Mark9

I say this from the bottom of my heart, it is one of the most beautiful, immersive areas I have ever seen. It feels a joy to just be in an area that feels so alive and brimming with character and atmosphere. This is one of the most wrong statements I have ever read on these forums.

Trust in me. The first things to go will be those 10pm closes.

Right, but that isn't working. Park numbers are still down, trying to make an interesting dark ride for older teenagers hasn't worked, trying to regain the family market isn't working either. Thorpe's biggest problem is that it just doesn't know what it wants to be. X is Thorpe Park in ride form. Jumping from theme to theme, idea to idea for the last twenty years and never letting it stick or settle. All that effort with X to get it to be a 1 metre height restriction and a Walking Dead theme completely flies in the face of that. Look at any park that has numbers on the up around the globe, all of them know their branding, know who they are wanting to attract. Chessington, despite so many flaws, knows who it is advertising at. I'm not an expert but I can't be the only one fed up of these miserable themes at Thorpe Park. If I see one more barbed fence, run down wreck added to the line up...

Enthusiasts who take this whole rollercoaster thing a little too seriously. This morning somebody on twitter went mad because of some disagreement about which is better, Expedition Ge Force or Shambhala. Argue their merits or what you don't like about the other but don't moan about the entire community because of it.

Had my (what I hope to be) annual ride on Munich Looping yesterday and loved it. So good on 7 cars.

Merlin have decimated the UK theme park industry and ignoring advice from advisors will continue to starve the parks of the investment they need despite the huge drop off across their estates. Put your money into Blackpool, Paultons, Drayton. We need a competitive industry, not the one Merlin have trashed.

This is a comment we need to retire. Clever investments are made all over the theme park industry and the thought that only Universal and Disney can maintain a ride like Valhalla is silly. The fact remains that Valhalla was an ambitious project for a park like the Pleasure Beach and that level of commitment was never going to be maintained. Blackpool, at its very heart is an amusement park with lots of rides dashed all over the place. Those pictures that Coaster posted really demonstrate that Valhalla was probably a wrong fit IMO.

Best Rock 'N' Tug music ever.

Agreed, Helix is far more about the aggressive air time then any kind of intensity. I'm hoping Icon can join the Helix/Taron debate next year ie secretly hoping we can have a ride like Taron or Helix in the UK would make me beyond happy.

Here's the thing. People will moan, complain, get angry. But they'll still buy the pass. They should stick to their guns and just not renew when that time comes around if they truly believe Merlin are as evil as they say they are.

I see the outrage has already begun.

I don't think its a shame at all. As many people as possible should have the opportunity to get on these rides, cloned or not. It's being painted as being very easy to just hop on planes and go everywhere but that isn't the reality. I shall never ride the Dubai, China or Russian blue fire clones because of cultural and law issues (and moral but thats a discussion for a different topic) for example. If Europa Parks version hadn't opened first, I'd miss out on a fantastic ride because of it. That isn't a situation unique to just me. In conclusion, cloned rides give more people the opportunity to ride a product. If Nemesis was cloned in China, that doesn't take anything whatsoever away from the original.

Could have been a good discussion to be honest. Nobody here seems particularly angry or emotional about your first post, they are just debating the points you made.

Coming from an enthusiast. The vast majority of the public will never have even heard of the original let alone go and ride it. The snobbery around cloned rides also bothers me, if a ride is good why shouldn't the manufacturer reap the rewards by cloning it if a park wants it.

I'd agree if it was another park in Japan getting a Takabisha clone after all what would be the point. But a park in New Jersey? Gives more people the opportunity to ride that particular layout surely..

This is how you say goodbye to one of your longest serving and much loved rides.

I'm not queuing that long for it no matter how good it might be.

I'm playing through Super Mario Odyssey at the moment and it's taken me a while but I really do believe it's one of the best games of all time. Nintendo have created a game that is so special and exciting and fully deserves all the praise its got. It's this generations Super Mario 64.

Should have gone for the 'we've built a rollercoaster that we hope you'll enjoy' instead of pretending its something more. Ah well.

Today is the last day of the original EuroSat. No tears. The first rollercoaster to depart Europa Park.

2003 is nearly 15 years ago now, thats the last time the annual pass was a proper annual pass without tiers or visit limits.

So there's one SBNO ride currently which will definitely not be opening in 2018. I'll put that to bed right now, Loggers is not opening in 2018. You're setting yourself up for disappointment if you believe that it could open next March. What I really want to see at Thorpe is the presentation to be high on the agenda. That entrance way is utterly horrific. Years and years of quick fixes have left it looking like a ghastly mess. Temporary fences as far as the eye can see, security stations set up in odd locations, ticket booths everywhere but never clear which ones are open (In fact, are the ones just after the main Thorpe Park sign ever used??!). I'd personally destroy the whole lot and start all over again.

Parc Asterix X1 Nigloland X 1 Holiday Park X1 Phantasialand X2 Movie Park Germany X1 Efteling X1 Thorpe Park X2 Europa Park X3 Chessington X1 Walygator Parc X1 Disneyland Parc (Paris) X10 Studio Park X4 Alton Towers X1 Margate Dreamland X1 Still to Come:- Busch Gardens Tampa X1 Seaworld Orlando X1 Animal Kingdom X5 Epcot X2 Hollywood Studios X2 Magic Kingdom X3

If we're just talking launches, I'll have to go with Stealth as that is an absolute beast of a launch and its definitly the acceleration that gets me, not necessarily the speed. Out of however many I've done, it's the only one where I really feel the force. Furius Baco comes close in this regard. As good as Mack rides are, the launches are relatively gentle and calm compared to the accelerators.

Nah its crap but I wouldn't want to see it go for that reason. There's a worrying trend across the Merlin parks in the last few years of cutting rides with no replacements which is understandable in itself if a ride is at the end of its life etc etc, but the price keeps going up making a visit less and less worthwhile.