Benin

That's down to budget and effort, not based upon the target market... It certainly doesn't stop other parks across the world who get guests of all ages milling about the park having some theming (even if it's cheap Halloween Poundland stuff)... Budget and effort, two things Merlin seem to not be too happy with giving lots of these days, unless the park is struggling (which arguably goes at the expense of other park budgets because of how Merlin's big pot of money is operated)... What would the roaming characters do more of? I think that's an issue with roaming characters (and horror actors as a whole) in that they are very limited as to what they can do... The director last year at Thorpe was a difference, because he could actually talk and interact on the fly, compared to the You're Next people who just did the cliched jump and try and scare people... It's such a cliched trend throughout them all though... What else could such roaming actors in limited roles do though is the question? I'd much rather the characters be a lot more talkative and interactive rather than dull and jumpy... But it's up to Thorpe (and other parks) to actually try and train the actors or evolve the roles more to suit this...

How does advertising on Tinder make the event better? Thorpe's use of social media is always a bit iffy though... Always with the 'BANTZ' exchange on there, like recently with the Dungeons... Much lad, very BANTZ...

Thorpe clearly think that the Reserve n Ride system is the answer to all those related problems... Thing is, where would a few flats/dark rides go? Space is an utter premium at Thorpe and I have my doubts they know how best to use the available space... And then what other flat rides can you add to a park that's already full of them? Unless Thorpe actually decide that they actually DO want to embrace the family market and add a few things like Chairswings (or a Starflyer)... As for sprucing up the park, Merlin don't seem to embrace that issue unless they HAVE to... State of Towers Street/Nemesis station/Inferno's mouldy volcano pretty much sums that up...

Big Bad Wolf was so good Annoyed they announced it's closure after I visited, otherwise I would've purchased so much merch...

Whilst such a conversation is best set out in the Drayton topic, they get stick because they're both uncomfortable, boring (Shockwave mostly here, especially with it's RCT straight) and are just generally poor... I hate all Stand-up coasters though, and being able to breathe mid-ride... Neither are real options with those two...

HSE issued the summons, I think the case with the family has been settled... Probably stuff to do with the recent Dr Cave findings coming out and answering to those issues, which started with this incident... Sure Merlin would like to sweep this under the carpet ASAP..

Trauma's been closed for ages (like the Ark), since the Nash fire if I remember... Ring Racer did originally also open years ago, but blew up and had lots of problems since... The new owners of the Ring saw it as a burden and spited it as a result... Good call on Son of Beast, that also narrowly evaded me by closing forever about 2 weeks before I visited... That was sans loop of course, that would've been an experience... Annnnnd finally I think New Beast was a smaller version of Black Hole, rather than an exact clone... Sure someone can check RCDB for this... +1 for Moody Blues ride as well, but not for Alien Encounter, not at all sad to say I wussed out thirteen years ago...

Two words: Natural Selection If the deer wasn't so stupid to stand in front of a coaster track then it'd still be alive... Nature does try it's hardest to get rid of the stupid ones in a species (although unfortunately this doesn't work with humans 100% of the time), indeed, the deer will now know that if they wander into that area they will likely die, making the species smarter and more likely to survive in the future... No the reaction wouldn't be the same, it would be "Why is a human being standing in front of a coaster when they have a higher brain function to know fight or flight when faced with a machine, rather than standing like a deer in headlights?"

You can still ride clones of Black Hole and Corkscrew (though Black Hole clones don't tend to be located in tents, you can just close your eyes instead)... The one ride that should be on everyone's list is Eagle Fortress (http://rcdb.com/1337.htm), and other things for me are Ozark Wildcat at the defunct Celebration City and Ring Racer at the Nurburgring (all it had to do was run for this year and I would've got it)... Suppose it would've been nice to visit American Adventure/Mingoland before it got spited/spited the two Schwarzkopfs, but such is the way of the world at times... Also Camelot sucked...

Amusing to look back at that, and the big old focus on Thirteen... Weird as well that we ended up with Saw, instead of the generic horror mine theme that was the original intention... That may or may not have been me after riding Helix...

Ben 10 is the best coaster at Drayton... In overall terms though, that's not a good thing...

It would be pretty impossible for a small child to access the track on T'Ultimate, given that it's nowhere near the pathways for 99% of the actual ride... A higher perimeter fence won't make a difference either, not like the deer jumped over the thing...

Drayton, then they can have an actually good coaster that isn't aimed at kids? Mingoland don't deserve one, Lightwater can't afford one, Blackpool lack the space... Very limited in terms of what parks should have one, of course the real dream is that Towers remove Rita and put a Mack Mega in place that ventures down the valley...

He did compile a list of failings, however Merlin state that they fixed this issues (though it would seem that this was via totally removing rockwork for the majority)... HOWEVER, the key issue is that Merlin's fixes were not checked by an independent body to ensure that they were safe for public to use the park... That's where the issue lies, a lack of standards and independent audits taking place...

It's even more beautiful in person

Oblivion can easily run 6 shuttles... 2 in station, 2 on brake run and 2 in the circuit (1 going around and the other being held at the bottom of lift hill)... Does involve a lot of stacking mind, but that's life sometimes...

Can't wait to see how Studio 13 looks when it gets that sexy cattlepen queueline <3

Will it? Don't think Thorpe's attendances dropped when Stealth ran over a pigeon (or to be more accurate, ONE of the times it ran over a pigeon), nor did it affect Apollo's Chariot, and that incident happened on their press day... Lightwater's attendance will be affected by their lack of money to build anything new or interesting to get people to visit, not because of the circle of life...

You think a Merlin park fixes broken effects? DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COSTS?!

Nope, since Vampire on three trains was stopped in either 2009 or 2010 (I forget which one)... Think you'll also find surveyors will assess the risks of the park (what he was asked to do), but also will look to get the problems rectified... Once the problems are solved they SHOULD be assessed independently, rather than internally, as bias (or Merlin's pursestrings) can be an issue... As said, Merlin wanted to cover up the problems found by the surveyor, which kinda goes against the whole idea of getting the guy in the first place...

Why? Considering his job was to survey the park for issues, he found lots, but the park's solutions weren't checked independently whilst Merlin wanted to keep things quiet... Doing his job really...

Depends what you mean by quiet, I've visited a Disney park with walk-ons for pretty much everything... Then again, at those parks there's actually a lot more other options for guests to do, be they watch shows, meet characters or do things other than queue... Since a quiet day for Thorpe these days tends to result in 45 minute queues because of one train op though, there's very little excuse... Indeed, 5-10 minutes is probably the limit, like when I visited Parque Warner and it had one train op on Superman and Batman, but the park was so dead it made no difference... Empty seats because they've gotten rid of the queue is better than a long, slow moving queue of people who aren't spending money/getting frustrated with crappy operations...

I loved the 2021 prediction tbh... Interestingly, Thor's Hammer at Tusenfryd cost a massive €8.5million... The way Merlin seem to budget their parks, that would never be seen as a filler season addition... Which is naturally disappointing, as that could be very affordable, as I'd assume that a LOT of that budget went towards creating the massive caverns in the rock that the ride lives in... A slightly more realistic addition, especially if it was like Huntik <3