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They removed all rides that were closed for the buyout days, Tidal Wave too. There was actually some sign of life on on the last day of the season. Engineers around all day and some spinning (not lifting) so hopefully its not over just yet for Zodiac! Zodiac always looks brilliant at night so that was certainly missed during Fright Nights this year.

Earlier in the year there were also hints “Spiiiiiin, click click click click spiiiiiin” and “there may be some x citing news to come” Both of these could point to a Mack Xtreme Spinner, which would be incredible! Fits with the LSM launch, but I don’t see a connection to the phobia or foto clues.

I made an account just to have a guess! Veloxrotaphobia is the fear of rollercoasters. There was also a clue in another thread which heavily suggests an LSM launch: “They turned the launch to magnet spaces” If the clue above implies we should take the part before ‘phobia’, is it a stretch to say that ‘veloxtora’ sounds like ‘velocicoaster’? Could they be planning an Intamin multi launch coaster similar to Velocicoaster/Taiga? Alternatively, if the clue is ‘phobia’, a much less exciting answer might be a Premier Rides Sky Rocket II model. ‘Phobia Phear Coaster’ matches the photo/foto hint quite well. I imagine this would be considerably cheaper, and we keep hearing about Merlin budget cuts. With slammer having finally been removed, my best guess is a Sky Rocket II replacing DBGT and the old slammer site, to bide their time for a massive headliner on the island behind Swarm for the parks 50th anniversary.

Just to go back to the topic of attendance, it is really worth stressing that the TEA Attendance Report is not accurate for Thorpe / Merlin. This graph is from the Hyperia consultation, including numbers up to 2020: The Queue Times website also has these numbers listed, as well as numbers from the TEA Report: https://queue-times.com/parks/2/attendances#reference4 Just for some reference: 2019: Thorpe say 1.49m, TEA say 1.9m 2018: Thorpe say 1.59m, TEA say 1.88m 2017: Thorpe say 1.54m, TEA say 1.8m 2016: Thorpe say 1.62m, TEA say 1.8m 2015: Thorpe say 1.51m, TEA say 1.85m 2014: Thorpe say 1.83m, TEA say 2.1m etc, etc. As you can see, there's years when the actual attendance has gone down, but TEA say it's gone up, and vice versa. But there is no rhyme or reason. So it is certainly possible that 2024 saw an increase in attendance compared to 2023 at Thorpe. As Benin says, the late opening of Hyperia followed by its extended downtime will have hurt attendance. But once it did get running, it ran well and was a draw. Was that enough to outweigh and then eventually beat what was a quiet, but consistent, 2023? It felt like it, but we'll never truly know.