JoshC.

May as well start a thread for this. For Merlin's sake, hopefully it ends up being a bit more popular than the Shrek's Adventure thread ey.. Opening in 2018 in Birmingham, The Bear Grylls Adventure is a mixture of an indoor and outdoor adventure course. It'll be a family attraction, and I think it'll have different levels of adventurous things to do for all the family. It's actually representing a significant investment (around £20 million), which I think is much more than any of Merlin's other midways? As with Shrek's Adventure in its first year, it is expected that you don't get free access to this with a Merlin Annual Pass, though some form of discount / preference is likely to happen. There's going to be very limited numbers allowed per day though, so expect it to be a premium-priced product.. Below is some concept art (again sourced lovingly from Merlin's recent presentation)..

Since we don't have a general Legoland thread, I'll stick this here... Merlin revealed today that they've signed a deal for the Lego parks to each get a 'LEGO Movie Land', starting from 2019, which coincides with the release of the new film. With Windsor meant to be getting something big in 2019, I guess it's possible that whatever the new thing for 2019 is, it could help form the first Movie Land for a Lego park...

Also, I want to put this in a separate post because I see what feels like everyone drawing the wrong conclusion... This isn't saying that £100 million is being taken away from the money currently being spent. This is saying that £100 million that was going to spent across Merlin is now going to be spent on new accommodation, as well as new Legoland parks (focus on Legoland New York in particular) and more midways. This doesn't mean there are more budget cuts imminent (there could be, but not because of this news). What this does mean is that we will likely see less new attractions (so maybe an end to the 'every park must have something new every year' idea), less rethemes, less new restaurants / shops, etc. The £100 million is across 4 years, and across the whole of Merlin (though mainly theme parks and midways). It's a lot, and certainly will have a negative impact on guest experience in the theme parks (spent wisely, even small new investments will improve guest experience massively - take the Island Shop for example). I'm not defending Merlin here, but I'm just trying to clear up a misconception that many people have (especially since that misconception make it seem arguably worse than what it is).

Having spent a bit more time looking into Merlin's report and presentation (which anyone can see here - https://merlinentertainments.biz/results-and-presentations ), some things make sense, and others don't. It's quite clear that, for whatever reason, the theme parks simply don't make as much money as any other offerings Merlin have. They do make a profit on them, but the profit margin is nowhere near as good as Legoland parks and midway attractions. I guess it makes sense in some ways; theme parks require more money invested them, meaning they have to make significantly more, usually in much less time. You can say 'if they spent more money, they'd earn more', and though that might be true, it might simply be a case that the extra investment doesn't justify the extra money they get in. Accommodation works amazingly well for Merlin, despite what we may think. Across Merlin as a whole, their accommodation outperforms the parks themselves both in terms of profitability and satisfaction. The one exception to all this is Splash Landings, which is hardly surprising given it's Towers. Though maybe they're burying their heads in the sand a bit and saying 'it'll recover, it's just aftermath of Smiler...' Legoland parks seem to do wonders and the pre-school market many of them appeal to just suits Merlin perfectly (which is why they've gone for Peppa Pig as well, plus seeing how well Paulton's have done). New one opening in New York in 2020, plus Korea and China ones on the way... The terror attacks this year did noticeably affect attendance at Merlin places in London (look at the graph in the presentation, and you do see a massive spike after they had been improving), and I think it's fair to say it is having a long term affect. Merlin's offerings in major European cities are also being affected, but even then, are still performing better since they're much newer. The big issue right now for Merlin is their resort theme parks. Simply put, how you best run a theme park doesn't fit with Merlin's current philosophy. The way they've seen it is they're continually pumping money into these things, and not getting as much as they'd like out. To top it off, they're going through a rough patch at the moment, so it's better to play it safe than to take big risks. A fantastic quote from Nick Varney highlighting this says "When you are experiencing storms, the sensible thing is to navigate around them” So I don't think that, in the short term, things are going to get much better for the theme parks. I don't think they'll get any worse and we'll still see good investments everywhere, but I don't think we'll see enough of what they need. Maybe in a couple of years they'll change their mind and philosophy and getting the parks on a more upward turn (after all, I think it's fair to say they did do good when they first took over). With the lack of confidence in the air that surrounds this update, and Merlin's unusual blaming of certain factors ('poor weather' - yeah no), it's not hard to see why share prices fell pretty dramatically. And for us as a theme park enthusiasts, it's not a pretty picture they've painted. Things aren't much worse than they are now in my opinion, but they ain't getting better any time soon...

I don't know how popular it necessarily is elsewhere, but it is broadcast in well over 100 different countries and is a well known brand. Fairly certain that in America and Australia it is quite big.

The adventure course thing in Birmingham which was announced a year or so ago (under the name Project Thor) has been revealed to be in partnership with Bear Grylls, and it'll be styled to a survival course. Sounds like something which could have widespread appeal in fairness. Merlin also announced today that they've attained the rights to Peppa Pig everywhere in the world (except the UK, because Paulton's). Clever move monopolising the IP from a business perspective, especially if they use it effectively, given how huge and important it was to Paulton's. Source - https://www.insidermedia.com/insider/southwest/merlin-plans-bear-grylls-and-peppa-pig-attractions

I believe that last night was the night were there was a large number of certain visitors in the park. They cause more trouble and it does affect the operations a lot. For some staff (especially if they're newer / haven't experienced that behaviour in large quantities before), it can be intimidating, difficult to control and a bit 'rabbit in headlights' for some. And the security team will always be stretched regardless of how many staff they get in. That's certainly not to give staff / the park a bye for the operations / handling of some things, but perhaps it's easier to be a bit more forgiving given the circumstances.

Given it's hard enough to see your own hand in front of your face in the strobe maze, I really don't see how you can give any fair estimate for the number of people in there? People get lost in there and stay in there so long, I imagine there's always more people in that section than people think. There's people on here who have said they've gotten lost in the strobe section for 5-10 minutes, which would mean that at least 2-3 groups should also have entered the maze by then too, yet never did anyone complain of overcrowding. Not saying there wasn't necessarily a large number of people in there (having no pre show won't help that), but it's not exactly uncommon or something which necessarily affects the experience. Skipping pre show is poor though. It doesn't really change anything throughput wise (since it's a similar length to the safety talk), and it does set the maze up nicely. Hopefully just a one off more than anything else. Regarding Fastrack, in theory it shouldn't matter how long the Fastrack queue is, as the same number of people should be batched in every time. So it doesn't matter if there's 10 people there, or 200 people, only 6 Fastrackers say (I've got no idea on the actual number) should be in a group. Fastrack is designed so that if you buy a ticket, you wait at most 1/3 of the advertised queue time (so in theory if there's a 90 minute queue, you could still wait up to 30 minutes). This fails when people don't stick to their slots, advertised queue times are wildly inaccurate, etc. If / when these things go wrong, it leaves staff having the struggle with an in-balance for the rest of the night. Also, just to clarify my comment about Facebook posts - yep, every comment is just as valid as any other time of year. But it's always worth baring in mind that there's always more negative feedback during Fright Nights compared to other times of the year, and social media rarely gets used to express good feedback, only excellent feedback. Whether the negative feedback is proportionate to the crowd numbers we don't know, but it's always worth keeping in mind that it will never tell the full story.

I definitely didn't pick up on this - you should have been more vocal about your dislike for it...

Worth remembering that Facebook comments are always the worst and were terrible this time last year too. Not excusing anything, but I don't think we can necessarily draw any major conclusions from how good or bad the event is being received from Facebook comments. One issue they'll have now is that the pre-recorded safety messages on Big Top and Platform means that there's a strict length between dispatches. It means that you won't get groups catching up with each other (so arguably improves the experience), but does make it more difficult to get the queues moving quicker at times. Living Nightmare is also going to struggle as its pre show is heavily scripted and has to be adhered to by, meaning it cannot be rushed. Ride availability was particularly poor last night - Ghost Train was closed all day, Storm Surge closed due to a nearby drain being blocked, which also affected X temporarily. Maze availability was fine, but queues were moving slowly. Another issue they've got is that Sanctum, for one reason or another, doesn't seem to be soaking up the queues. It does have a high throughput, and being away from the rest of the mazes meant it had the ability to control / spread crowds better. But it just doesn't seem to be doing that. So whereas last year when all maze queues were pretty even in length (once Blair Witch opened), Sanctum is noticeably shorter than the rest. So effectively it means more people are queueing for the other mazes. It's an odd situation.

Presumably it's just that the corner will be taken at such low speed it doesn't need banking. Means you get a bit more lateral action when turning I guess.

Saw can run with a minimum of 5 actually, though I think it only did that for a brief period shortly after it opened due to some teething issues. In practice, the lowest they'd ever really run it with is 6, and that'd only happen if they were running 7 cars on a quiet day, doing general work on the 8th, and they had to take another car off due to a technical issue. I think the workshop only has room for 2 cars anyway?

Going to have to be pig-headed stubborn here. This time last year, on the 10-4 Mondays in October, both Rush and Rumba were open. All coasters were on minimum capacity. Coaster queues were around the 30-45 minute for a large majority of the day, just like they are this year, without Rumba and Rush. It's simple - on off peak days, the filler rides* are dead. They will have next to no queue all day, and if they get a queue, it'll go almost immediately. The number of people queueing for and on the rides is nothing compared to the people queuing for the coasters. Sure, in effect it may mean you wait an extra circuit because 2 people were ahead of your group of 2. But it makes no real impact to how long the queues really are. It's perhaps a crude way to look at it, but that's how it is. *with the exception of Storm Surge. The public love Storm Surge somehow. If anyone ever goes on an off peak day next season, with the wonderful Rush and Rumba open, they will see no queues and not all seats / boats filled. And though I can't be certain of an actual number, I'm reasonably constant that on average, at any given time, you won't have more than 100 people ever on/queueing for those rides. Happy to eat my hat if I'm wrong. The closure of Rumba and Rush will (and has) affected guest enjoyment on off peak days, but it isn't because queues elsewhere are longer.

At any one time, you'd probably have at most 50 people riding / waiting for the next cycle of Rumba and Rush combined. Even if all of those people went and joined 1 coaster queue (which they wouldn't anyway), that ups the queue by 5 minutes, 10 if things are particularly slow. Spread all those people across the whole park and the impact it makes is nothing. It's fact. The cause of long queues on off peak days is the fact the major rides are on reduced capacity. That is the only reason.

Of course filler attractions ease major attraction queue times. But on these quiet days, their affect is negligible. Be willing to bet that if Rumba and Rush were open on Monday, they would have had no queue, Rush would have struggled to make a full cycle, and you'd have had 2-3 boats of people on Rumba at most at any one time. Because that's what is like on every other quiet day. Those numbers redistributed around the rest of the park makes very little difference on a quiet day. Busy day is different though. People will still complain, as they're rides that people can't go on even though they want to. It is adversely affecting people's enjoyment. But it isn't really making the queues for other rides any worse.

To be fair, I wouldn't exactly call Rumba a key attraction...especially on an off peak day. Even calling Rush one is pushing it on an off peak day. The likes of Rumba and Rush (and Slammer, Loggers, I'm a Celeb and whatever else for all the pendants out there...) won't be affecting the coaster queue times. People go to Thorpe for the coasters, and it's the 1 train op which is giving them the long queues. The fact they haven't got the rapids open isn't why Inferno is a 30 minute queue instead of a 10 minute queue.

I know the feeling pluk. I suck at 1 on 1 / 2 on 1 interviews majorly. I freeze, nothing comes out, and then - worst of all - start panicking about not saying anything which means you say even less and so the vicious circle starts. The funny thing is I'm fine when presenting to a group (either mid-sized or large-sized), but interviews crumble me. Kind of feel like I'd do better if I had 5 people interviewing me at once. Fingers crossed the job gods give you some slack and you get given the job. Would more than make up for not being able to drown those sorrows.

Exactly this. You tend to see trends of how long people are willing to wait for certain rides. So with something like Colossus, which is very popular and doesn't have an amazingly high throughput on full capacity anyway, it'll always reach a natural maximum queue time before people go 'nah, I don't want to wait that long, let's try again later'. Funnily enough, on 'busy' days, 90 minutes is probably the natural maximum. Though on crazy busy days (ie schools week and Fright Nights half term when the park is basically at capacity), people are prepared to wait longer anyway, and 3 hours is about that natural max. If the capacity was doubled, you'd still see it get long queues (if/when the demand was there). Rush is a good example to show this at the other end of the scale. On 2 swings, the queue will rarely exceed 45-50 minutes on 'busy' days, but if it was on 1 swing, the queue would go up to 70-80 minutes and stay there. That'd be the natural maximum, but on 2 swings it'll very rarely hit that because there's essentially not enough demand.

I don't think they're actually advertising them as being parts of the coaster (correct me if I'm wrong!). They're more just there as a commemorative piece - many other parks do the same too. Plopsaland can go one better; Heidi blocks are €8.

Following photos from TPG's Facebook... Looks nice - surely there will be fire effect on this? Also, as many other parks with wooden coasters do, Towers are selling pieces of wood with SW8 branding... At a cost of the low low price of £25, it can belong to you...though apparently the shelves where they were sold were empty by the end of today...

Double posting lol, but this is separate enough to do so... All Thorpe mazes are open from noon today. This was originally just happening during half term only. So possibly that is related to feedback from yesterday and/or them expecting it to be busy.

I think this is a very good point - all of Merlin's theme parks have very little competition. Thorpe and Towers essentially compete with themselves, and no other parks come close to their level of investment and overall ride quality. Despite all of Chessington's flaws, it still vastly outperforms all other family theme parks in the UK (largely thanks to the zoo I'd wager), even if it's not the best. Heide Park is very comfortable in Northern Germany, and still has plenty of unique rides for all the German market to flock to (no other park can offer a Dive Machine, Wing coaster AND launch coaster - it puts a lot of favour if people want a trip away to a theme park, even if the overall quality isn't as good as the lieks of Phantasia and Europa). Gardaland is similar; yes there's other good Italian parks, but Garda is the most well known and seemingly has the most consistent investment in major attractions to continuously pull guests in. Taking over Busch Gardens means they're competing with their major competitors locally; something they've never done before. Maybe it'll force them to do something different; up their game if you will. In all honesty, it surprises me that it's something they're considering acquiring, since it will be something which will require significantly more investment consistently compared to what they already have. But hey, who knows. One positive point if they did ever take over would be that if Busch Gardens did make Merlin money, that would help strengthen the Theme Park division as a whole, which would in the long run mean they'd be willing to invest more into it. Yeah, there's some big 'if's there, but it could happen.

Can't comment on anything else in your post aside from this... The signs outside the mazes go up in values of 30 up to 2 hours (So "Up to..." 30, 60, 90; 120"). It's harder to judge the queue times for mazes, since staff don't get much time to get used to them and there can be irregularity in group numbers / dispatch times due to the nature of mazes (though that's something they seem to be improving with the introduction of pre shows and recorded safety announcements). So having the 'Up to' signs allows for some wiggle room to compensate for that. The app and queue boards will still be able to go in increments of 5 minutes like the rides though, and they'll - theoretically! - be more accurate. Not good that the queue was that much longer though - hopefully they've learnt and listened to any feedback they got so that accuracy is improved.

altontowers.com/sw8 now redirects to: https://www.thewelcoming.co.uk/ Includes a little bit about The Welcoming, and this: The symbols spell out 'FEED THE FLAMES'