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I can't believe we're nearly at four years of this twaddle.

For me, my TP season ended yesterday having jumped in for an extra day due to the changing weather forecast, a great day for me. It could not have happened without the Staff and it would, like life, be easy to thank those who helped me directly. There are many staff whose contributions to that, and all my TP days, are normally not acknowledged. I do thank everybody from the cleaning, washroom, maintenance, management, security, gardeners and ride team, a lot of people. Just like the bus on which I ride to the Park, so seldom do I hear a "thank you". We, as visitors, don't get the chance to wish those well in their futures who, within a few days, won't have a job. Just my thoughts.

Marp backwards is Parm.

Hello. How was your year? Here's mine- Parks visited Efteling X5 Animal Kingdom X3 Hollywood Studios X1 Southend Adventure Island X1 Chessington X1 Schwaben Park X1 Tripsdrill X1 Legoland Deutschland X1 Hong Kong Disneyland X2 Ocean Park HK X1 Himeji Central Park X1 Parque Espana Shima X1 Nagashima Spa Land X1 Fuji Q X1 Disneyland Tokyo X2 Tokyo Disney Sea X3 Thorpe Park X2 Wiener Prater X1 Fantasiana X1 Epic Universe X2 New Rollercoasters ridden - 62 I'd say my top ten new rollercoasters of 2025 are as follows- Flying Dinosaur - The most intense flyer out there. It is absolutely fantastic. Stardust Racers Green - I love this ride, the flowing elements and air time are excellent and the duelling with yellow is so good. Stardust Racers Yellow - I mean come on, they are both so good and theres very little in between them in terms of quality. Steel Dragon 2000 - Aside from the really frustrating loading, this is a really long ride that does deliver. The air time at the end is also excellent. Pyrenees - An Inverter that sits under the radar, this is a very good rollercoaster, it just has a really odd ending. Hals Uber Kopf - The vekoma STC is so good. Both it and Fienna Force are so class. I thought this was a surprisingly forceful rollercoaster and really enjoyed it. Hollywood Dream - A surprisingly good hyper coaster. I only got the chance to ride this backwards but I thought it was excellent. Harakugei - A very good RMC but I find the loading procedures really take away the fun from a lot of Japanese parks. This is still awesome but its tiresome waiting for it . Diavlo - I don't really care that this is just a batman clone, it really is an excellent version of the ride. It looks a little rusty and run done and its amazing that the park have bothered to keep it running. Glad to have got on it. Zokkon - An excellent Intamin straddle coaster. Full of unique elements and excellent pacing. Landmark moments from 2025 Rollback on Mandrill Mayhem where we were stuck just before the Statue helix. Star of some B- tier tiktok vlogs. Loved it. Evacuated from the break run on Stardust Green. Lots of fun watching Stardust Yellow continue to run. Also managing to get on it after the death in September. Finally making it to Tokyo Disney and getting on all the major rides multiple times. Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Sinbad, Indianna Jones, Winnie the Pooh and Beauty and the Beasts felt like life changing rides in my theme park career Reclaiming the 'ridden all B&M's in Europe' after getting to Legoland Deutschland Saying goodbye to way too many attractions this year. Kingda Ka, Muppets 3D, Six Flags America, Tough to be a Bug, Scorpion Express, Blade. Also our last ever rides on Dinosaur before its closure in 2026. So please share your 2025. We love content.

Booked a visit for over the Xmas period. Can't wait to get back there! Danse Macabre is an amazing attraction!

Visited Efteling just over a week ago, I absolutely love this park and was very pleased to get on Dance Macabre for the first time (twice!). I hadn’t looked at any videos, pictures or reviews of it so really didn’t know what to expect other than it’s a bit like a ‘show’. It was incredible! Very immersive, surprising, mesmerising, and magical. I found the story quite loose but the charm made up for it! A wonderful transition from the old into the new.

👀

Thorpe Park now post on the forum under the alias' Jart and Parm Pap.

Not at all. The park changed strategy, and realised that they could communicate with more people through social media (which, 10 years ago, was a growing sector for brands to utilise). And then the way people consume online content changed, focused more on videos via social media rather than text/forums/websites.

Thorpe Park Mania was once the official fan site for Thorpe Park. One of the many perks of this was that Thorpe Park ran that account on the forum, using it to answer fan questions, add context to decisions and also just have a bit of fun with fans. It was similar to the Annual Passholder group they ran a couple of years ago to be fair.

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.

Couple of things to consider: -Merlin recently made Halloween an included day for most passes. -The excluded days, somewhat ironically, tend to be a bit quieter because: There's less passholders People expect those days to be busy so avoid them -The weather was forecast to be a bit rubbish, which can put passholders off -There were 2 severe cases of bad weather, including electrical storms in the nearby area, shutting down most rides. That, along with the rubbish weather, meant people left earlier. The park today didn't feel as busy as it was yesterday. Nor did it feel as busy as it was last Halloween. However, the park was still extremely busy and lively.

What is everyones thoughts on the capacity at the moment for Fright Nights? I know its been the same for a long time and it isn't likely to change, but I can't help but feel they are overselling tickets at the moment resulting in a really poor customer experience. - Security queue taking well over an hour to get into the park (I've seen many reports of over 90 minutes) - Multiple coasters over 2 hours queue - All mazes over an hour queue for a paid time slot - Car park nightmare getting out (again not a new issue) For comparison, I went to Walibi Holland on 2 sold out days this year. I waited 15 mins to get in one day and 5 mins the other. Getting out, about half hour one day due to a car accident and about 15 mins the other day. You also don't have to pay for car parking during for Fright Nights there. I don't know another theme park where you get greeted with huge cattlepen queues to get in. Realistically, how many people who wait 90 minutes to get in, stuck in queues all day and then another queue to get out are going to enjoy there day and return? I don't think it helps matters having the rapids closed and ghost train opening at 3pm on the busiest days of the year. The park really does need all the capacity they can get. I do think theres more they can do with the mazes too. Towers opens theres at 1pm on peak days, so opening them earlier could definitely help with the queues. And of course 10pm closes. With Fright Nights as busy as it is (and generating nearly half the parks yearly income) it would be great to see the return of 10pm closes. I know this is quite a negative post, but just something I've thought about recently. For me, the security queue is the biggest issue that needs addressing and is a terrible first impression.