Matt 236

I have definitely been hearing rumours of a ‘third’ hotel being built (either in the Rookburgh or Klugheim areas), so this is surprising but no unexpected. The idea of a Steam Punk Hotel is just fantastic and will fit with the park and area perfectly. I also wonder where they are going? What if the ‘Wuze Wall’ at the back will not only act as a sound barrier, but the hotel area too? Could Fantissima still see a new home here? It’s difficult to say what’s happening and going to happen, but current rumours suggest the following: New Park entrance planned in the future Fantassima to be relocated to the hotels or new ‘purpose built’ theatre Silverado Theatre to be demolished and rebuilt China Area to be rethemed into an Asia area Geister Riksha is the next attraction to be removed, the park has hinted in the past of a new dark ride coming Loopings also have an article about this development, however some of the wording implies, the project could not be open now until 2020. Can’t rush perfect if that is so.

Just got back from the Efteling/Netherlands and definitely struggled to leave (quite literally because our flights back got cancelled and had to be rescheduled). Key points from the park: Park was decorated with lots of little Christmas decorations, from a Vogel Rock Santa hat to several trees and ornaments in the main path Warm fires and numerous entertainers were scattered throughout the park, including a choir and Live musicians A large tent (with bar and ice rink) and a small Ferris wheel comprised of additional attractions, Park was lively on the weekends but literally dead in the week, with queues rarely excieeding 20 minutes (even on Symbolica) Bob Saw some of the longer queues in the park (probably because it’s getting demolished and has a low throughput) Villa Volta featured an ‘impressive’ projection mapping show on it’s facade at night (although riders had to use an alternative exit) Vogel Rock’s audio was ‘experiencing’ some major difficulties, on one train the music didn’t ‘synchronise’ properly whilst on another the music wasn’t working at all Dutchman and Pirana remained closed during the trip due to maintenance Apart from Baron, you have to take your bags on all the rides now Python is now incredibly smooth since it’s retracking It also snowed on our third (and what should’ve been our final) day, making it the ‘true’ Winter Efteling Park looked beautiful as always at night. The park’s dark rides as always were simply beautiful (Carnaval maybe less-so). From the magnificent set pieces of Droomvlucht, atmosphere of Fata, Villa’s effects and the ‘sheer perfection’ of Symbolica. A similar ride system at Phantasialand would make a perfect replacement for Geister Riksha (assuming it’s getting ripped out next year). The Coasters in general are fun and highly enjoyable all around. Baron compensates it’s small drop and layout which immense details and story telling (which makes it one of the better coaster out there), Joris is great and throws a trick or two. Bob for me is probably the weakest coaster, but is still fun and will be missed.

Dubai at the moment doesn’t massively interest me compared to other places, but I’m sure that will change in the future. The strict rules out there affecting Brits does also put me off a little. The Orlando park’s for me hold their positions largely down to their significant presence alone, and the fact they are worldwide park ‘icons’. Magic Kingdom is the busiest and (arguably) most famous park on the planet Epcot has world showcase and ‘seems’ to be more unique than the rest Animal Kingdom just looks gorgeous Hollywood Studios has the original Tower, RNRC and soon Star Wars Universal Studios- Harry Potter, that is all (amongst the other cool dark rides and Marvel Island) Busch- features some interesting looking coasters including three B&Ms Sea World has B&Ms The rest is probably adequate too. Ticking these off the bucket list will be a bigger sigh of relief to when Phantasialand bulldozes Temple Of The Nighthawk.

Top 10 parks I ‘havent’ visited A.K.A. My Park Bucket List: Uk & Europe 1/ Tivoli Gardens 2/ Parc Asterix 3/ Gardaland 4/ Tover Land 5/ Heide Park 6/ Grona Lund 7/ Walibi Holland 8/ Energylandia 9/ Legendia 10/ Lightwater Valley Worldwide: 1/ Universal Studios Resort Orlando 2/ Magic Kingdom 3/ Epcot 4/ Animal Kingdom 5/ Busch Gardens 6/ Sea World Orlando 7/ Hollywood Studios 8/ Tokyo Disney Resort 9/ Disneyland Cali 10/ Kings Island Slowly ticking them off (maybe).

It’s pretty clear this is all fake news then! Now if you can excuse me, I have a contest to enter.

Matt Creek’s Drag Race?

Hope you all had a wonderful time. Sorry I couldn’t join, but hopefully will return next year!

Might Be worth ‘finally’ getting to Helsinki now for this Taronesque style coaster. This park isnt too too far away from the City either, as I’m aware.

Coaster Studios (Tyler), a well known American Youtuber/enthusiast recently uploaded a video timing and comparing operations of Thorpe Park’s main coasters. See the video below. Anyone want to guess which rides have the best/worst operations?

Let’s not forget: 1/ VR 2/ Pre-show 3/ cattlepens 4/ shipping containers 5/ ‘another variation of the Island theme’ 6/ Another disaster/abandoned/horror theme/story Boom! I will see myself out

Canada Creek (now Old Town) used to be such a lively and atmospheric area of the park, but now its little more than a lifeless, bland and pointless dead zone in the park (with the exception of Fright Nights). Loggers Leap rotting away behind a concealed fence, fed fake/incorrect rumours of it returning CCR- station and building abandoned and rotting away (notice the real theme) Former Noodle Restaurant left derelict and abandoned Quick service kiosks left mothballed for most/all of the year Two kiddie rides cheaply ’slapped down’ in poor locations with garish/clashing colour schemes Slammer remaining SBNO/mothballed nearby So much needs to be done in this area to bring it back to life and the way the park have lied about Loggers reopening, when it clearly won’t is hugely disappointing.

Definitely no point in visiting when the park can clearly only invest in some popular family dark ride, some spinning aeroplanes and a coaster that manages to launch itself then! I’ll just visit Brighton Pier then! On the other hand, the pass thing is definitely not ideal when they said about a reduced rate and then do an even more reduced one.

Hahaha! Talking about Splashing Back. Might be worth renaming this topic Benin’s thread. Theres a better chance of Thorpe reopening Slammer than Loggers to be frank. In all serious, everything in the new area sounds perfectly adequate, if we can ignore that little torture device that’s ‘supposedly’ reopening.

Interesting that they bought this all back again considering the sudden cancellation of the scheme previously. Will this go similar ways in the future? We shall have to see.

I’m just saying hi, as the rewards go.

I believe it is around the 18K guest limit as far as capacity goes, but yes this can definitely be affected on different issues. I believe for each coaster/major ride thats closed for a lengthy time/the day, 1k is knocked off the maximum capacity.

Next Coaster: Hopefully 2020, not 2022 (or later). Thorpe desperately needs a new major attraction to (try and) bring visitor numbers back up amongst a complete review of everything else, such as customer service, landscaping and appearance, direction and image. Sure they had the Ghost Train a couple years ago, however this has not benefitted the park due to it’s poor reliability and not being overall successful. What I would like their next coaster to be: 1/ RMC Hybrid- Would perfectly fit within the park. However given the minor issues they’ve had, I doubt Merlin will take the risk. 2/ GCI woodie- a bigger Wickerman style ride would be great. But with Wickerman still being fresh for a few years, it may be unsurprising they hold off a woodie at Thorpe for a while (or forever sadly). 3/ B&M Hyper- The one thing Thorpe lacks is airtime. Something like this would resolve that. What they may realistically add: 1/ ‘Taron style’ intamin multi-launch 2/ B&M Dive Coaster 3/ A hyper (not from B&M)

Amity  Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (4) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (8) The Swarm (10) The Walking Dead - The Ride (2) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (4) Zodiac (1) Storm Surge+ Zodiac -

Signed,sealed and delivered. I’ve voted that is. Who knows what’ll actually happen if I won sexiest female!

Well it’s clearly time I woke up from that rock I’ve been sleeping under! Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (7) The Swarm (6) The Walking Dead - The Ride (4) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (3) Zodiac (4) Wet Wet Wet - Storm Surge+

Well it’s clearly time I woke up from that rock I’ve been sleeping under! Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (7) The Swarm (6) The Walking Dead - The Ride (4) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (3) Zodiac (4) Wet Wet Wet - Storm Surge+

So, I went to Winter Wonderland this year with Tomb (and a few other non enthusiast friends). Here’s my thoughts so far: Event seems just as (if not more) crowded than it has done in the previous years- it took 40 minutes to get into the event There seemed to be fewer Roller Coasters this year compared to previous ones The entrance layout just seemed very manic this year as entering the event is more tedious than Thorpe’s security checks The new flat rides looked impressive and fun, but still a shame of no Breakdance The contactless payment system is so handy (especially in such a crowded environment) Some of the lights/effects didn’t seem to working- not sure if a temporary or permanent issue. Still a shame Alpen Hotel was as fun and great as previous years, it’s probably the second best fun house type attraction I’ve done after the one at Phantasialand. £6 probably makes it one of the more reasonable priced attractions Dr Archibald was very unique and better than expected (except the difficulties with the sound I experienced). The pre and post show elements alone enhanced it, £9 is a bit much though Still a fun event and worth visiting in the time of Christmas cheer and closed season, just very busy and expensive. I do think the layout needs looking at agsin for better Crowe control now. Maybe even one way path ways if practical now.

It’s almost crazy just how bad the relationship with the park and locals actually is in reality. They tried a number of years ago for a major hotel expansion with water park and large theatre/venue, however that was declined is unlikely to be approved again unfortunately. Even Wakobato is complained about for being too noisy and closed on Sundays as a result. Speaking on Fly’s progress, it is very difficult to say when they will actually complete this. I expect if everything goes to plan they will aim for a Summer opening. The sheer scale and size of this project is astounding!

Just another of many reasons to make me visit Finland in the coming years. Great to see another Taron type coaster in Europe open up.

So the Breakdance isn’t returning this year? That’s Christmas ruined now!