andybarnes84

Not much of a fan of inverts but Montu was my first and what a first it was! The Batman clones continue to be the most efficient layout B&M have ever come up with. 1. Montu 2. Batman clones 3. Alpengeist 4. Dragon Challenge (The red one ) 5. Great Bear

Certainly not bad experiences just very indifferent and lacking any sort of the typical Disney warmth or positivity, and I meant generally throughout the resort not just one encounter i.e ride staff looking disinterested, counter service staff very much the same, none of the "how's your day going" or "how are you" just "that'll be $10.95". I'd argue that on this visit we had a lot more positive interaction with staff at Universal and even very slightly to some extent at SFMM (yes you read that right, blasphemy I know! ). For example, the staff at every TOT we've been on often make great efforts to fit in with the theme, but here it was completely missing, straight up Six Flags semi-efficiency and nothing else. Even in Paris the guy loading the elevator was making a huge effort with a creepy laugh to freak people out and talking various languages. We just came away feeling a little cheated and let down after paying $150 each for our day there to pretty much feel like we could have been at any park/resort (other than WDW, Tokyo Disney and Dollywood). It didn't help that it was very busy for a 3 out of 10 day (on most crowd calendars), we still managed to get around everything we wanted to do but with minimal re-rides. I'm not intending to start any sort of huge argument, it was just an observation that I wanted to mention on here and was curious if there really is a difference between East & West and also if there are any specific politics behind it.

Yes please!

I was just reflecting upon my recent trip to LA (as you do when winter sets in) and our day at DLR, which for a random weekday was still mobbed because of the incredible Cars Land, but one not so great lasting impression stuck with me, the lack of "Disney" customer service *ducks behind reinforced wall* We felt that our trip this summer at Disneyland Paris had about the same level of casual friendliness but nothing you wouldn't find at many other parks across the States. I sincerely hope that WDW are maintaining their ever high standards but just wondered if anyone else can explain this, is it an LA thing or were all the staff I encountered just burnt out?

I may have mentioned this before but after hundreds of coasters around the World I'll never forget my ride on Tornado at M&Ds near Glasgow (Scotland) and that was AFTER they had removed the "corkscrew" (and yes there was a little blood, never a good souvenir!) This coaster is just so wrong in so many ways! Pinfari should never have dared to go above 36ft, gimme an SLC any day!

When we got back to the station on I305, my girlfriend had a fairly bad nose bleed, definitely a "holy crap" moment. Needless to say she didn't go on it again.

Balder, almost voted for Skyrush but I need to get more rides on it

Fantastic, thank you both! Getting a little tired of DLR and was considering Efteling as a viable alternative for some mid-winter ride relief, would really like to ride Joris en de Draak so I'll have to be careful with choosing quite when to pop over.

Really insightful photos, thank you! That entrance still gets my vote for best ever! On a side note, I really should wait until this new attraction opens, but If i'm tempted to go sooner (like January/February) is it worth going at this time of year? I've read so many conflicting things about what may or may not be open, what definitely won't open etc, all very confusing! Does it really just depend on how cold it is?

It's a strange postition we've reached where most of us are like "meh" when something like Fury 325 comes along, and yet from the perspective of a Brit, could you imagine the hype if that was being built at Blackpool PB or Drayton Manor? It's all relative, and just because this is more like Intimidator 305 and not an airtime machine, it's crazy (myself included) that we consider it to be lacklustre. Please keep posting updates, stay positive! Us deprived folks across the pond can only dream of getting something like this

What an incredible TR, Zhangjiajie looks amazing and unlike anything I've seen before, very dream-like! Closest description I can think of would be the Grand Canyon meets Switzerland via the Amazon rainforest. When looking at the rather exposed glass walkway however all I could think of was your much earlier picture of the mechanic re-attaching the seatbelt to that knock-off SLC, hmm...... From a personal perspective, there's really not a whole lot it seems to entice me to explore China for it's theme parks, the handful of actually impressive rides have a 50% chance of not even being open, combined with the smog, geographical distances, cleanliness issues etc, a lot of these places seemed like they were out of my occasional bizarre theme park related nightmares, especially with all that weird imagery and smog. I'd imagine if you have a strong interest in China and the culture you could easily accept and look beyond these issues. Their trains do look very very good indeed and I too wish we could have something remotely close to that in the UK but there are obvious reasons that allow China to do these epic projects in crazy time frames (and it's not all good). Having been to Japan (and loved everything about it) I think i'd struggle to visit China and be equally impressed, but maybe I'm being a bit naive and should take a chance! As I said at the start, really incredible reports and photos, thanks so much for your effort!

Fascinated in this "steam punk" concept generally, instantly think of things like the Bioshock games. Wouldn't it be cool if the staff uniform for the attraction could be something like this:

Much more excited about this than the cheap looking "people have never seen this before in the World!!!!" hype machine at Gardaland

Skyrush, back row, either outer seat, at night, truly mad!

My bad! Seriously got my coaster types mixed up, very embarrasing, my apologies! That changes the debate as there are some impressive flying coasters out there, my current favourite being Tatsu which really is something else, and that one in Asia seems insane (starry sky ripper?). But on the other hand Air is very lame and was a huge let down for me having followed it's construction all the way, haven't even bothered to ride it on recent visits to the park if it's got much of a line. I've always wondered if the station tilt system has been too problematic for this type of ride to properly take off (no pun intended). I think the coaster is perfect, but as always with these they are reasonably short unless you have the height of Sheikra/Griffon. Does Efteling have strict height restrictions? Also, do we know what inversion will follow the immelman, or will it just be an airtime hill? I got all excited for the recreation with a splash down too but that would just be too good.

Thank you very much for this, sounds fantastic! Now I realise that what I thought was just white mist around the tunnel is in fact the ghosts, awesome! As for not seeing enough B&M Flyers being built, I really don't think much of them at all, their design restricts their intensity greatly and I've yet to be impressed by one (Gatekeeper, Swarm & X-Flight ridden so far) unlike Dive Coasters which I always enjoy no matter how short.

Pretty incredible, the way to make the smaller Dive Machines really resonate with visitors is a strong theme, and I only wish I could understand the video as they seem to be explaining the back story to the coaster. First thoughts were a little of Space Mountain in Paris when looking at the concept art, really like the aesthetic they're going for and can't wait to get confirmation of the full layout.

You came all the way from England and you didn't get Fast Lane on a busy day? Seems like a mistake to me. The line as over two hours one of the days we went. Had Fast Lane - rode 4 times in a row. I can be cheap at times and only traveled from New York, but even I bought the Fast Lane. I enjoyed my dozen plus rides on Banshee. I'm originally from Scotland so maybe that helps explain my lack of enthusiasm for paying for "extras" Our day involved driving from Gatlinburg to Cedar Point via Kings Island, to be honest by that point in our trip we'd been spoilt by the lack of lines at so many parks with so many incredible coasters, road trip burnout was well and truly setting in. Most other lines at KI that day were 15-20 mins, so we didn't feel the need to purchase a $60 fast lane pass each (when entry cost us something like $40) for re-riding one decent invert. Thanks but no thanks sort of thing. When we got to Cedar Point however, paying for fast lane was well worth it, strongly recommended! As for Helix, I completely agree that it's good at everything it does but not amazing other than the airtime hills which did seem stronger than Balder once they'd both warmed up. I do think that the ride length goes a long way to bumping it up the ranks, and I wouldn't say Blue Fire is a better coaster but does have a better launch.

Banshee - Only managed to get 1 ride in due to insane lines and wasn't blown away, wish we'd had time to re-ride, think I was expecting too much from this given the reviews. Still felt like the usual "gradual" transition nature of recent B&M coasters but good to have the height at least, but a relatively weak ending. Still hold Shambala as fav newish B&M. Not a fan of the vest restraint either which pins you in. 7/10 Firechaser Express - Fantastic "family" coaster with a kick, pops of airtime, usual top notch attention to detail. 8/10 Helix - This isn't about the launches, it's about the incredibly clever layout on the hillside and the views, the hangtime, night lighting, the INSANE airtime hills and Maverick like twists at some points, the great start out of the station in the back row.... Will admit, like most rides, that it got much better towards the end of the evening. Oh and the station music 9/10 Looking forward to El Loco next month!

Not *hate* by any means but frustrated with I305 and how it has all that speed yet no height after the first hill and really not particularly thrilling after the drop.

The presenter in the CNN clip mentions that they hardly have any competition but far from it, with so many strong parks around Europe offering much cheaper deals with "Resort" accommodation, I think Disneyland really have to aggressively expand to stand out, otherwise we'll all keep going to Florida for our Disney fix. A ride themed to rats ain't gonna do it.

Absolutely! This should happen! We have Frozen in Norway, I'd agree with Mulan for China and Ratatouille for France, would prefer a 101 dalmations attraction for UK or even better expand for a Scotland section with a "Brave" attraction!

After watching that video I forgot how good the ride actually was (for what it was), I'm a little sad too as it's one of my earliest memories of my first visit to WDW (aged 10), but I'm equally guilty of not riding it on more recent visits so ultimately I have contributed to it's demise All I know is that Norway is gonna get crazy crowded when it opens Malestrom Redux with "Let it go" on loop blasting from high-end Bose speakers within a 1 mile radius, maybe not Potter nuts but not far off I'd imagine!

Key points: - Last fiscal year attendance 1 million visitors down on previous year, and first half of this fiscal year down a further 6% - Net loss in first half of current fiscal year 103.6 million euros - In the last decade the only profitable year was 2008, 1.7 million euros - Debt restructuring in 2004 and 2012 - Surviving due to the WD Company investment (40%) and Saudi Prince Al- Waleed Bin Talal (10%), but doesn't really mention anything about WDC buying the park out fully Having just been there again recently with some family, I continue to find the Disneyland Park to be very impressive, a strong contender for best of it's kind with a few things letting it down such as ride maintenance, toilet cleanliness and some customer service issues, although I have to say that most of the attraction staff were pretty great and working very hard indeed. The Studios Park, despite the continuing investment, is most definitely Disney at it's cheapest and the worst park of all Disney properties. Crush's Coaster is great and actually more intense than you'd think but there's next to nothing inside the ride building (after the lift hill) other than a couple of Jellyfish, Rock n' Roller is again a cheap and lazy version with no "theme" at all, they really should have copied the Florida one. To top it off the music only worked on 2 of 4 rides, and it's then you realise how important the music is to making the ride enjoyable. California Adventure has always been leagues ahead despite it's own criticisms, which have now pretty much been obliterated with Cars Land. Sorry to say that for the money spent on Ratatouille I was left scratching my head and feeling very dissapointed, it's a fun ride but completely lacks the scale an attraction of it's kind should have aimed for. I'm not sure of the actual cost but wikipedia has $270 million? Surely not! Worst thing about it is sitting still watching the screens as you're being chased through the restaurant whilst having a huge and very clear view of the surrounding black floor which reminds you that you really aren't going anywhere and completely takes you out of the motion intended. Bit difficult to explain without riding but hopefully you get the idea. A MAJOR plus though is that a 1 day hopper only cost us £44 per adult ($70) which is insanely cheap compared to it's Californian counterpart at $150 so that helps to put things in perspective, especially considering Europe normally being a bit more expensive.

Visited the park yesterday, first and only time this year. Firstly, now £49.50 for 1 adult!!! ($80 or €63.50). The Merlin parks must be the only ones in the World where you pretty much always visit using 2 for 1 vouchers (coupons) readily available throughout the year, a strange arrangement but if you're from outside of the UK I'd strongly recommend visiting a supermarket before your visit and you'll be guaranteed to find at least 2 things doing the 2 for 1 offer like cereal or crisps. I don't have too much issue with the £6 parking fee after paying $25 for Six Flags parks, then again you get a nationwide annual pass for about £50 depending on the first park you visit. The food options at the park are pretty drab and expensive now that they have assumed control of everything, I greatly miss the days of McDonalds and Pizza Hut! The toilet facilities throughout really need to be gutted and fully replaced for next year rather than just patched up, very old now. That's a bit of a critisism of the park in general, too much cover up paint everywhere and not enough actual replacment, I suppose it adds to the historical feel but it's pretty tatty really. On the plus side, staff were noticeably friendlier which was really appreciated. As for the rides, Duel was in fantastic condition over all with most indoor effects working very well and actually worthy of repeat rides, as bizzarre as this sounds it was almost like I had rediscovered this gem. Thirteen was still fun but that trim brake on the drop is frustrating and the sound effects weren't working for the drop which was a shame as it really does add to the "moment". Oblivion as short but great as ever, Rita also as good as always although understandably a bit of rattle going on, still don't get why they didn't just change the name and theme rather than "cover it up with weeds and evil branches". Nemesis and Air, same as! Didn't do Sub Terra this time but I do think it's better than most people say, for what it is. The Smiler is getting much rougher, especially one particular transition, the one out of the final cobra roll (before the final 2 inversions) is particularly brutal. It's not good after just 2 years of operations to wonder how much longer the ride can go on for before it needs track replacement/modification. A very amibitous coaster and great to watch but lacks the height required to properly appreciate and enjoy the inversions. I also wish they'd followed through with the Asylum theme a bit more as teased by the marketing, it's all a bit modern-trendy-random, but I suppose it works. If you have to listen to the queue "music" for more than 15 mins you have my sympathies. The other thing I noticed whilst in line for Oblivion was that there was significant tree removal going on just behind the service road at the back of X Sector (behind Oblivion and where Submission was), anything to get excited about? Overall not a bad day but I think it'll be a while before we return, time to focus more on what Germany and the rest of nearby Europe has to offer methinks!