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I’m assuming that it’s there in the case of light leakage into the building. If there is any, it’ll be blood red so as to fit the theme of the maze and hopefully not detract from the experience.

Hey thanks Originally the idea was to use the arena as the new location for a "Ghost Train", as the arena wasn't being used all year round, Also it was the largest plot of land at the time to fit a show building on (remember at the time this idea was put forward the infill project was still ongoing). The original idea that was put forward was to: Emulate the old Alton Towers ghost train - something scary and fun! The attraction would have been called The Amity House of Wax, and would have been a "take" on a dilapidated Madame Tussuads, where the was figures would come to life. Big Bob mentions The Madame Tussuad's House of Wax in his radio show (tickets as the prize). I left the park in 2014 so not sure what had happened to this concept (even if it was any good lol), however its good to see the land was used as intended, just not delivered properly. One of the ideas was to move the maze (think it was Seven at the time) to underneath the Stealth top hat. I think if I was coming up with this type of attraction now, I would have used the trackless ride system (Ratatouille etc.). (They should replace Duel with this ride system and build a proper Ghost Train! ) M

Hi, Long time lurker, 1st time poster. Excuse the long post, there is an on-topic observation at the bottom TP has been a big part of my life, from visiting the park in the late 80's to throughout the 90's. I then worked there for 15 years (2000 - 2014), in a variety of departments. Retail - some of the best times of my life (I've made life long friends from working in this department) Park Development and Planning - one of the most rewarding jobs I have had to date (see below) Facilities Management/Engineering - this is where my journey ended Park Development and Planning - I was the project lead for the land expansion project, and was involved in some of the early design/planning activities on SAW The Ride, SAW Alive, Kobra (CWoA), The Swarm, and an early Ghost Train concept. Whilst working in this department I learnt some fascinating history about the park. For example, did you know when the park was being constructed in the 1970's, RMC flew in an Imagineer from the States to help design the entrance and car park? Anyways, back on topic... I visited the RTP's for the 1st time (since leaving TP) last year and noticed that the overall quality has dropped across all 3 parks (CWoA probably was my favourite park out of the visits last year TBH). I noticed that at AT, unless you like roller coasters or kids rides, there actually isn't that much there. Duel should have been removed and replaced, or even reverted back to its former scary self years ago, and Hex is a shadow of its former self. I have never liked the Rapids since they removed the old boats. TP - DBGT - Ok this was not what I had originally envisioned for this plot of land. I found it to be an interesting concept, however it was not delivered well. The queue lines design (or lack of) makes it one of the worst (if not the worst) queues I have ever been in. I strangely found IACGMOH to be quite an enjoyable experience. I think TP are now in a weird position where they have got to develop two large areas of the park - the island next to Swarm (Island A) or Loggers. Which one do you do first? Island A needs that development to remove the dead end at Swarm (Parks should never have dead ends, they need to be free flowing), or do you develop Loggers which is a dead corner of the park? Is the investment there? CWoA seems to have flown under the radar a bit, and appears to have missed a lot of the Merlin clusterf**ks that have happened over the years. However, the drop tower replacing Rameses is again lacklustre and screams of "cant be bothered to develop this park properly"... Which leads me onto why I think these parks are suffering: The Smiler accident - I should imagine the insurance premiums across the UK parks are now extremely high, effecting large scale investments As far as I am aware, Merlin did not operate any theme parks until acquiring Legoland and the Tussuad's Group. I've noticed that all of the Merlin investments to date have either been lacklustre or poorly delivered (Ok Wickerman was good, however not too sure a pre-show was required - even though the show is good). I think there is a lack of interest within the company (I found this out when I was working at TP, and was shocked to find so many senior people not interested in the industry - a lot of them had never been to a Disney park... Its just a job to them) If you look at what parks around the world are announcing as new attractions, Merlin's UK offering is waaayyy behind everyone else. One of the most heated discussions I had whilst working at TP was surrounding the lack of a decent family zone/area. My argument was that parks such as Six Flags and Cedar Point (parks TP tries to emulate) all have decent (ish) kid friendly/family friendly areas. The answer from management was a return on the investment would not be possible as "how would they sell it"? Hopefully when (if) Paramount Park gets built, it will give Merlin a kick up the backside in getting there act together. Just my two cents... M

I know you're joking, but don't expect them to ever RMC their woodie. It's part of the park's history, is well loved and clearly looked after very well. I got free entry to SeaLife thanks to some free tickets. Otherwise it was about €14 with a Linnanmäki wristband or €18 without.

I remember doing a bit of digging into this. The queue was literally designed to pack as much queueing space as possible into as little space as possible. Acknowledging this, Thorpe put in the two photo points (group photo against the screen and head in a jar) as a way of making the queue more fun. Instead, people were literally queueing for these photo points, and one of them (head in a jar) never really worked out. And, most importantly, they weren't actually that enjoyable, meaning we're left with the lump of the queue. For 2017, they redesigned the queue slightly (to include the two batching areas rather than one), and followed the same principle of putting as much queue in as little space, leaving us with the messy queue we have at the start now. There was a fair bit of theme park experience within Merlin when they acquired the parks I think. But for all the people that did have that experience, there's no doubt just as many who had none. From my experience, there's a lot of senior people within Merlin who specialise in a more general setting of visitor attractions. The theme park side of things is sort of secondary, and this comes through in the company's focus and investment strategy. This then causes issues when people who have that more general visitor attraction experience have to focus on theme parks (or move across to them specifically), as the strategies and focuses required are completely different, and most don't have a clue. Another trend that's happening is, because Merlin focus more on their midways than their RTPs, some of the best middle managers / senior staff at the parks move over the midways for more opportunities / to progress further. In the long run, it can harm the park, as there's not enough people wanting to stay in the long term within the parks. This is how the park ended up with Timber Tug Boat and Lumber Jump. Managers at the park acknowledged they needed kids rides, but also knew they couldn't get the funds as they wouldn't get the ROI. Since SeaLife Weymouth were getting rid of those rides, Thorpe picked them up for nothing, had engineers install and commission them when free and taddah. No money spent = no need for a ROI = no risk.

It's surely only a matter of time before Swarm billboard becomes an actual billboard for real ads?

A clothing line like no other.

Who remembers BooHoo Man's hit "Who Let The Dog's Out", what a classic.