Jump to content

Angry Birds Land


Marc

Recommended Posts

It's fun. Something that's been missing at Thorpe for ages, pure fun! Okay, the theming isn't brilliant, it's awkwardly placed, dodgems is a cheap investment, Detonator is even more awkward and so on. But if you glance over that and look at its target audience, they love it!

The 4D cinema is really well done. Theming inside is decent for a dark cinema, seats lovely and comfy, effects synced well and cleverly used (maybe a bit overused) and the film is fun. If we can take one thing from this, we have got a really good 4D cinema out of it all.

The dodgems are great fun! The smell isn't great (burning rubber) and the amount of rubber on the surface is funny but hopefully this is just because it's new? No idea on that one, but throughput wise it's decent. They batch you into a little hold while the ride is going so that when everyone is off, the right number of people are let in, bars down, staff do a quick glance check as it's quite clear with these bars if they aren't lowered, and the process repeats once more.

So yeah, it's a cheap investment but the kids love it, it adds colour to the area and it's loud (we heard it when we were doing The Swarm lift hill walk as the music was left on).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dodgems I loved the dodgems because well... they are dodgems, can't fault them, the 4D cinema was good but I felt getting rocked back and forth constantly and getting water in the face a stupid amount of times got a little tedious other then that the retheme has done what it set out to do and the area looks quite nice :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The dodgems are great fun! The smell isn't great (burning rubber) and the amount of rubber on the surface is funny but hopefully this is just because it's new? No idea on that one, but throughput wise it's decent. They batch you into a little hold while the ride is going so that when everyone is off, the right number of people are let in, bars down, staff do a quick glance check as it's quite clear with these bars if they aren't lowered, and the process repeats once more.

I think it's because it's new, I've never seen or heard of rubber burning before on dodgems. Saw a picture of Theme park guides facebook page of staff having to clean rubber of the surface and had no idea what that was about.

10406482_656460131075956_403034306584077

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finally got to take my lot yesterday, was a lovely hot day and unfortunately caught the sun just a little bit. Now onto my and the kiddies view of the place. Firstly due to the actual size of the area I wouldn't call it a land as such, more a Angry Birds walkthrough as it really doesn't cover much of the park within its borders. The dodgems were pretty good and a lot better than Chessies but the actual ride time you get on them is pretty short. The Detonator retheme? Lazy,lazy,lazy. Really no effort made there whatsoever but on the plus side they still retain the original countdown. The 4d show was pretty good, nice new seats and a generally nice tidy up job in the auditorium itself. The effects were also pretty good even though I was unable to stay for the whole show as the moving chairs terrified my 2 year old son so I had to exit stage left post haste to relieve his screaming. I have to say I found the actual 3d film itself quite disappointing and not very in your face or as impressive as the far superior Muppets 4d or many of the other far better U.S based 4d rides.

Finally the theming itself. Firstly the 3d theming is great, does the job and looks the part. Now I know a lot of people on here were very critical of the 2d theming during the construction of the land but in the flesh it really doesn't look that bad. It looked a lot better than it does in pictures so on that basis I think it is more than adequate. So from me I would give the area about a 6.5/10 overall. Totally agree though with the poster who said that pay to play game at the entrance looks out of place and spoils the overall look of that section.

Now the kids view. My youngest range from 7 to 2 and they all liked it but without being too over excited. My 4 year old liked it the best but once we had done all the rides they could go on bar the dodgems they didn't want to go on them again. They seemed more excited that they sold Angry Birds cookies and had one of those speed reflex light things near Detonator which they had great fun with. So from the kids perspective I think it would be a 7/10 but don't feel they would be in a hurry to go in the near future.

As an additional note, Slammer was still down but had workers on it pretty much the whole day and we noticed that on Loggers Leap they now have a special boat which fits smaller children onto it so some of mine that were slightly below what the new high restrictions that were put in a few years back were actually able to ride it. They said they only have 1 at the moment but it seems a good idea especially with Thorpe trying to revert back to a more family friendly park. My eldest and her boyfriend who took them on even said the special boat seemed to pick up more speed then the usual ones as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...
  • 6 years later...

So Flock n Shop, which hasn't been open much (if at all?) this year is currently no more:

 

 

Whilst it's interesting to note that the QR code goes to the Fright Nights page, I wonder if this is the beginning of the end of Angry Birds Land? It's been around a good long while and the brand is very much not big any more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

There’s currently murmurings floating around that Angry Birds Land is its final season. Angry Birds Land has been an area at Thorpe Park since 2014. This IP has already lasted longer than anyone predicted.

 

Personally I’d like Angry Birds Land to be rethemed into a new Ranger County. I think Mr Monkey’s Banana Ride could easily be relocated to the area. The ride hasn’t operated much this season. Reading between the lines I think this is in preparation for its relocation to Angry Birds Land. In addition to the relocation of Mr Monkeys Banana ride the Dodgems could be rethemed.  Even the 4D Cinema could be refurbished to suit the Rangers. If this is the avenue Thorpe Park are going down I’d like the Teacup Ride to loose its sponsor. The new sponsorship and name Double Tea Party ruin a classic family favourite. I know this is unlikely but could Thorpe be installing more Family rides. Alternatively is there a slim possibility Rocky Express could resurrect and move to the area currently occupied by Angry Birds Land. Finally I’d like to say Cheif Rangers Carousel is in storage. This ride could return. A few years ago the Thorpe Park Ranger statues were jet washed and refurbished. Could this be a sign Thorpe has been planning to reintroduce the Rangers to the Theme Park for a few years. Around the time the Thorpe Park Rangers statues were refurbished people were spotted measuring the size of the 4D Cinema within Angry Birds Land.

 

What are you theories on what could replace Angry Birds Land for 2024, additionally in an ideal world what would you like Angry Birds Land to be rethemed to? 
 

I know many people long for Angry Birds Land to be reintegrated with the rest of Amity Cove. If you’re one of these people can you tell me what you think the fate of the Dogems etc should be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Retheme Dodgems into a garage. Nice and easy job to fit into Amity.

 

Unfortunately I think Thorpe are in a "there are no themed areas" mood under current management. Though it's hard to keep track of that these days.

 

Angry Birds was a stupid cheap and desperate IP job that never fit into the park, whilst also ruining one of the best ride music on Det. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Benin said:

Unfortunately I think Thorpe are in a "there are no themed areas" mood under current management. Though it's hard to keep track of that these days.

That is the problem, they are moving away from the themed area. They no longer refer to places as ‘lost city’ etc. instead just generic areas of the park. I don’t think angry birds land will end up as ‘amity’ per say, it may be rethemed to something that is very similar to amity (which I would want, I think amity cove is a great area of the park) but it will never be properly referred to as amity I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Hethetheth said:

I hadn't seen anything about the Ranger statues being retained / washed or the Carousel being I'm storage, do you have sources or evidence for these?

@Hethetheth the Thorpe Park Rangers stuff is stored in the former Thorpe Farm. In the closed season leading up to Thorpe Parks 40th Anniversary the Rangers were jet washed and refreshed,there was a photo taken of this. I believe the photo was on Theme Park Guides website. 
 

If this is the final season for Angry Birds Land I hope Storm In A Teacup looses the stupid sponsorship it gained this year. Personally I’d like the Teacup ride to be incorporated into the Angry Birds Land retheme. 
 

Thorpe needs a decent Family area more than ever. With the removal of Old Town for the construction of Project Exodus there’s hardly anything for Families. I’m still hoping a miracle happens and Rocky Express returns to Thorpe Park. 

My more realistic prediction is that the Thorpe Park Rangers will return next season and Angry Birds Land will become their new area. Mr Monkey’s Banana Ride could easily be relocated.

 

Does anyone else hope I’m correct and Thorpe Park will reintroduce the Thorpe Park Rangers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think unless the Dobble sponsorship was only a 12-month thing (which I'm pretty sure isn't overly common, it'll more likely be a 2/3 year thing at a minimum. Pretty sure the old Tetley sponsorship began around 2011, and was definitely still there in 2017 - perhaps even later I have no idea when the sponsorship was removed. But, this could've also been them extending the contract past the first year. Who knows!

 

As much as it would be a nice blast from the past for the 'new land' to be themed to the Rangers, I think the park would find it hard to be marketable and therefore probably (in the eyes of management) not be worth the time, effort (and most importantly) money it would take to turn it into a reality.

 

In terms of the family market, whilst I do (somewhat) agree that the park does lack an appeal for the family market - I think, again with current management, the park are very much established as being a theme park for thrillseekers currently. This also makes sense as I've always said that high thrill, high intensity rides are much more marketable and therefore likely to bring in a wider audience than family attractions. If the park were to add more family attractions to the park, I feel like this would be done quietly as a start-of-season bonus rather than the big selling point of the new season.

 

I'm not sure if the park are looking to retire Angry Birds land next season or perhaps a couple of seasons down the line, but considering it most likely wouldn't be a cheap job to achieve, I would imagine the park would want to make a rather large song and dance out of it.

 

With Project Exodus opening next year, unless they're able to tie it all together (which would be a pretty impossible job, considering they're both on opposite ends of the park to eachother) I think it would probably make more sense to be a 2025 job instead along with a new flat ride or two.

 

As for the theme... that could be anyone's guess. I'd very much like an Amity extension again as all of the theming in there very much still does blend in with that of Amity - fingers crossed they don't try to shoehorn another IP in though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...