JoshC.

This comes from a fun feature Towers have on their website: https://www.altontowers.com/40-years/model-my-map/ It's clearly a bit of silly fun, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the questions have been designed to get some insight into what people want (especially the non-ride stuff). I'm a big fan of everything Towers are doing right now for their 40th. A solid plan has been laid out, and I really hope they follow through with it. And, forgive me for making the obvious comparison, this is how you do it Thorpe. On top of a proper new addition, proper events all throughout the year, which are all varied and have a clear identity, whilst linking it back to the overarching theme of being the 40th anniversary.

Better than neon or florescent ones tbf

I'm with you here. I love Helix and Balder (both are in my Top 5), and Lisbergbanan too. But outside that? There's nothing that really grabs my attention. It's all a bit bland, coupled with the burdensome layout. I guess the fact I don't like spinny rides (Loke and Mechanica are 2 immediate nopes from me) doesn't help my feelings either. I've never really understood the pedestal it's put on within enthusiast circles. I adore Phantasialand, but it always strikes me as interesting at how forgiving I am for the large chunks of rubbish they have. When visiting with a first timer last month, there were plenty of times I was saying 'this is a joke ride' or 'don't expect much here' or whatever. China, Hollywood Tours, Temple / Crazy Bats stick out. Mystery Castle's different settings. Parts of Fantasy aren't exactly in great shape. Colorado Adventure looks surprisingly tired in place. I detest all of their shows too. But for every piece of junk, they have two pieces of brilliance. And much of the brilliance is really up there with some of the best of the best. And those modern areas have such a charm to it as well. I guess the junk can be forgiven because it's clear to see they're getting rid of it all slowly. I genuinely can't imagine how the park will feel when they update China and Hollywood/Crazy Bats, which could easily happen over the next decade. I genuinely believe that Efteling (along with Phantasialand, albeit that's more of a stretch I admit) is a park everyone should visit, regardless of whether they like theme parks or not. The Fairytale Forest can takes hours if you do it properly and take your time. Their dark ride selection gives something for everyone. Their coaster selection is quite varied and decent. Then they have the shows too. And even on busy days, it copes and manages to keep a hold of it's charm. The fact that basically everyone who lives in The Netherlands has been to the park speaks volumes for its appeal.

Skyline Park, a park about an hour or so west of Munich, have announced that their Maurer Spike coaster - Sky Dragster - will not be returning. Sky Dragster was the first Maurer Spike coaster, a coaster where you sit on a motorbike-like car on a single rail track, and control the speed at which you go round the course. It was weird. The ride model has been plagued with unreliability and other issues. Currently, the only other park to invest in the ride type is Mirabilandia in Italy, who invested in the a duelling pair as part of their Ducati-themed land. They have been even less reliable. The model is also set to appear on a Cruise Ship next year. So good luck there... Skyline Park have a very good relationship with Maurer, so it's a shame to see them giving up on this. In other news, the park are opening a 466ft/142m Star Flyer this year; making it the tallest one in the world: https://www.parkerlebnis.de/skyline-park-2020-neuheit-hoechstes-kettenkarussell-weltweit-ankuendigung_107082.html

Some nice updates: Source Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but whilst both coasters will open this year, it is rumoured that the theming may not be completed until 2021.

After years of being left there, Knightmare is finally being demolished (key word there: not taken apart, just out right demolished)

Some nice theming has been delivered: Source

Love the 40th anniversary video. Very fun and a nice shade of different. (Shame they added 1 to the opening years of Mutiny Bay, Cloud Cuckoo Land and Dark Forest though) Also, am very sad they didn't mention Nemesis Sub Terra. Gone but not forgotten 💔

An article was recently posted discussing the accessibility of some UK theme parks. Within it, there's an interesting quote re Thorpe: Taking this at face value, and keeping in mind that the park can't change the H&S rules for who rides certain rides, this sounds like Thorpe are going to make some rides easier to access for those, say, in a wheelchair. In particular, this could mean Inferno (which hasn't had a lift to the station since like 2004, for...reasons) or improvements to Saw's lift (which I recall being temperamental). Given there's also been lots of scaffolding around Inferno too, this could make a lot of sense, and would be good to see.

Towers are introducing some form of Oktoberfest event in the last weekends of September and first weekend of October. I don't quite know what they'll do for it, but I'm very much down for this sort of thing..

Aaaaand they've announced they're closed for the whole of half term: It's hardly a secret that Drayton aren't doing fantastically at the moment, so this is a massive hit for the park.

I'll be blunt: this means nothing. Every park has a rough idea of what it wants to do in 3/5/10 years' time. Thorpe, and Towers, in the past have in the past had to submit Mid-Term Development Plans (MTDP) and Long-Term Development Plans (LTDP) respectively to their respective councils. This wasn't a necessity, but - especially in Thorpe's case - it helped get applications through quicker in particular. Thorpe would decide roughly what they wanted to do over the next 5 years, submit rough ideas to the council, then go from there. Towers was much less committed, but nice for locals to see. Thorpe have submitted an MTDP since 2010, which took them up to 2016. That's partially down to the fact they're probably not planning many things which need planning applications. It doesn't mean they haven't had any sort of mid-term plan though. The trouble Thorpe have had is that, whilst they've always had a mid and even long-term plan, it has changed countless times. This isn't just down to changing management, but also an indecisiveness about what market to target, managerial changes within Merlin (ie - above Thorpe), significant changes in budgets given from Merlin, as well as Merlin's changing investment strategy. In the past when Thorpe had managerial changes, it didn't drastically alter much. But right now, there's a cocktail of reasons for the ever-changing road to the future.

Drayton closed this weekend and until at least Wednesday because of Storm Dennis. Ouch.

The storms have given us an accidental sneak peek of Rookburgh:

Another post with the hashtag and some blurry editing

Looks like a neat little ride. Cars do look a little cramped but make sense for a family ride system I think. Agree that the Garmendale guy wasn't exactly a natural on the camera so didn't come across as a 'everything has been plain sailing' kind of guy. Nothing wrong with that though of course.

I think you're overestimating the influence fans have here. Thorpe (and any park really) aren't going to rush a big new investment because fans (which make up less than 1% of visitors) are "pressuring" them. In this sense, fan opinion really means nothing: they'll add a new coaster when they want to. They won't do that until they replace them. Sad fact, but true. tbh, Loggers doesn't even need removing for the sake of removing really. You can hardly see these days. I'd rather them invest the time, money and effort into something else. And anyways, the only thing I can see replacing Loggers is a roller coaster, since they wouldn't be able to open a new log flume there. Slammer is easier to replace, but since Merlin rarely seem to invest in flat rides - and there's a very small list of suitable flat rides for Thorpe - it's hard to see what they could replace that plot with. I think it's more realistic to expect a coaster to go there and in the surrounding area than a new flat ride, for example. So really, the bigger issue here is Merlin's "risk free" strategy. They won't invest unless they feel basically certain they can make some money from said investment. If this is true, then just..wow. Wickerman bought a noticeable increase in numbers. The brand is reasonably strong and I've seen quite a few people with related-merch. It's a slow burner of an attraction too; it had the instant hit, and it'll also have to repeat value of people coming back to it in years to come. If everything that Wickerman has done for the park hasn't led Merlin to say it's been a financial success, then maybe, just maybe, they're setting the bar too high.

I'm fairly certain that's from a few years ago - it certainly used to be painted that vibrantly in the past! Nice find though; the Tidal Wave photos are particularly interesting

You can say exactly the same thing about Thorpe and Experiment 10 (isolation cells). Towers and Sub Species (complete split ups). Twisted Attractions and Ward 78 (a mainstream attraction designed to be entered alone). The list goes on. This isn't to put down what Tulleys have done. They've been innovative. But so have plenty of other places. And of some of the innovations, sticking a bag on people's heads isn't exactly the best if we're being honest. Sometimes it's about knowing to not mess around with crazy ideas though! Most theme parks wouldn't mess around with a crazy idea like Derren Brown's Ghost Train - doesn't mean Thorpe are up there as one of the best. Wastelands is great. It was probably my favourite UK maze last year. And the area itself is on a ridiculous scale. The maze itself is a well done experience, I'm not poo-pooing on that. But when you bring it to basics, it's a maze which does very standard things very well. That's not a bad thing (in fact it's a very good thing!), but it's still run of the mill when it comes down to it: you walk through a route and actors jump out. It's comparable to Big Top imo - no special features or fancy bells and whistles, just taking the standard idea of a scare maze and doing everything right. Certainly true. Not disagreeing there. But last year Tulleys had 7 attractions that followed this exact same formulaic approach, 2 that didn't and a show. For me, 7 mazes that follow the same formula - many of which have similar enough styles that it can be hard to distinguish them for some - puts them behind other events.

It's possible they just copied and pasted the same text across all the same social media platforms and the capitalized letters mean nothing. If the letters which are, or are not, in capital letters mean anything, I'm almost certain that we won't be able to figure out what they mean until after an announcement is made. Even then, I doubt they mean anything anyways.

I hate to disappoint you, but there will be no 'ride' this year. Let alone a major investment. Your letter is almost 3 years old. At that point, Merlin were considering a major investment for Thorpe (most likely a roller coaster). But plans can and do change. This is one of those times when they have - things have changed. There's a hundred possible reasons why, but it's not happening. I'm sure you can even look to last year. Do you think when Nick wrote that letter in 2017, the plan for 2019 was always going to be 'a gaming expo, a bouncy castle and a weird escape room'? Definitely not. The final evidence is that Thorpe require planning permission for almost anything they add. A major ride definitely would. We would have seen plans by now, and we'd have almost definitely seen some form of construction work now. It's nice you got a lengthy response, and free tickets, but most of the details there are simply generic responses with lots of buzzwords to make everything sound as exciting as possible.

There's 3 certainties in the theme park world: -Merlin will invest in IP attractions -Energylandia will build a crazy amount of roller coasters ridiculously quickly -Wonderland Eurasia was never going to work Less than 11 months since its official opening, Wonderland Eurasia / Ankapark has closed, because it cannot afford to pay its staff: https://www.news1.news/2020/02/750-million-dollars-spent-ankapark-closed-2.html Some of the rides built never actually opened. There were rumours this was some form of money laundering scheme. It seemed like a disaster from day 0. And it was.

That Thorpe should probably upgrade their computers if it's taken them 4 months to initialise this system...

*blows dust off topic*

Yes, because the engineers are the ones filming, editing and uploading the videos to social media, instead of, yknow, the marketing department?