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CBeebies Land

Dave said:
BigAl said:
Being primarily a theme park geek doesn't stop me from being incredibly interested in other things though. It isn't a proper sensory garden, that's obvious to 'get'. Try Trentham down the road for a real one, as I wonder if those who developed the idea actually know what makes an effective sensory garden, to be brutally honest.
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Tentham is not a sensory garden aimed at children with disabilities, its a barefoot walk.
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Actually the Barefoot Walk isn't the Sensory Garden, the Sensory Garden is to the side of the playground and cafe and it's probably the reason why I continue to keep visiting (resigned myself to the fact that they'll never rebuild the hall :( ).

It consists of numerous small themed gardens created for literally everyone to enjoy. It features slopped walkways, things to touch, smell, read, lie on, sit on, listen to, lighting and water features, things to occasionally move and taste, etc... It's all put together by members of the public (young and old) who enjoy gardening and want everyone, especially those with disabilities (again, young and old), to enjoy it!

To me, Alton Towers' take on a sensory garden falls completely short of what a sensory garden actually needs to be - stimulating and interesting. There will of course be the odd one or two who enjoy it and that's completely fine, but it doesn't make the point about it generally not ticking as many boxes as it ought to do any less relevant a point to make.

:)
 
Cbeebies Land is a pleasant new investment and, whilst it came at the compromise of Old MacDonald's Farm and Storybook Land, will be extremely popular for the younger families bound to be visiting!

It has a nice, pleasant and clean atmosphere about it with charming street entertainment and interactive elements for children to get involved with. The Big Top and Tree Fu Tom playground are by far the best highlights because they heavily improve upon previously run down (Dungheap) and unused (Ice Show) areas that we used to criticise a heck of a lot.

The area will blatantly do very well for as long as the IPs are relevant and fresh for young children, I'd love to know what younger families think of it since they're the target demographic!
 
Based on social media and the general atmosphere on park the target audience seem to be loving it. The only negative comments I have seen are regarding the high ticket prices and prices once you get it (ohh how I agree )
 
I walked around the area earlier, and I have to be say it's such a refreshing area.

The new arena type of area is lovely, I just hope it will be kept a high quality!
 
Looks like other parks have jumped on the Cbeebies bandwagon!

treefu.png
 
It's all really good apart from numtums which looks a little tacky. The kids will love the area and it has fantastic entertainment. There is some problems with postman pats ride system but it's coping. Brilliant although in the night garden has a couple of empty spots along with something special,Nina's lab is a bit small but really nice and Charlie and Lola are better than expected. The area is the best bit of theming since 2000 in my opinion. The best effort merlin have made and exceeded most peoples expectations. All it needs now is expanding into adventure land and sonic moved to CCL
 
I agree from looking it looks great but there's a lot of up keep with all those bright paint and props to keep clean. And the fabric on those characters in the night garden will need replacing very often as it will soon rot in our weather. And all those white and coloured plastic tents will be covered in green algae in no time unless there kept clean. I don't know weather its real grass or not but that to will take a lot of up keep. And I just hope they used better leaves than they did on thirteen because we all know what colour they went. I will judge it at the end of the season . Like the mushrooms and ice age sign its covered in green mould. I hope I'm wrong because it does look good. painted benches everything just spells maintenance and a lot of it. But it does look good. it will surprising to see the forum on this next year on how it looks then. But the kids will love it no matter how it looks . Please Merlin look after it.
 
The news article in the BBCs in house magazine http://www.bbc.co.uk/ariel/27518448 makes it sound like the BBC will be keeping an eye on it and maintenance will be good. Also interesting how the man from BBC Worldwide is still using Kellog's vouchers to get in!

I agree that they will have to keep a close eye on things that kids are handling, I remember how worn out the buttons in the singing barn looked and the Spinball queue games have never been replaced!
 
Well if it's not maintained it could give bbc a bad name so I'd expect them to keep an eye and if not maintained could they have power to force merlin to close the area off? If it's not maintained then it'll be bad for Alton and BBC because it has a really garish colour scheme and could rot and peel badly.
 
There were some BBC bods in yesterday watching the Nina show before wandering around the area... I'd imagine this will be a rather frequent thing to keep an eye out...

The area is fantastic too, with Mr Bloom's Allotment being the stand-out attraction... Well done Towers...
 
Why are there RMT, Rapids and Flume in amongst all the CBeebies attractions though?
 
Tom.B said:
Why are there RMT, Rapids and Flume in amongst all the CBeebies attractions though?
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It looks to me that they have separated into Family and Thrill. So Flume, Rapids and RMT are in the lower family section. They could add a heading maybe saying for guests under 1.3m to the lower section. Might be better if they added a few more times to it, but then the Mutiny Bay attractions don't get a long queue anyway.
 
Yep there's a tab for Family and a tab for thrill,it looks much neater but anyway back on topic.
The street entertainers around cbeebies land are brilliant and they have nice uniforms and the zingzillas truck before shows was a really nice surprise, the shows are really good for the children and the animatronics are brilliant although unless they are maintained every season they'll look like the bookworm did last season all rotted especially the fabric on in the night garden
 
So it looks like our predictions about capacity where correct. Postman Pat has a longer queue than The Smiler.
 
They should develop the Adventureland area into CBeebies too.

The queues are ghastly. This new land is going to bring in masses of guests!

Closing before 6 most weekends now will be daft.
 
Really with kids that young you can't stand in a queue for anything over 20 minutes an expatiation is needed
 
Get rid of Spinball, the hospitality suite and play area and along with the Beastie site the area could be expanded by around 50%.

I would be sad to see Spinball depart, but it makes commercial sense and we would finally see the back of Adventureland once and for all in favour of one large coherent children's area.

:)
 
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