Mitchada04

No one knows the budget of this thing. But you've got to see it as large. It's Thorpe's large investment. It is indeed instead of a roller coaster development. If it turns out to be just a 5 million immersive tunnel (which is what should be Merlin's medium year investments) then this will all be very overhyped. It's going to be big, for the park to be advertising it so soon it's got to be special in some way. They want people to know they're up to something, and they wouldn't do this much for a cheaper investment. It's been rumoured from day one this is Merlin's largest single investment in any park, all rumours but that's all we can go from. A solid dark ride is in the 30 million range which is by no means impossible. The plans state this thing will have a station, the station/load/offload is raised off the ground so there is definitely more to this than an immersive tunnel. Note the plans also state this is a first of its kind or something and they want to keep it a secret. Personally not following the immersive tunnel train, yeah something like it might be incorporated as like a scene but I feel there will be much more to it.

SeaWorld are doomed if they do, doomed if they don't in a way. If they remove the Orcas they lose the Shamu brand which is huge and look like they back down so they'll be attacked for the next thing and so on until they have no animals left in captivity. If they keep them then this just keeps spiralling. The killer whale project was a good idea but they've shelved it at Orlando until they know what effect it has at San Diego if any. The new people seem to have a good take on the problems though. One of the guys has come from the Silver Dollar City lot with his first project he's overseeing being Mako. This is the direction I think they should go, theme stuff to the sea with exhibits incorporated like Manta's aquarium and the Shark one with Mako. Shows like Pets ahoy and Clyde and Seamore are good to because using these animals for shows is common. Antarctica would have been good at achieving this to but the ride just isn't that good. But theming the parks to the ocean shouldn't be too hard a move.

Although we were at Efteling for 2 days and the evening of Baron's opening I didn't take that many photos of the park. And of Bobbejaanland I took like 5 in total, so this report will have a Bob ending. Random fact, the name works because Efteling has a ride called Bob. We arrived at the village, checked in a walked to the park for one reason. It was 7pm, park closed at 8. Let's ride Baron I guess. First impressions, it is gorgeous. It's not a ride, it's a piece of architectural art! It looks great. Was kinda expecting it to look a bit bigger though, but I was open minded to the mini dive machine Unsurprisingly it had a queue of 60 minutes (as we waited for front too which was nice, they let everyone in that queue ride in that row although trains were going out with just one row being used towards the end) It was very slow moving. They hadn't quite grasped 3 train op on it so the next two days only ran 2. But it was pretty Nearly there! The whole queue is outside with inside all being preshows. Was alright. Story and experience great, ride just missed some punch. Detail was ridiculous Bird invading my photos. That night we went into Kaatshuvel, nothing was open bar one very nice kebab shop. After we went to the Efteling Hotel because their bar was still open. The guy in there was great and it looked like a nice hotel! We were in the village though, quite a walk but nothing bad. Next morning we went on the pagoda thing. Lovely area Coaster central I really liked this. Simple yet clever Vogel Rock entrance, great little indoor coaster with effects and fab music This show with a huge animatronic! Lunch at an amazing pancake place! Also had amazing profiteroles! More dragons Very rude to keep yawning though. This is the worlds largest pirate ship. Doesn't matter though, I've done Europes largest the day before so didn't see the need. Flying Dutchman <3 was really surprised by this ride! Sploosh More Baron Wood And a bigger fountain show! So much water Baron told us we were running late the following morning, especially after Peaj left Bucky in the room and we'd checked out. It's all I took photos of really This was the village entrance. Went back after our final day for dinner Josh loves napkins. So that night we went to the last hotel place. Had a free breakfast in the morning which was a cheese, meat and bread platter. Better than nothing! Rode this not so good ride Was just dragged out after the first loop Looks a mess too And here is broken Kong who found Bucky. Wish I'd taken more photos at Bob now as it would have made such a good sarcastic report. Possibly the oddest park I've been too... Oh well, that concludes Belgerand for me. Next up I've no idea, Wales

I really like the concept, but then I really like magic, illusions and mind play etc (I wouldn't mind one bit if Derren Brown was the ride theme ) Yeah it's kinda dark but at the same time it doesn't have to, could be quite like the MoJ so sinister but light hearted and just eerily creepy. Abandoned warehouse theme could work to some supernatural things, weird goings on etc. Just linking this back to Whitechapel quickly, the TV show got very weird towards the end with lots of odd goings on like ghosts, supernatural stuff and the likes (yeah I doubt it but still). Shame it is unlikely to be an action adventure type of story though which is much more what I was hoping, but being a test subject could be quite fun. As for the ride. The Simworx thing mentions one ride in the UK to be announced next year, the immersive tunnel at LWV presumably that one is. They talk about their Merlin projects because they do a lot with Merlin, doesn't mean they'll do everything. Immersive tunnels are good but it's not a large scale investment for a park like Thorpe, plus the building doesn't actually suit the needs of a tunnel, too many overarching things, not really wide enough and so on. They could incorporate something like one in though. What I'm hoping for is a ride system that goes through scenes, maybe a 30 person Simworx vehicle, go every 90 seconds, have a small tunnel section you go into then come out of and do other stuff. Throughput of 1200, that's alright. Also remember the load is at the top of attraction building one, you'll have to go down at some point so if it's all one ride then that could be interesting, if it's a few attractions stuck together to make an experience then yay to ABC drop towers. Oh and Vengeance will be in there somewhere too because they've got to use it eventually.

Maybe if Disney had spent their billions on something other than a band they could have got a working system for perfect queue times. But yeah, let's face it if any company were to create such a sophisticated system it would be Disney. Instead they spend their money on high throughput rides and interactive queues that pass the time. That way a one hour queue doesn't feel anywhere near that long. It also helps in Disney's case that their rides will pretty much achieve the maximum throughput every hour, the Fastpass+ is limited to a certain number so that can be accounted for and disabled/priority guests never affect things that much so it is a lot easier for them to accurately predict a queue time.

RnR works on a rides capacity and how much throughput it is achieving. It will have less allocations on one train. The queue times are changed if it's on one train. They don't advertise what would be a 30 minute queue for two train Colossus as 30 minutes on one train. Yes it'll be the same point in the queue but they know on one train that point will be longer so they say it's 50 or whatever it is. The staff often have little diagrams telling them how longthe queue is from ccertain points on one or two trsins.

It's definitely great when you can feel that connection with your colleagues and managers that they'll support you. Makes it so much easier to learn and develop because you want to. Glad it's going well Paige! It's all a bit hectic at my work place. It's a leisure company who runs two leisure centres. The smaller site which is where I started is losing its sports hall side back to the school (it's dual use) so we're only going to have the gym at the smaller site. This has meant a huge restaffing shuffle because there won't be any managers at the small site, so at one point they were going to have to deal with 6 full time managers at one site, where only one is ever on shift at any one point (duty managers). You could say luckily, a few have moved on. One is going to work with the school and manage the sports hall side, one is moving away and another just left. It's just a shame that these people I've clicked with really well and love working with, will be weird not seeing them around. The remaining 3 though are the more experienced and they're all nice enough so it's not bad, just a shame. Good news though, after enough talks with my line manager and having learnt the larger site very quickly, I now am a full time recreational assistant starting 31st August. Okay, it's not an industry I want to be in, but it's good pay for the actual job so will help fund some more exciting travels next year, will give me a consistent rota so I can actually plan ahead instead of waiting on the casual one. Plus, it does include lots of training and relief managing so I will learn a lot from it! Plus the other full time is a good colleague of mine so we can easily swap shifts to help each other out.

I'm not sure, there is a ride missing from the report actually! Their rapids which are quite good! Oh and seriously, Troy is pretty impressive. Especially when it's the biggest structure in sight for a few miles. When we went in the lady started saying something and it was about Troy, at first we were worried we were going to get spited! Luckily, she was just informing us it was only open 12-5 (and we still got 5-6 rides on it). It was the smallest park in size (just had some more stand-out rides than say Bellewearde). I think we all thoroughly liked the park as it was one of our hottest days and half the park is indoors so air-conditioned. It was only an hour drive from Efteling so easily done if you're driving, no idea about public transport but it did look very in the middle of no where. I'm not sure if it's worth a huge amount of effort though to get there, for us it just split up the drive between Phantasialand and Efteling.

Tadah! It's Toverland! Ticket booths (note these were taken at the end of the day, it wasn't quite this quiet) Chairswing with no chairs. Kinda closed CRED best Boomerang of the trip It's very pretty Like a mini indoor theme park Great for kids (also the dark twisty dingy slide is sooo cool) Teacups that tried chucking out Josh's bag And out we went Nothing to see here Log flume Lovely park Inside part of flume. Nicely done rock work Was very nice Lady said it was closed Some maths happened and it opened It's really cool Out we go to a Mack Dwirliwirlwirliwind or something Station is very nice It was all very nice And they had a pulley tower thing Waterfall of refresh booster bike of wee They're actually good fun Dive show construction Nothing here Zomg Scorpio! Apparently it reaches the highest angle or something of a pirate boat in Europe. I hate pirate boats, I've done Europe's largest supposedly Must be some bad guys living in there Such a clear blue sky! Oh, no some wisky clouds. Oh well moving on Yay Vekoma! Lots of wood, don't know why And grass. Look at Europe's largest pirate boat. Look at it, scary or what. Back indoors as there's nothing else outside they have a closed one of these And a rope thing we climbed, was actually quite hard Gave some good views Close up It's a lovely looking ride We watched the fountain show More Mack goodness Beautiful Was an odd spinner though that's for sure we'll end with this lovely photo of the sky. Can't remember what we were queuing for, can't have been very good. Oh well, Toverland is a lovely little park. I kinda started to give up taking photos after this though, so Efteling and Bobbejaanland will be in one report (and Efteling mainly focusses on a mine- please relate to JoshC.'s reports when he gets round to them)

Well after the success of last year I doubt they'll reduce the offering. The Lionsgate contract is still in place for this year so MBV, Cabin, BWP and Saw have to feature. Plus MBV is just some shipping containers at the back of the staff car park, they can put them on the beach if needs be (or behind Swarm which was rumoured and even said on the website at one point last year as they were going to start working on the Arena sooner than they actually did). The tents aren't all that bad, they just got a bit fixated on trying to make the mazes look better on the outside (but then gave up on theming the actual park). They could even make a new maze and theme it so it works with a tent like a crime scene or something.

I find it bizzare how they decide the setting though. Does it alternate each day? I'd understand had it been busy, but we didn't have to wait more than one cycle and it was a really dead day on park. I'm not sure I'd have been amazed by the longer cycle (obviously don't know that) but I still want to give it a go as that's what everyone who hypes it up must be on about! Next year Jack... next year

Chessington charged 50p for a while to help encourage recycling or reusing them. Annual pass holders got free maps though which I found bizzare

The part being built at the moment is the top section of this photo So it is the smallest width of the building they're doing at the moment and no where near all of the length. It's the red bit that will be "hidden" away by shrubbery, so the lowest section of the building.

Gotta remember the bit that's gone vertical is only 1/3 of the whole building that needs to be built. It's also how cleverly you use the space, you don't need bags of room for a good dark ride. Okay we've no idea what this is, but Madhouses can be very good dark rides in small spaces and immersive tunnels don't take up too much room either. Duel's building is just massive.

Solved.

I can't see the coasters implementing them again, other than Stealth and possibly Saw none of the others are designed with it in mine. On rides like Vortex, Samurai, Rush would work and Detonator they batch you before the ride so can easily add a few singles into the waiting pen.

It's not like they can build rides in that area. If the hotels are popular enough to be full and make lots of money then expand on it. Do you actually know that investing in the hotels takes money from park developments? Because I don't think it does, I think they have different budgets, just hotels get more investment because they make more money. As for Paramount, maybe Varney was saying that because they're not going to be established from the word go so could have lots and lots of empty rooms instead of sensibly starting with a good amount then quickly expanding where popular.

What's to say they need to get the 'ride' in? If it's trackless there will be nothing that looks like a ride going in, no track or anything. They'll just build the flooring, sensors etc. Not saying it is trackless but we have no idea what this ride is, there might be very little in large hardware that needs to go in. What's to say this structure is simple? There might be more structure needed on the inside than the plans showing the exterior would make you think. Plus there's the hole and another bit of the hole to concrete, there's still a long way to go with the structure.

For a park to stand out to me it has to be really special. Not many parks do that successfully, give such a great balance of fun, imersiveness, magic etc. But Phantasialand is right up there for me with the great parks of Florida (probably my 2nd or 3rd favourite park I've been too). My only tiny complaint, there didn't seem to be a like big impact entrance. But that might just be they only have one and it's at the Berlin park entrance, not the mystery one (so many entrances and car parks). Not a bad thing to have at the entrance though (this was the only thing we saw over the trees driving to the park) Crazy rapids! It's just such a lovely park! Nothing opened at 9 that we saw so we did a bit of wandering and it's so beautiful. This is a madhouse. Yep. The Berlin street (with a brilliant funhouse in it!) Was now 9:30 so we went to our first ride, Maus Au Chocolat! And it's amazing!!!! Same system as Midway Mania and just so much fun!!! Highlight of the trip by far! Not knowing how busy it was going to be on park (8pm close and lovely weather) we did Chiapas. You don't get soaking wet, or really that wet at all but it's a sublime ride! Boat travelling the station. Hidden away in this area is Talocan. A really forceful topspin with brilliant effects, music. It was like a show to watch So much fire!!! We headed back through Berlin past this really cool looking chairswing! Simple but so effective! To find a hidden boat ride Hollywood Tour with Hitchcock. Could tell it was old but was still great with all the different sets. This is Amity. Kong Can't remember There's also a coaster up there called Temple of The Nighthawk. All enclosed, quite good but is a bit dragged out. Now was to try Winjas Now I won't spoil it but when riding it you think they're quite modern spinners with what they do. Surprisingly they open in 2002. Fury and Spinball could have been special Wooosh They had one of these. We did the one at Plopsa and got the dirtiest looks ever. Plus they're not that good so no thanks. Josh didn't want to walk under the bridge in the maze because it might get him wet. There was also an interesting splash battle. Might have been good if the effects worked but yeah. No. It was at the back of the park hidden away, I can forgive them like it almost wasn't real... It was time for the hyped up ride of okayness. It looks great with its surroundings. And you can't work out the layout one bit. But yeah. Even Jack points at it as a "oh I wanted that little bit more" Definitely not a bad ride. Not at all. Just overhyped So we had some Currywurst and watched a man through some ming vases around. Was time for Mystery With rapids The drops are ridiculous. If you're unlucky in your seating you get soaked. Again this looked amazing. Like sooo good! It's the only imposing thing on park It was just quite disappointing. Although we've now heard it has two settings and we caught the naf one. Having done the park we hit up some rerides. Jack and Peaj did Talocan again so me and Josh watched the show Bucky also enjoyed the show, shame it set his ears on fire Yes, lower Peaj and Jack into the fire We made sure we caught this. So I've now seen the show in English with no effects and German with effects. Wish I'd just seen it at Thorpe jeez I really like this ride sign! It's subtle, works with the theme and you get a great view of the ride in it! We went and watched the ice skating show which was pretty good. Was nice to be able to see shows at a park, added a lot more to the day than just rides. Their mine ride Again very good. I liked here how everything interacted with something else basically. More B&M More Jack Pretty Woosh Lovely view of China And here is the cake we saved from those mice on Maus Au Chocolat! This is the only park from the trip I really want to visit again. Was my favourite day, and the 11 hours were so easy to fill, we didn't even do that many rerides. We thought it would be our longest day, nope. Join me next time where we go to Toverland, and then dash off to Efteling to hit up Baron on its opening day

Yeah the queue times are no different to last year really. Went to Thorpe first week of August last year, longest queue was 15 for Saw. This was a lovely Friday. It's just always been the case. Towers always seems quieter on Queuetimes than it is in reality as the Park is massive, rides always on full capacity and people just more spread out across the whole Park.

Here's the poured concrete (fire exit door was already open) Lots of concrete, pit was also filled with concrete and had wooden slats/beams in This is the only bit of the site for the building that needs to be concreted now There were also these black beam support things. Each with 4 holes at the bottom so looks like they could go on the screw things sticking out of the concrete. I'd say that we'll see something vertical quite soon.

No cyclone today and slide was closed off in Inferno photo area. Got lead round the back of the building alongside the old Miss Hippos track. Was odd, was all bordered up the cyclone.

Haunting in the hollows is safe. Bits of information on the website about them all but nothing about Hocus. Maybe that's for trick or treat woods? Curse of lost tomb is an Extra Charge.

It's a B&M flyer! The Pteradactyl concept aviary may actually come to fruition!

Lots going on. Loews Sapphire Falls Resort will open on July 14th next year (So Kong will presumably be around that time) Looks nice. Kong update. Construction walls blend in quite nicely. Arch covered up. More at: http://www.orlandoparksnews.com/2015/07/reign-of-kong-update-loading-area-takes.html Hulk: Permits have been filed for interior demolition, renovation and new trailer. Rumours are it could close as soon as this September for half of the refurb, open for busy Christmas period then close again till next summer. Talks are the queue will be entirely overhauled and done properly (could we see something more like the Potter queues?) and hopefully something done to that horrid exterior cattlepen extension. For the ride itself, the track will all be replaced (but layout the same) with talks of a glowing green track which would look stunning over the lake. The launch will be changed to LIMs instead of the tyre drive which is apparently horrific to maintain with new tyres needed frequently and obviously the ridiculous amount of energy required. Reduce the cost of running Hulk and more money is available. Also rumours of upgraded trains (B&M vest harnesses to reduce head banging?) and on board audio. Either way, with permits filed, rumours of Doctor Doom leaving imminently to free up that space, Marvel Superhero Island might be about to grow. Over to Studios. Permits have been filed for a new building behind Kid Zone Currently they have a few houses at Halloween in a warehouse down there and it's the parade base I think. But this new building is bigger. Obviously, this brings around the next rumour, KidZone. It's outdated, everyone knows that, but by building a big new building behind it you could update it. Maybe Nintendo... But with a new building you could build a family dark ride around it, leave E.T alone so that's safe and redo KidZone into a Nintendo land (green pipe play zone anyone?). Disaster: Old ride, spends a lot of its time broken. Time to update. End of San Fran? Rumours are that Beetlejuice could move to Fear Factor (although that thing always misses the bullet for some bizarre reason when stuff is closed...) So that leaves Disaster which is a big site. Big site. So what's big, successful and something that's been done at Hollywood? Why Fast and Furious of course! So hello Los Angeles good bye San Francisco? Anything could be possible knowing Universal. This one isn't soon though, no permits have been filed so you're looking at longer for this project especially as it is all speculation, but would make sense. Twister: Oh this one has come up so often. But, permits have been filed for interior demolition and renovation so something is actually happening, Twister will close eventually (since it's been rumoured from early this year). So its replacement... Jimmy Fallon of course. At first it was rumoured to just be a show, not sure how that'd have worked though. Now the rumour is at least more interesting, a Soarin style ride where you're inside the mind of Fallon as he prepares for his show, or is running late or something. Talks it could even follow a style of Inside Out where you are his emotions or something and you see through his eyes as he encounters problems getting the show ready. It's a really odd thing in my eyes, but could be quite entertaining plus Fallon and the Tonight Show did a week sting at Studios before (might have even done it twice now) and he is on the tram tour at Hollywood. So many rumours and so many permits a lot could be changing at the parks. Some very soon, especially knowing how quickly Universal build, announce and open stuff. Can't forget rumoured Potter expansions for 2018/19 either, and there's still a huge amphitheatre empty at Islands.