I can safely say that I am looking forward to the Monster Party ride, but cannot help but express my concerns as the park continues to lose it’s original charm and character.
The ride should prove a worthy addition to the park, whilst bringing the park’s dark ride/indoor ride total to four, amongst the Star Wars miniland and first section of the Dragon. It looks to bring in a ride that will potentially help attraction diversity and something with a darker theme, surprisingly Legoland lack dark themes compared to other Merlin parks which are full of them!
Now the concerns, the facade they have there looks nice enough, but it cannot be ignored that the green walls seem to lack the lego elements, I.E bricks and styling and the fact there is that ‘exposed’ show building wall. The fact they have stuck cheap vinyl characters there, not only actually makes it look worse, but implies this will never be concealed anytime soon in the forseable future.
It is sadly a fact that the park are limited on expansion areas (which is likely the case for most parks in the U.K. and even Europe), so their only options really are to remove green space and former attractions. Whilst this is all understandable to add new rides, it’s simply a shame the park and Merlin can’t take an approach that is more aesthetically pleasing, I.E theme show buildings so they can fit within area and/or plant more vegetation. Maybe even restyle pathways too.
Since the mid/late noughties, the park landscaping and architecture has been going down hill, with cheap and easy fixes to new/reworked attractions. Whether that’s the large concrete trough of the Rapids or 75% of the Ninjago ride building being exposed in a central area without appropriate theming. Attractions seem to be just plonked down now where any available space is (like RCT) without any consideration for the surrounding area.
The park may be getting more of the bigger things now, but that’s at the cost of the smaller ones. Most of the old LLW charm is now almost gone.
