HermanTheGerman

Oh my lord. Can we please just stop with all this psychological rubbish. They use it for EVERY major ride.

Well, it's not the first time I've heard this rumour...

That's the end of season for you.

I can't really believe most of you didn't see this coming. On the day of the crash it became pretty clear that the parks were going to have cuts, why would you expect anything less? Complaining that they're closing Battle Galleons for several hours in mid-autumn doesn't make much sense at all to be honest. I think they've actually done rather well. I half expected them to cut Scarefest hours back, close two major areas until 12pm each day and ditch the first week of the event all together. I know it might be disappointing, especially if you'd already booked; but it wasn't that unforeseen, the park has been hobbling along all season.

Woooo! Finally!

Well, Merlin certainly have plans to add more accommodation. Glamping isn't their final solution, and they've just bought a stupidly large amount of land behind the Explorer Car Park, so lodges at least are a given. Perhaps they'll want another hotel as well? I don't know. I believe they want at least 150 more rooms to be built, maybe more, so its all possible.

What Matt Creek said is most likely not far from the truth. Though, seeing as work to Tomb Blaster is vital for safety purposes, (look at it's current closure...) it won't be a case of plans being ditched if WC16 flops. What's more likely is Merlin giving the project next to no budget instead, meaning that the park can resolve the infrastructure problems, and just about open a new ride. Although, you never know. It is Chessington; plans seem to change overnight at the minute.

They pretty much knew it was going to be out for the year when it closed in July. Why they're only announcing it now I don't know. Oh, wait.

It's been there all year I'm fairly sure...

In their trading update the other day, Merlin announced that the park will receive a major investment in 2017, so it isn't being entirely forgotten.

I think what's far more interesting is the size of the land that they bought with it...

Indeed. The actual staff seem to cope very well, one girl in particular who's name escapes me seems to always be working flat out whenever I've visited this year. It seems mostly down to slow guests and perhaps slightly altered arrangements car wise in the station (?) that have been causing stacking recently. Ahh, I remember last year when they were sending cars out with only 15 or so seconds gap. If only that were the case now.

It's been there a while...

Unfortunately ever since The Swarm failed, Merlin seem to have decided IPs are the only way forward. If only they were to realise that all you really need it a decent ride that actually looks compelling.

Well, after last year's fiasco, there was very strong vibes that the ride would be removed or at least be in for a major update, and well, one year on its still there, offending our eyes and all. Though, seeing a this is now the second time its done its thing and kicked up a fuss, maybe Merlin will actually listen and give the park money that they need. Its ridiculous how many things are wrong with the ride to be honest, and it'll only get worse if they just continue to poorly patch it up here and there.

It was running this way at the start of the season also. Could be coincidence, or they really are being over cautious.

Safari Skyway should be shut for the rest of the season yet again (good to see they've kept the tradition going). Tomb Blaster on the other hand is just busy proving to everyone why it needs to be replaced. I'm sure that given the current circumstances they'll be desperately trying to rectify the issue, maybe even get it open for Halloween. But who knows, maybe we'll be lucky enough to have two rides SBNO this season! Yay. Rattlesnake is as others have said, closed due to The Smiler incident. We might actually have a hope of that reopening.

I'd be very surprised if that wasn't a website glitch.

My favourite thing about Rattlesnake's evac platforms is the newly installed scaffolding catwalk. Must've realised how poorly it worked on other rides and thought it was a good idea...

I've always thought this is exactly what needs to happen. It would A - give the dome a purpose and B - actually give the place some resort-esque qualities. In fact, I'm sure I've posted this exact idea somewhere else before. Perhaps they copied me.* *Though I doubt it.

Rattlesnake is closed because Merlin have upped their procedures regarding manual operation. It's causing issues with the ride because it's so old that the operator actually has a fair bit of control...

Besides perhaps point #3, this is exactly what needs to happen. But sadly, it wont, so long as the idiots running Merlin continue to plough £30 million into Thorpe Park.

The only real solution is to plough money into the place. Replacing all the old, outdated, and low capacity rides with newer, more efficient and also safer rides that can actually cope with demand. Then also toilets, restaurants (which to be fair, they have started), and car parks need to be sorted. Capacity of everything is a massive problem, which hopefully they solve. They talk about it, and they have been for a few years, hopefully this time around they actually act on those words.

^ No, but Vampire has.

Ooh, I really do hope they use that house to hold the maze, its such a nice building, and the gardens would be so atmospheric. It also looks genuinely quite eerie from some angles lower down in the valley. As a side note - the editing in that photo really is awful! Oh dear.