April 8, 20187 yr comment_257293 3 hours ago, BaronC. said: That sounds like an issue of too many people being batched into the building in the first place. It will be down to broken headsets, but staff who batch you in will be told how many to batch in based on the number of working headsets. If too many are batched in, or another headset breaks during a cycle, you'll have an overbatch so will naturally leave people waiting. If this is done a couple of times it really causes a nightmare. In other words, the fact you waited so long inside the building is more likely down to poor staff than headsets breaking. My bet is, it was running on 2 trains and the host got the number of headsets available on the two carriages mixed up. Two trains means a long wait between batches.
April 8, 20187 yr comment_257302 Yeah, I don’t think Quantum will be open anytime soon On a different note - I hope The Swarm’s effects will be back on soon! At the moment, the area feels a bit incomplete without them, especially after how well they were working last year.
April 9, 20187 yr comment_257307 4 hours ago, Mer said: On a different note - I hope The Swarm’s effects will be back on soon! At the moment, the area feels a bit incomplete without them, especially after how well they were working last year. Or even lighting... other than the station and the lights on the various vehicles etc it was totally dark in the whole Swarm area last night!
April 9, 20187 yr comment_257308 7 hours ago, Zappomatic said: Or even lighting... other than the station and the lights on the various vehicles etc it was totally dark in the whole Swarm area last night! It was, and I loved it I thought it actually made it much better and more realistic! Also the staircase leading up to the station in Saw was almost pitch black (at one point we struggled to see where we were going!), but again this made it better as it fitted in with the theme Shame they can’t do that more often!
April 9, 20187 yr comment_257311 Yeah, Saw looked very sinister in almost total darkness. The station lights were more atmospheric. The shadow of the turning blades was on the track too.
April 24, 20187 yr comment_257634 Thorpe will be open 10-10 on May 19th - The Walking Dead: The Ride will be open exclusively for pass holders between 5pm and 10pm too. https://www.thorpepark.com/blog/need-a-place-to-celebrate-on-may-19th
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257641 Is Quantum still dead? I hear the beloved Rocky Express has been a little under the weather recently too May as well just close off the whole of "Old Town"
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257642 34 minutes ago, MattyMoo said: Is Quantum still dead? I hear the beloved Rocky Express has been a little under the weather recently too May as well just close off the whole of "Old Town" I saw some photos of Quantum’s scaffolding coming down recently. So I believe it should be up and running very soon. Hope Rocky will be too!
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257643 1 hour ago, JoelAllen said: I saw some photos of Quantum’s scaffolding coming down recently. So I believe it should be up and running very soon. Hope Rocky will be too! YAYYYYY! I do hope so, love a good little run on Quantum... she always makes me laugh!!!
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257645 22 hours ago, Marc said: Thorpe will be open 10-10 on May 19th - The Walking Dead: The Ride will be open exclusively for pass holders between 5pm and 10pm too. https://www.thorpepark.com/blog/need-a-place-to-celebrate-on-may-19th I wonder if opening Walking Dead exclusively for pass holders is to make amends for the attraction not being available during the most recent pass holder evening? It's just a shame they won't appreciate it and will still find something to moan about...
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257646 11 minutes ago, Mega-Lite said: I wonder if opening Walking Dead exclusively for pass holders is to make amends for the attraction not being available during the most recent pass holder evening? It's just a shame they won't appreciate it and will still find something to moan about... Yeah I assume that’s what it’s for which is pretty good of them - fingers crossed it’s running well then!
April 25, 20187 yr comment_257650 I'm sure it will be fine, all the VIP MAP's will be in their hospitality crèche anyway.
April 28, 20187 yr comment_257684 On 4/25/2018 at 7:51 PM, Stuntman707 said: I'm sure it will be fine, all the VIP MAP's will be in their hospitality crèche anyway. or clogging up the Fastrack queue making it longer than the main queue and then getting upset when they aren't allowed to reride without queueing
April 28, 20187 yr comment_257693 On 4/24/2018 at 8:21 PM, Marc said: Thorpe will be open 10-10 on May 19th - The Walking Dead: The Ride will be open exclusively for pass holders between 5pm and 10pm too. https://www.thorpepark.com/blog/need-a-place-to-celebrate-on-may-19th Extremely poor marketing though. They keep pushing the year of the walking dead, ride the new ride, the ad's appearing everywhere across social media, the website is flooded with it, and the ad for this event suggests the ride will be open. Yet they have decided to allow only pass holders and local pass holders access to the new ride for 2018, on an event that is open to anyone. They are asking for an inbox of emails from unhappy people.
April 29, 20187 yr comment_257700 This event is making up for the fact that the passholders preview day was cancelled due to weather and the ride was also unavailable during the rearranged passholders evening. (And two evenings, one public to make up for a lost day) It’s only fair as exclusive events are listed as one of the perks for purchasing an annual pass.
April 29, 20187 yr Author comment_257702 Thing is, Walking Dead was never meant to be available for the Annual Pass Preview Day before season started. It was just an extra bonus, since there was never a plan for there to be an AP Preview event for the ride (which in itself isn't great, but neither here nor there). It's good to see them continually try and push the value of an Annual Pass with this exclusive perks, especially when it's so dirt cheap, but I do agree it seems silly having a big push on The Year of TWD and then cut it off for non-AP holders at special events. Cutting off the nose to spite the face springs to mind.
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257772 I think the marketing for the "Year of the Walking Dead" isn't the best, and I cant see how this can help being people to the park. Having it advertised as a "Year Of..." seems generous. Its not. Its a Fright Night/Summer Holiday of The Walking Dead. Yes the ride is there but if you close it for exclusive use, the normal ticket buyer (which lets face it, they want to get people to buy a day ticket and upgrade with the Pay for a day, come back all year thingy) gets absolutely no walking dead until certain times of the year. Even if the ride is open, there is 1 walking dead thing. I wouldn't call that a year celebration, more of a New for 2018 and some seasonal specials - Which I recon would of made more impact if they announced late in the year than they did. Nothing else on the island is walking dead themed all year round, only the ride (when its open) which I feel is a shame and a lost marketing opportunity for the park and it wouldn't surprise me if people were put off upgrading as they went thinking there will be more walking dead than in reality. Out of interest, is anyone with a pass actually bothered about exclusive ride time? The idea of the pre-season day I get, maybe opening mid-week for pass holders only (on a non-scheduled day), stuff like the eXpo event for pass holders makes sense, but closing a ride that anyone with a pass could ride at any time just for pass holders seems a little bit pointless.... I am a pass holder and not overly fussed about the events. I pay for year-round access and happy with that to be honest.
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257781 I don't see how people would be put off getting the AP upgrades by Thorpe advertising "Exclusive" ride time for said passholders in the evening. If anything, it should sell more. There are loads of walking Dead events as part of the Year of the Walking Dead planned throughout the year; 7 Apocolypse Weekends, 10 Living Nightmare Extreme days, zombie hunt for 6 weeks during the holidays, 7 summer late weekends and fright nights in October. I like the AP events, generally the park is quieter and I get on way more rides. The biggest Annual Pass event perk for me is the Fright Nights preview. Without that, I'd never be able to do as many mazes in one visit as it's usually incredibly busy when it's open to the public. I wouldn't want to pay more for fright nights entry either. How would it be better by removing the perks of Annual Passes? What incentives would people have to renew their Annual Passes if they would get the exact same value as a normal ticket buyer?
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257783 3 minutes ago, Stuntman707 said: How would it be better by removing the perks of Annual Passes? What incentives would people have to renew their Annual Passes if they would get the exact same value as a normal ticket buyer? Didnt suggest getting rid of the perk, or even the pre-season days, infact I said that these make sense to me. I dont understand the logic of closing down a ride to only pass holders when the park is open to the public and its already been launched and plastered all over the TV. Pre-seasons days, Fright night previews, pre-opening days of new rides and things like the eXpo are good. Its getting people into the park by saying "were open til 10pm" then if people buy tickets they find out that they can only get on the new ride they have seen on TV if they upgrade to a annual pass.... Thats what I'm trying to say. I dont believe that removing any benefits helps anyone but running TV adverts and having extended opening times to isolate some of your paying customers doesnt seem good business sense to me.
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257786 As with the extreme living nightmare, do you think it will be an upcharge attraction? Or will it be open to everyone and sit on a 180 minute queue the whole week?
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257788 It seems very strange to close off a ride to some guests, but keep it open for pass-holders.
May 1, 20187 yr comment_257790 15 minutes ago, Jack said: As with the extreme living nightmare, do you think it will be an upcharge attraction? Or will it be open to everyone and sit on a 180 minute queue the whole week? Not seen anthong to suggest it will be an upcharge but who knows. 7 minutes ago, Coaster said: It seems very strange to close off a ride to some guests, but keep it open for pass-holders. As said - I guesss it’s a gesture of good will towards those who couldn’t ride it when it was closed for the last AP event, Hopefully they make it clear on the day so those non Ap people who want to ride can get on before it closes!
May 9, 20187 yr Author comment_257962 The park are now open until 5pm this Thursday and Friday (instead of 4pm), due to the good weather. Shame that 5pm isn't the standard of course, but good to see they're extending.
May 18, 20187 yr comment_258114 Popped in for a few hours today as I had a meeting in Heathrow that was done by 10am and I was really pleasantly surprised! At the entrance staff were doing a good job separating people with bags for security search and the new turnstiles scan passes much more quickly than the old ones. Coasters were all running two trains and Saw had plenty of cars on. Really efficient team on Swarm with no stacking going on, and Nemesis Inferno not too bad but seemed to be having a few issues with restraints. Didn't ride Colossus but this seemed to be struggling to despatch with any urgency. Two boats on Tidal Wave. Queue times were bizarre and it seemed like a lot of people in the park were going round in a huge group; at one point in the day Colossus' queue time was indicated as 50 minutes, and later on Stealth was going out with empty seats while at the same time Nemesis Inferno's queue was reaching the second cattle pen! Swarm's fire effect was going off on every other train, but sadly still no water effects. Also the new fencing in the queue line while sturdy is totally out of theme - seems they got a job lot as the same stuff is used (in different colours) at the park entrance and in a few other places around the park. Stealth's smoke effects are back but still one of the green lights is out. On Saw the indoor drop and the bit with the arrows/air blasts is in total darkness for some reason. Vortex and Samurai both closed but work visibly going on to fix both of them. Generally a really nice atmosphere on park - plenty of people around but mostly small queues and good ops and it seemed lots of people were taking the opportunity to enjoy a beer or an ice cream in the sun. On my visits to Thorpe Park this year even on quiet days it's felt like it has some life and vibrancy and that it's being run fairly creatively (events, promotions, minor refurbs etc) - so why does Alton Towers with its brand new major coaster feel like an exercise in managed decline?
May 18, 20187 yr comment_258117 Shame the swarm water effects were off again - they’ve been on the past couple weeks and been good, although thumbs up for the more frequent fire blasts!
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