Mark9

Yeah pretty much. These are the years where you work out if you actually like the parks or if you just got into them because of a particular ride that hooked you in. Merlin are in a bit of a rut at the moment to be honest, the UK theme park market hasn't recovered like Europe has and I think they are vary cautious on any investment, only Chessington has anything in the pipeline and they are investing in the safest things possible. We do have Blackpool and Paultons but yeah.. troubling times.

Genuinely frustrating. it was supposed to be open as well and then two weeks before the trip they announced it was closed for the middle two weeks in May.

I visited this park three weeks ago and I had some thoughts. You can tell this was a Disney park on a budget and was obviously planned in the days where Disneyland Paris was seen as a failure and budgets were tight. When it opened, its major rides were Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise and at a push, The many adventure of Winnie the Pooh. Investment has come with an outer ring basically built on the left side of the park with it starting at Grizzly Bear Mountain Railroad, into Mystic Point, Toy Story Land and finally Frozen Land. The right side of the park hasn't been left behind though with the removal of Autopia in favour of the Ironman Experience, Buzz lightyear re-themed to Ant-man and a rumoured Tower of Terror ride themed to Spiderman. I will say this, it is most definitely a one day park, maybe even a half day. The queues here are minimal (which is refreshing for a Disney park) and a lot of the rides are basically filler (again, quite refreshing). The longest waits are for the Duffy and Friends characters near the park entrances. If you aren't interested in queuing an hour to meet Lina-Bell, you have a problem. Grizzly Bear Mountain is the parks Big Thunder Mountain equivalent and It's a really good family coaster, it lacks the jank of thunder Mountain and its backwards section is pretty weak but the rest of the ride is great. The bears are used for comedy, one rubbing its bum on a points changer, another two setting of the dynamite in the mountains. The launch is pretty powerful and there's great forces on the turns through the valleys of the mountain. Mystic Manor was closed. This absolutely sucked. Toy Story land is exactly the same as Paris's, just slightly bigger. Jungle Cruise is excellent. When we went you could wait for either mandarin or english skippers. Because the English was done in slightly broken English, it made it an absolutely hilarious time. The skippers were so fun and over the top. The finale is sublime and puts this as the best Jungle Cruise in the Disney parks. Frozen Land was fine. It still pains me that this Frozen Ever After is the big new hope for Disneyland Paris when at its heart, it's a very mid fantasyland reject and isn't really good enough. The Disney Sea equivalent is far superior. Onkens sleds is fine if a bit basic. Its best bit is the lift hilll animatronic. The rest of it is junior rollercoaster fluff. Small World is the best of the five and was in good condition. All figures and effects are working. Hyperspace Mountain is the same as the Disneyland version and is pretty fun if unremarkable. Its permanently hyperspace mountain so does need a proper refurbishment. Antman and the Wasp is dull. All the sets are just grey and brown as you are shrunk down to destroy micro-chips. This leaves you with a very bland experience. Iron Man experience is pretty good, a more modern version of Star Tours. I personally.. prefer star Tours as it feels more mechanical and less fluid. However there's no denying it is a fun and unique experience. When we went there was no parades or special entertainment as the trip was during the parks off-season. The only offering was the fireworks display at the end of the night, called Momentous which was fantastic and a beautiful display. I was pretty emotional towards the end.

I don't think there's a reason to panic at this point. Both Rita and Stealth being long term closed at the same time is a pretty wild coincidence. But the thing for me is that over the last three years both Formula Rossa and Xcelerator spent months and months closed only to return and still operate so Stealth could easily just reopen this month with no fanfare. I think this is just a problem with the accelerator model which is why we're actually down to 9 operating models now (Skycar has been SBNO since last August). I do agree with Inferno, enjoy our rides on Stealth whilst we can.

Do they want to explain how similar sky rides run in hotter (and colder) temperatures then. Sounds like one of those 'Merlin enforced rules' which makes absolutely no sense and severely prohibits the ride from providing its basic function.

Glad we've just changed the name of the Hyperia tracker to Stealth.

Kingda Ka cursed it. I'm telling you all. As a baby Kingda Ka, it has been cursed.

She's been possessed by Kingda Ka.

Kumba is now officially SBNO and last operated in November. As influential as this ride was, it does feel like its time may be up. There's been no information from the park yet which is slightly unusual.

It's a curious thing with Colossus actually. Unlike Vampire and Nemesis which I couldn't imagine their respective parks being without, Colossus is majorly overshadowed by pretty much every rollercoaster they've built since. I actually quite like it but there's no denying that guests aren't the biggest fans of it. It could be easily replaced by a more modern, multi looper and not be as rough. With that being said, I find it rather harmless and does its thing rather well. The first half in particular is so well paced and I personally find it really enjoyable.

Astoundingly, we have a project that the locals are heavily for. Don't bother reading social media comments though, complaints about muslims, poor pensioners and cost of living is all the blue ticks have.

Genuinely the most exciting announcement European announcement in my lifetime. There's a long way to go of course but the prospect of this park is so exciting. I can see myself heading up there after work just to hang out in their version of city walk

It's restarted its silent protest at the removal of Kingda Ka.

I was lucky to experience a valley on Mandrill on Sunday, we just came to a stop at the boost launch area before the helix. I found it quite exciting as we would have to experience the rides swing launch to get it going again. I really enjoyed it as well. Mandrills launches are quite punchy as it is so going back and forth through the section was pretty satisfying. I am actually quite a big fan of Mandrill tbh, I've heard all the arguments about it being the wrong fit and whatever, however every time I go on it, it gives me a lot of joy and the queues for it never seem crazily unreasonable.The team always seem really on it when it comes to batching, loading and dispatching. It also has the B&M quirk of being incredibly reliable, 3.8% downtime for the last 7 days, and beaten only by Nemesis Reborn.

Will we be tracking Hyperias opening time everyday this season or is this just a March/April thing?

Oh my god it's so obvious, I completely missed what linked those two compared to Hyperia. Dumb Mark. (I'll consul myself that Voltron valleyed in an area with no recovery launch and leave it at that).

It is quite astounding that the idea of Hyperia stalling wasn't factored into the design. Voltron and Mandrill Mayhem take account for this possibility. So either they wanted to take the risk, it was cheaper to not add LSM's to recover the train or it was never considered that it could...

Its what Kingda Ka would have wanted.

Said Top Spin was the only thing open in Forbidden Valley for ages yesterday morning. I think it would have been immensely popular anyway but the filler ride essentially being the only thing to do in that corner would have made things far worse. Towers need to get a grip on this and it's shocking that after four years of it, they have still not moved any further forward. There is no point building new rides, refurbishing the old ones to bring in guests if over half the major attractions are closed all the time and the day is just effectively guests desperately trying to find an open ride that will make it through their queuing time.

I'll stick with my sweaty hot dog in a flask and rancid old lidl hot dog bun thank you very much.

Cost to run and maintain is the main culprit. It required a maintenance team 24/7 and for the level of riders it got compared to the other big hitters at Great Adventure, the cost wasn't deemed worthwhile. If TTD2 had been a success this may have had a different outcome and may have been saved in some form. But we'll never know now.

I think this is definitely the problem for most parks. Unless you are a big name like Efteling, Cedar Point or Europa Park, the last five years have been especially tough. I don't find it that unexpected that Oakwood is permanently closed though. The writing has been on the wall probably since the Hydro death in 2004. It's been on a downward spiral ever since and hasn't really ever recovered. It's turned into a dive over the last decade and the only bright spot really has been the megafobia retrack. What a shame for that ride and Speed though. Hopefully something can be done to save Megafobia in particular but it's going to be a difficult one.

I checked the Chessington general discussion thread and there was no outrage. Then again... they announced the closure of Beanoland in advance and had an epic cream pie fight to say goodbye to the area. Wild Asia gone for two years with only a token announcement on their social pages and website. Sure this isn't Kingda Ka, but we're talking four rides just closed until further notice.

Minecraft is 2027. Apparently. It's why they've closed Wild Asia a season earlier than they probably needed to. Too much capacity at Chessington. Needed sorting.

I think you severely underestimate Merlins ability to make things worse.