1aflack

Nooooooo, we are visiting and staying in the Africa Hotel on the 28th and leaving on the 30th, staying with a 4 and 1 year old. Absolutely gutted about the 28th, did loads of research had no idea. Visiting from the UK it's quite a big deal for us as its so expensive at the minute and we don't get to travel as much now we have two young kids.

In the paper that they are going to stop investing in the park till the council sort out the roads into the town and the parking situation. In the summer months it's absolutely crazy. I expect they have made this threat because they have just made a significant investment in the park with the addition of the excellent Adventure Inside and Adventureville so they probably weren't going to invest anyway. I also notice on top of the new Adventureville ride is quite a large flat concrete slab which I expect could be a place for either the Southend Eye big wheel or the large starflyer they got planning permission for the other year.

My daughter is a annual pass holder so we go quite a lot, they build a lot of their rides. Both the new dark ride Adventureville and Over the Hill are in house, Time Machine, Cow Jump. It's a great little park, really friendly staff.

Some sort of family drop tower. Sure in an interview a year of two ago they said they wanted one but wanted one for the whole family rather than something extreme and they were working on an idea.

The rumour for a while has been two Intamins, one a water coaster and the other a plug n play woodie. One opening in 2017 and the other in 2018.

It will just be a big fine, no-one will go to jail. The company also received a big fine when that kid fell from the Tomb blaster ride at Chessington a few years ago (it made Merlin finally spend some money fix issues across the park). I'm not sure if that would be taken into consideration and the fine would be higher because of this.

They haven't given anything away about what's in the large building in the centre, there has to be a ride or two. There can't really be just the main coaster, a couple of S&S towers and the go-karts. There must be something for younger kids as at the minute there is no reason to visit if you have kids under probably 1.3 meters which is about 8-10 years old. I think the car thing is a go-kart track so they won't allow young kids on there. I'm betting that huge building will hold the kids rides from the Abu Dhabi park (teacups, driving through Italy thing, soft play) and a dark ride, probably the flight one.

Wow, I thought it would be 20-25 Euros for a single entry ticket. Guess they aren't really going for the day visitor they want you to buy a two day ticket, which at 65 Euros isn't too bad but in reality if there isn't a pretty decent dark ride in that main building I can't see many people paying 25 Euros extra just for the coaster after the initial rush. I expect there will be discounts after the first year.

We just came back from 4 days in DLP last week staying on the Cheyenne. It was my first visit since 2001, as lets be honest they haven't added much. Whilst the customer service was good for European standards Americans going there expecting anything like service they receive in the US parks will be disappointed. Go there thinking European standards and you will be fine. It was my first visit to the Studios park, if you turn left after going through the entrance building it's pretty shocking how this could qualify as a Disney park, if you go right it's better but lets be honest it all just seems like one bit bolted onto the next. However we all thought Ratatouille was excellent, kind of like a family Spiderman and the fact you could take an 8 month old baby on was great. The park is just about held together by Ratatouille, TOT and Rock n Rollercoaster.......can't quite imagine how bad it must have been before TOT and Ratatouille. As for the main park, basically pretty much the whole left hand side apart from Phantom, Indy and Pirates is walled up. Still think it's quite incredible that since last visiting in 2001 the only new ride has been Buzz Lightyear and the park still gets 12 million odd visitors a year. Guess it all comes down to the fact Phantom, Pirates, Thunder Mountain and Space mountain really are excellent rides. Imagine what it could do if they actually built some new rides. Whilst it's nice they are basically making the park look like new I would rather spend my money visiting the American parks until they add some new attractions. I fully realise they won't care less as the hotels were absolutely heaving (probably because of the free half board meal plan).

I think the Paramount park will happy, there is a crazy amount of jobs riding on it, also the area needs to be built up, they built the station with excellent links to London except no one lives there. Does anyone know what the visitor numbers are for Chessington, they can't be good? I also think drayton manor has hone down hill, I visited for the first time in maybe 5 years over Xmas and it's seems the park spent all there money on a great looking hotel and Thomas land and forgot the rest of the park, looks pretty tatty and dated now. A lot is riding on Blackpools new coaster next year, it won't have any themeing but hopefully it will be excellent.

Of course there are issues all over the world it's just difficult not to feel jealous when you see what is happening in Europe at the minute. They seem to be some very well run parks over there at the minute. They seem to focus on what the parks need rather than gimmicks and heavy marketing. Plopsaland, Europa Park, Phantasialand, Hansa, toverland, efteling, a number of the northern Denmark parks. I guess the difference is the are independently owned and don't have to make money for shareholders. JJust wish they would at least sell Chessington.

Chessington hasn't built anything significant since 2004, the park looks awful and tatty. All Merlin are interested in is accommodation. Is mothballing 6 attractions for a season really the best way to keep people happy that are visiting your park? It's not all about thrilling coasters, it's about great coasters that the whole family can ride, there are very few of these at Merlin parks.

Merlin are destroying the UK parks, there is little competition. I wish they would sell of Chessington or the Towers. Chessington got some tents this year.....amazing!

Seems you are basically going to be paying for the launched coaster, a couple of S&S towers, some sort of go-kart track and I would imagine a dark ride (probably something like Soarin as they have that in Abu Dhabi). In the long term unless they have serious expansion plans I just can't see this working as a stand alone park, I expect it will be 9.99 Euros in a couple of years or included in some special deal with the main park.

Anything in 2017 will be positive I guess considering this years addition is some tents, sad to see how far the park has fallen. Was Land of the Dragons really 2002, 14 years ago since the last major addition, can't imagine what visitors numbers must be there now. But if visitor numbers are staying steady despite the lack of investment they will see no need to invest. Will be interesting to see what 2017 holds, my hope would be a whole new land, with significant attractions, not just a few flats.

I think its pretty sad what has happened to Chessington. I remember visiting in the 80's when they added all those new rides, Vampire, Bubble works, Dragon Falls, the park was really going places, even up to Ramases Revenge and the shoot-em-up ride. Now it's all about adding as many hotels/sleeping options as possible. I can understand maybe they want to focus on the zoo but even that is just so tatty compared to other UK zoo's. I live an hour down the road and have a 5 years old so should be the target audience but compared to Adventure Island and Colchester Zoo it's just not appealing at all. It's almost like they don't know what to do with it with Thorpe and Legoland just down the road, I wish Merlin would sell it and let someone put some love back into the place.

Over £10,000 raised for cancer charities is a great effort.

^'worlds first' and Merlin aren't a great combination, they could literally market anything as a worlds first. World first ride with 32 steps leading to the station. Hearing the possible theme and this being at Thorpe I have incredibly low expectations and I'm sure they won't be met.

It tests pretty much every day and has been for months!

You guys seriously think this park looks good.....apart from the launch coaster there is nothing interesting there at all! Not sure how this is really going to compete with Plopsaland, Parc Asterix, the new London Paramount Park which are all pretty close. They are obviously trying to get UK visitors by placing it in Calais but it already looks a lot worse that what is located in the south of England. Brits that go across the channel for there summer holidays will be much more likely to visit DLP of Plopsland.

^^They must have expansion plans ready to go straight away, imagine how few attractions there would have been before their additional £500 million investment. If those crazy Chinese queue 3 hours to get into a Disney Store in Shanghai imagine what they will do here. According to Disney's own press release.... An income qualified population of 330 million people are within a three-hour travel radius of Shanghai Disney Resort. From 2012 to 2015, the Chinese travel market is projected to grow 34 percent, according to PhoCusWright. The number of upper-middle class and affluent households in China is expected to grow 18 percent annually between 2012 and 2022, according to McKinsey. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney-news/press-releases/2014/04/shanghai-disney-resort-accelerates-resort-expansion#sthash.Uhgns0KF.dpuf Over 1 billion of the 1.3 billion population live in the east of the country as well so as there wealth grows so will attendance figures.

^ Personally I would think the best thing they could do would be to roll out new attractions to take the emphasis of this accident as soon as possible. This year had been a quiet one at the Towers with just a new kiddie coaster so you would expect next year to be something reasonable with 2017 having the large investment. I would think if they do nothing next year except open a re-themed Smiler it will have a significant affect on attendance.

I honestly think this will bomb initially because of lack of attractions and they will charge to much to enter, I reckon it will be about 25-35 Euros. From the drawings there looks to be launched coaster, drop tower, go-kart style ride, I'm betting some sort of dark ride and probably a few kids rides. I visited Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi last year and everything was incredibly expensive including the souvenirs and we had done everything in a couple of hours. I think Ferrari World Abu Dhabi has survived because there is nothing else around it where as the Solou park has a Port Aventura next to it which offers a much more complete park experience. The park will obviously get some visitors because of the tallest coaster in Europe but unless its a 10-15 Euro bolt on ticket I can't see it being an initial success until they build a second wave of attractions.

^Seriously? I'm a celebrity get me out of here is consistently one of the best two reality shows on UK TV. It has the best two UK TV presenters and has the highest viewing figures with regularly over 10 million viewers. The contestants are always a good mix and it's very well edited. I think the attraction sounds cheap and temporary but it doesn't change the fact it will do well for the park. Roll on the new paramount park which will hopefully give a good shock to the stale UK theme park market. It's never good when pretty much all your major parks are owned by the same company.

I guess you could start off with three main plans, I would guess all parks follow these one way or the other. Some combine them. The Disneyland model of getting everyone up a central retail path to the centre of the park where all the lands then fan out, there are also links between the lands. The second is the round a circle route where parks are laid out in a circle, maybe round a lake. Lastly is the bit of a mess where a park is just expanded seemly without any thought or rhythm. Something like Thorpe Park. Personally I think it's difficult to beat the Disneyworld/land masterplan for extracting money out of people, what better way than having everyone walk straight past all the shops every time they walk into and leave the park. Also having a icon at the centre of the park makes having shows that are visible from the whole park easier. Interesting topic.