JoshC.

Possibly, but the way they've butchered capacity on it, maybe not. Tbf they've done this a few times with rides, giving an exact date for reopening. Rarely has it been right. Tomb Blaster had about 3 reopening dates advertised before it opened this season, and even then they opened it on a date not advertised. Regardless of the cause, it's a massive hit against the park to have their main water ride (and in practicality, pretty much their only water ride) closed for summer. Highlights the need for another one.

Forums have unfortunately died away a bit. The rise of social media is a big part of that. And then with Discords, Slacks, Twitches and whatever else (I feel like an old man talking about that as I have no clue on these things properly), it just adds. The idea of signing up for one specific website to discuss one specific topic is just foreign now. Thorpe-specific as well, it's no coincidence that here at TPM the forums dropped off during a time when investment in the park was at rock bottom. We went from coasters every 3 years, and new attractions yearly, to bouncy castles and mazes being the 'big new things'. And yeah, theme park enthusiasm has changed dramatically. 10 years ago, it focused a lot on "trying" to find out whatever you could, but deep down knowing you would just get the odd glimpse here and there. You might hear from / know someone who legitimately knows something, and you got a kick out of knowing it. But it was all a lot more 'wait and see'. Now, influencer culture more broadly means people have quite literally been able to turn their hobbies into a career of sorts. It's their job to find out the information, be that camping out for days on end, working alongside the parks or what have you. It feels a lot more stifled. This point really resonated with me @Inferno We're currently experiencing a double-edged sword of information. Getting 'behind the curtain' is so much easier now, be that through press nights, VIP BTSs, park open-ness, etc. But sometimes a bit of ignorance can be bliss too, or that more scattergun approach feels more natural. Seeing behind the curtain is very controlled, parks will naturally sweep the dirt under the rug before they do that (literally, in some cases). There was something much more exciting about just catching glimpses here and there in a more uncontrolled way. At the same time, just reading your Face it Alone review from Studio 13, it made me go "Damn, I wish we had a POV of it. I would love to remember how it looked during that middle third which is such a blur". Even if we know that a press night POV would be over-egged, it would still be good to see (okay, there wasn't a 'press night' in the way we're used to describing that for FN14, but you know what I mean). We're really in a golden age of being able to document and archive stuff, which I think is positive. Going back to a more TPM-focus now, I've literally spent more than half my life as a member on this forum. I've made life-long friendships here. At one point, I house-shared with a couple of people I met through TPM. Whilst that's stuff that could happen on Twitter / Discord / Whatever, it just felt much more natural here. I always feel like these days I could contribute more to the forums, but as Benin says, growing up means forums slowly subside in the priority list. With TPM, we keep the socials active. The forums and the website have suffered. The main website in particular; backend-wise, it's ancient, and those problems have crept into the look of the website (you can't actually read any news article at the moment, lol whoops). We're looking at fixing that over summer though... We intend to keep the forums running. We're probably long removed from the days of running meets. But we never ran paid-for meets/events (even when we got ERTs, BTSs, etc), and don't intend to go down that way. TPM is just a couple of people who like Thorpe and like sharing that enthusiasm with others, through both sharing updates and discussing things. Don't want to make it a career or anything. We've never gone down the Youtube/vlogging route, simply because we don't want to talk in front of a camera. We're not changing who we are, even if that means we're becoming a bit of relic to enthusiasm of yesteryear. Anyway, that was very tangential to this and rambling and hijacking of the topic at hand. The whole theme park enthusiasm has changed, some of it for the better, some for the worse. I guess the good thing is you can still make of it what you want. It's just a shame it's harder to keep it 'as it was', if you will, when the rest of it has changed around you.

Thanks for posting this! Was a great read (and also great to re-read everyone else's experiences!) I wonder what the logic behind the switch in style was between 2013 and 2014 (and then to 2015 and 2016)? It very much seems like 2013 they were given free reign, and 2014 they stuck to a much more rigid set up. But they then went to a more fluid style in 2015. I liked 2013 and 2014 for very different reasons. As you say, 2014 version wasn't that scary, but the experience itself felt a lot more psychological, which I guess makes sense since it was more rigid / scripted. 2013 was a lot more chaotic and left you wondering what would happen next, but also had the psychological aspect. Very much agree that it was the right call to have a pre-selected maze each evening as opposed to them all, given it was a niche product. I would genuinely love for Thorpe to do an alone experience again. So much potential. I will talk about this until the day I die, but Walibi Holland are the perfect model for how to do an alone experience within a normal theme park setting. Yes, it'll be an expensive upcharge, yes it will have a low throughput. But it won't appeal to everyone and that's fine. Create an experience which can be done again and again in a custom space and it will work. I know that towards the end of Face it Alone, there were several bumps in the proverbial road with its running. AMC were, to my understanding, against the idea of having extreme Face it Alone experiences in their mazes. The manager responsible for its organisation left. The actors were expressing concerns about some guest behaviours (I heard stories of some guests basically asking/expecting/demanding certain things be done to them in Face it Alone). Just seemed like a storm perfect for it stop. But again, I'd love to see it brought back. The park clearly have the budget, resources and creative talent to take the gamble on it. It's just whether they actually want to. I should try and share my 2015 and 2016 experiences at some point...

Water feature has been off over the weekend and I believe the last couple of days too. The fact that it's everything, including on the concrete, makes it look rather displeasing. Although I imagine with a damp cloth and some cleaning spray it would look okay... If you look at the middle lake area on ride, you see just how shallow it is; I've seen some people joke it's more akin to a swamp. The furthermost point of the land infill, which is/was meant to be removed, is still present too. A bit flooded, but present. If you're feeling brave enough, you could probably walk across it. I'm hoping they just had a timing issue and couldn't fully sort out the land and water for opening and are either letting nature take its course to sort it, or will do so over close season. But for now, it's another displeasing on the eye feature, and another "Well at least there's no look out on that area" moment.

I guess the flipside of the Crows argument is if you have the entrance the other end, you've got chaos with Stitches and a scare zone entrance bottled together.

For clarity, I'm not talking about worth, but rather what they're offering. I wonder if they are saying "You can pay £X for 1 hour, 1 train, or £Y for 1 hour, 2 trains", or just "1 hour ERT". I agree 2 rides in an ERT is a pretty rubbish return; I'd be unhappy. Also, I've seen this 40 minute thing thrown about a bit. Am I right in thinking the ride's queue line was open for 40 minutes, and then shut, but the ride ran for the full hour? If so, that shows how misbalanced the numbers are in my opinion: an ERT shouldn't have a 20 minute queue! Perhaps times have changed. But yeah, not a great look.

I'm a little confused what you mean here? Every park has a limited capacity and all people in the park have paid? But they still have to offer guests value for money, or they won't return / be disgruntled. Thorpe have made an effort to improve throughputs across the park. Stealth is a prime example of this. I'm not sure how much it's affecting throughput, but the park will no doubt be aware of it. No doubt the park have a list of things they'll want to work on, hopefully alongside Mack, to help get things running smoothly. My bigger concern regarding throughput is whether they can keep up the high standard they've set in the station. The park have been sensible and aren't running it on more staff (I believe they're running it on 1 op and 4 hosts, and that is the bare minimum it would need). But they're working their socks, and clearly have a good team. Can they keep that going all season? What about in future seasons? All well and good running it like that now, but if they can't do it when you've got the extra queues, etc, it's a problem.

One train on ERT is not ideal. Wonder if organisers are aware they're getting 1 train ops or not. It also begs a question: If they need to start train maintenance that early they can't run 2 trains for an ERT session, how will they cope during Fright Nights? I went today and got 4 rides by 2pm, which included a closure due to a guest action, as well as weather delays because of heavy rain / threat of electrical storm.

It's giving this, isn't it?

More insight than an endoscopy. Thanks as always Parmesan.

Don't mean to be pedantic, but if they're having to open the ride 2 hours late daily, I think we're still very much in the middle of the issue(s)! Here's the thing, realistically, no ride should have the test daily with water dummies. It certainly shouldn't be part of the morning routine. Filling a train with water dummies, emptying them, etc is a time-consuming thing too (not 2 hours worth, but still time-consuming). Hopefully whatever Thorpe and/or Mack are doing, means they can resolve that problem so they don't have to test with dummies daily.

Back on 2 trains today, after operating on 1 yesterday. It did open 2 hours late today though.

Still more than Top Thrill 2 though! 😉 (Thanks @Mark9 for keeping score)

They're aiming to open it tomorrow on 1 train... All the confidence.

You know it's serious when Parm Pap doesn't make a non-sensical post.... I think the curse was done by the Rocky Express fan personally. Obviously they'll have models, but I'd be surprised if those systems have a way of determining a probability for a rollback / stall / valley. And even if they did, I'm fairly certain they would never approve anything where the chance for stalling was higher than a fraction of a percentage. Plenty of rides have stalled in places; it's something which happens. It's not a common occurrence - and certainly not a 'teething problem' - but it can happen. Other Thorpe coasters have stalled during empty-train tests: Colossus on its final turnaround, Saw on its overbanked turn (and the bottom of the first drop), Stealth atop its top hat. There's plenty more examples around the world. It happens. The slower running of the stall seems to have occurred after the first prolonged closure, with the lift hill seemingly being slowed down slightly. That might be having some knock on effects. I see plenty of people saying they didn't test it enough, etc. That's bull. They've tested it plenty, but there's clearly been other factors which have happened too. I guess Thorpe are nearing a point of damaging limitations. Do they reopen asap, and keep papering over the proverbial cracks until closed season? Do they have an extended period of closure to fix the issues with Mack? Something else? Who knows. As has been said here, other rides have had difficult first seasons which are later forgotten about. I'm sure Hyperia will be the same. But for now, it's a difficult wave to ride.

As far as I know, it's only done once a season. I don't know if there's a number, but it also makes sense to do it around now rather than July / August simply because the park is quieter and it affects less people. Doing it in summer would cause bigger issues / complaints

Yes I know, Hyperia has barely just opened, but it's only natural sooner or later to ask the question "What comes next?" If we were to rewind 20 years ago, Tussauds had a clear investment cycle strategy for Thorpe, with a major investment coming every 3 years. That carried on into the Merlin era, before being tweaked to every 4 years. Obviously, we all know the story from here. Swarm didn't give an instant increase in visitor numbers, so the powers that be at Merlin deemed to some form of failure (despite the several flaws in that logic). Thorpe tried something different with DBGT and that, frankly, flopped. 2020 was at one point pencilled in to have a major investment, but that was cut when Merlin decided to pull tens of millions of pounds of investment from their Resort Theme Parks. But obviously things have changed in the last few years. Merlin have been taken over. We have a new CEO, and new board members. And with that, there seems to be more investment coming into the theme parks again, slowly but surely. And a fresher wave of optimism has come. So, more to the point of the topic. When do you think we'll see the next major investment at Thorpe? Arguably any new attraction could be classed as major, after years of very little new things, but of course I'm talking of a something along the lines of a new coaster or similar. Could a 3-4 year cycle be back? Could it depend on Hyperia's success? Or even the rest of Merlin's success? And even more importantly, what would you like to see? Blue sky or realistically, this is the place to share your thoughts. --- For me, I think one thing is clear: Thorpe should stick with coasters. There's no harm in them becoming a roller coaster park at this point. It's what the public want. They're not going to compete on the international stage in terms of immersive experiences, nor would they with Universal if that comes to the UK. That's not to say they should stick car park coasters here, there and everywhere, but for major attractions, they should stick to coasters. Part of me thinks an intertwined family coaster / log flume would be perfect. A 1.2m family coaster would be a perfect addition, although of course it doesn't have to be tame (RMCs tend to have 1.2m height restrictions for example). And I think the park need a solid, new water ride, and a log flume hits the spot. A more modern one with restraints will no doubt appease the Merlin H&S folk too. Yeah, that suggestion goes against my 'stick to coasters' idea somewhat, but it does also solve a glaring gap in the park's line up.

We're just over 3 months to Fright Nights 2024 and we don't have a thread? We're slipping guys... Nothing is confirmed for the event, so for now, everything is speculation / what you want to see... My Predictions The return of the 3 mazes Trailers, Survival Games and Stitches Return of Lucifer's Lair and Amity High (in some incarnation) Something new in Death's Doors' location Mysterious new attraction The glaring omission here is The Crows. I would love to see them return in some way, and I think the scare zone works well. But the simple issue is for now: Hyperia. The area is being used for Hyperia's extra queue. Do the park expect that by Fright Nights, their busiest time of the year, they wouldn't need that extra queue? If that space is used for a FN attraction, where would they sensibly contain people? It just seems like a massive headache. Obviously it's difficult: maybe by October they wouldn't need it. But they'll need to make that decision, at latest, by August really. So they've got time to see how it goes. But if they're regularly needing that area over the next month or so, I reckon they have to pull it this year. As for something new, this is a tricky one. I'm behind the park charging for mazes; I think we've seen improvements in the quality of mazes (at the very least, the budgets have increased). But a 4th upcharge maze stretches things a bit; can the park appropriately staff 4 upcharge mazes worth £10 a pop, as well as scare zones and shows? Might be tight. That's not to say they won't do that though. However, I'd rather the park try something different. Obviously we saw them do that a couple of years ago with the audio experience which flopped massively. But something that isn't a standard, upcharge maze is worth a shot. Maybe a proper alone experience? Or a more intimate show (like the Exorcism show at FEAR)? Or, maybe be wild, and do a smaller, but high-throughput / constant conga-line, free maze? Give people a taste for the mazes without them having to pay. I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out here, but I think it's time for something different.

Was there today. It opened late (about 10.50), ran a couple of times, had to do a couple more test runs, then ran again. It closed again just after 12, with a train stuck at the top of the lift hill. Was about an hour before they were able to send that train again, with the queue line cleared and the announcement that it is now testing for the rest of the day. With current testing, they are purposefully sending the trains so that they stop atop of the lift waiting for the block to clear. I've never seen a ride test like that, so it's curious. I have to say, in-queue communication is lacking a bit. They seem dead against doing live announcements / having staff communicate in person, instead going for a pre-recorded "Hyperia is experiencing a technical delay" message, which plays every 10-15 minutes it seems. Another thing I've noticed with current operations is they seem dead against batching in any other way that isn't batching row by row. Rows weren't being double batched today, we asked to go for the back row (no one else was in it). Batcher was very insistent we couldn't and sent us to row 6. Second time that's happened for me. No big deal really, but find it confusing why they're so regimented on this, when it doesn't affect the operations. Also, still unsure why they haven't built a front row queue in the station as of now, and were dead against opening it with one. In more positive news: my ride in pouring rain today was lush (albeit stung like a good'un).

I imagine we're looking at it being for the launch cable replacement, although they had usually got that down to a day. Guess we'll wait and see!

MattyMoo is known for breaking rides, not getting to them after they've been broken.

If they had the price point at £500 it would have sold out just as quick. And therein lies the issue.

Yeah, I think that since the poor communication to guests at the park during Saturday's closure, they've handled and communicated this in the best possible way. Judging by the fact Saw was closed an extra day compared to the original plan, it would suggest they're around 24 hours behind their initial schedule. If testing goes to plan, I think it's not too out there to claim it will be open by Monday. But obviously, anything can happen at this point.

As will those hoping to ride next Tuesday, ey Matty?

From my understanding, this isn't related to the current closure of the ride. Despite it not being planned, the park are taking the opportunity to continue working on the area where possible.