Project LC

There is an investment currently progressing forward for 2020 but as far as I am aware there is no coaster involved.

The fundamental issue with Thorpe park is that it doesn't get the basics right. It is completely irrelevant if you have a great "brand" attached to a ride if the ride itself isn't fun. Thorpe Park sell fun, end of. No fun, no customers, no money. It is a simple problem that Merlin time and time again blame on external factors. Merlin's board is obsessed with branding and marketing. Varney is very cautious and branding obsessed. It has resulted in "safe" investments for years with stupid sellable gimmicks and typically an IP attached. The park will continue to make the same mistakes while he is incharge and he needs to go. The next coaster will likely be amateur layout at best trying to be the scariest ride ever (useless interpretation of survey results to blame for that one) and likely will have an IP attached. My only hope is that this years poor performance has been a wake up call and they change the boring formula but I seriously doubt that is going to happen.

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (6) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (6) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (4) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (4) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (5) + Storm Surge - The Sleeping Dead - The Ride

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (4) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (7) The Swarm (10) The Walking Dead - The Ride (2) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (4) Zodiac (2) + Zodiac - walking dead

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (4) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (6) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (7) The Swarm (8) The Walking Dead - The Ride (3) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (4) Zodiac (4) + Wet Wet Wet Wet Wet - The Walking Dead - The Ride

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (7) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (4) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (6) The Swarm (6) The Walking Dead - The Ride (4) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (4) Zodiac (4) + wet wet wet - walking dead

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Loggers Leap (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (6) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (4) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (5) Zodiac (5) - The Walking Dead - The "Ride" + Storm Surge

The forum is being really buggy with multiple posts and the scores are completely wrong presumably as posts are taking forever to come through. Its making it unplayable. I blame Russian meddling.

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) I'm a Celebrity (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (4) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (6) The Swarm (4) The Walking Dead - The Ride (6) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (5) Zodiac (5) + Storm Surge - the walking dead - the terrible ride

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon (2) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) I'm a Celebrity (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (6) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (6) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (6) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (5) Zodiac (5) Corrected as Storm Surge had a point stolen from it. 

Amity Beach (5) Angry Birds 4D Experience (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon (3) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) I'm a Celebrity (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Lumber Jump (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (5) Quantum (5) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (5) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (6) Storm in a Teacup (5) Storm Surge (6) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (5) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (5) Vortex (5) Wet Wet Wet (5) Zodiac (5) Storm Surge +1 DBGTROTD -1

The episode would have been brilliant if it was revealed that it was the cybermen taking the staff and then you saw the conversion of the woman in the bunker thing. Then if it revealed a load of empty/dormant cybermen instead of the robots holding boxes and the episode could have ended on a cliff hanger. It was an episode with a lot of potential and way better than all of moffats but it still fell flat.

Merlin definitely want the park to be more like a resort hence a new entrance planning to be constructed.

It just couldn't be sorted. Nothing about it being sorted quickly. No one would insure it. A structural and mechanical assessment along with the improvements needed would have cost a fortune with little to no return. It had it's day and to remove it while they could was the right decision. It is unfortunate the marketing campaign was poor and wicker Man was actually good but ultimately it led to a flop but they weren't to know that.

An average of a park every 4.1 days assuming the list is from Jan 1st. I can only say I'm jealous.

Merlin are turning Thorpe park into a resort rather than a theme park. More accommodation, more all year attractions such as the dungeon's or sealife and a fancy new entrance to house restaurants and presumably shops. The state of the parks is irrelevant, what matters to them is more people spending more.

They don't even use stealths third train correctly. The third is always in strip down so when one is faulty there is no spare to replace it. Colossus could get new trains with more leg room and lap bars but intamin would ask for money and Merlin don't spend money unless absolutely necessary.

Park count: 0 I'm too far away for spontaneous trips to theme parks anymore and I just didn't have the time. At some point I believe I have a site visit to Thorpe so hopefully I can get some rides in then. Just have to hope the site visit isn't in closed season which to be honest it probably will be and that's if I get to go at all.

I will be amazed if they get a new "awesome" ride in 2019 or 2020. 2020 they are spending money on stuff that whilst will improve the resort isn't necessarily what I think the park needs.

One thing that has been particularly bad with this series in my opinion is the acting. Some lines are delivered so flat that it really brings me out of the lack luster story. Most of moffats episodes I rated about 1/10 at a push. I thought the first episode with Jodi was probably around a 6/10 so a vast improvement however it's just gone down hill from there. This week I struggle to rate higher than a 1, I should have watched the lovely train documentary on bbc4. Also as the episodes have gone on I have started to dislike Jodie's doctor more and more. The only good thing about this series now is Bradley Walsh which was the only thing going in I thought I would dislike.

2019 is a low capex year, 2020 is a high capex year. Planning permission will have to go in early or the project could be delayed heavily.

The soil properties of the land aren't too bad. They wouldn't support a coaster without serious work but I know something it can support with 100% certainty

Have you looked near the entrance or by the car park?

The park is only as good as it's worst experience. The vast majority of visitors vist as a one off and will not know what other days are like at the park. Any guest who experienced the shocking Saturday just gone will now go and tell friends and families of the ripoff experience. Word will spread about that bad experience much faster than a good one. Potential guests are then put off from visiting and the park then has to spend more money getting people in. To say they could just visit on a less busy day is completely missing the point and I feel it's the exact same attitude the parks management take.

There seems to be a team of people on social media who do the responses. All of them guilty of crazy levels of exclamation marks. There is an article from the New York times they should read about Great Western Railways Twitter team. Would really help calm down guests. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/world/europe/britain-trains-apologies-great-western-railway.amp.html