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CBeebies Land


Benin

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Didn't notice it advertising the other rides, but focused on getting kids to do things (clap/make noise)...

Mr Bloom's Allotment is easily the best attraction in the area... Perfect blend of interactivity and actual showmanship...

It's a great area overall actually... The two play areas have lots to do, with two hands on focused interactive stuff as well... Looks better in person (bar Charlie and Lola's facade) and the Big Top Show area looks brill...

It's packed from 9am, so it's a success already, and certainly deserves plaudits... Hopefully they can expand to higher throughput rides sooner rather than later, since that is the biggest flaw it has...

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I have to say I thought CBeebies Land was brilliant, I really had my doubts during the construction, but the quality of it all is really great. I took my 2 year old daughter on opening day, and while she has never watched CBeebies, she still loved it all.

Postman Pat is a vast improvement on the Tractors, for one it can go around a corner without stopping, but it also brings in the interactivity of pressing the right buttons as you pass by the different characters, similar I guess to the old Riverbank Eye Spy and its buttons, but you now get recognition if you press the right button.

The Number-Go-Round is one of the more simpler re-themes, but it looks great and refreshed and isn't quite as annoying now without the cacophony of animal sounds bleating out constantly during the ride. It's a similar case for the Pie-o-Matic Factory retheme of Berry Bish Bash, it looks great inside, with a new coat of paint and the odd new themeing element here and there, although the experience itself is identical to before. The best part is probably the queue line, which has been given some themeing and TVs to entertain during the wait.

The Get Set Go Tree Top Adventure is much better now, over it's former guise as Squirrel Nutty. Admittedly it has lost a little of the charm it had as Squirrel Nutty, but the addition of on-board audio and themeing around the previously empty ride path is great. I also like the fact that it is now a bit of a guided tour of CBeebies Land, it is only narrating what you would normally be looking at anyway.

In the Night Garden is another improvement, and while it makes no sense to me whatsoever, the themeing they have added around the ride really does make it much more interesting to ride over Riverbank Eye Spy, even if it has lost the sound buttons. It's also great to see the vast majority of the themeing is animated, instead of the generally static characters we've seen before.

The new additions to the Land are all really good, and while previously during construction I thought they seemed a bit of a cop out, not including a new ride, they are all worthy additions to the land. I didn't personally go into Nina's Science Lab, but friends that did said it was good, and had lots of interactive things to play with. Charlie & Lola was a mystery to me before we went in, and to a certain extent still is, it's an odd set up, as you enter a house, with a kitchen and lounge with numerous cupboards to look in, and then you move into the back which is filled with a ball pool, a mini climbing mountain type thing, with a hidden cave underneath and an interactive projection pond with swimming fish fingers. It's very odd, but oddly fun and it was the quietest attraction in the land, although this might be due to it being tucked away at the back.

The Sensory Garden was another nice addition, and while there is not a huge amount to do in there, it is a good place to spend 5-10 mins taking a break from the rest of the area. We didn't go into the Tree Fu Tom Training Camp as it was a bit wet to let the kids run about in the play area, but it looks like a vast improvement on what was previously the Dung Heap, the play equipment looked fairly vast and varied and I'm sure it will be easy to spend an hour inn there if you have kids.

The Big Fun Showtime area is really good, as you enter through the tunnel, it really turns into a peaceful oasis from the busy main part of CBeebies Land. The atmosphere is fantastic, and I can see this being an amazing spot to chill out on hot summer days, obviously between the shows. We only watched the Mike the Knight show, and even though it had a section where it got all the kids to get up and search the entire area for different things, which seemed a very silly idea as it's just waiting for the kids to trample over each over in a rush to get up and find something, it was overall a fun show and was a good way to keep the kids entertained for 10 minutes. The area is also home to a Meet and Greet tent, which had Iggle Piggle from In the Night Garden in, I don't know if the charactes will rotate at all here, there is also a few Mike the Knight themed activities and games to do.

The final part of CBeebies Land is Mr Bloom's Allotment. Out of all the attractions in CBeebies Land, I think this is the one where you will benefit the most from knowing the show beforehand. While it's certainly not vital to be familiar with it, because of the interactive nature to the attraction/show it might help if you have seen it before. The attraction is split into two sections the outdoor allotment, where an actor encourages the kids to explore and find things to compost, and the interior potting shed section where another actor interacts with various "Veggies", in a fun interactive puppet show. This one really surprised me, as I assumed it was going to be another walkthrough attraction similar to the Sensory Garden, but the quality of the show and actors was really fun.

On a closing note, it had to be said that the atmosphere through the whole land was amazing, they had numerous entertainers about, including acrobatic stilt walkers, actors with "baby veggies" from the allotment and I believe Postman Pat was out in his van, although I didn't see him personally. Whether or not they keep this atmosphere up, remains to be seen, but it was great to see a big effort being made.

It's already been linked to, but a lot of the photos we took and the videos for the rides were posted to live.towersnerd.com if you are interested.

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Another review of the land...

It must be said, the area does look and feel a lot more atmospheric and bouncy than it ever did before... Whilst Storybook Land and the Farm had the peaceful charm around them, they were always empty and felt un-used in many a way, so a refurb of the area was a good idea...

Of course, with it being opening week, there's about 20 million staff all around the area, be it generic stilt-walkers or bubble blowers in addition to characters related to the shows (including an amazing Postman Pat van), one can hope that they keep up the levels of staffing and enthusiasm, because they'll need it on the really busy days (of which my visit wasn't)...

So to the attractions;

Get Set Go Treetop Adventure

A tricky ride to retheme, so the generic CBeebies theme was a good call, as it helped to create the idea of a pure Land of all the characters living together... It had some interaction for the kids to make noise at the static model blobs... That would be the one flaw tbh, that the models were all static and the hologram images of the presenters were a bit pointless really... Either way it's added a bit more life into a ride which beforehand didn't do much at all...

Something Special Sensory Garden

A hard attraction to judge really, but the kids walking through it seemed to enjoy themselves... Much longer than I thought it would be, and an example of the Land's interactivity pursuits it's had to have at the call of Auntie Beeb...

Nina's Science Lab

Goons will love the 5th Dimension look to the outside of the building, and again an attraction solely pushed towards learning... It reminded me of the Science Museum, which must be a good thing really... Full of the usual touch, smell, see interactive stuff that you tend to see in scientific education attractions around the world...

Postman Pat Special Delivery Service

Pat is certainly popular, as it often got a 45 minute queue at 9:05... It looks fantastic again, but also suffers from static model syndrome... It also stole Riverbank Eye Spy's button mashing game it seems, but without the noise... It does have some awesome queue line games though and the hazards can be turned on and off in the van... Brill bit of needless detail (and I adore needless details)... Lot quicker than the Tractors ever were too, not that it's made much of a difference to the throughput...

Numtums Number-go-Round

Probably the worst retheme of the lot, as Doodle-Doo was fab, this one not so much... Just filed under the least imaginative way to do it... Surely a show with tonnes of animals involved would've been better?

Charlie and Lola

What a fab play-area this actually is... Inside I approve of the look and style of it (outside, not so much still), with plenty of cupboards and some fab interactive dress-up screens that relate to the magnets placed upon the characters... Then further in there's a ball pit and slide... A decent surprise to the line-up...

In the Night Garden Magical Boat Ride

The terrifying show comes to life... Our boat also ground to a halt half-way through and had to be shunted along the way... A few more animated static models this time around, although they were pretty basic... The kids on our boat loved it to bits though, so what do we enthusiasts know? The audio as well just made me more confused with the constant rhyming stuff...

Justin's House

Didn't do it as not allowed in unsupervised by kids... Looked ok from the outside though and got long queues...

Tree Fu Tom Playground

We had years of Dung Heap and this is what replaced it? Brilliant... Looks tonnes better and has a lot more stuff it in as well...

Mr Bloom's Allotment

Certainly the unexpected surprise from the area, this show of 20 minutes involves everything I'd say people would want from an educational kids show based attraction... It had the characters come to 'life' (Mr Bloom himself appeared via TV whilst on holiday), plenty of interactivity involving searching for items and characters, before 'making' something as these characters were sad (Awwwwww)... All the kids in our group were properly entranced by the whole thing and eager to assist... And whilst 20 minutes may seem long, it's not too bad it must be said, as there's enough going on to keep the interest piqued throughout... Best attraction in the area by far...

Big Fun Showtime

This area is HUGE... And looks quite decent actually, as it acts like an oasis from the rest of the area, with more random activities, meet-n-greets and the shows... They currently have 3 shows on atm, which are the usual kids based affair and are all different from each other... Still in the process of getting used to them though, as the Nina show (which involves Nina pre-recorded on screen) had a few awkward pauses between dialogue... But it's a tricky medium to do well to be fair...

So overall, I'd say this area will be a success, and it deserves to be... It's given a lease of life on the area that was only ever busy 2 days a year if we were lucky, whilst many might lament it due to the charm of the farm, it's an addition done with a reasonable amount of care and attention to the various brands and the area as a whole... Though we were lucky that it wasn't particularly packed on the pathways (and as it was open for ERT, was very empty)...

They will probably deny large groups of adults going in when it's busy though... The survey man told us they were going stop any adults coming in without kids if it got busy enough... Which is only fair, it's not an area designed for adults at all, and I would say the feedback was very positive so far (bar the queues obviously, hopefully they can add a new ride somewhere that gets a half-decent throughput in addition to what they currently have)...

Good job Towers...

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Filmed this on opening weekend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-nKb6g502Q

Great video thanks for that!

The whole area looks a lot better than what I thought it was going to be like when I heard about it and during construction. So many kids seem to love it and it's great to see a load of entertainers around the place. Can't wait to go and see it next weekend!

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Nice vid, gives a good feel for the place. Glad to see the ITNG figures aren't totally static. Looks like a great amount of performers fills the place with life, hope that lasts long term. The man at 2.30 doing a Labyrinth Bowie with his balls is amazing. All good stuff.

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Towers are introducing two Frog Hoppers into CBeebies Land this year, adjacent to Mr Bloom's Garden

 

Plans - http://publicaccess.staffsmoorlands.gov.uk/portal/servlets/ApplicationSearchServlet?PKID=127678

 

They will be second hand (not quite sure where from though).

 

Presumably this spells the end of the Frog Hopper in Cloud Cuckoo Land, and leaves a question of how wise it is to dump all the children's attractions in one area.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
9 minutes ago, Loggers Creek said:

I wonder if the drop towers will reuse or replace the Frog Hopper Tower. Could we see the remains of Cloud Cuckoo be closed off completely (bar the Dungeons)?

 

The towers are from Sea Life Oberhausen, in a similar way that Thorpe got Timber Tug and Lumber Jump from Sea Life Weymouth.

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