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The prices at Towers are probably such to avoid hitting the local B&B market too hard. It does feel expensive though considering the lack of overall quality. Though my visits the last two years were fine, wouldn't really wax lyrical about them either. Just looking at possibly doing Efteling for a week in May and one of their 6 person renewed lodges is comparable to Splash Landings price wise. However I know the trip will be just... better. CBeebies Hotel pricing is just awful though.

I agree it is a huge shame that there is quite literally nothing going on. Although to be fair over the last decade there has been a lot of rubbish advertised as “new” - the various year-round mazes and some of the events for example. The absence of those sort of things isn’t that bad in my opinion, and realistically something new isn’t needed every year. Not many parks do that do they. In recent years they have also made a lot of improvements to the areas other than the rides - the toilets to name one example. Thorpe is probably one of the (if not THE) best Merlin park in terms of general upkeep. I agree though that it is a shame there doesn’t appear to be anything at all happening again. It’s been a few years now since they’ve been able to boast anything notably new. I wonder if Colossus will finally be finished in the next couple of months at least? Despite all the cuts to spending at Merlin I’d at least expect that to be done before opening, as well as Zodoac getting sorted. I wonder if the beach project will ever happen now? I can’t help but think the money would be better put towards a larger project.

Merlin have announced that they have contracted out the maintenance and operations side of the park to OCS. They must have looked at the roaring customer satisfaction success of the food and beverage side of the buisness and decided lets have more of that. A theme park lives and dies by the customers experience. If you contract out every aspect that the customer deals with you have no control over your business.