JoshC.

Following feedback, we're trialing a Thorpe Park Mania Discord! Please find the link here! This can be a place for members to chat, to get to know each other in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. For those who have been on the forums for a while, this is in many ways acting as a new Chat Room. A couple of housekeeping rules... -Please keep things friendly, polite and appropriate -If your Discord username is different to your forum username, please remember to introduce yourself -As Discord is separate to TPM, we can't necessarily moderate it in the same way as we do the forums. Members of the TPM team are in the chat and can keep an eye on things, but we're mostly there to chat too! If you do ever have an problems/concerns about it though, drop me or one of the team a message We can look at doing organised chat times and such in the future, but for now, we'll see how things go!

I mean, that's effectively the same as a 2-4-1, which the park have done for YEARS. Just dressed up differently and slightly easier to access.

Luna Cinema tickets are normally £15 at other venues. That in some sense means it's a £12 charge for the 2 hours of rides, and more unique location. Given that Thorpe are the ones pushing it, I imagine they contacted Luna Cinema to diversify their events further. Thorpe will probably make a percentage of the sales after a certain amount, hence why they'll push it. Really though, it should be the other way round - people who are interested in outdoor cinema could lap this up, given the location and the rides. As I say, I like this idea, even if it's not my cup of tea. A very strong negative reaction on social media though - a tad surprising, but I can understand the point of 'why are you focusing on this' though.

Officially announced... But really, using the "UK's first...at Thorpe Park"?! So bloody stupid. Space Station Zero was therefore the UK's first roller coaster at Thorpe Park. Colossus was the world's first roller coaster to have inversions...at Thorpe Park. *sigh*

But surely 'to save money' makes little sense? The park have a vested interest in having two previews rather than one. Friends and Family day is basically a pass if anything goes wrong, and AP day puts things into perspective more. If they want to save money, just shut on another weekday in May or September. I'm not saying it's not the reason, but if it is the reason, it makes very little sense.

Hakugei at Nagashima is testing... And some fun overview pics...

BGW Fans the real MVPs here. Absolutely mental - 4 launches, 300ft odd drop, airtime. Packs so much into what is a reasonably short layout in fairness. For those who can't be bothered to go through the whole thing... (launch 1 in section 3, then the remaining 3 are semi shuttle in style in section 9, and also has an airtime hill in it) This is very much like Parc Asterix's Intamin coming in 2021, but more about size than inversions and airtime I think. Still, MENTAL

The duelling Intamin coasters at Guangzhou Sunac (Wanda) are slowing beginning to test, with the sit down now in full swing (inverted yet to)... That hang time is crazy right now...

I would assume this is what the Stealth tweet was referencing... https://thelunacinema.com/thorpe-park Outdoor cinema screening of Back to the Future and Bohemian Rhapsody during the May Bank Holiday. Tickets start from £27.50, including 2 hours of ride time on Stealth, Dodgems, Detonator and Teacups, with the film's starting at 9pm, and the screen being set up by Stealth. Interesting idea I guess, but no appeal to me personally

Friends and Family day in the past has basically just been a preview / test day. Some Merlin staff are given tickets which they can either use themselves (if they're not working of course) or give to their friends and family. The idea is that it gives staff a reasonably pressure-free day to get used to their roles, since everyone is there for a free day. It also helps iron out any small issues. It's normally extremely limited capacity too. Why they've decided to mix that day with AP day is anyone's guess. I imagine it just hasn't been updated yet. Eventbrite can sometimes be trickier to update than their own websites. I think they usually send a notification before the event too, which gives a final update of unavailable rides? So I'd say as long as it's updated by then, it's not that bad. Just unfortunate that the ride that is unavailable is one their headliners.

It is listed here: https://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/passholder-hub/events/march-2019/thorpe-park-resort-passholder-day-23rd-march In fairness, there's usually multiple closed rides on the Annual Pass Preview Day. In saying that, the park have had a longer closed season this year, so swings and roundabouts really. I am also under the impression that this year, the Annual Pass Preview Day is also the same as the Friends and Family day for staff. In the past, the Friends and Family day was on a Saturday, with the AP day on the Sunday.

After retheming their rapids last year, and announcing a Paw Patrol area for this Spring, Movie Park have also announced they're updating their boat dark ride Bermuda Triangle for the summer! https://www.movieparkgermany.de/presse/freut-euch-in-der-kommenden-saison-auf-noch-mehr-action-und-entertainment?fbclid=IwAR3WMh1Lf3vmhTuxGoxz3NjwZJ0cB8ahtJ39ywvCFIVMrJ7zrOiUY_q1UIs Bermuda Triangle is a really weird / WTF ride, but really damn fun. It is showing it's age and there were some rumours they were considering removing it. Instead, it will be rethemed to a 1950s style Area 51 story, called Area 51 - Top Secret. Pretty great to see the park continually invest!

Towers invited lots of fansites to 'Meet the Makers' of the Dungeons, and also view the Stargazing Pods. Here's TowersStreet's one: https://towersstreet.com/news/2019/2019-new-additions/ (warning - SPOILERS) They experienced two scenes, and saw most of the others. Effectively, it's pretty much all cookie-cutter scenes from other Dungeons, but there are local twists on it. The rest of the CATCF facade will be covered by wood in a similar fashion to that which surrounds the entrance. Some maybe-of-interest facts (not really spoilers): -This Dungeons has been created in about a third of the time that other Dungeons normally are made, although we can expect the same high quality props. -Like some other Dungeons, they use the 'three wall set' model, basically meaning the wall that guest's will have their backs' to is unthemed and black, though if done right, this normally doesn't affect the experience -The music has been made in-house, but does have a twist on ITHOTMK

Q-Jump are a special sort of Fastrack effectively. When companies have private / corporate events, each attendee gets a ticket (like a Priority Pass) with a list of rides they can go through the Fastrack queues for. These rides are marked off individually when people go through the Fastrack queue. What rides are included on the Q-Jump depends on how much the company pay and what they request. The numbers are taken out of the Fastrack allocations for the day, so there's no more than usual that would be sold.

Like Ringo says, 10s are reasonably nice anniversaries to celebrate. They don't have to do anything, but it's always nice. This is particularly highlighted with them mentioning it in adverts for the Thorpe Annual Pass. Furthermore, with other parks celebrating anniversaries as a common thing (Efteling, Disney push their 5 year anniversaries, Towers have done stuff for Nemesis and Oblivion), it can lead to public demand for anniversary celebrations. I mean, we know they've mentioned VR will be there, and there'll be some upcharge features. VR gaming isn't that common, and the upcharge stuff almost definitely won't be stuff available to play at home. And retro games (probably stuff like Pacman arcade machines from the 80s) aren't common in homes. So I wouldn't read too much into it. I think some of the questions being raised are fair. This is being pushed as a big thing, when at best, it should be a side addition to expand the line up. And the worth of that sort of event when the park needs to improve its offering and get more people in in the first place is questionable. Then also why people would go to Thorpe for this when there's hundreds of locations they can do this. Oh, and that the first comment from Thorpe shows how childish their social media feels. 'We're saying it will be great so shut up'

Legal to drive, but nothing else. Fairly meaningless anniversary

In case you've missed it, Thorpe Park have released a string of high quality "memes" over this past winter. But can you tell the difference between a Thorpe Park meme and an ironically created mock meme? Let's find out... 1) 2) 3) 4) So which ones are genuine, Thorpe Park memes, and which ones aren't?

A quick look above answers the solution of the missing chat room... I don't know if things have changed Invision's side, but we could potentially look into recreating a Discord or Slack group at some point down the line if appropriate...

Few more details about the events... Jungle Escape - Confirmed escape room experience with a £10 upcharge (though tickets aren't yet available). Only open from end of May to 25th August BounceZilla - Included in ticket price. Runs from July 21st to 3rd September (though days will change, as that sounds exactly like the Zombie Hunt dates and it seems like it hasn't been fully updated)

Thorpe have put Fastrack on sale for this season: https://www.thorpepark.com/tickets-passes/fastrack They have continued with the same format and prices as last year, with a couple of minor changes: -Walking Dead has been added as an option to the Adrenaline package -It feels like there's less options on Exhilarate now? -You can now get unlimited number of goes on DBGT with Unlimited, but still no Walking Dead (or maybe just a one shot for Walking Dead)

The issue is, especially online, is people focus too much on the negatives. This can give a perception that people are just too negative, and it turns places like this into a negativity pit. It can be very frustrating when you see a disconnect - people constantly moaning, yet also constantly visiting and effectively handing over money to the parks. It's all about striking a balance - of course, people shouldn't just throw in meaningless positives ("Thorpe opened all their rides today - yay"). But equally, it's always keeping in mind how you can come across if you're constantly negative...especially without reason.

That Swarm image has been used since 2013. It's pretty much the best photo they have of Swarm doing it's drop. People tried drawing the same conclusion about mrawS returning for Fright Nights 2017 when they used it for that artwork. They probably should consider updated their image library.

It's not a defence of the phrase. You can slam any marketing drivel if you want to. When there's much better to critique Merlin, why is it people always fall back to the same slogan taken out of context? It just feels like a way to cheapen someone's point, rather than reinforce it. The mod team will intervene if we believe a discussion needs steering back on topic. I reckon we all would rather have reasonable and intelligent discussion that's come from the thread rather than just halt it just because it's not directly related to the title.

Before and after from Reddit...

The storm that's made it's way through Europe clearly doesn't like Energylandia / RMC...