jon81uk

There are plenty of complaints about Fright Nights on TripAdvisor too. The charge for standard annual passholders has been in place for several years now and is needed as otherwise the park would be completely full. As others have said, the park is already closed to day ticket sales within an hour of opening so they couldn't cope with passholders who haven't booked turning up as well. It is printed on the card that the charges apply so there is no argument about it. Althiough, the tickets for passholders have now sold out, but you can still pay £49.99 for a normal ticket? how does that work, surely AP tickets should be available until ALL tickets have sold out!

I think themed areas are gone, I don't see them returning at all, instead we will get each ride themed on its own (Saw, Swarm etc) with some groups (Amity, Lost City). Especially as the rumours are that the ranger county area and arena are being used for the 2016 attraction I think we will see a highly themed immersive ride, that doesn't necessarily link into anything else. Rumba Rapids and Colossus still need cleaning / refurbishment though!

I think themed areas are gone at Thorpe, other than Angry Birds and the Amity area around Tidal Wave I don't expect to see any cohesive themes kept, especially given that Saw and Swarm are both on their own. A Top Spin is pointless for Thorpe when Chessington already as one and Samurai already gives a similar ride experience. They need to add rides for the 1.0-1.3m range so that younger family members who still want thrills feel welcome at the park too. and they still need a decent dark ride!

Toyland tours got changed to Charlie after around 15 years too. When guest interest is dropping it is time to refurb.

You can make a dark ride fit in a smaller space by making the building two stories, this is what Universal did with Transformers. and because the storyline and motion works so well you don't even notice the lifts, I was convinced it was all on one level when riding!. BUT can Thorpe park build a ride as technologically advanced as Spiderman or Transformers? It was around 10 years after the Haunted House opened until it was remade into Duel, the original ride was reaching the end of its lifespan anyway so it is expected to get less interest.

Yep always better for any service to complain in person while you are there.

They have already had red bird in the Angry Birds Land area of the park meeting guests.

All of those rides only need one member of staff to operate I think (maybe 2 for Vortex), whereas a coaster would cost a lot more to keep open.

All it takes is one person in the queue or next to someone on the to take offence to having water thrown at them and you could end up with a flight between two guests. Unless there is signage up at the ride entrance stating this is a water ride, then I would expect to get off dry. Its also not the sort of childish thing a professional park should be doing. If they want to do it as a summer special then add some sprinklers (similar to Ripsaw/Rameses or Monkey Swinger) and signs to show that you will get wet.

Yep, I would add Mine Train and possibly Mauraders Mayhem & Sharkbait reef so there are a few rides that are for the 6-11 year olds. Or add Spinball and keep all ERT down the right hand side of the park. As others have said, I agree that by getting the Smiler open for 9am, hopefully all the ERT guests will have riddden by 10am, leaving slightly shorter queues for the rest of the people at 10am. A lot of people currently go straight to the Smiler anyway.

I would guess Tussaud's decisions to push Thorpe as thrills and Chessington as family rides and a zoo was one of the reasons nothing inverting has been built at Chessington since Tussaud's bought Thorpe. I think that will continue too, it looks like most of the investment is going to be refurbs and animal attractions.

JohnD has got all the timings right for fireworks. As for queues, we got a lot done on the Friday morning but it got much busier in the rest of the day. If you want to ride in the dark after fireworks you will get 2-3 rides in but may have choose either mine train / nemesis / air OR Thirteen / Rita / Oblivion as crossing the park will eat into too much of the hour or so you have for dark riding. Thirteen & Nemesis are great in the dark, particularly the sections of Thirteen in the forest area. The gates next to air into the car park will be open usually so you don't need to walk back to main entrance after riding air and Nemesis.

7/8/9 November are the fireworks days not Scarefest. No ERT on Scarefest or Fireworks.

Yep, if Chessington did some serious work with their back of house facilites a lot of space could be made available. Also from the Safari Skyway you can still see into a lot of the back of house areas near the new hotel / Otter enclosure. If they had thought out Zufari / Wanyama a bit better with the service road then I'm sure another attraction or animal enclosure would have fitted.

Disney have made a lot of queuelines wheelchair accessable, so they just join the main queue (which is what I think is correct). However if you unable to queue (such as autism etc) then you get a card with a return time of just under the current wait time, again this keeps it fair for everyone. A disability should never give front of the line access for your entire family, everyone should be able to utilise attractions equally and equality works both ways.

I've always giggled at this, I wonder who is trying to destroy all the civilians.

I would say some foods at Thorpe are a delicacy (that is they are "rare"). Fresh hot donuts aren't available in many other places, slushie drinks in 10 different flavours and the selection of pic'n'mix that you can buy in BUCKETS!

Samurai has a cattlepen queue and that was moved while Tussauds branding was still on the park not Merlin, also how else would you fit a queue to dodgems, Chessington's has a cattlepen type switchback queue too.

There's another error with the height slider too, it shows the carousel as having a min height of 1.3m, which is only true if you don't have an adult with you, just feels odd as really only those under 1.3m will want to ride it. The food images do look a bit like false adverstising, showing fish and chips served on crockery with knife and fork. Also the kebabs shown are shish when they actually serve donor, they need to get photos of the actual food served in park.

This is one of the big problems at Towers at the moment, they have areas with kids/toddler attractions (Cbeebies), family attractions (Mutiny Bay, Cred Street, Katanga Canyon) and adult/thrill areas (Forbiddon Valley, X Sector, Dark Forest). This means families have to split up if Dad and the older kids want to do coasters but the younger kids want to do small rides. Ug Land worked as a family area with the swinger and bone shaker as well as corkscrew (and later Rita). But The only thing for under 1.4m in Forbidden Valley is Blade, wasn't as bad when dynamo was over there. It wouldn't do them any harm to mix it up a bit.

I think they need an additional dark ride, but if it does get built it will be in the central area. They will need to remove something to build it such as using the KFC/arcade building or the back area of X (used for horror mazes) and slammer. in fact the space at the back of X all the way through to the BBQ is the only area I can think of large enough that could have a dark ride built on it. Re purposing the 4D cinema building and Burger King etc would have been another option, but the 4D cinema is being re-opened.

I think part of the reason Rush is busier at Thorpe is it is a more accessible ride, it doesn't go upside down, it doesn't spin and it looks predictable. I don't like Samurai much, Slammer can just be uncomfortable, Vortex can be vomity but Rush is always just fun. I think this is a similar reason to why Submission was never popular, it wasn't comfortable and didn't do much exciting, Enterprise is more popular becuase is looks more interesting and you know exactly what the ride experience will be.

I have been to Chessington on Weekdays and yes it is dead, managed a good 6 or 8 rounds on the dodgems without getting off or any other riders wanting to join last visit. Some rides are just in the wrong place such as griffins galleon or just the wrong age range for weekdays as so many will be at school. This is Chessington's problem, during school holidays (and weekends) they really don't have enough capacity and the park is busy with long queues. During term time the park is quiet as older groups will usually prefer Thorpe Park.

Everyone that has bought premium passes since Christmas should have got a privilege pack with lanyards and fast track tickets (some info on the comparison http://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/compare-passes.aspx). If you bought premium passes last year you will have to wait until you renew as it is a new perk for 2014 onwards. The magazine we used to get but very on & off, it really seems random as to whether your address has been added to the mailing list. Might be worth emailing or phoning the annual pass people to get your address added if you want. They used to put it online too but I don't see it on the new website. The magazine was never that good anyway, you'd already know any news from reading these forums!

I think all those buildings did need a repaint though, Pirates 4D stopped showing years ago so the pirate themeing needed to go. But I agree the black spots on a pink building looks strange. Most others are in keeping with the rest of the Calypso Quay area.