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JoshC.

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  1. Cal

    Posted

    Plopsa is a lovely little park and RtH has obviously been such a wise move for them. I've been to the park 3 times since its opened and never seen it on 2 trains (which included a trip in the middle of summer and it on a 1hr+ queue...), so hopefully they can operate and maintain it appropriately.

     

    Anubis is slept on a bit these days. Good ride.

     

    I'm intrigued to see what they do next. Their indoor Bumba World has no doubt filled a gap / extending the offering for younger audiences, but I thought it was a bit rubbish in comparison to the Maya Land, with the dark ride being quite weak. The park could probably benefit from a new, more modern, high throughput 1m restriction coaster. Vekoma/Gerstlauer have good offerings on that front.

     

    Big issue I have with Plopsa - as you noted - is the cost. Food is expensive and not good quality. Park tickets are reasonable enough, but then with parking, etc, it's not cheap. I've noticed that they've been doing more UK-focused marketing lately, so they do seem to be capitalising on their location more, so it'll be interesting to see what they do next.

     

    Looking forward to your thoughts on Asterix!!

  3. Matt N

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Inferno said:

    I’d love to know how queue times are actually measured - or is it literally just a glance and an estimate?

     

    I can give insight here.

     

    A few years ago (well, more than a few years now...8 years ago...I'm old), I had a job at Thorpe which was focusing primarily on 'looking after queue times', if you will. I had to update queue times that would appear on the boards, along with some other things.

     

    At the time when I joined, it was simply a glance and estimate. It was a two-way operation: the ride operator was required to contact the 'queue person' (ie: me) via phone once an hour (at a minimum), saying what they thought the queue time was. The queue person would also walk around the park, visually looking at all queues and updating the queue times.

     

    How is it physically done?

    All updates were done via a secure webpage. The queue person walked around with an iPad and could update directly all queue times from said webpage. Other people (park managers, etc) had access and ability to as well (will get onto this later).

     

    How would ride operators know what the queue time is?

    This was done by looking at the length of the queue, which for many rides, they could only see through via the ride's security cameras. The security cameras ride operators have access to focus primarily on ride areas (making sure no one is entering them), meaning coverage was mixed. Ride operators would sometimes not see much of the queue.

    Note: Queue lines are still covered by CCTV cameras, but ride operators won't have access to them all necessarily. The ride operator job is to run the ride safely.

     

    And that's a key point, the ride operator is there to run the ride safely, look after the ride hosts, etc. Updating queue times can go quite low on the list of priorities.

     

    Also, ride operators generally didn't have much knowledge of queue times. It would all be based on own experiences, either from when they might have visited the park and queued themselves, other operators, what guests say, etc. Generally they would get good ballpark figures, but when you hit busy periods, that experiential data is less helpful.

     

    How would the Queue Person know what the queue time is?

    Same idea. They would walk around, see the queue time, and update it. The advantage they had is they could see the whole queue, and have knowledge of what else is going on around the park. Eg: Colossus operator might not be aware that Saw closed down recently, meaning more people might flock there if they're nearby and want to ride a coaster. Queue Person would know this, and could keep a closer eye as a result.

     

    So it was all guesswork?

    Going onto my experience of working in this position as the queue man.

     

    I noted straight away there was very minimal written down information about how the physical length of a queue translates to a queue time. Of course, everyone was aware that this is a very muddled science: it depends on operations, number of trains, number of Fastrack / RAP users, delays, etc etc. Many of those things ride operators will not be aware of explicitly. Some of those things are out of a singular person's control.

     

    However, there is a way of turning it into a science. "Queueing theory" is a very rich area of maths, for example, which gives us many lessons we can learn. There's a lot of social science studies into how people will fill up a given space with strangers. There is access to lots of data about the rides; their uptime, their throughput/utilisation, so on and so on. You can combine all of those factors together to give a better estimate for queue times, one which relies on data, rather than just guesswork.

     

    Taking the Guessing out of the Guesswork

    I'll chuck in a bit of the numbers and theory here. Feel free to skip over.

     

    When thrown into a barriered queue, you'll find people spread out in similar ways. Except in extreme scenarios (very wide or very narrow queue lines), about 11 people will fill up 3m of space. This is to do with how groups of people will huddle together, groups will leave a space, etc. That data comes from a published research paper back in 2014/15 I believe and focused on UK audiences. Would be interesting to see if that's changed post-Covid, or is different in other countries.

     

    Anyways. If we know that, we can work out how many people a physical queue line holds. For example, if the Colossus queue line was 300m long, it would hold roughly 1100 people. And you can split that up; if the queue line from the airgates to the tunnel of Colossus' queue was 90m long, the number of people between the queue line and boarding is 330. (NB: Lengths made up).

     

    Now, we know what Colossus' theoretical throughput is. Internally, there is also a target throughput. But even better, parks track their throughputs for each ride. So you can see what they're actually achieving. If, over the course of last week, Colossus got a throughput of 550pph, and it had a full, 300m long queue line, you could see that it should be a 2 hour queue.

     

    Obviously that ignores Fastrack and RAP users. But again, you know the number of RAP and Fastrack users each day. You can take those into account, in some way. You don't know when they're going to use, but you can take it into account. 

    For example, if there were 700 Colossus Fastrack tickets sold for an 8 hour park day, and 500 RAP users expected, you can account for that. If Colossus was getting a throughput of 550ph, over 8 hours it would get 4400 riders. But 1200/4400 of those riders came from Fastrack or RAP. So that means only 73% of riders are coming through the main queue, or rather the throughput of the main queue is 73% of 550, which is 400pph. Now if that 300m long queue of Colossus is filled with 1100 people, and you know 400pph are going through that queue, you can advertise the queue at 2h45min, rather than 4 hours.

    (Again, all numbers are fake here)

     

    On top of that, you can also take into account the chance of a shutdown. If Colossus has an uptime of 95%, then that means its closed 5% of the time. Of course, this is unlikely to spread evenly across the day, and usually occurs in a chunk, but if you add on that extra, you create a buffer which allows for a 'chance of shutdown', or just anything going wrong (slower operations, etc).

     

    I'll take this chance here to say: ride staff do not artificially inflate queue times to sell Fastrack tickets. I've no doubt it happens whereby a queue is advertised much longer than it is, and people have ended up buying Fastrack. But the queue time is not inflated to drive Fastrack sales.

    In saying that, I think it's better to advertise a queue time which might be 5-10 minutes longer since it will: 1) Create a buffer in case of issues and 2) Create happy guests - "Oh, the queue was advertised as 50 minutes, but we actually queued 40...result!"

     

    So, the way that I planned to calculate (note the word calculate, not estimate/guess) queue times would be:

     

    (N*(1+D))/(T*(1-(F/R))), where:

    N is number of people in queue

    D is percentage downtime 

    T is throughput

    F is number of Fastrack and RAP users expected

    R is total ridership expected for the day

     

    Those 4 last variables would be based off numbers from how the ride has run over a period of several days / weeks prior, giving it a good outlook at how it should operate in practice. It wouldn't be perfect, but it does the job. And of course, number of people in a queue is again estimated, but can be done reasonably well.

     

    Of course, this isn't something that can be done in your head or anything, but can all be programmed to be done automatically, so long as you say the number of people in the queue roughly.

     

    When I trialled this system, it worked well, with overall accuracy of queue times improved, and less complaints about inaccurate queue times, which also saw a reduction in complaints about queue times altogether for a short period of time. (Those two might not be linked, but I'm gonna claim it's because of me). I'm a Celebrity was one which hugely benefitted, in part down to the huge buy in from the Entertainments Team running it.

     

    The issue here is, simply put, getting buy in from others. I required a bit more help setting up the automation and implementing it on a broader scale. Some people are opposed to change, some people are opposed to change where they don't understand every detail, some are just happy with the way things are. Some of Matt's analysis here is exactly the sort of thing which would be excellent for the operations teams at Merlin theme parks to see, so they can have more detailed data to help them determine how they're performing and the reflection on advertised queue times. But from my past experience within the parks, you would find yourself encountering people who:

    -Don't understand the analysis behind this, so immediately disregard it,

    -Would love the bottom line, but wouldn't use the data to help improve it,

    -Disregard everything and say everything is fine,

    -Agree with everything, but don't have the time/resources to action upon anything that would help.

    Obviously, with shifts in Merlin, this may be different now. But it's such a difficult thing to achieve. There are (naturally) some excellent data-driven minds who work in Merlin, who would love this stuff too, but they are used in other roles, usually outside of day-to-day operation / outside of attractions entirely. So Merlin know the importance of these things, it just hasn't trickled down to operational success.

     

    My time within the queue person job ended back in 2017, and this isn't the place to discuss that. But ultimately, the system devolved into operators phoning a central figure in an office to update queue times, with managers also chipping it. Likely with zero consistency. I don't know how things are this season admittedly, and I've been impressed with the accuracy being better than it has in the past. So maybe they've got something a bit better now.

     

    FAQ

    Do all parks do this guesswork?

    Within Merlin, I believe so yes. I think Towers have staff at rides update queue times, and Chessington was similar.

     

    Why did Thorpe need a central figure to update queue times? Couldn't it just be done by each ride through the website?

    The issue with the website and multiple users would be the constant need to refresh. If, say, there were 2 people on the website, and Person A updates Colossus' queue time from 10 minutes to 50 minutes, the site according to Person B would still have Colossus' queue time listed as 10 minutes, even though it was displaying on boards as 50. Then, if Person B updated Swarm's queue time from 30min to 20min, without refreshing the website, they would also update Colossus' queue time back to 10 minutes. So yeah, clunky system. I don't know if they've updated this.

     

    *This park* advertises queue times super accurately, how do they do it?

    I don't know. I would love to know how parks like Efteling, Europa, etc do it.

     

    Why can't parks just count the number of people going into a queue and going on a ride, using barriers, infrared, whatever?

    These work nicely in theory, but are open to abuse (people spinning barriers) and prone to error.

     

    13 hours ago, Inferno said:

    I remember some fanfare years ago about Saw the Ride having some sort of Bluetooth thing that tracks where people’s phones are, but that has always sounded like a lot of bs to me 🤷‍♂️ 

     

    The Alton Towers app had some Bluetooth tracking tech a while back, where it could see where guests were spending more of their time, etc. I don't know if they still do that, but I believe attractions.io (the company that does the Merlin apps and more) have loads of cool backend features.

     

    With Saw though, they had a very cool (rather complicated) piece of software they trialled. The name escapes me, but I'm sure I'll find it sooner or later. Basically though, it would track people in all queue lines, to see how long people were spending in the queues, and use it to give accurate queue times. It would update regularly, and give to the minute readings (eg, 47 minutes). This software was just installed to work with existing CCTV cameras.

     

    And, it worked well. Very well. Queue times were accurate. The system wasn't prone to error or breaking. It just worked, so you could leave it. 

     

    In saying that, there were operational issues:

    -If you ever needed to over-ride it, you had to reset all the cameras to get the system back

    -It would never display a queue time lower than 10 minutes

    -It didn't work when the queue became external (ie out of the main queue)

    -People were weirded out by the exact numbers

     

    The middle two are the bigger issues here, but again, not huge in the grand scheme of things.

     

    There were bigger, more damning issues:

    -It was expensive. I don't know how much, but given every other queue time system is free pretty much, spending money on one is an issue. Spending lots of money is a bigger issue.

    -It required static CCTV cameras on the entire queue line. Whilst the entirety of Thorpe Park is covered by CCTV, many of these have the ability to change angle, which can help in a security situation. If you needed static CCTV cameras for the queue lines, it meant having to buy, set up, operate and maintain more new ones. And for some queue lines, this would require an awful lot (Colossus would be nightmare, with its sprawling queue line, going through tunnels, foliage, etc).

     

    Ultimately, whilst it gave accurate queue times, the initial outlay cost, and ongoing maintenance costs, weren't justifiable. 

     

     

    Do accurate queue time really matter?

    Just to round off on this very long, tangential post (sorry Matt!). How important are accurate queue times? At the low level, yes, it's handy to know if a queue is 5 minutes or 10-15 minutes. At an extreme level, it's good to know if a queue is 1 hour or 2 hours.

     

    But beyond that? Does it matter if a queue is 30 minutes or 35 minutes? 110 minutes or 130 minutes? I think sometimes there's an overpush on queue time accuracy: if a queue is advertised at 110mins and I queue 130mins, I've still queued about 2 hours for a ride, with added annoyance that I've queued an extra 20 minutes than I was told.

     

    It might be better if there's ranges that are advertised (0-10, 10-20, etc, 90-120, 120-150, etc). It buckles you up for the length of the queue, tempers expectations, but gives leeway for a park too.

     

    You can have the most accurate queue times in the world, but if they're long and / or slow, that's all people will care or remember about.

  4. Inferno

    Posted

    Forums have unfortunately died away a bit. The rise of social media is a big part of that. And then with Discords, Slacks, Twitches and whatever else (I feel like an old man talking about that as I have no clue on these things properly), it just adds. The idea of signing up for one specific website to discuss one specific topic is just foreign now.

     

    Thorpe-specific as well, it's no coincidence that here at TPM the forums dropped off during a time when investment in the park was at rock bottom. We went from coasters every 3 years, and new attractions yearly, to bouncy castles and mazes being the 'big new things'.

     

    And yeah, theme park enthusiasm has changed dramatically. 10 years ago, it focused a lot on "trying" to find out whatever you could, but deep down knowing you would just get the odd glimpse here and there. You might hear from / know someone who legitimately knows something, and you got a kick out of knowing it. But it was all a lot more 'wait and see'.

     

    Now, influencer culture more broadly means people have quite literally been able to turn their hobbies into a career of sorts. It's their job to find out the information, be that camping out for days on end, working alongside the parks or what have you. It feels a lot more stifled. 

     

    This point really resonated with me @Inferno

    Quote

    There's no denying, however, that things are better now.  We got what we wanted.  We now have more access to information than ever before, with the parks being very open about what they're doing, and the YouTubers and Influencers of today being very detailed in what they show.  It really is good that we have access to all this stuff - but I have to admit I do miss the days when the 'news' came from everyone - whoever happened to be at the parks (or peeping over the fences) that day, with their blackberry camera out and ready to snap a picture or two!

    We're currently experiencing a double-edged sword of information. Getting 'behind the curtain' is so much easier now, be that through press nights, VIP BTSs, park open-ness, etc. But sometimes a bit of ignorance can be bliss too, or that more scattergun approach feels more natural. Seeing behind the curtain is very controlled, parks will naturally sweep the dirt under the rug before they do that (literally, in some cases). There was something much more exciting about just catching glimpses here and there in a more uncontrolled way.

     

    At the same time, just reading your Face it Alone review from Studio 13, it made me go "Damn, I wish we had a POV of it. I would love to remember how it looked during that middle third which is such a blur". Even if we know that a press night POV would be over-egged, it would still be good to see (okay, there wasn't a 'press night' in the way we're used to describing that for FN14, but you know what I mean). We're really in a golden age of being able to document and archive stuff, which I think is positive.

     

     

    Going back to a more TPM-focus now, I've literally spent more than half my life as a member on this forum. I've made life-long friendships here. At one point, I house-shared with a couple of people I met through TPM. Whilst that's stuff that could happen on Twitter / Discord / Whatever, it just felt much more natural here. I always feel like these days I could contribute more to the forums, but as Benin says, growing up means forums slowly subside in the priority list.

     

    With TPM, we keep the socials active. The forums and the website have suffered. The main website in particular; backend-wise, it's ancient, and those problems have crept into the look of the website (you can't actually read any news article at the moment, lol whoops). We're looking at fixing that over summer though...

    We intend to keep the forums running. We're probably long removed from the days of running meets. But we never ran paid-for meets/events (even when we got ERTs, BTSs, etc), and don't intend to go down that way.

    TPM is just a couple of people who like Thorpe and like sharing that enthusiasm with others, through both sharing updates and discussing things. Don't want to make it a career or anything. We've never gone down the Youtube/vlogging route, simply because we don't want to talk in front of a camera. We're not changing who we are, even if that means we're becoming a bit of relic to enthusiasm of yesteryear.

     

     

    Anyway, that was very tangential to this and rambling and hijacking of the topic at hand. The whole theme park enthusiasm has changed, some of it for the better, some for the worse. I guess the good thing is you can still make of it what you want. It's just a shame it's harder to keep it 'as it was', if you will, when the rest of it has changed around you.

  5. Mark9

    Posted

    I completely agree about the 'auto complete' comment. Sooperdooperlooper is the one that stood out to me the most, but I could almost excuse that with its age. But the likes of Great Bear and even Storm Runner have that feel about them too.

     

    Candymonium is a real grower of a ride too; it gets better every time.

     

    I absolutely adore Skyrush and its "attempts to fling you out of the state" ride experience. But completely get why it's not everyone's cup of tea, and it seems to be one which has a "too intense for me" reaction from the masses.

     

    Having been in the park in both heavy rain and 35C blazing heat, I can also say it's one which shines best in the sunlight (pun totally intended). Wet weather does make the whole place feel a bit...drab.

  7. JoshC.

    Posted

    20 hours ago, Inferno said:

    Such a shame about the last minute re-planning, but I imagine that was a good move?

     

     

    I don't have any regrets about changing it. At the same time, in hindsight, I reckon I would have been fine if I had stuck with the original plan, albeit more tired. But yeah, for the sake of my own comfort, definitely a good move.

  10. JoshC.

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Mark9 said:

    Flug must be the most marmite wing-rider in Europe. I personally loved it and really liked the different order of the elements and how it uses the hill around it to gain momentum and create a different kind of pacing.

     

    It's certainly unique, and I can see why some people would love it. I did like how it looked in general, and thought it was a really clever use of space.

     

    But simply it came down to how juddery it was. It's not awful, but it was enough to detract from the experience for me.

  12. Inferno

    Posted

    Now this is a proper trip down memory lane - thanks for sharing!

     

    I really enjoyed Face it Alone. It was a cracking experience that really differentiated Thorpe from other scare events in the UK for a short period of time. It was unique, worthwhile and a joy for the niche market it targeted. And most importantly, in my eyes, it was something which let Thorpe justify Fright Nights as a premium Halloween event, which had something for everyone.

     

    It certainly changed over its 4 years of being offered (and some of those changes were for the worst). It's a shame that it stopped, though it would be great to one day see Thorpe try something a bit more extreme again. There's clearly demand for these more extreme experiences, and they can certainly fit it into their line ups imo.

     

    I never did Cabin though for Face it Alone. It's great to hear what exactly happened during your run!

     

    My runs were:

    2013: Saw Alive

    2014: Studio 13

    2015: Big Top

    2016: Big Top

     

    All were very different and interesting in their own way. I don't think I ever posted my experiences / reviews at the time (because of how they were asking people not to, to keep the element of surprise). But I did write them up...I'll have to try and track down where I saved them and post them! If not, I can recall parts of my runs, so will share them a bit later.

     

    I also think I did an extended post about Face it Alone a couple of years back on here, discussing some more of the ins and outs of the experience and why it changed and left the line up. And again, if I can't find it, I can remember some details, so will add some more.

     

    Watch this space!

  13. Inferno

    Posted

    Nice write up, and a nice trip down memory lane!

     

    It's funny, I don't have too many memories about Sun Scream, aside from it being "a thing". I remember watching the stunt show, and never being as interested or excited by it as some of the stunt shows in previous years at the park.

     

    It was a mix of something and not a lot at the same time. But then, it was an excuse to open late and just create a bit more of a vibe on park, which it certainly succeeded in doing! Sometimes it's easy to overcomplicate things, but Sun Scream was a nice simple event which added a little bit of extra value to the park's season.

     

     

    I don't know if this happened during Sun Scream or just summer more generally, but I do also remember having people dare you to press a "big red button" with the slogan "What's the worst that can happen?"...where either nothing would happen, or "something" would happen and you'd win a prize. That was a bit of a laugh if nothing else.

  14. Inferno

    Posted

    I'd be curious if this is a general feeling you have, or a feeling which is highlighted when you're specifically at Thorpe? I know sometimes I feel old whenever I visit Thorpe, sometimes too old.

    Another thing that makes me feel old is that I joined theme park forums when I was 15. If a 15 year old was to join the forums today, there's a good chance they would have been born after Stealth opened. I remember watching it being built, as well as The Flying Fish and Model World prior pretty vividly. Jeez.

     

    I know you say when you visit a park these days, there's a couple of moments where you feel like the odd one out. But that feeling was expanded at Fright Nights (during half term too I think?). It certainly makes sense that the feeling would be highlighted more in that case.

     

    It could also be one of those psychology things. Are you feeling like the odd one out because you think you are, and so are looking for evidence to support that? And so, in turn, you notice all the younger groups, and don't see many people who look a similar age to yourself / are older?

    For anyone reading who doesn't quite get what I mean: you don't see many yellow cars on the road these days, do you? But now that thought is in your head, you will be more acutely aware of yellow cars and notice them a lot more, and realise that - whilst they're not common - there's certainly a fair few about!

     

    Maybe during your Towers visit have in the back of your mind to exclusively look for groups of adults in their later 20s/early 30s...maybe you'll be surprised with how many you see?

     

     

    To stop with the psycho-analysing and answer the more direct question: no, you can't be too old for theme parks. I think there's certain social norms which can be at play (for example, going to a children's park alone can seem suspect in some people's minds...but that's completely different). Theme parks (and moreso rides) are a unique blend of escapism, thrill, story telling and holiday all in one, along with other options - such as the idea of 'collecting' ridden coasters/visiting/number of rides - if you so choose. Few hobbies offer such a blend, along with additional versatility and flexibility.

     

    I don't think you can be too old for any of the things theme parks offer. It's just whether you feel like the combination it offers is what you want, or if you want a narrower focus. One thing I've noticed over the years of being on forums is some people who were (and still are!) really interested in theme parks have similar other hobbies too. A couple of examples...

    -Live theatre and similar (escapism and story telling)

    -Skydiving / mountain biking / more "extreme" sports (thrill)

    -Travelling (self explanatory)

     

    Maybe that's another reason why there's seemingly less people who visit parks? As people get older, they get easier access to / realise other hobbies which share similar traits to visiting theme parks, and focus their attention there a bit more? That diversification then means they spend less time at parks, and then the concentration/percentage of younger people visiting parks decreases.

     

    Another thing which I note as well, is that specific park enthusiasm is much more concentrated with younger people. Unsurprisingly, there's very few 15 year olds which are interested in theme parks more broadly: their focus is on one or two parks, and usually their local park. But after say 15 years of continual visits, that local park won't have the same appeal or interest, and are likely more interested to parks more broadly. Again meaning they spend less time visiting their local park, and instead visiting a broader range of parks (again meaning that the average age of certain park visitors feels very young, and the late 20 / early 30 somethings all feel very old whenever they visit).

     

    I feel like I've waffled an awful lot and not said much. But in short:

    -You're not too old for theme parks (and if you are, I only have a maximum of 3 years left before I am...)

    -Thorpe Park is probably the park in the UK which would highlight this feeling the most

    -I think people's interests in theme parks spreads in one way or another as they get older, which can mean there's a skewed view as to how old park visitors are

  15. JoshuaA

    Posted

    Entering Phantasialand is a weird one as there's actually 3 'main' entrances. 

     

    Entrance 1: Berlin. This is the most "main" one in design,  but practically anyone who drives won't use it, since there's basically no parking for day guests. You enter with the carousel directly in front, and then look down Berlin street towards Wellenflug. It's small and tight but pretty cool. 

     

    Entrance 2: Mystery. Probably the most used one since the car park is accessed by using the road under the park next to the main entrance. 

     

    Entrance 3: China. The car park for this is found by driving past the main entrance, turning left at the roundabout (going past Hotel Matamba) and following the road along.

     

    Neither Mystery nor China entrance is great, in the sense that you just go straight into the park. It's a very harsh contrast (like a lot of Phantasialand's transitions between areas). They're practical, certainly not memorable. 

     

    Crucially, the park do know these areas all problems. They want to expand the land they own so more people can use the Berlin entrance, and so they can make it a bit grander, but they have experienced issues getting permission to expand.

     

    They don't own the land of one of their car parks (I think Mystery, but could be China). It's owned by a local who effectively leases it to the park and refuses to sell. A couple of years ago he tried building his own train through the car park... So it makes it hard to do work there. And even then, there's limited space to expand their car parks, meaning any work done to improve entrances outside the current perimeter costs valuable car parking spaces. 

     

    They do have plans and do want to improve, but their hands are very much stuck at the moment. 

     

    On top of that, each hotel has a dedicated entrance into the park (though Matamba's only happened this year). None of them are particularly great either. 

     

     

    I agree about Maus being on the long side. It is certainly an arm workout!

     

    It's probably a toss up between China and Crazy Bats/Hollywood Tour for what sees the chopping block next. Given the investment in Crazy Bats and current rumours, it's more likely going to be the China area that goes first.

  16. Martin Doyle

    Posted

    I hated the batching system on Hyperion, so sad to learn it's been adopted on Zadra too. Just confusion and faff for no real reason in my opinion. 

     

    A shame you don't particularly rate Energylandia as a park. Whilst it's true parts of it have a fun fair feel to it, I think a good chunk of it is a decent park with enough fun rides and okay levels of theming to be considered on par with plenty of other parks out there. And they're forever improving too, which is great to see.

  17. JoshC.

    Posted

    12 minutes ago, pluk said:

    Sad to hear you didn't like Zeus, I thought it was incredible. Hopefully it's just you having bad taste and not that they've let it deteriorate!

    They have retracked large parts of Zeus recently (I think some this past winter, or maybe the winter before, or both). I do wonder if that's made any difference!

     

    Believe me though, I'm just as sad I didn't like Zeus. I love woodies, and a big classic old school woodie in theory is right up my street. But it just wasn't meant to be.

  18. JoshC.

    Posted

    It really struck me that even if you didn't fork out for the mazes you could still enjoy the event (whether you liked scares or not). The zones provided enough variety that there was something for everyone.

     

    I've heard really mixed things about the mazes. From others who have done the event, many seem to rate Psychoshock as the weakest / 2nd weakest, but ones like Villa and Haunted Holidays as the best. For those normal mazes it's nice to see a spread at least as it would suggest they're all of equal quality. The quality between Clinic and Below is incredible though, and certainly justifies the couple of extra €s.

     

    Belgium's event is the next big one on my list (2021, because Intamin too). They seem to have toned down over the past few years, but last year's new headliner there seemed to be a push back to their well-known intense roots.

  19. JoshC.

    Posted

    6 hours ago, Glitch said:

    Typical Hwelsinki being expensive but definatly expected and guess what it's going to get more expensive post Brexit.

    I wonder when the woodie will get the RMC treatment which everyone craves nowadays.

     

    Looking forward to the next blog on Sealife ;) - How much was entry to that?

    I know you're joking, but don't expect them to ever RMC their woodie. It's part of the park's history, is well loved and clearly looked after very well.

     

    I got free entry to SeaLife thanks to some free tickets. Otherwise it was about €14 with a Linnanmäki wristband or €18 without.

  20. JoshC.

    Posted

    In the park, food and drink prices was on the steeper side. Bottle of drink was around €3.50, a meal would cost around €10-15 and snacks between €2-5.

     

    In Helsinki, things were a bit steeper than I was prepared for. For example, a footlong Subway meal (quite close to the park, so outside the main city centre) cost over €10. Ouch!

  21. Mark9

    Posted

    Those Walibi queue times made me wince. 

    I find Walibi a lot like what Thorpe could have been like if things had turned out slightly differently. And I don't mean that in a bad way either. But I get the 'amusement park' vibe you mention.

     

    I've never quite liked Dwervelwind as much as most; had a couple of uncomfortable rides on it, and never really got amazing spinning on it. But it's really cute and still a decent ride; excited we're getting a Mack spinner in the UK with Paultons now..

     

    It still amazes how small Toverland is in terms of visitor numbers (they're still like 4th/5th most visited in Netherlands) and age, yet it's still got this massive B&M and stunning huge new area. They're really a park that has a hugely bright future, and yeah, can only echo your view of just go!

  23. Matt 236

    Posted

    I wouldn't say it's underrated? It's got a reputation as a good park, with a good selection of rides which are well themed - essentially what the park is.

     

    I guess it hadn't attracted huge attention because the last major ride they added was Oz'Iris (Pegasus was a family coaster which missed the mark ultimately), and that's what draws the most attention for us as UK enthusiasts. Plus going to the outskirts of Paris is a bit of a pain compared to some of the other nearby European parks.

     

    So yeah, the park is rated fairly, and it'll come into the spotlight more when their big Intamin starts being built sometime next year.

     

    Points for the clickbait title though, fair play...

  24. JoshC.

    Posted

    ^^We saw someone come off Dragon Riders just before us who looked extremely pale. Fairly certain the ride had a designated sick bucket too.. Very much an endurance ride and, yes, horrid is definitely a good word.

     

    Creek - if you're tossing up between 2019 or 2020, you may as well wait till 2020. That's not to say the parks are bad in their current state, but 2020 will be a lot more rewarding tbh

  25. BenC

    Posted

    Congrats Ben!  The level of dedication to get something with Thorpe on it is incredible (though it's a shame they couldn't agree to get the official Thorpe logo on the medal, especially after last year..).

     

    Can we expect you to be at the Thorpe Triathlon this September or the Chessington 10k Wild Run in November?  ;) You'll actually get to go through the parks then! 

     

    And hey, I might even take inspiration and do the Chessington one myself...though I'll stick to the kids' challenge thanks...

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