JoshC.

It's hard to gauge. In terms of major investments (ie big coasters), the best we can do right now is look at Hyperia's timeline, as that is most reflective for how the planning timelines will work in current-day Thorpe. The public consultation started in December 2021, so a 2024 opening (I believe the original hope was for it to open at start of 2024 too). So, using that: 2029 opening -> December 2026 consultation 2028 opening -> December 2025 consultation Given Hyperia's larger size, if a new coaster is a similar scale to the park's other coasters, it could even be a later. We've got no sense of idea as to when the park will next invest in a major ride. Or anything really. Looking at Chessington, they got World of Jumanji in 2023, and Minecraft Land seems to be coming for 2027. Towers got Nemesis Reborn for 2024 and Project Horizon is rumoured to now be happening for 2027. Thorpe, it's very quiet. The European Merlin Theme Parks it's even longer gaps. Given the changes at the top of Merlin in the last couple of years, it's hard to know exactly where the resort theme parks stand, and what sort of budget is going to them, or how often major rides are coming their ways. In terms of a smaller investment (ie a new flat ride), planning could be submitted just a few months prior. If we were to see a new flat ride for 2026, for example, we could see plans online any time from this summer onwards. I think there will be a level of caution too. Universal is still not confirmed. Certainly feels possible, but by no means certain. If Merlin want to pre-emptively "respond" to Universal and improve their parks, you're right that they will want to "get in there" prior to Universal in terms of constructors, manufacturers, etc. But if the only reason they want to improve and expand and build new rides is to stop people going to Universal, they'll only green light those investments when Universal is confirmed to be happening. Otherwise, if it's just the status quo, and people are still visiting, why would they need to invest and improve? I should add, I don't think that Merlin will necessarily knee-jerk with loads of new investments if/when Universal happens. There will be a natural step-up in their game following a major new competitor coming, but I don't think they'll start majorly changing how they've done because of Universal. I think there's a level of coincidence in, for example, Chessington's recent investments and Universal potentially happening.

Whoever Parm Pap actually is, I gotta give it to them, they sure know how to press TPM's buttons. The revival of the TPM Ride Game but with even fluffier, more nonsensical rules? Well played. Unfortunately the rules are so nonsensical I don't know how to play.

Ding dong no The sky is dark, the coast is rocky, the island mountainous. Construction is far away. Wait bugger wrong account

In theory yes. Looking at that image I've posted (which is a couple of years old now), it does look like there's effectively a road which leads to the main island behind Swarm. This would also make sense since supports of Hyperia were stored on that island during construction. So it could potentially be something as simple as work on the road following that, ensuring it is in a safe to use condition. But it could be for something, anything, else.

Until we see otherwise, this is unlikely to be related to a major investment, but there is a digger on the old Treasure Island plot: https://x.com/ThorpeParkMania/status/1878473914944282751 Treasure Island does feature a service road that links the park's main engineering workshop to the park, but this digger is away from that road. There's a hundred and one potential reasons for it to exist there. But one of those reasons is early work related a future investment...

We have a variety of threads for parks all around the world. But it's perhaps hard to track things. And there's also plenty of parks which we don't have threads for. BUT. Loads of parks around the world are getting new major rides for 2025. So let's try something new, and track them all in one thread. So this will be the life and soul of any non-UK ride getting built. Some bigger / more popular parks / rides might get their own thread / attention, but this is for a bit of everything... So here's a few to get us started... Walibi Holland are getting YoY, a pair of duelling RMC single rail raptors... The green track is an "extreme" ride featuring 6 inversions, whilst the blue is a "family" ride with no inversions. Walibi Belgium are getting a triple-launched Gerstlauer family coaster... https://www.instagram.com/reel/DD_9x7_oMeq/ Weiner Prater are getting Weiner Looping, a Mack BigDipper coaster... https://rcdb.com/21673.htm Fantasiana, in Austria, are getting Helios, a Mack Stryker coaster... https://rcdb.com/19395.htm Kings Dominion, in Virginia, USA, are getting Rapterra, a launched B&M Wing Rider... Six Flags Great America, Illinois, USA, will open Wrath of Rakshasa, a B&M Dive Coaster with a 96 degree drop Merlin will also open Legoland Shanghai later this year, which will include Big LEGO Coaster, a family B&M Invert. It will also go around the world's biggest minifigure... Another thing, which I'll create a thread for later, is Six Flags Qiddiya, set to open later this year in Saudi Arabia. It will have 9 coasters, including Iron Rattler, a 200ft Vekoma tilt coaster and Spitfire, an Intamin triple launch coaster with a 240ft tall inverted top hat. Oh, and Falcon's Flight, the Intamin coaster which will be partially built on a cliff. It will be the tallest, fastest and longer coaster in the world. It will have a max elevation change of 640ft, including a 525ft tall free standing airtime hill, a max speed of around 155mph (beating Formula Rossa's 149mph), and a length of 13,943ft (beating Steel Dragon 2000's 8,133ft). Track is complete and testing is set to take place in the next couple of months apparently. Feel free to add any updates / discuss here!

Plans for the new CBeebies coaster are online. Replacing Postman Pat... Very basic layout, not much taller than Octonauts. Which begs the question...why the need for a maintenance building?

And it's now definitely not happening. https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/202412/10639/

17 new parks this year, my best return yet... Legoland Dubai Dubai Hills Mall IMG Worlds of Adventure Motiongate IMG Worlds of Adventure Ferrari World Abu Dhabi FunWorks SeaWorld Abu Dhabi Yas Waterworld Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi Parque Warner Madrid Parque de Atracciones de Madrid Emerald Park PortAventura Park Ferrari Land Walibi Rhône-Alpes Europa Park 77 new coasters, again my best return yet... In terms of repeat visits: -Thorpe Park (probably around 30-40) -Chessington x2 -Legoland x1 -Alton Towers x3 -Drayton Manor x1 A round-up of sorts: Quick Stats Coaster count at start of 2024: 331 Coaster count at end of 2024: 408 Favourites Favourite new-to-me coaster of 2024: Hyperia, Thorpe Park (Number 12) Favourite new-to-me dark ride of 2024: Ani-Mayhem, Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi Favourite new-to-me park of 2024: Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi / Ferrari World Abu Dhabi Least Favourites Least favourite new-to-me coaster of 2024: Abismo, Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (Bottom 10%) Least favourite new-to-me park of 2024: Parque de Atracciones de Madrid Surprises Biggest surprise coaster of 2024: Mahuka, Walibi Rhone-Alpes Biggest surprise park of 2024: Walibi Rhone-Alpes Biggest disappointment coaster of 2024: Red Force, Ferrari Land Biggest disappointment park of 2024: IMG World of Adventures Other Notable Mentions Manta, Sea World Abu Dhabi - Wonderful ride Uncharted, Port Aventura - Surprisingly decent Mystic, Walibi Rhone-Alpes - Lovely ride Euro-Mir, Europa Park - Rubbish Parque Warner Madrid - Not a fun park Milestones 400th Coaster: Matterhorn Blitz, Europa Park 350th Steel Coaster: Diablo, Port Aventura 75th park: Port Aventura Park General Highlights Going to the UAE in general First visits to PA and Europa - nice to tick them off Hitting 400 creds Hyperia General Lowlights Storms and floods in UAE making my first day in the UAE spiteful and stressful - when I was at IMG, their Blue Fire clone was closed due to the weather, despite at time of visiting, it was 22 degrees Celsius. I only got the coasters done at Motiongate, as a monsoon-style rain storm hit and flooded the park. Had to be evacuated from the park via bus. Going to Ferrari World 3 weeks after Formula Rossa shut down My car being broken into in Madrid, with all my belongings (included passport) being stolen Having to cancel my trip to Gardaland / Movie Land Italy last minute I have lots of thoughts for 2025, though it will probably be slightly less in terms of park and cred numbers.

Don't disagree here tbf. Fantastic model choice which would add to pretty much any park's line up. I certainly won't say no to any park having one. But yeah, RtH just didn't do it for me. (The temptation to use the "o-word" that you love oh so much Mark is strong here, but I'll resist )

Yeah, if I'm being honest, Plopsaland's operations leave a lot to be desired in recent years. I visited in mid-August this year. RtH on 1 train, being run poorly. Park was busy too. When I visited around this time last year, again 1 train, but only 3 of the 4 cars in service on that train. Anubis might run 3 cars, but may as well run 2. Etc Heidi is the only major ride they run well. Food has never been the park's strong point, but it's gotten much more expensive and much worse in recent years. People complain about Merlin's food but it's Michelin-quality compared to Plopsa frankly. Circus Bumba is a weak dark ride too. I'm not RtH's biggest fan. It's good, but I don't rate it anywhere near the upper echelon's of my count, like many people seem too. That RAP situation is ridiculous too btw. Real shame.

Chessington have submitted plans to replace Scorpion Express, the games areas and children's petting zoo. A new area will be created with a new coaster (Zierer Force One) and 3 children's rides, one of which will be Jungle Bus relocated from Wild Asia: A key thing to note is the park are going to move the animals to the Wanyama Village and Reserve part of the park, and intend to do so with all their animals eventually. The application also states the park are still well below pre-Covid numbers in terms of guest attendance.

Additions to CBeebies Land are good. Another coaster isn't the worst option either. On the subject of Project Horizon, who knows what's happening with it. But if the rumours of it being an indoor coaster (Intamin Multi Dimensional) are true, then I've mixed thoughts. By no means a bad thing to introduce something like that, but the park need flat rides desperately more than dark rides or coasters imo.

It can be somewhat awkward trying to plan/book trips over the winter. Some parks won't have fully finalised or released their opening hours, tickets, etc, others may not have transport links confirmed. I'm not saying that's the case here (I haven't used the Shuttle Bus), but it will be something to keep in mind if you're booking stuff now.

I like the skyline addition. It looks cool and adds a bit of extra recognisability to it. I don't think it's going to be a "part" of the logo, in that I don't see it being plastered everywhere. I expect they're fully sticking with the minimalistic logo. However, it's a nice graphic to include, which will become a part of the brand, and over time, become recognisable and synonymous with the park itself.

It's weird as the marketing team has been largely consistent for a number of years. In fact, I think it's pretty much the exact same team as the ones who made the decision to drop areas. My point being: it's not like 7-8 years ago where we were in a marketing carousel which chopped and changed every year. Thing is, if you're doing themed areas, you need to go quite far with them. You can't half-heart it, or pick and choose where on park you do it. And it's very hard (and not to mention, uncommon) for a park to switch from non-themed to themed areas. When parks do it, it's a long, slow process (Walibi Belgium is a good example of this). But yeah, with this map, we've got multiple parts of the park which aren't themed areas. Depth Charge, Beach and the Arena space are in No Man's Land. So too is Ghost Train and Walking Dead. Saw and Samurai's land is...Saw And Samurai. I wonder if they've just added it as a test to see what would happen, what the reaction might be, etc. Frankly, I don't care even way at this point if Thorpe go with themed areas or not. Just pick a lane and be consistent with it.

Auction went live yesterday. People learnt that, because you didn't need credit/debit card details, you could inflate the prices forever with a couple of accounts.. Thorpe are deleting obvious stupid bids, but it's a shame that they couldn't find a way to have stopped such shenanigans...

Weird one isn't it. On the one hand, it's Thorpe's stuff, they're selling it, so they have no need to donate any money to charity. No one bats an eyelid when Towers or Blackpool or any other park sells off old ride parts / signs for complete profit. On the other hand, it's an auction. The money they could make is quite literally limitless. They could have just set these as limited edition, first-come-first-serve items at a set price, and told people to suck it up. It's smart they haven't gone down that route. But y'know, they could have given more to charity. At the same time, the charity is Merlin's Magic Wand, so it's still all going to Merlin one way or another really. Will be very interesting to see how much some of that goes for...

I'm flattered you think I have too much money. If it's parts of Loggers Leap in any way (signs, boats, wheels, whatever), it's wonderful to see the park offer that stuff, but will be priced way beyond my limit (or, if it's an auction, the bids will go way beyond anything I'm willing to pay). If it's a new memorabilia merch line related Loggers Leap / old rides, then it's a good thing for me the teacher pay rise for the last few months gets stuck onto the December pay packet...

Location certainly didn't help either. Can't help but feel if it was based somewhere that could have been accessible to hotel guests and it ran into the evenings, would have been a much more sensible and viable decision. Then again, we all know this, as that's exactly what was said when it was announced and built.

It was sort of on borrowed time, but also not really. It was due to be removed in 2015, rumoured to make way for SW8, but then those plans were shelved (and ultimately completely changed) following the Smiler incident. But then in 2019, it underwent a heavy refurb (being completely removed, etc). If that refurb really only added a few extra years to it before it hit end of life, was it worth it? Why couldn't they spend a little bit more to get an entirely new one? And this is the thing: it's poor decision making from the past, along with difficult / questionable decision making in the present causing a real issue for the park right now.

Interesting lack of mention regarding Skyride. Also makes you wonder what the point of all the work to the Blade was a couple of years ago if it's still hit its end of life

Some pictures of plans: https://x.com/AttractionSc/status/1859605164950184303