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big trouble oh well wetsuits are gone, and cutbacks are in, put stuff in the bin, and then oh look, we win

I'd be a bit peeved about Sea-Life, but I live within decent driving of 2 and they're good attractions for little one currently. Plus planning on London based nonsense later this year so always good to have some additional freebies.

I assume it will be similar to 2018/2019 with a few roamers if not needed for rides.

I’m wondering if Thorpe are avoiding some of the cutbacks to be honest as they’re a very small team compared to Towers etc. And perhaps they have been more profitable than other parks recently so are being left alone a little more? 🤷‍♂️

I genuinely wonder how many people would care if a couple of Sea Lifes and a Dungeon were to disappear off the MAP. Some people, yes. But I reckon they could get away with removing a few attractions off it, keeping the price the same and it would be a tint proportion of people who would really care.

The rate of expansion they were doing at the time was never going to be sustainable. Legolands and Midways everywhere. But was all short term mindset at the end of the day. The issue with the removal of attractions is then devaluing the Annual Pass. Which is basically their entire business these days. So those would likely also have to go down in price as well.

It's certainly hard to be optimistic about the future. Another wave of redundancies has been made apparent. But really, there have been ongoing redundancies since mid-last year across the companies, and the parks knew it was a matter of time before it hit them. But the bigger issue is that this has happened again. I can think of 2-3 instances over the last decade where there has been a notable wave of redundancies. Is it that the company goes through peaks and troughs and they simply haven't found the balance yet? Or are they cutting staff more and more and more? The company's direction has certainly changed though. 10 years ago, it was all about "catching the mouse" and how they were the second-largest visitor attraction company in the world. It was all about expansion. The idea of being the most-visited is not on the table any more. They have had to acknowledge locations which were failures and close them down. The company aren't creating any new Gateway (fka Midway) brand concepts. There's been talk of selling some SeaLife centres. They are very much consolidating the business and going through a huge re-focus. On the note of SeaLifes, it very much seems like the company want to move away from animals. There have been rumours and plans of removing large chunks of the zoo at Chessington. They have focused away from SeaLife in recent years, and are looking to sell more. The current Merlin don't see a monetary / business value in aquaria, so want to move on. That's something that will take time. At the same time, I do wonder if there's cause for...hope, for lack of a better word. Shrinking the business to focus on key assets gives hope that rather than opening an upteenth aquarium or Madame Tussauds, they can put money into parks. Chessington is arguably seeing its most consistent period of investment ever. There's many ifs and buts, but we can cling onto some hope. Of course, there's lots to be worried about. Towers is a shell of itself. Heide Park is stagnant. Thorpe feels stop-start. Redundancies are never good. A chop and change at the top again, although Fiona Eastwood is now the permanent CEO. So who knows what will happen next. Then of course, there's the matter of Universal GB, which could impact our parks. I remain in the camp right now that Universal won't impact the Merlin parks nearly as much as people think, and if anything, the competitiveness and extra eyes of the country as a theme park country will actually help our parks. But I do completely understand people's concerns, and Merlin do have to be smart about it.

The fake ending shop didn't quite hit the same for the new Ghost Train in my opinion. From my understanding, the creative behind Ghost Train was quite big on retaining that ending, but there was some reservation from the park owing to the fact that it had become known and predictable. So I'm not surprised that it didn't last, and I imagine that there wasn't enough of drive post-opening to be able to change it (given it would require money, time, etc). For what it's worth, the ending only used 1 actor in 2023; the "retail host" would disappear, throw on a cloak, and then come out. In DBGT it required 2 as they were completely different costumes. Obviously the removal of the actor there was balanced by the fact that there were more actors elsewhere. As mentioned, seasonal staff have been cast for Ghost Train, so that at least gives us some evidence that Ents haven't been completely removed from the park, like some people have suggested. I also believe that Thorpe still have a permanent Ents team, who would be responsible for FN and running the main season Ents operation, again, going against suggestions that the Ents team were made completely redundant. The bigger question mark surround Thorpe Ents, and Ghost Train, is the level of staffing we're getting. Will Ghost Train becoming a peak-only attraction maybe? Will we see anything Ents wise outside of Ghost Train and Fright Nights? How else will the day-to-day operation of Thorpe be impacted by the reported redundancies?

Ghost train will still have a cast of actors. Some people have just been appointed the role.

Quite bad that I genuinely wasn't sure if people meant the fake or real gift shop in this discussion.

I would love to see the gift shop back as it's one of the strongest parts of the experience in my opinnion. However, I am also not holding out much hope that we'll see it back; 2 extra staff members/actors at least (person to jumpscare you and the guide who tells you to stop and wait in the shop) are requred for the scene, so I'd assume these would be cut.

Highly doubt it. Will be interesting to see if there are any cuts ghost train wise with huge cuts to entertainment budgets Merlin wide.

I wonder if we'll see a return of the gift shop this season... I'm not holding out hope.

So when I visited Efteling end of last year we ate at the same restaurant. Think it was around 15 Euros for a hot meal, plus drink.

It sure is looking bleak at Merlin. Decades of underinvestment has lead to a build up of issues that now require large capital investment to resolve. Their approach to this unfortunately has been massively let down by poor strategic decisions. Nemesis reborn was never going to get its return. To the general public its just the same ride with a new name. Thats not going to encourage new people in. Hyperia was marketed terribly. Which is a historic recurring issue across the parks. They always poorly communicate what they are selling. Exaggerated CGI models and a never ending list of strange worlds firsts combined with no call to action in the adverts will always fall flat. They need to use actual ride footage from drones and on ride footage. Combine that with word of mouth from a good ride and I think their return on investment would be vastly improved. I don't follow Chessington closely enough to comment on the world of Jumanji. But it comes as no surprise to me that todays news is that Merlin is looking to sell off a few of the sealife aquariums so they can "focus on investment in its biggest international sites". Years ago Merlin decided to focus on midway over the parks. A heavily saturated market where their USP is far weaker. Its also an area where repeat visits are far lower. They focused on the wrong side of the business for growth. Fortunately their new private equity owners are cutting the dead weight and focusing the business towards a product thats intrinsically difficult to compete with. I just hope they can turn it around before the years of underinvestment becomes unsalvageable.

Quick example of one of my lunches at Efteling (from the cafeteria by Vogel Rok) over my Christmas visit. Can't recall the price unfortunately but it's a definite stark difference in quality to what's on offer at Towers in particular. Woodcutters would never. The entry cost is so dependent on BOGOFs, MAPs and booking online finding value in it, however if you charge north of £50 for a standard day ticket people expect that quality regardless. Fortunately as my visits to Towers mainly center around CBeebies these days I've avoided much of the poor availability overall, but it's incredibly telling on the faces of other visitors that it's leaving sour tastes in the mouths. Especially when on a number of times both X-Sector and Dark Forest end up with nothing to actually do. The years of poor investment are coming back to roost. On top of people tightening purse strings because we're still in a cost of living crisis that seems to only be on the way of getting worse.

That’s interesting - is this a Merlin report? Fair points about the impact of brexit and the VAT scheme - but really I think (unless of course the international tourism that the London midway attractions for example lap up has taken a really really crippling hit) it would be a bit of a cheek to suggest that either of these could be more of a factor than the fact that they are simply charging too much now for too little. Merlin themselves have said that the “in park spending per guest” that that used to rely extremely heavily on has dried up. They’ve shot themselves in the foot with this by totally out pricing themselves and wildly over-estimating their worth. Even if guests do spend in the food outlets for example on their visit, many will be (quite literally) left with a bad taste in their mouth and think twice about buying food from them again in the future. Not to mention the fact that many returning guests, especially to most of the parks, will experience a reduced offering compared with previous years. I’m not suggesting that dropping prices and sacking Aramark will fix everything - but I do think they have got a bit big for their boots. Merlin are charging more than Disney for food in many places, Disney being a true destination that people save for and are ready to spend money at. Merlin’s parks are not, and never have been, proper ‘destinations’ like that, and I think things like their restaurants (as one example) should be at least ‘good’, so that people actually want to go and spend their money in there after already paying or tickets etc. I also strongly suspect that tourism has changed - I don’t think the likes of Madame Tussaud’s or Shrek’s Adventure have the same appeal now as they perhaps used to - they have become slightly tacky. Perhaps social media etc has changed people’s views on city travel? The queues outside them all don’t seem anywhere near what they where when I was a kid

I'm not sure what Merlin can do at this point to be honest. They've attempted relatively good rollercoasters in Mandrill, Hyperia and Nemesis Reborn, they've tried to do entertainment on a better scale then ever which has now all been cut and last years opening hours felt like a push in a better direction (particularly Thorpe). So far we've only really seen the losses at Towers for 2025 but it's looking anonymous at Chessington and Thorpe too. We are bound to see a lot more staggered ride opening hours. Don't be surprised if Rumba and Tidal Wave open mid season for example. The global report highlighted the issues with the Uk tourism industry If you've been to Efteling, Europa Park, Port Aventura (just to name a few) over the last two years, the parks feel alive and vibrant with excited guests and entertainment. In comparison the UK parks have just got long waits because there's less rides and entertainment, short opening hours and terrible food. It's an awful rut to be in and it can't be changed quickly.

😂 Dear oh dear. It’s all a bit bleak isn’t it. The fat cats across Merlin have been ringing the company out like a sponge for years, to the point that there’s now no sponge left - just tatters left on the ground by the top execs and CEOs who have since left for other roles, for huge salaries no doubt. I do feel for all the staff involved in the redundancies; and those who will remain. I’ve worked for a couple of big companies now who have had mass redundancies like this, which I have luckily survived down to pure luck, and on both occasions the remaining staff have been so downtrodden and overworked that really it was a case of “last one out turn off the lights”. Merlin declined in to a dreadful company a few years ago. I sincerely hope it can be turned around, and the existing established parks will be shown a bit more respect, rather than continue to be seen as cash cows that should be squeezed to distraction to extract every last penny. The problem they’ve got of course, is that so many of their assets need massive investment just to simply tread water… One thing I am feeling positive about however is Universal. It’s about time we heard some good news.

About as excited as ordering a burger kitchen meal.

Is anyone feeling particularly positive about the upcoming season?

It is a possibility that they're outsourcing the entertainments side of things over to an outside company like they outsourced food over to Aramark.

So frustrating that Merlin financials have put them in this position, honesty felt the last couple of years that things were moving in the right direction, and the beach felt like a really positive move for the park, that could open up late night events etc throughout the season. Sadly it feels like if this is postponed or cancelled then it’s a step backwards

I would hope that this sort of thing would still go ahead. I can’t imagine it’s going to be expensive. Hopefully someone high up at Merlin knows that entertainments are on and off like a light switch across the company. One year it’s “entertainments” galore, and the next they’re cut completely - and repeat. This space will work well when entertainments are back in a couple of years 🙄

Certainly seems like a possibility. At the same time, the Beach is long overdue a revamp and opening that area up and including extra retail / F&B unit options (which this would do) would still be a big positive for the park. The stage could still be of use over FN and be an option for an outdoor cinema for hotel guests in the evening, if the park chose to go down that route.