Mark9

Does Health and safety go mad? Or is it the park knee jerking to some report it may have got somewhere along the line. A caution uneven step sign would have been more then adequate but for the park to just cordone it off with an ugly metal fence.. hmmm.

The bars did the wobble when it was at Chessington. It's nothing to worry about though, no ones plunged to their deaths yet.

I'd only get mildly irritated at Chessington, Sochi gives me the opportunity to ride Blue Fires yellow brother AND be arrested. And to make this on topic... Yay, go Liseberg. I can see my hotel I'm staying in.. just praying we have a room overlooking Helix. That would be so so so sweet.

*Cancels trip, goes to Sochi instead.

hehe, 69.

I'll try and be as polite as possible Holly. Suffice to say I don't have to go and run a business before I have a viewpoint on how Merlin operates. I won't even need to compare with Disney to prove my point either. Oh, so you mean the process of letting a rides theming getting so beyond repair that the only option is to tear it all down, replace it with the bare minimum and then stick small cactuses around it. If that's how a business works, I'm surprised my Waitrose hasn't just torn all the light fittings down, hired convicts and let them do the work. Who needs to look presentable when a cactus and a bog standard, brown repaint will do. Oh okay. Well considering the majority of us want Chessington to be a successful theme park with rides that fit their surroundings, rides that are looked after and maintained to a high quality as well as worthwhile additions maybe we are expecting too much. I'll tell you what though, if a multi million pound company like Merlin cannot afford to give Runaway Train a decent look then maybe we really are in trouble. I suppose we'll have to make do with several new Legolands in Asia to compensate. Yeah.. that sounds great. It's a brown Flying Fish with a scorpion that shoots water at you. It's not that hard to imagine what that experience will be like. Yeah, most of that is because the small businesses are not able to compete with the larger businesses that are dominating the market. Large businesses like Morrisons are down on profit because they are not adapting fast enough to an increasingly changing online market. Places like Woolworths closed down because of the size of the business being too big for the lack of profit the stores were bringing in. Go and run Paultons or Drayton and come back and tell me why they have been able to remain successful despite a biting recession and the hand of Merlin dominating the theme park market in the UK.

For the purposes of this post I'm not defending Merlin in anyway. As is said time and time again, Merlin only see themselves competing with Disney in terms of size. Merlin would never even consider spending 80 million pounds on a Vekoma family roller coaster for example, Expedition Everest would be far too ambitious for a company like Merlin that likes to spend money very carefully on safe attractions. No, it's nothing to do with Disney this. It's everything to do with Merlin and its lack of interest in its own parks. Back in 1986 when Runaway Train was first constructed, it was probably built on far less of a budget and in far less time then Merlin have had with this Scorpion attraction. In my eyes they have truly squandered an opportunity to give new life to Runaway. Where's the proper refurbishment such as a new train with individual lap bars like Flying Fish had? Where's the actual theming? That water effect and fire effect will last a week knowing Merlin's track record. So then what. I want to be enthusiastic about it I really do. Runaway was my first real ride so I have very nostalgic views on it. And I want it to be excellent. But Chessington don't seem to want to take that extra step, to even attempt to compete with European parks or even places like Paultons or Drayton.

That should be Chessingtons tagline, it's certainly the way the park seems to operate currently.

I think it is just part of the bigger problem at Chessington. It's been closed for four months, it should technically be in a nice clean state for the season ahead. But it isn't. Brushing it off (no pun intended) because there are much bigger fish to fry is exactly the reason why the park is in such a rubbish way.

I can't think of the last time Merlin built something that wasn't based around a ride and was just a nice thing for the park to have. The fountains at Blackpool come under a lot of attack but they are scenically nice. Merlin don't do that. In fact, aside from Oblivion, I don't think there's a single ride that has properly come under refurbishment with Merlin. I'm not even bothering to include Scorpion Express here as it seems unless the ride has condemned theming, the rides are just left to their own devices. Blackpool has problems but the work it has done on Revolution, Big Dipper and Valhalla is miles beyond Merlins work.

I like the first drop on that, very sweet, particularly for a floor less type. Nice healthy B&M roar too Never ever gonna happen at Thorpe, Alton or any other UK park unfortunately, it's just not gimmicky enough for our shores.

Needs more Merlin put downs. 5/10

Merlin.

So I've been reading this little number on Towers Street http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2014/animals-to-leave-alton-towers/ and I now know what my problem with CBeebies land is. It's utterly charmless. The thing with Old McDonalds Farm and Storybook Land was its unassuming nature, how it was a nice quiet area, specifically designed for young 'uns to see animals and engage in attractions which were full of character like Riverbank Eye Spy or Squirrel Nutty. When you look at the over head pictures from the TOWERS TIMES CHOPPER OF DOOM, it reminds me of the Rumba Rapids retheme in 2002, bright, colourful and utterly garish and tacky. It's not even about my lack of interest because it's not aimed at me, I thought Riverbank was a great little ride, the Farmhouse with all the animals singing together was typical of the park during the 90's and I really thought Squirrel Nutty was a top notch ride. I really fear that the IP is going to run riot like a wrecking ball in what was a great little area.

What like Bakken and a review of Furius Baco?

Yeah because Mack's are rubbish aren't they..

My problem is it is all rumours. I'd believe the Scorpion thing if it was in the promotional image, Merlin in the past have always been keen to spoiler the hell out of their newer attractions so I'm not filled with confidence that a giant scorpion is to appear. That's the past two months explained, how about the last 16 months before that. In 16 months you could build a brand new wing rider or rebuild an entire Big Thunder Mountain. Surely a tiny Mack powered coaster is child's play.

See again, we're talking about a ride, closed for 18 months, due to open in 5 weeks. Why isn't it further ahead. Why is it a quick five week rush instead of a proper, full refurbishment. Things like the train only just being repainted or a little cactus standing solely in a concrete field. Are Merlin just taking the piss? I'm sure Chessingtons managers have the passion but it comes to little if the best they can do on budget is a fall arsed refurbishment.

It's clear that Baco is a marmite ride based on oh so many forum debates. I personally would rather be buried alive or encased in concrete, Han Solo style, then ever touch, let alone ride Baco again.

No. The only surprise willbe how terrible it will look when it opens. Even the worn out, tired looking rockwork that used to encase the ride is better then what we will end up. They had an opportunity to make an old ride look fantastic again. They've chosen the easy option so they can shove it. The more they trample over rides like Vampire, Runaway and Falls, the more laughable the park looks against parks that take pride in their attractions like Paultons and (god help me) Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I know my words will fall to nothing and me not visiting means diddly squat. But that being said, I'd rather drive around the M25 for a day,. At least that gets investment...

We have a cactus. The thing is closed for eighteen months and we get a bloody cactus. That's the extent of Chessingtons work so far. Just astounds me. And yes I am being unfair.

Residents of Chertsey have been urged to meet at the Cannery where a pulley system has been quickly cobbled together which will get residents up and over the sandbags. It is hoped they can get everyone out before the next flood hits. oh no, it's to late!!

We're spending four days out there, two days for Liseberg (I'm betting Helix is worth the two days at the park) and the other two days are for cultural stuff. I doubt you'd need more then four days in Gothenburg itself.

Surely the shorter trains don't effect Krake and Dæmonen that much anyway, they are both so short as it is. Heides wing rider may have problems but never mind ey.

First Coaster - Runaway Mine Train at Chessie in 1992 First inverting coaster - Corkscrew in 2000. First ride that scared the bejeebus out of me but conquered - Samurai at Chessie in 2000.