Don't really feel the need for an in-depth report, so here's a general overview of general differences between 2016 and 2017 and my thoughts on them:
The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure
WOW. I didn't believe Merlin could ever pull off anything this good. Every scene was as close to perfect as I ever believed we'd see for a family dark ride in the UK. It's probably the only Merlin ride which I would say actually represents their "second only to Disney" status. Good throughputs meant that I got 4 rides on this throughout the day (even when the entire cattlepen is full - not including the temorary bit - the queue's 30 minutes at most) and yet I still want more.
Adventure Tree
The tree itself is a great centrepiece. The Carousel is decent. It's visually far superior to the old one, but my giraffe felt really hard and uncomfortable to sit on and I don't think it had anything to do with me being far too old for it.
Single Rider Queues
Dragon's Fury: interestingly, they've now altered this so that the old single rider queue is now divided into disabled and single riders. It somewhat works, but causes confusion when people get in the wrong line. Still, 14 rides on it using SRQ yesterday, so I'd say it works. :P
Zufari: basically, you just go down the exit. It seems very little known and very unused, but after I briefly explained that I was there for Single Rider I was welcome to choose any of the 5-6 seats spare seats on the loaded truck. It worked really well and skipped a 30 minute queue, but I can't see myself using it more than once or twice per day.
Dragon Falls: didn't see it used all day. Still don't get how it's going to work.
Operations
In a word: decent. Rattlesnake was a bit poor, they were barely filling the cars (I got one to myself!) Vampire was actually half decent for once, Gruffalo was brilliant, Dragon's Fury was better than when the exit was the disabled queue, but still not quite great. General queues were kept down as much as possible, rides seemed to be on several trains (Vampire, Tomb Blaster etc).
On the whole, I would say the park is looking fantastic, probably the best I've ever seen it since I first started visiting in 2006!
Ridecount:
14x Dragon's Fury
4x The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure
2x Dragon Falls
1x Vampire
1x Rattlesnake
1x Rameses Revenge
1x Kobra
1x Zufari
1x Monkey Swinger
1x Tomb Blaster
1x Adventure Tree
1x Griffin's Galleon
Total: 12 unique, 29 total.
