Inferno

It’s good they’re staying on top of Cebeebies land with new stuff now and then. It’s up there with the best of the kids lands in the UK. Horizon is well and truly shelved isn’t it

It seems that the logo has been added to somewhat. This has made an appearance on a lot of the social media posts and marketing emails over the past couple of weeks. I have to say I’m not sure this is a step in the right direction. I know the logo has been controversial, but this busy new animated park skyline element sat on top of the existing logo doesn’t fit in with the new sleek and minimal branding. It feels a bit like an addition that’s been made as an afterthought, by someone other than the original designers of the branding. I think it’s a bit of a shame that the brand overall is already becoming muddy after just one year, and it’s being strayed from quite a lot, even with something as important as the logo. Aside from that, I’m not sure what on earth they were thinking by having this as their app icon instead of the “Thorpe” text that was there before This really bears no resemblance to the park or the brand at all. Nowhere in the branding is this standalone T referred to at all, and it isn’t an icon that’s used anywhere to symbolise Thorpe Park. imagine a brand like British Airways having this as their app icon… Ridiculous. If it’s iconic enough, like Virgin’s red V or easyJet’s lowercase orange e for example, that’s great - but BA’s B, and certainly Thorpe’s T, aren’t. Again, I think the idea behind the new TP brand design has been lost a little. I know it was controversial, but this can’t be what the designers had in mind at all. We now seem to have quite a messy crossover between the sleek and colourful branding, and efforts made by others since it was designed. I think the logo text was deliberately simple, and was always supposed to be either intertwined with the squiggly bits as shown in the reveal videos, or overlayed directly on to bold images as shown on the sample posters.

After being retired, reinstated, retired, and reinstated again, the recently retired area names have been reinstated on the map on the app. I wonder how long this will last before they are retired. Interestingly ‘The Jungle’ name has been retired, and the previously retired ‘Calypso Quay’ name has been reinstated.

I absolutely love the Inferno, Stealth and Colossus carnival posters - but alas, I am poor. As much as I'd love all the proceeds to go to charity, to be fair I don't think that should be an expectation - other businesses sell their unused stuff and it isn't expected of them.

“Memorabilia” - I guess the online shop is getting some new stuff? If only this was an announcement for a log flume - I really miss Loggers Leap

The next looming problem appears to be the Monorail, which has been limping for years and this season has been on massively reduced capacity. That, like Skyride, is going to cost literally millions I would imagine. I do feel for the current management at Alton - they have inherited a problem where they need to almost literally rebuild half a theme park from scratch - and it all needs to happen in the next few years, with apparently £0 in the budget. I don’t really know how they get out of this mess now… It seems they are p***ing in the wind a little bit. They are needing to spend vast amounts of money on simply maintaining and restoring old assets (like the Skyride for instance) at a time when really they need to be investing more in the future. The glory days around the time Saw, Th13teen, Smiler etc opened, and they opened a new midway every 20 seconds, where Merlin seemed unstoppable, seem to have all been an illusion because it looks like they were spending next to no money at all on long term maintenance and upkeep at the parks. It was all about the ‘now’.

To be honest I don’t think “project sparkle” and the like realistically is an investment as such - really it’s just routine maintenance that should be taking place during closed season regardless. Things like the Colossus repaint for example - that was very badly overdue. While I know that upkeep like this costs money, it is important. Most businesses try to keep their assets in good order, and rollercoasters are no different. Spreading maintenance over years also prevents problems coming up all at once, which is what’s happening at Alton towers. Thorpe does seem to be bucking the trend a little bit, and has been getting a good amount of upkeep in recent years - even things like the toilets etc are in great order and have all been recently refurbished. That’s not something that can be said for other Merlin parks. I really hope they can continue as they have been.

On the subject of Project Horizon - could this perhaps have been scrapped for AT and instead put forward for Chessington? The design seems quite similar? To me this feels like another one of those nicely-thought-out plans that have unfortunately fallen through, because really I think everyone knew that Dungeons and all the David Walliams stuff was going to only be short-term, and would be at the end of life by the time Horizon opened. It would have all been quite well timed for a nice refresh of the whole area. Unfortunately it's now looking like everything in that area of the park has either reached or will soon reach the end of life, and their replacement is nowhere to be seen.

Oh dear. I do feel for the marketing people who have been tasked with making all this seem like “good news”. The Dungeons going I can understand to be fair as it must have been a money pit. The lack of any mention of the Skyride is very concerning. I think it’s now essential really that is makes a return at the beginning of the season, or at the VERY least before summer.

Looking back at Slammer - my god it was bloody terrifying wasn't it? For a long time it was one of the only remaining rides (apart from drop towers) that made me feel genuinely scared! I don't think I will go as far as saying I miss it, because to be honest it was never really open long enough to be a major part of the park in my eyes at least, but it was definitely an iconic and very unique ride. You could be stood basically anywhere at Thorpe Park, and you'd occasionally see the huge paddles soaring through the air (when it was open at least) - it certainly made itself known when it was running! It was absolutely enormous when it was spinning. The ride experience was so different to anything else - I remember the very genuine screams of fear from fellow riders when the ride would first start turning, especially on that first forward swat. The restraints also really amped up the fear factor, as they were so open and free. You were very much hanging out of your seat, against those wobbly shoulder restraints! Comfort levels were not a priority for Slammer were they? The rush of blood to your head throughout the entire ride, and the weird restraints were certainly interesting, and riding it in the rain was an ordeal to say the least. The long delays between dispatches towards the end were very tedious when queueing, and I remember being stuck at the top unable to lower back down to the ground many times, either in the freezing cold or in the baking sun (the awful smell of those sun-baked shoulder harnesses is still hot on the back of my nostrils after all these years). But none of that really mattered, because it was one of those rides that was just there to be as thrilling as possible - and it bloody was. It was good having a ride like Slammer at Thorpe. Hopefully something equally as unique will replace it one day!

I agree this is a bizarre turn of events. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good that it’s going - even if it is just a bit of a tidy up, but with all the cuts and money scrounging across Merlin this seems a bit weird. If that rumour about Colossus’ repaint being scrapped is true then that’s a real shame. What a waste of money even doing the first half in this case, as having it half done still looks sloppy, and possibly even worse than before…

Oh interesting. I guess it would make sense for any spares to be used rather than scrapped since they aren’t making parts anymore All this has got my thinking - could Stealth’s days be numbered? These hydraulic launch coasters are dropping like flies

It all feels very bizarre that it just closed out of the blue like it did. I remember watching those “worlds wildest rides” shows (or whatever they were) on TV years and years ago and being in awe of it back then! What a shame. I wonder what the reason was for closure? I assume cost to run and maintain? Makes me wonder realistically how much longer Stealth has - these hydraulic launch coasters are dropping like flies aren’t they.

Considering I haven’t really gone out of my way to research it, I’ve read & watched a few things this week that has made me realise how much trouble Merlin seem to actually be in. With a large restructure going on across the business in the coming months, redundancies in Merlin Magic Making which is confirmed to be shutting down soon, the closure of Bear Grills, new projects shelved, 2 brand new Legoland parks having devastating low attendances, the operational cuts we have seen in the UK this season, and multiple midway attractions closing their doors around the world, Merlin seems to have found itself in some trouble. Clearly I am absolutely not a business expert of any sort - but honestly I have to say I am not surprised in the slightest that it’s come to this. Many years of short term decisions, lack of sensible large scale preventative maintenance, and mad decisions to benefit the figures in the immediate short term seem to have left the company in quite a mess. For me one of the biggest and most obvious cock ups has been outsourcing the food to Aramark. Merlin themselves, for years, have boasted that their profit doesn’t come from admission, but instead comes from additional customer spend - things like fastrack, merch and food… But it seems they have made a bit of a mess of the food part. It’s just become far too expensive, and frankly far too disgusting, to buy food from Merlin parks. It’s at the point where it’s actually cheaper to buy food at Disney in many cases than it is to buy it at a local Merlin park. I think one of the other big problems really was that it was on the stock market, meaning everything they did for years had to be done purely to make money for the share holder, no matter what. This (in my humble and inexperienced opinion at least) has really set the company up poorly for the future, as the money that needed to be invested on the future of the company was instead funnelled off, and decisions were made to improve results in the immediate short term - for example, Aramark 🙄 The other thing for me is the bizarre decisions to build Legoland parks around the world in places that there is no audience for them…. I just can’t, and never have been able to, see the sense behind that at all. This is such a shame. I feel terrible for the staff who have been or will be affected by the poor decisions of the execs who have brought the company to this state - many of whom have since retired of course.. I do hope that there aren’t too many redundancies, and that anyone who is going to be out of work will be snapped up very quickly by another large operator who will hopefully be needing experienced and talented people in the UK very soon. Speaking of which - Universal are very much a company on the climb, while Merlin appear to be in a well established decline… these are interesting times for the industry, especially in the UK. I’d be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on what you think went wrong, and what you think the future might hold for Merlin?

Agreed, this looks like a great use of the space! The Beach has always been a very odd area, and only used for part of the year anyway - this new area will be used every day and solve the event space problem.