TPJames

I've heard vortex and saw are closed though so it levels out really doesn't it? Looking forward to tomorrow either way, if the weather's good it should be a really nice day out!

You have got to be kidding me...?(Looking through the #thorpepark on instagram, a couple of people have "friends and family tickets". I thought these weren't to be on sale after the disaster in 2011?)

During February Half term the last train of stealth left the station about 4:15 even though it was walk on the last half hour. Also on Swarm during summer nights we got extra rides as the last train was at 10:20pm even though it was a 10pm closing time. A lot of the time thorpe actually open their rides until after the supposed closing times however they aren't particularly good with opening rides on time. If queues will be closing bang on 4pm, I am expecting rides to be open at 10am latest unlike during the fright nights preview when the park opened 30mins late. I can't make next weekend and am sure I will have a good day out either way, I am just hoping there are good operations to make it that much better. Will be going in two weeks for the opening of IAC anyway... (If it's busy I highly suspect they will CONSIDER opening some rides for an extra 30-60mins especially if everything is on one train operation resulting in long queues)

I just stand worried that there will be long queues with good weather, 8 rides closed, potential one train operations and a handful of annual pass holders desperate to get in as many rides as possible. As tickets for both days are fully booked, I'm worried that if there are slow operations, waiting times could be ridiculously long(for an AP day) if there are one train operations. Also with only opening times of 10am-4pm, most people will be relying on short queues to get everything done. Another concern is that the capacity was originally made thinking X,Detonator, Rush and Loggers Leap will be open, and this will result in other rides being that much busier this weekend. Fingers crossed for the best anyway, I hope it's going to be a good day out!

I'm still confused as to why they didn't originally release there would be up to 10 rides closed? I understand they may have expected them to be open, however if maintenance wasn't finished why did they advertise Detonator, X, Loggers Leap and Rush as all open when in reality they aren't ready. It's fustrating to see that there is a huge lack of communication and preparation between departments in the park and I am highly confident that most guests will be visiting expecting only 4 rides closed to find up to 8 unavalible.

Saturday's tickets are all gone now, with only a few left for Sunday. I'm really hoping the capacity is really limited and coasters are running two trains in order to allow minimal queue times.

It's likely to be a massive amount of confusion between management and the social media/website team. The social media team are still continuing to advertise only four rides closed, however the website team are advertising otherwise. The eventbrite page also continues to advertise that Slammer, Samurai, Tidal Wave and Rumba Rapids will be closed. I can understand certain reasons for the above four rides being closed however having X and Detonator closed four days before park opening seems slightly odd. They are certainly two crowd pullers and they are both going to need to be ready for the beginning of the season so having them closed so close to the main season is particularly odd. I wonder if it's due to lack of communication that the website team are the ones false advertising? Either way, I'm going to visit expecting at least four rides closed, but will still have a good day out no matter what.

Likely low throughputs and a fastrack queue, it doesn't get much better than this

Surely it should be ready though four days before official opening?I'm worried thorpe are going into the main season with 9 rides still undergoing work, not a good move.

Thorpe Park just love their last minute decisions don't they I realistically don't think its too much of an issue for AP day. Whilst it's a poor show from the park when it is meant to be simulating a full offering at the park this season, all annual pass holders have the opportunity to return at other times in the year not making it too much of an issue. I think the real problem lies by the fact that if not all the rides are avalible for this weekend, they are unlikely to be avalible for opening weekend. 9 rides closed in main season is quite frankly ridiculous, and I fear none of the rides closed this weekend will be ready for the main season. I think this all comes down to poor judgement and last minute decisions from management. By the looks of things this (main) season, thorpe park could be getting a battering of complaints.

I think it all depends on whether the park choose to run full capacity on rollercoasters or not.

Europa park- €42.50/£30.83 for an Adult to visit(on the gate price). Portaventura- €45/£32.64 for an Adult to visit(on the gate price). Disneyland Paris(two parks)- €70/£50.77 for an Adult to visit(not 100% sure if this is the gate price though). Thorpe park- £60 to visit! Considering the three European parks I have listed are three of the most highly rated and attended theme parks in Europe, it is extraordinary that Thorpe park(a park which doesn't even make the apparent top 10 European theme parks) is charging more for a single day out to its park. The three parks above offer so much more to do for a single day out; they all contain more rides, attractions, shows and entertainment around the park. In any right mind, it would make more logical sense for the European parks which offer a better day out to be charging more than an English park which offers no where near as much to do. I completely respect that Thorpe Park can be entered for £30 with vouchers or online. However, I am really against the whole idea of charging a ridiculous amount of money on the day to try and trick people into having to pay the full amount on the day if they forget to book in advance. I'm sure the European parks will also have several offers to residents around the respective countries, however they don't feel the need to charge so much for a gate ticket in the first place. I think it's a really poor show from Merlin to feel the need to charge such high gate figures; not only for thorpe but for all of their parks over the UK. A £50 price tag last year was really on the limit for an on the gate price however rising it to £60 is nothing but utter greed from thorpe park and merlin. It's a really upsetting move from Merlin, a day out at the parks are continually becoming less worth the ridiculous prices. I imagine it's not long before we see the £70 barrier being broken in 2017/2018. I hope that when Paramount arrives it places a cheaper pricing structure for a much better day out, then thorpe can really reconsider how they have been operating and they will realise that guest satisfaction does matter. I wish they could only realise their mistakes now however everyone knows that is never going to happen.

£29.99 is 1p difference to what I was just talking about...

£30 is still an extremely hefty sum for a day out in summer when a guest(an average guest does NOT plan their day out step by step) gets on an average of 5-6 rides due to 2 hour queues. Then on top of the £30 entry fee, you have to pay money for food and also travel. This makes a day out to the park around £40-£50 in total even with a 2-4-1 or discount voucher!I don't know who Merlin think they are, but raising the gate price to £60 for peak days is ridiculous.

Union J have been doing gigs at Westfield the last couple of years, which were not suprisingly, free to watch. I can't imagine they are much to hire out, therefore making business sense for Thorpe to hire out. However, they aren't anything but an unpopular one direction.I highly doubt the bands coming will be "World Class", however will be highly impressed if they are. I imagine bands like Bastille will have better offers which pay more money and perform to larger crowds. I would expect acts who most people have never heard of to return like last year. The poster also advertises discounts for annual passes, which may mean the event is completely separate like Alton Towers Live. If so, I can imagine bigger acts to come as it is likely to be much more expensive to visit as a seperate event. I also worry about where these acts are going to perform, as the dome is simply not a big enough space if the event needs to be popular and a lot of the potential locations are now taken with construction. Only time will tell I guess

The video is utterly stupid, it's only going to drive people away if anything. It seems to give the impression that you will be doing the real experience. They have chosen the most grusome clips including being in cages of insects etc. Whilst this may be what happens during the TV program, these experiences will not happen, they will only be simulated and it therefore gives a false impression. It really wouldn't have been hard to make the advert better and more realistic of the actual experience. It's clear the advert has been awfully rushed, as has most of the decisions thorpe park have made during recent developments.

Summer of music is the new event currently being advertised on various posters around the park. Its a completely separate event, however it may have the potential to replace summer nights if it takes off. (Ovbiously they may be completely unrelated as we don't know what summer of music is yet!) Summer nights was highly successful the past two years so I really hope it returns!

The facebook team have just confirmed chessington passes will be able to use as well as merlin passes. It's strange how the same park can give two completely opposite opinions on different social media sites. I would imagine that chessington passes will be accepted as it would be completely unfair if they weren't allowed to attend the event. All very cuffudling isn't it..

Don't know if this has been shared before... But look what I found!! There's loads of different ones up from past years 2009-2012 all to different tracks, wish the park still made them as they are great!

The timing of the fire has also been changed from 2013/beginning of 2014. When riding last year, instead of feeling the blast as the fire went off, you only felt the heat if you were on front row as you went through the billboard. I wish the timing could be changed back as it was much better with the old timing where you felt the fire as you were doing the zero-g roll on any of the rows 1-5!

Wikipedia stated a 300pph throughput... I know it's an extremely unreliable source, however most of the thorpe park throughputs on Wikipedia are seriously over-estimated. I don't have any calculations of what the real throughput is, however I imagine it is fairly low.

What you have to remember, is that storm surge with a 2 hour queue is actually only 500people inside the queueline which really isn't that many...

Of course, the Instagram page may not be the most reliable of sources, however they did confirm publicly in reply to a comment that it wouldn't include Chessington passes. I guess we will found out when tickets are released whether chessington passes are included or not.

On a completely separate note, Chessington's Instagram confirmed Chessington pass holders won't be allowed into the preview event. The event will be exclusive to Merlin pass holders only. Strange move from the park, excluding what is presumably their most loyal customers.

A weekend is a very popular time to visit theme parks and seeing as most annual pass holders will be free on the weekend, they like to take advantage of the exclusive perk. Just a guess at why it's busy on them anyway.I was very surprised when visiting fright nights preview last year that it was so empty. I can only presume that it was empty as it was on a Thursday night and this was an inconvenient time for people. I remember all the rides being walk on with mazes at 5minutes or less with the exception of studio13.