JoshC.

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.

I can't remember the last year it opened late into the season? Definitely not any time recently? Closed early in season, yes, but opened late? And if it opens early May and closes late September this year, that's 5 (out of effectively 7) months it's open, not 3. Although yes, theoretically it could end up being open for 3 months. Ultimately this isn't a surprise, although disappointing. Requires a huge number of staff despite low ridership. Massive internal H&S headache given how much fear there is over Rapids ride by H&S folks. The boats still aren't in the trough. I don't think it requires a lot of winter maintenance, and it does add to the park's claim of the "UK's wettest theme park", so it still has a place and value to the park. But they really need to do something to make it a bigger priority for guests to ride.

Do you know where the original source for this claim came from? I've heard it plenty of times, and whilst it wouldn't be outside the realm of believability, part of me wonders if it's just something made up to make things sound worse. I do struggle to understand why it would need engineers working on it literally round the clock. I've also heard its maintenance costs were around the £1m a year mark. Whilst that figure isn't useful by itself (How much do other rides at the park cost? What about other Intamin accelerators?), if that is true, it does indicate its expense.

I've still never been. It's one of those parks which, for me, is far enough away that it was always a "I'll get there at some point", and Megafobia was never a big enough draw for me. Ultimately, for my location, I can get to parks which peak my interest much more - and are no doubt significantly better - in a similar time scale / more easily. Obviously very sad, especially for the staff who will be majorly impacted by the news. I hold out a slight glimmer of hope that it may hold a chance to reopen, by being sold to another company. A big thing to me though is the fact they mention £25m of investment since 2008 - 17 years ago. That really isn't that much money at all. If we believe Flamingo Land, they've spent that much in the last 3 and a bit years. Paultons similarly have probably spent that much since the turn of the decade.

Knock off Nintendo World apparently has a 20 month construction window according to plans, so a closure now would mean they can be ready for 2027. Technically late 2026, but we know it would be 2027.

Oh Goatse, what have I done

Well they can't make it any worse tbf.

Obviously all for development, new attractions, etc. But having two parts of the park closed and under development (Wild Asia and Scorpion Express) does hit and feel pretty significant, even if Scorpion has been closed for years. It's a shame it all has to happen at once, especially given the reduction in Entertainment offering. Hopefully the park have plans to compensate for a good chunk of the park being a construction site. Does risk causing some people feeling short changed otherwise

https://shop.altontowers.com/collections/auction-today Towers are auctioning off 5 off the wheel covers from original Nemesis, which have each been signed by John Wardley. Starting price was £500, going price seems to be levelling out between £750-£1000

Cut it up into 10cm long sections, auction them off at $100 a pop along with a certificate of authenticity, and that'll fund whatever they're replacing it with and line the directors' pockets!

The Hyperia water feature scenario is pretty rubbish. -It's a Creative vs Operations debacle. Creative / MMM seemingly put in a water feature, with little consultation with the park on whether it will be sustainably manageable with their budget / restraints -Of course, why something as relatively simple as a set of water fountains isn't sustainably manageable (it's the same with Swarm) is something which needs asking -The jets haven't worked since...June/July? Why are the park still making a decision of its future? I fully understand how we've got here, but it doesn't make it particularly excusable.

Attraction Source visited Thorpe this week and have some updates: https://www.attractionsource.com/2025/02/18/thorpe-park-2025-closed-season-update/ -Beach work paused, with small side potentially opening this summer -A small area by the Marquee has been designated as a rest area for Guide Dogs -Ghost Train cafe is having more seats installed where the shop was -Colossus repaint: airtime hill, corkscrews and turnaround to the quad twist Definitely a quieter close season compared to last year, but not all that surprising

Et another video, showing the state of the site