Marc
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Everything posted by Marc
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Certainly hope so! That said I think the park would want to know early summer at the latest so fingers crossed we are back to a more normal come Easter as is being suggested!
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Personally I don’t think it was their intention to completely remove it - sadly it was deemed it needed a fairly significant amount of work at a pretty bad time where budgets etc started to be cut - had it been a couple years earlier it wouldn’t surprise me if it had got the money it needed and had been saved.
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Ah yeah I meant what they immediately proceeded rather then their originals!
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Hadn’t really thought about it like that tbf but I’d say Gruffalo, Tiger Rock, Walking Dead The Ride are all good examples of a revamp improving the ride. That said I guess you could argue all 3 were better in their original form (Maybe not XNWO!) Fingers crossed Valhalla is a similar improvement!
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The unit has been split into 2 - fish and chips is still there although wouldn’t be surprised if it goes it never seems particularly popular at the best of times.
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The problem is merlin have already made it clear many pass holders are pre booking and not turning up, increasing pass holders tickets makes this problem worse and I can see why they don’t want to give pass holders too much % of the capacity they have for them not to turn up. They could introduce a higher pre book price (seems unlikely now they’ve made it free) which gives you money back when your at the park to spend. Or you could have some sort of system which gives gives priority to Those who have actually turned up and gone instead of booking and not going, problem with both options is I doubt they have the systems in place to do anything like that.
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Noticed inferno volcano last time lol too - that’s not had audio in a good 10 years maybe more. Agree about stealth - the plaza area is OK but the queue line is very quiet. Noticed colossus station has lost its automatic announcement when the train is ready to go - hopefully this can be fixed, it’s a shame that the station has lost a lot of the bass it used to have, same for Stealth but hopefully that can be fixed later on!
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I guess the problem all ultimately comes down to money, back in 09/10/11 the park was packed out on the back of Saw being an overwhelming success for the park, generally year on year numbers visiting was going up. Then come 2012 with the Swarm there was abit of an unexpected slump, could be down to external factors such as the olympics etc we will never know for sure what caused it, but I guess it’s where nerves set in, and it’s fair enough I can see why Merlin would worry about large investments if they were not confident in a return. The got through to 2016 their next “big” investment and sadly again it didn’t deliver, I’m not sure if they were too ambitious with ghost train with the technology available for the time, but sadly it couldn’t live up to the hype, to be fair many of its issues were solved for 2017 but it was probably too late by then, and it still didn’t offer a consistently good experience, but worse for the park still it was another large investment which didn’t deliver a return, so I guess I can see why merlin are hesitant now. When the time comes it’s so important for the park the next investment is the right one and it launches successfully.
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The thing is anti social behaviour and a stabbing are 2 very different things - you can have all the searches etc in the world but you’ll still get things like anti social behaviour. I don’t really think there’s a right answer - even in Orlando I think it’s only universal and maybe one Disney park (Epcot I think?) who put all guests through a x ray machine, I think there’s a fine line between checks an every day guest would expect when entering a theme park to the point where it gets too much, for example the hospital stabbing the other day I don’t think everyone will expect to be searched upon entry to hospitals now. After this Thorpe may well look to change how they let people into the park and may decide everyone needs some sort of search - as with a lot of these measures like this they are bought in in reaction to something like this, and that’s not just within theme parks. I saw towers also had additional security with handheld scanners since the incident it’s good to see merlin are taking it seriously across the board.
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Thing is when you start thinking about things like MOS nights there’s tonnes of alcohol involved - I expect most clubs end up with numerous fights. It’s a tough one I think the parks target if anything has moved more towards family over the last few years but with the park having the thrill line up it does it will always attract more teenage guests I feel.
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They have never had an incident like this - hindsight is a wonderful thing. Thorpe have never searched everyone entering the park, they don’t have the facilities too and have felt they don’t need to. Blackpool’s setup is rather different, if I remember rightly Blackpool had huge issues with anti social behaviour which I assume is why their very strict security was implemented? Theres only so much they can do to mitigate risk, compared to other parks in the U.K. I’d say Thorpes security is already fairly strict and will no doubt evolve as required.
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You must be aware of massive terrorist incidents which resulted in massive changes to security operations within the airline industry? But I can’t agree it’s completely the parks fault - there was a stabbing in a hospital yesterday, is that the hospitals fault? As pluk said, there’s only so much they can do, You can not expect a guest visiting a theme park or any entertainment venue to go though airport standard security checks. Thankfully incidents like this are extremely rare at these places.
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Under account settings - clicking below when logged in should work! https://forum.maniahub.com/settings/signature/
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I'm not sure it does show a failure on thorpes part? Thorpe Park's security procedure (the parts which we see anyway) is IMO probably the most stringent out of all the Merlin theme parks already and will no doubt evolve again after this incident. I agree that I haven't had to walk through a scanner at thorpe other than on some special events, but the same can be said for any entertainment venue I've visited in the UK over the past couple of years. The bag search was bought in after a number of terrorist incidents. I agree if they want to search every guest to a higher standard it will take investment in more equipment and infrastructure, and that 2 hour queues to get in are not a long term solution, but to say the park don't have proper security measures is a ridiculous statement. I don't agree Thorpe Park is not a safe environment, "Behaviours" you mention can and do happen in all sorts of places, when you manage thousands of people a day your bound to have trouble at some points, Fright Nights are typically busier and therefore your probably more likely to have someone out to cause trouble. And as far as I know this is the first instance of knife crime at TP - how would a "properly secure entrance" stop someone picking a fight in the park? Holding Merlin or Thorpe accountable for the knife crime problem in the UK is abit OTT - Thorpe Park's checks were always simply Bag Checks - The park no doubt work with local police forces to plan and execute things such as security / bag searches etc. To enter the park you need to have a ticket scanned at a turnstile or manually by staff, they of course know how many people are in the park at any given time, as far as i know there are no "legal limits" for Covid 19 - they simply have to ensure social distancing measures are in place which they are, park capacity is significantly reduced from normal.
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The TVs sort of worked last year - the news audio track played but very few TVs worked - think the ones over in the extended queue did but that was all.
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Hey At which point of registration did you get the error? Just tried to register an account and it worked OK for me. thanks Marc
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Yeah it did reopen later on!
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I agree - I’ve no idea on other Merlin parks but Thorpe did have a number of rides closed - I do not believe it all being down to budget cuts though, In general rides were staffed pretty well. For the indoor rides it seems to be a choice merlin have made across the board - as far as I know it’s the same at all merlin parks - personally at Thorpe I can see why, Ghost Train would be an awful ride to run in these times, Walking dead wouldn’t be much better with its narrow / dark corridors - then the added issue of odd numbers and couldn’t pair Odd number groups together, angry birds could open and I expect will at some point. Along with that Thorpe had Tidal Wave, Storm Surge, Depth Charge, Rumba, Lumber Jump, Rocky Express and Timber Tug closed. From what I understand rush is due to technical problems unrelated to covid. For me personally none of the above really affected my day - I’d open I’d have probably rode Rumba and Rush. I guess I did know in advance, the app was updated to have the open rides but I agree it could have been clearer on the website. As for looking neglected - at thrope at least other than the mess of the rear of the arcade - I didn’t see anything which stuck out, plenty of places have been repainted, shops and food units have been refurbished. I do hope the arcade is sorted soon. That said it don’t detract from the other genuine positives I mentioned across the park for this season.
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Ah that’s good to know thanks!
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So I actually had a good day today, I’ll admit after the first hour everything felt a bit weird, but after that getting more used to things I actually enjoyed it. Carrying on from above, the arcade from that angle does look bad - I’ve no idea I can only assume it had to be done very quickly for some reason or work wasn’t able to be completed due to corona - I do hope something is done to improve it as it don’t look great. On a more positive note - Firstly with the social distancing I think the park did really well - there are markers literally everywhere spaced out 2 m anywhere there would be a queue - there are sanitiser stations everywhere and I didn’t find one which had ran out all day, on rides there’s social distancing where it’s needed - some rides seem odd such as quantum which literally runs 3 rows - others do make sense, but obviously this is new and will be tweaked over the next few weeks. There’s signage everywhere - again it’s all been done professionally and properly, proper signage throughout, information videos on screens and park wide announcements. For guests following it it’s a mixed bag - some queue lines seemed to follow it better than others, ride ops did step in at times and make announcements reminding people which jogged memories and people would then distance out more. Did notice some not wearing masks on The Swarm, at the same time someone at stealth didn’t have a mask and the staff quickly found one, disposable masks are also on sale in the shops as well as Thorpe branded ones. Entrance to the park was efficient- those without bags skip security queue and go straight to temperature check - the ticket window queue to the right of the entrance is repurposed info a holding queue for those waiting to get in before park opens to allow people to be socially distancing whilst waiting. Park audio has had so much work, probably more than its ever had, its not finished but it’s already significantly better, queues like colossus which have needed work for so long have had it, areas which never had audio before now have it, its really so much better. A few tweaks are needed with some volumes too loud or quiet but that will come over time - you need the general noise of the park to get these levels right. Ride availability wasn’t bad - rides in old town were closed along with rumba, I expect these to open over the next Few weeks, as expected Ghost train and walking dead closed. Shutdown wise only actually saw Stealth and Vortex go down which isn’t bad for “first day” of season - all rides full capacity too which is obviously more important now with reduced seating. New brand signage around entrance / dome looks good - much more professional and suits the park well - Infinity looks really good too, sadly they seemed to have some struggles in there today so didn’t get to try it but definitely will soon! New car park system was good - passes scanned quickly, I do wonder if eventually pass holders will be able to register a car reg? Was also happy to see fastrack not on sale - they easily could have sold it, and people would have bought it - but not selling it definitely is a big plus for guest experience especially when staff are getting used to the new procedures on rides. All in all I had a good day - it was rough around the edges in some places but open day ALWAYS is - with the added part of the vast majority of staff spending the last few months on furlough along with all the new procedures needed it ran significantly smoother than i thouht it would - am happy the parks able to reopen!
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Whilst I agree to an extent - there’s plenty to be positive about too.. The park has had a great rebrand over the winter - tonnes of signage replaced, tonnes of new stuff, it looks good, its much more professional and it needed doing. The dome has been done up more - whilst I get opinions on looks are subjective and personal opinion, it’s had work done and it’s seen improvement, along with Infinity bar which at least from the outside looks really good - it will be a huge improvement for hotel guests when social distancing measures allow some of the new bits in there too. Park audio system has seen the biggest overhaul it literally ever has had, a good 90% of speakers have been replaced, audio has been added to places which have never had it significantly improving coverage, queue lines which haven’t had audio for years have been fixed, there’s some tweaking to do with volumes etc but again it’s a great improvement. Dont get me wrong - I get it’s not perfect, the area around ghost train near the arcade looks pretty dreadful for example - but it won’t stay looking like that, I suspect it was something started either very recently or just before everyone had to go on furlough. I get both sides of it I guess, personally I’m thankful the parks are able to start opening and getting back to some sort of normal!
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I didnt mean it as a positive, things in and around London are more expensive, its just the way it is. It wont just be capacity, it will be demand too, seeing as they've sold out within a couple of hours of opening being confirmed i guess its safe to assume its been priced it right from a business standpoint.
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Day tickets for open day have sold out - annual passes will be out of a different allocation but will no doubt sell out too.
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I’d say Chessington is a fair bit bigger bigger than Thorpe? The parks much more spread out, It has the zoo too to help distribute guests further. Of course Alton offers more but then Thorpe will always have the extra premium being within the m25, as will Chessington.
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I guess it’s to make up for some of the losses they will make from no walk up tickets for the foreseeable future and being closed almost 4 months, that and capacity where I expect Thorpe will likely suffer most being as compact as it is. I’ve no idea how ticket prices are set for theme parks, but I expect there’s some sort of market research into it and how much people are comfortable paying for a day out before they feel ripped off, that and I’m sure many 2 for 1 vouchers work online now?
