JoshC.

This is the second teaser they've shown with an arrow pointing to part of the park. The first pointed to IAC, which we can assume is for Jungle Escape. Could this arrow be a location for BounceZilla? The area next to Crust can fit a lot in, and probably the most suitable place on park for it.. If that is the case, I hope those arrows are there just for the teasers and not on the final map. The idea of having the events effectively labelled as attractions all year round on the map doesn't sound appealing to me...

I don't believe Thorpe can do any major works to the car park (especially that corner area). Under that assumption, they'd be lucky to get three barriers there.. During the peak time for arrival, 9-10.30am, it'll still be busy and creating major backlog. How will that make any difference? Instead of queueing to leave the barrier, you'll queue to leave the park at the roundabout. And instead of having 4 lanes to choose from to leave, you'll have 2. It'll be just as bad, and cause more issues on the roads outside the park.

I'd love to be optimistic and say that, unlike any other actor led attraction within Merlin parks, since this is an upcharge attraction, it may last longer. And in some ways, I am. And I've heard rumours suggesting that this version may more be a test of the waters for a bigger-scale version in a different location in the resort. So again, I want to be optimistic and say it won't be forgotten about. But in its current guise, it's effectively set up to fail. They're not going to make cuts to it, forget about it, etc, but they may as well because it's ultimately not going to work.

A first decent-ish look at Monster Party. Looks like the front will be nicely done. Shame about the rest / location of the ride meaning we get the ugly rear end.

From my eyes, it would be difficult to change though? Where would they put the pay point? I guess you could put it at the corner of the gravel car park, but then whenever it's slightly busy, the queue will be going out of the park and onto the main roads (something which happens now, so that would be amplified significantly). It would be chaotic most of the time. I'm also not sure how people would react to the whole idea of paying straight away. Many complaints about Thorpe/Merlin are about value for money and how people feel like they're being bled dry. Whilst not having to pay as you leave takes the sting out at the end of the day, it can set people up for feeling like they're shelling out from the moment they arrive. Dangerous game for Thorpe to play. In my experience from parks abroad getting you to pay on arrival, they have plenty of space in their car park for cars to queue, enough leeway outside the park in case of super busy periods and, most importantly, people are less faffy and just generally more efficient. I just don't see how Thorpe can modify the car park (whilst not significantly reducing the amount of gravel or grass) to make a pay on entry system work.

But then surely you just get the one hour gridlock at the start of the day? Plus Thorpe's car park isn't really designed to cope with that sort of system.

Just take a step back and think about what you've said here. It's November 2019, an article appears in the Daily Mirror: "I had a bad day at Thorpe Park over a year, I went back and had another bad day!" Who will actually care? No one OR it'll read "I had a bad day at Thorpe Park over a year ago, I went back as a a VIP and had a good!" Again, who will care? No one Stories like that will be published in the heat of the moment, else they lose all interest and credibility.

Oh don't be so melodramatic. Plenty of the rides will be missed at the very least. And there are plenty of staff there who care. 1) X:\No Way Out to X retheme 2) Big Top (2016/17 versions) 3) Ghost Train at it's prime was genuinely hailed as a fantastic experience 4) The uniqueness of Swarm backwards (and the sensibility to reverse that decision when the fad died away) 5) IMA Score Again, don't be so melodramatic. That post was made in October. If it was real and was going to happen, it would have happened by now.

It isn't finished yet - confirmed via TowerStreet's Facebook page. I imagine they won't be able to do much in two weeks, but you never know I guess. Ultimately my problem with it is it doesn't feel very dungeony at the moment. It's a cut out castle and, crucially, doesn't look anything like the Towers. I get why they can't put it in the Towers, but they had a massive opportunity to make it feel like a distant part / ruins of the Towers and it seemingly looks like they haven't taken it. That's my biggest problem right now, and I don't think they can turn that around it two weeks.

Mystic at Walibi RA now has a (pretty weird) looking first drop and lift hill...

From Heide Park World: It's soon time for the Wicker Boy to rise.

I think the core logo is perfectly fine. It's recognisable, simple yet effective, and easily modifiable (see Stealth, Saw, Swarm, DBGT variations, and now the focus on the infinity-style part of it). Very much a case of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' in my mind.

Presumably new key promo artwork for this year: Pretty damn cool tbf

Maybe they realised it was perhaps a bit too much? That or they just hadn't updated since Fright Nights properly. I guess the thing to always keep in mind is that it is now technically £7 to park. Any higher prices are there to deter people from taking more time from staff, who could be doing other things, or taking more time at the barrier, which makes it longer for everyone to get out. £7 is still a lot to pay, given the quality of the car park. And I don't believe Thorpe can really change the gravel car park - it has to remain gravel due to the location near the lake and act as flood relief effectively (or something like that I think?). So they need to strike a balance of charging the right amount for the quality of it.

I'm personally getting some Droomvulcht vibes from that video. Not my sort of thing personally, but it's perfect for the park right now.

This is the thing though, even when other rides are open, it still attracts a long queue. It's one of the few rides which constantly has a queue. Turd throughput explains why it has a long queue time. It doesn't explain why people see the long queue time and go 'yes, let's join that queue'..

On a serious note, I believe only 4 of the 12 scenarios for Ghost Train ever made it to public viewing (there may be more that I can't remember, see spoilers below...) I'd be surprised if we see any changes to DBGT. 2017 changes were made to improve the ride. 2018 changes were made to change scene 2, which was regularly broken and caused several issues / shutdowns. Ghost Train is no longer a focus, so they won't be making changes to improve the ride. And I don't think there's any obvious changes they can make to the experience to try and improve reliability. The only thing I feel that could happen is cuts made to scene 4, though hopefully they realised last year how it receives a negative reaction when it's not there.

How else do you explain why people actively look at an hour long queue and go 'Yes, this seems like a good way to spend my time'? Doesn't matter what the actual reaction to it is. If people are willing to spend an hour queueing for it, it IS capturing their attention and imagination.

Don't like the idea. New rides over a 30+ year old ride that's been SBNO for over 5 years please.

I do think that Storm Surge captures the imagination of many people. In theory, it has everything - a shared experience suitable for most, height, speed, spinning, a light splash of water. Given the selection of water rides at Thorpe, I can see why Storm Surge appeals to many, and why people are always prepared to queue a long time for it compared to many other rides.

Couple more photos from PabloA on CF... Just to remind people as well - they haven't even started work on the lift hill yet. Everything you see here is for the rest of the track!

Frooom loopings. All aboard the twisty hype train

A theme park doing a vlog for construction of a new ride you say? Is this basically just European law now? Interested to see how dominant this is within the park. Bit worried it may look out of place (obvs same was said about Karnan, but that's easier to theme..)

One issue is the fact that area is used for access for vehicles and such. Using the area for Fright Nights is okay as it's only temporary (though not ideal). It would have had a big effect on back of house operations. It also would have made the construction of DBGT significantly more difficult for example. So in that sense, it wouldn't have been ideal. I also imagine that issue of having a ride right next to Monks Walk would cause extra issues when people try and enter the park from there (ride areas, etc). So more it's just less ideal from a back of house perspective. Also a tearing out OG meant there wouldn't be more rides to operate; I imagine OG and Storm Surge were equally labour and staff intensive, making that location more preferable.

This is one of those funny stories which has some truth, but was sensationalised by Thorpe to grab attention. There's a lot more detail in this post about the original plan, but this picture summarises it nicely: These are all of the considered locations. There is one location which is essentially next and parallel to Monks Walk (pretty much the back half of Dead Creek Woods and first half of Blair Witch from last year). Obviously not an ideal location. The one next to it would have involved the removal of the carousel and Mr Monkey, and again wouldn't have been great either. Eventually, the current location was decided upon, to obviously redevelop Octopus Garden (an area which was very much out of place at Thorpe). For some fun bonus info, the park did indeed have South West London Paranormal in (they've visited a few times in the past actually). Jim, who is quoted in the above article, was actually the examiner for my driving test and we spoke about it quite a bit (I also passed my test - woo!). Basically he said there was some stuff detected, some of the stuff he said was obviously used to play along with the story (since there was never any construction in that area, though they did explore the area next to Monks Walk). The group wanted to explore more on different dates, but the park refused, and I don't actually think they've been invited back the the park since.. Funnily enough, that was one of the best, far-reaching, pieces of marketing the park have ever done. It was picked up all over the world, with everyone wanting interviews with the park, wanting to know their next steps, etc. It just really captured the attention and imagination of everyone. And all of that for Storm Surge! It's why I always feel they should capitalise on the local history and mythology behind it more. The nearby Chertsey Abbey opened in 666AD. There's mythology of a headless monk haunting the town and Monks Walk. It practically writes itself for a dark ride or Fright Nights maze.