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Hopefully, she will stay in the job for a little longer. It has been a mixed bag of a year, but I think Bianca has generally done a good job. Let's not forget the years of neglect the resort has suffered. Unless Merlin pumps millions upon millions into fixing the park, any manager in the post is...

There doesn't appear to be anything going on around Galactica, either.

I don't feel Merlin has changed much in the past few years. There's still an imbalance where you get the good (Curse/Nemesis) and then the bad (operational cuts, poor F&B offerings). There was good theming before going private (Wicker Man in 2018). Improvement in theming, I feel, is simply due...

14/15 Harry Style's guitar got me. I put it down as a scam. How do you genuinely know if the artist has signed an item (unless they do it in front of you)? I've never heard of Julien's. If you Google them, their reviews aren't very good either, so I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

Merrie England became a very run-down area mostly used as a thoroughfare. The transition to Mutiny Bay turned it into an area you wanted to stay in. There were some new bits of theming. Battle Galleons was well done. You had a new kid's flat ride (Heave Ho), the pirate show in the Courtyard, and...

The planning permission allows them to commence works up to June 2026, so plenty of time for this to happen if Towers still wish to go ahead with it. They could push it as far back as a 2028/2029 opening. Personally I feel it would be a shame if this project is shelved/scrapped. The whole of...

It's likely a warning/response to the US and UK allowing their long-range missiles to be used by Ukraine to attack targets in Russia. I don't feel it's in Putin's interests to go nuclear or escalate this war beyond Ukraine (that's not to say it wouldn't happen). He's got supplies coming from...

Two acid vats on either side is a good shout. I am thinking black and yellow on the ride/structure, then two theming pieces on either side with green pipes, etc, maybe leading into some kind of water feature. I hope they go with good quality theming and don't make a cheap job of it.

It gets worse when you are older and working full-time, Matt. That "Oh, god..." turns into "For ****'s sake".

The shows tend to take many months of planning. If a retheme were planned for Galactica, it would be too late to change the Fireworks show/plans. I don't think it particularly makes a difference to the Fireworks show, as creatively, it works anyway. It’s not exactly like the story was ‘Come to...

Am I right in saying that the stage was only used for the CBeebies event this year before Oktoberfest? If we expect more cuts in 2025, I wonder whether we won’t see the stage until Oktoberfest (no events or stage entertainment prior to this).

When the hospital I work in opened (it's a new hospital), we had those floating/wall-attached toilets. Quickly after a few weeks of opening, lots of toilets across the hospital were coming apart from the wall attachments/hinges (resulting in angry maintenance staff coming to reattach/secure...

It always felt like the spa was under-advertised, likely due to the limitations of the space. It wasn't a huge spa and was a repurposed space itself from a kids club/hotel pool, so the limited capacity, I think, has always been reflected in the lack of advertising. There are spas up and down the...

I think it's a good family-thrill ride that bridges the gap between RMT and the more intense thrill rides. The outdoor section lets it down a bit, but it's a decent enough ride. Lack of reliability as a reason for removal you could apply to any ride at any point in history. At the moment, Alton...

Yeah, I found that a bit disappointing. Given the time it has been closed, it's a shame they couldn't 1. fix that curtain and 2. make the preshow doors automatic (they're plain old doors that the staff member has to open, I imagine that gets tedious all day). It's great they've fixed the ride...

Well, #PrayforBlade was not on my 2024/25 closed season bingo card!

The monorail is a disgrace at present. The whole experience is miserable: being held back to wait for one of two trains to arrive, sitting in a mouldy, filthy train, squinting through the microwave holes filled with filth, and making out the silhouettes of the theme park behind. When we...

The large projects involve multiple external suppliers/companies/creatives working collaboratively with MMM. So, I see little change to any future projects (if Merlin decides to continue to invest similarly). I imagine, if anything, this will affect the smaller projects (TLC to Hex) and events...

Yeah, I'm certain that MMM was notorious for overcharging. Hence, Towers go to Leek Signs for all their signage, as MMM would cost double or triple. I wonder whether this arm of MMM was a leftover from the Tussauds days and kept existing out of loyalty (for all of Varney’s flaws, he had a soft...

I don't disagree with your point, but given the history of Merlin marketing, I feel that, at least initially, they would want to go down the "The World's first Minecraft Land" or similar route to give it more of a USP. That's not to say they could explore it being added to a second park a year...