pluk

Exactly my thinking Benin. SpiderMan may have cost stupid money, but that was largely R&D for a brand new ride type and the shear scale of what they did. I wouldn't be expecting anything of that size here, but the technology price has come down massively, as seen by its use in smaller parks, and I believe a decent example of the type is well within reach of this budget. Especially when you factor in the cost to this whole season of getting it so wrong and now the extra cost of fixing the ride, ripping out some of the best of what they've done and actually building again to try and make it decent. If Merlin want to be producing whole new ride concepts they need to be putting in the R&D money first, and having a proper vision beyond the marketing too. How can they have attempted two dark rides in recent times and make the same glaring mistake twice, of not giving any climactic or narratively satisfying ending ? They must have storyboarded both rides and got to 'and then it just sort of ends', and been happy to go with that. Crazy. I'm hoping the changes coming will be a second 'show scene' to tie it all together and give a spectacular ending in some way. I expect an escape tunnel of maze though.

I don't think that's quite right. People were hoping for more than an emersive tunnel, and that only really came up as a disappointing possibility once tunnel shaped structure started appearing. In the end, in terms of experience, it seems what we've actually got is less than an emersive tunnel could have delivered. When the plans for a big building went in I seem to remember a SpiderMan type ride system being what many were hoping for/expecting, myself included. How much better could that have been? And surely affordable considering the spend that has been and continues to be required on Ghost Train. And it's tested, reliable technology now, wouldn't have had all these ongoing issues.

I like books that are grounded in a sense of reality rather than out there SciFi stuff; non-fiction travel, diaries, memoirs, or fiction that is based in a reality. I find myself reading a lot less since the internet and access via smart phones became a thing (imagine, kids, all this didn't exist when I was young!), which is a shame. It's too easy to occupy your mind with drivel now, I need to make an effort to make time to read again. If I could only have one authors books for the rest of time, that author would be Bill Bryson. Unendingly entertaining and informative, I read his books repeatedly. If I was going to recommend one easy reading book it would be Stewart Lee's 'How I escaped my certain fate', an unusually funny and honest autobiography.

Nemesis has to be the one. I'd like to hope it'll outlive me in one way or another, it's probably just about my favourite non living thing in the world. Maybe after beer. Would hate to ever see it go, but the state of the park around it and attitude of the company owning it gives me great concern for it in the long term.

Did you have any junk calls prior to making that call? Their favourite trick at the moment is not clearing the line after a call, then playing an automated message when they detect any dialing, but as they are still on your line you don't actually make any call at all. scumbags.

Things like that. I think an alert type system would be a bit of an over complex way of solving the problem. I might be wrong though, I don't know what others think.

Or not muti quoting.

Of using the edit button.

There is no problem double posting if you are posting something new and relevant to a topic which just happens to have had nother posts since your last. It's only really annoying if people just finish off a thought they were having instead

Surprised to hear of trouble fitting on Swarm of all rides, I'm not even close to having an issue on there but find a few others quite a squeeze. Just shows we're all different shapes I suppose, and there's not one design that could accommodate everyone.

As they seem to have ripped up most of the track I'd think so. They may just replace it altogether with some lights on a moving stick.

Height should be no problem. Girth may be a bit... i only just fit in colossus and it sounds like I'm a bit smaller than you, so that might be a struggle and only doable if you are happy mot being able to draw a proper breath for the duration. Vortex is the only other ride I've had to do the walk of shame from, so that might not be for you either.

It was there when I went about 3 weeks ago. If they are concerned about people doing excessive amounts of spinning maybe they could set it up to count to what they think is a safe maximum, 50 spins or so, and tell people that they don't recommend exceeding that. Seems a shame to just bin the whole system.

Oh, that's a shame. Was a great touch that scoreboard. Don't see what it achieves removing it - if people want to spin they still will, if they want to stop people spinning excessively they'll have to do it mechanically somehow. Do they even need to discourage multiple spinning? It's either safe to do or it's not, and it's obviously still possible. Odd.

Pretty much everything I've seen on this from enthusiasts to the wider community on facebook has been overwhelmingly positive. It's not being pushed as the x-est anything, but people can see it's good and want it. Meanwhile at Towers the lackluster woodie project, which doesn't look great but will almost certainly have some one of a kind gimmick slapped on it somewhere to please the marketers, plods along and will in about 18 months time be trying to compete with this. Good luck Towers!

Wow. If I was going to try and find something not entirely positive to say it would be that it feels like there's an inversion or two missing, especially in the first half. For me the way the inversions are taken is the absolute highlight of Blue Fire.

Yeah, in the same way the preemptive Merlin bashing is often bemoaned as unfair when it's grounded in plenty of history and basically always proves right, the big Mack love is well placed knowing what Mack do. If they're knocking up a massive multi launcher there's no reason to think this will be anything but fantastic.

It's a shame that with all of the time it spent closed they didn't take the opportunity to improve things that were so clearly wrong with it from day one. As far as I could tell it was simply switched off on the day of the accident and switched on again this year, with nothing done in the mean time, not even any cleaning!

Best UK coaster news in a looooong time. Nice one Mandy. I hope this is brings huge success. Just praying it's not followed up with an announcement of some old classic going to 'make way' for the development. Still not forgiven for Turtle Chase and Noahs Ark.

My mum was scared of flying when I was a kid, if we went away she was off her face on valium for the flight! She gradually lowered the dose and is fine with flying now. It was prescribed specifically for the flight and she never took it or anything similar otherwise. I doubt Dr's give out valium like this any more! As for taking a friend to help, it depends who they are and what they say! I helped talk Han through her first detonation years ago and that seemed to help as she had said earlier that day she'd never get on it, but then I have a habit of telling my slightly nervy wife about previous accidents and deaths on rides just as we are getting on. She doesn't thank me for that!

...so, ask your Mum! It's in the first post - it's run by 'blue light card' which she'll be eligible to join if she's care giving NHS staff.

Are ouija boards real? I don't know, let's ask the spirits. There we are, conclusive proof.

It'll be alright, because they won't be real ones. Just like all the other ones.

If you are eligible, you'd know!