JoshC.

Corrected that for you They are currently awaiting a part from B&M, which is taking time to actually manufacturer. Real shame, but it it's that severe, I guess it's one of those 'unfortunate, can't be helped' situations.

Rumba is scheduled to open at 11am on busy days, and 12pm on off peak days. That's the same with Storm Surge and Samurai (and Tug Boat and Lumber Jump before the silly rotational operation) in my experience / according to the boards at the front of rides. All other rides are meant to open when the park opens. It's not a case of disorganisation in terms of not knowing what is meant to be open and what's not, it's more a case that there are rides which open late because they haven't completed morning checks, not because they were planned to open late.

There's no way for AP holders to guarantee entry outside of FN. Probably your beat bet is to just arrive at like 9am. That way you get in the park when it opens (and is at its quietest), and you avoid running the risk of a capacity park.

Don't care if it's in Dutch, this is easily the best summer song released this year.

TTSP (the group who were given that presentation) have confirmed that nothing was confirmed at the presentation. The image is just to signify the road to 2020, when the next major investment is due. It'll likely be a coaster, because Thorpe haven't invested in a coaster since Swarm.

I'm not sure on this for certain, but I believe it was a 3 year contract with an option to extend if both parties wanted to. That's how the Lionsgate contract worked for FN, so it'd make sense for Thorpe to try and get a similar style of contract.

Octopus Garden was operated differently, in that all 7 rides in the area were always available, but they only had about 3 or 4 people to operate the rides. If you wanted to ride one of those rides, you would have to specifically ask a member of staff at a different ride to come and operate it. And I believe if you go even further back (like in the 90s) it didn't even have to be a person who worked on Rides - anyone who worked in the nearby surrounding area was trained on how to 'operate them'; ie - how to turn a key. The cases are very different to be fair.

So Adam has once again beaten me to starting up the massive Trip Report, but hey, you know what they say, first the worst, second the best... Once again, we went for a nice 8 day long road trip, hitting up some new parks and some old parks with new stuff. Day 1 was the wonderful French park Parc Bagatelle... Bagatelle is about an hour away from Calais (which is where we were conveniently staying after arriving by ferry at 2am), and a reasonably straightforward drive. The set up to get into the park is weird, with the car park being one side of a road, and then you have to go through a bland tunnel and security check to get to the main turnstiles and entrance of the park. It's all very dull and you basically just stumble into the park. Pretty much our main reason for visiting the park was to try out Triops - a Vekoma inverted boomerang, which also happens to be the first one made (though it's moved about a few times). So once the park opened, we headed over there, only to find a flimsy chain and a small A4 sign saying that area of the park didn't open till 11am. Whoops. After meandering around for a bit, we headed to Gaz Express, a Soquet (nope, no idea either) mine train which looks very Vekoma. It's partially set around a pond, featuring waterfalls and splash-down-esque features, has 2 random fire effects and a random indoor section (with a very cool fountain!). The lap bar restraints were also very concerning to look at, as they featured a large divider right where a gentlemen's groin area should go - any airtime would stop me from having children to say the least.. Fortunately, there was no airtime, and the ride itself was enjoyable enough! With it still being before 11, we opted to do the park's dodgems, Trafic Jam. Thee are by far the craziest dodgems I've done; the cards skid and drift, go fast, anything goes, and you got a really long cycle (felt like a good few minutes). Couple that along with the French just don't seem to car who they ram, it made a great ride! 11am came, and Triops wasn't open. So we joined the queue for the park's nearby spinning wild mouse (also scheduled to open at 11), Famous Jack, but, somewhat unsurprisingly that wasn't open either. After 15 minutes in the queue, we gave up, and saw Triops testing and got over to it just as it opened. Yay. It wasn't as awful as I was expecting, in fact the cobra roll was surprisingly smooth, yet intense whilst going forward. The vertical loop was horrid though, and the whole ride going backwards wasn't great. So in other words, it wasn't awful, but it's far from great. Some more meandering around the park's boundary eventually took us to the pirate ship, the 'Bag Pearl'. Unlike all other pirate ships I've done, the tire only drove the ride one way, meaning the ride took twice as long, leaving my stomach feeling a bit lost. It had a nice setting though, next to a lake, and nice enough theming. After doing their water slide and having some lunch at a canteen-style restaurant (which was alright bar the fact the glass pot my custard came for dessert was chipped), we did some of the water rides. The park has 2 log flumes, one really random one at the park's edge, giving a lovely view of a basketball court, and another decent one that gets you nicely wet. Neither were memorable enough for me to waste space on my phone to take a photo though.. We also did the park's rapids, which featuring a fun whirlpool element, and some good spots of theming...but not a lot else. After doing the park's car driving ride and some other general rubbish, it was back to the creds, doing Kidz Coaster (a Wacky Worm) and Spirale Express (another Soquel coaster, but a more junior variety, featuring a random sideways turn of fun). Spirale was a bit of surprise, and the Wacky Worm was a Wacky Worm. We did some more general junk that the park offers, including a monorail that shows you less than Safari Skyway did, and then headed to the back of the park again to do what we missed out on earlier... Famous Jack ended up being my first spinning wild mouse. And to be honest, it was great fun. I literally got tossed, turned and spun in every direction and it was just a bit mad. Sure, it was uncomfortable at parts and I wanted it to be over sooner rather than later, but I can't deny I didn't enjoy it. We then did the neighbouring Eccentric Bikes, a side attraction where you can ride bikes with off-centre wheels, flat tyres and more around a circuit. It was a good laugh, and also nice to finally experience what the Broncho Bikes at Thorpe might have been like all those years ago... The last major ride to do was Silver Wings, the park's new thing for 2017, a Zamperla Air Race. It suits the park well, has some nice theming, and adds nicely to the line up. Hopefully the park can continue to add investments like this. Each arm is named SW1, SW2,...,SW6. The geeks in us all enjoyed this. The neighbouring restaurant. After some re-rides, we ended the day at Cine Dynamik, which was a simulator. We knew nothing of the story, and once we got in the building, we were greeted by a giant clown face, florescent paint and a general wacky atmosphere. This seemed good. We then walked past a pre-show area (which a building layout saw suggested was once used to hand out 3D glasses), and entered the simulator. The story ended up being about you being shrunk to small size, and entering the human body as part a vaccine. Oh. Then the simulator ended up being HORRID, very jerky and generally just awful, and made us all feel dreadful. I guess the film has been changed recently, but it is genuinely the worst thing at the park and should be burnt down. So yeah, all in all, Bagatelle was as I expected really. It's a small park that has the odd flash and good things, the odd general wacky European feel and a lot of generic rubbish. But it was a nice enough day out, got a few coasters for the count, and was a nice easy day for the road trip. We headed back to Calais and had a nose around the local area. We ended up finding a nice little place which did pub grub and had fab service. After that, we then went back to our dingy hotel (it genuinely looked like a prison on the outside, but was fine on the inside), played some pool, then had a reasonably early night to prepare us for Day 2, featuring Plopsaland de Panne...

That's only if the planning area is in the GDO though, otherwise Towers have to plan to the millimetre. Smiler was covered by the GDO, hence the extra inversions. I believe that SW8 is half covered by the GDO, with the bottom of the site (ie the end with the theming feature) there. However I don't know whether enough of it is covered for there to be any significant changes to the layout.

The big new thing which 90% of guests talk about and want to do vs 3 kids rides which 2% of guests care about. What one should be the priority? I wonder if things would have been different if, hypothetically speaking, Slammer was still around and Tug and Lumber weren't? Would we have seen further reduced hours on that to help compensate? Small rides around the park operate rotationally? Or would we have seen cuts elsewhere meaning more rides opening later, less staff on rides, etc?

Is it arrogant of them to claim it though? They are the second most visited visitor attraction operator, why shouldn't they use that as a selling point to investors? But that claim doesn't mean they have a certain standard to be at. For all things in life, people still end up going to bad things (for a variety of different reasons). Of course it's true to say people will be more inclined to (re)visit quality places, quality and visitor numbers are 2 very different things. For me, I see it like this. Merlin might be the second most visited attraction operator, but they're definitely not the second 'best', so why do people always try and pull that card when they Merlin don't make that claim and no one thinks it's the case. You've also underestimated how much they would save. I don't know how much they would save, but it'll be a lot more than £60 a day...

Wow interest is low on this... We have a lift hill (ish): We have a building: We have DIRT: We have a themed structure (I'm sure the scaffolding is temporary ): All photos taken today from the lovely Towers Street Facebook page! Work seems to be progressing nicely.

Remember that the point of the PR nights is to bring exposure about to the park. In the past, it's true that only a select few celebrities and people from the press were invited, because that was the best way to get exposure about. The celebrities would talk about it, the press would write articles about it, and word of mouth would spread. These days, what with the ever-evolving world of social media, getting people like YouTube vloggers, Z-list celebrities and fansite representatives is the best way to go. YouTubers will post videos that will get thousands of views in a day. The celebrities will get it talked about by loads of people. The fansites will sing the praises. It works. Of course, you still get some 'proper' celebrities turn up to these events (Alesha Dixon was at this year's Ghost Train press night for example, and she's pretty big still). And in the past, you still had loads of 'celebrities' invited to media events (I didn't recognise anyone at Swarm's media night lol). And they won't just let any vlogger / fansite in these days, they ideally want people with a decent following, etc.

Calling @MattyMoo, we have Jart. Please try to remain calm.

It's not that black and white. Yes, you save on staff labour in the obvious sense, but you also save on having to hire break cover for 3 staff members, the costs it requires to train someone up, you save on the operational costs of those rides (admittedly tiny compared to basically all other rides, but still a way to save money). Also any staff member at Thorpe who is trained as an operator gets a pay rise, and they're paid that rate regardless of whether they're operating or not. So they could have someone trained up to, say, operate Tug Boat, but have them checking bars on Samurai half the time (a job which would require less pay if they weren't trained as an operator). By cutting the number of rides that need operating, you cut the number of people you need to be trained to operate, meaning you save money all the time. It's true that all the numbers are small, but they all add up pretty quickly. For the record, I'm not saying I like or support any of this (as per my previous post, I am not a fan). But there is justifiable reasons behind the decision, even if it doesn't feel that way. How have Thorpe made a "big deal" out of new kids rides? They weren't formally announced anywhere, they basically just opened with no social media acknowledgement (in the case of Tug Boat) or one Twitter post (in the case of Lumber Jump). They receive the tiniest amount of space on the park map - and, in fact, Lumber Jump wasn't even on the original map! - and no other mention. These were 2 kids rides that were quietly introduced to help expand the kid / family line up. It'd poor that they've created an area which perfectly suits kids / families and now don't operate all rides at the same time, but you can't claim that Thorpe have completely shot themselves in the foot after a making a big deal about something. It's a fair point to raise about why both new rides were introduced when operational budgets are tight to be fair. However, I guess one could argue that 3 different rides open during the course of the day is better than 1 ride. In attendance figures, yes, Merlin are. And that's all Merlin claim to. Attendance figures do not indicate quality. People who constantly bring this up whenever Merlin makes a bad decision are just making themselves look silly.

The farm thing will be part of a private event. Some company hires the marquee out every year for this event and brings along a small selection of animals (farm animals, tarantulas, snakes, etc). The rotational operation thing is bad though. Quite clearly a budget cut at this stage and very sad to see. The fact that it doesn't even give times (unlike many other parks who do rotations) shows that it's very much 'we'll wing it and see'. It also defeats the point of having 3 family / kids attractions in the same area if they're not all open at the same time. Don't see what this has to do with marketing attractions? They've given these low key, small additions, adequate exposure in my opinion; they were bound to have low, buy steady, ridership. This is down to budget cuts, plain and simple.

Last year's very early announcement was basically a mistake, but because most of the info was revealed and Ghost Train marketing was the focus, Thorpe just let it happen. For some context of when previous FN attractions were announced: 2015 - Big Top in August, Containment in September. 2014 - Studio 13 in September 2013 - Lionsgate reveal in late July, with hints all during July 2012 - The Passing in September 2011 - Experiment 10 in September So plenty of time really. Of course, the good thing to do would be to advertise it on park during summer so they can draw people back. The Lionsgate reveal and on-park advertising worked very well. So if we end up with an IP replacement, the sooner the better in my eyes. An original maze would probably end up being announced late August / early September.

Some more detail on the "Is7and Xtreme Challenges": https://www.thorpepark.com/is7and-extremes-challenge It is essentiallya twist on Towers' Big 6 Challenge, where if you complete 7 'challenges' across the 6 different territories, you'll get a free return ticket for September. Interesting idea.

There was a power cut this morning, which affected a large part of park and stopped engineers doing their morning checks. This was why many rides opened late, but rides in the centre of the park (ie Inferno and Ghost Train) were fine.

I like it! Very classic 'destruction and devastation' vibe, which isn't something that Thorpe really has tried at Fright Nights. Be interesting to see where that leads... Also I spy Swarm backwards on the picture...is that the scary new thing for this year?

The original layout was the same up until just after the Immelmann turn. Instead of an airtime hill, turn, MCBR and dive loop, it was going to MCBR, dive loop, MCBR (under the first MCBR) and another dive loop. So the inversions were of similar tightness really, and the first one outside wasn't affected at all. Then again, they did change the drop from 97 to 100 degrees at some point after the layout had been designed, so that might have something to do with the jolt.

How is the hype building where there is literally no advertising and more information than we had at the start of season, bar a couple of extra dates? I'm sure a large majority of the forum are excited for Fright Nights - after all, it's only one of two special events the resort really offer, there's always big investment into it and it really does create a special atmosphere. However, there's only so much conversation we can drag out from baseless speculation!

A lighting and sound upgrade wouldn't be done by engineers though The upgrades they've done to the ride experience don't sound like they'd have taken a month, so part of me wouldn't be surprised if they were waiting on a replacement part / parts, and used the time to tart the ride up a bit rather than wait till this coming winter.

I've written a review of Symbolica here - https://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/852-symbolica-review/ I can only agree with Earlyspencer and say it is a magnificent attraction! Though Symbolica has experienced some teething issues over the past week, with some significant (for Efteling) downtime, queue line evacs because the issues have been difficult to solve. And to add to that, some days the pre show hasn't been functional at all, meaning guests would miss out on the (albeit simple) backstory, and amazing animatronics and effects present there. A real big shame, but at the same time, sort of amusing that they've managed to pretty flawlessly open a trackless dark ride with tons of animatronics and special effects, yet can't get a pre show to work... That being said, I imagine there's some concern, given that currently the 2 newest (and still very popular) attractions at the park are also the most unreliable. Only Efteling could make a B&M unreliable...

To me, Symbolica was the biggest new European attraction for 2017 for theme parks. It's not exactly a difficult feat to achieve, with little of note actually happening this year. But I found the prospect of Efteling, a park known for creating highly detailed and love dark rides, investing their biggest sum in a ride ever, much more exciting than Port Aventura sticking Ferrari Land at the edge of their park and adding a taller and faster Stealth to their line up. It's difficult to review a dark ride without giving spoilers, but I'm going to try my best to not spoil anything. Knowing as little about Symbolica will, of course, be advantageous if you come to ride it - though if spoilers are really your thing, just check out Efteling's YouTube... For some context, the storyline of Symbolica is simple - you're have a feast with the King, but Pardoes, the King's jester, has other ideas and takes you on a behind the scenes tour of the 'Palace of Fantasy'. The pre show sets this story up brilliantly, is easily understood in any language, includes 2 incredible animatronics and a real piece of magic which bought a huge smile to my face. After the pre show, you make your way down the cellars of the palace towards the station. Symbolica has 3 slightly different routes you can take (themed as 'tours' - Music, Knights and Treasure), and you choose these after the pre show but before you board. After doing all 3, they're all of equal standard, and don't differ THAT much, but each one has its own special little feature. The ride itself is trackless, with 2 rows of 3. You go around the palace, exploring several different rooms, whilst Pardoes makes an appearance and does some magical stuff. Each scene is very Efteling, in that it's just whimsical, magical and doesn't quite make sense (in a good way!). Most importantly to me though, there are no dead spots and no wasted moments. Each transition between scenes is themed and makes sense. Each scene is themed 360 degrees. Everything flows in its own weird sort of way. This was a huge issue I had with all other Efteling dark rides (and indeed many dark rides in general) - they either have dead spots where nothing happens, other there's some part of the rooms which are unthemed and make no sense with what's going on. Symbolica, in that sense, is perfect to me. An interesting feature is that the front row has 2 touchscreens. These screens allow the front row to choose their language (it doesn't affect any audio, it's just a message at the start and end of ride), make some of the animatronics do 'things' during the ride, and make your vehicle 'dance' during the finale. It's an interesting idea, but doesn't quite work - I found it more of a distraction during the ride, and it never really added much. Also, it leaves the back row a bit left out - why they couldn't have one screen per row confuses me. So yeah, in short - Symbolica really is a fab attraction. It's clear to see where the 35 million euro budget went, it looks and feels great, it's interesting and immersive to be in and, most importantly, it is fun. Efteling are onto a winner of an attraction, and definitely worth a trip!