JoshC.

They're definitely temporary as they're there because there's work going on there. The first set of fences blocks of the area, a second set because there's a deep hole. Whether they'll be replaced with permanent fencing or what is unclear. How long the fences will be there is the bigger question.

Park seems to have bought a few misters for around the place: Weird to get them towards end of summer, but better late than never (equally could have been delays outside their control). But if they have bought and own them, it should be easier to then get them out in future. Also, the Hyperia stage is outside Ghost Train, presumably ready for Oktoberfest prep: With Oktoberfest starting a week today, it does continue to show, in my opinion, that Oktoberfest is very much just a side quest style event that is the middle child of Thorpe's current line up. Whilst I like the idea, I question the worth of it moving forward.

Stage is completely gone, fans/misters on queue line, and work going on around the queue:

Was still like this on Monday.

Just don't break it, or Stealth, thanks.

I'll stick it in this thread. It looks like Rumba, despite closing early, is returning next year: Whether this is cost cutting or to start on a renovation, who knows.

On the topic of Make Your Mark / putting your own Easter Eggs in mazes, I think we can thank/blame @Glitch:

Yeah, seems likely to be related to the lift hill. Could just be Mack doing some checks following modifications made during the down period earlier in the year. Could be tweaks made ahead of Fright Nights. Could be lighting bits. In short, could be anything. Obviously wasn't the original plan, but seems to be a necessary thing. Hopefully it doesn't cause issues.

The way I see it, writing an email to Thorpe to explain one's frustration and how it could have been avoided takes me no longer than writing a post on a forum, or even a thread of tweets. That form of feedback can be stored and reflected on much more than forum posts and social media tweets, for example, and can be seen by those who have more of an ability to make change happen. Obviously everyone uses time in their own way, but giving direct written feedback is the best way I can see, as a guest, of offering an insight into a poor experience and how it could have been avoided.

You can judge a coaster by its cover. Vekoma SLC? Yeah, that'll be rubbish. Nu-Vekoma? Yeah, that'll be fun, smooth, possibly slightly over-engineered. Intamin multi-launch? That'll be good. 20+ year old B&M? Will be intense, little head-banging, showing its age, but still fab. It's not a perfect rule, but you will get a good idea of what you're getting just by looking at the coaster. The less you know, the better. Let me tell you a story. Late 2008. Corkscrew at Alton Towers was about to be removed for a new coaster to open in 2010. A 14 year old JoshC was told that that coaster would have vertical drop track, but keep that secret. Tbf, many people ended up being able to piece that together long before that was revealed in March 2010, but I had known almost 18 months before that official reveal. It was almost 3 years from finding out about Thirteen's secret that I actually rode it. And don't get me wrong, I like Thirteen. But imagine how much more I'd have enjoyed it if I didn't know? Never say "I won't get there". Moreso when you're younger, it's easy to think "I won't ever get the chance to get to that theme park". Again, I remember thinking that about Phantasialand when I was younger, and watching POVs of (and reading all about) Winjas. And, like Thirteen, I ended up riding it, liking it, but knowing all its secrets beforehand. It would have been so much more cool had I known nothing going in. So yeah, never think you won't go to a park, or won't ride a ride...as long as it's open, there's a chance. Enthusiasts are great. There's some amazing people who are enthusiastic about coasters, who are just lovely. It's a great community to be a part of. Enthusiasts suck. For balance. There some awful people who are enthusiastic about coasters, who just grate you and everyone around you. It's a minority, but it's a fact of life. Roller coaster element names are stupid. I still don't know what a step-up-under-flip actually is, and frankly I don't care. Nor do I know what a dragon roll is. Is there an element called a twisted knot? Who knows. And what the bloody heck is a jo-jo roll? And why is it called a banana roll; it doesn't roll and doesn't look like a banana?! (In saying that, Untamed's 270° double inverting corner stall - affectionately the 270° dics - remains my favourite inversion, by on-ride experience and name) Don't let anyone else tell you how to enjoy your hobby. You want to only visit Merlin parks and lap Mandrill Mayhem for the rest of time because it's your favourite coaster? Cool. You don't count creds? Fine. You only ride thrill rides, and don't bother with kiddie ones? Perfect. There will be people (in some instances, more light-heartedly) who tell you you should do this, should do that, or say "Why do you do that??". But you do you.

The stage and equipment almost definitely will be used for Oktoberfest and Fright Nights. As for actors, I don't think anyone would have expected the show to happen over FN, as actors are simply needed for the event. They might be used for Oktoberfest, Ghost Train, Walking Dead or simply training sessions for Fright Nights. If "scary scares" aren't those actors' thing, and they aren't suited to the Amity dance show (which will presumably return), they'd probably end up relocating to Chessington tbh.

Looks like the Hyperia show might have ran its course.

Naturally because I've posted today that it's been closed for ages, it's re-opened today. Currently has a queue which stretches almost to the Teacups!

I had the same thought, but can't be sure either way. Still digging around to find out. Over Fright Nights it closes at dusk in any case. Rumba is an interesting one at the moment. It's been closed for an extended period of time, and that's sort of flown under the radar. Many of my recent visits it's just been sat there, although on Thursday it was testing, with staff in all Watcher positions. Saturday again it was dormant. Two weeks to get it back open. Thorpe did say earlier in the year, on the Facebook passholder group, that it's a seasonal attraction. I guess it makes sense; it's a staff intensive attraction that is out the way and will have a low ridership in autumn. A different kettle of fish to, say, Tidal Wave, which though expensive to run and has low autumnal ridership, is very prominent. Too prominent to close. Remember in 2020 when Rumba was 'transformed' for Oktoberfest into the Oompah Rapids? That feels a lifetime ago, and now it's closed for basically the whole event. The park need to do something with it. Realistically, the park lack a mid-level water ride; one that gets you wet, but not too wet. Rumba and Storm Surge are rides on water, but barely get you wet. Updating Rumba, with new boats and effects, could work. The other option would be the scrap it entirely and put a new ride there. With some work, they could create a closed water system there and put in a new water ride (new gen log flume with restraints?), but it won't be cheap. The issue for Thorpe right now is they still have Slammer SBNO, next to the big new thing, they've got flat rides which are nearing 25 years old, they've got an elephant in Ghost Train, which surely can't operate as is until the end of the decade, and coasters seem to be the main draw to the park. Where in all that do they fit in a Rumba replacement? So the bigger question is: do they drag our Rumba as much as possible, rolling the proverbial turd in a bit of glitter, or do they take the hit and SBNO-it, hiding it behind a few extra trees? Neither is ideal, but it feels like we're leaning more towards the latter.

I mean, Phantasialand used to be worse. The park had a closing time, and they would close queue lines as and when, depending on queue length. You simply had no clue, and would have to keep an eye on queue times and try and time things right. 15 minutes after the advertised park close, the whole park would be deserted. Efteling was similar. They have improved, fortunately, but other parks have historically have had issues, but have learnt and improved from them. I guess the obtuse response here is a theme park is fluid; things change. You were in a position where you were given information (you were in the ride queue when you were told the queue line was closing soon). You could have chosen to cut your loses slightly, leave the queue, then rejoin, giving you the chance for a night ride. You'd have wasted some time, but you would have been able to use the information given to you to allow the night ride. As I say, it's an obtuse answer, and not a good scenario (and I hate this suggestion), but you had the most up to date information and made a decision. Not to be facetious, but have you raised / are you raising a complaint with the park? It's clear that Thorpe do see social media discourse (including the forums), but they will take further notice of a complaint which can be passed onto the relevant departments properly. I've raised a complaint this year about the inaccuracy of the height measuring sticks across the park. I've noticed that the more accurate / consistent slider measures are now in place at rides following my complaint. Now I know that they didn't read my email, and immediately order slider measures, place them clearly at rides and encourage ride staff to use them. But I like to think they've taken notice of that complaint, and similar ones people have made, to make the decision to address that complaint. Obviously it's not my place to tell someone whether they should lodge a formal complaint or not, and I'm sure if the Head of Customer Services is reading these forums they're cursing my name at the fact I'm actively encouraging people to flood the customer services inbox. But I genuinely believe it is the best thing to do (certainly much better than going on social media saying Thorpe Park are lying, when it's simply people behind a screen giving out stock answers which they're given, and can't do anything about)

The app does also say that "all Hyperia queue lines will close prior to the advertised park closure time". It is mixed messaging, but equally it is there. The question is: how do the park create a clear communication line? Does the app need "opening hours" for every ride, especially ones which are scheduled to be open from open to close? Could the park remove that? Equally, what more can the park do to push that Hyperia's queue line could close earlier, at any time? People don't read the information, or have been conditioned to ignore it (because, more often than not, the queue line does close at park close). The park obviously have reasons for wanting to close the queue line early. Why that is is unclear. Could be engineering, staffing, etc. Obviously with Fright Nights around the corner, there's questions as to whether this will be a regular occurrence. If people want to, say, do the mazes then get a night ride on Hyperia, it feels like it'll be a difficult to get timings right for people, given the issues they have with timing on mazes. I understand the want for a night ride. But just take a step back. You got a ride at some point after 8.20pm. That's good, right? At worst, that's a ride happening at dusk. A ride at a time that wouldn't have been possible so far except on opening day. And you may also have gotten other rides during the day. Your complaint boils down to the fact that the lack of communication meant you couldn't get another ride? As I say, take a step back. Don't get me wrong, the communication can be improved, and it has left a sour taste for some, but saying something like this: feels like an over-reaction to the situation. The park have extended opening hours, with much of the park being quiet during those extended hours (likely due to poor weather), at a time when other parks within Merlin have cut opening hours and have reduced ride selection. Whilst your experience left a poor final impression, there's a huge oversight on all the positives from yesterday.

Fairly certain there's no curfew beyond the usual one for all Thorpe rides (which is like after 11pm). So they wouldn't be anywhere near that

Today was the first 9pm closure, and it should be said it was a fab day. It's a shame as the weather seems to have put people off. Today was probably the quietest day I've seen the park this summer. This did have the upside that there were short queues; everything was more or less a walk on from 7.30, Hyperia aside. I guess the issue with a late closure is, if there's no extra entertainment/reason to stay later, people won't. We see with Fright Nights people stay. But something like this, there is no incentive to visit and stay late beyond more ride time. And some people may think "longer open hours = busier = longer queues". On the flip side, I hope it improves guest satisfaction further. There's another thing to be discussed: Hyperia. Hyperia is still advertised, as it has been since reopening, as possibly closing before the park does. It has done this on some days, and others it's remained opened till close (or even a few minutes after). The ride closed its queue at 8.30. It was advertised as a 40min queue (which was about right). So the park are well within their rights to do this. There was also an announcement in the area at 8.20 this was happening, as people were loitering. There's quite a few complaints on Twitter circulating because of this. It's a layered one, as I do think that they could.improve their communication here. The other side of the coin is the reason they close earlier is because they want to stop a mad rush of people going and extending the queue time dramatically. A lot of the complaints I'm seeing are from people who wanted to get a night ride on Hyperia and were leaving it as late as possible. I see the frustration that people have, but I also see it from the park's perspective too. Ultimately I think it's a minority of park visitors who are complaining about it, but the park should also see if there's an alternative way to communicate an early closure. To get back to the main point though. 9pm closure good. Thank you Thorpe. Great job. Let's hope it proves successful.

The 'Make Your Mark' extra was a thing last year too. If memory serves me correctly, options included being able to have your name on a door in Death's Doors, your name being included on the food products in the Brainsburys scene in Trailers and others. It is free money for them effectively; printing a name on a piece of paper / cardboard and sticking that there. Take a photo of it, make a simple digital certificate of authenticity and bam, profit. The platinum options are a bit more involved and actually pretty cool. The Trailers "have a film poster with your name on" one meant you had some say in the design of the poster (I guess a simple "what sorta film would you be in"). You would get a level of say in the design of the graffiti tag in the new maze. The Graveyard Cross in Crows is something that would be seen a lot and recognised more too. The big question...why? Well, in recent years, "Easter Eggs" have been a huge thing in Merlin attractions. Some are more in your face, others are more subtle. By doing that and, with Thorpe in particular via Jack Silkstone videos, drawing attention to them, it makes people want one of their own. People will willingly pay £15 to have their name in a maze. They might try and find it, but if they've got a photo of it and certificate saying their name is there, they get the bragging rights, which is all they want. The big kicker is that the Silver and Gold ones are tiny. Let's have a look at the Silver options Stitches – Naughty or Nice Christmas list Trailers – Staff notice board Survival Games – Leaderboard Ask yourself two questions for each of those (if you've done the maze): 1. Do you know where that specific theming piece is? 2. Could you name any of the names on there? For Survival Games, I could not tell you where the Leaderboard is (maybe this is something they're adding in). The other two maze, I've seen, and only had the chance to read names thanks to Press Night runs. At the moment, they feature actual names of people involved in the creation of the mazes, rather than people who paid for it. For those people on the original props, it's a nice "Hey, I helped build this, and I've got my name in there". For everyone else, if you see them, it's a nice little extra prop. Let's look at the Gold options: Stitches – Name a toy Trailers – Name a doll Survival Games – Name a cell All three of those are easier to know where they are, but seeing a name there is much harder. Again, 95% of people won't notice any names on them. The whole Easter Egg culture has spiralled a bit. In the past, they were just something you could put in and no one would be none the wiser. Some designers like to put their name somewhere in attractions, like a signature. Now it's becoming an expected thing, and people hunt for them and want to know where they are, which worries me a bit, as it can distract from the experience. The one that stands out to me is how it was mentioned that in Survival Games, one of the scenes features a severed penis that's labelled JS, an Easter Egg to Jack Silkstone. When people found out about this, people were looking out for it more than focusing on the scene it was in. People are weird. I do hope people don't do that with their own names. [In saying all this, I'd've loved my name on a cross in Crows. Yes I'm weird. No, I make no apologise. But I didn't buy one]

Rode this yesterday and was surprised to see that, once inside, there was still a queue of people in there, going down the cattlepen ramp (filling up two rows of it). The way it was running, it meant there was a solid 15 minute wait there. Ignoring the fact that goes against the story set up (we're being rushed in because of a Walker attack), it also just grates having to stand in a queue where you're hearing a huge siren/crash every couple of minutes. The whole indoor walkway is more of a scare maze scenario, and standing in it simply isn't ideal. Don't mind a couple of trains' worth wait (helps in case there's a delay with pre-show or people being slow getting to the station), but the huge wait was a faff. Also caused operational issues as it meant groups of people who joined through the SRQ then clumped together, and rode together. I was in a group of 3, and we ended up being split across 2 different trains. This isn't the first time this has happened admittedly, but it's only been something that's I've experienced once or twice before. I hope this isn't a regular occurrence now, as operationally it doesn't make sense, it's annoying to queue in there, and it goes against the story (I doubt AMC, who are known to be very strict with how their Walking Dead attractions operate, would be happy, for example!)

Hi all! After an undetermined period of time, we have launched a completely new version of the main Thorpe Park Mania website: https://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/ Huge shout out to @Marc who has done wonders with the design of it all. With the new site, we have temporarily lost a lot of our old news articles, but these are slowly being added back. Equally, we're still adding in more content over the coming days/weeks/months. We have a couple of new articles: our Ghost Train BTS and Colossus Lift Hill Walk, with more to come. We're also building up one of the most extensive Fright Nights archives out there. We'll be adding to it continually over the next few months, but check it out here: https://www.thorpeparkmania.co.uk/index.php/fright-nights/ As always, feedback is welcome, especially any issues you see, or anything else you'd like to see on there.

What a world we live in where we can buy the opportunity to have our names written in mazes. I'd love to do it (they have a Trailers one where you can have a poster designed for you and put in the lobby), but money. Here's the options in full: Silver Option - £15 Stitches – Naughty or Nice Christmas list Trailers – Staff notice board Survival Games – Leaderboard ‘Project Sophie’ – Guest List Includes a digital certificate. Names will feature once in the maze selected during the 2024 Fright Nights event. Buy before 8th September to be included the 2024 event. Gold option - £35 Stitches – Name a toy Trailers – Name a doll Survival Games – Name a cell ‘Project Sophie’ – Name a bottle Includes a digital certificate. Names will feature once in the maze selected during the 2024 Fright Nights event. Buy before 8th September to be included the 2024 event. Platinum options: Crows Graveyard Cross: £45 (5 spaces available) Trailers movie poster in exit lobby: £120 (5 spaces available) Project Sophie tag on graffiti wall: £120 Also, this: Feels a bit rushed / lacking of QA that when you go through to the purchasing options, there's no pictures or descriptions. Shouldn't go live like that in my opinion. As for what Project Sophie could be, as @MattyMoo says, I'm wondering if we're going to see a party gone wrong vibe. Start of the maze is you trying to get into a party, waiting "outside" alongside graffiti-ed walls, and you can only get in if you're on the guest list. You then end up sneaking in, and then it turns out the party is a front for something more sinister, or something goes wrong. The bottles could simply being bottles of 'alcohol'. If this wasn't Thorpe, I'd suggest the maze could be a massive drug trip at a party, but that seems too risqué for them. I've experienced something similar with the Hostel maze at Movie Park Germany. It starts off as a massive party atmosphere (not too dissimilar to the film), before it completely switches to the horror side in a flash. Something like that could be done really well.

Death's Doors currently hasn't been constructed. This time last year, the set was complete (unsure how much of the tech stuff was rigged up). This was presumably done because of the amount of man hours needed to build Stitches. Which then begs the question, what's the deal now? -Is Death's Doors returning? -Has the park's technical team grown? -If Death's Doors isn't returning, is a new scare zone taking its place? Or is the new maze effectively taking its place? I'm finding it particularly interesting that there's been minimal activity at Black Mirror from the outside. When mazes have been built in that location in the past, it's been a hive of activity outside. Obviously UVE are the ones building the attractions these days, so I guess a lot of the buck and planning stops with them.

Tbf I don't think anyone realistically thought we'd get anything taller than Stealth at Thorpe back in 2013. You'd definitely would have had people scoff at you if, back then, you suggested the next coaster was still 11 years away, and would have been a chain lift coaster taller than Stealth.

I felt like backwards seating was addressed by him saying "It wouldn't be comfortable". Equally, we know anything is possible. And during Swarm's construction, they explicitly said there would never be a backwards row, so it became a bit of a long-standing joke. So by not out right saying no, it covers the slim possibility it will happen. As for Project Exodus being considered up to 500ft... I'd imagine 500ft was sort of thrown around in a brainstorming sort of phase. Like: "What if we wanted to build the WORLD'S tallest roller coaster?" "Well, the tallest at the moment is 456ft. So we'd have to beat that...what if we went up to 500ft?" "Saudi Arabia are looking at building the tallest/fastest/longer coaster and that's going to be above 500ft" "Hmmm yeah, this sounds a bit much" Realistically I doubt they ever considered anything anywhere close to 500ft, but it's a cool number to throw around for the wider audience. Also, in terms of practicalities, it's just not. I'd love to know what their early brainstorms were like though. I wouldn't be surprised if they did genuinely table ideas of "Tallest non-launched coaster in the world" (ie beating Fury 325) or "Europe's tallest hyper coaster" (ie: what Hyperion was marketed as at opening). The latter isn't too crazy to consider either: Hyperion is only 17ft taller. Presumably, budget, space, engineering considerations, impact to the local area (noise) and more would be what stopped that happening.