Matt N

I totally agree with that, the entrance just doesn’t seem very special. It feels like there’s something grand missing to pull everything together. Also don’t get me started on the amity beach after the dome, I think that needs to go tbh, it ruins everything as soon as you get into the park imo.

First post. Go easy on me!! 
 
For me, Thorpe really need to invest heavily in the entrance to the park. It’s the first and last impression that the park makes on guests, and it’s really not great. 
 
It really needs flattening, and then a great centre piece focal point building with plaza surrounding for themed events throughout the year etc. 
 
I don’t even think this area should have rides, it should be somewhere that is pleasant on the eye, engaging and there as a conduit between the outside world to the life inside the park. 
 
I always get that feeling as you walk into Alton towers with the lake in front of you and the towers in the distance, something I don’t think is felt at Thorpe, and whilst the lake etc can’t be replicated I’m sure an equally well designed centrepiece and plaza area of the park would help take people on a similar mindset journey as they enter and exit the park. 

Now saw alive has been moved and the surrounding area as been cleared, it’s got me thinking are they clearing this area for a future development under the cover of exodus? They could easily fit a Premier Rides Sky Rocket similar to Tigris at Bush Gardens TB in that area. 
 
Merlin seem to be investing quite heavily into new/redevelopment rides so maybe an area to watch!

I know zodiac used to have a lower height limit (1.1m maybe) and I know for a lot of family’s that was brilliant for them at thorpe. I always saw it on the Merlin Passholder group, if you added rides with a lower height restriction (including a rollercoaster) you’d get a lot more families.
 
People aren’t necessarily put off Thorpe Park because of the intensity of the rides. It’s also down to when you go on the website and filter it to anything lower than 1.4m there isn’t much to ride.

I must admit, I’m not too sure on that exterior at the moment… if they’re changing the theme/time period, then fair enough, but I do think that the old Victorian aesthetic was a bit more aesthetically appealing myself. I think the white and blue looks a bit strange on that wooden wall.
 
If it is an undercoat, though, it may look better when finished.
 
I’m intrigued to see what this is like. Due to a personal dislike of this style of attraction (I have a bit of a phobia of scare actors), I won’t ride it myself, but I’ll be intrigued to see what they do with that ride and what the general reception is, particularly seeing as the VR headsets are not returning…

We got a teaser!!!

The Curse of Alton Manor
 
 
 

I love how you say ripped out as if there is anything to rip out. 
 
All stuff specifically related to Derren is digital, or simply the ride's signage.
 
 
In any case, the ride has been receiving its winter maintenance, which suggests that - in one way or another - the physical hardware will be operational this season.

Sad news, its back on the app 

Surely the obvious answer guys: bring back Rocky Express. It will solve all our problems.
 
 
In all seriousness though, a high quality dark ride and proper decent water ride.

I've gotta disagree with the whole 'family friendly' approach you mention in your post, @Matt N. Mainly because most parks in the UK are already primarily focused on this, especially in the south. Legoland, Chessington, Paultons, hell even Adventure Island are all primarily family focused parks first and foremost. Having a theme park down south whos main focus is purely on thrills is much more likely to benefit them in the long run as it's a good niche for down south.
 
Hell, even the parks up north for the most part are becoming more and more family focused - Lightwater Valley, Drayton Manor seems to be heading that way too, and even Alton Towers have got an extremely large predominantly family friendly section of the park that seems to only grow larger as the seasons progress, meaning more thrillseekers will be more likely to travel down south to Thorpe to get their adrenaline fix (or to BPB I guess).
 
But I have to agree on Thorpe needing a good dark ride, just not on the 'make DBGT tamer' thing. A good, high quality, actually scary ghost train would be a perfect fit for Thorpe Park. As Thorpe Park is a thrilling theme park, a thrilling dark ride such as a ghost train is the perfect fit. They would be seriously missing a trick if they just decided to get rid of the ghost train altogether - it just needs improvements such as replacing the windows on the train with television screens, making the movement scenes to and from the underground platform longer and have the actors that currently stand around and brush your knees actually, you know, act. Perhaps like they're infected or something? idk. Bring back the train crash sequence in the tunnel (but make it look much better and increase reliability) and then back on the train for much of the same.
 
Either that, or just rip out everything inside the building (the exterior can stay, I actually really like the exterior theming) and start again with a trackless darkride ghost train instead.
 
Thorpe also really do need a good quality water ride now that Loggers is in the Thorpe archives. Due to good ol' British weather, I think it'd benefit from being inside. Maybe build it on the island behind The Swarm, or if you wanted to save that space for a new coaster, demolish Slammer and Black Mirror (and probably even TWD:TR) and that frees up a decent amount of space for either an indoor water coaster or an indoor log flume type beat.
 
Swap out the majority of Thorpe's flat rides, too. Rush, Zodiac and Samurai are all well past their sell-by dates. Just look in the Zamperla catalog and blindly pick one - I'm sure whatever you choose will still be a fantastic fit for the park.

Themed around a garden centre?

There's so much of the park you could bin.
 
Depth Charge, Beach, Storm Surge, X:/TWD, DBGT for starters opens up a MASSIVE chunk of area. Especially if you include Slammer as well.
 
Making the entrance actually appealing should be their next step. Every time I see pics of it it looks awful. This in turn would work with demolishing Depth Charge and the beach and making a big plaza area with stage and food options. Bit like the temporary stuff at Towers recently. 
 
Then get a good dark ride and high throughput water ride that's actually good.
 
Oh, and a Top Spin. Preferably indoors.

Oh wow... the excitement is really starting to heat up on Project Exodus now!
 
Seeing Logger's Leap and Rocky Express gone does look very strange, as for all the years I've been visiting Thorpe, that area has always been relatively sleepy and calm. I cannot imagine a 236ft tall coaster in that bit of the park at all, and while it's very easy to dismiss something as "not being that big" when you're viewing renderings and such, I think Project Exodus will look truly ludicrous compared to everything else around it when it's been erected!
 
As for the ride itself; I will make no secret of the fact that I feel that something non-inverting and with more of a focus on traditional straight airtime, such as a B&M Hyper Coaster, would perhaps have filled more of a discernible hole within Thorpe Park's coaster lineup and the overall UK industry, and if I'm being completely honest, such a ride would also have aligned with my personal taste a bit more.
 
With that being said, the Mack Hyper Coaster as a proposition is certainly growing on me the more I look at it. While the ride layout doesn't have many straight airtime hills per se (only the one at the end), and perhaps doesn't look like the flat-out UK airtime machine that I and many others were yearning for, some of the inversions and other elements look very cool and could provide some high quality negative g-forces.
 
To be frank, all of the elements look like they could really deliver. The first drop could potentially be top-class, the Immelmann looks awesome if the similar element on Icon is anything to go by, the outerbank into an inversion looks very unique and could be a really inspired element with some good negative g-forces if the fast roll on Blue Fire is anything to go by, the dive loop could provide some nice hangtime, the overbank could provide some interesting sideways forces and the airtime hill into the brakes could have some good airtime. Overall, it looks like an excellent layout with no dead weight or elements that don't really deliver.
 
It certainly looks like a very unique hyper coaster, and I think that it has a very inspiring layout design. While it won't be the longest hyper coaster on Earth by any stretch of the imagination, it won't be shockingly short either (around 40 seconds from lift hill to brakes, and 6 elements in total excluding the first drop, which I wouldn't say is terribly short by any means), and the layout looks like one that plays to the strengths of a shorter ride duration. With a very intense combination of show-stopping elements, and no real "dead space" if you like, Exodus looks like it could suit being short. I reckon it could be like the Wodan of hyper coasters, where it's not the longest coaster on Earth, but doesn't let up at all and leaves people coming into the brake run suitably amazed!
 
When all is said and done, though, it's just exciting to see a 236ft tall coaster being built in the UK!

Ground Pin supports for exodus have arrived, according to the Thorpe Park Facebook group. 
 
I’d post pictures but honestly it’s not that interesting, Just pieces of metal rods.
 
Regarding exodus, I think the bigger milestones for this project will come later when the site is fully cleared and track is going up.

Everything happening right now is relatively minor.
 
I think 2024 opening is still on the cards, and I don’t believe this coaster will have deep theming.
 
I just hope it’s an original name like exodus is as a project name. Not Netflix: The Ride as some way to sponsor the U.Ks Tallest Coaster 

 

Another Jack Silkstone update from all around the site:
 
 
Appears as if things are progressing well; Creek Freak Massacre and soon Loggers Leap will be demolished.

This is the current most recent state of old town. 
 
It’s so big and open (without rocky express which it’s track has now been destroyed)
 
I am starting to imagine the coaster in it place now. It’s starting to move fast now and they will need it

Still on the website, once it's gone from there that's the final nail in the coffin.
 
Edit to say - looking at the replies to that Twitter post, it really has been an unreliable mess of a ride attraction experience, innit? Shout out to the time we lost an hour and a half to Dezza after queuing and then getting stuck in between stations mid-ride.

It would appear as though Derren Brown’s Ghost Train may have reached the end of the line after 6 years of operation, as all references to it have been removed from the Thorpe Park app:
I’m quite surprised that DBGT has met its end this early, if it is going, but I guess the signs were there at the end of 2022, what with the construction work happening in the shop and the limited quantity of merchandise left.
 
If the rumoured £30m budget is true, surely that would make it one of the most expensive theme park attractions ever per operating season? Given that it operated for 6 seasons, that would peg its final cost at £5m per season…

It would appear as though Derren Brown’s Ghost Train may have reached the end of the line after 6 years of operation, as all references to it have been removed from the Thorpe Park app:
I’m quite surprised that DBGT has met its end this early, if it is going, but I guess the signs were there at the end of 2022, what with the construction work happening in the shop and the limited quantity of merchandise left.
 
If the rumoured £30m budget is true, surely that would make it one of the most expensive theme park attractions ever per operating season? Given that it operated for 6 seasons, that would peg its final cost at £5m per season…

I have to say, I agree with this one. I always leave Thorpe feeling like I’ve had a slightly more balanced day than I do at Alton Towers, and I personally feel that Thorpe Park, particularly where flat rides are concerned, have a more fleshed out and compelling non-coaster lineup than Alton Towers.
 
Here’s one of my unpopular Thorpe opinions; in terms of individual ride theming, I actually think Thorpe Park beats Alton Towers on many fronts.

I think that's likely to be bots rather than anyone on here doing it as a joke.
 
It's an easy and valid mistake to make, but it can unfortunately have those types of consequences.

Lovely idea in theory, but will never work completely in a theme park environment. No theme park has enough space to have over 10,000 guests roaming and never having to wait for an attraction. 
 
Genie+ and Lightening Lane at the American Disney parks is a compete disaster IMO. It's turned the parks into rich peoples playgrounds and even they have awful times with the system and it is is near impossible to wait less then half an hour for even the smallest rides. 
 
Europa Park which still runs it on some of the bigger rides, and is a park that could maybe do it, still has a stand by line. 
 
Virtual Queuing falls apart whenever there's even a slight issue. Ride breakdowns, reduced capacity, guest action. 
 
The real issue is theme park guests turn their brains off when they get beyond the front gate. The more barriers put in the way, the harder the day becomes. It becomes a system where those in the know such as AP holders are the ones that get the real benefits but the average guest will never really feel like it works.
 
The closest I can relate this too is the RAP queue for disabled guests. In theory, that could be a wonderful system and really benefit the guests who are unable to wait. But that is completely open to abuse. People hate to hear this but it's the AP holders, the ones who know how to get around the system that are making that whole thing a nightmare for everyone to use. 

Little update after a trip to energylandias winter kingdom event, I'll likely write a little report up
 
1) Kondaa 
2) Nemesis
3) Zadra
4) Taron
5) Hyperion
6) Wodan
7) Kumba 
8) Silver Star
9) Stealth
10) Oblivion

With my year now over in terms of new rides (and probably parks in general), here's my Top 10% of coasters, with new-for-2022 ones in bold:
 

1 Taron Phantasialand 2 Taiga Linnanmäki 3 Untamed Walibi Holland 4 Skyrush Hersheypark 5 Helix Liseberg 6 Oz'Iris Parc Asterix 7 Balder Liseberg 8 Lost Gravity Walibi Holland 9 Der Schwur des Kärnan Hansa Park 10 Phoenix Knoebels 11 Jersey Devil Coaster Six Flags Great Adventure 12 Nemesis Alton Towers 13 Joris en de Draak Efteling 14 Colossos - Kampf der Giganten Heide Park 15 Goliath Walibi Holland 16 Kingda Ka Six Flags Great Adventure 17 Candymonium Hersheypark 18 El Toro (SFGAd) Six Flags Great Adventure 19 Troy Toverland 20 Black Mamba Phantasialand 21 Hyperion Energylandia 22 Lech Coaster Legendia 23 Lisebergbanan Liseberg 24 Van Helsing's Factory Movie Park Germany 25 Pulsar Walibi Belgium 26 Nitro (SFGAd) Six Flags Great Adventure 27 The Swarm Thorpe Park 28 Nemesis Inferno Thorpe Park 29 Colorado Adventure Phantasialand  
 
Notable new additions missing out here are Batman The Ride, SFGAd (#32), Ride to Happiness (#41) and FLY (#43).
New rides for me which disappointed were Flucht von Novgorod, Storm Runner, Great Bear and Talon.
New rides which surprised me, but aren't really in the upper echelons of the count, were Lightning Racer, Krake and Steel Force.