JoshC.

So thoughts and notes from yesterday, which was a "VIP preview" for the season, where the park was open 10-3. -We're light on changes. A couple of tweaks to F&B is really all that is "new" -Repaints for part of Colossus and Depth Charge look nice. The small side of the Beach looks nice, also repainted, but it highlights the grime of the large side. -Hyperia grass is nice. Could be extended more. They've added benches to the plaza which isn't a bad idea, but they're atop the wings on the ground, which irks me a bit. -Many new pieces of merchandise, which are the usual high quality we've come to expect -Hyperia had issues yesterday, in large part due to the cold. Hopefully better today. Stealth had an issue during testing and didn't open. -The park usually stumbles during first day or two of opening, and yesterday wasn't any different, with the cold affecting weather, and reliability being a bit on the weak side, but it did improve. I've been to significantly worse first days. -There's a few other bits and pieces around the park. Solar panels atop Ghost Train (but you only see them if you look for them on other rides). Walking Dead has had creative tweaks to the post-ride section. Some speakers seem to have been fixed. Tweak to end of day of audio. If 2024 was Thorpe's year of improvement, 2025 is their year of stability. That's not a bad thing. But after a couple of years of multiple changes, it will have a different 'new season' vibe to it. The kicker for the park this year will be the quality and reach of marketing. That will be what makes or breaks them this year, with little to shout about in the way of new things

In a shock twist, Toxicator did manage to reopen.

Update: Nemesis and Sub Terra are available, rest of FV is not. EDIT: The park are saying it's a burst pipe near Toxicator and they do not expect it to re-open today I hope that the drain issue is just an unfortunate coincidence with it being on opening day and not an actual design flaw / problem. If it's the latter, that's a not quick or easy fix. Toxicator had an estimated 2-3 queue at opening too. Multiple gour queue for a top spin. People are crazy. Towers openings are getting a reputation right now and it's not a good one. I feel sorry for the staff. There will be plenty of new staff who are getting a baptism of fire right now. And plenty more experienced ones who will be sighing at the thought of starting the season off roughly. But hey, the only way is up from here!

Ahh yes. When they were first listed it was 10% discount but it's since been changed, so 20% likely right. I too was surprised when I learnt how many there are! There's clearly a place and a market for them, but part of the issue now is it's such an over saturated market that there's bound to be struggles. I also expect they naturally have a limited interest with people; very few people will regularly get them.

10% discount, which would suggest that the Harbour isn't being run by Aramark. I know Doughnut Time now broadly has had some financial issues and closed several stores, so that might be why they've changed providers. Am I also right in thinking other Merlin parks (Towers in particular) have used Planet Doughnut recently?

It would certainly still receive some sort of work I'd expect. I don't envision them leaving it dormant for a couple of months and then just switching it back on, as that too would cause issues. It could potentially be down to staffing / saving on staff costs. It could also be that there's simply something that's happened. Skyride is potentially more understandable in my view, as even though it's been testing for a while, since it has been closed for so long, it will effectively be a new ride in terms of training, which may just cause add on with getting open. Obviously that should have been accounted for by the park anyway, but just what I see as a possibility

Yes Stealth they've discussed (re-)adding an SRQ before, but the current batching system works well for the efficiency of the ride and doesn't lend itself to SRQ. And this is the thing. SRQs serve two purposes: 1. Improve utilisation scores (the percentage of seats filled) 2. Give a mild improvement to guest satisfaction scores The first point is the bigger one. SRQs simply do not improve throughputs meaningfully. Let's say Hyperia sends 40 trains an hour, and 1 person from the SRQ goes on each train. That's an increase of 40 people. And without an SRQ, a good batcher could probably fill some of those seats anyway. So it's not really significantly meaningful. Improving utilisation does ultimately look good, and will increase the total ridership, and so ever so slightly improve the "rides per head" score - the average number of rides ridden per guest. But it will be marginal. As for improving guest satisfaction/experience. The number of people using or benefitting from SRQs is generally a tiny proportion of the number of guests. That's not to say parks should ignore them, but it should be remembered that it's again minimal gains. SRQs need to properly and sensibly integrated. That's why Hyperia works. How does one, for example, introduce an SRQ on Nemesis Inferno? There's no clear pathway to the station for it. Any potential batching point is too far away. Similar stories for Swarm and Colossus. As mentioned, Stealth has that natural point, but the current operation of the ride doesn't lend itself to having an SRQ. You could put it into some flat rides, and share the space with Fastrack, but that requires good batching. And bluntly put, Thorpe don't have enough staff who care to be good enough batchers (a trend common at many parks, for the record). So yeah, I don't see any rides having SRQs retrospectively (re-)added any time soon.

I can't remember the last year it opened late into the season? Definitely not any time recently? Closed early in season, yes, but opened late? And if it opens early May and closes late September this year, that's 5 (out of effectively 7) months it's open, not 3. Although yes, theoretically it could end up being open for 3 months. Ultimately this isn't a surprise, although disappointing. Requires a huge number of staff despite low ridership. Massive internal H&S headache given how much fear there is over Rapids ride by H&S folks. The boats still aren't in the trough. I don't think it requires a lot of winter maintenance, and it does add to the park's claim of the "UK's wettest theme park", so it still has a place and value to the park. But they really need to do something to make it a bigger priority for guests to ride.

Do you know where the original source for this claim came from? I've heard it plenty of times, and whilst it wouldn't be outside the realm of believability, part of me wonders if it's just something made up to make things sound worse. I do struggle to understand why it would need engineers working on it literally round the clock. I've also heard its maintenance costs were around the £1m a year mark. Whilst that figure isn't useful by itself (How much do other rides at the park cost? What about other Intamin accelerators?), if that is true, it does indicate its expense.

I've still never been. It's one of those parks which, for me, is far enough away that it was always a "I'll get there at some point", and Megafobia was never a big enough draw for me. Ultimately, for my location, I can get to parks which peak my interest much more - and are no doubt significantly better - in a similar time scale / more easily. Obviously very sad, especially for the staff who will be majorly impacted by the news. I hold out a slight glimmer of hope that it may hold a chance to reopen, by being sold to another company. A big thing to me though is the fact they mention £25m of investment since 2008 - 17 years ago. That really isn't that much money at all. If we believe Flamingo Land, they've spent that much in the last 3 and a bit years. Paultons similarly have probably spent that much since the turn of the decade.

Knock off Nintendo World apparently has a 20 month construction window according to plans, so a closure now would mean they can be ready for 2027. Technically late 2026, but we know it would be 2027.

Oh Goatse, what have I done

Well they can't make it any worse tbf.

Obviously all for development, new attractions, etc. But having two parts of the park closed and under development (Wild Asia and Scorpion Express) does hit and feel pretty significant, even if Scorpion has been closed for years. It's a shame it all has to happen at once, especially given the reduction in Entertainment offering. Hopefully the park have plans to compensate for a good chunk of the park being a construction site. Does risk causing some people feeling short changed otherwise

https://shop.altontowers.com/collections/auction-today Towers are auctioning off 5 off the wheel covers from original Nemesis, which have each been signed by John Wardley. Starting price was £500, going price seems to be levelling out between £750-£1000

Cut it up into 10cm long sections, auction them off at $100 a pop along with a certificate of authenticity, and that'll fund whatever they're replacing it with and line the directors' pockets!

The Hyperia water feature scenario is pretty rubbish. -It's a Creative vs Operations debacle. Creative / MMM seemingly put in a water feature, with little consultation with the park on whether it will be sustainably manageable with their budget / restraints -Of course, why something as relatively simple as a set of water fountains isn't sustainably manageable (it's the same with Swarm) is something which needs asking -The jets haven't worked since...June/July? Why are the park still making a decision of its future? I fully understand how we've got here, but it doesn't make it particularly excusable.

Attraction Source visited Thorpe this week and have some updates: https://www.attractionsource.com/2025/02/18/thorpe-park-2025-closed-season-update/ -Beach work paused, with small side potentially opening this summer -A small area by the Marquee has been designated as a rest area for Guide Dogs -Ghost Train cafe is having more seats installed where the shop was -Colossus repaint: airtime hill, corkscrews and turnaround to the quad twist Definitely a quieter close season compared to last year, but not all that surprising

Et another video, showing the state of the site

Yeah tbf Thorpe have historically had mediocre Passholder days at the start of the season. Their Fright Nights Passholder events in the past were usually well run, but the start of season ones were a cocktail of some or all of the following: first day teething issues, being too busy, having too many RAPs, not everything being ready, expectations being too high. Hopefully the park are aware of past mistakes and have better luck this time round.

The last time I can recall the park opening after 10am was for Fright Nites 2003, when they did 11am-11pm. Still, a long time ago! In any case, it's been a long time since the park did a passholder day, so it's lovely to see them do one again. The thing with these sort of days (ie ones at the start of season) is that the money they don't earn from standard entrance tickets is sort of recouped by the fact passholders tend to spend more than average on their first visit of the year due to new merchandise. Plus, it helps bring value to the annual pass (despite it already being great value) and added satisfaction. So it is win win. A 7pm close giving the opportunity for a dusk ride or two is a lovely bonus too, and it's good to see the park continuing their experiment of offering later closing times. Hopefully that can continue. I also agree about Fright Nights: it would be interesting to see the park explore 11am-10pm at the very least. I don't know how realistic it is to happen, since one of the things that ties the park's hands is the number of under 18s working at the park. Equally, the park simply seem to have veered away from running rides till 10pm: they don't even do it for buy outs or their VIP/Press events. But it would be interesting to see.

Oh 100%! Great to have, and sorely needed.

I eagerly await the reports of a 2+hr queue on opening day, reviews of it being the greatest addition ever, before then settling into the line up as a filler ride which gets lost on the map in a couple of years because it's not a roller coaster.

I genuinely wonder how many people would care if a couple of Sea Lifes and a Dungeon were to disappear off the MAP. Some people, yes. But I reckon they could get away with removing a few attractions off it, keeping the price the same and it would be a tint proportion of people who would really care.

It's certainly hard to be optimistic about the future. Another wave of redundancies has been made apparent. But really, there have been ongoing redundancies since mid-last year across the companies, and the parks knew it was a matter of time before it hit them. But the bigger issue is that this has happened again. I can think of 2-3 instances over the last decade where there has been a notable wave of redundancies. Is it that the company goes through peaks and troughs and they simply haven't found the balance yet? Or are they cutting staff more and more and more? The company's direction has certainly changed though. 10 years ago, it was all about "catching the mouse" and how they were the second-largest visitor attraction company in the world. It was all about expansion. The idea of being the most-visited is not on the table any more. They have had to acknowledge locations which were failures and close them down. The company aren't creating any new Gateway (fka Midway) brand concepts. There's been talk of selling some SeaLife centres. They are very much consolidating the business and going through a huge re-focus. On the note of SeaLifes, it very much seems like the company want to move away from animals. There have been rumours and plans of removing large chunks of the zoo at Chessington. They have focused away from SeaLife in recent years, and are looking to sell more. The current Merlin don't see a monetary / business value in aquaria, so want to move on. That's something that will take time. At the same time, I do wonder if there's cause for...hope, for lack of a better word. Shrinking the business to focus on key assets gives hope that rather than opening an upteenth aquarium or Madame Tussauds, they can put money into parks. Chessington is arguably seeing its most consistent period of investment ever. There's many ifs and buts, but we can cling onto some hope. Of course, there's lots to be worried about. Towers is a shell of itself. Heide Park is stagnant. Thorpe feels stop-start. Redundancies are never good. A chop and change at the top again, although Fiona Eastwood is now the permanent CEO. So who knows what will happen next. Then of course, there's the matter of Universal GB, which could impact our parks. I remain in the camp right now that Universal won't impact the Merlin parks nearly as much as people think, and if anything, the competitiveness and extra eyes of the country as a theme park country will actually help our parks. But I do completely understand people's concerns, and Merlin do have to be smart about it.