JoshC.

It didn't open on its second day of operation last year, what made people think it would open on the second day of season this year? But seriously. It's not an ideal position to be in. It further develops a narrative that the ride is unreliable. People who don't understand how theme parks work then believe that the park haven't done any work to the ride over winter. And for some, they can then create a narrative against the park. Obviously the situation isn't good, but it's a "Thorpe are the worse place ever" story. The question really is...what's happening? Why is a bog standard lift hill coaster, from one of the most reliable manufacturers around, causing issues? And is there a party to blame? And can these issues be rectified so they don't happen again? As someone who really likes Hyperia, it's hard for me to say this, but I can't help but wonder what would have happened had Thorpe gone for a B&M Hyper. I'm not saying they should have; on paper, both were extremely positive additions and no one would have thought "well, one is notably more reliable than the other". But there's certainly a "What if?" lingering in my mind of how much easier things would have been if they did, and what the park's situation might be now.

When the park put out a "register your interest" sign up for Hyperia coaster climbs, the response was huge. I've been made aware that if everyone who responded to that ended up actively choosing to do it, there would be a 4.5 year waiting list. So a mixture of a high price, some form of pre-requirement plus needing an Annual Pass takes the potential load off of needing a waiting list, which would probably have been met with a worst reaction than what's currently happened. Maybe those 3 things were a little unnecessary, maybe the price is a tad too high, but the park put those measures in place to allow a smooth introduction to the VIP extra. I expect that at some point, they'll loosen those prerequisites, and maybe tweak the price (in the mid-term future) so the jump between other climbs and Hyperia's is not quite so steep.

The simple answer will be only the park know. Previous opening days usually have queues peaking between 45-90minutes for major rides. But between the park opening late in March, having an Annual Pass day for the first time in many years, etc, it's harder to predict. Hyperia's reliability will also dictate the day I'd expect.

Not my type of ride at all, but then again, Blackpool isn't my type of park. Great addition to the park though, so all works.

To be fair, those rides listed are themselves launch coasters, and so by their nature can possibly stall if the launches aren't powerful enough. I can't think of any lift hill coaster that had recovery LSMs. One would assume they didn't think it possible to stall, or that it was so unlikely it would barely happen.

The primary issue with Hyperia is that it does not like running empty. When full, either with guests or dummies, the ride runs fine. Maybe a bit slow for the outerbank with only a couple of seats filled, but yknow, that's the point. But when empty, it just crawls. The difference between an empty train and even a quarter full one is astounding. I've never seen a ride be quite so chalk and cheese in that regard. Obviously that's led Thorpe to running very few empty trains, and even tweaking their usual post-breakdown procedure it seems. That's how big a deal this is. And especially for morning checks, it slows things down. I don't quite know what they'll do moving forward. The risk of a stall seems to be ever prevalent with empty trains, and that's something either Thorpe have to live with, or they'll have to change. The questions are, how would they change it, and how liable are Thorpe to pay for those changes.

Changes to the application, making it smaller and comply with biodiversity stuff https://x.com/ThorpeParkMania/status/1902060291598496045?t=g4E2hlX9nxq7u74Q21fUkQ&s=19

The park have spent the last 3 years replacing Haunted House, Sub Terra, Nemesis and Ripsaw with...Haunted House, Sub Terra, Nemesis and Ripsaw. They've removed other flats and experiences and other attractions haven't been around for a long time (Hex, Skyride). The refreshing / replacing / reopening of old attractions wouldn't be as bad if they did it across the whole park rather than one area. But focusing on one area for 3 years, plus removing (even temp rides) from other parts of the park compounds the issue. It feels like bad strategic planning. Next year we know is a CBeebies coaster. After that is rumoured to be Project Horizon. Unless they add in more, it's a rough time for your mid line up, with little for your 1.1-1.4m crowd.

So thoughts and notes from yesterday, which was a "VIP preview" for the season, where the park was open 10-3. -We're light on changes. A couple of tweaks to F&B is really all that is "new" -Repaints for part of Colossus and Depth Charge look nice. The small side of the Beach looks nice, also repainted, but it highlights the grime of the large side. -Hyperia grass is nice. Could be extended more. They've added benches to the plaza which isn't a bad idea, but they're atop the wings on the ground, which irks me a bit. -Many new pieces of merchandise, which are the usual high quality we've come to expect -Hyperia had issues yesterday, in large part due to the cold. Hopefully better today. Stealth had an issue during testing and didn't open. -The park usually stumbles during first day or two of opening, and yesterday wasn't any different, with the cold affecting weather, and reliability being a bit on the weak side, but it did improve. I've been to significantly worse first days. -There's a few other bits and pieces around the park. Solar panels atop Ghost Train (but you only see them if you look for them on other rides). Walking Dead has had creative tweaks to the post-ride section. Some speakers seem to have been fixed. Tweak to end of day of audio. If 2024 was Thorpe's year of improvement, 2025 is their year of stability. That's not a bad thing. But after a couple of years of multiple changes, it will have a different 'new season' vibe to it. The kicker for the park this year will be the quality and reach of marketing. That will be what makes or breaks them this year, with little to shout about in the way of new things

In a shock twist, Toxicator did manage to reopen.

Update: Nemesis and Sub Terra are available, rest of FV is not. EDIT: The park are saying it's a burst pipe near Toxicator and they do not expect it to re-open today I hope that the drain issue is just an unfortunate coincidence with it being on opening day and not an actual design flaw / problem. If it's the latter, that's a not quick or easy fix. Toxicator had an estimated 2-3 queue at opening too. Multiple gour queue for a top spin. People are crazy. Towers openings are getting a reputation right now and it's not a good one. I feel sorry for the staff. There will be plenty of new staff who are getting a baptism of fire right now. And plenty more experienced ones who will be sighing at the thought of starting the season off roughly. But hey, the only way is up from here!

Ahh yes. When they were first listed it was 10% discount but it's since been changed, so 20% likely right. I too was surprised when I learnt how many there are! There's clearly a place and a market for them, but part of the issue now is it's such an over saturated market that there's bound to be struggles. I also expect they naturally have a limited interest with people; very few people will regularly get them.

10% discount, which would suggest that the Harbour isn't being run by Aramark. I know Doughnut Time now broadly has had some financial issues and closed several stores, so that might be why they've changed providers. Am I also right in thinking other Merlin parks (Towers in particular) have used Planet Doughnut recently?

It would certainly still receive some sort of work I'd expect. I don't envision them leaving it dormant for a couple of months and then just switching it back on, as that too would cause issues. It could potentially be down to staffing / saving on staff costs. It could also be that there's simply something that's happened. Skyride is potentially more understandable in my view, as even though it's been testing for a while, since it has been closed for so long, it will effectively be a new ride in terms of training, which may just cause add on with getting open. Obviously that should have been accounted for by the park anyway, but just what I see as a possibility

Yes Stealth they've discussed (re-)adding an SRQ before, but the current batching system works well for the efficiency of the ride and doesn't lend itself to SRQ. And this is the thing. SRQs serve two purposes: 1. Improve utilisation scores (the percentage of seats filled) 2. Give a mild improvement to guest satisfaction scores The first point is the bigger one. SRQs simply do not improve throughputs meaningfully. Let's say Hyperia sends 40 trains an hour, and 1 person from the SRQ goes on each train. That's an increase of 40 people. And without an SRQ, a good batcher could probably fill some of those seats anyway. So it's not really significantly meaningful. Improving utilisation does ultimately look good, and will increase the total ridership, and so ever so slightly improve the "rides per head" score - the average number of rides ridden per guest. But it will be marginal. As for improving guest satisfaction/experience. The number of people using or benefitting from SRQs is generally a tiny proportion of the number of guests. That's not to say parks should ignore them, but it should be remembered that it's again minimal gains. SRQs need to properly and sensibly integrated. That's why Hyperia works. How does one, for example, introduce an SRQ on Nemesis Inferno? There's no clear pathway to the station for it. Any potential batching point is too far away. Similar stories for Swarm and Colossus. As mentioned, Stealth has that natural point, but the current operation of the ride doesn't lend itself to having an SRQ. You could put it into some flat rides, and share the space with Fastrack, but that requires good batching. And bluntly put, Thorpe don't have enough staff who care to be good enough batchers (a trend common at many parks, for the record). So yeah, I don't see any rides having SRQs retrospectively (re-)added any time soon.