Vince800

Yes that was a few years ago. The same engineering company which does a lot of stuff for Chessington. As I've said in another thread, it seems that the extensive work done to Dragon Falls, this & all the evac stuff is probably needed on Loggers too which is why they've probably closed it until they can decide what to do with it.

Yeah I'm sure it has always been a closed system to. Surprising to read from Benin that the one at Flamingo Park is dirty. I thought that all new water rides after the mid 90s had to have filtered water.

From the same engineering company which did the Bubbleworks lift hill work the other year. https://www.garmendale.co.uk/blog/vampire-ride-evacuation-platform-installation/ Looks like Vampire has had a new evacuation platform installed.

Not my work, it's actually my brother's. I haven't got the patience to mess around with recreations on Planet Coaster. Anyhow, Youtube links if anyone is interested:

It would be interesting to go over there just to look at the Skyline of the park these days from that position.

Yeah I found it can be a bit annoying if you're trying to buy an on ride photo with other people trying to get past to exit. Speaking of on ride photos, before last year, I hadn't been to Thorpe Park since 2001 you could buy them on Depth Charge. How long has this been unavailable?

Yes it's good that Rumba Rapids is finally getting some attention. Last year it was a bit of a joke (though still remains one of my favourites). In its current state they may well have just called it Rapids Ride 1 because there wasn't much going on at all throughout the ride.

Yeah I actually quite like Storm Surge,

I don't think there's a problem with it running into any lakes. Dragon Falls isn't anywhere near things like that.

Yeah you're probably correct. I just always like to think there could be a proper reason rather than cost cutting and reducing the experience, whilst expecting customers to accept it & have the exact same experience.

I've never been on the Vampire since the change of trains. I know that there were complaints about them being really rough after the changeover, I know we're talking around 16 years ago now but have they improved on this? I usually just don't bother queuing for the Vampire as the queues are always significantly longer than the other rides whenever I go to Chessington.

Yeah I was thinking that it used to be dyed but wasn't entirely sure, I guess I never took much notice of it at the time. When I watched the older videos on Youtube I still wasn't convinced if it was dyed or if it was just the quality of the videos, but at least it's confirmed for me now :). I wonder why they stopped doing that. At least Dragon Falls & Pirate Falls at Legoland use nice clean water rather than awful lake water.

I think it was either Depth Charge or at the time the shiny new Tidal Wave.

Wow yeah that's just....How on earth did they manage that! There's 30 years of management decisions summed up in that elephant.

Excellent video. It's really interesting to see it before the theming was completed. That elephant is amazing, I don't recall it IRL when was it removed? I'm assuming that the rubbish one which never works any more right outside the station is not the remnants of it, is it? Did the water used to be coloured at the very start? Unless it's a side effect of the tube cameras from the 80s but all early videos the water seems to have a dark green colour to it. Also there are stains on the trough from this, I'm pretty sure that Dragon Falls has always ran on a closed clean water system. Dragon Falls remains my favourite ride of all time, even though it's pretty much just a bare log flume now. I've been on Dragon Falls more than any other ride in total anywhere. At least the ride it's self is still good even though the theming elements around it are long removed.

Thanks for that remastered video. Probably would have been redone in Tomb Blaster style by now.

Yeah you & Herman (I'm guessing your username is referring to the Fifth Dimension Incident) are correct, it's easy to get over excited with these things though.

That's really interesting, it could just be a coincidence or they were looking at old artwork for inspiration. I would say that's it's unlikely to be based off of it but with the opening at the back and the meanders it's extraordinarily similar.

They modernised it within the company ethos at the time which would have been "save money" it seems.

Rumba Rapids unbelievably so. I had left it around 15 years before going to Thorpe Park last year and so much had changed in that time! Things like Rumba Rapids were like some sort of a "norm" for me at the park.

25-30 minutes if the M25 is being nice.

I'm quite looking forward to trying the Gruffalo. It is a real shame that Bubbleworks closed but to be honest as far I'm concerned, the real Bubbleworks closed 10 years ago and the current version was nothing but a nostalgia trip for us each time we went on it. In fact the condition that it closed in was much better than when it first opened as Imperial Leather in my opinion, they really messed up the music big time which as far as the thing was concerned the music and the fountain finale were really the only reasons worth riding it after the sponsorship. I can understand why people are doubtful of this purely based on Merlin's past track record on this kind of thing especially as far as Chessington is concerned because the method at that park in particular is to just take away rather than add to any experience. Just taking a similar ride changing to an IP, Charlie at Alton Towers was quite empty and baron after Toyland Tours (Though not Merlin at the time) so hopefully the Gruffalo will be more impressive. The Imperial Leather sponsorship must have been the cheapest re-theme in Theme Park history though, it was hilarious literally just rehashing Professor Burps, disconnecting animatronics and adding a few ducks in the process. Though I've read on here and other sources that the sponsorship was to sort out structural issues within the ride & the building rather than to go for a full on experience.

It's interesting that Dragon Falls had some extensive work done it very recently. There are new evacuation platforms throughout and new evacuation stairs, not to mention the other work done to the ride recently. Both Loggers and The Flume have not had this work carried out which I'm assuming is essential or else they wouldn't have done it on Dragon Falls. Now with The Flume, its demolition was probably planned for years ago so we can ignore that. But Loggers might have come to the state where it needs these works completed, there were even problems with the anti roll-back ratchets in the lifts before it closed. We know that the pumps were unserviceable on loggers as others were drafted in for the remainder of the 2015 season. It could be possible that the pumps from The Flume may be in a better state (Could have been refurbished when Imperial Leather took on the sponsorship) but even so, those would have been sat idle for 2 years if they were to be used on Loggers. On previous experience with the way Merlin seem to handle these projects, if they do ever allocate a budget to reopen Loggers, it'll probably be as it is with the repairs or safety upgrades done but with nothing much else, in fact more theming could potentially be removed for similar reasons to Dragon. It's likely that they're evaluating whether to repair or replace the right now.

Hi All, I'm an on/off theme park enthusiast, I'm more into the technical side of things than anything. I've been reading this forum for a long while and have finally decided to sign up :). Some brilliant discussions here and some really useful information.

As much as that seems like a good idea, they have yet to replace the rock work on Dragon Falls at Chessington which is supposed to have it in the first place and hasn't had it's complete themeing in over a decade.