What's new

If you could change history in a certain park, what park would you choose and what would you change?

Rob 92

Roller Poster
I'd like to add on here.

That noise restriction ATR has? Completely stupid and unnecessary.

The couple who started the legal claim lived 100 yards, 100 :emoji_zipper_mouth:ing yards, from the park. I'd like to know whose idea it was to build houses that close to the amusement park in the first place. You know it's going to generate tons of sound, why bother building a house there?! Also, they had to pay fines for the noise? The :emoji_zipper_mouth: people?! The park's already had to pay five million pounds for the Smiler crash. Why take more money because of sound?!

So what I'd change is prevent the guy from building the houses there, so that ATR doesn't have to suffer from two people who've been complaining since 2002.

Oh, and fire the two guys who caused the Smiler crash. If I owned ATR, I wouldn't keep two guys around who would purposely make a ride crash.

I don't really post on here but this has irked me. What are you on about? People did not build houses right by a theme park, a theme park was built right by said houses. Yes the Atlon Towers estate outdates many of the houses in question but the theme park does not. For the record I despise the Ropers.

And who purposely made The Smiler crash? As you would say over in the States - FAKE NEWS!

Christ.
 
Last edited:

Will

Strata Poster
All the stuff with the Ropers was long before Smilergate - I may be wrong, but I think they've gone quiet lately.

As for the thing with the Smiler itself, I think everyone's now aware of what took place leading up to the incident, but dragging it up yet again AND implying that this was an intentional act helps nobody. :emoji_angry:

Sticking with the Alton theme meanwhile, I think I'd undo nearly everything Merlin have done with the place...
I'd also like to go back to the beginning of the century, and help Fantasy Island invest in a coaster that would really put them on the map, rather than Jubilee Odyssey.
 
Last edited:

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of this the last time I posted in this thread:

I'd stop every Parques Reunidos acquisition I could think of. That chain has been terrible with regards to new investments in ALL of their parks. Lake Compounce built Phobia last year, and Movie Park Germany and Attraciepark Slagharen are opening new coasters this year - as far as I can tell, those are the only examples of Parques Reunidos-managed parks that ever built new coasters after being bought by the chain. It's a shame too, since many of those parks were nation-leading with several big investments in the years before the acquisitions too. The two Madrid parks and Mirabilandia being the most prominent examples.
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
^ That's a good one actually. As a chain, they've been pretty piss-poor. It's ridiculous that Warner has had nothing substantial added since it opened. Aspro is another one. Another Spanish company who own parks, but like Reunidos, basically ignore them and focus on making money from their dolphin/whale parks. Realistically, they should be getting the same s**t that Sea World have been getting, but are likely "getting away with it" because the parks they own seem independant as they don't fall under the same branding.

I don't really post on here but this has irked me. What are you on about? People did not build houses right by a theme park, a theme park was built right by said houses. Yes the Atlon Towers estate outdates many of the houses in question but the theme park does not.

Reminds me of something a friend told me years ago about when they worked at Windsor Castle and some American tourists said that it was "beautiful, but why did they build it so close to Heathrow Airport?"

I would LOVE to see what Alton Towers would have looked like now had it continued under Tussauds instead of being taken over by Merlin. Chessington, too, actually. I hate the place, but can kind of see why it may have been considered as a decent park. I think Thorpe is the only place that has actually improved since the takeover.
 

VTCGA5

Roller Poster
Another thing, I would prevent SFGAm from removing Great American Raceway. X-Flight could've still been built in a different location
 
As Hyde said, Six Flags went way too aggressive with their expansion of Geauga Lake. Geauga Lake did well prior to its acquisition by Six Flags, because it never tried to compete with Cedar Point. It was a more family friendly park and catered to a different market. Cedar Point is well known in many places around the world, whereas if you mentioned Geauga Lake to anyone, they'd probably have no idea what it was. So, for Six Flags to think that building seven trillion different attractions in one year was going to put them in the same category as Cedar Point, well, I'm not really sure what drugs their team was on. It takes years to build a reputation, not one season. It's a real shame too because some of my best park days were at that park!
 

ukthemeparkfan

Roller Poster
I would change the poorly handed re-brad from Thorpe in 2014 and make the transition into a family park more gradual instead of just throwing in angry birds and hoping for the best
 

Chris Brown

Mr CoasterForce 2016
I'm kind of surprised I didn't think of this the last time I posted in this thread:

I'd stop every Parques Reunidos acquisition I could think of. That chain has been terrible with regards to new investments in ALL of their parks. Lake Compounce built Phobia last year, and Movie Park Germany and Attraciepark Slagharen are opening new coasters this year - as far as I can tell, those are the only examples of Parques Reunidos-managed parks that ever built new coasters after being bought by the chain. It's a shame too, since many of those parks were nation-leading with several big investments in the years before the acquisitions too. The two Madrid parks and Mirabilandia being the most prominent examples.

I was looking into this earlier and quite frankly its poor. There are a few other big investments that i can think of, sky rocket at kennywood, Divertical at Mirabilandia, Dutch Wonderland are getting the S&S invert for 2017/18 and storyland got Roar-O-Saurus. I know its not great but I'd say up until last year Walibi were a lot worse. I'd be interested to see how the company plans their investments as it must be the parks that pick and choose their rides individually. I'd assume they are given budgets yearly based on visitors numbers and nearby competition and its down to the park whether they save for larger investments.

I've also just notice that Motiongate have appointed Parques Reunidos as their park operator...
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I was looking into this earlier and quite frankly its poor. There are a few other big investments that i can think of, sky rocket at kennywood, Divertical at Mirabilandia, Dutch Wonderland are getting the S&S invert for 2017/18 and storyland got Roar-O-Saurus.

If I remember correctly (and it could be that I'm wrong), both Sky Rocket and DiVertical were opened so shortly after their parks' acquisition that it's likely they were both ordered and paid for before Parques Reunidos took over.
 

Chris Brown

Mr CoasterForce 2016
If I remember correctly (and it could be that I'm wrong), both Sky Rocket and DiVertical were opened so shortly after their parks' acquisition that it's likely they were both ordered and paid for before Parques Reunidos took over.

More likely that I'm wrong! The date thing would make more sense as the larger investments are in planned years in advance. Surprised the previous owner actually sold mirabilandia it's a great park that seems to do well.
 

CSLKennyNI

Giga Poster
More likely that I'm wrong! The date thing would make more sense as the larger investments are in planned years in advance. Surprised the previous owner actually sold mirabilandia it's a great park that seems to do well.
Not sure why they did sell it as it is a successful park but it was previously joint owned by the Loffelhardt family (founders and owners of Phantasialand) and an Italian business man. Sold for 100 Million Euro in 2006. So I imagine the money helped redevelop Phantasialand and build Maus, Chiapas and Taron...
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
If I remember correctly (and it could be that I'm wrong), both Sky Rocket and DiVertical were opened so shortly after their parks' acquisition that it's likely they were both ordered and paid for before Parques Reunidos took over.
You didn't do your research properly. Mirabilandia was acquired by Parques Reunidos in 2006, which means both Divertical and iSpeed have been built under their ownership...
EDIT: Looking through some old news articles, Kennywood was bought by them in late 2007, which is a few years before Sky Rocket was built...
 

TLARides

Hyper Poster
This thread has turned into a talk about how badly Six Flags ed up Geauga Lake and how bad Parques Reunidos has screwed up multiple parks.

Sent from my SM-J700T using Tapatalk
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
You didn't do your research properly. Mirabilandia was acquired by Parques Reunidos in 2006, which means both Divertical and iSpeed have been built under their ownership...
EDIT: Looking through some old news articles, Kennywood was bought by them in late 2007, which is a few years before Sky Rocket was built...

Mirabilandia was acquired in 2006, while iSpeed opened in 2009. It seems likely that at least iSpeed was ordered before Parques Reunidos took over. I don't know how far in advance coaster purchases are planned, but I can't imagine it being any less than 2-3 years at a minimum. Divertical opened in 2012, so that seems more like an actual Parques Reunidos project.

Same goes for Kennywood and Sky Rocket, which opened in 2010. The project must at least have been on the planning stage when Parques Reunidos took over. Interestingly, Parques Reunidos did buy Kennywood a Zamperla Giant Discovery in 2012, and those things don't come cheap.
 

Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
Sold for 100 Million Euro in 2006. So I imagine the money helped redevelop Phantasialand and build Maus, Chiapas and Taron...
I wonder where all that money was coming from. Makes you think how much money Merlin have spending on building all these Legolands (3 since 2012 and 2 pending)
 
Top