JoshC.

The station building for next year's new Zierer Force coaster, Farmyard Flyer, is complete: This is a small family coaster which serves as an extension to the Tornado Springs area.

Very nice. Many similarities between this and Lech at Legendia, which is a fantastic ride. More of this please.

So the audio now plays out like a radio station? I mean, stuff like that can work (see: Amity Cove / WWTP), but I'm not sure it fits here. But heyho, whatever. Maybe people will like it. tbh I would have been happy if they literally just used the Swarm Invasion loop from last year. An evolution of the old soundtrack that worked. Not a fan of shoehorning everything around the area into the audio. It feels desperate / awkward, rather than just letting everything flow. For the obvious comparison, it's not like WWTP Radio tries to shoehorn in all the theming features around, because it doesn't need to. It's the same with the Ghost Train sections added this year. There's loads of heavy-handed, shoehorned sentences chucked in to try and fill in gaps and problems and issues. Just feels awkward and doesn't work for me. Maybe the wider audience / new visitors will respond to it much better. But from my perspective, it feels very forced and janky. For what it's worth, I've always liked Swarm's area. I know people aren't fans of the basic nature it has of chucking vehicles around and such. But I like the crude simplicity of it. The Swarm are flying aliens, so of course things like planes and helicopters (flying things) will have been targeted. Emergency services bring safety, but The Swarm have attacked the fire, police and ambulance services, so they're not safe. A church is usually thought of as a safe haven, but that's been ripped apart and almost serves as the base of The Swarm. It's simple, crude and not very subtle. But it conveys the message and theme effectively: we're in an apocalypse and no where is safe. And that's fine.

Really and truthfully, the area theme for Swarm makes no sense. At face value, it seems to be some sort of attack from alien creatures that can fly. They've bought down planes and helicopters because they own the sky. The emergency services are under attack and useless too. Great. But, if you follow the story laid out by the TV screens, this mysterious attack is happening at Thorpe Park. Okay, cool. But this leads to a variety of questions: Why's there a church at Thorpe Park? Or a billboard advertising paracetamol? (Actually, this is the park with Colossus in, so that makes sense.... ). And why are there TVs reporting the news at a theme park? And why is it being reported in such a blasé fashion? And why are we willingly going to ride these creatures? Obviously I'm going OTT here and this is all light hearted. And none of it really matters, when at its core it's a classic destruction theme. But it highlights again the mish-mash of thoughts that are going on. And if you want to create something that has 'immersive storytelling' throughout, you can't have that going on. The TVs and news report were likely a late-on decision done to try and add something to the queue line to make it more interesting. Arguably the main queue line doesn't need it as there's enough to watch to keep people entertained. I wonder if they've just given up on them after realising sticking TVs in a queue line exposed to all the elements isn't the best idea. On a related note, which I might be incredibly slow in realising, but is the woman from the news reports in the queue line videos...Kay Burley?!

The Lego Mythica area opened last month. I went to Legoland Friday evening for an Annual Passholder event (was very quiet, but largely because of the downpour of rain all day). Flight of the Sky Lion was my first flying theatre and it was pretty decent. A very fast paced experience for the film. At times it would have been nice to just take things in a bit more a 'fly' around (which I hear other such rides do a bit more?). I sometimes struggle with a bit of a motion sickness of some motion simulators, but this was fine, though I felt a bit queazy about 3/4 of the way through. My biggest pet peeve is the fact you can see the edge of the screen at the top, and the roof as a result. It's particularly jarring given the screen extends to the floor, so looking down to fine, but looking towards to top is a bit awkward. Not sure if this is a common problem with flying theatres though..? The queue line, as already pointed out, is pretty dreadful. I hate to think what it's like on a hot day.. The Mythica land is solid as well. Well presented and nice theming, plus bringing attention to a previously quieter part of the park. Definitely think it's much better than the originally planned Lego Movie World would have been too. All in all, an impressive addition to the park. Would recommend giving a shot.

I know @ChessingtonSam mentioned it in the 2021 topic, but Swarm has received new audio, from Nick Hutson: I believe he did the Swarm Invasion audio loop for Fright Nights last year. I quite liked that, so hopefully it's just an extension to that. As Sam pointed out, the telephone box features a snippet of Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe before cutting to a phone ringing. An attempt at humour no doubt, but misses the mark for me... I will be the grumpy git that points out if you want an area / attraction to feature "immersive storytelling", that is something that has to be incorporated from the offset and designed with a lot of care. It's not something that can be retrospectively slapped onto something willy nilly.

Hmmm, I wouldn't say it's gotten continually worse. It's easy to think that, but since about 2019 there's been an improvement in ride uptime generally at Thorpe I'd say, not to mention ride's largely being on fully capacity all the time (which certainly wasn't the case a few years back). However, it certainly didn't get worse at one point. But the bigger issue is that it was never great to start with. If you were to go back 10 years on this forum and look at what people complained about, it would always be about reliability and capacity. The Fastrack situation at Thorpe is pretty dire at the moment. Part of it I think is down to staff not using the system properly; not scanning tickets or taking priority passes. This means that the number of tickets in use is greater than what is actually allocated. Couple that with the fact that the allocation seems to be too high for what the park can cope with at the moment, and it's a recipe for disaster. Given Thorpe are trialling (and will presumably keep) increasing capacity on rides too, I imagine they won't think to reduce Fastrack numbers either. There have definitely been off peak / quieter days. After the Easter break in April, the park was reasonably quiet on weekdays. Same in early May. One difference compared to a normal season though is that the quieter days this year are busier than in previous years. Likely in part due to people not being able to travel, being pent up and wanting days out, etc. June weekdays are never exactly quiet, with university students usually finished and Thorpe being the prime target market for them. Expand that to people want a day out with nice weather for summer, and they're livelier days. Don't get me wrong, they were never as bad as they've been recently, but they certainly weren't dead quiet either. Next month I fear will be the worst. School trips seem to be happening again, and I imagine there will be a school trip season happening for the parks this year. They're a nightmare at the best of times...

I'm of the understanding that the trial of no gaps between groups is happening on appropriate Thorpe rides; that is, Colossus, Walking Dead and Tidal Wave in particular. Why Colossus was still leaving a gap between groups is anyone's guess. Not quite sure what the rule is on Saw and Inferno as to whether they'll be seating groups of 2 side by side again. In other news, Vortex is currently closed and I believe will be down for quite a while.

Sounds like the park / higher up Merlin H&S teams have done appropriate risk assessments and the like and decided now is the time to see if this works. It's strange timing given it occurs around the time the government will almost-definitely announce a delay to the next lockdown easing. But possibly coincidental too. Hopefully the park don't receive too much backlash over it. For what it's worth, I think social distancing on rides is a pretty pointless concept. If someone has Covid and is sat at the front of a coaster train going 50mph, for example, it doesn't matter if you're sat in the row behind them or the back of train, you're still probably going to come into contact with particles that they may spread. And even then, if you're outside and wearing masks, the likelihood of transmission is extremely low. With all the information we have, social distancing on rides should have been scrapped long ago. If not the back end of last year, definitely at the start of this season. At this point, it's really only something that's being done for show.

The ultimate issue with Merlin's RAP system is that so many people use it. Getting a system that is used and works properly (be that the current system Thorpe have, but staff actually filling out cards properly, or a Qbot/virtual queue system, or something else) is only half the battle. The RAP system, along with free carer tickets, etc, is essential to allow everyone to go and enjoy the parks regardless of any disabilities they may have. As much as people may bemoan the impact the poor running of those systems impacts that standard guest, it is effecting those who actually need RAPs much more, and really the parks are failing them. That's a huge problem.

I get why people are annoyed with Merlin. But at the same time, isn't this what businesses do? If a supermarket has a monopoly on an area, and another supermarket comes and tries to set a branch up, wouldn't the original supermarket do whatever it could to stop that supermarket marching in on its territory? You could argue as well that Merlin's reasoning is pretty fair, given they seem to arguing against an issue with how the application was submitted, as opposed to the application itself (as I understand it). Can see why they'd be miffed if they want a level playing field in that respect, even if it is a low move from them. In some twisted way, this kind of is a positive thing, no? It shows that Merlin see the London Resort as a more credible and possible thing now. If they didn't think this would happen, then surely they wouldn't waste their time with this. I still am in the 'I'll believe it when I see it' camp, but yeah, it's a positive thing in some way. Also, it's not exactly like Merlin are trying to steamroll a tiny family business and make them bankrupt, they're going against another huge company with a ton of money too. Ultimately, it's a bit of a low blow move, but it's business.

Park is clearly very busy, with continual extended closing hours. The once-4pm closes have been 5 or 6pm, with tomorrow a 7pm closure, and the weekend 8pm. Next week has been pushed to 5pm but I expect that will probably be extended again at some point:

I'm hoping that the Fright Nights hours listed at the moment (9pm close) are just conservative because of potential changes that could happen because of Covid and those restrictions. We've seen that under normal circumstances there's demand for 10pm closes, and if current form is to go on, the park is going to be popular enough to demand it.

Thorpe have announced that every day up to 20th June will see closing extended by an hour, meaning 6pm closes on weekdays and 7pm closes on weekends. The park looked extremely busy today with many '90+ min' queues advertised. It's a catch 22 situation at the moment - it's good to see the park popular and attraction people, but a shame to see they don't seem to be able to handle the crowds fully. Currently it is back to the 5pm/6pm cycle from the 21st, which is when the ParkVibes event is due to start. I expect those hours have yet to be finalised and will be at least 6pm every day...hopefully longer.

So it appears that the Ramses dark ride is gone, and a big new investment is taking its place next year: https://www.facebook.com/parkstaste/posts/938052480313010 Some rumours suggest a Jumanji family roller coaster, with indoor and outdoor sections.

If you go to the Island Ticket Centre (the building to the left of the entrance arch), you can book time slots there using the self service machines. Alternatively, there are posters around the park with QR codes you scan. These are outside the entrances of the attractions, and there's usually a set in the Dome or outside the Dome, near guest services. The slots usually go quite quickly so it's probably better to get them towards the start of the day.

It's a thing. A very rare thing, but a thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquagenic_urticaria Here's an interesting article about someone who suffers with the 'allergy': https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160915-the-woman-who-is-allergic-to-water Calling it an allergy probably isn't the most medically accurate word, but it's a fair description of the reaction that occurs.

I think 2, but I didn't stick around long enough or have a good enough look to say that with certainty. I believe there were issues with some delivery issues for parts related to the fire effect, so I don't think it's actually installed / set up. It's possible they might have been able to install it whilst the ride was closed, but I doubt it. So I expect we won't actually see it until next year now. When it is used, I'd expect the plan is for it to happen all the time, rather than just peak periods.

Yep, was on park earlier and can confirm it opened around lunchtime. Unsurprisingly attracted a very long queue. I'd estimate 2.5-3hrs, wait no, sorry, 90mins+ based on how it's operated currently.

This is what I feared was the case. I also think that last year the maximum capacity was significantly lower at first, and slowly climbed up. Not sure whether this year's capacity is the same as the highest capacity we saw last year, but in any case, I don't think we ever saw the park 'full' last year either? It's a massive shot in the foot for the park. And as said earlier, I think the parks now need to take stock and either reduce capacity of their parks or increase ride capacity again. They simply cannot carry on in their current form imo

Thorpe have submitted a planning application(!) regarding the entrance plaza. It's nothing exciting, just confirming that the current set up is to be used for this year and that they're looking at improving it: https://www.facebook.com/thorpeparkmania/posts/10165652602070624

I'm hearing that if all goes well it should open within the next few days. As many will suggest, if a ride closes and no visible work is happening, it usually means they're waiting on a part. If to say the part needed to be made to order, that can take a while. So with work now going on at the ride, that suggests a pretty quick turnaround which is good to see. Rotten luck that it had to be closed during the hottest, busiest week of the year.

I believe it is currently waiting on a part. I think it's been removed from the app, so will probably be down for a while. Rotten timing given the weather and it being half term. This is a dreadful idea in my opinion. Despite what many people think, queue prediction is hard. Few parks actually manage to do it well in my opinion. At the moment, it is even more volatile thanks to Covid and social distancing (or lack thereof). I imagine this idea is being tried for the following reasons: 1. They don't know what the queue times are when they're very long 2. They're getting a lot of complaints because of long advertised queue times When it comes to solving problem 1, there's not much they can do short term. The park is busy, queues will be long. But that in itself is a problem. A quick look on social media suggests that plenty of people feel that numbers aren't being restricted enough for Covid. Should the park, in future, be restricting numbers more? Should they now be looking at relaxing social distancing measures on rides (filling up all seats / rows)? The second problem is more insightful to their thought process. Anyone who's filled out one of the park's survey machines will know that you're asked a question to the effect of 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. This is a pretty big KPI that all the Merlin parks (and likely parks outside of Merlin) are interested in. Presumably, at the moment, they're getting a very high percentage of people answering "Yes" to 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. They've probably also noticed that "Rides per head" (the average number of rides each person has ridden) is low. As such, one possible conclusion that could be drawn is that "People aren't riding rides and saying that queueing has spoilt their day. We're advertising long queue times, so maybe people are put off by the long queue times". The solution there is then to not advertise long queue times, but instead advertise a minimum waiting time. That might not be what has happened. To be honest, I'd be surprised if there's people looking into KPI scores and probing in that way to come to that conclusion in that way. But it's a possible thought process. Equally, it could just be that they're getting a ton of complaints of 'The queues are all saying they're 2 hours'. As Matt says, people will not see the '+' here, and just assume a 90 minute queue. People leave common sense at the door when going to a theme park. There's another problem I've skirted around here. Operations in general. In my experience this year, they've been a mixed bag. Certainly not as bad as they have been in recent years, but not as good as they should be. Why that is, I don't know. But they need to come up with practical solutions to be able to get more consistent operations that are sensible and in line with what the rides can achieve, and with what the park needs. As for the more specific topic at hand... 1. If this is a trial to see if '90+' works, I hope they see it doesn't work, and they see that quickly. 2. If there's concerns about accuracy, introduce broader time frames, especially for higher values. 3. Work on actually make queue times accurate. More on this below. 4. The park need to understand that, ultimately, long queues are happening To expand on these points... 2. Perhaps they should introduce ranges like '90-100', '100-120', '120-150', '150-180'. When a queue is at that high level, it doesn't matter if it's 120 or 140 really, it's still a 2-2.5hour commitment of your day. Next to no one is going to enter a 140 minute queue, and then check their watch just before boarding and go 'Ooh, well that queue only took us 137 minutes, great job!' 3. I'm sure some remember a trial that happened on Saw a few years back to improve queue time accuracy. This would display queue times accurate to the minute, rather than in increments of 5-10 minutes. There's more details on this technology, provided by a company call Headmapper, here: http://www.headmapper.com/case-studies Interestingly, there is also a report which outlines how successful the trial was in 2015, which is largely positive. The technology was again used in 2017 for another trial. One reason why it didn't seem to carry on was costs involved with the product. Another is because it's a bit of faffy system which requires fixed cameras at certain locations (when usually, cameras are need to be moveable for security purposes)....so it would involve the costly installation of more cameras. So if the park really wants to improve queue accuracy and have a positive impact on people's day out, they could put their money where their mouth is and fork out for this. But then that still doesn't address the above point. And why spend out so much for something that doesn't tackle all the issues here. There are alternatives though, which are much cheaper. However, getting people within the park to get on board with the idea that queue accuracy is important is much harder than one might expect. So unless there's a shift in philosophy on that, this will never happen. 4. I'm not saying that the park don't know that long queues happen, or that they're bad or anything. But from my experience, there's a certain fear in acknowledging that the park will have long queues, and that this impacts that all important aforementioned KPI. Instead, there's an over-focus on improving queue accuracy, short term incentives to ride staff for improving throughputs and other weird stuff. Instead, there should be an acceptance that queues will be long as it stands and looking at ways to sustainably ensure that this causes minimal impact to someone's day. This should include making queues more interesting to be in, investing in the park so there's more things to do and making the park a more pleasant place to be in outside of the rides. And that should happen on top of the park improving queue accuracy and throughputs. Even if that should be a secondary focus. --- Wow, that was a bit of rambling rant. I'm sure some people on here know this is something I've had prior involvement in in one way or another. and even if not, it's probably clear I have some level of interest in this at a deeper level. Obviously there's many issues here, and many of them are long term, costly things to sort out. It's worth looking at short term alternatives, as well as little things that can be trialled in the short term to get a gauge on if they work. But honestly, this is the equivalent of sticking a used plaster on a wound that needs stitches. In short, the park need to acknowledge that they will always have long queue times, invest in the park to improve the number of things people can do, have queue lines be more interesting to be in and put some actual thought into how to estimate queue lengths over just picking a number out of thin air

Efteling's long-term outline plan (up to 2030) has finally been approved, roughly six years after it was first conceived, and 3 years after the first plans went in: The plan in particular includes an extension to the park itself, as crudely outlined here: Some may remember talks of a circus themed area, including a launch coaster, being the plan for part of this area, with that originally hoped to open in 2020 or 2021. I believe this is still on the table (some rumours even suggest the project has been tendered and track manufactured). However, because of the financial impacts of the pandemic, don't expect that, or nay big new things, any time soon, as everything is currently on hold, as outlined in this new video from the park: Efteling is a huge park and has a huge draw. In 2017-2019, they were getting over 5.2 million visitors each year. Covid will have slashed those numbers significantly. Without investment, and with all restrictions lifted, I'd imagine they would still easily get back to at least 4.5 million visitors a year. But with competition in the Netherlands and Belgium ever improving, and it being a dense market, I do feel that if they want to get back to pre-pandemic numbers quicker, a big investment should happen sooner rather than later.

There were rumours that Walliams World was meant to be a two-year investment. First year, have the basic area retheme and star attraction of the area, second year extra stuff. So I guess there's an off chance that the Driving School was planned to be rethemed for the second year, or scrapped for new Walliams rides. Whether that was ever the plan, or if it still is the plan after Covid, is anyone's guess right now.