CharlieN

The "we're a small park" excuse is rubbish.
 
Go back 20 years, when the park was (excluding The Farm) technically smaller, and they had defined areas, with portals and signage. 
 
Look at a park like Phantasialand, which is small and compact, and they have some of the most well-defined, high quality themed lands out there.
 
 
The simple and honest reason why the park don't do themed lands is because they don't want to. That's fine too, if that's the case. But let's face, it's not because they couldn't.

Very cool concept, but operationally would be so much better as a scaremaze rather than a scarezone. Imagine having a maze with 21 different individual micro-scare mazes rather than, what is evidently just going to be, 21 different jumpscares in one room.

Am I the only one who thinks this could be a vague storyline tease for Project Exodus?
The description of the door 7 video reads:
 
"It’s time to pack your bags and enter your cryo-pod aboard The Terminal for a one-way trip to an intergalactic utopia! You’ll find yourself drifting into an eternal slumber as you dream of the promised new land in a faraway galaxy. On your journey, your safe haven gets hijacked by unearthly creatures leaving you and your fellow passengers in perilous danger😧 Drifting in and out of consciousness, trapped in your own cryo-pod, there’s nothing you can do except accept your fate and pray you make it in one piece. "
 
Obviously in Trailers, the E:\O-DUS poster very clearly had imagery of somebody being abducted by aliens... and 'The Terminal' is very much extraterrestrial in nature.
 

 
Could be a similar thing to The Sanctury (for The Smiler) and The Welcoming (for Wicker Man) to foreshadow a vague storyline for their upcoming coaster projects. Just a thought! 🤔

Just to say what I did on Twitter - this drilling is for soil sampling so they know what they are dealing with when putting in footers/excavations etc. It will categorically, 100% NOT be being used to drill holes for construction itself and is purely for investigative purposes.

Still - progress is progress, and is exciting to see.

Official name revealed to be RMC: Really Massive Coaster as a nod - an "easter egg" if you will - as to what people would like to be built.
 
That aside, I agree - would imagine this is going to be theming light, trying to save some £s after the future of theme parks in The Dockyard (TM) didn't quite hit the mark/was an absolute and catastrophic failure and waste of money (delete as appropriate)
 
I jest really mind you - I am every excited that the THORPE PARK RESORT is finally getting something new, and hopefully this will tie in with more tidying up, repainting and improvements that seem to be happening at Chessie & Towers. (That said of course, a moment's silence please for the new Tidal Wave fire effect)

I think I made it sound worse than what it is.
 
Ultimately everyone seemed understanding of the need for expansion and investment, but found that the noise from tannoys and some screaming can carry over the lake. The concern was that the park didn't fully appreciate or understand what the base level of noise can sometimes be. I think it's easily rectified with some dialogue between both sides, which is the point of this consultation.
 
I don't think it's a particular bump in the road, and don't think people will end up being against the investment. I'm sure a good resolution can come from this.
 
 
It was to do with traffic. Peak times around the park are congested (not just because of the park of course), and I'm aware in the past construction of rides has highlighted this further.
 
 
I'll give a summary of everything I can remember, but obviously we'll have actual pictures and stuff tomorrow:
 
The Ride
I will give an honest reaction here: when people see the visuals shown today, I think people will be divided. It didn't look that long. Looks can be deceiving and it was hard to get much of a feel from quick looks at the visuals.

It's a very densely packed layout. It goes over the central lake a few times, but doesn't sprawl much. It has quite a few high points, again all closely packed together. It gave me a little bit of Steel Curtain (Kennywood, USA) vibes in some sense, where there's a lot of elements packed together.

Looking at it, it's hard to tell if there were inversions or not. The visuals are very loose. There's elements which look like they could be inversions, but they could also be non-inverting elements.
IF there are inversions, we could be looking at the world's tallest inversion. We could be looking at anywhere up to 6 to 7 inversion or so.

There's also a splash zone, which could indicate a splash down too. But it didn't look like it was near any track. Very confusing.

So this will be very interesting to see people's reactions when we get a look at the visuals.

Other details
-Manufacturer: The official line was they are still talking to multiple manufacturers. One member of the team speaking at the consultation said "there's people doing noise tests on a similar ride in Turkey". Would suggest the Flash clone, and hence Mack, but who knows.
-Other rides: No other rides were shown in the area.
-Existing rides: They said they're looking to retain "at least one of the existing rides".
-Height: 72m/236ft
-Speed/Length: Nothing said

Timeline (if all goes to plan)
-Today to January 2022: Consultation period
-Spring 2022: Plans submitted to council
-Summer 2022: Plans approved
-Late 2022: Construction starts
-Date TBC: Ride opens.
They did mention 2024, seemingly by accident. It also seems likely, given the timescale.

It does beg the question why Old Town needs to close now if construction isn't due to start until late 2022. I guess they could do some work during 2022 to prep, with main construction starting in 2022.
It also answers a potential question about Creek Freak Massacre. That could certain return next year if work around that building hasn't started by next October.

Project Name
One of the visuals labelled the roller coaster as Project Exodus. So that answers that.

Track Colour
Stealth is coloured white on the top to blend in with the skyline, then has blue elsewhere.
The park are considering something similar with this, but nothing is confirmed.

Visitation
The park said that they see the need for investing as a way of stopping declining visiting numbers, and getting people coming back. They don't expect the visitor levels to rise up dramatically. They also acknowledged the potential for competition from London Resort.
Personally I found it convenient that Merlin don't think it will happen, but they'll cite it as a need to invest in a new ride. ha

Anything Else
I can't think of anything else major. There will be lots of trees cut, but these will be carefully chosen and likely lots of ones which are dying. The area isn't of any ecological interest. I'm sure everything else will come tomorrow and I'll remember more.

Locals
The actual consultation was fine (at least, the one I went to was). Maybe a couple of questions which were more geek-oriented, but it was nice to see people being respectful that this was a process for locals.

That said, it's a little disappointing hearing and seeing people online referring to people as "Karens" for bringing up concerns. I don't think that anything raised by anyone was unreasonable. These are people with genuine concerns, some of whom have lived in the local area for many years before the park became filled with thrill rides. As I've said, I don't think anyone is against development particularly (and indeed, even those with pressing concerns acknowledged that it looks and sounds good for the park), but these are people's lives.

I think it's worth stressing time and time again, there's a pretty good two way communication between the park and locals, and both sides are keen for that to continue. I just hope that everyone appreciates that, and don't berate people in any way for having concerns. It's not like they're even being Roper-esque (Alton Towers reference), they just want a very happy and respectful compromise.
 

I mean it isn't the woke brigade that jumped on this, it's just bots and trolls trying to cause division. The fact the original poster is an anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown, anti-mask conspiracy nut tells me all I need to know about the original tweet  and in this example, its best not to engage at all as it spreads the rubbish further. 

2021 Edition Part two.
 
The other day, someone said Steel Vengeance was over-rated. I'm going to stand out here, shout to the world that if you decide to refer to something as over-rated then you have no critical discourse whatsoever and you need to pick up a thesaurus and learn some new descriptive language. Saying something is over-rated is the laziest critique anyone can possibly muster up because it requires no explanation and only looks to disregard peoples opinion. It says to others, 'sure you like a ride but thats only because you're following the crowd. No, I am the only true oracle, the only one that can see past the rose tinted glasses of hype and I stand before you now to tell you that you're a blind sheeple. Follow me, I declare that Steel vengeance/Taron/Nemesis/anything people quite like isn't as good as you think it is'.
 
Under-rated is different. There are so many attractions out there (Alpina Blitz at Nigloland for example) that fall completely under the radar and deserve to be spoken about more. The term under-rated is actually quite nice because it can be used to inspire people to try something or go somewhere they wouldn't necessarily go to without the recommendation. 
 
Over-rated is an awful awful phrase and looks to just belittle others viewpoints and enjoyment. 

Have removed a couple of posts from here - Regardless on your opinions on Nick’s music - fair play to him for organising this - just looked and I saw he’s raised almost £600 to donate to a mental health charity and no one deserves to be berated for that - that’s significant amount especially during these times from such a niche market.
 
Whilst I get it may not be everyone’s cup of tea I think it’s great people when people l come together and do things like this which will ultimately benefit others more in need, especially in times like this!

Soooooo, The Ride to Happiness, presented by Tomorrowland, anyone?
 
 
 
 

You could see the shed on Bob too. But enthusiasts gonna enthusiast.

Take the queue times with a pinch of salt! If it says 60, it's probably less which I found with my experience the other week.
 
Bag checking and temperature check was really seamless. Took no time at all.
 
Go to Nemesis Inferno or Colossus first!
 
Have a lovely day!

The physical process of having your temperature and bag checked is quick. The queue to get is simply because of the number of people there.
 
As said above, just get there as early as possible (9.15ish is a good shout) and you'll be fine. The turnstiles will open shortly after 9.30 in my experience, so you're good to go from there.

Taken me a week to process my thoughts on my trip. As it was supposed to be my honey moon, we decided to make money no object and just kind of went for it. 
 
- Virtual queuing. I guess they must have changed it as both virtual queuing and stand by queues were in use. I can see this being a precursor to some kind of fastrack system becoming permanent as that is essentially what we used it for. The numbers using the system were incredibly low though, the only ride it went quickly for is Wodan. Wodan in particular was the busiest ride on park everyday with 40 minute queues a regular feature.
 
- Blue Fire and its new sponsor are fine. I can see why they altered the queue completely although it seems rather more permanent then a social distancing measure. The new Blue Fire cafe area had its own separate queue although wasn't open at all on our visit.
 
- Snorri Tourren is incredible. How this little dark ride must have had, what a year in development for them to build this charming little ride into a previously vacant area is amazing. The work they've done with Scandanavia is also top notch. 
 
- Pirates in Batavia was great. It was the busiest I've ever seen it, fair enough as its the new ride. They've done a great job and if I was fluent in German, I bet all the animatronics and dialogue is top notch too. Over the three days we were there, Koffie Koppies went from being the normal teacup attraction, to its halloween equivalent.
 
- Silver Star. I didn't use to be the biggest fan of Silver Star. I don't know if its because I'm getting older or if Silver Star has fundamentally changed (it does have magnetic breaks now for example) but I'm getting more and more out of it. It has so much air time through-out its course and it caught me by surprise several times. Part of me wants to go and get back on Shambhala.
 
- Social Distancing. Ok the big one. Germans are excellent at social distancing. They are also excellent at wearing masks. This is true across the theme park and on their train networks where no one was wearing face masks incorrectly or deliberately getting close to others. The only thing that felt weird in this pandemic world is that they load full trains on Silver Star, Atlantica Supersplash and Arthur. I felt uneasy at first on Silver Star in particular as there's not much room between the person next to you and yourself. After a few rides I was over it. It's just weird as I've been riding Nemesis half empty for all my visits and yet every train in Europa Park is at maximum capacity. It's one to look out for if you feel uneasy.
 
- I really enjoyed Rulantica and I traditionally dislike water parks. It has a lot to do and variation which is key. Also appreciated the pool side bars.
 
- Stayed at Bell Rock and Kronosar. I love Kronosar and its setting. it's only drawback being so far away from Europa Park. It has that fun theme park hotel feel that I absolutely adore. I would much rather stay at official hotels these days than drive around to random hotel in the middle of nowhere. 
 
Over the three days we got on over 100 rides. There are just so many attractions in the place that its hard not to rack up high ride counts, even without really trying. 

Are Intamin the new Golden Horse LOL?
I'm sure parks will trust them over Mack to build their water rides, it isn't like any of their large scale water rides have failed hard in the past..
 

I mean the coaster community certainly is male dominated, I can only comment from my perspective but I guess you can’t force people to be interested in something if they aren’t, although more diversity would be nice it can’t really be forced as we all like different things. 
 
My sewing and dancing groups by contrast tend to be female dominated, and the current admins/staff are all female.

I guess the only thing that can be done for a hobby/interest forum is to ensure there are no barriers to entry, and we all make an effort so that new members are made to feel welcome and treated with respect.

In that case, it's time to move this thread

Parks reopening? Screw that. Football is coming back 

I haven’t been to FN - and I won’t be visiting - but the quality of attractions does seem to be lacking. 
 
Go back to 2013; you’ve got 4 very solid indoor mazes in Cabin, Saw, The Asylum and MBV - not forgetting Blair Witch.
 
This year, 3 of the 4 indoor maze locations are in use:
Saw is still Saw - which is surely getting stale.
The Asylum is now Vulcan Peak - which is quite possibly the largest downgrade in the history of mazes.
Cabin is now Living nightmare - which also must be seen as a downgrade; going from a critically acclaimed conceptually innovative maze to one which feels ‘almost’ there.
 
Elswhere, the park has replaced 1 outdoor maze with... 4?
Whyyy?
What do each of these mazes do that others don’t? Blair has never worked as well as intended. Platform is still a bit iffy. Sanctum seems as hastily put together as it was last year. So what do Thorpe decide to do? Open another outdoor maze of course, instead of putting all that enthusiasm, energy and money into their existing offering.
 
It seems like the overriding problem with FN at the moment is the lack of variety of actors. Both walking dead mazes use zombies, Platform has dead train people who act like zombies, Dead Creek throws infected people at you, who behave like zombies and Blair’s confused actors end up giving a zombie like performance.
 
If you look at the Villains of Europa Park’s traumatica - you’ll see there’s vampires, werewolfs, ghosts and a whole host of other characters. That what Thorpe needs, for each maze to be distinctly different - with actors acting distinctly different. 
 
There’s too many blokes with black paint around their eyes growling at you.... 

I have massive respect for his honesty here. Theme parks are to escape reality but as all those pictures show, everything around you just reminds you of what is happening. 

I guess this could/should go in the corona thread, but sticking it here so I don't forever clog it up.
 
Efteling is back open, and Looopings has a handy look at many of the changes in place. Here's some highlights:
 

The park is covered in these red and white tape markings. Red is 'do not stand here', white is 'stand here in your groups'. These are literally everywhere where people will queue.
 
The park originally went with yellow/black hazard tape everywhere. During their many rehearsal days, this was decided to not be a good idea, hence the change. 
 

Attractions with indoor areas / preshow, such as Symbolica and Villa Volta, have numbers on the floor. Groups are told which number to stand on.

The numbering system also applies to the park's carousels.
 

Where railings are used in queues, the red/white tape is one the railings. Where possible, cattlepen queues have been demolished and redesigned or shut off.
 

Where cattlepen queues had to remain, screens have been introduced.
 


Their water coaster, Flying Dutchman, has screens in the station to protect staff. Social distancing is in place.
 

There's lots of these 'disinfection stations' around, as well as themed hand sanitiser dispensers across the park.
 

A look at the seating arrangement for Python. Cleaning takes place between rides.
Interestingly, Efteling have taken a Disney approach and are no longer checking restraints. They ask you pull them down yourselves, make sure you feel safe and comfortable, and dispatch. Of course, you don't staff to physically check any restraints (the ride's system will confirm if all restraints are locked); staff checking is for peace of mind and to ensure rider comfort in most cases.
 

In the pre-show to their 4D film (yes, that's a thing), boxes have been marked out to show where groups should watch.
 
As for food, there's a greater emphasis on 'grab and go' food, with tables marked off, etc. The park have installed some fun food shoots too:
People are encouraged to pay contactlessly / via an app as much as possible too.
 
Other bits:
-The music in Joris en de Draak's station is turned off so people can hear staff instructions clearly.
-The bag area for Baron 1898 (outside the preshow) is no longer in use. Lockers are still available for €1. I'm not sure if that means you can't have bags in the queue now, but I imagine you can leave them in the station (which was how the ride originally opened).
-Most shows are not taking place, except for a couple of acts that take place in the Fairytale Forest. This includes the park's roaming mascots.
 
An interesting scenario which I hadn't thought about yet was what happens during a shutdown. Many people like to leave a queue if a ride suffers a shutdown, but it's physically impossible to maintain social distancing in that case. Be interesting to see what the messaging will be in these scenarios.
 
The Looopings article ends with a quote from Efteling Director Fons Jurgens, who says that whilst he believes all measures in place are necessary,  the temporary barriers and red/white tape "hurts" and also said "If you just look at this very honestly, you cannot say that we now offer a top product here." 

You should work from home BUT only if you can work BUT only if you can get there BUT only if you social distance on transport BUT only if you have to work.
 
If Labour were making the same mistakes here then people would moan. But then again they've not been in charge for the past 9 years with austerity, public funding cuts and a completely divided country to show for it. Is it any wonder some people want the Tories out?
 
Added to this is watching how other countries are approaching this situation. Have you seen the Irish roadmap compared to ours? Vastly more detailed to the UK one where 3 of the 4 countries it was meant to apply to have turned around and gone "nah mate that's nonsense"?
 
Only the other day was the end of Cameron's 5 years. Preceded by his "Chaos with Ed Miliband" tweet. Strong and stable indeed.

I hope the people who voted in this conservative government based on getting Brexit done are enjoying  the absolute mess and lack of clarity. 

Anyone else of seeing blogs from the average Joe enthusiast informing us all how / when the theme-parks will reopen and what measures will have to take place. Almost like their fly on the walls at government meetings. Or perhaps they have the Zoom pass code.

An interesting question with a few answers.
 
First off, to answer you concern: it was nothing to do with it being "too extreme". There wasn't enough serious complaints from guests who did it to warrant its removal. Frankly, I don't even know if there were any complaints - everyone knew what they were getting themselves in for. These sorts of experiences have a niche market (albeit, Thorpe and Towers' alone experiences expanded and simultaneously watered-down the niche).
 
A short answer: There wasn't a strong enough drive internally to get it to come back.
Devising the experience takes time (it wasn't simply "actors do whatever they want"), and there was no one who was in a position (in terms of the time-commitment required) to create it. There had been some backlash from actors about the experience who didn't feel comfortable doing it (something I'll go into later), plus it could add another hour onto an already very long day, where they have to work 10x harder. Those two together meant it just wouldn't get off the ground.
 
A long answer: Less of an answer, and more of a story..
Face it Alone came about in 2013, with the park trying to diversify their line up and really focus on becoming a bigger, better and more unique Halloween event. The Lionsgate IP bought in the brands and the interest, completely refreshing the concept of Fright Nights. They tried new maze concepts: choices (Cabin in the Woods) and outdoors (Blair Witch Project). They introduced a (sadly poorly received) overnight experience, which was trendy at the time, and pushed forward with the Face it Alone: an extreme and an alone experience in one; again something which was trending and on the up in the scare industry at the time.
 
For anyone that did it in 2013, you'll no doubt know that every experience was different. The actors were given a scope of things they could do, boundaries they could push and ideas they could toy with. It was free-reign, but it gave the actors a much freer realm to work in. Another important thing to note is that Face it Alone wasn't particularly popular in 2013. People were unsure what exactly it was, whether it was worth the £15, etc. You could also choose which maze to experience. Which all in all meant it was easier to organise, give a personal touch, etc.
 
When 2014 came along, the experience changed somewhat. Whilst it was still 'extreme', the actors stuck to much stricter roles. Basically, actor 1 did x to you, actor 2 did y to you, etc. By no means a bad thing (if planned correctly, this can be a very good thing), just different. Again, this year you could choose your own maze and, whilst it had gained popularity, it was still pretty calm.
 
2015 is when everything changed, and was arguably the beginning of the end. Face it Alone became a much bigger spectacle. Gone were the days of choosing your own maze, and it was instead replaced with the Roulette Ceremony by Big Top. A great idea in fairness, and one that many enjoyed. This meant it garnered more attention and became much more popular, and went outside of the niche. Already teetering on the edge here.
 
2015 did go back to 2013's free realm style too. There were clearly things that certain actors had to do at certain points to progress you through the experience, but in between actors had a very large scope of what they could do.
 
The next thing with 2015 was the overt sexualisation of the experiences. It's probably not suitable to discuss the details on a public forum, but many things done within the experiences weren't scare tactics, they were simply there sexualised things made to make people feel uncomfortable, humiliated and uncertain. This was the first year that a safe word was introduced too. Safe words do appear in many extreme attractions, but I don't think it's a coincidence that a safe word appeared at the same time the sexualised content of Face it Alone occurred. 
 
This was a completely different direction to what had happened before. Whilst Face it Alone may have featured things like nudity/being tied up/etc - ie things that COULD be sexualised - they never WERE. By doing so, it adds a very different tone. And this tone meant that people were enjoying these experiences in a very different way. There were plenty of times that people within Face it Alone experiences were asking for certain things to be done to them so that they could 'get their money's worth' and be satisfied with the experience. These sorts of things had happened in previous years, but not to the degree they had happened in 2015. This, unsurprisingly, led to some actors being rather uncomfortable with the experience.
 
Come 2016, things had been toned down again. It went back more to 2014's "carbon copy" style experience. Originally it led to some complaints that it wasn't as extreme. I think one issue was that the 2015 version of Face it Alone had created a following of people who hadn't experienced extreme attractions outside of Face it Alone, so they had a very set idea of what should happen. When this didn't happen, it lead to that sort of backlash. Getting the balancing act right likely proved hard. And yet there were still people asking for certain things to be done to them, etc.
 
Then 2017 came along, there had been a feeling of discomfort for a while from some actors. The experience had expanded too far out and wasn't something that could be controlled and marketed as it should. People changed roles. The amount of work required to hit that sweet spot was ever-growing, for perhaps diminishing returns. Fright Nights also focused on The Walking Dead, and AMC are known for very strict guidelines about their attractions. Working out a Face it Alone experience for those mazes would have been near-on impossible. So everything together just meant it didn't happen, and it hasn't returned since.
 
And that's that. New external IP, internal concerns and arguably a bit of apathy/running out of steam all really finished it off.
 
 
Maybe in the future it can return. With the AMC contract disappearing soon that would help. Seeing the extreme version of Creepy Caves at Chessington being a success probably helps. But it requires a lot of work, a lot more than many perhaps realise and appreciate. And I'm not sure I could see it happening soon.