Ian-S

Hate to be 'that guy', but I hate the fact that they've decided to big themselves up over the fact they're going to be doing some TLC to the park.  Things like repainting wore-looking areas, relaying paths and improving signage shouldn't be something that is made a big song and dance about - it should just be done.  Don't get me wrong, the fact that they are (planning on) doing it is great - but just do it!
 
 
Well, it does.  It's a new experience, likely under a new name, so it's a new attraction.  It's a shame that they're not adding a completely 'new' attraction to the line up, but Air 2016 will still be a new attraction.  
 
And if the rumours are true about Air, it will be more than just a retheme anyway in fairness. 

To those who said the entrance wasn't worth doing...

^^ Thorpe still have a duty of care, you can slap as many warnings on something as you want but if you don't actively enforce it, you'll be in the crapper. Hypnosis won't be included as it won't work on a lot of people, you really can avoid being hypnotised if you're in the right frame of mind, and the whole thing is a huge health and safety nightmare.
Augmented reality, now that sounds plausible, especially with their 'future of theme parks' statement, my son has it on his DS and it's great fun, if you scaled that up and used 3d googles, then I can see where that would be a major selling point.

Still extremely impressed with the level of secrecy, and the drip feeding of what is essentially, no information at all.
 
But this does not mean that it is going to be a good attraction, maybe the reason for this approach is simply that they can't work out a tangeble way to directly market the thing.
 
Obviously we see statements lie "Game Changer" and "the best thing ever" and we think "yeah, yeah Merlin, and Thi3teen gave us all Heart Attacks.
 
I am still unfortunately banking on this being not much more than an actor led experience and some form of immersive Tunnel Attraction, I am still hoping to be pleasantly surprised and proved wrong.
 
Go into this thing with the approach, "Expect the worst, Hope for the best" That way when you experience it you will either have your expectations met, or be very pleasantly surprised, either way the only way is up.
 
Some people will nay say that opinion and say "oh you are damming this ride before you have even been on it". In fact quite the opposite, I want nothing more than for this to be a good ride.
 
I have to be realistic though, this is Merlin, they gave us a repurposed Cyprus Gardens slide and just stuck it in the middle of a theme park, They gave us the rubber duck version of Bubble Works.
 
I have no confidence in their ability to produce a decent dark ride, especially when the standard that I have personally ridden is the where the bar is set.
 
Here in the UK, the best dark ride in my opinion is undoubtedly Valhalla, and even in September, Blackpool Pleasure beach, an independently owned park I might add, try to keep as many of the effects running as is possible.
 
Hopefully Merlin have done their research, the design team have been out and studied the best dark rides created by competitors in Universal and Disney and know where to be aiming for.
 
What I am worrying about is this, The only competition in the UK for a REALLY good Dark Ride is the aforementioned Valhalla, international competition is rarely taken into any kind of consideration because Merlin have international parks.
 
Somebody else on here mentioned, if over a Thousand people are working on this thing, then that plus Derren's name is where a good chunk of the budget has gone, leaving not a lot of money for anything else, let's say each one of those people get's £20,000 for their work on the ride because it has been longer than a year.
 
Put that into perspective a minute - £20,000 times 1000 = £20million!!!
 
I am not saying this money has definitely been spent on people alone, but if a thousand people have really put a lot of work into this thing then that figure, or maybe even more is very possible.
 
That is before any ride tech, theming etc.
 
Food for Thought.

It's only a very reasonable £20 per passholder, quiet the bargain.
/sarcasm

It's only a very reasonable £20 per passholder, quiet the bargain.
/sarcasm

It's only a very reasonable £20 per passholder, quiet the bargain.
/sarcasm

I've put my bid in,
I'm a gardener and a raised bed border/BPB souvenir would be great...
and I'm old enough to remember the bridge being built!

'Most Haunted Live'

'Most Haunted Live'

'Most Haunted Live'

Cables on sale for £5 in the shop Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That's what I think it'll exactly be, a walkthrough maze, simulator tube ride to somewhere magical, then another maze/experience/interaction walk to the photo kiosk where they relieve you of £25 for a Derren Brown special edition album full of green screen photos, yeah just like shrek but without the kids.
If it is I'll probably cut up my MAP and feed it to the park manager through that slot where the sun doesn't shine, because that is not 'the future of theme parks' in any way shape or form, especially when you can see the top of the screen from your seat, that kind of spoils the illusion a tad.

Has Nick Thompson said what's happening to BPB?

That's what I think it'll exactly be, a walkthrough maze, simulator tube ride to somewhere magical, then another maze/experience/interaction walk to the photo kiosk where they relieve you of £25 for a Derren Brown special edition album full of green screen photos, yeah just like shrek but without the kids.
If it is I'll probably cut up my MAP and feed it to the park manager through that slot where the sun doesn't shine, because that is not 'the future of theme parks' in any way shape or form, especially when you can see the top of the screen from your seat, that kind of spoils the illusion a tad.

If they paid someone to design that 'new' logo then they deserve to go bankrupt through incompetence.

If they paid someone to design that 'new' logo then they deserve to go bankrupt through incompetence.

Some reasons why we should not bomb Syria (in my opinion):
 
Since when has bombing these countries ever helped us? All it will help do is radicalise innocent people and allow ISIS to recruit more people.  The Syrians don't care who's bombing them, if it's Assad, ISIS, America or US, they will try and escape. Europe is already struggling with a refugee crisis, we can't add to that. This is what IS want. They want to paint a picture of the Western Christians wanting to kill Muslims in Syria, they will portray us as evil monsters to the Syrian people. The excuse of 'oh we bomb Iraq so it's fine to bomb Syria' is pathetic, where has bombing Iraq got us?  IS people don't all go out in large groups and stand around for bombs to land on them. They live amongst innocent people, where a dropped bomb will murder everyone. US have been bombing them for over a year, has it helped at all? No, IS have only got stronger.  They will retaliate against us, reports this morning saying that the UK is now their next target. ISIS want to draw Western countries into an all out war, we are giving them what they want Maybe we should stop selling arms to the middle east (which ends up in ISIS hands in Syria) Stop and think for a second, we are dropping bombs on another country on our planet. I'm disgusted to be British after this.

Maybe. That'd still involve blowing some people up though! I imagine if we worked with Russia and Assad this'd be a much simpler exercise.
 
I don't know what is the right thing to do, but beyond the politics of the decision making, doing nothing doesn't seem to be an option.
 

They were talking about the old ENTRANCE for vampire, the one that isn't used any more.

Back in the good old days that was exactly how it worked, if a person hadn't been trained properly on a machine and they had or caused an accident, then the employer was liable, it seems a bit different nowadays though.
I find it intriguing the information that has been released, they appear to be saying a young and inexperienced ride op was able to reset the ride manually, yet from all accounts the general concenous here is a ride op cannot do that and it needs a member of the engineering team to do the reset, so who's telling the truth? Earlier in the year I was corrected over who I saw reset the Swarm at Thorpe (I thought it was the ride ops) and when I went back I saw the guy again and asked him if he was engineering and he said yes, so I know we're talking about a red top here, but stuff isn't adding up for me.

Um, they had 'New Ride - Coming 2016' on the park map...

The thing that always baffled me was how you can be 50ft+ up in the air on a log flume without a harness or any restraint. And yet you can't sit solo on X because theres an outside chance you might be a size 0 contortionist that may somehow wiggle out. 

Well Star Wars is coming out soon, Maybe it could be..
Stars Wars: Revenge Of The Mack Log Flume

So what's the story with Mack flumes? What made them go to the dark side after 20+ years of operation?