Hethetheth

Not sure I would give up enjoying theme parks as a whole because Thorpe is sub par, but oh well. It is a shame to see reviews this poor though.

Also worth remembering that, unlike, say, Disney and Universal, Thorpe and Chessington are catering to a national audience and not an international one. It doesn't matter that a theme is UK centric. I don't have any issue with the current ride names.

I never thought those words would make me happy, but these are strange times!

On what basis do you think some of these things will be happening? Unfounded speculation or sources?

I'm on here but I generally enjoy the park, or st least enjoy how it was. However, why should I pretend to like or be positive about new things that have been done when, in all honesty, the park was actively better in 2013 than it is now, and that is sad. Other parks grow, Thorpe just stagnated.

Wow, just...wow. That is shockingly poor.

In the age of social distancing I think it's very unlikely that a free-roaming attraction where people touch walls will open this year. 2021 probably more likely.

They were not inspired by that. Any resemblance you see is coincidence. There are hundreds and thousands of "virus" themed media and it's such a vague concept anyway. It wasn't inspired by this thing you like, plain and simple.

British Theme Park Archive pointed out recently that X No Way Out never had a computer virus theme in the first place. https://www.facebook.com/754391131295505/posts/2947543095313620/ "Myth 4— X No Way Out didn't actually have anything to do with a computer virus when it first opened. This surprised me and was really interesting speaking to one of the people on its development team about the ride. The theme was something to look cool for its time. The name was just a trendy tagline when computers were becoming popular—today's equivalent is probably # No Way Out! The original concept behind the coaster was basically a ride that goes 'wrong', you think it's gonna go forwards but alarms sound and you go backwards as a surprise. Throughout the ride strange sounds are heard of the coaster trying to restart and all sorts, it starts to go forwards but then rolls backwards again (always wondered why it did that!). After the on-board audio disappeared it wasn't as clear what was going on and this theme was lost. The computer horror idea came about when the ride had a very low budget revamp in 2007. A video was added to the queueline but that was as far as it went, the video had disappeared by the next year."

Amity Beach (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (5) Mr. Monkey's Banana Ride (5) Nemesis Inferno (8) Quantum (6) Rocky Express (5) Rumba Rapids (5) Rush (5) Samurai (6) Saw - The Ride (5) Stealth (5) Storm in a Teacup (5) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (5) Tidal Wave (5) Timber Tug Boat (0) bye bye Vortex (5) Zodiac (5) -1 Timber Tug Boat +1 Walking Dead Goodbye TTB RESET Amity Beach (5) Colossus (5) Depth Charge (5) Detonator: Bomb's Away (5) Flying Fish (5) King Pig's Wild Hog Dodgems (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) The Swarm (5) The Walking Dead - The Ride (5) Tidal Wave (5) Vortex (5) Zodiac (5)

I dont think that comparing parks to Disney is that unfair though. I mean we can be realistic but I dont see what is wrong for aspiring for better for parks. I'd like parks to at least head in the direction of Disney quality.

I wonder if it also had anything to do with profit, cash and spreading themselves thin. Merlin might be 2nd largest in size to Disney, but that doesn't mean their profits and cash are proportional. If Phantasialand makes money it is spent on Phantasialand. If Merlin parks make money it has to be spread out and budgeted across numerous other parks, and I would surprise me if that money was proportionally lower than that of Phantasialand. E.g. if Phantasialand makes £1 million then it gets to spend it on itself. If Merlin makes £10 million, but has 20 parks (for the sake of this analogy) then each has the equivalent of £500k, but Merlin might choose instead to reinvest that in their 21st park instead. With the above example Merlin are still 'larger' and more profitable than Phantasialand overall, but not per park.

Nothing booked for any of these yet, but these are my intentions anyway: Likely / Planned: - Europa Park - Phantasialand - Toverland - Efteling The above would be a week-long trip, which I've wanted to do for my 30th birthday. Possible: - Alton Towers - Thorpe Park (probably Fright Nights) Maybe: - Tivoli Gardens It's been since 2016 that I visited a new park, so I'm keen to hit Toverland and Tivoli for that reason, but the later might not be possible due to time constraints.

/\ likewise, I only knew it existed from online forums and never saw any adverts for it.

"New" is doing a lot of work here.