I went for the first time today in 5 years (I think) due to how unpleasant I've always found the place to be. So it's the first time I've seen everything from Tiger Falls to the present day change wise.
First impressions (after destroying my newly adjusted tracking on the awful dirt track car parks that are now worse than I've ever known them to be) - the entrance area. I've always hated being dumped onto a random path right in front of the entrance of Dragons Fury through what feels like a glorified access area. I much prefer the old entrance location. But first time I've seen it "tarted up". What's to say about it? It's a boring piece of flat tarmac with a Land Rover and a couple of AstroTurf animals in the middle. Dull, uninspiring and I don't think it'll be any better when the new area opens. Those suggesting the Monorail at Towers should be removed and the entrance moved to Galactica take note, this is the potential future.
Transylvania renamed Wild Woods is as laughably, jarringly bad as it was last time I went. It's clearly themed around Vampire. What's woodland like about it?
The new shipwreck area is much of nothing. If I hadn't been a member of this forum I wouldn't know they'd done anything to it. It's some basic maritime styled attractions on some plain tarmac with light theming and sky blue paint everywhere. What they've done is fine I suppose, nothing wrong with it but hardly inspiring or "phenomenal" as I've seen it being called. I didn't catch a glimpse of the new "neutral design" fag area though so perhaps I didn't get the full experience of what the area had to offer.
Tiger Rock is just Dragon Falls with a new name, a new theming structure and some orange flags. It's still boring and tired looking. The tiger bridges though were awesome. Saw them being used twice in fact by our feline friends. Great spectacle to behold with the same tatty old flume hid behind it.
Croc Drop was one of the worst queues I've ever waited in. Parking issues aside, what the hell where they thinking putting this in? 16 riders per cycle only. Advertised wait of 25 mins. Short looking queue. Around 4 - 6 people being batched from main queue per cycle with an absolute necessity it seems from both batching hosts (they changed half way through) to have zero RAP queue at all costs. At one point, 4 parties from the RAP queue were batched for one cycle and not one person out of the main queue at all. Us and families with frustrated kids stood there for 75 mins as we watched people waltz up the lanes for RAP and whatever they call fast track these days and straight on whilst we stood there either not moving at all or moving about 6ft per cycle. That experience alone makes me want to never visit the place again.
In fact, that goes for the whole place altogether. It's like they're actively trying to **** people off with woeful capacities and operations. Worse than even I remembered it to be. I probably deserved this by being foolish enough to give this place another shot. To think that they're busy spending a fortune as we speak building yet another low capacity main attraction. It's almost like they are attempting to be this way as a park.
Tomb Blaster only faired marginally better than the Croc Drop queue experience wise but only because the non moving queue line is a much more pleasant place to be.
I couldn't stomach waiting half hour + for Zufari since I heard the revelation that the cave scene is even worse since I last went.
Food and bev faired little better. No Churros and hardly any ice cream at Tiger Treats (so half the menu), but everything was available elsewhere in the park so clearly not a supply issue. The crappy looking refreshment stand by Fury, no bottled water, small selection of drinks. The Burger Kitchen by Vampire, had to stand waving my bank card around for over 10 mins whilst 5 staff stood there chatting just because I wanted to order a burger without cheese that for some reason not known to me cannot be done at the self order kiosks.
I really don't understand the strategy behind this place.
