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Completely agree with the arcade and Dolly Parton songs! Every time I hear that arcade sound it reminds me of Thorpe park as you hear it every time you walk in and out of the dome. Dolly Parton (+ a load of other songs) remind me of Loggers and Canada creek 😢

Great behind the scenes tour of trailers for anyone interested. Interesting to hear that when they were originally planning the maze one of the options was having the maze in containers, so I can imagine the containers being used again in the future especially with no Platform 15 next year. Unpopular opinion but some of my favourite mazes have been in the containers so would love to see the return of them in the future.

The app is now showing show times of 7, 8 and 9. The message saying its currently unavailable has disappeared so I imagine its ready for tonight

Happened again this morning! If anyone wants a rollback at the moment get yourself on the first train of the day

I guess its a lot less common for it to rollback then it used to (pretty sure it only does a few times a year if that?) as Josh said they did a lot of work to it to prevent rollbacks . So when it does happen I assume there are more checks they need to carry out. Not been too cold but dropped in temp recently so could be why!

Yeah I heard it did the same thing this morning rolled back on the first train! Was going over the top hat pretty quick for the rest of the day, didn't seem anywhere rolling back.

Went to Drayton on Friday, first time in years. Mainly visited as I wanted a session on apocalypse just in case it gets removed, with it being up for sale. Had a really good day, with it being a weekday the crowds were mainly in Thomas land and the rest of the park was dead, didn't have to queue for anything the whole time I was there. Adventure cove is a great addition to the park and I hope they continue with additions like this. The rapids were great, had a nice theme and some decent water effects. Best rapids in the UK in my opinion although that's not exactly hard to beat. The repaint of the Shockwave station looks great, and surprisingly enjoyed it. Didn't find it rough. Was on 1 train (don't even know if it runs 2) but obviously didn't need to be on 2 anyway. The haunting was great, didn't expect this to be as good as it was. Nice little dark ride. Shame its so hidden. Apocalypse was just running 2 towers, sit down and stand up floorless. As far as I'm aware its only been running the 2 all season and the other towers look like they haven't been touched in months. Apocalypse and the Buffalo area is the only area that looks really run down and would love to see them develop this area, without removing apocalypse. Recommend visiting on weekdays at the moment if you're wanting to go down for the thrill rides. It is only open a couple weekdays a week but still very very quiet.

Was 1 train off a rollback yesterday. It rolled back on the first train of the day. Can't explain how gutted I was. They had it back open within an hour, I thought it would be down a while seeing as it isn't really meant to rollback anymore but it opened pretty quickly and didn't roll back the rest of the day as far as I'm aware.

Samurai was running really well yesterday, running at a decent speed once again and a decent cycle. Believe the only reason it was running a lot slower was they needed the new parts to settle in.

Went to Oktoberfest yesterday and had a good day. Great weather, great operations, great atmosphere and low crowds. Was my first time on Black Mirror, which was different. It was better than I thought it was going to be, but now I've done it once I can't see myself going back on it anytime soon. Surprisingly quite a lot of actors for an off peak weekday. Normally not my kind of thing, but I actually thought they did a great job of making a good atmosphere in the Oktoberfest area whilst having a pint, without being too cringe or annoying. Samurai is running awfully slow since its reopened since its downtime. A shame as it had been running really well, but its almost pointless running it in its current state. Just buy a new one or replace with a different flat please. On the whole, audio is still sounding great around the park. Makes a real difference. Must say, I've enjoyed my visits to Thorpe a lot more this year. Hopefully we have a much better Fright Nights this year, and PLEASE bring back 10pm closes.

What is the 'Bavarian Bingo' which takes over the rides? I didn't spot this on any of my visits last year

Would love to see that happen, purely just to see the black hole theme music on Detty again 🥰

The mighty warrior is back in action

I've received an email from Merlin today which confirms that the Crows will be back for this year. Another good decision in my opinion, about the only positive from last years Fright Nights.

As expected, pay per maze will be returning this year which is a shame. Platform 15 and Creek Freak Massacre are also confirmed to be returning. Happy to see Creek Freak returning, thought that was the strongest maze in 2019.

I liked the idea of it, but I think that looks awful to be honest

Towers have removed social distancing on a number of rides as part of a 1 week trial. Wicker man and thirteen leaving no gaps and the Smiler filling all available seats. This is great to see and is clearly having a big impact on queues, Wicker man is currently only half an hour!

I really hope so too, as you said there is demand for it and the 1 hour really does make a difference. The only thing that makes me think otherwise is with the 9pm closes there is 20 hours knocked off Fright Nights, and exactly 20 hours have been added to Oktoberfest (+2 hours on 5 Fridays and Saturdays) which makes me think they didn't get any extra budget for opening hours for Oktoberfest and have simply moved the hours from Fright Nights.

Good to see them extending hours again, I imagine this will just continue getting extended and we will see the park close at 7 throughout the summer holidays + weekends. Really hoping we'll get 10pm Fright Nights back, but looks like they've used them hours on Fridays / Saturdays during Oktoberfest instead which is a shame.

The capacity has been reduced, but pre covid the park never really hit capacity anyway. So even though the capacity has been reduced, there is pretty much the same amount of people they would get on a standard weekend. Mix that in with the reduced capacity on rides and social distancing, the park looks and feels busier than pre covid. I really don't think they should be advertising the fact they have a reduced capacity, same with all the merlin parks. It's giving people the wrong idea that the parks are going to be less crowded when in reality, there is pretty much the same crowds as normal.

Ghost train and Black mirror are both still open, I assume they have been taken off the app as they are pre book only so do not display a queue time

Here's the link, will only work in the morning when the park opens

Tidal Wave, Flying Fish and Samurai have all been removed from the app over the last few days so I assume they will all be down for some time. Shame as they need as many rides available as possible this week, and Tidal Wave is a huge loss with the weather we have had this week. I agree the '90 mins +' is an awful idea and is just going to result in more complaints. Its quite clear that all the merlin parks across the board have had there capacities increased this year, and while they are still running reduced capacities on a lot of rides this is a problem. Hopefully social distancing will be scrapped as planned next month, if not I think merlin really need to look at the capacity at all there parks ... Interesting stuff re Saws queue times a few years back, I didn't realise a third party company was involved. Shame they didn't continue it and roll it out to more rides as I thought it worked quite well.

The summer event is 21st June - 25th July, so over a month long I would also love to see Summer Nights return, its a shame seeing the park close at 6 or 7 when the parks still busy

Nice to see they've extended the opening hours over the holidays, defiantly needed. Thorpe arguably has the worst opening hours out of the 4 merlin parks in the last year so hopefully more extensions to come. Evening, I personally would never pay for unlimited fast track but that's up to you really. It's hard to predict really how busy it'll be, its a weekday the week after school holidays so should be off peak. But with social distancing and unis/colleges breaking up it may be busy.