JoshC.

With Ghost Train there's plenty of other factors though. -How has the IP contract been affected during Covid? If no sort of extensions have happened, we're surely nearing the end of the contract, and I can't imagine any party really being keen to extend it. So Covid would have effectively closed the ride earlier than planned. -What will the public's faith be in VR in a post-Covid world? -Will there be new cleaning procedures required for VR, and can the park feasibly implement them? Ultimately if its time is coming to an end, it's because of Covid. Sure, there's other factors which could contribute to the closure, but Covid will be the main reason.

Remember the floating train carriage piece of merch which had fans flocking with excitement just under 5 years ago? It's currently on sale at half price: https://shop.thorpepark.com/products/derren-browns-ghost-train-levitating-carriage (I'm sure loads of people know that when a park puts ride specific merch on offer it can be an early sign of a retheme or closure. That's just a coincidence, right........)

And it will only keep on getting bigger! This is the amount of land they have access to, and have mid-term plans to utilise: That's a rather old image from shortly after the park opened. Zadra, Aqualantis and the mine train extend that core part of the park leftwards, but not to the border. Another old (slightly outdated) image shows roughly some plans they have for expansion: The top left part of the image (not colourised) shows the park excluding the expansions of Zadra, Aqualantis and the mine train). Zadra, Aqualantis and the mine train are all in the highlighted red zone, but only cover about 60-70% of it. So after these two areas open, the park still has room to almost double its park size. And on top of that, they have the option to renovate a large part of the original park, which has a strong fairground vibe (and the park have said they acknowledge the need for it to improve in the future).

Abyssus and Aqualantis aren't even finished yet (theming-wise), bu their next coaster now stands completed: https://www.instagram.com/p/CL4Nnc3B3OB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link There's still theming work to be done, and current reports suggest it will be themed to "Sweet Valley", whatever that will entail.. It's thought the original plan was for it to be part of the Dragon Zone Zadra lies in. Rumours point to a 2022 opening. Presumably because of the amount of theming it is to receive. Hard to know whether it's been pushed back because of the delays due to Covid, or whether that was the intention for a while. I'm thinking the former personally. Of course, Zadra was meant to open in 2020, but ended up opening in August 2019, so who knows with this crazy park...

Back open from the 12th: https://www.thorpepark.com/about-thorpe-park/coronavirus/ No word as yet about people who have Shark Cabins bookings. Current stance in what attractions may open: "Please note that some rides, indoor entertainment, actor led experiences, 4D cinemas or meet and greet entertainment may remain closed or have limited numbers when we do reopen. A full list of which rides and activities will be open or closed will be published and announced in due course once the Government regulations are published in full." Worth noting that Legoland have a list of rides opening, and those with indoor queues and stations, such as the Dragon, will not utilise indoor queues, and instead you will be batched at that point. Could be an...interesting system on the likes of Inferno and Saw at Thorpe. Passholders will have a new booking portal, which is coming soon.

About right for this time of year I'd say. Engineers have still been able to work during the Lockdown, and they've had a full closed season. If they were working on an optimistic schedule if being open to open in late March like normal, it would be around now that they would need to get rides staff in for training, etc., and so engineers would be doing their final tests. Noteworthy that Rush still has its top off. When it received major work in the past, it hasn't opened at the start of season. At the moment, I still don't expect it to be able to open on April 12th tbh.

As I'm sure everyone is aware, UK theme parks are set to be allowed to reopen from 12th April (assuming all goes to plan). However, the circumstances are slightly to different to when they reopened last July.. Last time, they were among the last things to reopen. Now, they're opening before indoor restaurants and indoor entertainment, and hotels. Obviously it means no indoor attractions (which is how the Merlin parks started out anyways last year). But it does raise some interesting questions: -How will the parks cope without the ability to offer indoor, sit down restaurants? Will that reflect the number of people they choose to let in? -What will the rules be for rides with indoor stations / that are partially indoors? See, for example, Smiler: will that be allowed to operate? If so, what conditions? -Being open is great, but how will some parks (Towers, Blackpool and Flamingo specifically) fare whilst hotels are closed? Whilst I doubt that these will impact the openings of the parks outright, I certainly think that that first month of opening will be different to how the parks felt last year. Again, take Towers as an example. If rides with indoor sections can't open, that affects Smiler, Th13teen and Galactica. Arguably Wickerman too. But then what of the likes of Nemesis and Oblivion, with their open, more shed-like stations? It's something which certainly could have a huge impact.

Vekoma are teasing something... https://www.instagram.com/p/CLKXsg0BKQo/ Energylandia have mentioned in the past their intention is open a new generation Vekoma Tilt Coaster in 2022, so it could very much be this. But equally, I wouldn't count out a random surprise park announcing some crazy new Vekoma outta nowhere.

Oh yeah, this is testing now. There's some videos about if you want to find them. But enjoy these pictures for now: https://www.facebook.com/walibibelgium/posts/10159130403846276

That POV really shows how much Colossus has changed. Obviously there's water in the cobra roll pit, but there's the inline twists too, where the Saw / Saw Alive land has been infilled, along with the concrete that's appeared around the bottom of the drop too. And yes, the person on the lift hill during operation of the ride is something which would no longer happen at a Merlin park. Those sorts of thing do still happen in parks (usually ones abroad), but in general, it's not something that happens much these days. Different times and all that

Haven't done Europa at all sadly I did do a Plopsaland-Walibi Belgium-Phantasialand-Walibi Holland trip a few years back though, yes (as well as many variations). Trouble I've always had with Europa using own car is justifying the distance, since it's harder to create a sensible loop that went back towards Calais/Dunkirk. Though it's certainly not impossible to do.

That's an interesting, quite spread out trip. I've never actually used public transport for any of those parks, because I've always been in a position that a hire car has been much more sensible. As Benin says, you really would need to look at a car for that trip. Toverland in particular isn't the easiest park to get to with public transport still. But a car is more valuable than just the convenience of getting to some of the more awkward parks. If you're planning on going from Phantasialand to Toverland for example, you have to come up with a plan to travel to a convenient location between the two, which is no easy thing. Either that, or you add in non-park days, but that then ups the cost of the trip. With a car it's much easier to get to the parks and break up the travel appropriately. But then if you hire a car in Germany, I don't know what the rule would be about returning it in Holland (you might be able to, but might be more expensive). And if you can't, that then changes the dynamic of the trip somewhat. If you're flexible with the parks, you do have other options where you could a similar number of parks that are closer together: -You could stick round Stuggart, maybe adding an extra day onto Europa and doing Tripsdrill as well as Holiday Park. -Or you could take off the Dutch parks and do Movie Park Germany instead. -Alternatively, cut Europa/Holiday Park and do Efteling and Movie Park instead. Some of those trips might be a bit more convenient if you want to avoid hiring a car. An out-there suggestion if you want to jump on the new-ride bandwagon would be to take your own car across the channel. You could do Plopsaland and Walibi Belgium, then also do Phantasialand and Netherlands. I've done similar trips to that before, and it's not significantly different to driving times you could potentially be looking at. You avoid the car hire/public transport issues, but obviously there's other issues that come up (insurance, how close you live to a channel crossing, etc). But something to think about if you haven't already! Obviously depends on what you want to do park-wise, but I do think the parks you have lined up at the moment might be a bit optimistic to do effectively, whilst also not breaking the bank.

POV of Abyssus from the park's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=external&v=2577530899208373 And a video, in English, explaining all the new stuff in Aqualantis:

What's this, a post, in the Next Big Thing thread? "Is it spam? Someone making a stupid RMC joke?" I hear you ask. Nope, there has been activity on the local council's planning application website, related to Thorpe Park! For the first time in almost 3 years!! But don't get too excited. Way back in 2017, Thorpe submitted an application to the council to effectively change how they submit for plans for stuff. In short, the current method involves the park having to submit a detailed application for pretty much anything (eg: Containment required planning application, and that's just 2 shipping containers!). Thorpe wanted to change that so they didn't have to submit plans for buildings below 5m in height, or rides below 25m in height (similar to an agreement which Towers have). Decisions and stuff had stalled and there was some opposition to them from local residents. No formal decision has ever been made. A document appeared on the application a couple of months back indicating an extension of time regarding the proposal until the middle of April this year. After that, who knows what will happen. In short, this means nothing for the 'Next Big Thing' as it would presumably exceed 25m in height and require a planning application in any case. But it's still interesting. tl;dr - a boring planning document got an update a couple of months back. It means nothing in the reality of any new investments at the park for now. (but hey, I'm sure I got at least one person excited for a split second )

Ahhh interesting! I made quite a conscious effort to keep things brief as I know that (in general) I have a tendency to waffle on lose focus. And looking back it does seem I still did that with the island blog! The point I was trying to more get across is that the bridge and island concept are things I've always loved and have left a huge impact on me The Island Like No Other branding has been the only time that I've visited the park that they really doubled down on that island concept, and it was the perfect opportunity to recreate that huge impact, but in a more explicit way. Can only go off what I've heard for this, but it sounds like some of the American parks which have Western themed stuff seems to go down a bit better. How much of that is a culture thing or something is hard to say of course. But yeah, for me, it's still a 'for any I've experienced, no' answer

Hi everyone! For the past few weeks I've been toying with setting up a theme park blog, and it's now finally in a ready-to-share state. So introducing... Just Another Theme Park Blog There's 3 posts on there already, with plenty to come in the future of course. It's going to have a bit of everything and anything theme park related, with a bit more of a focus on the theme park which has inspired everybody's favourite theme park forum, Thorpe Park Mania. Does mean there might be some cross posts / familiar topics in the future, so please forgive me. Would love if you could have a read! And any feedback (on anything: content, writing style, blog look, whatever) would be appreciated. Thanks x

A wonderful, if slightly sad, video from Efteling about how they're doing during the Dutch Lockdown:

I haven't gone through the documents in detail, but I would very much imagine that the projected numbers are always for the resort generally. Or at the very least, 'park + something'. Then again, I seem recall earlier documents saying the whole resort thing would get 30million+ people a year. So 6.5m seems conservative now. Who knows.

I feel like ever since I did this this project has actually made real progress. I still won't believe it till it's open, but if it does open, I will definitely 100% totally claim I was being serious and not in the least bit sarcastic.

I've been contemplating a visit to Lightwater this year, but honestly it's harder to justify it with those closures. The uncertainty over Ultimate is also somewhat worrying, though I guess the fact it hasn't been removed from the website yet is something to cling to. A shame, but not wholly surprising if we're being honest. One can only hope they still have a market and enough visitation to keep them going in the short term.

Given this is the first B&M invert to open since Banshee, it'll be interesting to know whether the vest restraints are simply an option B&M provide (since it can allow different elements to be done comfortably), or if it was a failed experiment. There's been a mix with the new Dive Machines, some having vests, some having standard OTSRs. But the ones with vests all happened around the same time. So hard to tell. I guess we'll be waiting a long time for another B&M invert before we can gain any further insight though..

I agree that the targeted March reopens for the parks are unlikely in the UK. Mid-to-late April sounds more realistic at this point. I don't blame the parks for advertising those dates either. If things do get to a state where they're allowed to reopen in March, then it's good to be ready. And I'm sure their preparations are still done with March as the target, but an almost unspoken expectation that they won't open then. Things probably have an added layer of complexity this time around due to the fact they need to re-hire and re-train staff again before opening (something which was done before lockdowns occurred last year). However, I doubt we'll see a lockdown in the summer. Last summer, case numbers were down (whilst testing was increasing), and most places were open. There were definite failings, still, and I'm sure the reported numbers aren't a totally accurate reflection of the situation. But there's certainly some optimism to suggest that Covid has a sense of seasonality to it (like the flu, common cold, etc). I fully expect there to be extra caution and things to be different to last summer, but anything resembling a lockdown would be extremely unlikely imo So yeah, the parks should be able to open in summer. The trouble with extending into winter is: 1. If Covid has a sense of seasonality and the population isn't vaccinated, we could be hit again this upcoming winter and have another November lockdown. That means preparations made for nothing 2. It has a knock on effect for winter maintenance 3. For Thorpe in particular, a larger proportion of their rides struggle in cold temperatures. They might be able to cope in November, but any further is a risk!

I can't remember if it's included in the CD or not, but the simulation includes the Amity-style 'Thorpe beat' that IMAscore have done. Don't think it ever really places at Stealth (I believe it's part of the bridge / entrance loop?), but still nice to hear!

Find it funny how @Charlesberg called it by it's project name, Blue Harvest, originally. Much better than Monster imo. But the branding looks cool...

Well we needed a way to contain your larger-than-life-maximum-attachment-size personality Matt!