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Ooh that’s a good point… Everyone used to show up with a cutout of a barcode on a cereal box or bag of chocolates to get their 2for1 or 50% off tickets. Those deals were very good value weren’t they

I wonder if their idea has been to increase price, reduce volume of guests but still bring in similar amounts of money? But that then increases profit by reducing staffing costs / keeping ingredient costs stable. I will always maintain that Aramark has improved Thorpe's recent food offerings. It's a downgrade compared to like 15 years ago, but a recent improvement. Across the other parks it's very patchy though. The prices though are becoming ridiculous. I will however add again that Merlin's food is by no means the worst theme park food I've had, either by quality or price. Plopsaland de Panne and Plopsa Coo are massive offenders and take the crown.

Yeah ORPs are slowly becoming more digital, especially in the UK. It's weird as European parks have them significantly cheaper (Phantasialand has been 5€ per photo for the past 10 years at least). Inferno's list is pretty comprehensive of all the things I can think of though. I think one thing you see significantly less though (and it sounds kind of obvious) is the long lines outside a park. Ticket offices are a thing of the past what with buying online being the norm / default. Some parks don't even sell on the day tickets anymore. Long gone are the days where you turn up to a park with a printed out ticket from home and you can feel a tiny bit smug walking past everyone who's queueing to buy a ticket (and probably paying more than you did!)

The restaurant formerly known as Woodcutters was £19 for a burger. Prior to discount of course but still. £19! We jogged on and went to the slightly cheaper Burger Kitchen. The quality has dropped and the prices increased. As you mentioned though off peak is even worse (especially at Legoland) for having food options actually open. Options for proper sit down indoor meals are more and more limited too. People are now wise to it and its telling that many outlets are quiet even with MAP discounts. Though MAP holders are notoriously stingy these days.

The push for digital only ORPs. That said they're still about and have 2 physical ones that I've purchased since 2023. Can I change it to things you now see all the time? Because vloggers. And (especially at Towers) cosplayers are just everywhere. Saw someone last weekend in full Phalanx get up complete with name badge and box with fake egg of Nemesis creature in it. It’s weird to me.

Inspiration taken from Paultons' motorway services entrance.

Happy Birthday Grand National, 90 years old today, a "cracking" ride!

Story clearly fake, thread locked.

Ok there are plenty of jokes to be had with this one, but I’ve got a few observations of things that have quietly disappeared from theme parks over the last decade or so. Park branded Ponchos This is a weird one for me. Seemingly overnight about 10 years ago these all just vanished out of thin air. These used to be everywhere. On all the water rides there would always be people wearing them, and when it rained there were ponchos galore! Although I know it was a waste of plastic, I almost miss seeing these. I remember being in Florida years ago and spotting countless UK park ponchos around. The iconic “don’t wet yourself” Thorpe ones were everywhere. Cigarette smoke As someone who’s always lived in a non smoking house, growing up I always associated the smell of smoke with theme parks! It’s a sign of the times I suppose, but the smell of smoke has all but disappeared from theme parks (replaced by those toilet air fresheners that people suck on now). Wasps Another sign of the times I think. Many of the fizzy drinks are now sugar free by default. The queue lines across the UK were always dreadful for wasps during the summer time. Remember those horrible wasp catchers they used to hang in the trees that were always full to the brim with dead ones? On ride photos What happened to these? You used to see countless people wandering around with ORPs at the parks! They seem to have faded away!

Hi, I went on the ride X no way out on September 28th 2015 at around 8 o clock, I was accompanied with an ex partner and another couple. It was Fright night. The ride is what you would expect to be although seemed cheap compared to the rest of the roller coasters there. The restraint was a waistbound bar lifted down from overhead that locks In place. The ride begun and was fun with the drops,twists,lights ect, then the cart come to a slow halt and stopping before the exit. Panic grew as I was aware a few months prior at Alton Towers, a couple crashed in to a cart in front, before exiting, my fear latched on to the people also on the ride. I had a sudden adrenaline rush and somehow managed to pry the bar up high enough to manoeuvre out the bottom, thus ending up standing on the track. Everyone on the ride at that time was panicking and I tried to help my ex partner get out but I couldn't lift it. My first thought was to get help from the staff and for some unknown reason I decided to slide down a long pole that I could only imagine was thirty maybe forty feet high. When descended I found a fire exit, when bursting out the door there was a queue of people, I ran to a staff member rambling in panic that people where going to get crushed by a following cart. The response was sluggish but the staff were communicating on the radio. They then led me to the starting point of the ride. To my suprise one of our company was arguing with the staff when I arrived with everyone was sitting down in shock to what they've just witnessed I presume. Following on from that our company was escorted to main managers office of the park, I didnt know at the time the seriousness of the situation, being young vain and outspoken when first questioned "How did you get out of that ride?" By the female manager I replied "Because I'm the man" and proceeded to flex my arms. She was not impressed. A few questions pursued that was going with the direction that I broke the rules and was going to be punished, She told us the ride stopped before the end to allow to control the traffic and busy night. The turning point is when the directive changed that I was a victim in a scary situation and I shouldn't have been able to get out. Me not realising I had a case at the time, I thought I bargained a great deal that was fast track tickets for our party for the rest of the night. I wrote an email to the Sun the next day but was met with no reply. Every other ride was amazing, some honourable mentions being, Colossus Nemesis and Saw.

I’ve just had a lovely day at Legoland today, somewhere I haven’t really had cause to visit for many years until now. Being there today opened my eyes a little bit to the situation Merlin seem to have put themselves in. Based on my experience today, I can confidently say this: Customers simply aren’t buying food at Merlin’s parks anymore like they used to. This is evidenced by a few things; The ONLY restaurant open today was Pizza Pasta. Burger Kitchen, the fish and chip place, the Chicken place and the nearby cafe next to Dino Coaster were all closed throughout the day. The single open restaurant only had about 1/4 tables occupied when I poked my head in at 12:30. There were a lot of families sat around the abandoned show arena in Heartlake eating food they’d brought in themselves. It was literally standing room only at lunch time. The prices for Pizza Pasta are an eye watering £22.75 a head (give or take a few pence, I can’t remember exactly). In years gone by, Merlin’s restaurants have had queues out the door, and getting a table has been a struggle at lunch time. Now it seems to be hard to justify having a single restaurant open, given how empty it was at peak time. All be it on an off peak day, but the point stands. When you also think back, a few years ago most people would leave the park at the end of the day with something - be that some merch, an on ride photo, or maybe even just a poncho! But now days, I think realistically most things sold at the park are just too expensive, and ORPs seem to have died a death. Merlin really do appear to have deliberately cut off a big income stream by overpricing their food and merchandise. It was quite staggering to see it on display so obviously today to be honest. Merch sales is something that’s harder to compare with the past I suppose, but with the prices being how they are now at Legoland, I can’t imagine they sell as much as they have in the past. It’s just simply too expensive (more expensive than the equivalent at DLP by quite some margin).

Thank you everyone for your help and advice! We all had a blast - great little park with the good and unique rides! Some key takeaways that took me by surprise however… The merch is HYSTERICALLY expensive. Frankly it’s no wonder Merlin are in a financial state. It’s clear that nobody ever buys anything any more from seeing the evidence - dust on a lot of the ridiculously priced novelty mugs- which priced far higher than better quality ones at DLP. Most of the restaurants and coffee shops today were closed, including the fish and chip place, burger kitchen, and the chicken shop. I poked my head in to Pizza Pasta to see the prices, and most tables were vacant at lunch time, which I’m not surprised about given it’s £22.something pp…. Clearly Merlin’s pricing strategy is not working if they can’t even half fill the only open restaurant at lunchtime… There is evidence that Merlin are struggling - the area where the show was is very out of place now, and there are bits around the park that show signs that the company isn’t doing well - the rapids sat abandoned, a lot of decor falling in to disrepair, etc. the car parks are also not staffed at all, causing chaos with cars going in all directions due to conflicting signage etc. single staffed cafe in heartlake as well was not good for anyone involved. Also many rides stayed closed throughout the day. HOWEVER - it’s a great little park. Plenty of people having a great time! The railway is a fantastic attraction! Lots of interaction on the way round, and brilliant team working there! the new duelling coasters are excellent and seem to be going down extremely well. (ignoring the dreadful landscaping and plastic sheeting on the fences?!?!) another high capacity ride somewhere in the park would be very welcome I think. I really like some of the finer details around - like the slides on the hill down to the main park, and the little rivers down the paths. Really adds to the experience for the little ones. When they build something on Viking River Splash, it’s a huge plot in a great location. Hopefully something good coming here soon! Overall, impressed. Certainly an expensive day out now, and I think Merlin need to be careful not to let the experience slip any further as it’s borderline at the moment….. but still on the right side of quality vs price at the moment I think.

That looks like a fun, albeit slightly random, addition! It reminds me somewhat of the misters on Sik up at Flamingo Land around the same element, although this one shouldn’t get you wet like those do!

Quite, that on Stealth is actually, well, not on again. There's more smoke from vapers in the queue sucking their dummies than the machine.

Nice to see! Will certainly look nice at Fright Nights if it’s still going then. Colossus already looks great at night as it benefits from the smoke from crows. Interesting choice to add a new smoke machine when they can hardly maintain others on park…

Visited Thorpe Park for the first time in a couple of years on Saturday - arrived for opening and left just before closing. I was really surprised at how quiet the park was, and it seemed even more quiet judging by the queue times on the app yesterday. How are they performing against their expected visitors this year, are numbers significantly down or did the hot weather maybe just deter people from visiting over the weekend? I'm wondering if maybe the prices are just too high to justify for some people now. Anyway - had a fantastic day, the park was clean and the touch ups that were done for Hyperia (things like the old school Samurai paint job etc.) were noticeable. Hyperia is great - managed to get on it twice before we left.

Doesn’t help when its the only event the park has or has ever been popular/good at.

Sounds like the discourse over Nemmie Rebs atm. Saturday didn’t feel much in the way of roughness at all. Way people go on about it makes it sound like riding an old school Vekoma.

In a nice, but admittedly very random, addition, Colossus now has a smoke effect! https://x.com/ThorpeParkMania/status/1936799436602065404?t=uY0MNotqAIdP5sGeIsb4tA&s=19

Rode it twice today. Dunno what all this discourse is about it being rough. It's fine. There are vibrations present, and you can notably see the train shift during the stall. But it doesn't negatively affect the ride experience for me. There are significantly worse rides out there, even in the park itself. I will say it is more vibratey than say this time last year though, and it does make me fear for how the ride will age. But yeah, for now, I'd love to ride it with someone who is calling this rough and see what on earth is going on. Because if that's rough, then....

I get the reference however.. The only thing worse than people moaning about Christmas stuff in shops in August is forums talking about halloween.

The only thing worse than shops putting Christmas stuff in shops in August is the people who moan about Christmas stuff being in shops in August like it's something new though... 😉

The posters could be anything couldn’t they. Wasn’t the exodus one a hint to angry birds leaving or something? 🤷‍♂️ Jack’s video brought these posters up while talking specifically about fright nights however so I suppose it’s more likely to be related to Trailers rather than elsewhere in the park

Something has definitely changed since my last ride back in April. There is a noticable rattle from the bottom of the first drop to the 'splash down' element. It seems to be moving through the elements faster than it did previously. Hopefully it's a short term experiment to prevent stalls. There's no way that a one year old coaster should be riding so poorly. I feel for Thorpe as they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wonder if ordering a third train would be worth it. I'm sure there is not enough space for it in the maintenance bay but it could be kept in the station instead. With a third train they won't need to rely on one train operation while the second is built back up in the event of a stall. I'm sure it's been mentioned on here before that using water dummies for every breakdown is not a possibility. Mack should really front the cost as this is their mess after all.