Cornflakes

One interesting to note is that the area almost perfectly aligns with a square grid.. Wonder what sort of theme would warrant that 🤔

Have some in-depth thoughts about Nemesis Reborn and the new Forbidden Valley, entirely about the new theming, as you all know the ride itself is excellent - It’s Nemesis! Been looking forward to this a lot, but had some reservations regarding Forbidden Valley and its theming, I do think it’s a real shame that Forbidden Valley has lost its Post Apocalyptic, Mad Max-y vibe, but what’s been done with the new theme is - regardless of personal taste - very impressive. Almost every major set piece moves, every set piece has sound, the station and shop have their own small show sequences, the theming is dynamic in a way that Merlin hasn’t really attempted before. The area makes you feel like you’re in a bombastic monster movie, if old Forbidden Valley was about exploring where an event had happened, New is about seeing it, hearing it, and feeling it happen. This whole project feels like Merlin’s first step into the modern era of theme parks, if this is the new quality bar for Merlin there’s a lot to be excited about. Towers' continual commitment to street theatre helps the area shine as well. I’m not under the illusion there will be this many characters out all the time, but knowing you’ll see at least one of them is a lot of fun and helps the area feel alive. I’m particularly fond of the Mushroom Cloud Tour Guide, hope you find your bus king! This isn’t to say everything’s perfect of course, the “school perimeter” fencing is ugly and the gun in the queue line screams “We tried to move the old one but it fell apart, so we threw this together” But what’s wrong is pretty minor and fixable, after seeing the tweaks Alton Manor got last year I wouldn’t be surprised if we *actually* saw this stuff worked on. But yeah, really impressed with it all, Forbidden Valley truly feels like it belongs to Nemesis again. I’m looking forward to spending more time in the area throughout the year and seeing how it evolves over the coming years, they cooked!

It’s going to be May. BET ON IT!!!!

kind of hoping it isn’t so I can double dip with the nemesis opening and the hyperia opening

Got another go on Ghost Train today and thought it was great, the changes from my go in June were subtle but really made a world of difference. I think if you let yourself buy into the attraction and expect a little goofiness, you can have a lot of fun. The “Soul Redemption” line is wonderfully cheesy. Actors today were also stellar, some of the best I’ve seen in an attraction full stop. Train full of screaming guests says to me that when on good form, the ride does work for people. Still have some lingering concerns about replacing temperamental technology with temperamental human beings though.

2023 seems to be the year I make some of my geekiest ever posts on this forum, so in that spirit; when did Stealth’s train livery change? First two pictures show the original livery, featuring bespoke graphics for the rides name and train number based on the ride logo. Third and fourth pictures are of the new livery. It uses more basic, lower quality graphics for the train number as well as writing the rides name in the default Windows font Bauhaus93, slightly edited to try and approximate the original graphics. Does anyone know what year the livery was updated? I’ve found appearances of it as far back as 2016, but this was only from a cursory look. It’s a shame that the original graphics weren’t kept handy in the event that the train livery would need to be replaced. And while this is an incredibly minor thing that no normal, well adjusted person would notice I do think it’s a shame. Little niggles like this (As well as many other things) make the entire Merlin operation seem a little unprofessional. Would things like this happen if more care and attention (and money) was given to each individual park?

Where has the rumour of a full overhaul actually come from? The ride is great and if the people I rode with the other day are any indication it’s a real crowd pleaser. I’m sure adjustments will be made as they are with every dark ride in their first off season, but rumours of a full on overhaul seem a bit silly.

[Citation Needed]

Thank so much for this! Being a kid enthusiast was something else, used to check that Project Dylan site religiously. First coaster construction I ever followed! It’s such a shame how so much stuff online from around 2000-2010 is just lost to time now. I would hope that someone thought to screenshot it at the time but I’ve had no luck finding anything.

Hi friends! One for the oldies here, does anyone else remember the “Ride it First” competition game on the Saw mini site back in 2008? If my memory serves me correctly it had some relatively crude 3D graphics and the goal was to recreate a *particular scene* from the first film as quickly as possible. I remember being quite taken aback by how grisly it was, but that may have just been my 10 year old brain. I’m sure if I saw it now it’d seem pretty quaint. Does anyone else remember this? Better yet, does anyone have any images or (Even better) footage of it? Or has this tiny little piece of Thorpe Park history become lost media.

if it’s called something as naff as tutus revenge I’d be shocked

So I’ve just done Ghost Train (Sitting in Last Call as I write this) and have some thoughts. I liked it! As a story led attraction this works far better than DBGT ever did, the experience here is relatively cohesive. Actor led attractions can be difficult, as you really have to hope that the actors are giving it their all at any given time, which can’t always be guaranteed for a number of reasons. My actors today were great, but is the experience going to be consistent for everyone that rides it? Parts of the experience can be a little bit goofy, and if you’re not on board with that I can see why you might come out of this thinking it was a poor experience. Some scenes have relatively scant audio, so parts that are meant to be creepy or scary may not land for some people, I think more carefully directed audio would really improve certain sequences, as without it you can sometimes just have actors awkwardly writhing with nothing giving it any impact. Nun on the train - good scare in theory and certainly got a few people, but the costume looked a little.. cheap? Some more work could be done on this, I think a better costume would go a long way, at the moment it’s like a man running at you in his Halloween costume. See it, say it, sorted got the biggest reaction from my group. It’s a great joke. Exit shop is another scene that doesn’t have the impact it could, I think some work on the audio could really lift this. I think this is a good attraction with great potential and a little work could go a long. I thought the same things about DBGT, but that would’ve taken a significant investment in order to release that potential, this is so close.

Only 2 of Thorpe’s major coasters are heavily themed. Everything else is really just stylised to fit within the areas, so this is in keeping with the majority of the parks coaster line up. The original concept art had me expected bland modernism so I’ll take what I can get

Love gold as the colour. These days I’m not as regular a visitor to Thorpe as some others here, how’s the upkeep of coaster track compared to Towers? Hope this lovely gold is kept in good condition. I wonder if Exodus’s area will act as an extension to Lost City? The additional details in the application scream Lost City to me.

Plenty of talented creative people at Merlin who are often hamstrung by decisions made by money men, let’s not forget that John Burton was the lead on TWD (Poor guy) Best to wait and see if Ghost Train is any good instead of passing judgement based on who is and isn’t working on it.

Never liked how often the discussions on RAP devolve into trying to guess who is and isn’t disabled, as if you could ever know. There are definitely some people who abuse the system, but the fundamental problem is the system is massively mismanaged. It needs to be rethought completely. On paper it’s a virtual queueing system but it rarely operates like this. There needs to be a real investment into the system to get it up to scratch, but who knows if they’d ever spring for that.

I hope there’s at least something. Most of Thorpe’s coasters are stylised if not heavily themed, even something like Stealth which is far lighter touch has SOMETHING. Think it’d be a real shame if Thorpe went down the amusement park route.

Excited to see most of the lake filled in in about 10 years or so like they did with Colossus

Good on them. The pay for engineers and almost any high level role outside of corporate at Merlin is shocking.

Genuinely quite shocked to see anyone share my opinion of it! I thought it was a pretty cracking little dark ride after the first round of updates in April 2012, excited to see it return presumably without actors.

This is most likely the exact same situation as when John Wardley was the creative lead at Tussauds. Creative projects like this always require massive teams, you only need to watch the recent documentary on The Haunted House to see that it was the product of a large creative team working together. The leaders on creative projects always get the lions share of praise (Or criticism!) because they are the public face of the project. It’s the same reason we revere film directors even though they’re one part of a larger team. John Wardley’s role in his projects is most likely over-estimated by quite a few enthusiasts. Also, @Theme park Fanantic pre Tussauds, shops on Towers Street sold brands like Gucci and Cartier, among others. Pretty wild to think about designer brands being on sale at parks these days!

In Broome era Towers you could buy designer clothes, glass & ceramics and even full furniture pieces from different shops on Towers Street! Maybe antiques aren’t such a crazy suggestion after all

merlin.

On a visit in August 2022, Vibes (And every other in house restaurant) was closed. Here’s hoping they can even be bothered to open the place this year