JoshC.

I think the £3million also includes things like levelling, and then resurfacing, the current ground, and possibly the deep hole that needs to be dug. It's odd that they've given a figure for it mind. I hope this gif is saved in your favourites, as I feel like it's going to be needed many more times in this thread

However small it seems on the plans, it's worth remembering that this building is bigger than the likes of Duel and Tomb Blaster, which (I think) are the two biggest dark rides in the UK at the moment (ignoring water-based indoor rides and indoor coasters). And some of the plans indicate that at least part of the building is two floors, so there is a LOT of space in this building. For a more obvious comparison, the building almost covers the same floor space as X - and remember that building includes Cabin in the Woods too! The plans reveal very little about the ride/project itself: -The ride has a 'station', which would suggest it's some form of tracked ride, as opposed to a drop tower, for example. That could still be anything from an SFX coaster, to an ordinary coaster, to a traditional ghost train to a laser shooter ride. -The project name is WC16 / Whitechapel. Seems to suggest something to do with Victorian London possibly, but that still leaves open many possible ride themes / IPs. -£3million is being invested in the plaza for the ride. That's more than the investment for Angry Birds Land. This is a project that's going to have a LOT of money put into it. There's obviously been a lot of care put into the plans - they give the council everything they need to know, but little else. In the past, a set of plans would make it very easy for enthusiasts to go through, and figure out the ride's manufacturer, theme, budget and much more - you could tell what the experience was going to be like before it was even built. This is the complete opposite, and they're clearly keeping this tight lipped about as much as possible. This all makes speculation about the project difficult, but it does at least leave a very exciting prospect for the next 12 months, with subtle marketing and build up, as well as the attraction itself!

You see, I wouldn't call Tidal Wave a 'depressing' / dark themed ride. Yes, it's themed around destruction, but it comes across as a very light hearted theme; comical almost. Together with the audio, whilst on the surface it seems like a 'depressing' theme, it is far from it. And it doesn't feel particularly 'derelict' either. Storm Surge has no theme really, so it seems like a bit of a non-point to argue that here in my eyes! Swarm is slightly similar to Tidal Wave in some ways as well. It's themed around destruction that is 'happening now', but has a strong sense of irony about it - a flaming fire truck, emergency services destroyed, a church (a safe place) taken over, a plane taken out of the sky now ruled by The Swarm. Yes, it's not a particularly happy / comical theme, but I don't think it's really all that comparable to this project. Only Saw has a similar look to it in my opinion, with the abandoned warehouse, which is becoming derelict and run down. It's the only one which feels "dull" (which is arguably the point, though I agree not the best thing for a theme park environment!). The thing is, I do want to see a major ride at Thorpe which is a lot more light hearted in nature, that is more upbeat and a bit more of a laugh. But, other than Saw's exterior, I don't think the park has any 'dull' or 'depressing' ride themes which fail to help you escape from reality! --- Also, on a different note, the ride's building has been reduced in size a little (by just over 100sqm). Essentially it seems like the building has been squashed back a bit. I don't think it's anything to worry about (possibly just making the shop a bit smaller, or that they've put some out of bounds areas onto two floors), but why they've done isn't mentioned.

Inferno is similar though - during its first few years, it wasn't as forceful as it is now. I expect Swarm will be the same; the beauty of B&Ms! Personally I find the helicopter turnaround (when you're on the right hand side) more forceful than any part of Inferno!

The ride type hasn't been confirmed, but it's definitely not a maze!

Seen a couple of comments like this after the mentioning of WC16. The 'LC' in LC12 stood of 'Long Count' / 'Long Count calendar', as can be seen here: (Credit Total Thorpe Park)

Does that mean I have to change my member title to 'I am Wez Cougan' now? --- As for the whole Whitechapel thing - the plans give two 'codenames'. The plans showing the site plans have 'Project Whitechapel' written on them (and one of them has it written in a very Whitechapel-esque font). The construction method statement refers to the project as 'WC16'. If you put all that together, it does suggest Whitechapel as the IP. But I'm not taking it as confirmation by any means. The park have been so careful with keeping this as much a secret as possible. Rumours of a dark ride didn't seriously come about till July last year at the earliest. The location wasn't really known till plans were released. The main wave of plans gave away very little about the attraction. The park wouldn't be so careless to let it slip in my opinion. Also, Whitechapel (as has been mentioned) isn't a particular well known IP, or particularly family friendly (I watched a trailer for it on Youtube earlier; sounded very graphic and gory!). It doesn't add up. Could it be a hint as to what's to come (Jack the Ripper-esque maybe)? Could it be a massive curveball secretly aimed at throwing us off the scent? Who knows. But I don't think we'll be seeing 'Whitechapel - The Ride' opening in 2016.

That's the world first - the seats for the ride are actually fully functional toilets!!

More plans have come to light today, and it seems the codename for the project is WC16... http://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/07-04-2015/Further-Plans-for-2016-Attraction-Released

It appears Annual Pass holders no longer get discount on alcohol at Alton Towers (and this is / will become the case across all Merlin parks) - http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2015/annual-pass-alcohol-discount-removal/ I don't drink, so this doesn't affect me at all. Given that there are some exceptions to the rule, such as with cigarettes, I'm surprised that you could get discount on alcohol anyway. Is it really that big a deal though?

Photo update from just over a week ago: Sauce, with plenty more photos: http://www.themeparks.ie/europe/tayto/201503-2-construction-06.htm Still no sight of an inversion yet, but progress is being made!

Another UK-based one is happening in Birmingham, being done by Twisted Attractions - http://www.twistedattractions.co.uk/?p=attractions I'm not sure how I feel about these things; they seem interesting, but it sounds so hard to predict how people will react in these situations, making you wonder if 1 hour will be too long / not enough to get a proper feel of the attraction. Either way, nice to see different types of scare attractions coming up the UK - hopefully they are successful!

At this rate we'll have to change the name of the thread to the 3 or more word story...

It's always worth doing a ride you've never done before if you can. You may love it, you may hate it, but you won't know until you try it!

Argh. Why, Thorpe, why? There have been times this season when they've managed to open the coasters on two trains, so why not today. That bamboozles the mind. No. The second train is apparently receiving a lot of maintenance, with rumours being that it's not even at the park at the moment / with Intamin. If that's the case, it could possibly be a reason why it wasn't done over the closed season.

Some may have heard of rare gold pop badges that you can get at Chessington. Well, one had made its way onto eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121612129684 Good to see it's going cheap...

It was mentioned on the website that all three of them would be open for the Easter holidays, and they were saying though over social media to people who asked too. Though now they've gone to saying Slammer will be open 'as soon as possible'.

Fright Nights is up for 3 awards at this year's ScareCON: -'Best Overnight Experience', with 'The Extra Cut' -'Best street team', with their roaming actors -'Best Halloween event', for Fright Nights in general Linkys: http://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/04-04-2015/Fright-Nights-up-for-Awards/ http://www.scarecon.org/scars---the-scarecon-annual-recognition-awards.html It's a shame that none of their attractions were nominated for best Halloween attraction or best original design/concept, especially since Cabin won best Halloween attraction last year. But then again, there was a dip in quality for Cabin compared to 2013, and I guess none of the others were quite good enough for the cut. Would love to see Blackout at Warwick Castle win best Halloween attraction though; very clever attraction!

Monsters Inc. - easily 8/10

One thing with IPs that I always think about is how Saw is one of Thorpe's (and Merlin's) 'best' attractions to date, in the sense of it created the biggest buzz and brought in a ton of guests (I'm pretty sure the park reached capacity on several days during the Easter holidays?). With that fact there, it must be very tempting for them to keeping exploring other IPs. As proven with Saw, if they get the right IP, it doesn't matter if the IP is current or nearing the end of its life outside the park, if it's big enough, it will work. Despite Smiler's particular success as a brand, I'd assume investing a large sum of money into an IP + dark ride is seen as 'safer' than the same sum into a totally original concept (and that view probably hasn't been helped by Swarm's so-called failure either). Chuck in the fact that, for this attraction, they want to keep everything as much a secret as physically possible, I'd be very surprised if the park didn't go for an IP for this - it just makes it so much easier to draw people in without saying what the attraction does. Though, as ever, would love to be surprised!

Massive bump to thread... No Liseberg for me this year after all, but Efteling, Toverland, Phantasialand (and Belgium too) are now 100% confirmed to be happening in early summer! Already excited.

Would you rather they chucked you in a tank full of tarantulas, cockroaches and goodness knows what else and let you eat kangaroo testicles? It sounds like they're having trouble balancing between experience and getting the throughputs to be acceptable. A shame really, as when they focus on the experience over the throughputs, it's a nice fun attraction. At the same time though, this is something that should have been accounted for when designing it. I do think that when Reserve and Ride trials return, they'll have to try this on the system. It could help control the flow of people a bit more and allow for the experience to be less rushed.

Doesn't know that gullible is not in the dictionary. (Go grab a dictionary and look - it's really not in there!)

Chessington are in a lose-lose situation at the moment. They can either open it on reduced capacity (which we assume is the one train) or keep it closed longer to wait for two trains to be ready. Neither are great, but I guess that in their current situation, they're at least doing the lesser of two evils. For Chessington's sake, I really hope they're not busy these Easter holidays.