JoshC.

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.

That's just a rumour at the moment, though has come from a couple of different sources. Thorpe haven't given any indication whatsoever about the budget!

Don't worry, the non-believers will have the egg on their face when the concept art is released!

I think it happened once last season too? However, the reason for its closure will be because of the high winds, so not really a lot the park could do about it!

Really hate to be THAT guy, but I think this is one of those posts which requires a source...

The chambers are a weird one. On both my goes, I purposefully got the questions wrong to see what would happen if I 'lost', and I did have things happen to me. The first go I had stuff dumped on me (as seen in the advert), and the second go I had some air blown around, and I think there were leg ticklers too(?). So things definitely do happen! I think the idea is that it's designed to have different things happen in different chambers (the chamber where stuff was dumped on me had a grating to allow the stuff to fall through, whereas the other chamber didn't, though both had holes at the top). I think Thorpe have shot themselves in the foot with the advert and the pre-show intro though, showing how the Chamber of Horrors will dump stuff on you :/ How exactly it works, I don't know. The thing that is meant to happen happens after both questions, but it seems to only happen to select people. Perhaps if you get at least one question right, you're safe? Or maybe it's just the 'worst' contestant that gets bombarded with stuff? Personally, the way I think it should work is that the fastest person who gets the question correct (whose cubicle number is displayed on screen, and who the actor should congratulate) is safe, and all other cubicles have things happen. It really is a weird one! (For anyone interested, I was in the second cubicle on the left hand side when I had sawdust and junk dumped on me, and the most right-hand cubicle when I had air blown on me )

IMAScore have announced via their Facebook that they're producing music for the Enchanted Village. *Covers ears from the squeal of fanboys everywhere*

Ate at Fin's the other day and I have to say it was brilliant! Fabulous service, friendly staff, nice feel to place. Most importantly, The Swarm burger meal is quite possibly the best meal I've ever eaten at Thorpe - loved it so much! On a less positive note, with Easter weekend 5 days away, I've noticed there's no advertised event for it. Is one not happening this season? Would be a shame to not have one, especially since I've thought the Easter weekend events for the past few seasons have been pretty decent and well received!