Flamingo Land: General Discussion

[thefatone]

Bit off topic but does anyone know why they check the restraints on Kumali once the ride is over? Seemed a bit pointless :/

I'm pretty sure that they're pulling down on each restraint to ensure it releases properly.

Yeah same restraints as vampire essentially, although unlike Chessington instead of releasing them and then pushing down on the stuck restraints, they push down on all of them before opening them. It's just more faff that they create with that ride. That rides loading procedures are pure faff anyway.

 

[BigAl]

Flamingoland's Twitter have put up a cool picture of Hero's lift from directly beneath it:

Great! But where's the rest of this BEAST!?

 

[Sam]

Uploaded by FL's Twitter a few days ago:

And a lesson in PR, Flamingoland style. In response to someone asking when Hero would be open...

Flamingo Land Resort ‏@flamingolanduk 15 Jun
@flamingopicsuk @iamgarfield90 why does everyone keep asking us that? As soon as possible!

 

[John]

Seems to be coming along nicely, or as nicely as is possible for a Volare. Looks like we'll just miss it with the TST North meet though, which might or might not be a shame depending on just how bad those rides actually are.

 

[DiogoJ42]

The lift hill reminds me of Dream Flight at Efteling.

This should be a fun little ride. It can't be any worse than the crap they have already.

 

[Thomas]

That tweet by the PR department is astonishingly bad! Genuinely, it's such a gaffe. I'd understand if it had a wink face or perhaps it was meant in jest, but to me the tone just strikes as one as 'Give us yer money and 'off!'.

 

[BigAl]

More goodies from Flamingo Land's treasure trove of tweets!


First, another image of Hero:

A few Tweets referencing Smiler's problems...


flamingopics:

@flamingolanduk hero is looking great!

Flamingo Land Resort:

@flamingopicsuk many thanks here's another great shot of #Hero should make the customers smile pic.twitter.com/JlIJWdTgRK

Michael Cherkassky:

@flamingolanduk @flamingopicsuk I like the way you put "it will make the customers smile" is this because the smiler keeps breaking lol?

Flamingo Land Resort:

@CherkassJames as if we would we sink so low ;-)

And finally, surely this ride should be nicknamed 'Right-hand Turn: The Ride'...

Just one turn left!

 

[BigAl]

Flamingo Land's Facebook have uploaded more photos of the Dino Stone area today:

 

[Harv]

That looks... good.

 

[Thomas]

It looks impressive, that spinning coaster however does not. I'd prefer the unthemed proper wildmouse to right hand turn the ride!

 

[Rose Of Dawn]

Those dinosaurs may be incredibly out of scale, but I'm sure kids will love them. Doesn't look too bad at all.

 

[Dave]

Flamingo Lands theming has always been reasonable (with a few notable exceptions), they tend to stick to one theme (african) but it's done well.

Flamigo Lands issue is their operations and throughputs.

 

[Ted]

I think the themeing looks alright. Nothing special, but it's nice enough for a park like Mingoland.

 

[Sam]

Another issue for me is the layout (as in the lack of vision and planning of). Nearly all parks have an identifiable geographical personality, which informs their character as a theme park. Disney being the most obvious example, but think of the way Alton horseshoes around the valley, and then forms a circle around the Towers.

Drayton is another good example, with the lake providing one structural point, and the main street another. The rides and attractions are then 'pegged' onto these geographical features. Flamingoland may be well themed in parts, but its layout is completely random, rides and areas scattered about all over the park, with seemingly no long-term planning about how it will form a better park.

Rides and themed areas back awkwardly onto each other, and rather than major rides being on the park edges, they're slapped in the middle. It gives the park a very weak personality or character, and doesn't give much hope that it'll become anything better than it is now in the future. :S

I mean look at it, it's so bloody random. Apart from Lost River Ride (possibly their finest hour), none of it looks like it's been located or placed with any sort of thought or planning. It literally does look like the park has been designed by dropping ride outlines on a map and then filling in paths in-between.

 

[Dave]

Another issue for me is the layout (as in the lack of vision and planning of). Nearly all parks have an identifiable geographical personality, which informs their character as a theme park. Disney being the most obvious example, but think of the way Alton horseshoes around the valley, and then forms a circle around the Towers.

Flamingoland may be well themed in parts, but its layout is completely random, rides and areas scattered about all over the park, with seemingly no long-term planning about how it will form a better park.

Rides and themed areas back awkwardly onto each other, and rather than major rides being on the park edges, they're slapped in the middle. It gives the park a very weak personality or character, and doesn't give much hope that it'll become anything better than it is now in the future. :S

To be fair Europa Park has no central geographical point, its entrance is in an illogical position and areas back onto each other. Obviously EP made something of that so there is no reason somewhere else cannot.

FL issue will remain until they get their head out of the sand and fix their operational issues.

 

[CGM]

I mean look at it, it's so bloody random. Apart from Lost River Ride (possibly their finest hour), none of it looks like it's been located or placed with any sort of thought or planning. It literally does look like the park has been designed by dropping ride outlines on a map and then filling in paths in-between.

I've always thought it resembles a badly thought out RCT park. It's like that situation where you've clicked on build ride and you're hovering around the park trying to find a space where the blue squares will fit. Flamingoland just build the ride in the first space they find, usually near the entrance.

All of the major rides are bunched into an area that probably isn't even a quarter of the park's size. I know that the animals need plenty of space but in terms of the amount of land they own, Flamingoland's got to be one of the UK's largest parks and the space could be much better utilised.

Disney understood that by spreading out the major attractions and locating them as far away from the entrance as possible, you distribute visitors throughout the park. This avoids congestion and introduces guests to minor attractions on the way, reducing queues on the major rides. Flamingoland have ended up with the complete opposite of this meaning that the front of the park gets crowded whilst the massive, open areas around Lost River Ride are practically deserted.

I suspect it's a matter of infrastructure. Perhaps Flamingoland don't want to foot the bill for providing high voltage 3-phase power to the far reaches of the park. It could also be that FL wants to keep the rides as far away from the zoo and the village as possible so that they don't upset the animals of the locals.

There is one small area of Flamingoland that I think feels like a proper landscaped theme park rather than a glorified fair and it's the area next to the lake between Kumali's drop and Voodoo. I don't know why they don't make better use of the lake as it's by far the most naturally beautiful part of what is mostly quite a flat and barren park.

The current layout is effectively three parallel strips of land divided up by the monorail and a line of trees, both of which seem to be some sort of sacred barrier as the park won't allow anything to cross their path. It creates this weird end to end feel and whilst you can cut across from one area to another, to do so you often have to walk through a shop or arcade, it's in no way intuitive and just bizarre. Some parks you can visit for the first time and you don't need a map to find your way round. I've been to FL many times but its layout still confuses me.

Sorry for this somewhat lengthy, formless post but theme park layouts just don't get discussed enough around here!

 

[Tom]

Still too many staff smoking in booths and on platforms etc. I was even asked for a light by one once.

 

[Danny]

The first car is now on Hero:

 

[Plastic Person]

Oh, herro.

 

[Harv]

Hero is now testing.