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Shrek's Adventure London


lewumbrajumbos

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finally did Shrek today, fair to say it was  a very good, and different experience.

 

Bus tour is fab. The movements were less then expected, and preferred, however they did the job well. Animations were fab!

 

The scenes throughout are truly great. Very few flaws and all in all a fun and light mooded experience.

 

Only down side: £12 for a pin badge!

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Went a couple of weeks ago on a very quiet Monday afternoon in London, being the first working day after the Paris attacks. I presume this is why there was no wait at the attraction entrance at all and our group was only big enough to fill less than half the bus, if not and this is standard attendance I imagine this won't be the first of many as initially planned! There's a lot of people working in there, it can't be covering its overheads like this. Is it really doing that badly? Thoughts...

 

The County Hall set up is a mess. The first building you come to has a wall of ticket sellers at the end of a 15 min or so queue. This building has signage for all the attractions there, so we joined the queue. When we got to  the front they told us that no, this is just for the London Eye, but you can buy tickets for other attractions there, but not if you are using BOGOF vouchers as we were. What now? How does that make sense to anyone anywhere? Yes, 15 minutes of pointless queue is no major thing, but an annoyance I could do without. Why not just sell all the tickets there and none at each separate attraction, nice and simple? Or if not at least put some bloody signs up to make it clear.

 

Off round to the Shrek counter then, tickets paid for. But not with Amex like every other Merlin attraction I've ever paid for as they don't take it. Why the inconstancy? Then the girl behind the counter said the person we had to give our ticket to had gone outside for some reason, so go and see her, went out side, no one there, security don't know what we're talking about, back to the girl behind the counter who sort of shrugs blankly. So we just wandered in ourselves to the lift, no one took or checked our ticket! I know these are silly little gripes, but they add up to a frustration that does not give the best first impression and is just pointless, all things that could be better with zero effort.

 

So the attraction itself, on the whole, I thought is really rather good. Some scenes stronger than others, but no real low points and a fun narrative tying it all together. The theming is mostly really spot on and actually feels complete in a way that I'm not used to seeing in the UK. Bits that stood out...

 

- The girl doing her welcome blurb at the start was superb, so slick and in character. It really helps set the tone of what is to come.

- Getting everyone to sing at the start is a bit much for a group of strangers, all a bit awkward in a collective not wanting to take part sort of way. I think it would work fine later on, but the group isn't comfortable with it straight away. Maybe my group being a bit small didn't help.

- The bus. It was static for me. Really very annoying, and as the showpiece of the whole experience it should be advertised on ticket sale if it's down in the same way Drop Dead is in dungeons. It is still a decent effect I suppose, but knowing what it should have been I was really disappointed.

- Stand out scenes were the bar, the the bakery, the quiz and the prison cell. It's obviously highly dependent on each actor, and most of them were really solid throughout. Some really clever effects too, the crystal ball, the theatrics of the bar scene and some of the finale being pretty clever.

- Although it is by necessity of the narrative of the whole attraction, it suffers from having it's biggest and best trick first and the rest not quite living up to that. These things should end on a high, and as good as the final room is it doesn't manage to bring the attraction back to its peak.

- Talking of not ending on a high, the one to one photo sales pitch at the end is nauseatingly cringe inducing for all involved. What a horrible bitter way to send people on their way with a sour taste in their mouths. What on earth are they thinking?

- And in a final attempt to not end on a high, the host in the exit lift repeatedly tried to lie to me about the non moving bus. She asked what we thought, we said we enjoyed it all but it was a shame the bus wasn't working, she variously tried to tell us it doesn't ever move and then that it doesn't now so they can fit more people on it at a time. I pointed out that it was less then half full today, she awkwardly protested that all had been as it should have by design, but I know better and really didn't appreciate being lied to. Why not just smile and agree that it is indeed a shame that the star attraction is busted? I presume they've been told to feed people this nonsense. They shouldn't be, being lied to makes people angry.

 

Overall I'm glad I went, but would be in no hurry to go back, especially with no guarantee that the centerpiece would be operational. Some of the ways Merlin go about emptying their customers pockets and sloppy frustrating way of operating the nice things they have are especially evident here, taking the shine off of what is a very solid entertaining attraction at heart.

 

TL:DR - It's good, go try it. But be prepared some frustrations and don't even consider paying the gate price.

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It seems Merlin is good at that.

You filled half the bus? Blimey we only had 6 in total, each person had a row to themselves with room to spare, and this was on what I'd have expected to be a fairly busy day (the normal eye queue was overflowing).

Not an attraction that has a lot of return value in it, a theme I expect that will be shared with Derren Brown's experience thing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Went to Shrek's adventure earlier today. It was quite good and unique, though I thought id be seeing more of Httyd/ Kung Fu Panda/ Madagascar in it.

I Liked the bus ride, though it probably would have been better with the bus itself moving!

The end was a bit silly, almost forcing you to buy the photo album. Enjoyed it all though!

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Went to Shrek's adventure earlier today. It was quite good and unique, though I thought id be seeing more of Httyd/ Kung Fu Panda/ Madagascar in it.

 

I haven't done the attraction yet, but surely if it's called 'Shrek's Adventure', all you're going to expect is Shrek?  :P

 

I haven't seen it marketed anywhere about it including other Dreamworks pictures, so have I missed something or were you more expecting a 'Shrek and Friends' idea?

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