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Poor ride availability and poor social media professionalism are two completely things and should not be confused! Thorpe’s social media especially now has literally gone down the pan, trying to use banter, slogans and memes to try and look cool and funny to the young market, but in reality it just looks immature and more dry than the budget for reopening Loggers. The factor they are mocking their ride reliability will be more of an insult than a joke to their clientele.

It's pathetic, makes them look so unprofessional. Surprised they're getting away with it under Merlin but then again, this is the same company which allowed "it's better than nothing" on Alton's feed. Thorpe's social posts in general have been dire this year, either "buy this" or weird attempts at trying to be 'relevant' and full of exclaimation marks even if it's a response to a complaint. Says a lot about those running the park and possibly goes some way to explaining why the place is in such a mess.

Have they seriously put #currently unavailable on a social media post !? Absolutely disgusting knowing so many thousands of people complained at that during the busy weekend with the cold(ish) weather. They are essentially saying they found that situation funny!

Anyone else feel like Thorpe's Twitter is the cringiest thing to happen in 2018, and just generally not how a theme park should do social media? Or am I just out of touch with what's "cool" these days...

It will be naff as you've ridden Steel Vengeance! ?

I love how bizarre and unnecessary yet brilliant this is

The Disney / Universal are the biggest, wealthiest entertainment companies on the planet and are also in competition with each other, so I wouldnt say that's a fair example. It needn't be as good standards as Disney, it just has to be decent. A better comparison would be the likes of Europa Park, Efteling, Phantasialand, which are all run by companies infinitely smaller than Merlin, but they maintain their parks fantastically. A trip there costs you about the same as a Merlin park but is infinitely better value. True it's not Chessington's choice that they get no budget or structure for this kind of maintenance, it is Merlin's method. Like you say, if it isn't able to be rebranded then they just don't care, this is their strategy. Even with new rides, once the press launch is over they rapidly stop caring. It's not the attitude of a real entertainment company interested in return customers and long term benefits for their parks. However, Chessington is particularly bad at maintaining its effects and attractions, compared to Alton Towers for example. Sometimes it feels like, top down, Chessington are totally unaware that audio, lighting, etc even makes a jot of difference to guests. You would very soon notice the difference in guests' reactions if these attractions as good as they were originally. The fact that "not many" of them actively complain about specifics is true but not really a valid reason to not maintain something. Why should it be the guests' perogetive to know the details of lighting, sound, animation, etc? They are paying for a good experience and instead getting a sub par overall experience. IL Bubbleworks had plenty of regular complaints about how poor it was long before it got removed, nothing was done about it for years until they could get a new brand in. Also, the fact the park looked shabby and run down for years was a frequent online complaint from your average guests, but all that happened was they got the local painter decorators in to paint one facade per year. The only excuse Merlin have is they can just hype up the brand and monopolise the UK market so nobody knows the parks could be any better.

Incredible scenes in this thread Anyway it's going to be a new premium premium car park, that's £15/£20/£25 to park in 'cos the lines are painted with gold paint.

I have... But of course, you'd never get anything wrong. ?

Legoland says Hello.