Marhelorpe

If it does turn out to be true and the park are considering having The Walking Dead maze(s) open year-round, maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but wouldn't that devalue the need to attend Fright Nights a little, especially now that the franchise are involved in an annual event? If you exclude Living Nightmare as a Fright Nights only attraction from next year onwards, what exclusivity is there left for Fright Nights other than Big Top and Platform 15, both of which aren't sponsored by AMC in the first place? It seems both bizarre and unlikely to me that's going to happen unless a new maze is going to fit somewhere else in the park or replace either one of Platform 15, Saw Alive or heaven forbid Big Top.

Not fussed about Slammer being removed since it's not returning. All I ask is please build something decent there Thorpe at some point. Don't do a Ripsaw and build another inflatable HB Leisure stall, we have had enough of them thanks.

At this stage, I've given up on Loggers Leap and not expecting it to return again. Even if there is work taking place on it right now this winter or next year, I still can't see it returning. Why would it have taken two entire seasons to finally get round to it? That should have been a bigger priority for the park than getting AMC involved in Fright Nights.

X's removal I still have doubts will happen because it would be one of the silliest decisions I have seen the park make since they thought building Storm Surge was a good idea back in 2011. Why do it now? It's old yes, it's tatty yes, it's dated yes, but it still serves a purpose with those between the 1m - 1.3m height bracket and removing it would alienate this market further with no viable alternative coaster in the park except for Flying Fish for crying out loud. A replacement coaster for X or a complete theme overhaul targeted for this market however would be very welcome.

And as for Swarm VR, the less said the better. Thorpe, you temporarily ruined it between 2013-2015 with brave-it-backwards, don't do it again please.

I'd be against the following;
Closure of a perfectly good family coaster.
 
Prioritisation of an IP deal over starting work on restoring one of the park's staple family rides.
 
Permanent TWD maze or attraction.  Saw Alive failed, Sub Terra failed, why would this be any different?
 
Don't need to elaborate on this one, VR on Swarm would be terrible and would undermine the investment that went into creating the theming and near misses originally!

If it does turn out to be true and the park are considering having The Walking Dead maze(s) open year-round, maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but wouldn't that devalue the need to attend Fright Nights a little, especially now that the franchise are involved in an annual event? If you exclude Living Nightmare as a Fright Nights only attraction from next year onwards, what exclusivity is there left for Fright Nights other than Big Top and Platform 15, both of which aren't sponsored by AMC in the first place? It seems both bizarre and unlikely to me that's going to happen unless a new maze is going to fit somewhere else in the park or replace either one of Platform 15, Saw Alive or heaven forbid Big Top.

Not fussed about Slammer being removed since it's not returning. All I ask is please build something decent there Thorpe at some point. Don't do a Ripsaw and build another inflatable HB Leisure stall, we have had enough of them thanks.

At this stage, I've given up on Loggers Leap and not expecting it to return again. Even if there is work taking place on it right now this winter or next year, I still can't see it returning. Why would it have taken two entire seasons to finally get round to it? That should have been a bigger priority for the park than getting AMC involved in Fright Nights.

X's removal I still have doubts will happen because it would be one of the silliest decisions I have seen the park make since they thought building Storm Surge was a good idea back in 2011. Why do it now? It's old yes, it's tatty yes, it's dated yes, but it still serves a purpose with those between the 1m - 1.3m height bracket and removing it would alienate this market further with no viable alternative coaster in the park except for Flying Fish for crying out loud. A replacement coaster for X or a complete theme overhaul targeted for this market however would be very welcome.

And as for Swarm VR, the less said the better. Thorpe, you temporarily ruined it between 2013-2015 with brave-it-backwards, don't do it again please.

It's more than just a wooden rollercoaster, it's an experience - at least, it is for the first three years until we remove any live actors, or pre-shows

Let's see...
 
-Merlin representative not calling it a ride.
-Reference to Smiler incident  (though fairly done).
-Francis Jackson interview. 
-Shipping container in-joke. 
-MYSTERIOUS THING. 
 
That covers a good majority of the Merlinisms for my bingo.  Just need a 'during routine excavations...' backstory and I'm done. 

Thorpe Park, I hope you read these words if it's what I suspect it to be:
 
LEAVE. SWARM. ALONE.

So just in case Saw Alive, Nemesis Sub-Terra, I'm a Celeb and Derren Brown's Ghost Train weren't big enough indicators that actor-dependant, year-round attractions simply do not work for Merlin cost, staffing & feedback-wise, there's speculation about yet another one being added for 2018 which honestly was mediocre at best and technically can't be classed as new after this year's Fright Nights?
 
Give me a break. 

Should've worded that a little better because what I meant by feedback-wise wasn't the popularity of the attraction, but the general opinion and impressions from the public, because lets be honest, none of those attractions mentioned have had an overwhelming positive response since they debuted:

• Sub-Terra was awful when it opened and after some adjustments still provided mixed opinion.
• Saw Alive might look all pretty but has remained unchanged and doesn't deliver the scares or promise of being the "world's most extreme live-action horror maze".
• I'm a Celeb is identical to Saw Alive - looks pretty inside but that's as far as it goes. The rest is abysmal.
• Derren Brown's Ghost Train is the most overhyped and unreliable white elephant in the park's history, operated appallingly during it's opening year and still has an endless stream of cost and reliability issues today.

The fact most, if not all the park's flat rides still draw big queues and positive opinion with guests all these years later should tell the park something. Not only would a newer flat/thrill ride be more sustainable in the long-term, but I'm certain feedback would be a lot higher for it. For instance, I can picture the perfect replacement for Slammer which would undoubtedly make it the best flat ride in the park if built, but it's sadly never going to happen, which is why I find it frustrating the priority for a few years now has been to ensure any new attraction is a world first, have an IP and be very marketable. Forget building a superb killer thrill ride, just as long as whatever comes along is marketable, that's all that matters now.

So just in case Saw Alive, Nemesis Sub-Terra, I'm a Celeb and Derren Brown's Ghost Train weren't big enough indicators that actor-dependant, year-round attractions simply do not work for Merlin cost, staffing & feedback-wise, there's speculation about yet another one being added for 2018 which honestly was mediocre at best and technically can't be classed as new after this year's Fright Nights?
 
Give me a break. 

So just in case Saw Alive, Nemesis Sub-Terra, I'm a Celeb and Derren Brown's Ghost Train weren't big enough indicators that actor-dependant, year-round attractions simply do not work for Merlin cost, staffing & feedback-wise, there's speculation about yet another one being added for 2018 which honestly was mediocre at best and technically can't be classed as new after this year's Fright Nights?
 
Give me a break. 

This year has been the worst I can ever remember for Thorpe.
 
The park doesn't need a new gimmicky attraction for next year, it needs Loggers back open and a general focus on getting the park back up to even approaching an acceptable standard for the paying customers who visit.  In my opinion of course!  

For a park which just these last few months has brought in flat rides to Old Town which appeals to the younger ones to compensate for the loss of Loggers Leap, Canada Creek Railway and the Octopus Garden in the last decade, it would be very strange to reduce the lineup again for this market which is why I find it's speculated removal hard to believe.
 
X might be a bit old and tatty these days, but it still appeals to familes and kids as small as 1m tall which still draws large queues. Further improvements made to it instead of removing it altogether would make more sense at the moment.
 
Until a good family ride comes along to replace either X, Slammer or Loggers Leap, seeing more closures for next year with undoubtedly another entry price rise is the last thing that should be considered.

Finally got to ride this yesterday.. and my short review? I'm glad I used Fast-track.. I'd be annoyed (insert your own expletive here) if I'd queued for 3 hours for that.
 
While some parts are very well done (like being alone on in the first video and seeing different people in the second), the over-all thing lacked the "why" factor for me... For example, why am I on a train in the first place? Who are the Fracking company, what are they doing, why did it go wrong and what has happened for the 2 things to come together? The jump scares were too predictable; to the point that they were just unpleasant to see rather than shocking. I was more "oh, that's not nice" rather than "what the hell".
 
The 4 elements (5 if you include the photo room bit) just seem to disconnected from each other. There were so many plot holes. For example, why would I leave the train carriage the way I went in (which was not relevant to the sequence I've just seen if I was on a journey) to be taken to a room, which seems to be part of the train tunnel by some shouty lady on a megaphone I can't understand, only to then be taken away from that room via a door (rather than heading back the way I came) through an underground station to the same train I was on before? There didn't seem to be any continuity to it at all. I get that the premise is to get you to question your own reality and I guess that kinda worked because the idea of not moving but being in a tube station is confusing, but the lack of stitching the stories together has made it a bit of a wet fish. Personally, I got lost in asking more questions about the story than I did about my reality. I didn't help that we were told that the ride was meant to question this reality in the intro video, but our reality is not that I'm on a train.. I'm on a ride.
 
If I had been told as part of the first train ride that something that was said in the intro room has made me forget events between now and then and that I'm no longer at Thorpe Park etc then that at least would explain how and why I'm on a tube in the first place.
 
I was aware that I had a headset on the whole time, so knew that none of it was real...
 
I'll be honest - The opening day of The Swarm made me question my reality more than DBGT did.. At least that was all happening to me.

Thorpe Park, I hope you read these words if it's what I suspect it to be:
 
LEAVE. SWARM. ALONE.

Just build a bloody Chiapas clone and be done with it...

It could always be "Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the SBNO Attraction", which could be the world's first tour dedicated to seeing a #unavailable attraction and the horrors inside of it like the poor heating system, broken effects and endless queues.

DBGTROTD2 - world's first ride to have 2 extra endings tacked on in subsequent seasons after opening 
 

VR loggers leap brave it backwards!!
 
”Worlds first backwards VR log flume new for 2018!!”

I assume the Swarm VR rumour has come about because the merch was reduced during the summer?  I noticed that come September, the merch was back up to normal price, which would just indicate that it was a just a summer special offer or similar.  So it would be weird to see Swarm get VR and not retheme / rename it, as you lose out on a big marketing opportunity. 
 
One would hope that after the trouble they've encountered with all their VR stuff (Ghost Train, Galactica and Shaman at Gardaland all suffered major delays and technical difficulties at one point), Merlin would want to steer clear of integrating VR into rides.  If they really wanted to go down that route, a VR 4D cinema, or even AR show, would be something different enough to be...interesting I guess, whist more manageable from a technology viewpoint.
 
Merlin's use of world firsts is so vague and downright silly at points it's hard to know what this could to be honest.  And to highlight this point...
 
After The Walking Dead announcement, Living Nightmare was being called "the world's first Walking Dead maze to feature scenes from Season 7 of the show".  As Thorpe's Facebook post said they were "dropping a world first in the summer", I guess the idea might have been they were going to announce Living Nightmare as a world first during the summer and hype up from there, but things changed and they announced it a bit later / decided not to focus on the silly world first..

Thorpe Park, I hope you read these words if it's what I suspect it to be:
 
LEAVE. SWARM. ALONE.

Yesterday reminded me why you should never attend this event on a Saturday in the middle of October. It was a joke.

Swarm was by far the worst out of all problems last night. What could have easily been just a 40 minute queue turned out to be over 2 hours long in the early hours of the evening for the following reasons:

1. Pretty much every train going round the track had at least between 6-8 empty seats due to single riders or odd numbered groups. No organising or grouping from the staff was being used here.
2. The staff in the station as Ringo above mentioned were more interested in having chats with their colleagues during the loading stages of each dispatch than getting those trains going round the circuit at a relentless rate.
3. The ratio of the main queue:Fastrack was 50:50 and the number of people using it just for Swarm alone was absurd. On top of that, nobody next to the baggage hold was monitoring the number of people going through the fastrack queue at one point which explained why the main queue went to a near standstill for nearly 20 minutes.

Other problems from the night were prevalent too. Big Top was overcrowded inside, especially during the first half of the maze with the strobes as groups kept going through at a constant rate, so much so that I estimate about 40 people were in that section at the same time on the second run. Why you might ask? Because staff were guiding guests completely through the first fortune teller scene, meaning it was an endless stream of people going through with no holding zones, as well as a missed scene from the attraction.

And as for Fastrack, last night just goes to show you even a price hike still isn't enough to stop it being sold in large quantities. The queue pen outside Depth Charge to buy the stuff was overflowing by the time the sun was starting to set for the remainder of the evening. As result, the entire Fastrack queue for Big Top was full all night, an endless number of people were pouring through Swarm's Fastrack queue, Colossus was the same all day and night and Platform 15's Fastrack queue I swear was longer at one point compared to the normal queue.

People's feedback online social media is just as valid as anybody else's out there regardless of what platform or rank they have, so I wouldn't write them all off as being OTT or exaggerated. If people fork out over £35 minimum for entry to discover they must queue over 2 hours for a 40 minute queue on Swarm, find lousy operations on all main rides, broken or missed scenes from the scare mazes and to be persuaded the only way to enjoy the night is to shell out more money on Fastrack which ironically had a massive queue all night to get, they have every right to complain and call the park out on it.

The reduction in capex is going to hit the theme parks hard on future projects and I'm willing to say that Thorpe's next ride has just taken a budget cut or worst case cancelled all together. I highly suspect DBGT didn't perform as well as they hoped and it's no secret that the swarm didn't either. Which put together is going to paint a picture to Merlin that large investment at Thorpe doesn't pay off. 
The lack of investment is going to put off visitors as there is nothing new and quality is already low at the parks. The terror climate is unlikely to improve so that will continue to deter guests. All of that adding up and it will not surprise me that in a few years there is negative growth in the parks and that really won't please share holders. 
 

I don't know the full details behind this move, but this sentance in the statement sums up exactly the problem I have with M£rlin as a whole right now:
 
"Over the period of 2018-21, we will reduce Existing Estate capex by approximately £100 million, reallocating this into accelerating our highly successful accommodation roll out programme, as well as increasing our investment in our Productivity Agenda."
 
That's right. Forget about your current parks. Forget the state they are all in. Forget the numerous cuts being done everywhere. Forget the ridiculous opening hours. Forget leaving your rides to rot into oblivion. Forget the lack of long-term shelf life in your investments. Forget the potentially hundreds more staff that will be made redundant as a result. As long as people get another hotel to shell out £200 a night in, which must be a world first and have an IP plastered over it and be marketable, that's all that matters now.
 
At this stage, I have no faith things at our UK parks are going to get any better anytime soon with this announcment. Potentially, more rides will close or have limited opening times, further opening hours and days will be cut, further cuts to staff and special event budgets will be made and prices are going to soar even further for everything in return. I want to be proven wrong on this so much right now.
 
Who cares about a theme park when we can have hotels?

Like, their theme parks are massively under-performing with SBNO rides, terrible operations and budgets slashed, so their big master plan is to... cut the budgets further?
 
Do they not even consider that, maybe, they are to blame for the reduced visitor numbers to the theme parks?  It's all well and good putting the blame entirely on external factors, but when the most important thing about their theme parks (customer experience) is neglected so badly, that's obviously going to have a negative effect on visitor numbers.  People are voting with their feet, and yet Merlin are still too blind to see that.
 
They're clutching at straws with excuses such as "the weather" when in reality people are losing interest in the parks, the weather hasn't even been bad this year for heaven's sake!
 
I don't think we can expect anything to improve at the theme parks, in fact the quote below makes it sound as though capital for future investments as well as general park improvements will be spent on hotels instead;
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4987928/Merlin-shares-slump-trading-woes-overshadow-Peppa-Pig-deal.html#ixzz4vmjUn6di