Marc

Ah that’s good to know thanks! 

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.

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!

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!

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!

Sure it’s a healthy discussion and am happy to have it - as Pluk said all team member applications the last time we did them were anonymous to keep things as fair for everyone as possible. 

You say that but media is one of the things which has really annoyed me during this whole pandemic  - and this is a good example, this graphic showing the UK having a higher death rate than the entirety of the EU, its still being shared over on Twitter now, its is so twisted almost to try scare people and I don't really get why - a bit of research shows Spain are literally lying about death numbers (you can see when they went from over 200 deaths per day to 2) and god knows how accurate other countries data are too - then the UK is accused of lying about death numbers because they added on 400 or so from previous weeks... surely that's the opposite of lying?

I see a lot of comments on us not testing arrivals and genuinely don’t see why it’s important at the moment?
 
Firstly - I don’t see why anyone arriving is anymore likely to have the virus than someone already here.
 
Secondly, with the restrictions / social distancing in place which people arriving have to follow - if someone does have it then following the rules in place make it unlikely to spread anyway.
 
Of course when the infection rates are low and it’s more under control in the U.K. testing / quarantining arrivals is much more important.

Ahh my bad - the windows were initially supposed to mist up I believe during different points so you wouldn’t see what’s behind the scenes if you didn’t have VR on - but the reflections from the windows would mess with the VR so they were in the end just covered up.

I believe simworx ultimately manages the entire project but the most part of it was built by different manufacturers - probably not helping ultimately in all the problems.
 
I don’t think the VR was added late as a marketing gimmick - the concept of a train with screens in the window wouldn’t really work on ghost train as you’d be awkwardly looking at a screen somones sat infront of - unless you only had people one side but that would end in a ridiculously poor throughput.
 
Yeah there was problems with VR contributing to the delay but by no means is VR it’s only issues - it’s a shame really as when the entire experience works as it’s meant to I still do think it’s good, it could have varied a lot more had it been a success to keep it fresh - it’s just so rare the whole thing works as an entire package. 

Just to clarify in that post I meant the ceiling floodlights that were before this, in reply to what Josh was saying about the state it was in before this revamp. The new lighting has had effort put in, actually the positioning is great, but what it's doing.. not so much

And although the repairs are much appreciated,  those things about syncing the soundtrack & lighting, repairing the animatronic etc, it should never have lost sync in the first place or the organist been left like that so long. Probably been left broken longer than many people on this forum can remember!

To be fair Vampires had more than just some Maplin LED’s thrown up at it - the organist is back to working better than I’ve personally ever seen - the lighting effects have all been properly synced up with the music track - the station it’s self is sounding great too. Even if done internally - it’s been done by skilled people, not someone who’s just plugged in a few lights.
 
Merlin get a lot of flack - but remember lots of these things fell into disrepair from years of neglect during the latter parts of the tussauds years. 

Pleasure Beach was awesome this weekend.
 
Big One open all day yesterday and most of today even with some fairly high winds, 2 trains on some of the coasters and a lovely atmosphere on park.
 
The service was great, staff were all very friendly and helpful.
 
Ghost Train has some amazing new scenes and lighting improvements throughout the ride, bringing out some of the UV in detail that it hasn't been seen in for years!
 
River Caves also has some changes and improvements to the lighting, and looks in pretty good condition inside.  Audio in Angkor Wat keeps cutting out though.
 
Overall the most enjoyable weekend I've had at Pleasure Beach in a few years.  There's a much nicer atmosphere about the place than it's had for a while.

Merlin working with Netflix could potentially be huge for them - whilst I know IP’s are not everyone’s cup of tea merlin have publicly stated they see them as the future - and if done well there’s no reason why they can’t be as good as original ideas.

On a hot summers day it’s not unreasonable to assume there would be a couple hundred people on park who are eligible for an access pass - 90% of eligible guests would be arriving in the morning so there would be bound to be an initial surge of people all collecting their passes at the same time.
 
The system isn’t perfect, and I’m not sure a “perfect” solution even exists  - but it’s hardly one of Thorpes / Merlins top issues.

I honestly doubt that as much abuse really goes on as some here are suggesting.

The issue is that the RAP rules are not being abided by. Those who do abuse it (like having more than 3 carers) should have action taken against them by the staff. Be that a removal of the RAP or having to reapply with different documentation.

On the whole though, I'd say the problem here is the opposite of a "snowflake society". It is still this prevalent belief that if you don't *look* disabled, you can't be disabled. My disability can only been seen in my brain, so unless you're walking around with an MRI scanner in your back pocket, you can't see it.

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Opens end of March - they must have been working on this for some time then, since Living Nightmare would assumingly need total removal with there being no theming in there that I can think of that would be reusable into this kind of futuristic style attraction.

I don’t think you can include the Galactica overlay at towers as a new coaster personally.
 
Thorpes at a funny stage at the moment - its all well and good wanting Merlin to throw money at it but their next move HAS to be right or god knows the consequences... We all know the problems DBGT had for various reasons, which was the parks last “big” investment and it didn’t deliver, before that, The Swarm, it also didn’t deliver the return which was expected. 
 
Thorpes next “big” investment will probably be the most important one the park has had to date - the future of the park will be banking on it being right - they really can’t afford to get it wrong a 3rd time - fingers crossed we will start to see / hear things on this soon but it’s not something they should rush into till they are certain both it’s the right time and the right investment.

It can’t make it any worse - only better. The current readers are not the best and they really struggle to read barcodes when it’s sunny (ok that’s not too often!) if the majority book in advance and ANPR opens the barrier automatically, where the others can just swipe a contactless card at the barrier it will only be a vast improvement on what’s there now.

Wow, I joined this forum almost six years ago and after a two year long hiatus I am back, maybe? In true me style my laptop died as I went to start writing this post x starting as I intend to go on 
 
I am now a perpetually stressed chemistry student but I still like the rolling coasters, and unlike me 4 years ago, I have been to Alton Towers. I have actually been to Alton Towers several times this year and haven't visited Thorpe once HAHA!! 
 
It's funny how I mentioned trying to get my friends into theme parks, I took my flatmate to Alton Towers along with ScARyCoAStErBoY (lol) and she said Hex was boring, but it is progress.
 
BUT HI GUYSSS, looking forward to annoying you all with my wrong opinions again when I find the time 😙✌️
 

It was open last day of the season! 

Thorpe open hours are probably the best we have in the UK? Granted some of the 8pm’s in the summer were cut but still overall they are much better than other merlin parks.

Surely this is something that should be commended, not ridiculed?
 
With less than a month to go, it would be easier for them to cut their losses and not bother with it than to actually reopen it. Of course, the fact it's taken so long to end up open (bar the couple of hours in summer before it died) is a concern, but the fact they've opened it now is something.

I know everyone loves an excuse to bash but is colossus really that bad? 
 
It went through a stage of being pretty awful -
and of course the restraints are not be the best design but it’s hardly unridable - especially in the last 2/3 years the trains are noticeably smoother IMO.
 
Personally I think there are better things the park could spend the money on. There are rides out there which run much rougher!

I was at Scarefest over the first weekend, and I think the event's looking really good.
 
I still won't do the mazes, but my friend did and he thought they were all good. Favourite was Sub Species and he also loved Darkest Depths which I've heard is quite a bit scarier than a family maze (it was very loud from outside!) Apparently nothing was different inside the Dungeons.
 
Atmosphere around the park was good, only saw very few roaming actors, the Dungeons lot outside the Dungeons, including a very intimidating Plague doctor, and some plague victims who were both good at scaring the older ones, and with the kids (I saw one encouraging a kid to stare at an adult with him). I think I saw the Ghost Pirates too, that or some cast members from Darkest Depths. Park audio was good, the same parkwide audio as last year with the addition of a Thirteen section was playing deafeningly loud on Towers Street and Dark Forest had the same audio as last year with the vocals. Darkest Depths has a full 15 minute long song with vocals as it's exterior soundtrack and it's one of my favourite theme park soundtracks ever, and Project 42 had some brilliant audio blasting around the Gun/Drill area of FV. Other than Towers Street, with the usual decorations + some brilliant pumpkins themed around the Big 7, there wasn't much theming around the park, all that really sticks out was some black, white and grey bunting for The Attic around Hex, some body bags on carts around the Dungeons that the actors were interacting with, and A LOT of smoke machines. I can remember one by the Dungeons, one on the bridge between Mutiny Bay and Fountain Square, one under the car in Katanga Canyon, one on the RMT tunnel, one on Oblivion's tunnel exit, one behind the demon things in Haunted Hollow, and one in the Attic queue that can also be seen from the pathway below as well as the permanent ones. I may even be forgetting some. Lighting was also decent, although there was quite a few generators at least the ones that were there were mostly coloured. Oblivion looked really good with it's oranges, and Wicker Man was missing alot of it's lighting from last year although I hear the full lighting package is coming a bit later on. The only thing I have about lighting, is some new bright white sting lights everywhere. It was worst at Wicker Man, where they're all over the queue and way too bright, although I suspect this might be to do with H&S with the stairs. Also there was a bright white generator light directly at eye level in the Oblivion queue which almost blinded me 😂
 
Operations were good around the park, saw a couple of rides closed over the two days and two hours we were on park, mostly Oblivion, but they were, for the most part, open fairly quickly after and with the exception of the second day when Oblivion, Smiler and Wicker Man were shut at the beginning of the day (possibly down to the rain), Oblivion seemed to be having the most issues, as well as Rita which was closed for a couple of hours the second day. Dispatches were pretty quick everywhere, especially at Thirteen and Oblivion. As for the actual rides themselves, they were phenomenal. I had some of my best rides on Nemesis and The Smiler, my first go on Thirteen in the proper dark was good,  Oblivion in the dark was way better than we thought it was going to be and Wicker Man in the dark, wow. While it doesn't look as good without the lights, we were FLYING round that track and it was so dark that I didn't even know what was happening and I know the layout off by heart! I also had two actually decent rides on Rita, and Galactica is there also.
 
Hex was great as always, we didn't see the dreaded "actor" at all apart from one ride, where he apologised for what happened in the octagon and made a joke in the vault, something about "if you have a bag keep it under the seats, if you have a drink hold onto it, and if you need the toilet tough". That may have been the same ride where it felt like it was spinning way faster than usual, creating a very disorientating experience. I think the "actor" is just a ride host taking things maybe too far.
 
Overall, Scarefest opening weekend was one of the best I've ever had at Towers. 
 
 

Swarm opened last night for a couple hours - Stealth has been down a few days now I think.