SteveJ

Definitely looks like your typical memo, especially since F&B is the name of a department and not s phrase used on resort information. Erm if it was handed to a guest I suppose that's feasible but a bit of a strange decision! Or a mistake

It is worded that way because it is an internal memo intended for F&B staff only and should not have been posted on the internet.

There's only one 'way' that this could happen really, what is under question are the circumstances that allowed this to happen. But it would be pretty stupid to publicly post on an internet forum any reason as to why it could happen, it would just make life difficult for the people currently trying to keep things sensible and under control.

What's this? Rate the SIGNATURE? If only I could read. I didn't even know I had a signature. I'll change it to an Oingo Boingo lyric instead.

Because I'm waiting for my video to render.. ^ 12/10 for the most excellent application of Microsoft Paint since I used to scribble over the screen and colour fill between the lines. Such fun. I have no idea if anyone knows who's the man in my picture.. probably best for your sanity. If you did you'd have to rate it ∞/10.

No they have years of dark ride history in their company, Merlin Studios are a restructured version of the old Tussauds Studios. In the past they have done The 5th Dimension, The Spirit of London, Toyland Tours and Hex all completely in-house. Of course the lead designers and project managers from those older rides have left to work for other companies, but many of those in charge today (or in charge until recently) were junior designers back in the day. The company have the experience and lessons from recent history to create a great dark ride, just when management changed things lost all direction, proper expertise and effort to create the best dark ride. For certain reasons (that's a different topic) anyone with attraction design experience could have predicted Sub Terra as the flop it sadly turned out to be, they just pressed ahead anyway rather misguidedly. I hope they're not doing the same with WC16 and are outsourcing more of the project to passionate teams that will do a great job. I'm not judging them by one finished ride, I have more insight than that to judge them the way I am. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, I just want things to change for the better and the more people 'gloss over' poor industry standards - things ain't going to change. I'm glad some people NOW enjoy Sub Terra as a ride experience, but all that really happened to save it post-opening were a lot of Grandma remedies that are wearing off only 3 years on.

Whilst I wouldn't say they "suck balls", from talking to contractors who regularly worked with Merlin/Tussauds on such attractions and now refuse to work for them ever again since Sub Terra.. No, to defend Merlin's dark ride efforts in the UK is just plain naive. And several of the top people behind recent attractions had been there since the earlier (good) Tussauds days so there's no good excuse for poor efforts now that they are/were in control. Let's really hope they learn to be showmen and turn things around, because if this Thorpe Park one flops, they'd probably never attempt a big dark ride again.

What? The BubbleWorks was fine, it had been technically refurbished only 5 years prior and still uses the same systems now. It had got a bit dirty but hardly what I'd call "at the brink", and hardly any money was involved in the redesign, it was cheap and quick all the way. All that was done in 2005 was tear out animatronics that could have still worked greatly had any attention bee given to them at all, thoughtlessly paint over everything and botch up the audio and lighting systems. The ride was worn in 2005 but all it needed was tuning and replenishing to get it back. The original 1990 ride was designed to last. And it was certainly still more popular in 2005 than it is now. I could go on !! Don'tcha touch me Bubbles!

Some division of Tussauds Studios did IL BubbleWorks, Tusaauds Studios became Merlin Studios so it is the same company today. But still, some things have changed since then so can it be considered Merlin's job? Yes and no Because by that logic you could then also say Merlin were responsible for The 5th Dimension and Spirit of London, so obviously management has changed enormously over time

Sub Terra was salvaged (after it opened to the public - such bad form) from what was a creative catastrophe with no direction. It's a bit of a laugh now, but it's a bit of a laugh that requires a large amount of staff to run and has been a financial, H&S and operational problem ever since. As a dark ride it was designed just terribly. The actual set work is fine and some of the effects quite cool, but there's not enough to justify the whole attraction because the studio team were not given nearly enough money. It's sadly very dysfunctional. Sub Terra just about scrapes in as a filler attraction (although it now quite unpopular with the public), imagine what their attempt at a full size dark ride like this will be. Merlin will need a lot more experience and expertise to pull off WC16, something I'm sure they're pacing themselves with by outsourcing a lot more than usual. They may have got the hang of rollercoasters, but I hope they've learnt from all their industry mistakes with UK dark rides.

What I mean is, engineers won't try their best to fix effects because its not their priority, yet they usually are always very possible and easy to fix. It's the other circumstances that mean broken effects will regularly go unresolved. But that's just the nature of a theme park really. Unless you get a dedicated team for Audio-Visuals and Effects.

This isn't quite how effects maintenance works. The engineers will have posession of the ride from very early in the morning well-before it is handed over to the Rides team. This is the only time they really have to fix any effects, they don't possess the ride any other time of day. Highly doubt they test the effects in the morning, instead the Rides team 'should' note if any are broken and the tech team will note it down for the Tech services. I'm certain all the effects in Saw are ridiculously easy to fix. Theme park effects are always designed so that they can be fixed by any mechanical engineer, and a bouncing pneumatic axe would be easy to maintain as there's almost nothing to go wrong. It's just getting access to high areas can restrict when the effects can be reached, and also Tech services generally put effects as the very last priority because the pressure is on to keep the rides safe and/or don't care about effects.

Look we don't need more Merlin preshows thank youuu

No it's a real problem, I thought I'd make it a bit more transparent so people don't think they died of neglect

Thought I'd mention Lorikeet Lagoon is closed because of water and rhodent problems at the moment.

Haha sorry it's late and I'm obviously not thinking before I type. No I wasn't trying to suggest that. It's the fact that the comment was weirdly personal and irrelevant to the atrocious situation of being hounded by tabloid media after having your leg cut off. Not trying to censor you, just of all the things to say whether she was beautiful or not hadn't even entered my head. What an awful situation all the people must be in

"Having one leg doesn't ruin her beauty!" I don't think whether she is beautiful to you or not was really on the cards when she got her leg amputated. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way but it was a daft way to phrase it like that. No, having one leg doesn't make any difference to her appearance or maybe people do consider that maybe having 1 leg could have made her less attractive? Actually that sounds more in line with how tabloids and trashnews readers consider these situations.

And cringiest comment about a crash victim goes to..

The smell comes from the stinky drain next to the queue line shop, it's really acute in that area and caused some people to vomit before (nice). Sometimes the wind wafts it towards the station, but it's definitely from the drain. Don't worry: some cardboard has been put on top of it so problem solved Apparently the drain was there long before the ride. Behind Sandwhich Co. are rubbish skips so they smell all the time anyway

Yet Jungle Bus is about half the size and half the speed of the proper Magic Carpet ride

There are loads of nice design studios like this, this is one of the smaller, younger ones but clearly have good connections with Merlin (probably because they're a million times cheaper than their own studio) and are hot on social media. Always nice props from this team

The High Ropes Course (assuming a real name is forthcoming) will be next to Explorer Car park in some trees recently bought by the park. 2016 ride will probably be part of Wild Asia, but weirdly the map suggests otherwise. No the rumoured Tomb redesign is not happening next year anyway

Was a very misguided decision to put them in the queue really. they looked worse than gullivers land theming and would have cost less than you think to actually have them animate again. The store room they used to be in is huge and not used for anything, they could have stayed in there to be recycled later (chances are the pneumatics were still workable)

No the figures in the queue were so vandalised that they were thrown out.

Dragon Falls scenery could have gone straight back up not long after it was taken down. It could also go up this year, because after a bit of umming and erring the ride is now going to be around much longer. Tomb's building is going to stay, its the inside that is causing problems and there was some overreaction about how bad the building actually was. It just needs an infrastructure refurbishment. But they've had a few years without any scenery, complaints about appearance wouldn't have reached the threshold to get noticed, and there's no "Did Dragon Falls looking like a building site spoil your day?" question on the touchscreen surveys (which is pretty much how they choose where to spend the extra money), so now they don't see much reason to rebuild the scenery. As long as guests/staff keep turning a blind eye to people paying loads and queueing hours for a clearly poor ride experience, and the satisfaction stats maintain, nothing will happen to Dragon Falls or the rest of the park that's been half demolished in the near future.