Mark9

Thorpe is a four hour park.

Back when I operated Runaway Train at Chessington I used to have a regular recurring dream that I was operating and couldn't get the train to park in the correct part of the station to open the restraints. So the train just went round and round relentlessly for hours. Even to this day, I have this dream once or twice a month. A pretty good dream I had once was that Southends Adventure Island got a B&M Floorless but it fell apart and into the sea. Most of my dreams these days tend to revolve around getting on Disney Cruise ships.

It's odd to think how many colours are out there and yet every UK coaster has to be grey, white or black. Thank the lord for Paultons Park.

I love being wrong.

Flug must be the most marmite wing-rider in Europe. I personally loved it and really liked the different order of the elements and how it uses the hill around it to gain momentum and create a different kind of pacing. Krake is okay, bit bare bones but its success clearly prompted the dive machine rise in popularity with its smaller trains and snappier inversion style. I generally had positive feelings on Heide. it's a good day out if not outstanding.

I'm not against a thrill park, the issue is that the park itself has to near constantly refresh itself and that takes a lot of money and resource to do. You also have to ensure your thrill rides have a wide range of appeal. Thorpe's coaster line up, the only real outlier is Stealth. The others are just a variant on an upside down rollercoaster. You kind of made that point for me Inferno, Thorpe a little bit of a s**thole because it hasn't changed that much. If it wants to be 'the thrill park' the demands of its target audience constantly want more, the new, the bigger, the better. The new coaster is not going to be enough to change that perception for the rest of the resort. A family park is far less focused on constant updates and investment because the line up itself has universal appeal. I see it on forums and social media all the time 'Thorpe gets no investment, its last rollercoaster was 10 years ago.' Whilst forgetting Chessingtons last rollercoaster was 18 years ago. And we don't talk about the removal of Vampire or Dragons Fury in the same way that we talk about Colossus going to the skip. So yes, I think family parks are far easier to manage and run and actually more profitable. A 13 year old visiting Thorpe with his school pals just doesn't have a disposable income, whereas a family going to a theme park, will. It may be stretched in the current climate but it exists. And they spend money, all those little extras such as toys, ice creams when it's hot. A meal for everyone at the fast food outlets. it quickly adds up And thats before we even get to overnight stays....

Had a pretty miserable time at Towers this week. Things feel like they are sliding. The retro squad were bought in to help capacity but in actual fact they are now just replacements for Enterprise and Hex which for all intents and purposes have passed away. Thirteen was running the best I've seen it for about five years with three trains, all seats full and staff working hard. Can't say that for a lot of rides. Smiler was a nightmare and I'm questioning in myself whether I will ever bother with it again. I love the ride but operationally it blows and there's only so much patience I have with it. There was a distinct lack of energy across the resort. Slipping standards. We got a lovely upgrade at ATH because our apparent room wasn't passing health and safety (Whatever that means). So we got upgraded to the Smiler room. Yay. It was a bit dirty with dust and the sheets had marks on them. The complimentary water from the previous guests wasn't replaced so we lost that perk. The shower was awful to use, stiff. Definitely not worth £500 a night. Nemesis was amazing. With it being closed all of 2023 I won't be visiting Towers next year. Without its star ride and so many operational issues, Towers really has a lot to do to turn around the decay.

Most relaxed Disneyland Paris Parc. Wonderful park. I've been with Thunder and Space mountain both down all day and had a wonderful relaxed day Animal Kingdom - Fantastic park to get lost in an animal trails or having a nice drink at Nomad lounge. Chessington - Yes Chessington is a lovely place to unwind in. Forget 40 minute Fury waits, just go around the Zoo or watch a show. Efteling - I love this place. Its just so charming and easy to get lost in. Most Stressed Magic Kingdom - Way too stressful. Completely broken park which will take a lot to fix. I don't think it can be mended to be honest Disneyland - So small, so cramped, so many rides to do but not enough time to do them. Great history but painful to visit. Port Aventura - Awful park to be in. Full of queue jumping neanderthals and unbearably hot and humid.. Cedar Point - This is here for Top Thrill Dragster alone which is the most stressful queuing experience of any major rollercoaster. Will it work properly, will it make it over. Awful.

On the contrary it could be a multi deal with B&M as there's strong rumours that a couple of Legoland's are getting one as well.

Why do they insist on filling Amity Cove with so much stuff.

Its amazing how when I wrote about Colossus in 2012, I spent more time discussing Thorpe Parks history than Colossus itself. Maybe it's important to realise the sea change that this ride was. I can't imagine visiting Thorpe in the future without hearing that lift hill noise as the train disengages at the top or the odd shuffling noise the train makes as it travels the circuit. But then in 2008 it was unfathomable to imagine Alton Towers without the sound of Corkscrews motor echoing over the valley. And that was 14 years ago.

There’s been freight issues for over a year… it’s not just because of a car ferry service.

I do wonder if covid-19 hitting hard in December/January and the freight issues related to Brexit meaning the UK parks are in a position where things just aren't getting in to the country as easily as they were before. I don't want to make excuses for the parks but it is all a bit odd that none of them have had great starts to the year.

Is this actually the B&M 'surf;' coaster. The rumour came and went like a summer breeze and I feel like the park has said absolutely nothing about investment, neither have fan websites.

Bare in mind that December and January would have had massive covid-related issues which may explain why everything is far behind. That being said, a lot of European parks have had the same operational issues and still have been able to open with few issues. Merlin finished last season quite poorly and it seems to be continuing.

YAY! https://www.veejoy.de/en/series/the-construction-documentary

To be honest it’s one of those gimmicks that will last two or three years and then be removed. I really don’t see the point in it at all. I can’t imagine that doing Icon with spinning rows is going to be that great or better then the normal experience.

Nothing gives me greater satisfaction in knowing kids have to wait longer because me and my friends are taking up several row on the octonaughts rollercoaster.

KAREN GILLAN WAS ALSO IN DOCTOR WHO WHERE SHE BECAME A HOUSEHOLD NAME. DOCTOR WHO ROLLERCOASTER FOR CHESSINGTON.

It's okay, the name will change next year.

I'll ride them if I'm in the park and they have a short queue. In parks I visit regularly, sure I'll ride (Baaa Express at Europa Park for example). But say I'm at Kings Island, there's 14 rollercoasters to get on, I'm there one day in total. I won't be going out of my way to ride the Great Pumpkin Coaster as the bigger, more unique rides are far higher a priority. Our to put it this way, I wouldn't rush to Legoland Windsor to ride the Duplo coaster. So category C in general.

1989-2005 WAS THE WILDERNESS YEARS OF DOCTOR WHO OMG.

The only thing that requires planning really is restaurant reservations and booking your place in the theme parks. Even with that, we don't tend to eat in the super popular restaurants (Be Our Guest, Cinderellas Royal Table) so in theory you could just go to the park on a day and get lucky. Genie requires no forward planning, you buy it and then at 7am, WDW resort guests can book their first ride, non resort guests can start at park opening so staying at WDW does give you perks and benefits. The main difference is A) You now pay to skip queues b) There's no guarantee you get to skip the queues for the ride you want. A lot of it is pure luck and rides like Jungle Cruise, Slinky Dog and Peter Pan run out extremely quickly.

I felt inclined to write this, particularly as the world opens up and restrictions and barriers come further down. A big part of my Florida trip was Disney World. During the pandemic, my fiancé and myself decided on buying into Disney Vacation Club and essentially having a home resort at Animal Kingdom Lodge. We use points to pay for rooms and as a 35 year investment, we in the long run will save money. Disney World was the busiest I have ever seen it. This was my sixth visit to the area and baring in mind my last trip was in the middle of a Hurricane, the parks were in very different places. Covid-19 has meant the parks have fundamentally changed. There is now no FastPass, magic hours have completely changed. Parades are still not running, lots of shows are either closed or seriously cut back and you must reserve a place to visit the park. I'll do a run down of each park and the impact of the new Disney Genie system which has dramatically changed the parks in what I personally think is a hugely damaging and derogative way. This new system works at $15 a day per person and like fastpass prefer, you can reserve a place for your party to skip the stand by lines and get on rides faster. We tried this on three days of our visit. We also purchased the higher tier Lightening Lane twice on Rise of the Resistance to guarantee rides. Animal Kingdom Perhaps the Park that has seen the smallest changes since 2019, Animal Kingdom remains my favourite park at WDW and reminds me of Disneyland Paris in that there's a peace and a tranquility to the place which is missing at the other three parks. Despite Everest being closed in its further long term refurbishment, AK was wonderful. We got on each ride in the park on both days we visited and this was by far my favourite days. Genie isn't required at AK. It's rides get far less affected by downtime and with the exception of Flight of Passage, the rides here take a lot longer to get long waits. With all the trails, animal areas and rides like Kali River Rapids which never got a queue, this park is a dream. Hollywood Studios Now that HS is a park with 7 E-ticket attractions and one filler ride, its very much a park full of busy busy rides and very little stuff to do in-between. Rise, Smugglers, Slinky, Tower, Runaway Railroad, R'N'R are packed out attractions with 60 minutes. Luckily, the rides are top quality but HS lisn't an easy park anymore. We did get Genie on this day and our first pass was Slinky. Because of the way the system works and the eagerness of Disney guests, the first time available was 4pm. This locked us out of the system for two hours. At 11am we booked our second pass for Rock and Roller at 4:40. Our next one we were able to book was at 1pm and stupidly was Tower of Terror at 5pm. So our Genie was never going to be properly useful to us until 7 hours after the park opened. You can have overlapping times but it's incredibly hard to get earlier times without pure luck playing its part. Extra Magical hours are no more. Instead early opens are the name of the game with each park opening earlier to Disney World resort guests. Jury is out on this move but on this day we chose to ride Micky and Minnies Runaway Railroad. This trackless dark ride has a really disjointed narrative and to be honest I enjoyed the pre-show more then the ride itself. We got two rides overall on it and its okay. Doesn't deserve a 90 minute wait. Magic Kingdom MK is fundamentally broken. It's too busy, its worn down, its over-stretched, there's not enough to entertain 80,000 guests on a park that gets busier and busier. Increasing prices is not putting people off Magic Kingdom and Tron is going to compound the issue in devastating ways. When I first visited Magic Kingdom was lovely. Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise and Pirates to name a few had reasonable waits and you could definitely get your monies worth. No more. Jungle Cruise 90 minutes, Pirates and Haunted Mansion, 60 minutes everyday. Small World at 40 minute waits? People-Mover at 35 minute. Ridiculous. We did use Genie on both days because I think it is now the only way to enjoy this park but sadly it has huge damaging effects on non-Genie guests. IMO, Genie is too powerful at MK. The system is too cheap, the amount of good high quality rides is too high so having it means substantial gains. Reliability was also in a terrible place here. At one point Space, Thunder and Splash were down and across the parks so was many other rides. Epcot Finally, Epcot was fine. It has the most boring selection of rides compared to the other parks and whilst I like Ratatouille, I can wait 30 minutes in Paris, I will not be waiting 90 in America for the same ride with no real changes whatsoever. We had a lot of food in Epcot as it was the arts festival and there was some fantastic stuff on offer. Genie isn't very effective here as rides like Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, Figment, Three Caballeros and Mission Space don't get anywhere near as busy as the big rides and with good planning we got on Testrack, Frozen and Soarin' relatively easily. So a mixed bag and I think Genie needs significant price increases. At the moment 50% of guests use it so the main guests get absolutely screwed over and Genie feels like a waste of money when it feels difficult to get reasonable times. The magic at WDW is still there but its strained, less care free and a little bit harder to find. A real concern as the chase for financial gain ramps up under Bob Chapek.

I'm having a quieter theme park year with more emphasis on visiting places and finishing off things postponed from the last two years. February - Florida March/April - Disneyland Paris 30 year anniversary trip May - Off to San Francisco and Hawaii with a small trip to Californias Great America planned in. August - Tivoli Gardens followed by a cruise to Norway and Iceland Definitely some Merlin parks and Blackpool thrown in as per.