JoshC.

The votes have been counted and verified. Thanks to everyone who voted. Now time for the results... PARK AWARDS Best UK Park 1. Alton Towers (9) 2. Paultons Park (4) 3. Blackpool Pleasure Beach (3) Best UK Coaster 1. Nemesis (6) 2. Wicker Man (4) 3. Nemesis Inferno (3) Best UK Flat 1. Rush (5) 2. Detonator (4) 3. Rameses Revenge (3) Best Water Ride 1. Valhalla (7) No other rides received more than 1 vote Best Dark Ride 1. Hex (6) 2. Haunted House Monster Party (2) 3. Duel (2) Worst UK Ride 1. Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon (9) 2. Infusion (3) 3. Hero (2) Best International Park 1. Europa Park (5) 2. Cedar Point (4) 3. Phantasialand (3) Best International Coaster 1. Steel Vengeance (5) 2. Taron (3) 3. Helix (2) Best New-for-2019 Attraction =1. Zadra (3) =1. Bouncezilla (3) =1. Creek Freak Massacre (3) Most Disappointed Merlin Moment 2019 1. Thorpe Park (in general) (6) 2. Existing (4) 3. Loggers Leap announcement (3) Best-Looking New Attraction for 2020 1. Rookburgh / FLY (4) 2. Iron Gwazi (3) 3. Pantheon (2) Best Manufacturer 1. RMC (5) =2. Intamin (4) =2. B&M (4) MEMBER AWARDS Best Member 1. @JoshC. 2. @Benin 3. @Mattgwise Best Team Member 1. @Mattgwise 2. @Marc 3. @JoshC. Best Quality Posts =1. @SteveJ =1. @Mark9 =1. @JoshC. Most Knowledgable Member =1. @SteveJ =1. @JoshC. 3. @Benin Most Dedicated Member 1. @Marc 2. @JoshC. 3. @Mattgwise Most Sarcastic Member 1. @Benin 2. @MattyMoo 3. @Mark9 Most Likely to be Banned in 2020 1. @MarkC 2. @Marhelorpe 3. @Martin Doyle Funniest Member 1. @MattyMoo 2. @Martin Doyle 3. @Kerfuffle Biggest Fan =1. @Wicker Matt =1. @Glitch 3. @JoshC. Sexiest Male 1. @Wicker Matt 2. @Mr. Fish 3. @Mark9 Sexiest Female 1. @jessica2 2. @Wicker Matt 3. @Mer Storm Surge Award 1. @Glitch 2. @08newmanb 3. @Wicker Matt Member You’d like to see More of! 1. @SteveJ 2. @Coaster 3. @P J A close year of results all round (Benin almost had to share his sarcasm award...)! But congratulations to all the winners! It won't surprise people that Thorpe didn't receive a single vote for Best UK Park - good going Thorpe Park Mania! And yet people think that, across the world, Bouncezilla was the best new attraction this year? The shame. I wonder what on earth will happen to Best UK Water Ride if Valhalla closes for refurbishment next year?

But what's the point when most people won't plan trips this early? How many people do we expect have planned their trip to Thorpe Park now? Especially at a point when their 2020 offering hasn't been announced. I bet I can count the number on one hand. Thorpe simply isn't big enough to attract enough attention for people to book their trips now. And still, why advertise provisional hours? Why not just 'Open' or 'Closed'? The park is doing five 10-8pm days for Fright Nights. Even taking into account the extra budget required to run Fright Nights, that can't equate to more than 2 extra open days. And if that's what they have done, there's also the added benefit of the fact that the park simply isn't busy enough to warrant being open for 12 hours on those days. And it still doesn't answer why they choose to close earlier rather than open later. Based on the past 2-3 seasons, this is something they have consistently gotten wrong. The park have chosen days to open for longer on days where they couldn't justify it. They've not advertised their longer opening properly, nor have they given people a proper reason to stay. My favourite example comes from 2018, where the park decided to open 10-10 instead of 10-6 on a Saturday in May 4 days in advance. This is despite the weather forecasting heavy rain all day AND there being a low pre-book. And low and behold, the day was a disaster. I get there's no exact science to this, but Thorpe consistently get this wrong lately, when 95% of parks get this right. That's a big problem.

I mean, this raises questions: 1. Why bother putting in placeholder hours? 2. Why is the budget for the season only finalised in February/March? Of course, these opening hours were released like a month ago and I'm sure have been discussed on here before. The Fright Nights 10-8 hours makes sense given how dead the park has been previously (though I do wonder if 12-10 would be more sensible / at least worth exploring?). There seems to be less closed days for 2020 which is good, as is the lack of 4pm closes.

Thorpe certainly don't claim to be on the international stage, and certainly they don't market themselves like that (hence why we've had 'nation's thrill capital' and similar). But I don't doubt that Thorpe / Merlin in some capacity like to think internally that they have world class experiences which can compete internationally. Go high enough up, and I'm sure there's people who think 'Thorpe has world class rides'.

A timelapse of Cyclonator being built, with testing expected before Christmas:

VOTES CLOSE TOMORROW (click the above to vote. or click me)

The mystery grows... (From Huvipuistofoorumi) And also: One of the tags in the Instagram post says Summer 2020. It's kind of impossible to tell what this could be now. Junker extension seems much more of a long shot now, but who knows?

The music in the end sounds like an Amity twist of the Thorpe sound; don't recall hearing it before? Is it new or just some variation I've forgotten about?

You're telling someone to grow up on here when all you do is come on here and whine about what people post? The words 'pot', 'kettle' and 'black' come to mind...

I don't know what you're talking about... (this is what I get for posting on TPM when I should be working)

It's election day, but that's not the biggest vote happening this month 6 days left to get your votes in!

In fairness, repeat visitors do spend money - the trouble is that their spending on any given day is minimal since they spread out over several visits. Ultimately means that they drag down the spend per customer (which of course any business will use as an indicator) and that causes this outlook that they don't spend money.

It's not a wrong opinion, of course not. There is no wrong opinion. I just don't get the logic behind anyone saying that a park has "5 very solid coasters" and complaining that one of them isn't a headliner. If I've travelled to a park, I'd come away very happy if I'd ridden 5 decent coasters (and that's as an 'enthusiast' too). In fact, I can't think of many parks in Europe you can come away from and say that...

The new kid cred for next year has had a slight name change, and will be called Duplo Dino Coaster rather than Duplo Dream Coaster... https://www.legoland.co.uk/DUPLO2020

A nice graphic highlighting how much of the ride has been completed:

The Junker 2.0 rumour train gains some steam.. (link here, original source unknown) Some speculation this could end up including a lift hill and drop similar to Takabisha (Fuji-Q Highland) and TMNT Shellraiser (American Dream, NJ). Either way, if this is an extension, it'll arguably be the craziest thing to happen in the industry in living memory...

I don't see why this is being treated as a negative? Not every park has to have a Top 10 worthy coaster... Honestly, this is one of the most spoilt comments I've seen with regards to theme parks. "Thorpe ONLY has 2 B&Ms, 2 Intamins and a Gerstlauer, it's not complete". So many parks would kill to have that sort of line up. (NB: Saw doesn't have a clone, just a ride which has inspired it, and the other two were firsts of their exact layouts...). Saying Towers has 3 elite coasters is very much a stretch too.. This is the big issue, yes. And they do need to add and improve. But that doesn't really detract from the fact that the park already have a solid basis with some good coasters. Again: why is this an issue?

To 95% of the public (plus the group of enthusiasts who genuinely rate Stealth), it's a good headliner attraction. That's a good thing, no? There's plenty of parks out there which don't even have a decent coaster. For Thorpe to have 5 decent coasters (regardless of personal opinion, it's hard to argue that any of Thorpe's major coasters aren't "decent"), that's a bloody good job tbh. Plenty of people in the past travelled far and wide for Stealth. This comes back to the issue I mentioned in my previous post - the park haven't kept up with the times of the industry to have that modern headliner, nor have they had a world class coaster that has remained timeless (or even just a record breaker). Not impressive enough in what context? Because there's better coasters out there?

Disagree. All things considered, Thorpe's coasters deliver a great thrill for their length. More importantly, I don't think the likes of Colossus, Inferno and Saw would be improved with a longer length. Stealth is designed to be a short and sweet ride, and with its restraints, I don't think a particularly longer ride would add much. The only major coaster that would benefit from being longer is Swarm, but even then, I don't think it's *that* much of an issue. Also, fun fact: Smiler aside, the major coasters at Towers are, on average, the same length as Thorpe's. And their length is rarely complained. I don't think Thorpe lacks a headliner - Stealth fits that role perfectly. The trouble is when we look at big parks across the world which have added major attractions over the past 5 years or so, they've added in fantastic new investments which make use of technology which simply wasn't available 10 years ago. And then these new rides just naturally fit the bill of being a new headliner. So it's not that Thorpe lacks a headliner - for the majority of people who don't know what's out there, they'll still Stealth as a major draw. But when you follow the industry or know it further, you realise that because of the lack of investment for the past few years, the park simply hasn't kept up with modern trends like major parks have.

It's growing

Thanks to the first 9 of you who have all voted! The lucky 10th person to vote will receive a special prize (prize may or may not be real). But seriously, keep the votes coming!

oooft

I believe it's going adjacent to the car park, along the front/side of the park. Never visited the park so don't know if that's near the kiddie flume!

Nice overview of the construction site:

There's been a lot of crazy out there announcements this year, but I think this one takes the prize for the top one... Vulcania, a French educational 'theme park' (that currently has no rides) about 90 miles from Lyon (ie - middle of nowhere) have put in plans to install an Intamin launch coaster with a drop track section! Vulcania is all about, unsurprisingly, volcanoes and other natural disasters like earthquakes, and features 4D cinemas and interactive experiences, but no rides. These "edutainment" style parks are really popular in France, and they're slowly expanding into the 'proper' theme park more. The coaster is the first step into the theme park set up for Vulcania, with drops towers and rapids planned for the next decade too. The launch coaster has a launch speed of 34mph (lol, but keeps with the style of the park I guess), max height of 16m, and a drop track of about 5m in height. It'll be themed to (surprise) volcanoes. Here's the plan: Despite the unimpressive stats in comparison to other coasters, it still seems a perfect fit for the park. Also, Intamins aren't cheap, so it's a statement of intent if nothing else. In other news, Bosnia and Herzegovina - a country not known for theme parks - look to be getting a theme park! Little details are known, however the park are going for a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter and a Vekoma sit down looping coaster: Hard to know whether this will actually happen, but that Vekoma looks pretty damn good!