• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

London Dungeons

Well they managed to squeeze all that in to a few brick arches under London Bridge station. By comparison, County Hall is vast.

All Dungeons work on the same principal: you are batched in to a large group and have to go through it all together, in the set order. You don't have any time to stop and look at things. Mind you, there's not much to look at anyway. In the old days, the LD was a simple museum that you could wander round at your leasure, but over the years it slowly became what it is today.

If you want that kind of thing in London these days, you are better off going to The Clink Museum. Far more informative about actual history of torture / punishment. And no actors shouting at you.

Of course, if it's good actors you want, then the London Bridge Experience may be better for you. It used to be, at least, but I've not been there for quite a while, and it may have changed by now.

As for the original LD's boat ride, it was very basic. Pretty much just an L shape out and back. It opened with a vertical lift followed by a turn table, but this was replaced with a traditional lift hill and a second turn table at some point.

Somewhere in this topic years ago, I posted a diagram of my best guess as to the layout of the old Dungeon. I assume that's defunct now, thanks to Photobucket. I'll try and find it, and see if I can get a direct link...
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Well they managed to squeeze all that in to a few brick arches under London Bridge station. By comparison, County Hall is vast.

All Dungeons work on the same principal: you are batched in to a large group and have to go through it all together, in the set order. You don't have any time to stop and look at things. Mind you, there's not much to look at anyway. In the old days, the LD was a simple museum that you could wander round at your leasure, but over the years it slowly became what it is today.

If you want that kind of thing in London these days, you are better off going to The Clink Museum. Far more informative about actual history of torture / punishment. And no actors shouting at you.

Of course, if it's good actors you want, then the London Bridge Experience may be better for you. It used to be, at least, but I've not been there for quite a while, and it may have changed by now.

As for the original LD's boat ride, it was very basic. Pretty much just an L shape out and back. It opened with a vertical lift followed by a turn table, but this was replaced with a traditional lift hill and a second turn table at some point.

Somewhere in this topic years ago, I posted a diagram of my best guess as to the layout of the old Dungeon. I assume that's defunct now, thanks to Photobucket. I'll try and find it, and see if I can get a direct link...
Click to expand...
Thank you very much @DiogoJ42!

You say that you have to go through every element of the experience together; would there be any way for someone to skip one of the ride portions, if they had a condition that might be aggravated by the ride or if they wanted to see the actor-led scenes, but not ride the rides?

Out of the two other options you gave, I'd probably pick the Clink Museum! Actors aren't my thing at all!
 
1zn36v8.jpg

Boat ride layout

67kuol.jpg

Drop tower.

Unfortunately lots of behind scenes photos have disappeared
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Aha! Found it.
here is the post with the layout of the old Dungeon. Amazingly, the image still seems to be working. (For me at least...)
Click to expand...
Brilliant! Thanks very much @DiogoJ42; that picture really shows how compact the London Dungeons actually is/was!
 
Don't know if this is has been mentioned in another post or of any interest at all but... are the Edinburgh dungeons getting shot of their boat ride? With them advertising a new Bloody Mary show for 2019, I had a scoyr around. On their TripAdvisor page, it is quite a common comment that the boat ride was underwhelming or poor/generally disappointing (I disagree - I like it). On some of the more recent comments, I saw a comment that read "We have big plans for the Boat Ride in 2019" Could this mean it's going? Or just transformed into a new show?
 
Sorry to bombard you all with more questions about the London Dungeon (despite not being my sort of thing at all, it does intrigue me somewhat), but I have a few questions regarding an attraction that was in the old iteration of the Dungeons entitled Vengeance 5D. I'd like to ask:
  • What was it, and who manufactured it?
  • Is it known why it didn't come to the County Hall Dungeons, as I believe it opened in 2011 and the Dungeons moved in 2013, correct me if I'm wrong?
 
Matt N said:
Sorry to bombard you all with more questions about the London Dungeon (despite not being my sort of thing at all, it does intrigue me somewhat), but I have a few questions regarding an attraction that was in the old iteration of the Dungeons entitled Vengeance 5D. I'd like to ask:
  • What was it, and who manufactured it?
  • Is it known why it didn't come to the County Hall Dungeons, as I believe it opened in 2011 and the Dungeons moved in 2013, correct me if I'm wrong?
Click to expand...

It was an interactive spinning flat ride that was based around a Seance, it spun around screens where you had to shoot ghosts. It was quite fun when I did it (but I was like 13 when I did it, so my memory is vague), but I believe it was unreliable, and that's why it didn't make it to the County Hall dungeons. As to who manufactured it, I don't know.
 
Last edited:
I think it was built in house, given that it was just a large turntable with seats on it. The guns were probably from a third party though.

It didn't move to County Hall because it was dire.
 
Ah right. Thanks guys! I did hear somewhere that Thorpe currently has it, although I'm not sure of how true this rumour currently is.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
I think it was built in house, given that it was just a large turntable with seats on it. The guns were probably from a third party though.

It didn't move to County Hall because it was dire.
Click to expand...
I only did it once on Tooley Street and never understood how it worked. Course, I'd been awake for about 30 hours at that point, so that might've had something to do with it... :p
 
I must admit that this type of ride in an attraction like the London Dungeons sounds like quite a strange fit; was it actually any good when it existed?
 
Yeah another +1 on reliability and the fact it added nothing to the dungeon. Plus I remember the gun part didn’t actually work but the video pretended you were shooting.

Last location known was in storage at Thorpe which is why we joke it’ll be added to DBGT :D
 
It was one of Merlin's weirdest decisions. Surely the move to County Hall was planned years ahead, but the moment before they move they install this huge ride in a confined space. It lasts one year and then obviously doesnt fit in County Hall.

Unless it was intended to move there but cut to pure unreliability, but even the cost to install it just for one year in the old Dungeon seems crazy.

It wasn't very good, it was incredible tacky, based on no story and out of tone with the rest the Dungeon. Seemed like someone had seen it at IAAPA and thought 'lets get one' without really thinking about it. It butchered the amazing original Jack The Ripper show in order to squeeze it in.

I remember the queue was just the stripped back walls where Jack had been, a big switchback queue in a confined space and a token TV playing a Windows Movie Maker slideshow in the corner.

Put it somewhere else with a better theme and it could have been a fun flat ride.
 
ringo said:
Plus I remember the gun part didn’t actually work but the video pretended you were shooting
Click to expand...
How bizarre! Do you mean that the video was animated to include you shooting as part of the story, or did the screen actually think you were shooting at it when you weren't?

Also, I'd be interested to know if it is possible to skip of any of the Dungeons scenes if they are not working or if a guest doesn't meet the requirements to board one of the rides, for example.
 
I did it in 2012 and it was certainly a weaker part of the whole experience. The only part of the run through were you stopped to queue properly as well.
 
I remember quite enjoying it tbh, it was impressive in the speed it rotated, pretty forceful.

It wasn't in - house, there's a few of them about in off the shelf theme varieties. Some of the media on this might have been more in house though.
 
pluk said:
I remember quite enjoying it tbh, it was impressive in the speed it rotated, pretty forceful.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah, that aspect was fun, but didnt make up for the horrible wait, the trashy over the top theme and just looking at screens. What was even going on? I just remember 2 minutes of PS2 graphics with a lady vomiting, loud noises and lots of demons like something out of a teenage horror movie. I wouldnt be surprised if the guns were fake too, they didnt seem to correspond to anything happening!

Done differently, somewhere else and without just screens and it could have been very fun ride. It's a shame it never went anywhere else.
 
TakeYourMedicine said:
Surely the move to County Hall was planned years ahead, but the moment before they move they install this huge ride in a confined space. It lasts one year and then obviously doesnt fit in County Hall.
Click to expand...

They had to move due to the Thameslink work so it's entirely possible they didn't know that long in advance that they had to move. Planning permission was submitted in Summer 2011, approved in Autumn 2011 (source: https://www.thameslinkprogramme.co.uk/london-bridge). The old Dungeon closed in 2013.

Lets be honest: County Hall isn't exactly ideal for a Dungeons attraction but Merlin didn't really have an option and it aligned with the rest of the London Cluster. It made sense at the time to cut any rides or sections which didn't fit thematically into the dungeons, had maintenance issues or didn't fit into Country Hall.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top