TPJames

On a completely separate note, Thorpe's facebook team have confirmed an annual pass holder day this year! The dates are yet to be released. I noticed chessington are having a passholder weekend this year, hopefully thorpe will follow suit. I also hope there are some surprises in store for the new season

I would love all the major rides at chessington to get repainted, but it's just not going to happen. It's the same as all of the Colossus speculation at Thorpe Park, the GP don't care about it and therefore the ride will never get repainted until the public kick up a fuss. A ride's colour scheme is such a minor detail anyway unless the ride looks absolutely worn out and is in desperate need of a repaint. There are lots of other areas I would rather get repainted and done up than rollercoaster tracks which really aren't noticeable to the GP. I'm not saying I wouldn't like it, of course it would be nice, however it just isn't necessary and the improvement scheme of areas like the Mystic East are far for important at this stage in time.

Since when did February half term have more than a their standard line up of rides? Only a quarter of the park will be open!

Jamie, I really don't understand how they can call it an event in any case, a reduced ride line up and a show which was free last year is not an event and never will be. It's just extreme money sucking on Thorpe's part, it's not long before passholders get fed up of the endless charges. A much better option this half term is to head down to chessington for cheaper and experience about the same amount of rides as well as a zoo and sealife centre, much more worth the money.

I fail to understand this, presumably chessington, thorpe, alton and legoland get similar budgets per year but alton towers seems to go so much further with their money. I understand chessington doesn't follow the same investment plan as the other parks, but why not? It's been ELEVEN years since the last rollercoaster at chessingotn was installed, another one is long overdue. I understand they may want to use their budget on improving the zoo etc. but I think the park is in desperate need of a couple of new major rides to spruce up the line up. How are the cost levels higher? I'm not contradicting you but alton towers has more rides, a bigger park and a sealife centre. Yes, chessington do have a zoo but I would imagine costs would even out when costs are taken into account considering alton is so much bigger. Yet alton go so much further with their money, the smiler was new for 2013, they added a massive new land for 2014 and they are adding a new rollercoaster for 2015. Yet, chessington seems to only have a medium-large investment every once in a while and the small investments in between are really small. I'm unsure to why this is, and I get park improvements are important, however alton maintain their park spotlessly and have regular large investments. There needs to be a clear balance between the two.

Looks like a whole load of effort has been put into creating that trailer...

This could well happen but I can only view it as a dreadful move business wise for thorpe and would cost them more money in the long run: The four lost city flats; Vortex, Rush, Quantum and Zodiac are absoutely knackered and are clearly coming towards the end of their life. To spend extra money to get them running in the cold will not only cost thorpe more money to open them and operate theme however will mean their life span is considerably shorter and in the long run the attractions will have to be placed sooner. Let's face it, thorpe doesn't have a that big budget, and if they do they choose not to use it on investments, the last thing thorpe wants in the near future is their flat rides dying so they have to replace them which is why they spend money on ride maintenance instead. Opening up the four flats isn't a wise move business wise however it is a possibility.

I doubt vortex or quantum would open, they have been having particularly bad seasons recently and to knacker them out would be beyond pointless. The only flat ride I would sensibly open is detonator, as even something like rush was performing particularly poor last year. I doubt inferno will open, they would have probably announced it if it was open along with swarm and stealth. I think the line up they have released will roughly be what's open with a possible couple of added extras such as X, detonator and possibly tea cups. Chessington is a far more anticipating offer, about the same amount of rides as thorpe open although admittedly less intense as well as the sealife centre, zoo and shows! All for £4 less than thorpe are charging, chessington is hopefully on the cards for me this year for African adventures!

Making standard pass holders pay £5 for that line up is particularly poor. I would imagine they would add Detonator, X and possibly a flat to that line up as well, however I wouldn't be surprised if that was the full line up for the event as is very similar to the amount of rides chessington open up for their event(although they have so much more to do with the zoo, shows and sealife).

I do agree that the above points I raised may have been slightly on the unrealistic side, thorpe park does have extremely good hours when compared to UK parks and summer nights is taken into account. Sure it would be nice for hours to be extended and to have summer nights included in a day ticket, but hey ho that's the way it goes. I think on the entertainment side thorpe are still slightly lacking though, especially if they want RNR to work. After visiting Portaventura in summer I found out what a theme park can really do to entertain you with shows etc. for a whole day. I know comparing a park in Spain to one in the UK is unrealistic, however a day at Portaventura from 10am-midnight/4am really isn't enough to experience absolutely everything on offer. It would be great if thorpe could learn from this and create shows and park entertainment like Portaventura does to keep day guests entertained when not on rides etc. Of course ABL 4D is only the building blocks to wide park entertainment, setting up a few more stages around the park and having regular entertainment would also be great, and as the years go by, if they could incorporate permanent shows like Portaventura it would be superb. I understand Portaventura has a much bigger budget to play with, however a little bit of effort on thorpe's part just to get the entertainment side up and running wouldn't be hard. As there is nothing major new for 2015, I hope thorpe can improve park entertainment as I would really enjoy a day more if there was entertainment and shows going on between rides. Portaventura has some really unique entertainment and it would be great if thorpe could incorporate this. If thorpe don't want to go all out on budgeting entertainment all year round, they could maybe just put it on special event such as summer nights and during holidays if possible. As I said, a great start to this would be adding more stages around the park and something I would really like to be incorpated is something they do at Portaventura, called a foam disco. I know it's a bit out of the blue, but a foam machine doesn't cost that much and it is absolutely insane fun at Portaventura and I can garuntee the guests would really enjoy it. It could even just take a place on a side stage like the one by tidal wave, as there is enough space for a DJ, a foam machine and people! Small details in theme parks really do add up, so I really hope thorpe can put on some more live music/ shows around the park especially on events like summer nights. If summer nights had live entertainment and music it would be absolutely insane! My post may be a bit strange, however I feel it's what thorpe need to make the park work especially with RNR into play.

Sorry, my bad. Was bubbleworks, Seastorm and the carousel meant to be open as well though before the incidents/improvement works?

Looking back at last years half term event, I have a feeling that they opened more attractions? Last year they opened: tomb blaster, bubbleworks, carousel, Seastorm, jungle bouncers, hocus pocus hall and flying dumbos. VS This year: Scorpion express, bubbleworks, carousel, Seastorm, hocus pocus hall and amaze treetop aventure. Seems like one less attraction on the line up, may just be a fault on my part however may be a slightly incorrect statement from chessington?

"Are you ready for an African Adventure? Join us at the Resort this February half term every day from 10am-3pm! As well as our Zoo, SEA LIFE centre, Wanyama Village and famous daily Zoo shows we have more rides open than EVER before including Bubbleworks and Scorpion Express. Join our exciting African Adventures quiz trail to help explore our world of adventures, and watch out for our Safari Explorers roaming the Resort, all included in your Merlin Annual Pass, or pre-book your tickets online for just £9! Our Hotel packages are also now available with a one-night African Adventures Getaway bed and breakfast package starting from just £99. Find out more and book now! http://bit.ly/CWOARAfricanAdventures" Rides avalible for February Half Term have been confirmed and will be: Scorpion Express, Bubbleworks, Seastorm, Carousel, the AMAZU Treetop Adventure, and Hocus Pocus Hall.

I admire your confidence in thorpe and the bringing in of the new system, however I fail to see any logic at all behind this post:Let's take a busy summers day, face it, there's no point doing a trial on a system on an off peak day when the system is designed for a busy day at the park, that would completely ruin the purpose of the system. A busy summer's day sees around 120mins per coaster on average, with tidal wave at 120 as well and loggers leap at 60minutes. Samurai also averages about 30minutes on a peak day at thorpe park. For now I'm going to leave the dark ride out of the question, as we know nothing about it yet. So, seeing as each rollercoaster takes around 1000pph, there are 10,000 people freely roaming who usually would be standing in a rollercoaster queue. Then adding tidal wave, loggers leap and samurai, you are adding another 3000 people who would usually be standing in these queuelines for the rides. That's 13,000 people who would usually be standing in queues. I may have overshot this, maybe a realistic amount is more around 10,000. Then taking away 5,000(an insanely over-estimated number at this point) who will be eating, shopping and relaxing leaves around 8000-10000pph who will want to ride other rides while virtually waiting. The main rides people can now experience in a standby queue are vortex, rush, detonator, X and slammer. Let's say on average these take about 500pph. That's 2500 people per hour spread between these attractions. So either the flat ride and kids rides queues rocket out of control to 120mins+ on a busy day or the streets of the park are taking more people walking around them than they can handle and no one can move. Even taking loggers leap, tidal wave and samurai will only warrant an extra 3,000 and things will still be too crowded to handle. I hope this explanation makes sense but this is the reason I BELIEVE the system will only work in 5-10years time when more high throughput side attractions have been added to the park.

This investment could well follow the pattern of one of Merlin's late openings, we may not see this new dark ride open until the summer season of 2016 for all we know at this point. I would imagine the site will be kept as discrete as possible for the majority of the 2015 season to not disturb anyone with potential advertising being introduced around fright nights when the majority of visitors are around. I feel we are all looking too far forward into the future at the moment, hints of what the dark ride will be won't be revealed for at least another half a year. As for construction matters, I reckon it will be kept hidden away so we will not be able to see any developments for a long time. I have a feeling the majority of work will be done during the closed season next year with theming being completed early March/April for a summer opening. Of course no one knows much about it yet, although the partnership with Lionsgate leans towards a hunger games marketing scheme the dark ride could easily be anything. For now though there will be not much development going on and I am more interested in seeing what improvements thorpe have made for the upcoming season ahead!

I agree it could work in the future if they add more high throughput attractions as I have stated before, however at the moment the system just can't work for such a small park like thorpe park no matter how much tweaking there is. I was there on Saturday 18th October to trial the system for fright nights, it was good at first for the first hour as no one knew about the system, however as the day progressed the virtual waits went up to 5hours with a further 2 hours standby wait after that. If we hadn't abused the system towards the beginning of the day, we wouldn't have got more than one maze done. It was truly horrific having up to 7 hours wait for one maze, even though most of that wait is virtual, it is absolutely ridiculous seeing that long queues for the mazes and they would have been a lot shorter without RNR in action that weekend.

Jamie, the staff aren't anything to go by. They were as clueless as to what the system was as most of the guests on park. Some of the staff decided it would be better called "Ride and Reserve" so I heard that name fly round a fair few times during the day even though that makes no sense whatsoever.

So basically you like the system because it can be used and abused. You don't like it for its actual purpose. If thorpe continue with RNR and remove the glitches I know everyone's opinions on it will change immediately when the system is devised for its proper use and cannot be abused. How would they catch you doing that? We did it at fright nights and if it hadn't been an option we would have only got on 1 maze the whole evening if that. The only reason I managed 3 mazes on fright nights is due to the system not being used to its true purpose.

They scrapped the paper ticket system at Fright Nights...

In theory yes... But in thorpe's situation at this current moment in time, no.I can see this working in 5-10years time but no sooner. As people have stated, the side attractions need to be high throughout. The current 500pph per hour flat rides are not enough, they need high throughput flat rides and shows which eat 2000-3000pph or even more(related to shows here). In the current situation, RNR is just shifting queues and making the queues for side attractions longer. Shifting 10,000 people on a busy day who would be queueing in a coaster queueline is not a stable flow of guests for side attractions. The major flat rides will get at least 60mins+ of what they would have been without RNR in action. If thorpe invest high throughput for the next few years, I could well see RNR being a guest pull-in when Paramount park comes into rivalry. Considering Paramount park is over 5 years away, and thorpe's flat rides are coming to their end sooner or later, I can see thorpe replacing them with significant high throughput rides in the next few years. I reckon the system could be a real crowd puller WHEN thorpe get enough high throughput rides to back up their coasters, fully implementing it this year is only going to shift queues, not reduce them.

Unfortunately this is the way thorpe thinks and generally results in poor attractions...*Cough* Angry Birds Land *Cough*

Unfortunately I believe the problem of queues can only be resolved by adding high throughput attractions. High throughput attractions reduce queue lines as a whole and RNR can only work with a significant amount of shows and high throughput attractions to accommodate the people virtually queueing, otherwise it just simply shifts queues like thorpe are doing at the moment. Basically thorpe need to start investing in things which actually take a decent amount of people per hour instead of having massive queues...

I hold my hands up if I am wrong, this just seemed like an appropriate translation. From doing research it looks like they do this event till midnight every year, looks like a good event however I wonder why this event is special compared to other years except the fact that it's the parks 40th year.

"mit 24-Uhr Öffnung" This means, with a 24 hour opening. I do German and that it an exact translation.

Quote from website: " mit 24-Uhr Öffnung", this means a 24 hour opening in English so I don't see where there has been a translation mistake here?