JoshC.

Genuinely thought we had a Vekoma thread somewhere, but clearly not.. But it's fine, we need one... During this week's IAAPA, Vekoma are revealing 4 new generations of some of their coasters. Flying coaster is one of them (see Phantasialand), another one is the upgraded version of their SLC... Called the Suspended Thrill Coaster (STC), the new off-the-shelf model features two inversions and a significantly different layout. The last "new" SLC is set to open in China sometime over the next year or so I believe. After that, the STC takes over as the only off-the-shelf suspended model Vekoma will sell. Given that Mayan (SLC at Energylandia built a couple of years back) is generally considered not-horrendous by most, and the good quality attractions Vekoma have been building lately, it's fair to assume this should provide a much smoother ride experience, as well as a fun, cheaper, option for many parks.

Not strictly Phantasialand-related, but it'll do... Vekoma have updated their website to show promotional art of their new-gen flyer. More details will follow during this week's IAAPA. Personally feel like those trains are a bit, well, ugly. Hope there's easy customisable theming options..

But what do number of interactions actually count for? Sure, it increases outreach, but that's pretty pointless when what they're posting is effectively gibberish. And it hardly increases outreach in the first place when it's probably the same people interacting. It's the sort of stuff that small-scale pages do, not pre-established large companies too. This doesn't even take into account that the type of people who enjoy this, like young teens, aren't exactly in their abundance on Twitter, preferring things like Snapchat (which, ironically, is severely under-utilised by Thorpe). It shows a complete lack of understanding of who they're trying to target, as well as how and why. It also doesn't help when they post things which could be interpreted as hints to investments which aren't going to happen (see today's tweet). No Thorpe, that's not interacting with fans and being funny and clever, it alienates a large majority of people who don't about pointless teases, and sets expectations too high for the minority. Very definition of shooting yourself in the foot.

Alternatively, go for an interview there, and they let you roam around the park unescorted for free afterwards. Didn't feel wholly comfortable with that proposition...

Anyone else feel like Thorpe's Twitter is the cringiest thing to happen in 2018, and just generally not how a theme park should do social media? Or am I just out of touch with what's "cool" these days...

As a project, this must be costing MILLIONS - this won't be cheap. Crazy really that they're considering this, just to potentially help ease of traffic congestion. I question how much it'll improve people's travel to the park, and how much of Europa's thinking is just 'this draws even more attention to us and creates something unique'. But it's still a quirky thing to see, and I'm sure people will love it, so I've got nothing against it.

Dia de Muertos is the, predominantly Mexican, celebration for 'Day of the Dead'. It's a 3 day festival taking place 31st October to 2nd November for people to celebrate life and death, and reflect back on loved ones who have passed away. It's slowly creeping its way into western culture, mostly because people think it's Halloween related and an excuse to dress up vibrantly with skulls. But it's not, and if anything, shows how people don't understand the point of it. Why on earth Thorpe it would be a good idea to make reference to it, I have no idea. Most people don't know of it, don't care for it, and it has no relation to anything at Thorpe. And given how few interactions it got, it shows. Fun fact - the backwards cave section in Chiapas at Phantasialand is based off of Dia de Muertos. Hence the disco ball, flashing lights and singing skulls.

Ermmmm... Thorpe x10(ish) Phantasialand x6 Alton Towers x5 Chessington x4 Legoland x2 Energylandia x1 Legendia x1 Flamingo Land x1 Adventure Island x1 Efteling x1 Toverland x1 Bellewaerde x1 So 4 new parks this year (Flamingo Land, Adventure Island and Polish parks). A quieter year for me though. But hey, at least Phantasialand was my second-most visited park - happy with that ?

Couple of renderings of the RMC, who's name isn't necessarily Zadra, but that is just the project name: (Pictures from looopings)

Trying my best not to be triggered... Though I agree Taiga will be a beast of a ride, and I really can't wait to ride it. Good Intamins

Genuinely do not care! I'm always of the mind set that original layouts are better than cloned layouts, but this does nothing to hurt my love for Taron

Sadly not Thorpe, but I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear Wanda Chengdu are building a Taron clone...

I visited Tulleys for the first time last night. I was perhaps a little disappointed by it if I'm honest.. Mazes reviewed in order: Creepy Cottage Nice little attraction. Very dark and nicely themed. The sponge floor was nice. VIXI Not awful. The changes in height in the floor are good, the rope changes are good, the temperature changes are good. The post-hood section is fun. The major issue is the actors making too much noise - making one loud noise to scare one person stops the actor from being able to scare anyone else. Circus of Horrors Good 20 minute show. Like the intimate setting which works very well for CoH. Coven of 13 Loved the swamp at the start; very different and fun. Trouble is Coven goes on too long with not a lot happening. I'm all for lulls and breaks to build tension, but these go on too long with not enough to keep interest levels up. I was ready for it to end at least twice before realising it was carrying on. Haunted Hayride Loved this. Good humour, good interaction, couple of clever scares (putting chainsaws in the benches to make them vibrate - very clever). Twisted Clowns 3D By far my favourite maze of the night. Doesn't take itself too seriously, creating lots of funny moments. And that leaves you more open to being scared. It's so different in tone to every other attraction which makes it feel like a breath of fresh air. Chop Shop Meh. When chainsaws do nothing for you, this maze was always going to be meh. It starts off well, but with the second half of the maze literally being 'strobes, blank walls and chainsaws', it's just very bland. Cellar Cellar was alright. In terms of style, it felt very similar to a lot of other mazes, and there were a couple too many lull moments for my liking. I'd say the last minute of the maze we walked through with no actors. Colony Another extremely long maze, again with not a lot happening at a lot of points. The lulls were almost getting boring at this point. Again, the style of the maze felt very samey to a few others which meant it all felt a bit of a blur. The white room with all the smoke was very good though. One thing which really stood out to me is how Tulleys clearly have their own groove for mazes. "A creepy / distopian storyline and actors speaking non-sensical words" pretty much describes 5 of their mazes, which all feel very blended into one. On top of that, multiple mazes have chainsaws, which just makes the whole technique feel bland. The crowning jewel of Tulleys, however, is their street performers. They are brilliant. I had multiple interactions through the night. The clowns harassed me whilst I was eating (and hurled a couple of phrases I won't repeat on here ?). A guy with a bird-thing interacted with me a few times, always with lots of humour. The live entertainers were brilliant, with street staff encouraging/forcing us to dance along. And the nurses gave us a very rousing personal performance whilst we were at a table.. So yeah, all in all, I found the best bits of Tulleys to be the less serious attractions. Maybe it's just me and what I want from scare attractions, but their 'this is a super dark scary thing' mazes did little for me, with Twisted and the street team, the ones who were more playful and not trying so hard with the scares, being the real highlights of the event.

I visited Tulleys for the first time last night. I was perhaps a little disappointed by it if I'm honest.. Mazes reviewed in order: Creepy Cottage Nice little attraction. Very dark and nicely themed. The sponge floor was nice. VIXI Not awful. The changes in height in the floor are good, the rope changes are good, the temperature changes are good. The post-hood section is fun. The major issue is the actors making too much noise - making one loud noise to scare one person stops the actor from being able to scare anyone else. Circus of Horrors Good 20 minute show. Like the intimate setting which works very well for CoH. Coven of 13 Loved the swamp at the start; very different and fun. Trouble is Coven goes on too long with not a lot happening. I'm all for lulls and breaks to build tension, but these go on too long with not enough to keep interest levels up. I was ready for it to end at least twice before realising it was carrying on. Haunted Hayride Loved this. Good humour, good interaction, couple of clever scares (putting chainsaws in the benches to make them vibrate - very clever). Twisted Clowns 3D By far my favourite maze of the night. Doesn't take itself too seriously, creating lots of funny moments. And that leaves you more open to being scared. It's so different in tone to every other attraction which makes it feel like a breath of fresh air. Chop Shop Meh. When chainsaws do nothing for you, this maze was always going to be meh. It starts off well, but with the second half of the maze literally being 'strobes, blank walls and chainsaws', it's just very bland. Cellar Cellar was alright. In terms of style, it felt very similar to a lot of other mazes, and there were a couple too many lull moments for my liking. I'd say the last minute of the maze we walked through with no actors. Colony Another extremely long maze, again with not a lot happening at a lot of points. The lulls were almost getting boring at this point. Again, the style of the maze felt very samey to a few others which meant it all felt a bit of a blur. The white room with all the smoke was very good though. One thing which really stood out to me is how Tulleys clearly have their own groove for mazes. "A creepy / distopian storyline and actors speaking non-sensical words" pretty much describes 5 of their mazes, which all feel very blended into one. On top of that, multiple mazes have chainsaws, which just makes the whole technique feel bland. The crowning jewel of Tulleys, however, is their street performers. They are brilliant. I had multiple interactions through the night. The clowns harassed me whilst I was eating (and hurled a couple of phrases I won't repeat on here ?). A guy with a bird-thing interacted with me a few times, always with lots of humour. The live entertainers were brilliant, with street staff encouraging/forcing us to dance along. And the nurses gave us a very rousing personal performance whilst we were at a table.. So yeah, all in all, I found the best bits of Tulleys to be the less serious attractions. Maybe it's just me and what I want from scare attractions, but their 'this is a super dark scary thing' mazes did little for me, with Twisted and the street team, the ones who were more playful and not trying so hard with the scares, being the real highlights of the event.

Let me get serious for a minute.. Returning mazes: -Saw Alive. During Fright Nights, the Saw brand works. It's as simple as that. If you've got the ride, you may as well keep the maze because it's a sure fire success. -Living Nightmare. I'm not keen on this maze, but again the public enjoy it, so why not. Get a decent ending in it though. -Platform 15. It's a solid maze which I think can grow and evolve fairly easily. I love the idea mentioned above about it having it's route reversed - starting off in the tunnel like a blindfolded section or something. I'm guessing logistically it would be extremely difficult, plus it require a lot of changes (and money) to the maze, which I doubt we'd see. I can still dream I guess. -Containment. Change it up a bit so it's fresh, but keep it. New attractions: -Indoor maze next to Crust. Buy more shipping containers. Get a cheap tent. Get an expensive themed tent. I don't care. Just do something. Big Top proved that you can turn that space into a fantastic experience, you just need to be clever. Ideally I'd love to see Big Top return, but I don't know how likely that it is. -Something in the IAC space. Ideally we've seen the end of IAC, so they can rip it out and start afresh. But if not, transform it into a maze. If they insist on Vulcan, actually spend money on it to turn it into a multi sensory experience. -Scare zone. Stealth plaza is ideal for a scare zone, so build off of Amity High from this year (and yknow, add some theming). Look at turning Swarm Island into a scare zone too. -Extreme experiences. If you want to market Fright Nights as extreme, super duper scary or whatever, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Have an upcharge experience like Face it Alone after hours (or heck, even just during the day). Have an extreme maze which isn't just you walking in a group and people jumping out. Just anything. Something different needs to happen. I've heard some people saying Fright Nights needs to go back to basics. But the truth is, Fright Nights was the most basic event this year. Every maze followed the same repetitive formula of 'perhaps too long pre show which does little', 'maze where people jump out at you for a quick impact scare', 'awkward ending which leaves you more confused than scared'. Do something different. Big Top's maze at the start / choice of doors. Cabin's true free flow. Experiment 10's splitting up. Do this and you'll be onto a winner Thorpe.

Would have thought you of all people would have realised a sarcastic post when it's slapped across your face. Clearly not.

We love interacting with our followers! Especially when they're extremely annoyed by the park!! And we love them so much we give copy and paste responses! These don't always answer their problems! Sorry if you feel disappointed by this! - CC

The major issue I see is the lack of foresight from the park. It was known that the weather would be cold. Thorpe know that they have these restrictions about rides not being able to open in cold temperatures. Yet they probably had somewhere between 16-18k people come through, knowing that sooner or later a good proportion of major rides would close. And their response on social media boils down to 'Fright Nights is popular, the weather is cold, not our fault, soz m8'. The park have taken zero responsibility for this. And yes, weather is out of their control, but they can control communication. A forewarning on Thursday/Friday about the weather, giving guests tips on how to make the most of their day, etc, advising people the park will be busy and consider alternative days if possible (the latter of which they did at 2pm yesterday..). The attitude of the park stinks in this situation. Then telling guests 'you couldn't possibly do all Fright Nights attractions in one day, you'll have to come back to experience them all' is a disgrace. And when they only have 3 indoor mazes (5 indoor attractions if you count Screamplexx 2D and upcharge-Containment), it screws the park up even more. People are told to wait till night time to do those ones as they're scarier, do some coasters in the evening as their quieter, etc. But when it's cold, and the coasters aren't open, indoor attractions are no doubt more preferable over outside ones. The park were able open the 3 indoor mazes at 12pm yesterday, which shows they at least had some thought go into yesterday - "oh, Saturday will be busy, let's open 3 mazes early to increase the park's overall throughput per hour and give people more chance to go through the mazes". But in some ways, it's worse, because it makes it seem like they thought that would be enough to compensate for everything else that could go wrong. The kick in the teeth for people will also be how the park said "we are not at capacity". Given the numerous complaints, it's clear the park did not handle the numbers yesterday. Imagine having a terrible day at park, and being told 'sorry, but the park can be even busier than this, so it could be worse'. On top of a lackluster maze selection, the park have - arguably, once again - screwed up Fright Nights again from a customer service / satisfaction perspective.

News for 2020, which will be a new themed land featuring, as expected, an RMC, which appears to be called Zadra (Polish for splinter)... Key facts: Area name: Dragon's Castle Rides: Zadra, dark ride, junior coaster, kids monorail and a couple of others Will also include shops and restaurants Located at the back of the back of the park, sort of behind / between their Vekoma launch and SLC (previously just unused space) Opening date: In original documentation, it was mentioned the RMC had to be open "by 6th April 2020", so Spring 2020. Work is already happening on the site, so that seems realistic Nolimits video of the RMC, including a POV, from about 1 minute onwards with artwork from about 3 minutes Really good to see Energylandia go for a themed area. Their early investments were very much 'plonk rides down', but lately they've been thinking about theming more, so a cohesive area is only a good thing. Dark ride appears to be a trackless dark ride similar with vehicles similar to Symbolica / Baszylisk, and appears to be a shooter too (good thing, since their current dark ride is beyond terrible). The junior coaster is potentially a Zierer or Vekoma, hard to tell, but based on the artwork, it doesn't look to be a relocation of one of the park's current coasters... Current rumours suggest the following: -2019: Vekoma mine train of a similar size / scale to Colorado Adventure at Phantasialand -2020: RMC + junior coaster -2021: Vekoma multi-launch over water -Beyond 2022: Vekoma tilt coaster, plus whatever else they decide to chuck in. The park currently has 12 creds, putting it at the 2nd highest in Europe, only behind Europa (13). If Ankapark in Turkey ever opens, that'll have 17 though. Though I'm sure by the time they open, Energylandia will be smashing them...

Oh Steven.

The first thing that caught my attention with that sign is that it looks like, again, there will be a focus on events in 2019. No mention of a new attraction. So there's a decent chance there could be nothing 'new' in terms of rides, mazes, etc for next year. Also going to address 2 points which keep bugging me... Loggers Leap. If this thing was going to be opening next year, we'd have seen some work to it by now. We'd have heard something. Anyone saying, thinking, wishing, whatever that it'll open next year is living in dreamland at the moment. And it's still very much a case of 'if' it will open again, and not 'when'. We need to be realistic with expectations there. I agree they need to make a decision and stick to it though. Slammer. Slammer is gone. Dead. Finished. It ain't coming back. I agree it would be nice for them to dismantle it. But, realistically, it won't be dismantled until something replaces it. What do I want for 2019? -Thorpe to start truly focusing on presentation. Having a proper budget to fix and maintain stuff, repaint things and make the park look and feel good. This shouldn't be part of an advertised 'Thorpe TLC' programme like Towers do. By all means call it that behind the scenes, but don't advertise it - just do it. -A solid event line up. It's scary to think it was 10 years ago, but in 2009 and years around then, the park had a solid events line up. You would have a big buzz for opening. Easter holidays had something. May half term had something different. Summer had something. Then you had Fright Nights. They tried that this year, but it fell flat due to the Year of TWD being advertised poorly, the conflict with that and Love Island, and scary stuff not working outside of the Halloween period in theme parks (shock horror!!!). They need to bring back a solid, varied, events line up, to give people reason to visit. Hopefully this is on the cards. -Fright Nights. Fright Nights is poor this year, but it shouldn't be. It is the park's headline event and should be their best time of year. Go for quality over quantity. Actually spent time designing mazes, putting a budget in to build them, rather than just giving actors a space and hoping they can scare people. -A vision to go forward on. Once again, we find ourselves asking "Who does Thorpe Park cater for?". They've had The Year of TWD, Love Island Lates and the scariest Fright Nights ever. Yet families still come to visit, Thorpe push families a lot. They've got out of their way to keep Timber Tug and Lumber Jump open during Fright Nights. They kept the beach open till the end of September. If Thorpe are ready to accept that families will always visit, show that in the brand, attract more in and make them welcome. -Signs for the future. Related to the above really. The park needs a new roller coaster. It's what Thorpe do best, it's what everyone expects from Thorpe. We need to know that it's going to happen, and that it's going to happen soon. If they don't want a coaster just yet, get a log flume (confirm what's happen with Loggers) or a shooter dark ride. Just something big, substantial and good. Please

Tried out the new Vulcan Peak today. It's less awful. I believe they're continually making changes, but what I noticed: -Use of the bum prodders in pre show -Hooded section ending at what was Chamber of Horrors -A non-hooded section through a slightly different route of I'm A Celeb -A couple of actors, wearing black cloaks and UV make-up -A finale, featuring one actor asking if anyone has been marked, before a 'big reveal' of an actor jumping out to scare you (think Platform 15, but less good) So yeah, less awful. It will get some more positive reviews I'm sure, and scaredy groups will die at the ending. If it had opened like this, it would have been another 2018 Thorpe 'it'll do to up the attraction number' maze, rather than be the laughing stock that it was. It still ranks very low down on the list of Thorpe mazes though. If you see anyone saying that they've given this maze "the Big Top" treating, they're lying. Frankly, it's an insult to the Big Top and the people behind the newer versions of it to even suggest that. What Thorpe have done is realised they created a big, steaming pile of turd of an attraction, grabbed a couple of baby wipes and polished it up a bit. If they actually took some time to do this maze properly, rather than sticking a rope in I'm a Celeb and hoping for the best before retrospectively throwing in some questionably KKK-looking actors in after 2 weeks, they might have created a decent attraction. It wouldn't have been my cup of tea, but the hooded element and creepy voodoo nature has a lot of potential.

His name is hardly a secret - as I said, any Divisional Director's name appears in basically any piece of marketing. A link to an article with his name was posted in a different thread too. I stand by my comment that I don't know how appropriate it is to discuss this, but if the discussion is going to carry on, it's only fair to have more balanced facts than just guessing and going on hearsay.

I'm not sure how appropriate it is for us to be commenting on specific people and their jobs. People at Divisional Director level are there to take charge of the park, yes, but outside of having their name - and occasionally their face - associated to press releases (where quotes are normally written by someone from the marketing department), their not in the public eye. Seems a bit unfair for us to comment and speculate what is effectively someone's livelihood based on hearsay. Dom Jones had a lot of experience with Thorpe Park, the theme park industry and senior management roles, in and out of Merlin. We simply do not know enough about the situation at Thorpe to form any sort of opinion about it all, in my personal opinion.