Ian-S

Technology can be a really useful learning aid, let's not forget that.  I don't think there's a need for students to have iPads in lessons though - in a lesson, you should be reading, writing and listening; all those things can be done with no technology whatsoever.
 
I was always amused by people's reactions when I told them that my lectures were delivered by 'chalk and talk'; anyone not doing my subject seemed to be mystified by the idea, seeing it as old fashioned, since all their lectures were done by slideshows and other pieces of tech.  Just seemed needless to me though.
 
Anyways, rambling thought to be summed up by this:  like with anything in life nowadays, there's a place for technology and all that, but only when it's used correctly..

Biggest load of crap I've heard this week, thanks for the chuckles.
If you had read properly what I wrote, you'd understand they recommended them so the children could submit their homework online, it had nothing to do with them saying the children need them to learn, which is utter claptrap, they're not even allowed to take the iPads into school anyway.

That is the main benefit of working from home my friend, this laptop IS my office, and my wife is my secretary, I highly recommend both.
 
I doubt they will announce much, I think it will be just a name and theme.

I wish my sons school had that policy.

Much like the jokes in this thread, we'll be go round and round and getting no where fast.

A Daily Mail article would probably question why it was only the women that lost limbs and how they'd be fine if they'd just stayed at home in the kitchen. Then, lets face it, the comments would say this is a good enough reason to shut our borders/leave the EU/ blame all immigrants.

I hope you never have aspirations to work in Marketing. 
 
What do you expect them to say? Come visit Alton Towers and ride Air, its not very different but you have VR googles now...
 
They are making a multi million pound investment, with the goggles on it will be a totally different experience and they are right to sell it as a new attraction. 

Oh exciting....
This Dora the Brown ride should be good then.....

Oh exciting....
This Dora the Brown ride should be good then.....

Oh exciting....
This Dora the Brown ride should be good then.....

Before anymore discussion, can I just say his name is Derren.
Derren.
Not Derron, or Darren, or anything else.
So famous and yet no-one knows his name

You guys would have to be deluded to think that Derron has such power in this. Merlin would not give him £30 million pounds to play with. Derron brown is the creative consultant meaning he comes up with the idea, the back story, ideas for the ride but is in no way given a large amount of input. You have to remember Merlin is a public company and I doubt many share holders would allow them to give £30 million to an illusionist/ mentalist when the idea is to be profitable and to be cost efficient.
Merlin will have a large team of people coming up with the details of the ride and Derron would have come up with the initial idea while then driving this idea to the public as an influential figure

I hope that maps a Merlin style one otherwise the tickets prices will be astronomical with only 63 parking spots.....

I hope that maps a Merlin style one otherwise the tickets prices will be astronomical with only 63 parking spots.....

Crudely speaking, marketing is designed to get people talking. And let's face it, for a video that probably took 30 minutes to shoot and edit, this isn't half bad.

Well the parks are closed, there's no racing, weather is shyte so no flying and the only thing on the box is EastEnders or football, both of which cause me to have an insane urge to stab myself in the eye with a rusty screwdriver, so what else are we supposed to do?
That is the section I was talking about Aaron, to me it looks like someone walks up to the window and leans against the glass as if they are trying to hear something, sorry but the fringe observer ripoff guy in the middle of the room is just a lame gimmick, if you're going to release a video marketing thing for this kind of attraction, stuff should be hidden better, instead of just some random cuts showing a guy standing in the middle of the room.

Is it just me or is it like chessington are competing with Alton Towers to have the most amount of closed rides next season?

Merlin run by left wing BBC confirmed...

The VR should have been put on Thirteen, would have been much better to simulate you falling down a lift shaft or something instead of flying through the solar system.

The VR should have been put on Thirteen, would have been much better to simulate you falling down a lift shaft or something instead of flying through the solar system.

Yeah there's quiet a few non-shrek characters in the last 'photo' room.

Be careful if renewing, if you goto your home place and try to renew directly, you'll pay the higher price (or on Cheesy you did anyway).
If you go via the Merlinannualpass.co.UK site, when you get redirected to your home attraction, it'll quote you the correct, cheaper price, it seems that at least on the chessington site, they hadn't updated the renewal sale pricing yet and it was still listed at the pre-sale price (it was only £10 a pass but you can buy a lot of penny sweets for a tenner).
The standard at £89 is for renewals of 3 or more standard passes (family pack), the same setup for a new pass holder is £99 per pass (3 or more).
The sale is on to mid-feb, so no hurry.
It's £10 cheaper if you're renewing.The Tower Circus thing is to probably try and add value to the Premium Pass, or it's to stop people exploiting some loophole like only needing one Premium Pass to take advantage of extra discounts for everybody, like the free parking at the parks. They better tell the people working at the Tower though, since when we went there in August I had to explain to them what a Premium Pass was (maybe it was just a Summer job person, but you'd think they'd explain things before throwing them on the ticket desk).

Merlin had a chance to try and make a bad situation better. They could have got their media department making people feel safe and getting rid of the false reports. Instead they kept their head down and were torn to pieces as there were no other stories at the time.
Now their solution to fix things is to start closing rides, delaying/cancelling future rides and making the park less value for money. You don't solve this sort of thing by trying to claw back money. You solve this by spending your way out. You convince people to come back for a solid reason. VR headset is not a people puller.
I hope the media team pull it together and actually sell their product well for once. I doubt that is going to happen.

It's a crazy way to run a theme-park based business and Merlin don't really deserve to do well when they have the corporate greed to run their theme parks in such a way.
I have said it before and I have said it again, they would be better off having a really good year next year at the expense of making slightly less profit to re-gain the park it's good reputation and hopefully get to the stage where by 2017, it is thriving again.
 
Closing rides down, sacking almost 200 staff members and making other budget cuts is not going to do this - and advertising general TLC is just laughable.

The removal of flats is not good as with the layout of Alton Towers, each "area" can become very busy at times and they need as many support rides as possible - now with Ripsaw removed from Forbidden Valley I can imagine that queues for the remaining attractions will get worse, especially if Sub Terra stays closed as well.
 
I can understand Ripsaw leaving the park but it should be replaced with another flat rather than just leaving the ground empty (like Submission).