Mark9

Not at this stage of the holidays Zac. It's always quieter at this point in the year as people go away for their holidays at the beginning of the holidays. Now if the park is still dead in three weeks time, we'll know the Smiler crash had had more of an effect then we realise. But until that point, Alton in particular is business as usual.

Congratulations to Congo River Rapids for being the headline of the Daily Star.

RIdiculous. The first week of summer holidays is always quiet at theme parks. If it's still quiet in the last two weeks before schools go back then the parks need to be worried. Not right now.

Herein lies the problem. Pixar are too good. I tried to put a top list together and there's just too much quality in that company. I watched Inside Out again last night and I just love every minute of it. Tears and laughs in sublime story making.

It's a very busy, popular park. The queues will be long for the big rides but the difference between Europa and say.... other parks is that Europa has dozens of smaller rides and dark rides that will remain having minimal queues. Europa also extends their hours massively every day. Reading that trip report is just the big rides (and Koffie Koppies) in 6 hours so not surprised that the day is soured by that. Good thing is neither was Zac.

I swear this is five years late. It's the same with Florida too, it's far cheaper to book trips through the American site then the English one.

If you like films and more importantly, if you like animated films. Go and watch inside Out. And if you've already seen it, please tell me you are seeing it again. The best film of the year, easily. (Oh, and Antman, pretty damn fun too) God I hate Disney, most expensive hobby ever.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33672357 It's all on the BBC website.

Very heavy rain, presumably some of the park was flooded on Friday and then the extra heavy rain on Sunday hasn't helped things.

Genuinely thought this was a post in the Nemesis at Alton Towers discussion. You got me all excited and then realised it was the WC16 topic.

Post of the year. No. Make that, post of the decade. What makes the UK industry so special then Marc? From my viewpoint it's in the biggest lull that it's ever been in. Besides, the only reason people are suggesting go to other parks is because people Merlin bashing are also the ones going seemingly just to moan about the state of things.

It really does. I'd rather spend more money having an amazing time then go to theme parks repeatedly that I have constant complaints and criticisms over. It's not like trains were you have to use a particular service because its the only company that runs that line. You don't have to put up with sub-par theme parks just to fill an urge to visit them regularly.

True. Go to Europa Park instead. Currently at 9am-7pm closing, with all of August at minimum 8pm closing. Then again, it's a better theme park run by a much more efficient, reliable, customer focused company. And that's not a dig at Merlin, it's just the truth.

I take it by what you're saying, you've decided Thorpe is in worst case scenario mode..

People do if the option is available.

They have no-one to blame but themselves. The slow start of the season has probably been exacerbated by Saw, Fury and Rattlesnake being dragged into the press. It could be cost cutting but I bet disappointing gate figures are the real drive behind the loss of hours.

Operation cut back is definitely in force then. All the parks (apart from Lego) must be having a terrible season across the board.

Ignore Josh, ALL HAIL SLAMMER, LORD OF ALL, MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE.

Didn't miss Tram Tour one little bit and on my visit the Animation place was still open, hence why I was able to meet Beymax. Hollywood Studios is an odd park, it really doesn't fit in with the other three hence why it's going through a massive change at the moment. On paper with Tower, Star Tours and Fantasmic it should be well up there but for some reason the park doesn't gel with me.

Which Disney parks toofpikk?

Ah man thats a shame, I really liked the re-tracked Roar. Completely unnecessary ride to redo too.

Initially I was against writing a trip report on Disney World. I've done two previously and sparked the odd debate on the quality of Disney and Universal. Nonetheless, with a month now passed, I think I can be objective on the trip enough to do a write-up. So here goes. Since my last trip in 2012 a lot has changed. Not only has WDW seen a lot removed ( and a few things added), I've also been to many other parks including four trips to Paris and a trip to California. I think it's fair to say that Chris and I were both a tad concerned that the amazing memories we'd gathered of our previous visits would be dashed. Suffice to say, thankfully that wasn't the case. So firstly.... The New Seven Drawfs Mine Train The big new (D ticket) ride and has taken the crown for busiest attraction on property. I've some mixed views on this. Although it is unquestionably a decent ride, it has a few issues that stop it being a stand out. Firstly it's way too short. It's a ride of three parts, the first and third being ride sections and the middle being a dark ride section. I have to say I love the middle of this ride. The Drawfs working around you, the great animatronics and the singing is really immersive and fun to be in. This bit rides ironically rides pretty well in the dark. The only problem is it's way too short and could have done with 10/20 seconds more ride time. It doesn't help that the rollercoaster parts are too short as well with nothing really standing out. Oh and the rocking barrels barely registers. I'm a big fan of the queue line games and a huge fan of some of the old props from Snow Whites Scary Adventure used in a house near the break run. The biggest positive is that it fits the bill of a stop gap ride between The Great Goofini and Big Thunder. Festival of Fantasy Parade New parade, it's got some pretty awesome floats. I'd forgotten just how much of the Magic Kingdom gets cut off during the parade, particularly when her Haunted Mansion. Big Thumbs up for the great music in this new parade. Harambe Village Extension/ Lion King theatre With Avatar land at full throttle, a lot of changes have occurred to Animal Kingdom and it very much looks like a building site. With preparation, a new Lion King theatre has been built as well as a new eating area around Kilimanjaro Safari. Both areas look outstanding and you'd hardly belief that they were recent additions as fit into the surrounding themed areas perfectly. Chris announced during the trip that Animal Kingdom was now his favourite Disney park. Quite a claim. I've always been very fond of the place as I love Everest, Dinosaur and Kilimanjaro. I'm not so much concerned about Avatar as other enthusiasts, Cars was hardly and excelling franchise and yet the quality of Radiator Springs in California more then met my expectations. Oh and Starbucks opened. It has my favourite cupcakes so I approve. Star Wars Weekender One of the big reasons for this trip was this weekender. Here was a chance to meet rare characters and to Star Wars it out with parades, shows and special talks with legendary Star Wars characters. Expect to see more Star Wars everywhere else from this year on. And finally... MAGICBANDS So the big new investment, the one thing that saw refurbishments cut in California and seen as more important then more e-tickets in Florida, is the magic wristband. Very simple to use if you have a shred of common sense (Oh dear), this is used as your park entry, it stores your fastpass times, your disney dining plan credits and can be used to pay for anything around the parks. If you savvy you can really make it work to your advantage and without it we wouldn't have bothered with Rock N Rollercoaster for example. The main issue we found is that everyone around us just didn't have common sense in either making it work or using it properly. A lot of fastpass queues had people struggling to tap their bands to the pads or just getting in the way. It's evened queues around the parks down too so no more 5 minute queues for Haunted Mansion or Small World. In theory, it has bought down the queues for the coasters but some rides such as Jungle Cruise have seen massive increases. For some reason it had a 120 minute queue on our first day at Magic Kingdom. So I think it was a worthwhile addition but I'm not particularly sure it was necessary. Everything else in the parks were awesome. I reignited my love with the best tower, found my love for rides again on things like Thunder, Space and Splash mountain. And finally met Beymax! Thanks for reading see you next time in Hong Kong.

Only about 2 million times. Joke got old real fast.

What the hell are these people doing with their days to only do two things?!