Marhelorpe

I am really getting quite sick and tired of seeing enthusiasts moaning and crying about POSTPONED trips to theme parks this year thanks to the pandemic.
 
Look, I know this page is ofcourse a forum dedicated to a theme park and I myself am very proud of being an enthusiast. However, I do feel some enthusiasts on social media really need to look at what's going on in the world before they go on an Ian Beale style "IVE GOT NOTHING LEFT" sulk about postponed park visits. People are losing their jobs and with that, the abillity to make a living to pay the bills. More importantly, many people are losing loved ones to this virus. So with all that happening, I personally find it hard to feel sympathy to a bunch of people who are crying over not being able to visit parks that will STILL BE AROUND when all this is said and done. Those who are losing loved ones do not have that luxury. I have a friend who lost her nan recently and was not even allowed to attend her own nans funeral. So yes, forgive me if I find it hard to feel sorry for having to wait a little longer to ride the likes of Shambhala,Taron, Zadra,Taiga and Iron Gwazi or going to flaming Disneyland Paris.
 
Rant over. Again I know this doesn't apply to all enthusiasts but I am seeing enough of it to really get on my wick.
 
It's not just postponed park trips. It's also the sulking over canceled festivals and concerts. People should check their priorities as far as I'm concerned.

Alright, I have now had two visits to this year's Fright Nights, the first on the preview night and the second last Saturday (13th October) and have finally tried almost the entire lineup minus Fanta's Twisted Carnival and the Screamplexx Cinema. I said a few weeks ago I predicted this was going to be the worst Fright Nights ever and 2 weeks later, I still stand by that statement as the entire thing has become a former shadow of itself and quite honestly, a joke. How can an event reach such a low after having some fantastic years and attractions in the past? Everything this year screams "quantity above quality" around every corner now where the mazes themselves were average at the very best, the audio management was incredibly inconsistent, the park lighting looks horrendous and there was virtually no atmosphere at night anywhere across the park.
 
Here are my mini reviews for each of the attractions Fright Nights have this year which I've tried. These are my honest thoughts and I'm not holding back exactly what went through my mind when experiencing each of them. Spoiler tags used not to hide what happens, but to reduce the size of this post as I've got a few things to say about this year other than the mazes:
 
Saw Alive: 4/10
 
Platform 15: 4/10
 
Dead Creek Woods: 3/10
 
Living Nightmare: 3/10
 
Blair Witch: 3/10
 
Sanctum Do or Die: 2/10
 
The Big Top: Showtime: 2/10
 
Vulcan Peak: 0.00000000001/10
 
So yeah, as you can see from the above reviews, all of the mazes were awful this year with some being so bad it makes 2010's Dead End Terror Zone look scary. As for other parts of the event, the park lighting this year was absolutely horrendous with bright white lighting everywhere across the park from Inferno, to Old Town, Dead Creek Wood's entrance where you can't read the flipping sign and Stealth. There were temporary lights installed in a few places, but unlike last year's nicely coloured stencil-shaded ones, these were all multi-colour changing LEDs going through all colours of the rainbow, similar to those approaching Swarm's area. It looked horrendous, and the ones used across the bridge were even worse, reminding me of the inside of X. Since when were disco lights associated with Halloween?!
 
As for the audio, I was optimistic about this year after hearing some of the preview clips found online from Nick Hutson as I was hoping we would see each and every ride having their own theme like it used to be when Midnight Syndicate ruled the park. Whilst some rides sounded great, Colossus' station especially which was my favourite, I noticed it was only some the coasters which had theme changes, no other rides across the park had them, so every single flat ride like Rush, Samurai, Vortex etc were playing their regular themes all day and night. As for Amity Cove's playlist across Tidal Wave and Stealth, it sounded identical to the regular one and did not work well at all in my opinion, especially at night. I understand the intentions behind why a FN dedicated playlist was made, but it failed in my view. I could also hear the director voice overs a few times across the park too in a few places. Why is he still being played across a Walking Dead themed Halloween event?
 
I keep on stressing this every year but Thorpe, for goodness sake, can you just bring back the Midnight Syndicate tracks used in 2007-2009 when the whole park used to sound amazing at night? This was what made you stand out from Alton and Chessington years ago during Halloween. Give every ride and area a consistent audio track to play, play themed announcements once again and less manual ones, only use the linked park-wide audio system for opening/closing nothing else and most of all, sort the damn system out. There are so many inconsistencies across the park with the audio this year that it's a joke. Are you all-in with regular audio like in 2010, or all-in with Fright Nights audio like in 2007-2009 Thorpe? Make your mind up.
 
Last comment to make is the park-wide theming. It's nice to see it in some areas like the entrance, Saw and Swarm but again, it is still not at the levels this event once used to be a while ago and likely never will. Just hoping one year we can see park theming being a priority for this park once again, but realise it's never gonna happen. Won't stop me calling them out on it every year though.
 
Last year, I wrote these comments for 2017's Fright Nights:
It took a lot for me to attend this year's event as I was adamant about not going after the poor experience I had last time, but decided to give it a try anyway in the vain hope something has improved, but no. Nothing this year is better than last year and has solidified my opinion about this event - I'm done with it. I'm honestly done. I cannot cope with seeing what this event has now become after knowing and experiencing it during a different era in the late 2000's when it used to be a fantastic event. Back then, the event and park used to pride itself as being one of the best, if not the best Halloween attraction in the country, but now it's just a commercialised piece of rubbish where sticking a famous IP on the name with poor marketing saying there are "6 new attractions" and making each and every maze a botch job seems to be enough to please guests these days just to they can get a few cheap scares. What happened to originality, dedication, imagination and effort?
 
It's now become painfully obvious that whilst Merlin and Thorpe are capable of turning out a product for guests at this park, they are not capable of turning out a product that is well done anymore. The fit and finish this event once had is now dead and is just a distant memory for those that remember and indeed experienced it during that time. I've given Thorpe 5 years now ever since the Lionsgate takeover in 2013 to get their act together with this event and whilst during that time a few little gems like Big Top and Cabin in the Woods were made, the rest of the other attractions made ever since that year have frankly sucked and none of them have ever reached the levels of Asylum, Experiment 10, Se7en, Hellgate and even The Curse. The focus of this event between 2013-2017 was all about the IP and the mazes nothing else, so audio, park theming, lighting and other factors started to degrade gradually, but 2018 has shown the park don't seem to give a damn about the quality of their mazes anymore either. It feels as though they believe only putting an IP on their product and having the biggest number of attractions is enough for guests to be happy these days, when in truth, it is not.
 
I've documented problems this event has had over the last few years in posts on this forum and are honestly tired of talking about it now by repeating the same things over and over again constantly, because it seems to be an endless battle I am fighting for here. I genuinely really want this event to be brilliant for all guests, so new ones can experience the delights and thrills of what this park is capable of during Halloween for those of us that remember how amazing this event used to be, but cannot do that right now. People deserve a great product when they are forking out good amounts of money to attend this event and currently, they are not.
 
Understandably, I know I rail on against Merlin and Thorpe an awful lot on this forum and are probably boring many readers with it by now, but want to establish I am not a hater and are not "bitching" for the sake of "bitching". I say these things because I care and believe people deserve a better product from the park, whether they know it or not and I want people to speak up about problems they are seeing or experiencing to let the park know when something isn't right. I commend the reviewers above for voicing their concerns about this year's FN and encourage others thinking similar to do so as well, as this year is an embarrassment on many proportions.

From reviews it seemed like a generally successful day for Chessington, bar the 1 hour queue for RAP, ironic do people really need these or just see them as a free fast track, same with carer passes, I wonder if people just see that as free entry nowadays.
 
On another note I saw a post about allowing a full train of RAP users to drop queue times, is this not theoretically an operations nightmare if something went wrong, I thought you were only allowed 1 RAP holder on any ride at a time for safety and evacuation issues.
 
Doesn't seem like these issues will go away soon now either with  RAP passes being valid til the end of 2021.
 

Refreshingly honest if you ask me. And I'm no big fan of Boris!
 
Regardless of what they do people will die who may not have done if they didn't have a the virus.  Just like many things, people pick up all sorts which finish them off that ultimately could be prevented if people didn't come into contact with each other or extreme measures were out in place to stop them. You could ban alcohol, processed foods, tobacco, cars etc etc and wipe out incredible amounts of 'untimely' death, but it's generally accepted the loss of enjoyment, freedom and economic activity would be too bigger cost for the result. The same thing is happening here but within a shorter timeframe.
 
Playing state activity off against risk to life might be an unsavoury thought but it is happening constantly, and has to. Even in my lowly position in it all in my training, for terrorist response especially but a lot of major incident response, you have to make some dreadful decisions that will ultimately condemn people where you use your resources in the most effective way. Not everyone can be saved from everything, you have to do what's best with a much wider outlook.
 
The decisions that are being made are made on the advice of medical experts, and with a hell of a lot more information than will be available to the rest of us, they're not just pulling the decisions out of their arses. Even if in some aspects with hindsight we get it wrong I think they are making the right decisions for the right reasons.

Noticed that “future for theme parks” has ride photography again for this season...
 
Help.

Noticed that “future for theme parks” has ride photography again for this season...
 
Help.

RAP will make up for that.

BREAKING: It feels like a hot minute since Black Mirror was announced, but ya boi @Glitch will be the controller of the #glitch this #springysummmerthing on the Island Like No Other.

I just feel sorry for those who genuinely need it and have a crap day as a result, of waiting around to get on rides.
Personally I'd have a doctor on park to give the yes/ no. But that would just give me invisibility abuse.
 
 

Exactly this.
 
Too often when I visited the park last year and in 2018, the first sight I am greeted with every morning when leaving the dome into the park is this definition of pure irony:
 

 
How the bobs at Thorpe Park/Merlin can look at that, nod their heads and smile saying “Yep, nothing at all wrong with this!” I don’t understand one bit.
 
How the park are going to fix this broken system I cannot answer, but something has to be done soon.

Unfortunately there really is abuse and it is not over exaggerated. Some of us here spend a lot of time in the park and both see and hear it. I have encountered many a group clearly talking about there fake medical letter and sadly have even had a group of my friends use a disability that doesn't in any way shape or form mean they cannot queue up to their advantage. 
 
We aren't just talking about faking of letters either. At TPM meets for example we have witnessed a lot of abuse. For example we witnessed 8 people go in with one RAP on Gruffalo last year. As well as people talking about how great it is to skip the queue because they cut there leg and had a bit of a limp. 
 
We are all for it being utilised be invisible disabilities if it warrants it, just not if it doesn't. Like Martin Doyle says he has ADHD and can qualilfy for it, but he doesn't need to utilise it as he can queue, just like many others with ADHD (obviously circumstances that mean they can't queue is acceptable, there are some cases). Another one of our members is diabetic and could qualify for it but again doesn't choose to as they can still queue perfectly fine. 
 
As has been said with the culture that exists in the UK it will never be easy to change, as so many people will no longer be granted it and will kick off threatening to take it to press etc. 

Just to clarify my "snowflake society" comment as I do fear I may not have made myself clear.
 
I am in no way shape or form trying to say that mental health/disorders should not be eligible for a RAP. No way would I say that especially as a guy who lives with ADHD. What I'm simply trying to voice is my agreement on what JoshC said in relation to how they have backed themself into a corner with how they have distributed it. I feel that people just rock up and the parks will literally give them the pass for fear of offending people and not wanting the backlash. That is what I meant in my comment. I am somebody who very much supports the steps society is taking to support mental health given how close to the heart I hold the issue. I am simply saying that it now feels that there is a huge amount of people faking doctors letters getting away with cheating the system purely because the park does not want to risk coming across as offensive. That in my honest opinion is down to this culture of "everything is offensive" and that's where I was coming from with my snowflake society comment. In regards to "not being able to wait in a long line", again I refer to my point regarding the massive cattle pen queue just to get the pass or indeed the sizeable queues the RAP queue gets during busier times at the parks for that matter.
 
I do hope I've worded that OK and am in no way trying to call those genuinely disabled who need RAP snowflakes if that is what my previous comment has come across as.

I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. Given my way, it would be if you DO NOT have a blue badge (Which now covers mental health), you get your backside into the main queue.
 
I'm sorry but when I saw them queuing in a massive cattle pen just to get the damn thing last season, the only thing going through my mind was "No way on this earth can you not wait 10 minutes for rapids when you are standing in this"
 
Scarefest was a joke. RAP queues for Wicker man going out to the plaza, Oblivion going right back into the arcade,Nemesis going up to the photo booth and smiler also going right down the stairs. The system is a complete and utter farce and the people I really feel for are those who GENUINELY need the damn thing who are forced to then wait in massive lines because of those who exaggerate (for want of a better term) a condition so they get one or indeed those taking doctors letters. Legalised queue jumping is what it is and everybody visiting the parks are made to suffer for it.
 
Honestly I half expect them to give them to guests with paper cuts at this point.....
 
Sort out exactly WHO needs it
Sort out actually enforcing the time card
SORT IT OUT!!
 
 

A few reasons. Firstly, because more than half the people using it don't have a disability that prevents them from queuing. Its a farce! Also,  Some people have got injured, got a doctors note to get one of these for two years (or three) and the injury disappeared 3 weeks later. Finally as Martin says anyway, many also fake a doctors note. 
 
So the long term aspect of it does come with BIG issues.
 
 

HYPERspring
 
B&M hyper or RMC hyper-hybrid confirmed!!
 
It's happening folks!!!
 

Well I never, it’s... it’s....
 
a WoRld fIrSt!
 

Well I never, it’s... it’s....
 
a WoRld fIrSt!
 

Well I never, it’s... it’s....
 
a WoRld fIrSt!
 

Didn’t they also publicly state DBGT was the future of theme parks...

I doubt Thorpe Park even know that themselves yet, considering that all of a sudden at 9am it was "announcement coming at 10am" from nowhere, with no cohesion to any of the previous tHoRpePaRk posts.
 
My prediction is incedibly long queues due to low throughput, and guests coming off afterwards saying was that it/it's not worth the queue/head straight to guestservices and complain for some fastpasses.
 
Good to see Thorpe going back to their favourite theme of dark and apocalyptic though.

I understand that the growth that Thorpe took on in the noughties was extreme and unrealistic (as far as a long term business model goes), and it is pretty clear they have invested in cheap additions additions (especially in recent years), just for the sake of something new. Of the choice of this or something every few years or something, I would rather see the latter. Whether that be some big thrill coaster, a fun flat ride or even a family attraction, which the park seemingly lacks.
 
Swarm is a tricky one, as whilst it didn’t bring in the numbers as hoped it was still a generally well received ride (as many have said before). DBGT in the other hand was a massive failure to them in many ways.
 
Indeed, but when you look at the quality of what Phantasia have added, it can simply put wonders and jealousy upon other parks. One has to just mention Taron and see how much better the overall quality that Park has risen to in that time.
 
I think Thorpe do seriously need to reconsider what they are doing and where they are going whilst trying to make it more of a commercial success. It won’t be easy or happen overnight, but let’s see. Legoland targets the younger families and Chessington caters for slightly older families and animal lovers. So it’s a question whether they go for the all ages or just the thrills.
 
Were they to increase promoting within central London, I do wonder how much of a difference it would make?
 
 

Do not get your hopes up
 
It's probably Game FX 2, with it's slogan "It's not what you wanted, but it's what you got"

Which does pose the question, WHY? Why don't they want to spend money at the park??

Park Pixie slowly infiltrating Thorpe Park’s social media page with another ISLAND MEET VLOG giving us an update on the “rumoured” 2020 RMC?
 
#BackOnTheIsland

Park Pixie slowly infiltrating Thorpe Park’s social media page with another ISLAND MEET VLOG giving us an update on the “rumoured” 2020 RMC?
 
#BackOnTheIsland