JoshC.

If you didn't go to Guest Services / a feedback machine to mention how good he was, I'd recommend sending an email to the park. It'll only take you a few minutes, but an official mention about how good they were is usually very much appreciated and goes a long way!

The point I'm making is people won't be "chucked out", they'll choose to leave earlier. It is something you surely notice anyway - the final hour of the park being open is noticeably quieter. With food, people are more likely to buy lunch on a 10-4 day in my opinion. People will have been on park longer and well be more hungry, especially if they opt to eat at around 12-1pm. Either way, I do think 10-4 openings would be better to the park than a 5pm close.

Lift hill was leaking an awful lot today and, along with the rain, caused a lovely big puddle... (Yep, it's that time of season where I'm seriously just going to post pictures of puddles)

Noticed some grass had been dug up and some temporary fences put around the destroyed fire engine. Anyone know why?

All of what you see in the above photos is for the building, and not the undercover queue line. My guess is that the grey/brown section marked out will end up containing the shop, bag drop, pre show and possibly even the station. If correct, that leaves more than half of the building that contains the ride to be built. Still a lot of space! Also, there can be an in between coasters and "slow, boring dark rides" - a dark ride doesn't have to be a coaster-style ride to be fast or exciting!

A little construction update for y'all... Things are coming along nicely; can't be too much longer before we start to see more of the building go up. This shows how big the site is too I think! From what I've heard, the marketing plan is to drip feed info every couple of months until the ride opens. So we're in for a loooooooong closed season folks.

Late openings for our parks never seem to work out. There's a reason why our parks are always open by 10. I bet it's down to a (for lack of a better word) cultural thing; when it comes to days out, people like to arrive early so they can leave early and gave the evening to do other things / get the kids off to bed / whatever. From that perspective, 10-4 is better than 11-5. Of course, 10-5 is better still, but this must surely be a knock on effect from Smiler's incident in order to minimise loss.

Not really a scare tactic, just to try and make the experience feel more real. In the small print they mention no real bugs are used in the attraction, but they will try and convince you that you'll come into contact with real things for the fun of it. The park would never use real bugs for a variety of reasons; cost, potential animal rights concerns and guest comfort being 3 big reasons I can think of.

From what I've always understood, and heard from multiple sources, when Tussauds first took over Thorpe, they wanted to have two separate park identities - one for an older, more thrill-seeking market, and one with a more family-orientation. I've always heard that Chessington was actually the first option to develop into the 'thrill park', but planning constraints amongst other things went against, hence why they chose Thorpe. So whilst officially Colossus (as we know it) was never technically planned for Thorpe, I'm pretty sure the original idea was to have a big, record-breaking coaster open at Chessington in the early 2000s? Saw's codename was chosen to throw enthusiasts away from the theme totally (especially after Stealth), which I assume Ollie's guide was getting at. Thorpe's engineering team start as early as 6am as well.

Warwick Castle's Halloween event, The Haunted Castle, returns with 2 new scare attractions... -'Condemned', which sounds like it will be in the same location as the previous 3 headline Halloween mazes. -'Outbreak 1349', which sounds like an outdoor attraction / scare zone The Haunted Hollows is returning with the attraction being made slightly scarier after 5pm. All sounds great - their previous headline mazes were good fun (with last year's Blackout, which I reviewed in this thread, being a decent attraction), and Haunted Hollows was great with actors in back in 2012 - hopefully will improve this year. Fingers crossed I can try it out this year! (Source: ScareTour's FB)

ScareTour have been able to confirm that Vampire: Haunting of the Hollows is not returning to this year's line up, with Curse of the Lost Tomb and Trick or Treat Wood being the only 2 Halloween attractions this year - http://www.chessington.com/halloween/ Disappointing; never got to try out HotH and did want to, but never had the chance / couldn't be bothered to make the effort.

Maus au Chocolat at Phantasialand.

Does it matter who does the theming? Not really - regardless of who done it, the attraction is in Thorpe and that's what guests experience! IAC was a collaboration between Scruffy Dog and Merlin Magic Making (and with advice from other companies too apparently), but it doesn't really make a difference either way, does it? I forget about Valhalla actually, what with never going to BPB. Quick look on Google Maps and it looks either a similar size or bigger; depends on how much of the 'extension building' they use for the ride.. Either way, this is still one of the biggest dark rides in the UK... I think the comment about it being the same the colour as X isn't people settling with low standards, but more just clutching at straws to look for any positives they can find though.

My comparison to Hex and Duel isn't about how the rides use space (since none of us know how it uses it!) - it is simply about how much space there is to play with. I'm still not sure 'premium' is the right word for Thorpe to be honest, but I do see what you're saying though. The thing with the hotel is it's seen set back after set back, planning problem after problem. They've been putting plans in for goodness knows how long now (I seem to think the first set of plans were put in in 2006?). Now that all those problems have been overcome, the hotel should finally open in 2018. But until then, the park did need a temporary solution - some form of hotel is better than no hotel got the park. It's not ideal, but I do think it's better than nothing. I thought you were talking about praise / indifference on here as opposed to in general though, which is where some confusion arose.

It's a fact - this ride takes up more floor space than Duel or Hex. Granted, this ride's building also includes a shop, but measured by square meter, this ride is larger than Hex or Duel. Regardless, my point still stands: you don't loads of space to create a good dark ride if you're clever enough. I just don't get the argument. The shipping container hotel is a temporary solution to a long-term problem the park have. Your standard visitor probably won't even take note of it; they'll probably see the shark feature and catch a glimpse of the containers. Once they're in the park, they won't notice it. It doesn't affect their day in any way, shape or form. People who use the hotel are likely aware of it and if they're using it, content enough with the idea. The inside is relatively nice as well - certainly looks nicer than some places I've stayed in. If people complain about the shipping containers and their look, people should also complain about the marquee sitting in park next to Swarm. It stands out, has no use to your every day guest, and everyone will see it. It has more visual impact than the shipping containers, and for less gain. Yet that receives next to no stick compared to the hotel because it's not made out of shipping containers. Also, just as a quick question, what do you mean by "premium theme park"? Other than the entrance price, it's difficult to call Thorpe a premium park in any way in my opinion, and that doesn't really relate to the hotel? Bit confused. So far, I don't see anyone praising Thorpe for what they've done? I don't even see indifference? All I see are people expressing their disappointment so far, or people waiting for the final product before making full judgement? Think you're jumping the gun a bit. At the moment it's a big red box and it looks awful, yes. To be honest, I do think that when it's finished, it will still look awful, mostly because it will be adjoined to a much larger, much better looking part of the building. I've always felt that. But still it's best to wait until the final product - it's possible that it may 'work'. Unlikely, but possible.

Terror of the Towers marketing... DID YOU KNOW IT HAS A NEW ROUTE?! On a serious note, hopefully they continue to post little things like this to advertise the other attractions too.

I don't get how any of these examples support your claim that the this part of the ride is going to be an eyesore? -The likes of Colossus, Inferno's volcano and Rumba Rapids are things that the park do want to sort out (ie they do care), but budget is more the likely the bigger problem. -Cattlepens come to logistics more than anything else, and whilst they could be more creative, one has to question whether anything more creative will add to the experience enough for it to be worthwhile. Many many parks have cattlepen / highly compact queue lines with bits of theming to distract you. Thorpe isn't much different. -ABL is a bit plonked down, yes, but there's been a clear attempt to make it feel like its own area and give it its own feel. I don't get your point here? -The shipping container hotel argument - that loads of people bring up - just annoys me. You hardly see the containers unless you're looking out for them, and you only see them on the entrance bridge going into the park (when most people are focused with what's ahead of them). They're a temporary solution, and most people don't see them. So I don't see how the points you've raised supper the idea that this part of the building will be an eyesore? Yes, other parts of the park aren't perfect, but that doesn't necessarily mean that this will be terrible. You don't necessarily need tons of space to create a great dark ride. Just because other, high quality, dark rides are huge, it doesn't mean all are. Things like Hex and The Haunted House are/were fun dark rides that are well-received, and they're both smaller than this. Also, a general question (not aimed at anyone) - why are we always making comparisons to some of the best dark rides in the world? Do people seriously think Thorpe can be aiming for that standard? Why can't we just wait and see what this is come next year and see how good it is in its own right? Just feels like people are already setting this up to be a fall.. Nah - Spiderman's floor space is almost three times the floor space of this. Agree with you about mentioning this is only a small part of the building, and the remaining part of the building is seemingly on two floors, and very little space is taken up by the shop. This is still going to be the biggest dark ride in the UK. --- It's a shame that they couldn't really fit the ride elsewhere. Many dark rides usually are tucked away behind other things, or at the edge of the park, so parks only have to theme part of the building (Duel being the best example I can think of). Looking at the plans, it does seem like this could be the final product. Of course, the plans don't always show the finished results exactly; some finer details can be added that aren't included on the plans. To be fair on the park, we still know next to nothing about the ride, so it is of course possible that this could be part of the ride's theme / story in some way. Unlikely, but possible. Don't forget that the rest of the building looks much better themed and styled too, so one can only hope that attention is drawn away from the lesser eye-pleasing sections of the building. Also, one thing which I think is worth chucking out into the mix again - the plans indicate that the ride will have on ride photos. There's certainly a few types of ride this would eliminate in my opinion, and an immersive tunnel would be one of them.

Nothing in the plans. A reminder for everyone how the building should look roughly... (James' picture that CoasterDude posted is from a north-west view of the site). The plans also indicated that this part of the building will have some (more?) trees to help try and hide this part of the building.

Looks exactly like how the plans said it would. Don't forget that the rest of the building and themed structures looked a lot more visually interesting than this part of the building.

I imagine Smiler incident has had a knock on effect towards the park's popularity. I expect Merlin predicted that, plus they had a low investment year, so I don't think slightly lower figures should be ringing alarm bells to anyone to be honest.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how anyone can seriously think Samurai is returning to Chessington? It just seems like people are putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5. If Samurai returns to Chessington, I'll eat my hat.

I agree that Rattlesnake's prolonged downtime after the Smiler incident is a bit odd considering everything else that was closed following the incident has now reopened. However, I feel like it's very difficult to criticise the closure when Merlin have handled the situation perfectly in my opinion, and they're not going to be keeping a ride closed longer than necessary. I also think it's difficult to have an opinion of when the closed rides should reopen, since this is an incident that we've never seen Merlin handle before, and have no clue how something like this is dealt with behind the scenes.

Why do you think they need to step marketing up? They've got leaflets on park and a teaser website for the ride. Do they really need any more at the moment, when the ride isn't going to open for (at least) another 7 months? At the moment, not many parks have big time marketing for their major attractions set to open next year. Swarm had some huge marketing campaigns going on this time in 2011, and yet you see that final product as a let down, so it goes to show the marketing preceding a ride's opening doesn't make a good ride in the long run! I personally think that would spoil the effect of any sort of immersive tunnel. The whole point is you're meant to be immersed in a surrounding - having a huge car to your side would really make that difficult and would certainly ruin anything on the screen to your side in my opinion.

Fuji-Q has some ridiculously awesome-looking scare attractions; would really love to experience them one day. Certainly a place Thorpe should strive to compete against in the global market if they're serious about making their Halloween event top quality. Saw is crying out to have an escape room treatment really, but would require some minor modifications for it to work. Would be a pretty amazing thing to do if they could pull it off, but I'd be surprised if it's happened this year. Most staff won't know that much about the building schedule of WC16, so I wouldn't believe that even. There won't be a maze in the building either - they would have to finish the rest of the building, construct the walls and ceiling, make the ground safe to be accessed by the public, stop the construction of the ride to create, build and operate an entire maze for a month, then de-construct it to be able to continue work of the dark ride. Way way way too much effort and logistical trouble for one maze. I'd be surprised if a maze goes near where the Island Beats stage is. There's not a lot of room there. Sure, they put Dead End by that walkway a few years ago, but there's not a lot of room there, so any form of official attraction would be very short. That space could hold a small scare zone, but that's about it. tl;dr - don't believe everything you hear from "someone"

Worth pointing out again that Rattlesnake is still down because of the Smiler incident. So at least that has a decent reason for its closure.