jon81uk

There's 5 weeks until opening and you can see the wires sticking out the ground waiting for themeing pieices to arrive! I think the whole area looks fine, its what I expected from the plans but a lot of it such as Mr Bloom's Garden and Nina's Science Lab will depend upon the quality of the interaction from the staff running those attractions.

Rush is probably my favourite ride in the whole park, so it is very frustrating when it is on a very short cycle. I can understand when there is a long queue but we rode on a day with only a 5 minute queue and still got a short ride!

Sorry my misunderstanding I read it as he wanted to go to the one before his 18th!

Don't want to be a party pooper but the events are meant to be over 18s only.... " Do I need to bring ID?Yes, Ministry of Sound is strictly an 18+ event. There will be no exceptions. If you look under 21 we may ask for your ID. Driver’s licence and passports will be accepted." from https://www.thorpepark.com/ministryofsound/

The buildings are being painted, but what's inside them is completely new (Nina and neurona, Charlie & Lola etc) all the rides that are being redone are getting new fibreglass shells with the new theme and it looks like the Tractors changing to postman Pat is actually new vehicles. Also the boat ride will get all new night garden figures, you can't just paint a sheep blue and pretend it's Macca Pacca!

Nick land has at least three rides that were just rethemes (Streak, Blue Flyer and the tiny logflume) and a lot of the other additions just looked very off the shelf with a different ride vehicle. Whereas Cbeebies land is retheming five rides (squirrel nutty, eye spy, mini carousel, bish bash, tractors) and creating a lot of new entertainment based experiances. There seems to be a bigger focus on learning and doing rather than just simple rides. Alton Towers also has many of the simple kiddy flat rides in other areas of the park.

Thorpe really isn't trying to be a world class park though, their tag line is "the nations thrill capital" and that's all they are trying for. In the same way that the Six Flags parks only sell themselves to Americans. The Crash Pad and similar sized rooms of the Shark Hotel, serve a purpose and others others who have stayed there they are fine and you are free to spend evenings in the dome so you don't have to be in the tiny room.

On a weekday there just won't be enough of the target age group visiting to make it worth running some of these rides. Under 5s may be too small to ride and over 5s should be at school. The problem is that they put it behind the building so nobody actually knows Griffins Galleon is there they should open up the back of Land of the Dragons so that it can be accessed from Africa easier and the ride can be seen.

Sounds like this is the new ticketing system that was mentioned in Merlin's financial report presentation. It does look very good, much slicker than the old system and Alton Towers booking pages, although Chessington's new system of showing what price it will be on days is almost as good as Thorpe's.

They could have an automated machine for digital photos, put in the photo code, check its yours, insert say £3 (or use contactless bank card) and tap in your email address. Would be a great way to get extra sales for no extra staff cost. The machine could even prompt that is is only £X more for a printed photo to encourage both.

Umm that's what Thorpe Park is, an "island" with thrill rides on it.

This guy seems to one of the main ones designing for Chessington http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/17/busch-gardens-mark-rose-designing-roller-coasters-is-one-hell-of-a-ride-4304595/

They are still offering a season pass for £48 all season after the end of April. But considering that a lot of people use 2for1 vouchers (so two people get in for £48) this is encouraging people to spend twice what they would on admission so the park get more money up front. Also a guest would need to visit three times over the season for it to be more worthwhile to have spent the full £48 on season ticket instead of using a 2for1 and getting two people in for £48.

Yep, the trough may be lake water so anything that splashes over side is lakewater and this is allowed as the main ride is older than the change in legislation. But most pipes appear to be fresh tap water. It wouldn't be chlorinated or trated, just ordinary tap so there is no risk to the late (its the same as watering a garden with a hosepipe. That youtube video looks nasty, I wouldn't want to be covered in that much water unless it is a very hot day, thats what Tidal Wave is for. Rapids should feel fun with the threat of water splashes.

A lot of rides that only have lap bars are just to stop idiots climbing out of the car if it stops on the lift hill. One example was the Black Hole (RIP) at Towers, it didn't have bars when it opened, but they reailsed a few years later that if it stopped on the lift hill and someone climbed out to the left they would fall to their death as there is only stairs on the right. I imagine it would be a similar case with runaway train, scorpian express, rattlesnake, etc.

I've never eaten in any of the mexican outlets in Merlin parks because of the limited menu, I would rather have burrios (similar to Chipotle, tortilla & chilango restaurants) than the current option of Fajitas. The website menu (https://www.thorpepark.com/downloads/plan-your-visit/food-drink/2013/desperados.pdf) is still showing fajitas as the only option?

You have to change at Hanley. Take the X25 and then the 32A. I saw the same question asked on Alton Towers Facebook page, timetables are here http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/staffordshire_cheshire/

The pilot may not go and visually inspect but someone will before the plane takes off and the cabin crew do a visual check to make sure all passengers have their seat belts on. Most rollercoasters are aware when restraints aren't closed (Air at AT is very tempremental on this) but a manual check reassures the public and helps stop other hazards that could harm the rider or spectators as well. and I hate the phrase Health & Safety gone mad. Almost always when someone says this it is actually fear of litigation that causes the problem. Most places will have done a risk assessment and identified which risks can be allowed and which can't, some further risks that are very unlikely are also prevented because of the risk of being sued. In this case restraint and passenger checking is a simple part of the ride safety and doesn't add much inconvience.

Yes, something more liek Willy Wonka's introduction in Charlie & Chocolate Factory at Alton Towers. the queue snakes in front of the screen several times and you usually get to see the whole video twice. Zufari would be better with just Chase and some animals and a hint at the mysterious cave and get rid of Gozi.

The Imperial Leather Sponsorship ended several years ago, but they seemed to just peel off the Imperial Leather logos and leave the rest of the ride alone! I quite liked the Zufari pre-show, it was a nice attempt at a Disney-style show, they just didn't try hard enough with the audience interaction to make it an interesting show. Gozi felt a little half-heated. Also the bit with Chase is needed for the set-up of the mystery cave. They needed better staff to voice Gozi and some staff maybe to ask people to leave the rows more orderly. I don't understand the complaints that people were cutting in front of you in the queue if one row of seating got up first, does it really matter if you are 10 people further forward or back in a queue whe you are then that close to the front!

That'll be because they are building some dodgems there!

Looking again at the images on the news page there is actually a sixthof the back of the map given over to Angry Birds and the cover page http://content.maniahub.com/photo/Thorpe/2014map/LeafletGatemap%20Back.jpg. I think that is a reasonable amount of promotion for what is really a small update to the park.

Given Angry Birds is opening in May, maybe there will be a new version of the map printed then? I think they have also realised they can't be too family friendly with the current selection of rides, people are still mainly going for the coasters.

It will be very nice if they have managed to carry forward the consistant branding into the park, the "cut off corner square/rectangles" that are used for the ride information key and then the boxes on the back are nice and consistant and it reminds me of the way that Alton Towers has gone with the gold pipe outlines for boxes. I also like the fact that KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut aren't mentioned in the list of food outlets on the back, just tiny icons on the map. Hopefully as well if they manage to push £48 for a season / £58 for a year pass it will reduce the reliance on 2for1 vouchers as well.

I would expect that with the promotion of CBeebies land to the 2-6 year olds it makes sense to promote Cloud Cuckoo Land as well as that is for 4-10 year olds really.