Marc

Moved the Merlin v Disney stuff to the Merlin to the Merlin topic http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/7118-merlin-entertainments/page-10#entry179992

This £40 price line does seem to crop up quite often, when you say on the day entry to Thorpe Park is £48 that *does* sound like an awful lot, but when you compare it to say going to a premier league football game, it suddenly dont sound quite so bad. Along with that if who ever is planing their trip shops around its £25 a couple of days in advance which IMO offers pretty good value for money.

The parks official Twitter may be able to look into this for you to @thorpepark Hopefully they will be able to sort it out for you

Agree with the bathroom door and that seems to be what most of the negative feedback was..- being their own units I suspect they have listened to guest feedback and have addressed this. It wouldn't surprise me if in years to come the hotel appears and this becomes a cheaper alternative, they can build the hotel based on the feedback from this to make sure what they produce suits the parks needs.

But from the aspect of actually staying there before, it really actually is quite good. Ok sure the rooms are tiny compared to a standard hotel room, but they are built and finished to a very high quality and offer a comfortable nights sleep (the beds are much better than the ones I stayed in at PA!) Time spent in the room is in my experience actually very little and aslong as the park offers things to do in the evening be it rides open or entertainment in the dome I expect people will be happy with there stay. You only have to read the reviews on TripAdvisor to see the vast majority do actually like it. I do hope they go ahead and build the full hotel sooner rather than later, but until then I think the Crash Pad served its purpose well and the Shark Hotel will most likely do so, and maybe even be a bit better too.

Ha yep - Dont worry guys just an April Fools! Glad it got some of you though!!

Just because it dont appeal to you doesn't mean it doesn't appeal to anyone else, the Crash pad version 1 was clearly a success for the park hence they are expanding it and taking it further, so people are clearly happy with the offering? I stayed there a couple of times last year, with prices at around £29 per person on the day I thought it was good value, although we dont know the on the day prices yet. As for comparing to the others, its all about demand, theres no point Thorpe Park building massive hotels just yet if they cant fill them, if people are happy paying less and staying in a room like the Crash Pad then I dont see the problem?

Nice find http://instagram.com/bneerectionservices Looks much the same as the crah pad - hope they've fixed them bathroom doors!

I've always found Mondays and Fridays to be the busiest week days, I guess people are more likely to take a day off for a long weekend Instead of an odd day in the week

http://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/30-03-2014/Weekly-Roundup Latest news from the park over the last week!

Thorpe have now got a new ticketing system on their website - much nicer and easier to use than the old one The FAQ's suggest it supports tickets to mobile phones too which will be nice and could save a lot of time from people collecting tickets if people take advantage.

Hope you have a great time!

Echoing what has already been said Vortex has been running very well over the past couple of days, the juddering seems to have been fixed and its getting to its full height swings very quickly. Not enjoyed Vortex so much since the 2004 days!

£5 for a digital download isn't all that bad IMO. TBH if I buy a photo I usually scan it and it then collects dust in a draw, so the digital only option suits me personally.

It was testing this morning, also has water dummy's in the seats now.

It was testing a lot today and properly testing too which is the first time I've seen it test this season. Not open yet though

Yeah it has, now they've fixed the waterfalls they are much easier to spot!

The page has been changed and it runs from 18th till 21st - does make sense!

This new concept art is seriously nice!

I can kind of see why you would get a TP pass over a Merlin one if you really only visited TP because of the price, I think if you was say considering spending £120 on a Alton pass it would be crazy to not pay the extra

Its an interesting concept - we saw them play with something like this during the summer last season with their £48 "Season Pass" too. I may be wrong but I think its a similar structure which the american parks do too. I think its quite a good idea personally and when you compare to say a MAP (£159) its quite well priced for just the one park.

Fingers crossed then its getting closer!

All of them things on your list were fine on Saturday, (apart from the backwards seats obviously!)

I believe Swarms water uses chlorine to keep it clean, so its possible that at the start of the season they need to adjust the levels to make sure its right before using it and potentially getting people wet? As for the water effect near the fire engine it seems like this one has been changed as to not cover the fire engine, That was done at the end of last season.

They were on all day Saturday (both of them) along with every other effect when I was on the island.