Spider

So am I to believe that all those famous killer on the loose horror films (Friday the 13th, Halloween, Scream etc.) are not, in fact, horror films? I think a horror theme ish could work for families - if you look at the growth of Halloween as an event, and the increase in spooky themed family films (Hotel Transylvania, Paranorman, Frankenweenie, Book of the Dead ROTC.), there's definitely a potential for something with a horror element that is not unsuitable for children of age 8-10 ish up.

The only reason those rides have such capacity issues is because there's nothing else for families to do at the parks. Whilst it's nice of Disney to make the effort - it would be much nicer if they'd start improving the parks - HS could use at least twice the number of rides it has, and Epcot needs more family attractions. I assume it's a lot cheaper to duplicate an old ride system than build an entirely new ride, hence the upgrades, but I can't see anything altruistic about it.

Can I just say - this whole trip report has been amazing. Need to get back to Europa ASAP, but Germany in general is so good for parks - well dome for doing them all in one super trip! Sorry you don't get all the replies you deserve for these - but hope you know they are muchly appreciated! Where next?!

I don't think this is fair. There's a lot more to Seaworld than simply the Orca show, and it seems to be that this is the thing which mainly causes problems. I think Seaworld could easily survive without the Shamu show. It seems to me to be a massive gamble spending so much money on improving Orca tanks when really the social climate is moving so quickly towards the idea that those animals should not be in any kind of captivity - a bit like how we no longer really tolerate circus animals (well kept or not). I'm so tired of the theme park community rounding on Blackfish, as far as I'm concerned it made a lot of people look very silly, and unable to put basic human empathy before their love of theme parks. And I don't mean empathy towards whales, that's up to the individual, but empathy towards the idea that many people no longer find it acceptable. Sorry Mark9, not at all directed at you. Two arguments that need to be put to bed by sensible theme park fans: 1. Seaworld does a lot of charity work - it's nonsense to say that this and the Shamu shows are intrinsically linked - Seaworld could continue to operate without that one attraction and still make profits to give to conservation work. It's not Blackfish that has 'killed all the turtles' because of its success in turning people away from the park, but rather Seaworlds decision not to abandon orca shows - it's fine to continue, but people are free to be uncomfortable with it and not go. 2. The orcas can't be moved back into the wild - yes, obviously, but there's a big difference between this and stopping exhibiting them. Even if they said that after this generation they would no longer be exhibiting them it would be a statement of intent - so far the silence has been deafening.

Hahahahaha those photos make it look shockingly bad! Just look at that picture of the Dodgems entrance and midway game, it's hideously rubbish! The UK park industry really sucks at the moment doesn't it?

I don't think it's a flat ride alone that solves queue issues - but a good profile of them across a park can take some pressure off the roller coasters - it also puts people in a better mood if they can break up the longer queues with big rides with shorter queues for smaller ones (I think people would be miserable if every ride in the park had a 60 minute queue, so having things like Detonator for a quick ride or two breaks up queuing). Plus, I'm not sure that anyone visits most parks in the world because they're 'desperate' to go on a particular ride, it's all about the selection. Disney/Uni don't need flat rides because they can offer a selection without them, but if we took away smaller rides and only kept rides that people were desperate to go on, Thorpe would be left with about 5 rides Finally, for the sake of visual kineticism, I'm glad that parks have flat rides. It's much more interesting when you're in a theme park and there's rides moving around and lots going on. You could strip back every area to its headliner rides, but I think the park in general would suffer. Disney used to 'get' it, and included loads of transportation systems and 'nothing' rides (like Swan Boats), because they are invaluable to the image of the park. If everything is hidden away in show buildings the parks are less pleasant to walk around (Universal Studios has never been as interesting to me as somewhere like Islands of Adventure).

Heads up. Blackfish is on BBC4 tonight under the Storyville strand (I don't know why it's become part of a series when it's on BBC but oh well!). Will probably be on iPlayer all week as well. The American theme park fans are acting like absolute ****s over this whole thing - silly geeks have latched onto the fact that the documentary has some issues with bias and are using this as a way to completely divert attention from the underlying issue of whether Orcas should be held in captivity. There also seems to be loads of statements from people in the film saying they didn't know what kind of film it was going to be, which again is being used as a stick to beat the director with - again, I'm not sure how this effects the issues presented in the film. Apparently some internet warrriors were saying how they should be dumping dead turtles and manatees onto the directors doorstep because of the revenue that Seaworld has lost not being spent on their conservation. Oh Americans and their strange ways... Anyway, the key thing is, watch it if you haven't!

Since I live in Brighton I thought it was finally about time to go and fetch my missing credit on Turbo coaster. Oh my god, what a piece of crap! And an expensive one too at £4!!! Still, one of my easiest +1s ever, and if anything the first drop was quite shocking in its brutal nature. Also tried out the Air Race - fun ride. Nice feeling, fun and not too intense. Made me feel a little sick but not too bad. Would go on one again, though won't be spending £4 for it on the pier. The pier in General is looking a little tired. Time they got rid of crap like Haunted Hotel (seriously, would anyone really pay £3 to go round?) and Turbo and put in another mini coaster.

I would assume its so that they can use the money coming in from the boosted attendance from the ride opening. It lessens the risk compared to paying for everything up front. Maybe it also encourages people to come for the same ride twice? I'm not a huge fan of the idea, but if it allows parks like Hansa to build quality rides then I guess it's ok. At least they actually intend on putting theming in...

So now Chessington are now literally, as well as metaphorically, offering guests a big heap of s**t?!

Haha. Oh yeah! Forgot about that, which is weird because I've been following this poll for years! Why do they bother splitting it up? Would be interested to see how people rate top wooden coasters against top steel ones.

Where is Megaphobia on the list? Seems odd, if Speed had enough riders, that Megaphobia wouldn't. Especially as Megaphobia is generally considered to be the better ride (not ridden either myself). I think the list is a fairly depressing reflection of UK coasters in general. The Smiler is riding on a newness bubble, it won't stick around that high for long. That means that in the TWENTY years since Nemesis we're still yet to see another coaster of world class quality. Of course, this is a little unfair, since rides like Oblivion and Stealth are pretty awesome, it's just that because they're standard layouts they're obviously going to suffer in comparison to bigger US equivalents. It's such a shame that the overriding concern with UK parks seems to be USPs, rather than overall quality. We can't compete on height or size, but we absolutely could on quality of overall ride experience, and especially theming. If you look back to the early days of Chessington and Nemesis era AT, there was a time when UK parks were producing some of the most unique and impressive theming with a much smaller budget than the Disneys and Universals. We could easily return to this, with wealthy parks and free from the US mindset of 'build bigger and bigger' (I'm thinking stuff like Banshee). Won't happen though.

I would guess a big reason is that Legoland and Chessington are both in the London surrounds, with access roads and transport network to support the influx of people leaving the park. AT is in the middle of nowhere, and I'd imagine that the locals would start getting extremely pissed off if the roads through the village were still gridlocked at 8.30pm. I think AT have to negotiate very carefully when they're going to be open late and the like. That's pure speculation btw, it could be more to do with the fact that the place is a shambles!

Dr Pepper is a drink made by the Coca Cola company so there's no reason it shouldn't be included on those grounds. Why anyone would want to drink that mouthwash is another matter! What we've seen so far looks pretty awful, but in my mind the Calypso Quay area has always struggled to make those very humdrum buildings fit into the surroundings - no matter how you dress it up the style of buildings belongs to 'Central Park' and nothing else. That said, I'm really hoping to see some decent work done on the facades - 3d models and the like, otherwise this really is going to be the laziest paint job retirement ever!

When I was at uni in London the Cineworld in Trocadero was my 'local' - I used to go there all the time (got to 120 films in a year once). It was really such a depressing dump. Nothing in there except quick opening and closing snack stands (I have no idea how they thought they would make money when no one was ever in there) and rubbish tourist tat shops and stalls. One year they were doing refurbs which involves taking out that awesome big escalator through the middle, so all that was left was a rubbish shopping centre with nothing in it. Not surprised it's gone - it had an air of doom about it for years. Does anyone know what's going on with the cinema?