Marc

Whilst I agree hotels are pricey, the fact they sell out a lot would indicate to me they are not too expensive. Prices are driven by demand, when it's quiet they are cheap, when it's busier they are more.

Have moved all Merlin discussion to a more relevant topic!

I think its fair to say Merlin had their own share of bad press last year too!

Hasnt Shanghai's delays and over spend caused budget cuts including removal of attractions, open hours and closure of F&B units.. All sounds very farmillair to me.. http://www.themeparktourist.com/news/20160216/31480/x-reasons-why-massive-cuts-are-happening-all-over-disney-parks

Thing is when you consider how small a country we really are I think we do have our fair share of (non Merlin) theme parks - we have parks like Drayton Manor, Blackpool, Paultons Park, Flamingo Land just to name a few which are often forgotten about when people claim Merlin have a hold on the industry in the UK - and are offering competition.

If you don't like how they run the parks its very simple to just not visit the parks. Although i would argue that all businesses set out to make the most profit they can (Yes even Disney) The amount of hatred towards Merlin on here and other forums does amaze me, whilst i'm fully aware they are far from perfect, they are far from terrible IMO too. It was only 10 years ago when DIC bought out Tussauds our parks were being ran into the ground and were considerably worse ran than they are now.

I don't think it's fair to say Merlin are poor at what they do - they are a huge company who run attractions across the globe and are a hugely successful business, there will be a reason for that sucsess. Of course delays like this are not good for them - but again they happen across the industry all the time.

Actually it wouldn't surprise me atall if they simply open it without any notice atall - give it a couple of days to settle down and start the media hype again. I guess we will see soon enough!

Indeed - can we move on please - any further posts will be removed

Alot! The days back when it was open in the snow it rolled back a good few times a day!

Whilst everyone likes to take cheap shots at Merlin can you really blame them for not offering Annual Pass discount on a club night

I beleve its offered on Samurai and Vortex at the moment - once the member of staff has batched through the guests for the next ride if there's and spare seats they will take from the single rider. Nice to see it start to return even if just on a couple of rides at the moment.

Stealth has just reopened for the last 2 hours of the day

Im sure when we get a date the marketing will turn up and the hype will well and truly start again!

I think its natural hype will die down - the biggest problem with this than say Smiler's delay is that when you visited the park you would see Smiler going around testing, you could see the progress. Where as with DBGT the building looks largely the same as it did when the park opened, of course progress will be being made but unfortunately we cant see any of it from outside!

Hey You may notice a few posts have gone missing from today / yesterday - this is due to a server error - we recovered what we could. Sorry about that! Thanks to Jon for fixing! Marc

Indeed as ProjectLC said - the park, obviously have a stock of parts, but its not feasible for the park to store every single spare part what might break.

It's sister park had a major accident - Thorpe received an awful lot of bad press it's not really a surprise. Pre smiler I beleve gate figures were actually up for both towers and Thorpe. To add to that, I beleve Merlin do not release this information and lot of it is purely predictions - atleast for the Merlin parks.

There was some filming going on around th queue line today. Also the queue board has been updated to "Suspended"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17389375 Tbf the media have reported on these things for like ever, way before smiler!

To be fair I think the park have been more honest and upfront about this all than usual - they have said they tested it out and are not happy with some show elements of the ride and want them to be corrected before opening, whilst that not a huge amount of technical detail, its more detailed than a park would usually be about a attraction (Certainly Merlin ones anyway) I get the point re the tech - but there has to be a stage where someone bites the bullet takes abit of flack and takes tech to the next level and I think that applies to much more than just rides - look at the first few smartphones! Out of all the "Merlin" open days I've really only really followed the ones at Thorpe, which really seem to have a fairly good record as far as I can tell, Saw opened for previews and opened on its scheduld open day (Yes it shutdown after a short while - the fact it required Gerstlauer to fly back over make modifications would indicate to me that wasn't any fault of Merlin's planning) and The Swarm which again opened on time and for previews and is probably one of the most reliable rides in the country.

I totally get why people are upset about this - ultimately we are all enthusiasts and should all be looking forward to getting on the ride when ever that may be. But I don't think going around calling the park everything under the sun is fair either - ultimately to us the delays are no more than an annoyance, to the park there will be huge financial implications and of course their reputation which they obviously want to protect. I've no doubt in my mind that when they announced the launch date they were 100% confident of achieving it, and when this was not reached and they announced the end of May they would again of been certain of reaching it, they have nothing atall to gain by picking random dates based on nothing and missing them. Reading over the comments on FB it's quite refreshing that a fair amount of people are being supportive and understand the delay is out of their hands. It will open, we will all get on it soon and hopefully it will be worth the extended wait!

Can you imagine the rage if Thorpe just opened this with no warning?! People not being the first people ever to ride it id hate to imagine it!

What tired and tested rides at Thorpe do you think have awful reliability out of interest?

The bars look like a restraint - some of them are down some are up.