JoshC.

Jeez, Jack's back! Done the poll.

I've seen price of staying in the Shark Hotel knocked about a few times. So, I've done a little experiment. You're a family of 4 - 2 adults, 2 children (1 teen, 1 9 year old, say) and you want to go to Thorpe for the first time ever for a couple of days and stay at a hotel for the night. I choose a random date, so - arrive on Friday 30th May, leave the day after. Here's what the prices will look like: Shark Hotel Total cost: £273. Includes: Family room, park tickets for both days, breakfast, ERT in the morning; access to the Dome in the evening. Chertsey Travelodge Cost of hotel: £37 Cost of 2-day tickets (if booked online in advance): £30.99 for the adults - including the teen - and £28.99 for the 10 year old. So, cost of tickets in total, £121.96 Cost of travel: If you go by car, you're paying £5 each day for parking, plus petrol. If not, bus tickets from Chertsey strangely vary an awful lot. A return varies between £3 and £4.50 for an adult(?!) and about half price for anyone under 20. Again, as I say, this varies a lot. So, if you bus it, it *should* cost a minimum £18 in total for 2 days worth of returns. You could get a taxi for probably £5-6 each way. Or, you could walk about 30-40mins for free. Total cost: £168.96 Includes: Family room, park entry. Baring in mind that, if you stay at Travelodge, you need to get dinner and breakfast. Say you get both of these in Chertsey, it's not going to be the cheapest thing ever (I wouldn't be surprised if prices are hiked up in some nearby places when the hotel opens in a couple weeks too). I've no idea how much it would end up costing, but at a guesstimate, if you went to one of the many Indians in Chertsey, you'd be spending a good £30-£40 on the family, and going to the nearby Chertsey Cafe for breakfast would end up costing a good £15-£20. So, if you do the sums and are savvy, you can see that the Shark Hotel does end up a bit more expensive than staying at the nearest Travelodge. However, what you have to bare in mind is the things you're getting with the Shark Hotel that you're not getting with the Travelodge. The first thing which springs to my mind is ease. No faffing between going to the park and a nearby hotel, breakfast sorted, you know where to go for dinner, ERT in the morning, etc. Another thing is the location - I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar more people would love to wake up, look out their window, and either overlook a lake or a theme park, as opposed to a naff gym, a set of offices or an accountancy firm... Plus you get to walk through a Shark at Thorpe. In Chertsey, you'll get to walk through a cloud of smoke. Okay, so the Shark Hotel might be a bit small, and a bit more pricey, but from where I'm standing, if I lived far away and had a choice between Thorpe or Travelodge, then I'd be shark bait for Thorpe.

Would just like everyone to bare in mind during this post, I DO quite like Saw... Everything I've put in bold does indeed relate to the films, as you rightly explain. Though, if one wants to be facetious: -There was only one pendulum blade in Saw 5, as opposed to the two shown on the ride. -A board of spikes doesn't relate to the films exactly - I certainly don't recall a trap like that. -The indoor MCBR has always confused me. If it's needles, they why on earth are their crossbow noises being fired when you go across?! However, everything in bold IS also generic. To anyone who hasn't seen the films, they won't be confused, they'll just think generic 'look at these things which could potentially kill me if all this was real'. The only relevant Saw theming, and the only theming which I reckon would actually need to be removed if the Saw/Lionsgate contract ends, is the Rack Trap in the queue line, anything with Billy on and slogans like 'Face Your Fears'. I remain unsure about the barbed wire maze in the queue and the bathroom trap under the first inversion to be honest; whilst they DO relate to the films, you could quite easily keep them / tweak them slightly. Even the shotgun could be kept; it's all very generic. It's one thing I really dislike about the ride in general. There's actually very little Saw in there; especially the big pieces. Even if a lot of it can be related to the films / Saw universe, very little of it is unique to Saw, which is what people are trying to get at, from what I can see.

Are the park still allowed to have staff do dual operations? For quieter days, I think that'd be a nice option for the park to consider, especially for the LOTD rides.

Looks really good; loving the look of the final drop and the audio throughout seems pretty cool. Still don't really get the point of having a backwards section to the ride though; feels so pointless!

http://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/01-04-2014/Stealth-to-be-part-of-Angry-Birds-Land Interesting! Seems a bit presumptuous considering AB Land hasn't opened yet, but continuity of themed areas is a good thing in my books.

Fab topic idea... Me with Cornflakes My face ain't much happier these days either... "I'm scared to open my eyes...I'm scared to open them". Well, that's what I would've said if Blair Witch Project at Thorpe was scary...

Don't see why they wouldn't. Once the systems have been set up, I assume they make their money back pretty quick, and there's going to be very little maintenance cost as well (well, I guess, at least). As pluk says, if you charge a cheaper price, there's more chance of people buying photos as well. So yeah, pretty certain they'd still make a profit. The prices they are charging are, in my opinion, just too much for what you're getting..

The way I see it is this... This image was posted on Facebook (and Twitter maybe?). The social media sites are more likely to focus on the 'old' target audience (ie - young adults and teens). They're going to be more interested in the thrill rides, so may as well focus on the thrill rides there. Note, I'm not saying Thorpe shouldn't appeal to the 'up-for-it families' - which I believe is the type of families Thorpe should target - on the likes of FB and Twitter, but there's nothing wrong with having a few bits and pieces which focus purely on the thrills. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with having a few bits which are directly aimed to be more family-friendly. For one picture, I think this has been overly-nitpicked.

It's a shame that the TV screens at the bottom of the lift hill aren't showing pictures (but still have sound). Would be nice to see Jigsaw reappear there once more sometime soon...

Worth saying that some of the track between Saw and Loggers has been dismantled and some new gravel has been laid down. Definitely didn't notice that last weekend, so must be a very recent development. Could mean they're thinking about replacing track, or just finally getting rid of the poor thing. Who knows...

So X is awesome this season still. Good fun and a nice laugh and the new light set up is definitely an improvement on last season. Woo!

Am I right in thinking that a cherry picker drove over part of the track between Saw and Loggers Leap (to access Saw)? If so, I imagine have a cherry picker drive over the track unceremoniously could do some damage. It's also possible some damage was caused when they were removing the Loggers tunnel; they could have driven across part of the track to access the tunnel to bring in tools / take away the tunnel. It's a shame that they haven't reopened it. However, I guess that what we have to remember is, it's just a five minute train loop at the moment. There's probably better things they can fund for families at the moment then that. I guess the positive to take from that is they were looking to reopen it! One day, hopefully...

It's not a world first, so why should Thorpe (or Merlin) look into that concept at all?!

Just downloaded this (came out later on Android than iPhone for whatever weird reason...). It's very much a game like Temple Run (swipe up/down/left/right to avoid objects). Okay game really, nice bit of fun I guess. If the music in the game is used in the ride (which, if Smiler is anything to go up, it probably will), then I'm happy though!

Probably just requires more maintenance / work than usual, and now that the park opens tomorrow, it makes sense it inform people now. Nothing to worry (or get excited?) about...yet.

From Heide's FB. Dunno why, but I really love the look of that restaurant...

When Merlin posted their financial things online (see the Merlin topic), it says about how they're trying a new ticketing strategy for Thorpe, with a big focus on APs. Makes sense really; encourage people to come back as much as possible, have a big focus on customer satisfaction too, and it all works out nicely for the park. Then they can really make their money by having good food and merch. It's a bit of a risky strategy, but I think it'll pay off.

That's weird. They were encouraging on FB and Twitter for people to come if they had they day off school because of Strike Action and, from previous experience, Thorpe does get busy if there's a school strike on. Seems odd that they didn't get more staff in, when they seemingly were encouraging more-than-normal numbers of guests to come.

Looks good; shame I'm not around to go to it. Bit weird that it's only Good Friday and Easter Monday though!

Slammer was also (almost, admittedly) testing last Sunday and 8 days later it's still not working! Until I see people on it, I have no hope for the ride... (and even then, I still don't have much hope for it!)

Thorpe's probably still got a reputation as 'the place to be' for thrillseekers following a good 5+ years appealing to them. Remember, families didn't just stop visiting Thorpe when the brand shifted; it'll be the same for thrillseekers, and they'll still have plenty to keep them satisfied. The next year or two should focus on making families aware they can visit Thorpe again, and that there's enough to keep them occupied for a day (once Angry Birds Land opens, there should be in my opinion as well). Then, after that, they have a good park which can appeal to all, with a main focus of 'up-for-it families' and thrillseekers. Despite wanting Thorpe to appeal to families more, I do hope we don't lose the 'Nation's Thrill Capital' side of Thorpe. A family park and a thrill park are not mutually exclusive...

Just to bring it back up, no effects were working on Thursday at all... Seemed like they rushed to get the ride open or something. Shame, but at least they're all working fine now. Have to say though, Thorpe NEEDS to sort out how they're going to deal with the backwards rows. If they want to do a ticket system, fine, but on Saturday, there was no tickets being handed out for backwards-queue tickets being handed out, leaving the system totally open for abuse (just chose the shortest queue, then ride whichever way you bloomin' want!). If they want to do a one queue for both ways, and people simply decide in the station, fine, but make sure people are aware of this. In other words, choose one way of doing it, and stick to it!

That was the original plan. It featured two MCBRs and had a 4th inversion (bottom right of the picture; think it was some variety of Immelmann loop). I think on larger versions you could see it went right over where the CCR track was as well. It ended up being changed in May 08 time, in preference of the airtime hill and turn around. I think SCB hit the nail on the end as to why these plans and the X car are out in the dome though

So along with an old X car, these were in the dome today... (From Theme Park Worldwide FB) Is the woodie concept still not dead then? Or have they just dragged things out for some after-hours event a little too soon? Whatever the reason, Thorpe do love to tease us geeks!