Marc

Sarah, Ian, Ricky, Mr Fish, Stretchy, KingNemesis, Liam and my self popped upto Towers yesterday for a febuary half term mini meet and thought id post abit of a trip report. Me, Ian Sarah and Ricky headed up the night before and stayed in a scary looking travelodge in Burton, after overshooting the travelodge and Homer trying to take us to a gravel pit, we eventually made it to the room, we moved it around abit so we could charge phones from bed and what not! Headed to Derby early the next morning to get Liam and then straight to towers (via McDonalds of course) eventually got there around 11ish after tomtom trying to take us up some dirt tracks and all sorts of weird places! Headed over to Nemesis and met with Mr Fish, Stretchy and KingNemesis. Went for a ride on Nemesis back row, which was as good as ever and then over to Air. It shutdown for a while but nothing major and it was back up and running within 15 mins, air was also pretty good but cold! After this is all goes into a bit of a blur, went on Duel, had lunch in Mutiny Bay, the hotdog lady was pretty amusing and I'm guessing hard of hearing when I asked for coke and she shouted what and started pointing at ketchup! Did Hex and Ice Age (which had a pretty long wait!) This is where Strechy had to leave us! After this we headed back over to Nemesis for another ride. For our last ride we went over to spinball which had shut-down but it was fixed just after 4 and they left it open a while after closing time to make up for it which was pretty good of them After this Sarah, Ian, Ricky and me had a quick look around the hotel where Liam was amazed and went into uttoxeter for a meal which was pretty nice and then of course the fun long drive down the M1 (via derby) home! Ride count: Nemesis: 2 Air: 1 Hex: 1 Duel: 1 Spinball: 1 Ice age: 1 Group shot: Had a great day, was great to see some new faces and good to catch up with some ive met before! Hope to see you all again soon!

My point was it served a purpose though, it keped the park in the limelight for a reasonably small investment, it opened up a new area of the park and more than likley paid for its self 5 times over in fastrack sales over the season / fright nights, so in my eyes it served its purpose. It was open for 2 years and most of the time had a queue to get into it, unfortunately it just another victim from the cut backs all merlin parks had. Id rather Saw Alive close than have the entire park close 1/2 hours earlier a day, its a shame it got to that but with all other parks having cuts, I guess the park didnt have much choice and would of been a no win situation. The fact that its another ride that the majority of guests can actually ride, and not just for the smallest of children to me ride Wise it's an improvement (surely as the park gets busier, any ride what can soak up some queues is a good thing? Visually agreed and flooded boats the same, although on my rides the procedure was much better in the 2012 season, but still a problem I agree. Agree with Slammer and Samurai, the sooner these rides are put out of their misery the better IMO, whilst Slammers unique, its too unreliable for the park, whilst I applaud them for the efforts they have made to keep it going after months of downtime since it opened, the fact S&S dont even make them anymore it seems to me thorpe are probably fighting an impossible battle and the ride probably dont have many chances left. I agree some things slipped in 2012, I'm not too sure if opening earlier than advertised is a good or bad thing really. I do agree with this, but as you said I think the park dont even really know right now really. But will familys enjoy X no way out / storm surge more than CCR / Fungle / TV, obviously I cant talk for everyone but id say theres a good chance they will.. Re gate figures , I think thorpe are a long way from less than 1000 on park. Never been so cant really comment, like I said I think reliability etc has improved as a whole although did suffer abit in 2012, I have no doubts in Merlins ability to see the direction Six Flags went in and avoid that at Thorpe. I think it was meant that its the "major" investment for 2013, rather than its a major investment for the park as a whole. I'm hoping we see alot more improvements on park in general this year too.

So because people on here dont like these attractions it means they are money not well spent? Saw Alive served a purpose for the 2010 season (which I beleave was the parks busiest season ever, but I maybe wrong) and Storm Surge, whilst it would be hard to find anyone on here who likes it, is an improvement over Octopus Gardens, of which rides you would expect to see in Staines high street rather than Thorpe Park.. I agree with some of this, but surely opinions on things like atmosphere are more down to opinion rather than fact? Whilst you may not enjoy riding vortex to pop music I'm sure there are those who do for example? General maintenance if anything has improved? Gone are the days of 2005 where you had days of Stealth, Rush, Samurai, Colossus down for days at a time, all at the same time. Problems which result in guests having poor days and not coming back regardless of 'improving' old/new attractions... Surely the difference between Six Flags and Thorpe is all their parks went the same way, Thorpe is the only one trying to cater just for teens / young adults whilst other merlin parks around them are focusing on the younger side of things to balance it out. The target audience has been the same for years now, whilst it would be silly to totally ignore other audiences, installing rides such as Storm Surge and apparent works on X which will reduce the height restriction suggest to me that there not really doing this. One thing id like to point out, I'm not saying thorpe are perfect, far from, but visiting places like Flamingo land show that things could be so much worse, and alot of their problems come from up above (Merlin) rather than the park them selves.

*for you... for everyone who dont enjoy the park, there will be more who do. Its far from perfect , but imo in the last 4/5 years its drastically improved, money has been invested in the right areas and a hotel (even if its just a temporary one for now) is a step in the right direction, and means they can offer accommodation and put more focus onto their evening events right now, not in 2/3 years time.

Annual pass day has been announced for Sunday 10th March has been announced Free prebooked tickets : http://thorpeparkpreview-1st.eventbrite.co.uk/ Supports Passbook which is handy!

I dont see the huge issue with the bridge, its more the actual entrance I think they would like to improve rather than just the bridge.

http://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/15-02-2013/Crash-Pad-Bridge-Works - Works continuing on the Crash Pad access bridge as you can see in this small photo update.

I'm sure they base it on more than just numbers, all parks were down with the recessio. Maybe guest feedback on the marketing who knows

So one of the first marketing campaigns which wasnt criticised by enthusiasts was classed as unsuccessful. Interesting

I personally hope the Saw contract is renewed on a 100 year contract or somthing like that, in other words Saw for the rest of its days. Would much rarhter see money spent elsewhere in the park. Saw as a whole is fine.

I find all merlin outlets have good / bad days, from my experience Bar 360 is pretty good but have had a few disappointing trips! The best has to go to The Chicken Shack at CWOA on Saturday, they had ran out of chicken One thing I did notice is they are doing the 2 meals for £12 but no longer give annual pass discount on that, not sure if thats somthing which will come in at all parks. I Guess 2 meals for £6 is still good.

Even though Thorpe did the same for Saw.... Granted Swarm had limited fastrack from the off, but being a B&M it didnt suffer half the problems Saw did thankfully throughput wise or reliability.

Its not about being a "special case", it all depends on the contracts of the franchises, for example whilst KFC was leaving Alton and CWOA at Thorpe the contract still had some years to go. At the end of the day its up to the park to offer what fits its target audience best, I dont think its worth getting "livid" over..

I really hope Burger King dont leave thorpe park, Merlin foods good but nice to have fast food which is actually fast also.

Seems a odd mistake to make, seeing as somone would have to go in and change it, dont see why else they would change open times. Wouldnt atall be surprised for things to be changing just not 100% finalised yet.

Last year they did quite often extend open hours on fright nights and indeed throughout the year, which have been reflected in this years open times.

Thats not a reason to keep it, its not a very popular ride. Nothing against it, I enjoy it, but it will go if it continues to cause months of problems for the park.

Disagree with that ^ Whilst slammer is still young, it continues to have long periods of down time (as in months at a time) and needing major parts replacing (like one of the massive booms a couple of years ago). Along with the fact S&S no longer provide this rides will make things more difficult. As much as I like Slammer, I cant see thorpe putting up with it for much longer if it was to have another 4/5 month spout of down time.

I maybe wrong but is this loggers first lift hill we can see in the background? https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leisure-Technical-Consultants-limited-LTC/228511400533230?sk=photos_stream

Whilst I kind of understand the fans being against Rafa, its not really all his fault IMO, I'm sure Roman made him a very attractive offer which would be hard to turn down, and to be fair at the start you guys were scoring 4/5 + goals a game. Whilst even reading fans were abit confused at his subs last night, Chelsea players started to look soppy at around 85 mins, I think the players can take some of the blame for conceding 2 goals, especially readings 2nd with 3 un marked reading players is abit of a school boy error. As a reading fan said earlier on a forum

I do feel sorry for the true chelsea fans... not none of their faults how the clubs run.

Just a few bits from the park which will clear some bits up I hope! There will be no additional charge to ride The Swarm in the backwards facing seats. The park have not made a decision on whether this is a permanent or temporary change. The change is not as simple as taking the seats off and putting them on the other side (as has been discussed!) for any decisions will have a lot of thought put into them. The rides team is currently working on how the queue system will work.

You beat us with Terry or was it Lampard in goal a few years ago, I'm sure wont be a problem

To be fair we sell out alot more than some of the teams around us!

Aslong as they invest money into the general infustructure of the park too, I think it should be a good year pretty good year really.