Marc

They also have significantly smaller operating costs. The amount of people needed at AI / Oakwood to be running at a profit will be much less than needed at Thorpe.

They did try this back in 2006 - one of the parks busiest years and throughout August the park was open 10-10pm every day I believe - as Mark said past 6/7PM it was dead pretty much every night.

The Melrin pass site states: Shrek’s Adventure 2015 - NO Entry with a Standard Merlin Annual Pass in 2015.

No - Thats totally different, you buy a Merlin annual pass and it gets you entry into the attractions which are printed on your pass - when Shrek is open and is printed on the passes should it get you into that.

Out of interest - Why do you think Standard pass holders (or any for that matter) should get access to Shrek? Surely buying your annual pass grants access to the attractions open at the time of buying, Merlin certainly dont have to grant pass holders to new attractions.

At the end of the day it's down to Merlin to value their product at what they think its worth and price it accordingly, Like most things in life, if you don't agree then don't hand over your money.

To be fair - there are not many company's that don't

I agree that since Standard / Premium passes its made the whole thing a lot more complicated, the thing is they have to make the premium more attractive than the Standard or people will wonder why they are paying the extra for the Premium pass. Whilst I know the parks are far from perfect, in my eyes £209 which is the price for a Premium is still extremely good value for money and is worth the extra £50 alone for the lack of restrictions.

At the end of the day if you don't like the charge the easiest thing to do is not visit. February half terms have allways been "events" even back when it was thrill chill - only difference is now we have multiple annual pass options of which the standard don't include these for free.

There was a Job open for a Pizza Pasta restaurant manager on the Thorpe Park jobs site a couple weeks back.

Back when it was Colossus (when it warmed up enough) and Inferno they had 2 trains available if needed - I'm sure that Stealth and Swarm will be a similar story.

Thing is - if you put it into perspective a few angry people on Facebook / tpm isn't reakly so damaging to their name. I'd be certain more Standard pass holders will just pay it and go than avoid it.

To be fair. Whilst I don't agree with the charge, when you bought your standard MAP February half term openings at thorpe wasn't even an option..

I'm not so sure comparing one of the most advance rides in the world to X is a fair comparison

Braniac is returning for February half term

To be fair in my experience apart from Open day which was usually the coldest - the park ran fine and got all the advertised rides open. The problem they had was when it was 0/1 degrees and even rides like quantum struggled to make it all the way round!! With a different selection of rides I dont see why it cant work.

We can now confirm that the park is set to open for February Half term between the 14th and 22nd February. A selection of rides will be available along with Brainiac Live returning too! http://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/01-12-2014/February-Half-Term-Event-Returns

Hey all Just a quick update from us - Firstly due to other commitments Dara has left the Mania hub team - I'm sure you'll join me in thanking him for his contributions to the forums. I would also like to welcome Josh C and Altitude (Ethan) to the team - both have been helping out for a number on months on things behind the scenes with a lot of the website and Facebook content and both deserve the recognition! Thanks Marc

The parks you like to compare it to are also very different markets. If anything we we're spoilt by years of high investment, it was never going to last for ever!

Its hardly unusual for theme parks to only offer their own brands of food. Maybe in your opinion but you can talk for the millions of guests..

Yeah you could - although you couldnt take bags on Men in Black (Although I guess that does spin a fair bit). Agree it does have its flaws but id say it works better than bag rooms and must be more cost efficient.

I like how universal deal with it - free lockers for the length of the queue, nice and easy. Hated taking my bag on rides at Disney having to worry about holding on to it or keeping it dry

And by far the parks most successful ride to date... (And I'm not a huge saw fan!) I know Saws pretty much universally hated among enthusiasts - theres no denying its was exactly what the park needed at that point in time.

Backwards queue now only exists in the station abit like the normal Front row queues so dont affect the main queue moving.

Not sure if I agree with this - more with enthusiasts this maybe the case - but as weve seen at Fright Nights the GP will queue 2 hours or so for Stealth / Inferno if thats how long the queue is.