pluk

Looking forward to the 5th anniversary of DBGT next year, I'm sure the park has lots of plans in store for this much applauded and loved attraction that is, and forever will be, the future of theme parks ❤️

Meh, don't have a problem with this really. You have to store the boats somewhere, and it's largely impractical to create a workshop big enough for holding all boats of a log flume / rapids (especially when you consider you need room to work on the boats too). It doesn't do them any damage, and they'll be cleaned before opening. This sort of stuff doesn't look good out of context, but for the most part, it's never really seen in context. Rumba Rapids boats have almost always been left on the service during winter, and times when they're awaiting work, so that's not a Merlin thing.
 
Similar with leaving a train on a brake run if there's not enough room for both in the workshop: if work needs to be done to station track, there's not always another option. And again, it doesn't really do any damage.
 
It's the same for lots of theme parks, it's just you don't see it.
 
There's a million and one reasons why it could be the way it is. But the point is, it is the way it is and it looks terrible.
 
Also, don't buy the coronavirus reason. Here is the Gruffalo's board from opening day before the pandemic (ie: when most places were open) 

Source: https://live.themeparkguide.biz/?event=Chessington 2020 Preview Day&_ga=2.174020643.1630671449.1592582375-1327971191.1592582375
 
Sure, they might be getting new restriction boards and there was a delay. But ultimately, it doesn't matter: it still looks terrible. At least this is better in that they didn't cut a hole that's awkwardly too big a la Room on the Broom...
 
We as visitors, and particularly fans, can be forgiving to a degree (in the sense of every company can hit unforeseen snags, and the pandemic could potentially cause issues), but it doesn't mean we can just brush away what is ultimately shoddy-looking work.

Who wants a WORLDWIDE EXCLUSIVE?!
 
Construction went vertical today. Super excitement. 

Double post, but I wanted to rant about these models as I really dislike the showing from Intamin.
I'm gonna give opinions on each model:
 
UltraSplash: If Mack sue, I would not blame them. This is basically just a Powersplash with track that is basically a knock off RMC's single rail track. This model is by far the worst and I hope it flops. If Intamin get a sale for this one, I hope Mack take them to court and then some.
 
Giga Splash: Okay unlike the others its somewhat original. Though Intamin have one of the WORST track records with waters rides like this.
Shoot The Rapids, Perlious Plunge, Pilgrims Plunge (no incidents, but unreliable), Drenched, why should people build a Giga Splash over the more reliable Mack Supersplash? So yeah, a fair model, but I don't see parks being keen to buy (especially Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks).  I think its the best of the bunch though, and it actually brings something to the industry.
 
Vertical LSM Coaster; Nothing too offensive, I do not think they can beat Premier though. Sky Rocket II's have such a good price point and I'm unsure if Intamin can match it. Even if they can, would they be as reliable? I do not think they will be. 
 
Hot Racer: RMC do not do launches yet. Though I see them in the very near future, and this model looks cool, though I do think it will cost more than the RMC equivalent, which will mean it will not be as desirable. Remember RMC do a LOT of things without any sub contractors. Intamin even contracted RMC to build some of their previous rides (El Toro, T Express). Also RMC have a lot more experience with the single-rail track.
 
I really hope Intamin go back to being innovative one day, most of these are following trends instead of starting them. Which is what made Intamin so good imo. 
 
 

True, although I read elsewhere that towers had started advertising for actors which is what made me think of it. I'd expect a similar approach across the estate, but wouldn't be at all surprised if there were no mazes, I suppose any recruitment now is non committal on Merlin's part and can be pulled nearer the time.

It's a HUGE deal in mine. Getting night rides and getting mazes done is already an either/or affair, this just makes it worse. 
 
If they really really must lop an hour off then open an hour later. 

It's a HUGE deal in mine. Getting night rides and getting mazes done is already an either/or affair, this just makes it worse. 
 
If they really really must lop an hour off then open an hour later. 

It's a HUGE deal in mine. Getting night rides and getting mazes done is already an either/or affair, this just makes it worse. 
 
If they really really must lop an hour off then open an hour later. 

I'd have exactly the same attitude. I wouldn't hold the park at fault regardless of who got hurt, even if it was me let alone family or friends, not unless they gave them the knife or set up the fight. This is one of the major things wrong with the world in my eyes; everything is always someone else fault. Someone should have prevented, someone should have intervened, someone should have seen the future. The suspect is the suspect.
 
You can mitigate against a risk, but you can not eliminate all danger. The security as it is is a reasonable response to the risk presented. With this being the first incident of this type in 40 years, how many issues have they prevented with their actions in this time? Loads I expect. Considering your opinion of their clientele you'd be hard pressed to argue against that having been the case, but you can't prove the effectiveness of a preventative measure.
 
You can learn from incidents, you can see how something happened and amend your processes for the future, but that does not prove an ability to have foreseen.

Are Intamin the new Golden Horse LOL?
I'm sure parks will trust them over Mack to build their water rides, it isn't like any of their large scale water rides have failed hard in the past..
 

I went to Thorpe park on Monday. Got there at about 9:45 and was in by 10:10. Security has been stepped up somewhat. Metal detector wands, bag searches and a pat down. It all went very smoothly and without issue.
 
I kinda fee bad for the people who went on Sunday as having worked in public events I know it’s almost impossible to spin up a security team over night. Monday was great, no worse than going to a gig or a festival.
 
good vibes all round. 

I'd have exactly the same attitude. I wouldn't hold the park at fault regardless of who got hurt, even if it was me let alone family or friends, not unless they gave them the knife or set up the fight. This is one of the major things wrong with the world in my eyes; everything is always someone else fault. Someone should have prevented, someone should have intervened, someone should have seen the future. The suspect is the suspect.
 
You can mitigate against a risk, but you can not eliminate all danger. The security as it is is a reasonable response to the risk presented. With this being the first incident of this type in 40 years, how many issues have they prevented with their actions in this time? Loads I expect. Considering your opinion of their clientele you'd be hard pressed to argue against that having been the case, but you can't prove the effectiveness of a preventative measure.
 
You can learn from incidents, you can see how something happened and amend your processes for the future, but that does not prove an ability to have foreseen.

So here's the Thorpe problem in a nutshell. Their investment in the 2000's was big. it was exciting, it was dynamic, it was a dream to be a Uk theme park fan with rides left right and centre. But the Thorpe problem comes down to a lack of space and a lack of diversity. They've got themselves into a rut when The Swarm kind of failed. Their target audience demands the newest, most exciting attractions. Who cares about Colossus and its measly ten inversions when The Smiler has fourteen.So then when they fail to grow, they start to downsize. The problems start to increase. The lack of investment means a lack of return which just spirals until we get to now. Thorpe doesn't have the advantages of the family market. Chessington went through a similar slump when it left the thrill market altogether and turned to family. The difference there though is that the family market spends money. Kids demand toys and treats. Ap family holders are all too happy to grab a nice meal and a pint with their family. They like staying in an over-priced hotel. Kerching. 
 
Thorpe's target audience doesn't. Thorpe AP holders are happy to only spend a pound in the park all day. It starts to cost too much money to remove the SBNO attractions. Just build a wall. Who do you target at now when the bulk of your attractions are thrill heavy. 
 
Really there is absolutely no reason why the park couldn't build a family rollercoaster or some entry level flat rides (give me a breakdance you cowards). But they won't because all they want are headlines and aren't interested in sustaining the park beyond the end of the financial year. So we get short term rubbish like I'm a Celeb or Black Mirror instead of attractions that stand the test of time. I'm amazed that Chessington actually replaced Black Bucaneer and are replacing Rameses with a generic drop tower AND redid Tomb Blaster AND built a Rainforest area, refurbishing Toadies and building a Log Flume at the same time. This stuff never happens at Merlin, it will certainly never happen at Thorpe because the idea of cookie-cutter attractions would never fly. So instead the current attractions just age away and nothing gets built or done. 
 
If you were to ask me what Thorpe should do, I'd go with refurbish attractions, build rides that attract a wider audience and beef up that awful entrance with a new look and better security stations. Inferno shouldn't be turning green, family rollercoasters are awesome additions and  a stabbing should never be able to happen again. There is absolutely no point in building an RMC or B&M Hyper if the rest of the park looks like a rubbish dump. Putting a bow on trash is still trash. 
 
And that for me is the Thorpe problem.

I'd have exactly the same attitude. I wouldn't hold the park at fault regardless of who got hurt, even if it was me let alone family or friends, not unless they gave them the knife or set up the fight. This is one of the major things wrong with the world in my eyes; everything is always someone else fault. Someone should have prevented, someone should have intervened, someone should have seen the future. The suspect is the suspect.
 
You can mitigate against a risk, but you can not eliminate all danger. The security as it is is a reasonable response to the risk presented. With this being the first incident of this type in 40 years, how many issues have they prevented with their actions in this time? Loads I expect. Considering your opinion of their clientele you'd be hard pressed to argue against that having been the case, but you can't prove the effectiveness of a preventative measure.
 
You can learn from incidents, you can see how something happened and amend your processes for the future, but that does not prove an ability to have foreseen.

Whilst Energylandia does benefit hugely from EU funds, they would not necessarily struggle if it was lost. 
 
The original grant was only for investments up to this year (including the Vekoma Mine Train, which is on site but hasn't started construction yet, and I personally doubt would open this year, especially with Covid). However, they did successfully apply for more funds, which is helping them "accelerate" plans they had for the next few years, which has included the building more accommodation, and further expansions. Should those EU funds no longer be made available, their investment would likely still be large, but just more spread out.
 
If the country's homophobia increases further, it would be interesting to see how badly tourism is hit, and how it would affect the park. I don't know how many of their visitors are international, but they certainly have got the attention of the enthusiast community, which no doubt helps in drawing more people in. This is particularly prevalent with Zator being just inside a region that's declared itself LGBT-free. A drop in visitors could hit the park harder than them not having access to EU funds.
 
Obviously what happens to Energylandia pales in comparison to LGBT rights in Poland. 

I'd have exactly the same attitude. I wouldn't hold the park at fault regardless of who got hurt, even if it was me let alone family or friends, not unless they gave them the knife or set up the fight. This is one of the major things wrong with the world in my eyes; everything is always someone else fault. Someone should have prevented, someone should have intervened, someone should have seen the future. The suspect is the suspect.
 
You can mitigate against a risk, but you can not eliminate all danger. The security as it is is a reasonable response to the risk presented. With this being the first incident of this type in 40 years, how many issues have they prevented with their actions in this time? Loads I expect. Considering your opinion of their clientele you'd be hard pressed to argue against that having been the case, but you can't prove the effectiveness of a preventative measure.
 
You can learn from incidents, you can see how something happened and amend your processes for the future, but that does not prove an ability to have foreseen.

The problem with agendas is thats its very easy to see through them. No it isn't the parks fault that someone got attacked. Your equivalency with a terrorist attack is ridiculous or are you saying it's the airlines fault for 9/11 and the plane hijacking. 
 
That last sentence by the way, all park queue times across the board are up. I never used to queue more then 10 minutes for Nemesis (alton towers for all those that call Inferno the wrong name) and now queues sit at half an hour at minimum. Thats what happens when you social distance and clean the seats and restraints every half an hour. Thats something the park is doing for guest safety so to sit there and say the park doesn't care about care and experience is so wildly of the mark its in Brazil. 

Pluk summed up what I think.
The main thing that went wrong here is the person who did indeed bring the knife in the park. I am sure this could of happened at most parks. Thorpe actually have a fairly decent system in place. Some parks in mainland europe you can just walk into without even a search.. It is very easy to sit here in hindsight and list everything that the park has and hasn't done, though before this happened I swear nobody was complaining about security/searching at the park?
 
Nasty things happen everywhere all the time. Theme parks are not exempt from this.
^^^ This
 
There is many things Thorpe do wrong, but I find some of this hate thrown at them for this to be a bit uncalled for. 
 
 

The only person who's fault this was was the person carrying the knife. To try to deflect any blame on to Thorpe is plain wrong. 
 
It doesn't matter what measures they put in place, if someone wants to get something in they shouldn't get in they will. The best way to reduce the risk of someone trying is random searches of a differing nature, and that's exactly what Thorpe do. I'm sure there'll be a short term reassurance effort where they cause hours of queues going OTT with searches but it'll be back to normal soon enough, just as it should be.

The only person who's fault this was was the person carrying the knife. To try to deflect any blame on to Thorpe is plain wrong. 
 
It doesn't matter what measures they put in place, if someone wants to get something in they shouldn't get in they will. The best way to reduce the risk of someone trying is random searches of a differing nature, and that's exactly what Thorpe do. I'm sure there'll be a short term reassurance effort where they cause hours of queues going OTT with searches but it'll be back to normal soon enough, just as it should be.

I'm not sure it does show a failure on thorpes part? Thorpe Park's security procedure (the parts which we see anyway) is IMO probably the most stringent out of all the Merlin theme parks already and will no doubt evolve again after this incident. I agree that I haven't had to walk through a scanner at thorpe other than on some special events, but the same can be said for any entertainment venue I've visited in the UK over the past couple of years.
 
The bag search was bought in after a number of terrorist incidents. I agree if they want to search every guest to a higher standard it will take investment in more equipment and infrastructure, and that 2 hour queues to get in are not a long term solution, but to say the park don't have proper security measures is a ridiculous statement.  
 
I don't agree Thorpe Park is not a safe environment, "Behaviours" you mention can and do happen in all sorts of places, when you manage thousands of people a day your bound to have trouble at some points, Fright Nights are typically busier and therefore your probably more likely to have someone out to cause trouble. And as far as I know this is the first instance of knife crime at TP - how would a "properly secure entrance" stop someone picking a fight in the park? 
 
Holding Merlin or Thorpe accountable for the knife crime problem in the UK is abit OTT - Thorpe Park's checks were always simply Bag Checks - The park no doubt work with local police forces to plan and execute things such as security / bag searches etc.
 
To enter the park you need to have a ticket scanned at a turnstile or manually by staff, they of course know how many people are in the park at any given time, as far as i know there are no "legal limits" for Covid 19 - they simply have to ensure social distancing measures are in place which they are, park capacity is significantly reduced from normal.

Odd to hear. I was also on park yesterday and joined a long compulsory queue to get in where bags were thoroughly checked. I believe they do take security seriously and have done more than is usually needed. Only exception was no bags meant you walked down the middle, but even then there was a security member with a table set up doing random searching. Whenever I have been to Chessington or Towers the system was the same with only bags being checked. 
 
I think it always seems busier as more turn up at once in Thorpe. Chessington it seems people's arrival is more spread out and the gates usually open very early, whereas Towers have the monorail usually to space out guests arriving at entrance. 
 
Would you be searched going bowling, to the cinema or shopping? No and the same thing could happen there. 
 
I don't think it's fair to blame thorpe for this personally. 
 
 
 
 

Top ten Intamins
1. Taron - Top class ride. A rare ride where it's more than the sum of its parts.
2. Maverick - Awesome ride with so many different elements that work well in unison. The most un-American ride in Cedar Point and yet one of its best.
3. Juvelen - Always a firm favourite with me. Despite being a family ride is very very good.
4. Piraten - Djurs Sommerlands second ride in a row. Really excellent air-time and a good long layout.
5. Millennium Force - Maybe overhyped but I love the speed of this thing. The restraints really enhance how exposed you are at 300 feet. Unlike Dragster you can appreciate it.
6. Goliath - Under-rated gem. I much prefer this to its German brother as this has a much nicer setting and a faster ride crew. 
7. California Screamin' - An odd one but full of great little elements. Yet to ride it's refurbished version.
8. iSpeed - Excellent speeder at the great Miribiliandia. Really intense and snappy layout.
9. Xcelerator - The first. The launch out of the station really sets up a ride that is only better then the next one as its longer.
10. Stealth - Addictive ride. Last year I enjoyed it more than I ever have before. 
 
Bottom five 
 
5. Vertical Velocity/V2/Wicked Twister - Essentially the same ride. Pretty boring rides to be honest. Quite often in parks with other launches so they are redundant. 
4. Top Thrill Dragster. If you're lucky to ride its fine. most of the times its closed.
3. Superman Escape from Kryptonite. impressive in '96. Not so much now.
2. Green Lantern. Gone but not forgotten. DIlge.
1. Tornado at Bakken. Awful awful ride. So painful and full of vibration. Speeding through a shed is not fun.
 

They're not adjustable, but they can be on or off. 
 
On test runs with empty trains they're off to prevent stalling, with riders they're on to prevent fun overspeeding.

Nemesis made me feel alive after months and months of constant depressing news. 
 
It is unlike any other ride for me. It's the small things. I love how the top of the lift hill is at ground level which is just pure uniqueness, I love how its first drop is so gradual and then it just throws you into the tour de force of element and element, getting faster and faster until the vertical loop. I love the terrain, the way you explore every element of the ride and are up close and personal with the trains. I love how this is a B&M that they will never even attempt to build anything like again because of the difficulties with the ride and it's shifting environment. I love its unique theme, how the station is the monster itself or how its just a capacity machine with a queue that never stops moving. I love how 26 years later it is considered to be one of the very best rides B&M have ever built and one of the best rollercoasters ever made.
 
I love how it can be endlessly compared to its younger brother at Thorpe and how we have two rides with the same elements in a completely different order. I love how it only came about because of two cancelled projects and the launch of Batman: The Ride in Great America, without all these things coming together, we may have never got Nemesis and Alton Towers would be a vastly different place.
 
When I think of perfect rides, only Nemesis can ever fit the target. For me its what rides are supposed to represent and be all about, the passion, the drama, the soul of creativity.
 
Long live the queen, the Jurassic Park of 1994.