.
Quiet

As a particularly quiet year, this list is particularly long, but reassuringly there are no real bombshells here – if a few disappointments.

Disappointments come no bigger than Heide Park, Germany’s largest theme park, yet probably the most stagnant. We’ve heard about 400ft giga coasters and we’ve heard about launched ‘Aqua Trax’ coasters planned for the park, but so-far Tussauds have been all mouth and no trousers with only a revamped drop tower to show for their efforts.

Another park that has gone quiet recently is Fantasy Island. For a park that was investing so aggressively, it is surprising that 2006 appears to be the second season in a row where the park is to receive nothing, and with no sign of that to change anytime soon.

The same could be said for our Parisian friends on the continent at Parc Asterix, a park that has really dropped the baton since opening Trace Du Hourra in 2001. We haven’t heard any plans to rejoin the race by continuing the high standard set by Trace Du Hourra, but who knows, we could be in for a surprise.

Movie World Madrid last year played the joker on us and announced La Aventura de Scooby Doo, an interactive Sally dark ride after our pessimistic outlook for 2005 went online, so we’re hoping they’ll repeat the same trick for next year.

The park had a much better season last year after a disappointing debut and the park are optimistic about the future. Expect many improvements over the next few seasons; smoking is expected to be banned for example, with designated smoking areas made available to smokers, and in the long term we can expect to see a dark ride (of a much larger scale than Scooby Doo), new shows and a new Studio next door to the existing Special Effects studio.

Walibi World has no advertised plans for 2006, although the buzz is that they could be losing a few attractions to sister parks, namely El Toro (the Breakdance) and Gladiatore (Huss Magic) which are rumoured to be heading to Bellewearde and Walibi Rhone-Alpes.

Despite their insistence to the contrary, 2006 will be a quiet year for Chessington, just like it was last year. This year sees the popular Bubbleworks receive a much-unneeded facelift, but compared to Alton Towers’ transformation of Toyland Tours into Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this is a revamp of miniscule proportions.

Also, due to the way Blackstone Group finance their parks with a rolling budget between all four Legolands, Legoland Windsor is only set to receive a couple of new shows for 2006, with no investment planned for 2007 and £7m for 2008 (which just bought Denmark a river rafting ride).