ML27

As the 2023 season has officially come to an end, I thought I may as well do a little review of it. Food options have vastly improved, mainly in snacking and desert options. Main meals at Aramark establishments have been a bit ropey. However, the addition of the Last Call Cafe and bar is great! Thorpe is the best Merlin park for food 10000% It was the first season in which this “new” Merlin have really took control of Thorpe with several new improvements to improve the quality of the resort and a new picnic area! If last closed season we got those improvements, this closed season we are in store for lots more! Operations were pretty decent this year, few periods of downtime with stealth either completely or one train and Colossus was out of action for a while but big picture I never really waited horrendous queue times until fright nights which is a positive! Events generally took a step back this year, they peaked last year and this year either reduced in size or stayed the same. They really do have to look at family shows, because there just isn’t the audience for it everyday. Fright Nights was solid this year, again I feel like reduced from previous years but we got something new! But really it’s for the Fright Nights section. Feel like we have lots to be positive about and the communication from the park has been impeccable. I do genuinely believe the days of run down Thorpe park are nearly over, there’s a lot of work to be done but I’m confident that a good chunk of improvements will happen this year.

I’d love it to be themed back to amity but the park will see this as a brilliant opportunity to create a brand new land. (Even though, Amity makes sense). I’m not sure what we are going to see, but if you group existing dobble into the mix, it maybe (I hope I’m proven wrong) just a bog standard area with not much theme. I think 4D cinema will be interesting what they show in there. As they’ve said the new area will still be for families, they could easily get a sponsor for the cinema. I spent Sunday walking through angry birds for last time (I heard rumors) and it is really run down and an embarrassment you have to walk through that entrance portal to get to stealth. There’s a lot of TLC which needs to be done, especially removing the horrible hoarding behind the basketball stand. The parks relationship with themed lands is strange. They’ve said before they don’t really have themed lands and now the line is that they do but they just don’t call them by their names 😂 Hyperia could have a new themed land all the way back to Burger King but again I don’t think that’s gonna happen.

I think a revamp of some sorts is on the cards, I quite honestly can’t see the orange and blue staying either. The entrance is littered with the colours, even the entrance screen is blue. Even if the entrance structure doesn’t change, the whole colour and images used around the entrance will change and I can imagine the screen may go this closed season.

It’s been confirmed via the passholder group that the logo, vision, soundtracks for the park will change from next year. How different, I’m not sure. My immediate thoughts are… 1) Island Theme - stays or goes? , they are an island and they can’t change that but they can use it to their advantage. I think island like no other days are gonna be fully gone 2) That soundtrack is quite iconic and is somehow linked with most of their soundtracks 3) Branding nightmares, the park will be littered with signage; so hopefully they manage to remove all traces of it. 4) will the new logo be as versatile as the current one when it comes to events. 5) Will this be the final nail in the coffin for Thorpe park ‘resort’? 6) will this logo put an end to Thorpe being a fully themed “theme park”?

I agree with your review totally, I am not going to type out a whole review but add some observations. The new batching areas added to the queues are brilliant as they force you to listen to a pre recorded safety announcement. Ultimately, with it being a paid attraction plus the reinforcement of the safety message, I don’t think they will have many incidents as before. There is something fundamentally wrong with trailers. I was at the back of the group. I couldn’t physically leave the last scene into the corridor as people were not moving quick enough. So I was akwardly being hurried out by the actor with no where to go. I got into the next room and the scare had already happened and the actor was out and about trying to get close to people, basically missing out on a jumpscare and effectively the same as I walk through the crows (which works for the crows). Also the “run out” corridor was fully lit and not like the first year where it was pitch black and strobing every so often so vision was limited. Lucifers lair adds a much needed area to be able to sit in during fright nights and watch something and grab a drink. The roaming actors do a good job at being scary in an open space. Amity High show (I am still calling it that) doesn’t have a roaming actors anymore and it’s purely the shows and that’s it. I’m not sure operationally what happens to those actors as they go back to the dome after the show 😂

Think Hutson, introduced Archie Steven’s to Merlin. Then ultimately lost his job. Hutson comes across salty towards Merlin now. Thorpe Park is confusing when it comes to music, Archie didn’t produce the breakout at bozos music but he made trailers music?

I know it’s new but the name or logo just doesn’t seem to fit with the parks line-up. Does fit with that sign on the planning permission tho.. Find your Fearless is like they’ve asked AI to rephrase “dare to ride” from Icon

Officially been revealed as “Hyperia-Find Your Fearless” It’s starting to seem this is a stylised coaster with a tagline like that.

It really is an amature operation if you really think about it.

Definitely gonna be a major night for the direction of project exodus. I am hoping project exodus will be outdated by the end of today 😂

I’ve purchased the unlimited maze pass, one of the factors is that I’d rather pay the price of £99 once and get multiple run throughs than pay £10 and get a really bad trailers run through. It has its downsides, hence why I’ve only purchased the pass now. However, I will go to fright nights at least 5 times, the ability to do the mazes repeatedly during the 3 hours is quite ideal and I’ve only done SG once, so for this line up it’s pretty good.

According to the Facebook page, there’s an announcement at 9:45 tonight. it’s gotta be a name announcement, Hyperia got approved a few weeks ago and only way to go to try and generate hype. (If you pardon the pun)

No need to have Archie in that video, brings it back to reality. Maze sounds good. Video wasn’t

They are waiting for a new part then….

Trailers returning, for what I hope is it’s best year or final year 😂 If we are on a 3 year cycle per maze and there’s only going to be 3 mazes. They are kinda lucky they have 3 indoor maze spaces now. I look forward to seeing what they can do with trailers when it closes as that’s an ideal space. only 6 attractions this year, we know that there are 3 mazes at least one zone, most likely two. One show? Assuming that’s legacy. No replacement for amity, but I mean how could you replace it in a similar format. I think 2020 was the best year, huge amounts of scare zones and story really. I think factors for a reduced offering this is must be increased costs and staffing.

It’s clearly inspired by the aim to get Fright Nights, the Halloween horror nights status and storyline. It’s amazing the content side of it but in reality… is it? First of all I’m going to remove the people. I'm gonna view this as, this is what Thorpe Park created and put out. There is a big distance from the marketing and reality. None of the videos show what the experience is going to be like. It is simply a way to provide the story, which isn’t relevant if the story isn’t portrayed in the attraction or in the event. The quality of the videos compared to the quality of the event isn’t there. Legacy is held on an empty swimming pool, like why should I have to walk across sand on an uneven platforms. Just create videos which showcase the event and show me the maze and snippets from inside. That’s what the GP care about

They should stop using project Exodus for starters. Incarnating the name into physical signage isn’t ideal. It risks it properly sticking with people and anyway is anyone except enthusiasts going to refer to it as that. It could have really done with just saying 2024 Coaster. Very much aware, one week they haven’t done anything, next week they have.

Take this with a pinch of salt as it’s coming from a customer service assistant. However I thought it’s interesting how they’ve described their park as aimed towards teenagers. I assume can’t go once past 19 and they are pointing people towards other parks

With project exodus being the tallest and fastest coaster in the U.K and with the way hydraulic launches are going. Surely stealths life is limited now at the park? Granted it doesn’t take up much space but if you combine the areas of stealth, rumba rapids and the island next to swarm. You could have a pretty large area

Up until yesterday I’ve never seen that trademark page. Icarus is a weird name but at least it’s unique. Hyperia reminds me of Hyperion and Energylandia and also very basic

I think it’s a nice colour, ultimately depends on the lighting. It’s not tacky, it could have been very tacky and cheap. This colour also hides dirt a bit better considering it’s over water. Just to update this, the park have since said this:

Credit to Jack Silkstones instagram, the gold supports!

Jacks latest video states to watch out on the construction boards because they will be changing at some point. Tomorrow will be an ideal day to do that, definitely will know something by tomorrow according to the passholder page too

Credit to Theme Park Guide. See the original post here Some retro Thorpe park items have been spotted including the rangers outfit. Not sure what they are for because it surely can’t be for a maze because they are gonna get horrible and damaged in the rain. However if it is going to be used for the new maze. I hope they don’t destroy or alter the props. I could see it fitting in with the speculated toy shop or children’s toy box theme. (Side note - if it is this theme it feels like they’ve taken inspiration from the curse at Alton manor specifically the second half)