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Am I the only one that sees the uncanny resemblance? Oh and it probably has some Wickerman in it too.. Still looks interesting enough as new concepts go.

Frontierland at DLP in the fog.

If they strip the deadwood out of Thorpe there won't be much park left though?

We know there were significant changes in the upper management at Thorpe last season, would it be likely the new guy has come in and pulled whatever plans his predecessor had in the works so they can make their own mark taking the park in their chosen direction? Would make sense if things appear to have ground to a halt. If that is what's happened I hope it doesn't result in any replacement development being rushed to hit the same opening season with a delayed starting point.

I appreciate this is your POV but this just seems like typical Merlin delusion to me. Merlin have proven many times how out of touch they are with the public, I really don't think it enters their minds what people respond to other than what their statistically skewed KPIs and surveys tell them. Of course we don't hear about everything that goes on, which is a shame because there are plenty of stories. For years they held that mantra about a wooden coaster in a UK park, when finally they built one it was very popular. Replacing its last big all-round family ride (in a park that desperately needs a major family ride) with a ticketed Dungeon attraction is not knowing how the public respond. They have no clue what they're doing with Thorpe Park. Wasting their most expensive project ever on a ride that doesn't know what it wants to be and was largely rejected by the public is not "getting the most out of the UK audience". Labouring a declining park with a ride that costs so much to operate and a bunch of fad IPs is not knowing what entertains the public. Until recently they squandered Chessington's development with their weird ideology that it's not allowed a new coaster because it's a family park, and not allowed new rides unless they have animals shoved in somehow, so denied practically everything for years. It's long been obvious to everyone Chessington needs a new coaster to absorb the queues, restoring old rides and fresh new ideas. If British people went to Phantasialand, Efteling and Europa Park would they not enjoy it as much as a Merlin attraction? Many non enthusiasts I know who've visited those places told how amazing it was, they havnt been to nearby Thorpe for years. All that Merlin care about the British public is to monopolise them and hype them up so that they can fleece them of more money. Hence IPs, just broker a deal with something that's already successful. IPs have been around for years, even at the time these parks were being built and that didn't stop them becoming popular. I believe the British public can be a cynical bunch and Merlin certainly know how to mislead them, but sooner or later they wake up to the overpricing, the poor value for money and commercialised parks. I think they're more ready to enjoy whatever's thrown at them than Merlin give them credit for, so long as it gets the fundamentals right and is entertaining, then word of mouth spreads. Merlin have proven time and again they have no idea how to do this other than roller coasters or IPs. Merlin monopolised the market, "hey ho that's business". No, you can make great business out of entertainment without monopoly. If anything monopoly is a way to get away with shoddy business because you own the whole market. I hardly call that business, just domination and shouldn't be shrugged off as 'just the way things have to be'. Merlin is also an extremely inefficient business underneath the hood.

We've had top 10 coaster counts, we've had park counts, but what about your top 10 roller coaster manufacturers? I'll start with my current list, bearing in mind I haven’t yet visited many non-UK parks and am yet to ride an RMC (hence me not being able to judge them); 5. Intamin - They've produced some shockers and I'm not generally a huge fan of the UK collection we have, but they've also brought us some incredible rides such as Taron, and I'm sure with various ventures this year I'll get to ride some of their better rides. 4. Mack Rides - Their rich family values and innovative technology make them a special company, who have produced some of the most globally-recognised and comfortable coasters of modern times. They've started new design trends, but (from my experience) their coasters are a little to "polite" for my personal taste. 3. B&M - Some of their coasters are incredible, some I find fairly dull, but in terms of quality and durability they're second-to-none. 2. Great Coasters International – Just amazing. They've taken the classic concept of a wooden coaster and completely reinvented it with modern technology, from the insane fast turns of Troy to frantic bunny-hops on Joris, they push the capabilities of a wooden coaster to its absolute limits and it’s fantastic. 1. Arrow Dynamics - Just an absolutely incredible company with a fascinating history. Sure, they had their shortfalls; plenty of them. But this is the company that invented the modern steel coaster - the company that started log flumes, hyper coasters and so many other coaster/ride types that we now take for granted. I sometimes wonder where the industry would be today if Arrow hadn't existed. Considering the huge amount of concepts they introduced, and the fact that many employees from Arrow went on to work in other, or in some cases, started their own company, they truly left a huge legacy behind. I love the quirkiness and awkwardness of some of their coasters, which is probably quite telling of why I hold The Big One in such high regard, and the work Arrow did set the stage for the future of the industry in so many ways.

**WORLDS FIRST RETIREMENT HOME DEDICATED TO THEME PARKS AND SCREAMING** Seems an odd first for Merlin if you ask me. Residential developments don’t go well near them parks though, especially in the U.K.

Thorpe need more space in years to come, buy the land instead..... perfect hotel site 😜

This is the proposed location of thew retirement home: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cemex+House,+Coldharbour+Ln,+Egham+TW20+8TD/@51.4083884,-0.5216377,534m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48767721c5ad4327:0x761f1c38214c6e0a!8m2!3d51.4096667!4d-0.5208182 It's very close to a major back of house service road used by the park, as well as the island behind Stealth/Swarm which will probably have a new coaster put on it the next 20 years (hopefully..) It has been discussed since last summer, and is clearly a bad idea given it's proximity to the park and it's service roads. I wouldn't be keen to live there; why would people needing a retirement home want to? Quotes from Thorpe's representative taken from their letter of objection letter to the council... It further mentions that the noise assessment carried out by those planning the retirement home (which says the noise levels would be fine) were carried out improperly, and probably understate the amount of standard noise. That could cause major issues if the development went ahead.

It's because these parks can actually look at additions without the need for any nonsense from upper management telling them it NEEDS this, that and the other... Fortunately Paultons' focus on guest experience is allowing them to grow, with the help of Peppa Pig's cashflow... A new coaster in 4 years (it's not opening this year is it?) isn't outside the realms of possibility, especially given the two Vekomas probably cost enough to get a Curly Wurly and a Coke from the corner shop after...

I mean, its already the best park in the country. If this was a Mack, that would really be a statement of intent.

An interesting tweet from the Tornado Springs account... Purely speculation from my part, but... -'Valid until 5pm 14th Feb 2019'. Potential announcement? -Storm Mac. Hint to Mack? -55mph winds. Launch coaster, 55mph? -Tornado Springs / Storm Chaser. Spinner? As I say, shameless speculation, and I could just be following a false trail the park are laying. But it certainly would be an ambitious step for the park to take, and really solidify them as a perfect family park.

The issue that Thorpe have is that they had their fingers burnt with DBGT.. Spent a LOT of money on something that didn't return investment. The same argument could be said about The Swarm - a lot of money for little return in business terms. (Swarm is my fav coaster at Thorpe by the way). So, launching a big attraction off the back of these before getting the park in a state that it's ready for it is a bad move and wouldn't secure the capital for it. This isn't a Field Of Dreams "Build it and they will come" situation - They have to make people want to stay by focusing on their offering. No point attracting people to the park if the offering when they are there isn't good. Thorpe have a lot of work to do to discover who they are again, reassess their strategy, decide new plans etc. That's why I think this year will be the year of stripping out the dead wood and ramping up preparations for their next investment. I'd also expect Alton to be ramping up SW9 for a potential 2021 launch, so they'll probably want to work around that.. In other words, I wouldn't hold out much hope for anything coaster related at Thorpe until 2022 - allowing for this year to be a write-off (in new attraction terms), not enough time to plan for next year while analysing this year's success and Alton taking the light in 2021..

They stripped the paint to check for rust and any damage that may have occurred over the years Sent from my LG-M700 using Tapatalk

Myself and Tom (Mr Fish) have just booked our rooms at The Big Blue Hotel, so will be based there. At the time of writing direct through the Big Blue hotel is cheapest. If you sign up it significantly reduces the rate. (See images below) It's £151 B&B for the two nights Fri 5th to Sun 7th for a single room for one or £171 for two people in a double or twin (£85.50 each if sharing). Also includes parking and wifi. Travelodge was £168 this morning but has dropped to £155 at the time of looking as i write this post. But that excludes Wifi, parking and breakfast.

The introduction of a premium season pass is a good move and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. Personally when I still visited the park I would have preferred to buy the premium thorpe park pass. Not sure why the website has a tick next to the exclusion dates. On first glance it comes across as misleading.

Looks like LOTS of cuts for 2019...

There's an interesting article from around the same time: http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/index.cfm?pagetype=features&codeID=33238&fbclid=IwAR3C6Mzr4fAfBT_8txXPcIUw7tLnL-4HFgodWcvBO0f8ryr-PuAbM5GmOi8 There's a lot to pick out from it which I think gives some very interesting insight... It's obvious of course that a park wants fans on its side. Of course, 'fans' can mean much more than 'enthusiasts' - anyone who's a passholder is technically a fan. Hence the silly "Annual Passholder facts", which say passholders are more intelligent, more polite and whatever else. Anything to try and make a passholder smile and go 'heh, cool' or something like that. In turn, it sets a tone that the account has this 'banterous' side to them, making people more inclined to share in that banter and post positively. Except, that's not how it's worked. It comes across as the park trying to hard. Like that uncle at parties who says buzzwords like "yolo" and "yeet" and thinks he's cool. It'll make some people smile, but it's not what people want from a theme park account. They want an upbeat tone, information and interesting facts. 99% of the time a 15-minutes of fame meme won't do the job with getting people on board in supporting the brand. And it's not like there's people being clueless that the social media reflects the brand - the park are well aware it affects the perception of the brand. But either they don't realise it's not enriching the brand, or they're too stubborn to change their mind. Maybe they'll argue it is working, but enthusiasts in their ivory towers of wisdom are too narrow-minded to see. Maybe it's like a Trump/Brexit thing, where we're just surrounded by so many people who share the same opinion that we're blind to the strength of those who think the social media presence is brilliant. But it's not. Crudely speaking, social media ultimately comes down to interactions and getting people talking. You look at the numbers the park's posts are getting - they're not good. And the majority of people aren't going to be talking about it like enthusiasts are.. You only have to look at how they've handled the Logger's Leap to see that this is a theory they do not follow. They shut the ride quietly, gave a vague, non-committing statement, and just swept it aside ever since. People hound the park constantly, both during on and off season, and go nowhere. They've dug themselves into a hole that they can't get out of. And yes, Loggers is a weird one. I'm very much under the impression to closure of it was a decision they didn't want to make, and was only planned to be temporary. There had been plenty of plans and ideas for its reopening. I don't think the park lied when they were saying 'they hope it returns soon' - I genuinely believe that was their plan at one stage or another, but plans changed. But this is the issue when you hide behind vague buzzwords and try to be clever about it, you lose all integrity when something goes wrong behind the scenes, since you have nothing to fall back on for a public statement. Is this what social media should be about though? Do I really care if Jack visited the park for the 15th time this season with a camera pointed at him the whole time, and he had a good day because he knows all the tricks of how to do the park and the rubbish rides to avoid? Do I care that Sally from Kent, with her 200 followers, visited the park for the first time and wrote a blog saying how wonderful Stealth is? Not really. It's good to do this sort of stuff, but sparingly. People want an upbeat tone, information and interesting facts - this is rarely achieved through influences. All well and good saying this, but Thorpe in particular are terrible for this. The amount of unanswered questions that fly past on a daily basis, the copy and paste responses make it feel like they don't care, don't read responses and just reflects badly on the brand. I know this is a distinction between the marketing team (who craft the original tweets) and the guest services team (who are in charge of responding to general queries), but if there's this disconnect in philosophies between the two teams (one saying that taking the time to respond to comments is important, the other not doing this effectively), then that speaks volumes about the park. The park's brand is just ruined at the moment. Can anyone answer, positively, what Thorpe Park is at the moment? Who do they target? How will I feel after a day out there? Why should I go there? So far, all the social media side of things is doing is making me think they're a park desperate for attention and wanting to be "down with the kids". And it really shows. And what's worse, is this has been done before. Thorpe went through the terrible meme phase in 2013/4, back when they were changing target market. The new island brand was working and masking the issues they had there, but the social media side felt desperate. But back then, social media wasn't as critical to a brand, and they managed to salvage it. But they haven't learnt from their mistakes, clearly. Admittedly, they're not doing everything wrong. The Thorpe Park blog, with weekly entries, is nice, and the winter updates have been good. Yet both of those things always seem to miss the mark a bit, and are only 'good', rather than 'great'. They can get the tone of voice and personality right, they've had some good funny moments in the past. But these are exceptions. More often than not, it feels like they're shooting themselves in the foot, really don't care or just trying to troll followers for the lolz. I want to make it clear I'm not trying to attack particular people. Yes, this post has been related to a particular article written by one particular person who works at Thorpe, and I'm being critical of it. But that's simply one person reflecting the ideals and value of the park and its brand. It's not something that one person has thought of, and it's gone through. This is a collection of people, making a collection of mistakes, and it's there for their whole following to see. The park is stagnating with investments, the brand is going round in circles and the social media accounts are slowly becoming a laughing stock. It needs sorting out. I'll finish off with a quote from the article, in case anyone tries the 'if you hate it so much, why are you here' line...

Only two months between updates?! Wowza! Image found on CoasterForce.. A new large theming piece has been finished. Not sure what it's meant to be.. Clearly some Wicker Man inspiration there, but will it light up Heide in the same way? 🔥

The sugar coating of situations in Thorpe's favour are just as frustrating to read as the constant slagging off.

I've just found all of my photos from a while back. If people are interested, I have tonnes more. Any requests of certain rides and I'll post them up!

because he's stating that women in the music industry 'dress like prostitutes', and insinuating that that causes their success rather than their talent. not only is that shaming people for what they wear (and specifically women, in this case), it also insinuates that women who choose to show more skin than Adele are popular not for their singing ability, but due to their sexual image. thats just outright sexism and 'slut shaming' or whatever, lets be real here. people can where what they want, and it has no impact on their success or talents. women in the music industry can dress like Adele and be popular and talented, cool, but so can people who choose to dress differently and show more skin. or they should be able to at least, without receiving criticism for it or being labeled 'prostitutes'. thats all I'm saying .

oh, shut up. this such a gross, offensive and misogynistic point of view. people can wear whatever they want, and the amount of skin (in this case) a woman shows has no correlation to her talent or success. thanks.

Thorpe don't know who they are targeting, what direction to take the park in and has pretty much been abandoned for major new investments from Merlin after DBGT.

Its curtains for Volcano: The Blast coaster as it is being removed from Kings Dominion. http://coasterforce.com/volcano-kings-dominion-removed/?fbclid=IwAR39aineHWp7cR7T3FrKIWjCjLDdgfihPfcasSwaRDpdxLkp9jl_vdpuLIU