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I think the downfall of Burps and how the same issues which led to this (lack of maintainence and poor cheap investment) are reflected across the whole of the park are quite relevant. Bubbleworks has no future. Neither does this topic. Does the park?

I don't think 'can't be bothered' is particularly fair, it would be a practical impossibility to turn the current ride into a closed system at that location. I have no knowledge about the closure reasons, but I don't think the water system is the problem as that regulation is not applied retrospectively; a new one could not use untreated water but existing ones are fine to continue. I think it was just knackered in pretty much every sense.

I think you have your answer with your last point - it has a lot more to do with building regs than anything else. A properly designed modern building can safety hold a lot more people than a 30 year old one which is made of wood partitioning with few fire doors and many obstructions, some caused by the internal fire doors themselves! X is safe as it is, but to safely hold more people an amount of work would need to be done which is not economicly viable.

Hope all have had a good time. Anyone who went, how was the ride availability? I'm going for the next couple of days. If I'm spited again my Nash I'll cry. It's decided to die / maim people / be on fire immediately prior to each of my previous visits so I've never been on the damn thing!

Yes, been open for a couple of days now.

People 'thrown from ride' in Scotland (caution, 'The Sun' link - you will feel dirty after clicking), broken bones and facial injuries. Looks to be a Tagada, which you are not restrained for anyway, so a bit of an odd one. Seems likely that they were being foolish in some way for that to happen. Unless the op managed to bounce the ride too violently, which seems pretty unlikely to me.

Have there been any noticeable changes/improvements during the downtime?

Is it? It's lovely darrn sarrf today; you'all should have gone to Adventure Island instead!

A friend of mine is at Chessington today. His facebook update...

All Towers had shut were The Smiler (it hadn't reopened after the incident at that point) and Air/Galactica (was still in transition and yet to open from its referb), along with the closed for 2016 selection that haven't opened since. I think Spinball had some issues on the day too. Everything is supposed to be open, but things can go down of course. Who knows if we'll see the return of DBGT by then?!

Fright Nights finishes on 31st October and the season ends on 2nd November, does it? Nope! Saturday 5th November is 'services day' with the park open 10AM to 10PM with full ride and Fright Night maze line up, free parking, limited tickets so minimal queues and no fastrack, and tickets only £18.50! This is for emergency service (including NHS staff) and armed forces personnel only run through 'blue light card' and 'defence discount service', but they can take their families so if you know anyone in these professions it may be worth being friendly to them around about now!

It really really is. Not even just in comparison to its old superior self, it manages it all by itself. To be fair, most 5 year olds who'll actually be interested in this aren't using internet forums.

Peppa Pig - hour long queues Everything else - 5 minute queues

Well, this has been a hell of a long time coming, hasn't it? Partly because it's been sunny and I've had better things to spend half hour on, and party because I didn't really know where to start what with the park being so huge, and also because it seems I'm the last enthusiast on earth to get round to visiting so I don't feel I've got much to add on to what I'm sure you already know. Again I had tried not to spoiler myself too much, so other than the inescapable adoration for Woodan and Blue Fire I didn't really know what to expect from other attractions. I also didn't take many photos, a sure sign that I was too busy getting on with enjoying myself, so apologies for text heavy dullness ahead... And so after a hell of a trek around a whole mountain due to a closed road, we hit the finale of the trip for two days at Europa. We had initially booked Pension Yvonne Sigg based on recommendations, but then cancelled that and went for Gastehaus Brigitte Duri for half the price. Not expecting a palace, we didn't find one, but it was clean, comfortable and, most importantly, close to both the park and hotels which could both be reached within a 10 minute walk. In hindsight I'd have payed any amount extra for a place with aircon as it was sooo damn hot for our visit. Parking seems to be a bit of an issue with a lot of these smaller places, so rather than have to shunt the car in and out repeatedly as people came and went we abandoned ours on the street where it didn't come to any harm. Refreshments were needed, and there are plenty of bars and eateries near the park entrance away from the resort hotels, which all seemed decent quality, I'd especially recommend Mythos Greek Taverna and Altus Rasthaus. Rust, like all of Germany it seems, is a neat tidy place which maybe feels a little bit crammed in as everyone tries to make their Euros off the back of the park. Maybe we were unlucky with the weather or time of year, but the one big problem the town has (which they can probably do nothing about) is with mosquitoes. I've never known anything like it; being outside around dusk is just impossible, we were ravaged by the damn things which made trying to sleep in the stifling heat even more difficult. Anyway, the next morning with much excitement it was to the park. Greek beer in Germany, why not? We used the app to purchase electronic part tickets which all went smoothly, and the app is a godsend for show planning and queue avoiding. Thoroughly recommend its use. While the exterior is currently a building site, the entrance to the park is a delight and we were welcomed with live music and a buzzing atmosphere. It's immediately clear the theming, scale, cleanliness and general perfection of the presentation is like nothing else. We made our way round at a leisurely pace for two long wonderful days. We started with Silver Star. I don't know if this view is controversial, but it was the second big disappointment of the trip. It's just dull. Forceless. Lumbering. I don't know how they get so much height and speed to do so little, but excitement and airtime there are none. We tried it front and back, early and late. Nothing. It's not really themed in the same way as the rest of the park either so feels a bit out of place, although Mercedes the exhibit in the ride building is pretty good, and it was our first experience of the lighting fast operations not hindered by fastrack which made the small queue a continuous shuffle which went by in no time. But the ride itself is poor. 3/10 Yaawwwwwwn Unfortunately while trying to find the entrance to Poseidon we accidently stumbled into a madhouse apparently called Cassandra which was also pretty crap. Maybe we are/were spoiled with Hex, but just walking into the room with no explanation just seems odd, then to have it programmed for the walls to start spinning straight over with no correlation with the movement or attempt to make it feel like it builds up to an inversion renders the whole exercise pointless. There's no illusion to it, 3/10. Fortunately it turned out we had got the worst of the park out of the way, and it was all upwards from here, so I can stop seeming like such a grumpy old sod. Next we managed to find the entrance to Poseidon, which like all the water rides on our blisteringly hot trip unfortunately held a hefty queue most of the time, but it was worth the wait. The coaster element was a surprise to us and although pretty rough and jolty a lot of fun, especially the double dip at the end. Good long ride, refreshing splashdowns and such complete intricate theming it is just like driftin through actual Greece. 8/10 England boat ftw! I'll leave it there for today, before we head into the general insanity that is Russia.

Can't see anything in the deleted or hidden posts, so no idea! Might be a glitch of the server move, sorry! On topic: Chessington Sucks.

No one wants to queue these big queues. These queues which are big largely because of fastrack in the first place.

I didn't even consider this park when I was over there for some reason. Looks pretty decent! Must get me on an RMC at some point.

Crazy queues to buy it are a good thing - it stops people buying it! This is the worst development I've heard of this year, and I've heard of some poor developments. The whole thing sickens me, even more so sknce my carefree days at Europa.

Haha! A genuine slip, that one!

I know. It's the point I'm making! At least the ads for DBGT appear to have been pulled from Facebook, the advertising while it was shut was what seemed to be riling people most on the comments.

Are you deliberately missing the point, or is it just an accident?

Gruffalo isn't even the latest trend, it's already in decline. The tots have moved on and it's all about the stickman now. They're about 5 years too late to jump on the Gruffalo bandwagon.

Which is a nonsense and should never be the case in a seasonal park.

From there it was the longest drive of our trip, into the mountains to the small town of Todtnau. I'll start with a TopTip: If you visit Tripsdrill and your journey takes you right out of the carpark, beware; just before the first town the 70kph road suddenly drops to 30kph for no apparent reason and then raises to 50 kph after about 100 meters. The 30kph section has a speed camera which duly took my photo as drifted through it trying to work out what was going on, a month later I've had nothing through from the car hire company, so fingers crossed that's going to come to nothing! Sneaky speed cameras aside driving and roads throughout Germany are a delight, everything is so well maintained, clean and tidy, and just works. We had one short delay on the outskirts of Stuttgart but other than that the roads flow at speed and with ease. Out of the car window Maybe it's just the route we took, but the whole area is stunningly pretty. Even the industrial areas looked neat, tidy and prosperous unlike the dives we have over here. Once in the mountains some of the roads are a bit precarious, but it's worth the trek once you are up there. We checked into guesthouse Lamm, which is just outside of town and took the short walk to a small selection of bars and restaurants at the base of the mountain for that evenings beer Beer! and a look at what the next day would bring mountain! It's a lovely relaxing place place for a day or two doesn't look real, does it? The next morning I was eager to get up that mountain for the main even, the mountain coaster. 9 Euros a pop includes your trip up on the chairlift and slide down the coaster. The views from the top of the town bellow and surrounding mountains are stunning, and for the less adventurous the chairlift can be taken as a round trip. Toptip: Don't forget you are up a mountain and the sun is different here, industrial strength suntan lotion required! High The ride itself was the highlight of the whole holiday for me. It's insane fun. As you are in control of your own braking you can have as wild or sedate ride as you like, so it really is for everyone. I tried to use the brakes as little as possible, my wife though was not pleased with this decision as we were going down together in one cart, and I only really applied them near the bottom to stop us smashing into the person in front. With barely any banking in the corners it really feels like it is trying to fling you from your little cart if you take them at speed, and the standard three point seat belt does little to make you feel secure, which all adds to it for me. That's me, speeding again I loved it and went up again, my wife less so and sat out go two. As it got a little later in the day the queue at the top built up to about 30 minutes, so try not to hit peak times if you can. TopTip: Chose your place in the queue wisely; you don't want to be getting on just after someone who is likely to be going down slowly, so get on behind teens and not a young family. If the ride is backing up a bit the op will let you wait at the top for a minute or two so you can get a clearer run. if you are still speeding at this point you are in trouble I can't put into words how much I loved this. I would recommend it to everyone. If you have any opportunity to do one of these then take it, it's an absolute must. I could have spent the whole day going up and down here, but we didn't, we went to look at some waterfalls instead. pretty A short drive out of the other side of town, the waterfalls are stunning and climbable from top to bottom if you are into that sort of pain. We were happy with more sedate wander through parts of it. wet And very nice it was too. Then by afternoon it was time to be off, drive out of the mountains, and on to the climax of it all. Europa Park! I'll leave you with what I think may be one of the best photos that has ever been taken. If ever a picture could sum up our differing feelings of an experience, this is it... I did mention I didn't use the brakes!

I was hoping to pick up the fountains for my garden. Oh well!