Dodge2002

If the Dungeons spent £20m relocating, then surely Shrek would have cost considerably more, if you think they had to start from scratch with all their assets and ride hardware?

Why is £30m such an unrealistic number? We know Merlin progressively increase their investments, and from Saw to The Swarm there was almost a £7m increase in investment. When you consider The Swarm cost £20m including groundworks, a £10m leap after 3 fairly low investment years doesn't seem completely out of hand. Also, until the smiler incident, they were doing very well financially as a whole.

After reading through Merlin's report on The Smiler incident and their reaction I found this snippet to be pretty interesting... Either they originally intended to start marketing the ride sooner, or Merlin are just cruel. This has to be one of the most painful ride constructions in the UK in a looong time. We literally still know nothing, and yet there is a gigantic construction site right under our nose.

It's been said it'll be a wet August this year, couple that with The Smiler, and no worthwhile additions across the entire Merlin estate this year, and you've got one grim outlook. Sadly, for an investment company, Merlin really do suck at being proactive rather than reactive. It seems really odd they'd add half an hour at the start of the day, rather than the end of the day. If I were to be at the park later in the day, I'd be highly likely to buy more food/drink, whereas I wouldn't want anything at the start of the day. Especially when you consider they don't offer any sort of breakfast at the park either. (I assume the bar doesn't serve breakfast to non hotel guests?)

The thing with pop music, is that it rarely offends those who don't like it. They may not enjoy it, but it certainly isn't going to put them in a bad mood. However, lets say Rock music for example is literally HATED by some people, I know some people that would leave the room if they had to listen to the sound of a guitar being shredded. A lot of the younger generation also feel the same way about older music from the 70s/80s/90s. Obviously they could bring back commissioned tracks, but again, outside of enthusiasts, who really enjoys these tracks? As for Island Beats, lets face it, Merlin are not in a position to take a huge risk and hold a concert that wont generate a guaranteed decent return. Festivals and Music events are a huge thing in the UK at the moment, and accounted for £3 billion in the UK last year, and Merlin are probably itching to get a slice of the pie in the easiest way possible, and they're not gonna do that through throwing a rock/latino/blues etc. concert.

Didn't want to start a new thread, but it looks like Merlin have set up camp on Groupon for the summer. http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/thorpe-park £99.95 for 4 Adults and 4 photos is pretty good value I suppose. £25 each and a photo is better value than using a 241 and you get put in a draw for an annual pass. It's a terrible shame there's no option for groups of 3/5/7 etc. though. Otherwise, its nice to see some good promotion.

Didn't it always use to crawl up at that speed for the first few seasons? Maybe I'm imagining it but I swear it just randomly got faster one season.

Anyone who has taken a 1st Aid course would probably have been told quite plainly, unless you point the finger at one select person to ring 999, there's a good chance no one will do it. Its human nature, and remember, even the ride ops are human beings too. If you walked outside and saw a comet fly down from the sky and bop someone on the head would your first instinct be to ring 999? You'd probably be so awestruck you wouldn't know what to do. I know its not exactly the same, but the incident just couldn't have happened in the ride ops minds, and it came as such surprise to everyone that I should suspect 90% of people probably had no clue how to react.

I don't know whether it was just my eyes playing tricks, but I hope they pick a more durable paint than Oblivion, its already started to fade and its only been two seasons. In my opinion Saw has held up better than most Merlin coasters,(which is odd considering how badly the Smiler's paint has fared, even without the wheel scraping) But they should definitely be looking at the type of paint used for Saw as inspiration I think.

Wait...I don't mean to go off topic but why on earth is Colossus on a 75 minute wait? I thought we were in off peak season at the moment and it had 2 trains back?

It goes to show how often Merlin repaint their rides if they have to do test patches because they have no idea which paint to use...

Just out of curiousity, does anyone know why X wasn't affected by the restrictions on multi-vehicle rides, or, if it was, how did they put the new measures in place so fast vs. The Chessington rides? Also can anyone confirm whether or not the block breaks have been reactivated since the smiler incident?

Didn't Stealth have a bit of downtime to replace its launch cable when Rita's snapped? It's probably just one of Merlin's policies.

I'm just gonna go ahead and repeat what I've said before. They want to fix their long queues. They're trialing a system to fix that. Said system doesn't work. We know that. They know that, contrary to popular belief, they aren't idiots. But that's why they are TRIALING it. They are trying to come up with the perfect system. They're not saying "Yup this is the system we're using now. It's crap but we don't care". Implementing the system in its current form wouldn't benefit them in any way, both financially nor with their guest metrics. However, unless they test it in real life scenerio's they're never gonna get the data they need to create a system that DOES work, and one that arguably needs to exist if they want to push gate figures in the future. You can argue that yes, its unfair for the people who hit a RnR day vs. the others but to be honest, its a price that will probably pay off one day.

Nevermind the driver or passengers, as long as that poor Ladies garden is okay...right?

Ahh thanks that was the statement I was one about! From what I remember, residents aren't particularly fussed about noise outside the park, as its virtually non-existent. (A complete unscientific guess, but this is perhaps one ofthe benefits of being on an island, as there are no tremors/bass vibrating through the ground) but the only arguments that come up are that the local traffic generated causes too much noise. It's silly when you think about it. The resort (alton towers) with 3 hotels isn't allowed to make any noise or have any events, yet the "resort" with year round after hours sellout events isn't allowed a hotel...

Isn't there a restriction within their planning to how many live events they can hold a year in the evening? When you combine this with island beats it might take it over the limit perhaps? I can't remember what the number was though, I think it was around 20 or so though.

Does anyone have a picture of the new stage by lost city? In my head I can't picture how on earth you would be able to fit any sizeable crowd into the area. But I guess that's just because I forgot what it looks like.

I can only imagine, the idea is that this attraction is only supposed to be a quiet attraction that was never aimed at the mass market. In a few years when its popularity dwindles, it'll still draw the family crowd and offer a great experience, without having to worry about not being busy throughout the day. Either that, or Merlin really are stupid, and didn't even theorise potential throughput, and thought "eh, lets just hope for the best"...but a multi million pound company couldn't be that stupid,right...?

Are all the plans actually approved for this yet by the way? They surely want to begin construction work sooner rather than later after what happened with the Smiler. I wonder how they'll do it...its been a long time since they've built a ride without its own service entrance for construction, or one that sits along the perimeter of the park. This is slap bang in the middle of everything. It's gonna be a fun construction to watch,depending on where Merlin decide to dump all their materials this time.

You pay over the phone via card, and pick them up at the pre-booked section of each attraction, from experience they WILL double check the card you used to pay with, so make sure you bring it with you! Also worth noting that it doesn't have to be literally 24 hours in advanced, I've booked as late at 4pm for the following days tickets, which is handy if there's a chance people may bail out.

I hate to say, but I don't think it really deserves any of those titles. Although obscenely overpriced, the overnight stay at the towers seemed to offer a far better overnight experience. The Street actors are too sporadic and don't really actually do much, As for best overall event, they have some serious operational fixes needing to be made before they can rightfully earn this title. Organisation, queueing and consistent experiences are just as important as the actually quality of the attractions - I can't speak for the rest of the nominees, but The Towers and Tulley's Farm are far superior at the actual logistics side of hosting their events.

I've been on both Empire of the Penguins and Ratatouille. I'm not saying its not an impressive ride system, from a technical standpoint its a huge innovation. But if Merlin had the choice between an on the rails ride with better theming, or a trackless ride with lower quality theming, I sure as hell know which one I'd prefer. The metal grid I'm on about is forgivable at more well-off theme parks, because they can afford the theming to take your eye off it. But I just don't think Merlin could ever pull it off.

I just really don't see the point in a trackless system. Its a complete waste of money when you're not on an "unlimited" budget like Disney are. Yes, its cool that there is no track, and you glide along effortlessly, but this immersion is completed negated by the fact that everywhere you look is surrounded by an ugly metal grid, in my opinion.

It looks like someone just found the lens flare feature in photoshop to me. I think you're reading too much into it. Anyway, I think we can safely say after The Smiler, this is no indication at all of the final product, remember the chrome helix teasers that had nothing to do with anything? Even the LC12 mushroom cloud was an extremely tenuous link to the final theme. On a side note, I do like the (admittedly much lower budget) disney-eque fences that they've started to use, much like the green fencing seen around the Disney parks when a ride is being refurbished. Its makes the park look a lot better presented than a tatty wire fence with a huge in your face marketing banner.