JoshC.

Enjoy some sexy track photos, courtesy of Made in USJ's Twitter...

I visited the park today for a couple of hours. Weather was a bit meh, and the park was unsurprisingly dead. No closures other than Tidal and Stealth. Operations were efficient, staff were friendly and tried to make at atmosphere on park (one problem when non-event days are dead is how...quiet the park feels). In some ways, it's almost surprising Thorpe stay open for this week given how quiet it is, but it's at least nice to see that they have.

One thing which always confuses me about the 'Merlin own the UK industry, so why would they bother with world quality stuff" argument is that Merlin own 2 theme parks in Europe, as well as several Legoland parks, and the quality isn't exactly much different. Arguably, the likes of Towers and even Thorpe see some of the better, more original, investments compared to Heide and Gardaland. And both of those parks have some pretty stiff competition nearby and so, theoretically, should be seeing some of the best investments across Merlin. It's just a Merlin thing; they don't have the funds, and possibly the ability, to invest in that level of attraction experience for the most part. Singling out the Merlin UK parks always just feels like a cheap shot. Then again, with the rumoured budget for this being huge (the highest I've heard is £35 million...), it's not unreasonable to suggest that we could see something special all in all.

No one is saying the closure of Stealth is not a bad thing and no one is saying that Thorpe can't do no wrong. However, there is an understanding on here that Thorpe haven't closed it to save money (why would they - there's other ways to save money!). So there's obviously a worthwhile reason for it to be closed. Given that Thorpe aren't having the greatest of seasons and they're driven by getting good KPIs, they probably want Stealth open a lot more than what any of us on here do. Personally, I'm annoyed that it's closed and I think it would have been better if it was better advertised that it would close early. However, its closure is likely unavoidable, so it's one of those times were we all just have to take the hit. I'll still be visiting.

I thought it had been confirmed Pirate Adventure was closed for good anyway and that Thomas Land was expanding into that building?

IMA Score's music has been great every time in my opinion; getting everything spot on for the mood of the attraction. I don't see why this will be any different.

It's a disappointing and confusing decision, but there is presumably a reason for it. It's not like they'll do it for the lolz. If people are against the decision, vote with their feet and don't go this week.

Forgot to post on here last night about Face it Alone, but wow, it was great this year. Definitely more extreme than the previous two years, that's for sure! There were at least 20 people doing it (not surprising about large numbers given it was Halloween), so it's good to see it is attracting the numbers. They had also introduced a safe word, which I haven't heard about in anyone else's previous experiences! Really do hope the experience returns next year in some way, and would roughly recommend it to anyone that enjoys scare attraction.

Thorpe are closing the queues to the mazes at 10:15, and queues to major coasters at 10:30. Not much, but a nice gesture. For an example of busyness, I've just queued 40 minutes for Blair Witch. Other mazes have longer queues and the coasters are around an hour apparently.

On a serious note - I've noticed that this has happened a lot less this season compared to previous seasons. Even on social media, I've seen people specifically ask for free Fastrack because of a bad experience, and this request either ignored or denied. Whilst I'm sure it still happens, and still happens to a degree that shoots themselves in the foot, I do think the situation has improved somewhat. A step in the right direction at least..

I don't know how feasible it would be from a landscaping, safety and budget perspective, but I would love to see the park turn the island behind Swarm into a 'scare island' for Fright Nights. The island is huge and could easily fit a couple of mazes plus be a designated scare zone. It's otherwise just sat there and likely won't see any construction activity until 2018 at the earliest (assuming a major ride will still be placed there), and with Thorpe's space being a premium on the core island, it would be a suitable, albeit short term, solution. And if Thorpe wanted to consider introducing some paid-for mazes, it would perhaps be an ideal location for them. As for maze themes, I want to see new, original creations, and not just cheap rehashes of the film IPs (except for Blair Witch, which is crying out for a cheap Headless Monk retheme). Personally, I'm always confused as to why people would want to see a Swarm themed maze, as has been mentioned a few times. The Swarm are a flying alien race that attack from the sky. They just don't come across as something you can fit in a maze environment very well; any ideas I can think of would feel very forced and there could be much better story routes to explore. However, I wouldn't mind seeing an alien-themed maze if it was about the Zorgx (spelling?); the alien race mentioned in the WWTP radio loop that have invaded earth and control people by going in their ears. Could be a neat idea!

So I did Big Top again last night, and I have to say, I was quite disappointed. Only one actor in the first tent, which makes it all very anticlimactic. Second tent was very disorientating, but lacked the actors to capitalise on it. The ringleader role between tents 2 and 3 is wasted. The final tent was lit very poorly. No chainsaw during my go which meant 2 actors were in the finale, but couldn't do enough to make it much of a finale, and also meant to rest of the tent felt lacking in actors. It's such a shame, as the maze really does have a lot of potential, but there's not enough actors in there to realise it. And the fact that you leave the tents so blasé due to a lack of actors really reflects poorly to people watching. It makes me wonder if there's been actor re-shuffles / actors leaving or something, because there really just isn't enough actors spread across the entire maze. They also need to make sure they've got enough actors trained to use a chainsaw so that it can be used, because the ending is just so poor otherwise. I also did Blair Witch last night. Slight issue with the batching, in that they were sending groups too close together, and with no actor giving a pre-maze speech (like during preview night), it just means there's too many people too close together, especially at the ending. However, the actual maze was brilliant. I love how the path starts off very wide and actor-void, but gets narrower and more actor-filled as you progress. It has a nice blend of jump scares and creepy moments which I really like (an actor quietly singing "If you know you're going to die today, clap your hands" and slowly clapping his hands was a particular highlight). The ending was great as well, with 4 actors crammed into the shed, and created a memorable finale which really had people running out the door! Seeing how Blair Witch has developed over the past 3 years has really given me hope for Big Top. I think Thorpe might have bitten off more than they could chew with it, and have had to chop and change things to make sure they can cope with it. Similarly, they hadn't quite prepared themselves right for Blair Witch in 2013, marketing it as a scare zone, creating a way too linear path, and so forth. But they learnt from their mistakes and have massively improved it year on year in my opinion. One can only hope that, if they keep it next season, we see similar scales of improvements.

Great to hear, especially considering Thorpe were saying it would be out for the rest of the season.

That's not fair! I had want zombies too!

All very exciting stuff! As has been said many times, Derren's work is really something phenomenal for the most part. It's hard seeing him wanting to spend so long on something quite prolific and have it fall flat on its face. I'm curious as to how exactly he will feature in the attraction. I'm expecting he'll be involved in some form of pre-show and maybe a post show at the very least, but whether he features elsewhere is something I think could go either way. But if they don't use his voice somewhere in this attraction at the very least, they've missed a trick! One thing which I think is worth noting is how, in the press release, they don't refer to this as a 'ride'. It is always an "attraction" or "experience". And the fact they are calling it a "smart" ride is interesting as well. Some might be aware of Walibi Belgium's 'Challenge of Tutankhamon', a laser-shooter, trackless dark ride which features 3 potential endings, depending on a car's score. Could it perhaps be possible to have a similar idea, without shooters, and have a ride car interact with guests in some way, thus creating different possible experiences on each ride? It sounds very improbable I know, but I'm in a realm of thinking that anything could potentially be possible at this stage.. I agree with everyone about the clues pointing towards some sort of train story going on, along with the obvious Victorian era route. Will be interesting to see what happens!

Is anyone planning at being on Thorpe on Tuesday? I'm going for a few hours in the evening, so I can do Face it Alone, but wouldn't like to face the queues alone beforehand!

I've done this now to avoid any further confusion. --- I might come.

As a sauce, JordanLuke is always a little off...

Are you talking about standard run throughs or Face it Alone?

This seems appropriate... http://theinkblot.com/

Oh, I totally agree! What I more meant is when it get normalises as just things like slight taps and strokes is when it becomes a cheap and 'just another tactic'.

You see, I'd argue that touching is only a cheap tactic when it becomes normalised. If, like at Thorpe, touching is allowed all the time, it is basically just another way the actors can try to put you out of your comfort zone. It allows them to stroke your face / hair, touch your arm, grab at your feet, etc. It's just another tactic along with loud noises, invading your personal space and the like. That makes it a cheap scare. But with Alton, the way they are advertising touching is bigger. This isn't just 'touching' in the Thorpe sense, this is touching in the sense of they can move you, force you into certain ways, pull you from one route into another and so forth. That isn't cheap in my eyes, that's a lot more extreme, and deserves to be heavily emphasised.

I think it was too actually. Maybe they've just pushed it back to Monday because it's easier for people working in marketing?

You will also find them in several hundred coffee shops all over the country.