JoshC.

We can only really know if it is a flop if we know what Thorpe wanted out of the attraction in the first place. The attraction itself is a well themed, non-thrill ride addition to the line up. Something which was desperately needed in my opinion. I doubt that the park were expecting this to draw the crowds in, but rather fill in a gap in the park's line up (probably for a short term basis) and fulfil the park's fetish of adding in something new every season. The point you raise about the queue and throughput is interesting. As I've said many times in the past, mazes just don't seem to work outside of Fright Nights for Thorpe (and probably for many other places too). Freakshow 3D and Saw Alive weren't popular when they were open outside of the Fright Nights season. But during Fright Nights, they are always popular attractions with very long queue, because that's what Fright Nights is about. Over the summer, if people see a 40 minute queue for IAC and a 50 minute queue for Inferno, I bet they're more likely to queue for Inferno because they've gone to ride rides and coasters, not walk through a maze. Some people will be happy to queue that, but many people probably see it as "Something they'll do later" or "Something they'll do if it has a 10 minute queue". So I think if the throughput was a lot better, there would still be a queue (albeit probably shorter), as it would attract people who see it as that something they'll do since it has a short queue. Fantastic for you, but that's not really the point being raised.

Ian Habgood; who has worked with a few parks for several bits of music in the past.

Anything not about the new attractions has seemingly just been copy and pasted from last year's press release! The thing with any carnival / clown themed maze is that they will almost always rely on similar ideas, so it'd be a surprise if Big Top didn't have similar scenes to COS in my opinion. However, by the sounds of it, there are plenty of differences, and Big Top also sounds a lot darker, so I doubt it'll be a re-hash of COS. Also from the press release is more about this escape attraction... Would suggest that the escape attraction is an after hours event? Also seems like they're going to play the mystery card and reveal it quite late on.

Samurai has been taken down for "essential maintenance"; it should return to Thorpe in the future. If it leaves, it won't return to Chessington.

Try this link: https://www.thorpepark.com/fright-nights/fright-nights/ (found by Googling 'Thorpe Park Fright Nights')If you go to the main TP website and click on Fright Nights, it takes you to https://www.thorpepark.com/island-beats/fright-nights/ , which is now an outdated link since Island Beats is now finished.

Probably just haven't updated it. It took them a while to update the site in 2011 when they moved Se7en to the Beach from the Arena. With noting that The Big Top is rated 5/5 for scares, along with MBV. Asylum and Studio 13 were both rated 4/5, along with Cabin and Saw. BWP remains 2/5. The website also suggests that the overnight experience will have a story related to the Figaro brothers.

Just looking at those mini airtime hills on Freestyle makes my male region feel sore... Surprised that Cinecittà World was so quiet. I thought it really was the next big thing for Italy and was being given huge amounts of attention, though I guess it's hard to judge these things when being an enthusiast and this getting attention for it's 10-looper. Awesome-sounding trip though; thanks for the report!

There's reviews of the Blair Witch Overnight Experience on ScareTOUR. Their first try on one of the first nights was pretty disastrous, but a follow up visit proved much better... First try: http://www.scaretouruk.com/review---blair-witch-overnight-experience---thorpe-park.html Second try: http://www.scaretouruk.com/review---return-to-blair-witch-overnight.html Think about it from an even larger perspective. The park are trying to market themselves as one of the scariest places to go to. As their Fright Nights video says, they don't do clichés, or trick and treats, they do scare. They want to attract the bravest of the brave, the people who really do enjoy their scare attractions (a market which is surprisingly large). In ordinary conditions during the day, they can't offer the scariest of experiences for many reasons (time constraints, no age restrictions, etc). By offering out-of-hours and overnight experiences, they can draw in the people wanting the extreme scares, without scaring away the people who don't want something that extreme. So I think overnight experiences are something that Thorpe genuinely need to improve their event as a whole. Of course, they shouldn't lose focus on the ordinary attractions that operate during the day, but they aren't really - 5 free mazes and continuous additions to that line up since 2010 shows their commitment!

Island Beats has ended this weekend, in a rather quiet fashion. I do hope that this has been a success for the park as they've obviously put a fair amount of time and money into what is a bit of a risky idea. Will be interesting to see if it returns next season, and whether it will be bigger or not! Also, we have this from Showcase Live...

Last year, when Swarm had basically no queue (ie - just a bit in the station), I actually saw staff not take Fastrack tickets off guests, because of no queue, and said to go to Guest Services to get a refund (whether the people actually got one I don't know). Presumably there's something in the small print which covers them from a legal perspective in situations where people use Fastrack when there's no queue? Morally it might be wrong to sell them in that situation, but legally and from a business point of view, they've surely got their backsides covered?

The construction summary is weird, as it only ever feels like it makes reference to the construction of the building, and none of the ride hardware. Certainly odd. I personally wouldn't rule out some form of tracked ride system, but certainly agree that it looks very unlikely. I agree with Ben that if we are in for something truly ground-breaking and game changing, all speculation is probably going to be fruitless. I certainly hope it is! The part about the Noise Assessment saying being open by Summer 2016 has always made me curious. However, I've heard some staff mention how it will be open in March, though whether that's because they are as clueless as we are about the whole project and just going my assumption I don't know! I wonder if, after Smiler's construction issues, they're just playing it safe and saying summer just in case they have some problems over the next few months?

If the mirror maze was a separate attraction, they would have mentioned it. The second experience won't be a maze of any sort; it'll likely be a new overnight experience or a scare zone.

In an unexpected turn of events, I should be able to make this meet now. Scary stuff...

The Big Top had been confirmed as a scare maze in its own right; the mirror maze is definitely part of the maze!

Update ahoy: http://www.vhcoasters.com/?p=4669 Flying Aces is coming along nicely; still no sign of that 52m loop yet though.

I think you're reading too much into it - for marketing purposes, they'll of course focus on the big rides that you can ride at night. They're not going to advertise how you can ride Toadies in the evening now, are they?

Mirror Maze sounds fun, but I immediately have some concerns about throughput. Very easy to have congestion in a mirror maze if not controlled carefully, ruining the experience a bit. Also easy to allow plenty of time for people to escape the maze, but can slow down throughputs a bit. Don't get me wrong, a mirror maze in a scare maze does sound fun (I can't think of any scare mazes that do have one actually?), but it will surely be difficult to pull off?

The way I'm seeing it is that the promotional teaser for Molly Crowe is that video, which is very nicely done. Anything else before then was unnecessary teasing to the teaser. If they hadn't posted that photo (and the diary entry which hasn't even been posted on here!), it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the advertising of the attraction and - arguably most importantly - the attraction itself. I find it almost gobsmacking that people are complaining about one picture posted on social media in all honesty. There's wanting the best for parks, and then there's ferocious nitpicking in my opinion!

I think there's enough height for there to be a roller coaster in there. It wouldn't get much momentum or anything, but they could certainly fit a roller coaster in there if that's the system they wanted to get people around the building. I'd be surprised if they did put a coaster in there, but I don't think it can be ruled out to be honest!

I'm not really defending it, I agree it's a very mehly done Photoshop, but I just don't think it matters that much. It's not meant to be something that's remembered, and it'll be forgotten about by 99% of people by tomorrow (if they even remember it today).

*Once again, a long time between entries into this trip - sorry to anyone who is still reading this! Reports will probably be shorter from now on so I can finish this thing before Christmas...* After a nice sleep in Dusseldorf, we said out goodbyes to Germany and ventured into The Netherlands. Out first stop was Toverland, which, despite being a relatively small park, was one I was looking forward to a lot. The 10-6 opening time would surely give plenty of time to give everything a couple of rides, before heading off to try and get a sneaky ride in on Baron at Efteling for its opening day (yes, this report is all the way back from July 1st). We arrived to a very empty-looking car park at opening, and got in. We were told that the ropes course was closed for the day and that the park's signature coaster, Troy, would only be open 12-5. With half of the park basically being indoors, we decided to start off in there and do the big rides that there were. We started the day off with Boomerang, a Vekoma junior coaster. A neat little coaster which feels surprisingly high when at the top. After a quick ride on the Teacups - where my bag flew out of mine and Adam's cup despite minimal spinning! - we did the nearby waterslides, which were good fun. We then ventured outside and did the random hedge maze, before heading to the second half of the indoor part of the park. We had planned to get the bobsleigh ride done, but it has suffered a technical fault, so we instead did the adjacent funhouse and the nearby logflume, Backstroke. It was a nice flume, with it being partially indoors and outdoors, and has a nice bit of theming. It doesn't get you very wet, but has a nice backwards drop and a weird turntable mid lift to turn you forwards... Blitz Bahn, the redone bobsleigh ride, has opened by the time we were done with this. It had a nicely themed queue, which was good as this had the longest queue of the day at a staggering 15 minutes. The ride itself was fun, can't really add much more to it than that really! I was rather happy to see some maths on a 'chalkboard' in the queue... With the noteworthy things inside done, we ventured outside and headed over to the Magic Valley to ride the park's newest coaster, Dwervelwind, a Mack spinning coaster. Rather unsurprisingly, it was practically a walk on, so we made our way through the nicely themed queue and into the station building. I really loved the station; nicely styled and there's a neat little dispatch sequence with some lights when a train leaves. The ride itself was pretty fun with a nice layout that even could be enjoyed on a non-spinning coaster. We got some decent spinning on our first ride too. Temperatures we soaring, so we went and did Djengu River, the park's rapids. Again, not a particularly wet ride, but they were a fun set of rapids with some good spinning in the boats. Certainly a much more welcome rapids ride than River Quest to me! The queue line was themed beautifully as well, which was a bonus. We went back on ourselves to Booster Bike, a motorbike coaster, which was now open following a small closure. I've wanted to try one of these out for a while, for the obvious novelty factor of them, so was a bit excited. I was surprised at how comfortable the seating arrangement was, which was a bonus. The ride's layout was fun, but I just can't help but feel the ride would be much better if it just had a normal seating arrangement with lapbars. The novelty is alright, but I think I'd have enjoyed the ride so much more with just lap bars. 12 o'clock was approaching, so we headed over to the Troy Area to get ready for Troy's opening. Before that, we did Scorpios, a pirate ship with some cool water effects. I wear I read somewhere a couple of years back that this was the tallest or the steepest pirate ship in Europe, so the whole group was really excited for this, but was understandably underwhelmed when we were greeted by a quaint little ride. Don't trust everything you read on the internet guys... It was now time for pretty much the main reason why we visited the park - Troy. The coaster really does dominate the park and the immediate surrounding area, and it really does look impressive. Again, the ride was basically a walk on, which was fab. Back row awaited us, and off we went. And wow. The ride is truly relentless, with a great first drop, awesome speedy moments, nice pops of airtime, and the out-of-control feeling woodies are known for it. The ride really is fab, and shot straight up to my favourite ride of the trip so far. *ORP to come here soon..* With no queue and everyone loving Troy, we went straight back on for another go, and all loved it again (I think I got front row this time and it was still fab). We then decided to retreat indoors and have some lunch; I had some form of spaghetti and it was nice and reasonably priced. It was just coming up to 1 o'clock now, and we'd done everything major already. We stayed inside for a bit and did a couple of the smaller rides in there that we missed out on, before doing some rerides. According to my ride count I wrote up in the car to Efteling, we'd done all the coasters multiple more times, and the water rides again (including the surprisingly wet indoor water slide which was so much fun!). I remember riding Dwervelwind one time and smacking the back of my head against the seat quite hard mid-way through the ride, and the rest of the ride being quite uncomfortable. The rest of the group did another ride on it straight away whilst I sat out. Troy was the most ridden ride on the day, and despite the temperatures soaring (34-35 degrees; possibly the hottest I've experienced in my life..), I was happy to keep on riding it during the day. We also watched the Fountain show, and in general had some fun by the fountains, which was nice. Pictures don't really do the show justice... I continued doing all the rides till about half 4, before the constant high temperature had finally gotten to me and I had to stay inside. It was a shame to miss out on a couple more rides on Troy, but despite staying well hydrated during the day, the heat had really just gotten to me. We left the park not long after 5, so that we could set off to Efteling to try and get the ride on Baron... Final Toverland thoughts: Toverland is a fantastic little park with some really good attractions. Their coasters are all good fun, and having pretty much half the park indoors is great too. One or two more attractions would be nice to help give the park just that little bit more ride-wise, but still is a great little park as it is! Not a park I'm dying to visit again any time soon, but that's not a bad thing I suppose. --- Now, I don't want to steal the thunder from Toverland, but since I'm doing these blogs in days, I can't not put a bit about Baron here. With Efteling a little over an hour away from Toverland, we made our way to the park, hoping that we'd be able to get to the park before the 8pm close and sneak a quick ride in on Baron, on it's opening day. We made good time on the road, and checked into our room in the Efteling Bosrijk Village (which was lovely!). By the time that was all done, we got into the park just after 7 and headed straight to Baron. I won't go into it too much, since my ride review is here, but the hour-or-so queue for front row in the heat made it quite a long and gruelling experience, but oh so worth it! We then went to the nearby town to try and find dinner, and almost had no luck before finding a kebab shop which did nice and cheap-ish food. A short walk back to our room and I quite happily collapsed into bed at some point around 1am I think (goodness knows where all the time had gone...). And that's where I'll leave it for now. The next report will combine our 2 days at Efteling, and hopefully shouldn't be too long before I post it!

Am I the only who doesn't really care about the mehness of the photoshop? Presumably, it's not a signature image for the attraction and just a little teaser to tide people over before they revealed the more important bit advertising for the maze, which coincidentally happens to be this neat little video...

Quote from the park's website, confirming this will be on / by the Beach...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-34086555 Warwick Castle might not be Legoland (or Chessington), but they still want glamping.

They are still using the dark secret idea on the Minds Wanted website, and they'll hopefully keep with it. Original advertising boards are more there to just tease fans more than anything else. Look at Smiler's original advert boards - they just had DNA spirals on them, which doesn't really got in with its current theme. I don't think it's anything to worry about to be honest.