Full of hotel continental breakfast (why is it acceptable to eat a pile of cakes first thing in the morning across Europe?) we set off across the French countryside with our AA route planner print out in the general direction of the park, planning to arrive around 30mins before park opening. It was a Sunday, and it was hot. Normally I wouldn't entertain a weekend park visit, especially at a place that will be a bit of a one off for me, but as Asterix helpfully only open weekends outside of main season there wasn't much choice in the matter. The first frustration of the day was finding our directions to the park were entirely wrong, leading us to the back of the place but with no actual access. Turns out the only way in is directly off of the motorway where the park has it's own exit, not from the villages it is actually local to. So a 30 minute detour resulted us arriving with everyone else, and so from a bad start it went downhill fast. Every frog within a few hundred kilometers had clearly decided to make the most of the sunshine, the motorway ground to a halt just by the '3km to Asterix' sign, my heart sank with the realisation this was the queue to the park and not some random traffic, and we crawled in from there. The 8 Euro charge for parking is paid on the way in, which is a much better way than on the way out like we do it as it manages the pressures on the entrance gates and doesn't leave you with a bad taste at the end of the day by getting it out of the way at the start. Infact, the whole car park operation was run really quite well with a constant flow as the queue splits multiple times to individual lots. It was the only well run thing we'd find that day. As our visit was a last minute arrangement we had not been able to book good value park tickets online, which must be purchased at least a week in advance, but we had managed to pick up a discount voucher from our hotel. Money paid and through the turnstile, but without being given or being able to find a map, we wandered through the rather nicely themed main street and it didn't seem too packed. Maybe it could handle this amount of people after all. I had heard before arriving that they were bizarrely opening their new ride OzIris late each day as part of staggered opening and as it could be seen to be not moving at 10 minutes after opening as we drove past so we headed left instead, using the crappy little map our discount vouchers had been attached to as a rough guide. The first thing we came across was the rapids, which to our amazement was walk on (but you'd never know it as there is no live queue time signage anywhere in the park). Even though it was walk on and the occasional boat was empty we were squeezed in with randoms so every seat was full. We tried to protest the pointlessness of this but to no avail. I'm not small, nor were the randoms, so it was a painful and uncomfortable few minutes. I'm sure the ride was good enough and I know I got at least a little bit wet, but I couldn't enjoy it and have no real memory of it. Leaving that we continued to one of the big three coasters. Before going it was OzIris, Zeus and Goudurix I had been looking forward to, in that order, so we decided to build up to the best and start with Goudurix. Again with no indication of how long the queue might be we waited in about half of the built queue line, which amounted to about 20 minutes, and on we got. I had heard some bad things about this ride and it's roughness, but nothing could prepare me for how truly awful it is. Never again will I grumble about Saws jolt or Ritas restraints, this is in another league of horrible uncomfortable roughness. At one particular point near the start it tosses you one way to get your head moving to the left but before it stops you are violently slammed to the right creating a massive jerk in your neck which I genuinely thought had done some damage until I got off and realised I was not paralyzed. Never again will I get on Goudurix, and I think it is the only ride I've ever said that about.Tear it down. Once we had rearranged our vertebrae into something resembling a spine we left the ride station and noticed something had quite suddenly changed for the bad. The park had already started to fail at coping with the volume of guests with the queue line for that heap of junk now spilling out of the entrance to the queue line and down the path in a totally unmanaged scrum, I'd have guessed it would have been well over an hours wait. Coming away back towards the centre of the park we stumbled upon the entrance to something called Transdemonium. We didn't know what it was and to a large extent still don't. After a long and thankfully empty walkthrough queue is a ride of random that's too light to be a dark ride and too crap to be worthwhile. It's strange, clearly a lot of thought and effort has been put into the queue line which has some nice touches, but the ride itself is very very poor. Oh wells, three rides down, three disappointments. Battling our way through the crowds we went towards Zeus, but we didn't get close. The queue line spilling out of the entrance a good couple of hundred meters long and 5 or 6 people wide did not look fun so we thought we'd try again later. Nearby was a spinning thing (in the background below) which was actually very good, I don't know why these sorts of rides have gone totally out of fashion at UK parks, great fillers. On the bad side the single operator working at a snails pace with a miserable face and a fifth of the rides capacity roped off made me want to start hurting people. This was followed by a large kids coaster, apparently called Vol D'Icare, which again was enjoyable. Both of these though had queues spilling out of the entrance causing a scrum, but extensions within the queue closed. Just stupid frustrating operations made nearly intolerable by the queuing adverse French. It is also I'm sure no revelation or controversy to note a lot of French people smell bad, really bad, and being stuck in close proximity for ages in the queue was nauseating. I've got a strong stomach, I've eaten my lunch in the company of a rotting cadaver on many occasions, but some of the pong kicking up from these made me feel quite ill. I was getting weary of it all and wanted some lunch.

Myself and Mrs pluk found ourselves with a free week and a desire to do something, so with basically no planning it was decided Paris would be graced with our presence, taking in both Disney and Asterix. I hadn't really known where to start with doing this without leaving myself stranded someplace where no one understood me, so I'll include here a few bits I think others might find useful if doing something similar. I'd never driven on the 'wrong' side of the road before but we decided we wanted the freedom of a car and besides, how hard can it be?! So after an early Saturday morning drive down to Dover we found ourselves floating towards the other side... We sailed with P&O which only cost £45 one way with about 3 days notice. The ship was a disgusting cramped rust bucket, but got us there safely and you're only on it for a little over an hour. If you are bothered by these things book yourself onto the Spirit of France or the Spirit of Britain, which we came home on and are new and sexy. The complete list of things I did to be safe and legal driving in France: -buy a fluorescent jacket to keep in the car -buy a GB sticker for the rear -buy a set of headlight beam adjustment stickers -buy an AA map of France -made this sign and put it on my dashboard. It really did work! The drive from Calais towards Paris is simple and easy even without a map, and as the ferry dumps you directly on to a duel carriageway you have a few hours to get used to driving on the right without having to tackle any confusing junctions. All along the motorway are little picnic areas, complete with hole in the floor toilet blocks, but actual services are very few so some snacks in the car and a full tank of petrol are a good idea. The motorway is also a toll road, but the whole journey there only cost 14 Euros. By the time I had to pull off onto side roads near our first hotel it felt quite natural to be doing things in reverse. If you are a confident driver I'd recommend giving it a go - don't be scared of it! We had booked a little hotel for three nights in Orry-la-Ville, mostly for it's close proximity to Asterix without being a grotty little Formula1 sort of place, and also as it is on a direct train line to the centre of Paris in just 20 mins. At 65 Euros a night I thought it was very good value considering its location. Arriving about 3 hours after leaving Calais I was ready for my first beer of the trip. It is a great base for this sort of trip but you'd struggle to get to Asterix from here if you're not driving. It is not a party town either, if that is what you are after. It is a lovely little French village with about 3 bars and 3 restaurants which in the typical French way seem to open as and when they fancy so it is not always convenient. It's not for tourists, it's for locals living their little French lives, but those are the sorts of places I like. After a stroll into the village for a meal and a couple more drinks it was back to the hotel for an early night, as the next morning it was time for Asterix. Little did I know I'd need all the rest I could get to make it through a day there...