Benin

Was one of the worst designed rides in Merlin's ownership. Not helped by having no budget for the finale, which presumably was wasted on the god awful interactive preshow. Chessie's future does seem at a crossroads mind. Probably realising how much of a drain on finances the zoo is. However to remove that would remove the history of the park's roots and require a LOT of clever replacing. Can't exactly put a coaster right by the hotels.

To be fair most theme park staff go back to school/uni in September. Until theme park work is seen as far more long term it'll be the only thing people end up doing (like I did).

Sad times, I'm a great believer of that since it can sort a lot of potential bother out. Towers sounds like they're ditching them with the cuts though.

I'd say the first ride staff to go are those at front gate. Would've been useful on my visit as seemed that none of the staff really understood parent swap. Especially when GS didn't have any passes to give out.

I'd presume Sparkle was designed to be over a number of years like Towers' equivalent. So everything that's done first will look tired by the time the project is "complete". I reckon this year hasn't been profit heavy so far (for a number of reasons) and panic is setting in.

Yay capitalism! Merlin don't seem to ever learn from the past. Presumably because the parks go through management types like I do a box of Lindor. This season has seen a lot of the flaws from previous seasons come to the forefront. Maintenance has been a big issue for years and they wonder why rides break down left, right and centre. Hyperia's closures haven't helped Thorpe (especially when opening it late into the season stopped many visiting prior). Towers hasn't even seen Hex or Skyride. And then the weather has been extremely off-putting to many across the board. The problem is that the parks have become major problems because of years of mismanagement. And now the response to that is to make more cuts via closed rides and reduced staffing, therefore lessening the overall product, resulting in more issues. Short-termism appears to be back. Again.

Thorpe are just being more subtle with their cuts after seeing the flak Towers got for daring to go similar to the Rapids that no one rides anyway.

First ride was row 6, then row 4. So even that makes no sense. Might be a train thing. Didn't notice much rattle either.

Gonna add on to my initial impressions. My second ride was wildly different and not in a particularly positive way. I've no idea why either. But two rows further forward and suddenly it was ALL the sustained g-forces and making me feel quite glad of the short layout come the end. A peculiar situation, and something I've not encountered since Tatsu and Firehawk at King's Island. Both of which I put down to the flying positions. But this was just weird. So yeah. Strange situation given there was maybe an hour between rides and the rain that was in abundance the first go had gone. Done at least, and I can ignore Thorpe's existence for next few years (mostly down to child).

I saw them doing an initial run through of the show yesterday. Cringe doesn't even cover it. Granted not helped by no actual audience since park was quiet so the attempts at audience participation were fruitless. Felt sorry for them. Not their fault the show is utter pants.

Finally been on it. Area looks crap. Station is a weird attempt at Icon for some reason. It's a great ride until the trims. All that momentum just thrown in the bin, leaving you wanting the rest of the layout rather than awkward corner. Best ride on park? Sure. Best ride ever? Not even close.

Probably having to make up for the lack of maintenance in the years prior. Or things just happen that need work now. It's not a good look for any seasonal park though.

Potentially adding fans/misters at the end of summer is such an incredibly Merlin thing.

100% doable I'm sure on the app to put exact opening times for each ride on them. However I think having a very open ended "it MIGHT close early" is more of an issue. Either say it WILL close say 30 minutes prior to advertised park closing time or just close it at that point and damn the consequences. Giving such vague wiggle room can cause issues. Thorpe's communication back on my May visit (the day they didn't tell anyone in the park about Hyperia being closed until letting people in) still irks me. Now THAT was terrible communication, and probably part of that is out of fear of backlash that the big new thing wasn't open, but making it worse by not communicating properly to those visiting on park (social media posts, especially whilst people are travelling or already there don't help much). Fear of bad PR often leads to it moreso than clear and open communication. Must've been a reason why the early closure announcement was only made in the Hyperia area after all.

Bring back Love Island Lates or whatever it was called. Genuinely think there's such little demand culturally for such late closures. Though I'd imagine a lot of that is down to there being very little variation in activity at Thorpe/Towers and Chessie/Lego are full of kids who need routine.

Depends when they were allowed to operate till. Might have pulled the plug on it a bit early just in case they broke any "curfew" agreed with local council etc. Which would be fine if communicated properly.

Well MAP holders aren't going to spend money on park might as well get something out of them. Though I dread to think how bad a run through with some "influencer" searching for THEIR reference in the maze would be.

It might be fire treated, but now the structure is essentially compromised so they need to replace the pieces affected. For example, if you have a 30 minute rated fire door that withstands 25 minutes, it might not have failed but the fire stopping material is compromised, so you need to replace the entire thing.

Just because something is fire treated/resistant doesn't make it immune to fire damage. Always harder to replace roller coaster components. Especially on wooden ones.

Only been a week. Depends what they're waiting for given how burdenous the supply chain is these days when receiving stuff from abroad.

RAP is still 1 go and now timed out? I'm definitely going to beat my record for Thorpe based visiting in September at this rate.

The extended hours are only good if people actually stay about. As mentioned, Summer Nights was pretty much a failure every time they tried it before. Can only presume that the other parks have had hours cut due to the weather being mostly crap this year. Perhaps it's just a culture thing. And without things to fill your day beyond queueing there won't be much demand for it either.

Passholders whine more than anyone. I'd want to maim people if it were me dealing with it. Which was probably half the issue with the often sarcastic responses from Thorpe. Fine for an individual, but not when representing a company.

Night rides on Beast are probably the main redeeming feature of the park. I did enjoy it many years ago, but was fortunate enough to be a VIP on that visit so queues and poor operations weren't a problem.

Probably just not getting the traffic/clicks anymore now that Hyperia is open and there's very little behind the scenes stuff really going on that they can't just post on their usual socials.