Matt N

I'm not against a thrill park, the issue is that the park itself has to near constantly refresh itself and that takes a lot of money and resource to do. You also have to ensure your thrill rides have a wide range of appeal. Thorpe's coaster line up, the only real outlier is Stealth. The others are just a variant on an upside down rollercoaster. You kind of made that point for me Inferno, Thorpe a little bit of a s**thole because it hasn't changed that much. If it wants to be 'the thrill park' the demands of its target audience constantly want more, the new, the bigger, the better. The new coaster is not going to be enough to change that perception for the rest of the resort. 
 
A family park is far less focused on constant updates and investment because the line up itself has universal appeal. I see it on forums and social media all the time 'Thorpe gets no investment, its last rollercoaster was 10 years ago.' Whilst forgetting Chessingtons last rollercoaster was 18 years ago. And we don't talk about the removal of Vampire or Dragons Fury in the same way that we talk about Colossus going to the skip. So yes, I think family parks are far easier to manage and run and actually more profitable. A 13 year old visiting Thorpe with his school pals just doesn't have a disposable income, whereas a family going to a theme park, will. It may be stretched in the current climate but it exists. And they spend money, all those little extras such as toys, ice creams when it's hot. A meal for everyone at the fast food outlets. it quickly adds up
 
And thats before we even get to overnight stays....
 
 
 
 

Hi @Matt N, I was wondering if you're settling in to Uni a little more now, or if you're still getting used to things?
What are you studying?
 
I can completely understand the sudden change from the 'school structure' you get at 6th form in to a more "sort yerself out" kind of situation at uni.
I went to College rather than 6th form, which I think set me up really well for Uni, better than 6th form ever could have done.  Without doing College however I think I would have found starting Uni similar to you to begin with, and I know that a lot of my friends who came from 6th form felt the same as you.
 
It's A LOT to get used to isn't it, it's all very different to school.
I hope it's settled down now though and you're starting to enjoy it?
 
I think if I could give you any advice at all from my experience, it would be
to ask the staff for help with things. Be bold, and approach them directly - this is kind of a life hack I've taken with me in to work - just ask and I bet they'll be happy to help!  Don't forget, you're paying them for this. If you don't ask, you don't get   to remember that you absolutely deserve to be there, and you absolutely deserve to enjoy yourself. You've clearly worked really hard to get your place at Uni, doing the subject you wanted to do. despite what people might tell you while you're there, most employers don't give a damn if you get a 1st. Getting a degree is really hard - which lets face it, is kind of the point!  Nobody ever gets 100% on any assignment, that's impossible, just give it your best shot and be proud of what you're achieving! The fact you have been passing your assignments is REALLY good! You're on track to get a degree, that's an amazing achievement!  
What I'll also say though is this..
Someone I went to Uni with dropped out in the first year, and he now has a collection of incredible cars and runs a web design company employing multiple staff...
If you're really not enjoying Uni, if it's not for you, then it's not for you - that's ok!
Most of my colleagues at work didn't go to Uni, and here we are in the same position as each other.
 
 
Ugh.. I've rambled......
Be happy Matt. That's more important than anyone likes to say
Look after yourself and do what's right for you, not anyone else.

Apologies for the double post.....
One more argument in favour of a "thrill park"..
 
No matter how much a Theme Park invests, realistically they don't change that much, do they?
If I look back to my childhood, many of the rides I enjoyed as a kid are still at the parks today. Which is great by the way, but bear with me.....
 
One of the good things about Merlin's 3 park cluster near London is that they keep theme park visits suitable and 'fresh' for many years.
 
For example... You'd take your young kids to Legoland for a few years, and get to know the place, ride everything. That's great.
Then as the kids get slightly older, Chessington is just down the road. Again, an entire 'new' park to experience for a few years.
After a while the kids will want to go on some bigger rides, well... Thorpe is right there next door, and once again offer's a full park of 'new' attractions to ride.
 
A new park to experience every few years!
 
If for example all 3 parks offered a range of thrill and "family" rides, that would be great too, however might guests feel they're always going back to the same places after a few years?
 
I think it's a really nice way for kids/families to have something different to visit every few years rather than keep going back to the same places.
You can't beat that "first time in a park" feeling, and that's what kids get with Merlin's London 3.

I think this is a really interesting point, and I agree.
 
I must admit for a few years I did have the opinion that a "family park" would attract people with more money to spend...
I always thought that teens and young adults would spend less, and families more..
 
But now I've got a little Inferno myself.. I'm not actually sure that's the case.  I'd estimate I might actually have less disposable income than ever - even back when I worked part time in Starbucks I had more disposable income, and wouldn't think twice about filling up the car and heading to Thorpe every other week, buying lunch and merch there etc..
 
When little Inferno (I guess I'm going with this now) is old/tall enough we'll definitely head to the appropriate parks, but I can't see we're going to have the money to buy food and merch there very often. Tickets alone will be a budget-blower to be honest with you, and I imagine many others are in a similar position to me. (I know there will be many families with loads to spend, just from my perspective)
 
Anyway... ahem, TANGENT.
I agree - I don't see the issue with having a "thrill park" actually.
Yes, having a mixture of attractions (like Towers) will attract a wider audience, but they've proven that targeting 'thrill hunters' works. 2009ish was an unbelievable success for them.
 
I don't think Thorpe's problems are that they don't attract enough families.
I think the problems are
   a) the fact it's a bit of a sh** hole... (the "no drugs, our rides are thrilling enough!" sign above the entrance says it all)
   b) the lack of investment, meaning the "young people" aren't as compelled to book and travel there like they were when there was a new ride.
 
---
It will be interesting to see what effect the energy crisis and cost of living increases have on this situation actually.
I expect the traditionally expensive 'family day out' (Legoland / Chessington / etc) might be affected, meanwhile Thorpe with their new coaster might still attract a lot of teenagers who might still live with parents or shared housing etc.

My first view of this park (after my car breaking on the way there. Stressful in a different manner) was a chained up elephant. So fun.
 
 
That day was very good. But not having to suffer the terrible operations for more than 5 minutes each ride helped immensely.
 
Farup and Djurs Sommarland are both incredibly relaxing parks. Hours of fun in the playgrounds alone. Most of the Scandinavian parks are super relaxing to be fair.
 
I'll admit I'm dreading going back to Phantasialand with a wheelchair. Plus leaving it unattended in Bakken wasn't pleasant.

My most relaxed would have to be Dollywood Or Cedar point (I visited both for multiple days and they were not busy at all.)
and most stresful would have to be Six flags over texas when it was packed packed.
 
but sadly with towers short opening hours even an off peak day feels like a rush to do everything. It sucks. such a big park and still 4pm closes? It's been going on for years and its an absolute joke, even in May/June time. Like why?

I'm going to ignore, crowd levels etc and go with disability friendly.
 
Least stressful
Disneyland Paris
Blackpool (this has apparently changed recently)
Flamingoland (Only stressful part was I forgot to take my walking stick so got painful)
 
Most stressful
Drayton Manor
Alton Towers
Chessington (Gets nerve wracking leaving a wheelchair/walking stick not close to ride platform)
 
Fire depths of hell
Thorpe Park
 
Never will I go to Thorpe Park again assuming that I can have an ounce of independance with just a stick and end up still standing in a queue for Colosuss for 30+ minutes just because I felt that I was good enough to do without a wheelchair. Which defeated the point of I am using the disability pass due to mobility not because I HAVE to be in a wheelchair the whole time. 
@Benin can confirm most these stories hopefully!

This is such a difficult thing to answer, because it can entirely depend on crowd levels. Efteling for example is a park I would call relaxed, but I've had a particular day filled with school trips that was a nightmare and just stress. So I'll try and pick parks which I think would be relaxed/stressful regardless of visitor numbers...
 
Relaxed
Linnanmaki (Finland) - The park is well designed and has rides that are designed to cope with its crowds. Go variety of rides, good indoor and outdoor selections, good food. It's a nice city park on the outskirts of a city, creating a surprisingly relaxed and chilled out atmosphere.
 
Hellendoorn (Netherlands) - A spacious park with a good variety sprinkled all across the park. Nice green spaces too.
 
Stressful
Fantasy Island - The worst parts of a theme park mixed with worst part of a seaside resort. The market and arcade is just noise and eurgh.
 
Drievliet (Netherlands) - Awkwardly small space and just weird and annoying. Probably slightly basing this on the fact I visited when a million school kids were there which didn't help, but in general, I think this park would just be annoying and stress.
 
Parc Saint Paul (France) - Visiting the park feels morally dodgy tbh

Ohh interesting thread!
 
I agree with Merlin’s parks being stressful.
As much as I adore Alton Towers, it isn’t a relaxing day at all is it. Especially on days with shorter hours.
 
Chessington can be another stressful place with low capacity rides and high crowds, and that’s going to become much worse with their new one train coaster.
 
I’d say Thorpe CAN be more chilled than Towers sometimes, but can really swing the other way depending on crowds etc.
 
I think Fastrack sales dramatically adds to the stress and is a major downfall of Merlin’s parks.
 
As for relaxing parks - Disneyland Paris for sure.
I think Seaworld has got to be the most relaxing park I’ve ever been to though. 
(Aquatica if we are including water parks!)

Most relaxed
 
Disneyland Paris Parc. Wonderful park. I've been with Thunder and Space mountain both down all day and had a wonderful relaxed day
Animal Kingdom - Fantastic park to get lost in an animal trails or having a nice drink at Nomad lounge. 
Chessington - Yes Chessington is a lovely place to unwind in. Forget 40 minute Fury waits, just go around the Zoo or watch a show.
Efteling - I love this place. Its just so charming and easy to get lost in.
 
 
Most Stressed
 
Magic Kingdom - Way too stressful. Completely broken park which will take a lot to fix. I don't think it can be mended to be honest
Disneyland - So small, so cramped, so many rides to do but not enough time to do them. Great history but painful to visit. 
Port Aventura - Awful park to be in. Full of queue jumping neanderthals and unbearably hot and humid..
Cedar Point - This is here for Top Thrill Dragster alone which is the most stressful queuing experience of any major rollercoaster. Will it work properly, will it make it over. Awful.
 

I better be invited. 
 
My plans will be whatever Benin has planned as he is my wheels. 

There's some pretty neat signs, clearly geared towards enthusiasts, that can be seen through the construction fences, as seen by Theme Park Guide:
 
 
The plans should a standard 10 rows of 2 train, with no room for spinning. So I would think it's unlikely. 
Certainly not impossible, but very unlikely. 

Colossus opened 20 years ago today!
 
To celebrate its successful opening on what was a moderate Thursday in March, where the ride welcomed 7000 guests, we have taken a quick look back at the ride that put Thorpe Park on the map!
 
https://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/articles/09-03-2022/20+Years+of+Colossus
 
(This was heavily inspired by @Mark9's original 10 year article, which currently isn't on the main TPM site, but can still be viewed here!)
 

Some final new things, from Jack Silkstone's video:
 
A mini stage has been set up in Amity

This will apparently be used by the roaming actors
 
Some posters have appeared around Swarm island:

They're plastered on the station building too.
Not a fan of these. Way too many, and they lean very heavily on a theme away from the original Swarm story. Things change I guess, but it feels like adding something for the sake of it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
 
Finally, a new graphic on the service road gates by Old Town Burger King (which originally had the Old Town logo on):

This seems to be a big nod towards Exodus, somewhat mimicking the lift/drop

If we are talking quality I feel Energylandia has the stronger coaster selection than say Liseberg.
 
Both parks have a main trio of thrill coasters and then in Lisebergs case a supporting family coaster in Banen. Energylandia has Formula and RMF Dragon as support to its trio.
 
Then lets look at each trio.
 
"Third wheel of the trio" - Not much in this one but thrill wise I would say Abyssus is better quality than Valkyria
 
"Secondary coaster" - This is an easy one. Balder is a good fun woody but Hyperion is a different level. Brilliant hyper
 
"Star coaster" - Do I REALLY need to answer this one?? Zadra is ten times better than what Helix is and I'm hard pressed to find anyone who would disagree from an unbalanced standpoint. That takes nothing away from Helix. Its just that Zadra is one of it not the best coasters on the entire planet.
 
So yeah all in all I'd say for coaster selection, Energylandia is Europes best park followed by Phantasia if we are talking strength of coasters.

TPM now has an article up: https://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/14-03-2022/Project+Exodus+Plans+Submitted
I'll be updating it over the next day or so. It does give a fairly comprehensive look at everything covered. 
 
 
This is the most interesting thing to me right now. The plans don't reference theming. But what's more, they make very little reference to anything design/style related!
 
The track colour isn't mentioned, aside from the high points being "light in colour". There's no details about the buildings beyond their dimensions. Historically, Thorpe planning applications have also shown what fences would be used in the queues, including material, dimensions, etc.
 
Why this isn't mentioned I'm not sure. Maybe it simply isn't required now? Maybe they plan to submit those details later, if needed? Being 2 years away from opening, there's still plenty of time to finalise these things (even if the park have a solid idea in mind right now).
 
One thing I didn't pick up on, though, was that the position by the lake will be "the main theming feature":
 
That would certainly lend itself to being light on theming, and give us a potential direction of the style of the ride. 

They've painted the entrance sign this year.

PLANS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED.
 
Some highlights:
-The ride will feature trains of 20; 10 rows of 2. The trains will have lapbars.
*Not too surprising, but nice to know.

-No manufacturer is confirmed; this is not of interest for planning permission, but it is acknowledged it is of interest to roller coaster enthusiasts. Equally, the application just mentions ride comparison are done to a 'similar ride in Europe'

-The ride will reach a maximum speed of around 130km/h (though this is not definite)

-The ride will have a light track colour high up, similar to Stealth
*This was mentioned in the consultation period. I haven't found confirmation of *what* the colour is for the high points, or the low points. This is usually contained within there somewhere.

-The ride's highest points are: 72m, 50m, 48m and 43m
*This puts to bed an initial thought I had that the park might try to go for the world's tallest inversion record.

-Lots of trees will be planted around the station building

-During construction, the lake will be infilled partially. Originally, the supports were meant to go into the lake, but it looks like they will go into a small part of land within the lake. I guess this is a compromise between having a nice looking lake and ease of maintenance.

-The expanded construction area appears to just be for the *full* demolition of Loggers Leap, as opposed to just the bits in the way. So no extended layout.

-Construction should start late this year, and the whole process should last 16 months. So Spring 2024 opening

Now some more photos:


An interesting look at an alternative layout


Trees





In past applications, we have gotten a look at the design of buildings, etc. But I can't find any of that. Usually we'd even get fencing plans, saying the style, height, material of every fence in an application. Again, doesn't seem to be here. Interesting, in a geeky sorta way. All I can say about the station is it has walls and a metal roof (a roof shouldn't be taken for granted). So there's no clarity on theming, style, colours or anything.

Random note: the transfer track is after the station and at the start of the ride, as opposed to at the end of the ride / before the station. Somewhat different.

We have an interesting update.
 
Pre-face: An image featured here is a drone image over the park. Whilst there is nothing 'wrong'/'illegal' about flying a drone over Thorpe without permission when the park is closed, it's not something I particularly condone.
 

We can see that some sort of paving has happened next to Creek Freak Massacre. Here's a comparison from Google Maps, from around 2019/2020:
 

Hi guys. While it’s probably one of the lesser known defunct UK theme parks these days, I’m led to believe we have quite a few people on here who grew up in the UK in the 1990s, or were more generally around in the UK in the 1990s for that matter, and know about Mr Blobby and Crinkley Bottom in Cricket St Thomas, Somerset. So I was intrigued to know; did anyone ever visit this park in the brief period it operated? And if so, what did you think?
 
I must say it’s a park that looks intriguing, and quite a strange one to imagine as someone who wasn’t alive in the 1990s. As someone who mainly knows Noel Edmunds as the host of Channel 4’s Deal or No Deal, I can never imagine him being a big celebrity with a huge TV show and theme park like that, but him and Mr Blobby were apparently huge in the 1990s!
 
I mainly posted this thread, though, because I’m currently staying in a lodge complex in Chard that’s only around a mile’s walk from the former site of Crinkley Bottom. As such, my dad and I took a walk down there today to see what we could find, and while the site is now a Warner hotel and no longer looks remotely theme park-like, like most other stately homes in Britain, there are still a few little oddities there to find if you know where to look. I mostly took pictures of stuff that I thought looked vaguely theme park-y, and like it could have been part of Crinkley Bottom, but having consulted a Crinkley Bottom park map and looked online after getting back to our lodge, I actually wasn’t far off. I did take a few photos that I thought might be of interest to you guys.
 
For reference, here’s the map me and my dad used, as a point of reference:

(Credit to dunblobbin.com for this image: https://www.dunblobbin.com/park-map)
 
Firstly, here are a few oddities I found that looked like they might have been from when it was a wildlife park:


And then we came to what was unmistakably the former railway bridge:

And I also photographed this building that was apparently home to the Animals of Farthing Wood attraction according to the map:

After that, we crossed what was marked as the Flamingo bridge on the park map, walked along the former railway line, and walked back to the other side along the Crinkley Bridge, at which point I photographed a distinctly colourful looking building, which I later ascertained was the Crinkley Bottom Art Gallery, with what looked like the Extremely Nice Thingy Shop next to it (possibly not in the photograph):

(It looked more colourful and stood out more in person… I was zoomed in a lot here)
 
We then came to the Holey Tree, listed on the park map:

 
And finally, we then took a walk up to Cricket House itself:

 
But that’s not all! As it turns out, the very track we walked down to get there used to be the track for the safari (which you can see once you know that was the case), and we also saw a tunnel that used to be Mr Blobby’s Lair, supposedly! (I didn’t photograph that because my dad thought it looked too new to be part of the park)
 
So I definitely had a very productive and interesting afternoon here in Chard; I hope you like my photos of remnants of this slightly more obscure piece of UK theme park history! Did anyone ever get to visit this interesting attraction, or do you remember it?

Sorry to double post, but for those who have absolutely no idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a documentary by Expedition Theme Park, for a bit more info on what Crinkley Bottom actually was:
https://youtu.be/Prr59WolXv4

I can imagine it now …..Daddy….. what are those silly people doing without kids they are to big for this ride ….
 
Daddies reply…. There just big babies and to scared for the big rides

Nothing gives me greater satisfaction in knowing kids have to wait longer because me and my friends are taking up several row on the octonaughts rollercoaster.

I'd say Category B.
 
I do my best to ride all of them, and would tack them on to a trip. But I don't have the time, money or inclination to travel way out of my way for a Wacky Worm for now.

You missed a category, you ride them as you have kids ……