owenstreet7

Very good point - with one coaster and a selection of flat rides, it is doable. For Thrill, it's likely to be easy to add something like a Huss Top Spin or an Intamin Gyro Swing for a fraction of a price of a coaster. With Lost Kingdom style investments where it includes multiple coasters, I'm not so sure whether it's doable. Looking at the price for Joris En De Draak, that cost £12-13m at the time. This likely may have gone up since then. I can't find a precise price for Chiapas at Phantasialand however with £15m being touted - this may include theming. I think it's likely closer to £5-10m for the ride system and less expensive than a coaster and even a rapids. Prices likely went up since when Chiapas was installed.

It seems Merlin have invested in whole areas more recently with the World of Jumnaji at Chessington, Mythica at Legoland and in the future, both Project Play and Project Refresh and Renew are both entirely fresh new areas. 🤔 It hasn't seemed to happen at Thorpe Park or Alton Towers as of yet though.

Correcting the error of closing Loggers Leap permanently after it's years of abandonment by building a modern spiritual successor of the ride. 🙂 In all seriousness, building a modern flume like Chiapas at Phantasialand would be absolutely fantastic for the park.

If this was me and with what I know right now, this is what I'd predict. 2025: Project Pivot, Amity Beach Redevelopment. Rumba Rapids closes at end of season. High Striker quietly removed before start of season. 2026: Fearless Valley Expansion: Two Flat Rides in area including Slammer, Spice Kitchen and Miss Hippo Fungle Safari. Intamin Gyro Swing Larger Model and Huss Top Spin Suspended. 2027: GCI Dueling Wooden Rollercoaster and Intamin Flume on Rumba Rapids and Treasure Island sites. 2028: Construction for Project Fusion on Island behind Swarm. Thorpe Park Hotel opens. 2029: Project Fusion, 160ft RMC Hybrid Coaster opens on island behind swarm. Supporting Flat Rides include Zamperla Hawk, Huss Trioka, Bertazzon Musik Express. 2030: Ghost Train and Walking Dead closes to the public in preparation for modern high capacity trackless dark ride.

I'd love to see an indoor water park with a focus on thrilling water slides and attractions and more adult friendly facilities for Thorpe Park as it would complement the park really well. I also think having facilities such as crazy golf would be fantastic but I think it needs a headline year round attraction alongside the hotel.

I think Project Pivot is growing on me and I'm very happy to see it used. I think the main options were a Stage, a Modern Flume or a selection of family flat rides. I didn't want to see a coaster or something too large and imposing for the area as that'd affect the skyline. I'm hoping we see the Curly Fries stand get a permanent home there 😅

I'm thinking this is preparation for the long term future and could be built to coincide with the next rollercoaster investment. With Universal on the horizon, the park being in the middle of Legoland and Chessington, the potential for concerts and events with Project Pivot and the potential draw of an RMC if it's the direction they're going in, it'd be a no brainer to have a proper on site hotel.

Stealth, that's a great point - I think it might've been the intention of Thorpe Park to introduce batching as they mentioned planning to introduce single rider to Stealth. I'm not so sure I agree about Swarm on whether the free batching actually works very well - throughout the season, I regularly see 2-4 seats empty on each side on a train so I definitely think there is a benefit to batching and a single rider queue using one of Fast Track/RAP and the other is a merged Fast Track/RAP like with Mandrill Mayhem. I think it would have to be similar to Mandrill Mayhem if they were to do batching so one train's worth of people is at the airgates and another is in the batching area which would be organised in a similar way to Mandrill. It would be so much more organised and potentially speed up throughputs slightly if done correctly. Mandrill's throughput seems to be coping well (compared to Vampire and Fury) with it's set up now they've dropped virtual queue and have installed taller airgates. I think Swarm could learn a few tricks from Mandrill.

The Beach Plans have been submitted, it's a stage with seating and a selection of food kiosks.

For Stealth, the main challenge is that there's long queues at the air gates before boarding. This can mean that once you put your bags aside, there's at least 2/3 dispatches before you ride. It also opens up the opportunity for bags being taken by accident or on purpose due to it being an open rack. I think having the bag storage back will ease that issue and having batching so only one or two cars worth of people will be at batching at once to reduce the chance of this happening. Another option could be using free lockers like on Voltron, Arthur or FLY. Having the front row queue use the unused stairs to the left could be helpful to aid with that process. I think this would enable an Single Rider Queue (SRQ) to be added to Stealth easily. For Swarm, I think having batching happen in a similar way to Mandrill Mayhem where people are assigned a row and go to the row will speed up throughputs and enables a SRQ to be added. Mandrill has RAP and R&R in one queue and the same could happen for Swarm so the other can be used for an SRQ. I find that currently the free for all batching means that there's quite a few empty seats on each train with groups holding the queue until there's a seat free for their group and going into the row behind a single rider. I think these issues are ones that can be resolved by an SRQ.

My bets will be on: 1. The beach redevelopment whether that's a 2025 or 2026 thing. UK Equivalent of Chiapas I'm hoping but wishful thinking 😅 2. Hyperia landscaping 3. Finishing off the work on Colossus 4. Focus on Zodiac, Quantum, Inferno and possibly Rumba Rapids for sparkle touch. 5. Overhaul Stealth and Swarm's Batching system 6. Finishing touches on Swarm and Saw 7. Reinstating the baggage hold for Stealth or finding a better way for bag storage. 8. Bringing in Single Rider queues for a few more rides - the ones that are most likely and need one would be Vortex, Rush, Storm Surge, Stealth, Swarm and possibly Tidal Wave. Colossus would be fantastic if they made changes to the queue which I think could be workable however Inferno would be impractical to do without significant work. 9. Finishing touches around the park at the parts of the park that didn't get work last year and parts where work is needed. 10. Potentially taking down Slammer.

Hmm... I remember the park mentioning they're intending to remove Slammer this closed season however need planning permission to do so? I haven't seen any planning applications made so could this be delayed?

The new logo has definitely grown on me. I like how versatile the logo is and how it varies slightly based on different attractions. I did like the infinity logo however in order for the park to move forwards, it needed to rebrand and it's delivered. I'm looking forward to the next few years of the park and hope to see the new brand in action over the coming years.

For the beach, I believe a Modern Flume would be fantastic for that site and could even improve the skyline from the dome. Something like Chiapas (Phantasialand) or Biberburg (FamilyPark Austria) would be a huge success at the park. Could Thorpe Park still be able to build something without planning if below a certain height? I'm thinking that if so, options could be open.

I'm thinking that Monkey Swinger has the potential to relocate somewhere. This would either be somewhere in the park (I'm thinking Old Rodeo/Jumbos site behind Croc Drop) or another park such as Thorpe Park or Alton Towers where it could fill a gap in their line ups. I think the Dodgems will be retired due to it's age/reliability and Jungle Bus will be relocated to Project Play.