JoshC.

I find it funny how the train carriage was technically in the plans all along, and no one really focused on questioning what the crossed rectangular box could be. I've been doing a lot of thinking about it, and I wonder if the train carriage is just a shell to hide the ride system to some degree. Obviously the whole attraction isn't taking place in the suspending carriage, so you have to be moved away from it somehow. Could lead to some sort of illusion where it seems like the suspended carriage has 'disappeared', which would be quite awesome. Again, been doing some thinking about the 10 minutes of goggle time. Given that the HTC Vive has the front facing cameras, could it be possible that there are sections that show a 'real life' view whilst you wear the goggles? It would stop the experience feeling disjointed, with having to take headsets off, and help with the idea of not being able to distinguish between what's real and what's not. I think some people's worries are, regardless of the quality, theme parks should stick to 'real' theming as much as possible. VR moves away from what (people tend to think) theme parks should be about. And I can see the concern there. I'm open to the idea of VR at theme parks, and I certainly think it has potential to be one of the next big things in the industry. But I hope it's not rolled out here, there and everywhere to be honest. I'd completely forgotten about that! I'd never tried it of course, but had read about ages ago: http://www.memoriesofthorpepark.co.uk/vrc.html

As said above, car parking charges aren't uncommon across many theme parks all over the world. I think the trouble is that parking between two bits of logs on some gravel really doesn't feel like it's worth £6 (even with understanding the reasoning behind it). Likewise for the grass car park. It's a bit of a shame, but it's one of those situations where Thorpe are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Interesting find! I'm pretty certain there's more than one train, as during the Periscope Q&A on reveal day, it was mentioned that there'd be "over 200 people in the building at any one time". Assuming they meant over 200 on the ride, then that would me 4 groups on the go, bringing the throughput closer to 1100pph, in theory. But who knows! The VR thing worries me a bit. It was stressed that VR was only a small part of the experience in the press release, but 10 minutes is not a small part. Hopefully it was more meant you put the VR goggles on after you board the carriage, and take them off at some point during the next, crazy, 10 minutes. But then it risks creating a disjointed experience..

Though there's nothing new here, there's a little round up of everything announced last month on the main TPM site, for anyone keeping track... http://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/29-02-2016/February+News+Round+Up

The first drop looks fab, and I imagine the airtime on the first hills will be too! The weird, ever so slight, outward banking on that turn before the MCBR is just plain odd though.

^It'll more than likely be an evening event, since the park is open during the day on the 5th to all guests. I'd guess it'd work similar to I'm a Celeb's AP preview, with a selected ride line up and you being given a time slot to join the DBGT queue.

Since I essentially haven't listened to any music the past month or so, I don't really feel I can take control of the discs this week. If anyone who missed their week or didn't sign up wants to take over on my behalf, the stage is your's...

It's a good thing to get it out of the way at start of Season. Get any negative press out the way then try and move on from it with Galactica and Roller coaster Restaurant afterwards. Of course, it'll still hasn't around the park for a long time, but the sooner it opens the better.

In that case, I await some self-entitled AP holders demanding they see Derren Brown because they're AP holders.

It's almost like the Merlin rotates the amount of money invested into each park on different years...I'm not Chessington's biggest fan, but when they're investing in Tomb Blaster, a new show, Trail of the Kings, a re-do of Vampire's old entrance and more, it does sort of make your joke fail. Edit: Benin ninjaed me but yeah

Good to see a date set. I wonder how bad the first few weeks of the season will be attendance wise though. Interesting to note there will be an AP preview event for it too. I wonder if they'll do any sort of soft opening beforehand though?

Thread resurrection! So, with 2016 seemingly being the year of VR, thought it might be interesting to keep more of a track on what's going on around the world virtually. At the very least, it could be an interesting thing to look back on in a few years time, and see either the development of the future of theme parks, or yet another passing fad in the industry. Anyways, a list of coasters that have VR... -Galactica, Alton Towers. Samsung The world's first fully dedicated virtual reality roller coaster. Free to use, but not compulsory. Opening 2016. -Alpenexpress, Europa Park Samsung, VR Coaster Buy a ticket to use VR headset at a cost of 2 euros. Opened 2015. -Pegasus, Europa Park Samsung, VR Coaster Buy a ticket to use VR headset at a cost of 2 euros. Opening 2016. -Kyary Pamyu Pamyu XR Ride, Universal Studios Japan VR Coaster Opening 2016. -Dinolino’s VR-Ride, Erlebnispark Schloss Thurn, Germany VR Coaster Free to use. Opening 2016. -Revolution, Bobbejaanland Samsung Planned to operate so that it's only VR for part of the day, and no VR for the other part of the day, since the VR stuff will be quite scary apparently. Free to use. Opening 2016. And of course, there's non-coasters using VR too, namely... -Derren Brown's Ghost Train, Thorpe Park HTC Vive. Free to use. Presumably compulsory. Opening 2016. And, for all you trivia geeks out there, there has already been a full dedicated, compulsory VR coaster in the world before. Unfortunately it closed about 12 years ago and was apparently a bit naff... http://rcdb.com/1901.htm So (as far as I know), whilst VR has popped up in a few places, only one place seems to have bitten the bullet and gone for a ride where it's compulsory for you to wear VR goggles, and indeed where it's seemingly been designed with VR in mind to some degree. So it's still a slow roll out at the moment. But it will be interesting to see whether this does pick up more within the industry, and indeed how the masses respond to it.

An image posted on Coaster Park Klub: Obvious camera angle, heat, compression and more can have an affect on the picture, but even taking that into account, I really do think the actual track itself is a bit wonky.

Given that Thorpe have said in the past that the peening date would be announced in February, and tomorrow is the last day of February, I wouldn't be surprised if the opening date is announced tomorrow. A bit of trust and logical thinking can sometimes go a long way.

Thorpe seem to make reasonably noticeable design changes to the map every 2 years, and it would indeed be due one of those this season. Given how there will be a big focus on the centre of the park for Ghost Train and no Loggers this season, they'll need to make big changes anyway I think.

The joke sort of fails given the other work we've already seen the park do...

This opens on the 24th March, if anyone is interested / making plans.

The pictures were removed following a request from Thorpe Park I believe. Whilst we can't stop people sharing them between friends, we (TPM) ask that you don't post them on the forums, or elsewhere online. Many thanks.

Can someone with a better understanding of the legal system than me (ie: anyone who vaguely understands the system) spell out what this could mean for Merlin as a company, and / or any affects this could potentially have on the operations of Towers / other Merlin parks?

At about £580 a headset, I can't see Thorpe selling them at the park to be honest...

Seems like a similar logic to Swarm backwards and the billboard. Add a new gimmick and push that, whilst also adding something else to help improve the general area and non-gimmick experience. I've no problem with it, especially if it helps the overall feel of the area. Interesting to note also that the plans did state the portal would be on the lift hill. So I assumed the original idea would be that the VR would have the station and part of the lift hill as a 'launch hub' of sorts, then show a portal in the VR world taking you to outer space and whatnot. Maybe a similar idea will happen, but with the 'launch' sequence being longer?

It'd be great if they saw some new themed features (especially the maze), but I wonder how keen they'd be to push a full year horror attraction so soon after Ghost Train, what with the family push too.

The portal has lights too. Though it does look a bit like it belongs in Lego Dimensions from that photo? I think it'll be a neat little thing for an off ride effect; seeing the trains fly through that will be quite pleasing I reckon.

https://www.thorpepark.com/faqs/ Nothing new really, but this does confirm that the park are (hoping to be) reopening Loggers in 2017.

You're correct; it does not make it more difficult to understand what they are trying to so. However, it doesn't mean that people shouldn't take care in what they are typing. Especially on things like online forums, a person's posts, and the way they post, is the key way of gauging what sort of person they are. If you don't care about things like your spelling or grammar to a reasonable degree (and don't bother to make sure you're using the correct homophones), then it can negatively reflect on the person in my opinion. Regardless of what the person is like off the forums, the opinion you form of them on the forums is likely the first one you make of them. I'm not saying people should point out every mistake every time, nor that everyone should be perfect every time. But a little bit of care to make sure that the quality of a person's post is reasonable takes no time at all and makes a lot of difference. As for the video you link, that is completely different to this case. The video is talking more about grammar and how it should be used, not spelling. The there / their / they're problem is much more a spelling issue than a grammatical one in my opinion. On a different note, it's kind of sad to see just how watered down this thread is with comments about short rants and whatnot. Kind of cheapens the thread, which is usually more for serious issues (see the last post on the previous page).