2019 Season

[Matt 236]

That advert was so corny it made Love Island look authentic!

 

Right, so I actually visited the park yesterday because it’s now back and open for another year.

 

The dome looks both better and worse with the theming gone. Sure it was looking a little dated, but gave more character to the place. Whilst they are ‘’supposedly’’ doing it in phases, I will believe it when I see it as Merlin have a tendency to abandon stuff after Phase 1 because of funds and the managing team not being there.

 

Nemesis Inferno didn’t look as clean as one would like and it’s a shame p, especially with their videos ‘’supposedly’’ saying it was. Shame they ran out of paint on the bridge. Least the operations seemed noticeably better and the ride experience excellent.

 

Colossus does not look much better with it’s ever rusty paint scheme and the hideous looking concrete where there used to be water. Least it should maybe help with upkeep and reliability I suppose. The old theme being back is nice!

 

Swarm somewhat looks the worse now which is shocking for the park’s newest coaster (7 years? Blimey). Even more theming has been removed (and not replaced) and whatever is left of the station building looks poorly maintained. By next season who’s to say all the station theming is removed leaving just an empty metal structure? 

 

Rumba Rapids just seemed tedious and less enjoyable compared to previous visits. Nothing really interesting seems to happen with the attraction now and the capacity seemed much worse than normal, probably because they are refitting the boats. The paint work they did just a couple years back looks dreadful and lots of the old colours are noticeable. 

 

Staff were hit and miss. Some were lovely and friendly, whilst others less-so and msybe didn’t know what they were doing, can’t say I blame them with how well they are treated. The ticket girl was useless (as it took 15 minutes to sort a pass ticket) and she had to ask two TLs/managers before actually sorting our ticket. Most of them looked unhappy  tbh. 

 

I did not eat at the park and brought lunch (meal out after), but heard many say the food this year wasn’t as good. Fins had a limited menu, Pizza and Pasta noticeably less tasty and Wilderness not being anygood at all.

 

The car park was just as awful too!

 

The Old Town area just looks a right dump with it’s abandoned rides, rundown buildings and garish clashing kids rides plonked into the corner. I honestly just wish the park would redevelop the area whilst somewhat keeping Rocky, which is the only draw to the area now.

 

Right onto more positive things. The Walking Dead Ride was great and loved the addition of animatronics at the end of the ride and live actors. Saw looked more refreshed and aesthetically is probably the best looking coaster, ironic for a horror theme. The Tidal Wave Area looks nicer, but the ommitted shortcut bridge is disappointing. 

 

The Coke Freestyle is great and makes me happy to see at the park. At £10 (£8 for pass holders) it’s acceptable value especially when you can fill it up several times from anything from cherry coke to Fanta fruit punch! 

 

So not a brilliant day, but not terrible either. Some of the smaller things seemed better, but the bigger things not so much. There was still a feel of the ‘’Classic Thorpe problems” despite 90% of the staff/management changing in the last few years, but I guess Rome wasn’t built in a day. 

[Marhelorpe]

"With coasters like no other"......... then transitions to Tidal Wave.........

 

False advertising like no other!

[Mattgwise]

1 hour ago, Loggers Creek said:

Rumba Rapids just seemed tedious and less enjoyable compared to previous visits.

Really? Our boat found it to be far more enjoyable and a couple got a soaking. I'm sure some of the pipes have been moved as well as there seemed to be one or two different rapid sections. As well as that the wave machine seemed slightly more aggressive as well. The paint work around the ride though, that's another story. 

[Glitch]

2 hours ago, Loggers Creek said:

Staff were hit and miss. Some were lovely and friendly, whilst others less-so and msybe didn’t know what they were doing, can’t say I blame them with how well they are treated. The ticket girl was useless (as it took 15 minutes to sort a pass ticket) and she had to ask two TLs/managers before actually sorting our ticket. Most of them looked suicidal tbh. 

 

Maybe it was her first day? Did you not have to learn on your first day at Thorpe? Also, suicide is no joke.

[Matt 236]

52 minutes ago, Mattgwise said:

Really? Our boat found it to be far more enjoyable and a couple got a soaking. I'm sure some of the pipes have been moved as well as there seemed to be one or two different rapid sections. As well as that the wave machine seemed slightly more aggressive as well. The paint work around the ride though, that's another story. 

Don’t know why but just found the attraction underwhelming for some reason. But yes the presentation wasn’t great.

 

5 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Maybe it was her first day? Did you not have to learn on your first day at Thorpe? Also, suicide is no joke.

Quite possibly, and of course everyone makes mistakes, especially when they are new to a job. @terrortomb can back me up on things there though. 

 

I get that with the suicide thing, but it was more an observation that most of them did not look very happy there. 

 

Naturally my patience was going to be worse-so as a result of being stuck on the M25 for several hours and resultingly arriving halfway through the day to a half-occupied ticket centre with a long queue. 

[profburp]

The new advert is terrible! If they say “like no other” anymore times I think I might strangle someone ?

[TPC]

The new advert couldn't make it clearer the park was about being like other, instead of carefully placing it like the 2014 advert. In 5 years, we've gone from something professional to a YouTube top 5 video for why you should visit Thorpe. It really annoys me as island like no other has so much potential.

[Matt A]

3 hours ago, Mattgwise said:

Really? Our boat found it to be far more enjoyable and a couple got a soaking. I'm sure some of the pipes have been moved as well as there seemed to be one or two different rapid sections. As well as that the wave machine seemed slightly more aggressive as well. The paint work around the ride though, that's another story. 

Can confirm, got wet. The rapids definitely seemed more intense than previous years.

[Coasterforce]

"We have a sub-par overpriced burger cafe..... Like no other!!" 

[Project LC]

Ok, we have reached the point of a joke. Nice early April fools Thorpe with that advert you would never let standards be that low . 

 

Oh hang on... Loggers mishandling, Old town/ghost town, Nemesis Inferno is filthy,  dbgtrotd is still the worst Merlin investment to ever be made, Rumba is in a sorry state, tidal wave shortcut removed, twd is still horribly out of place, Swarm is looking dreadful, the dome is boring and empty, poor quality food, appalling social media team and then there is Colossus where there are not enough words in the English language to describe the sorry state that structure of rust is in. 

[Stuntman707]

Loved clearing the tables in pizza pasta (looking at a table wiper ignoring us like: #notmyjob) and not having any Coke Zero and the watered down BBQ pizza. Fully worth the price increase.

[Mattgwise]

Yep! I can't believe he told me to get someone else! Madness! And that bbq sauce is AWFUL compared to what was used before.

[MattyMoo]

Genuine praise, @JoshC. will testify that I said this and meant it - I really liked all the flowers/landscaping around park, and the speakers outside the Dome. Heck, I can't say I missed the themeing in the Dome to be honest. The little things do make a big difference

 

But the bigger picture is quite grim... so many of the rides look so faded and tired and in desperate need of some Thorpe Loving Care. Samurai, Rush, Quantum, Swarm station, Colossus and it's concrete area, Nemesis track - all looking pretty run down and sun-bleached.

 

SAW Alive's sign and queue timer has been completely removed for those who are bothered.

Was good to get on Rumba, that was a good laugh and got pretty wet. Stealth operations were pretty slick (and SICK #Silkstone) on Saturday I have to say - fair play there.. Can't believe @jessica2 had never experienced Depth Charge before either, shameful behaviour and you lose 250 eNThUSiaSt points for gross misconduct.

[yeah]

I really enjoyed Thorpe today. The park was pretty much dead, most rides were 5 minutes apart from Nemesis Inferno which was on 20 minutes having been down half the day. I got multiple rides on The Swarm, which was so dead it was running almost empty trains for the rest of the day. Operations were decent, I don't remember there being any closures we didn't already know about. As I said, Inferno was down from opening due to some sort of technical problem but eventually opened up, Colossus had a small delay (there were people on the track at the bottom of the lift doing something) and was shut at the start of the day along with Saw and Inferno, likely due to the weather, which also shut Swarm later on in the day despite the fact all the other rides remained open. Apart from that every ride as far as I know was on 2 trains.

 

Agreed on the landscaping, I noticed little bits in places I've never seen them before such as down the side of Tidal Wave's pool, and the new bits of grass and stuff in Amity does actually look nicer. It's just a shame about Colossus' concrete which doesn't look good at all, hopefully they'll add bits down there as the season progresses, same goes for the Dome which looks very bare, I don't see the point to taking the theming down.

 

There was a car outside GameFX for some reason, it looked like some kind of photoshoot was going on. There were also some lights on inside the building, bright green and blue.

 

All in all, I only got on four different rides (Swarm more times than I remember, Colossus x2, Inferno and Rumba Rapids x2), but that's all I really wanted and we still had a good day. Also, the new place where Bush BBQ was is fantastic. I had a bacon & cheese sauce hot dog with chips and it was brilliant imo. Hot dog fell apart very easily and I didn't actually finish a bit of the bread but I can't recommend it enough.

[Ringo]

Periods of downtime don’t necessarily mean reliability issues, it could be idiots with mobiles or a handful for other reasons. 

[yeah]

34 minutes ago, Ivsetti said:

Summary: 5 minute queues and the rides still can't cope without being down. It makes one wonder if the rides are just held by bits of string and tape at this point seeing as they're down so much.

At least they weren't down for very long which is a good thing:

https://queue-times.com/parks/2/calendar/2019/04/02

(/sarcasm)

 

 

I was unaware that the queue time influenced how often the ride went down for. The weather was awful today, which is why most of the coasters were down for a bit. Like I say, Nemesis Inferno was the only non-weather related closure that lasted long enough to have any real impact on the day. Plus, as Ringo said, it's not just technical difficulties that shut rides.

 

(I also left at about 3pm to go pick up my sister from school so I also didn't see the Derren Brown closure for example)

[Stuntman707]

I'm seeing more evidence to suggest Saw Alive won't be returning this year. 

 

[Matt A]

Visited Thorpe twice lately, with TPM on Saturday and went again on this very rainy day, thought I'd post some thoughts from the two days and some observations for those who are intrested.

 

Saturday

• Much busier than expected but helped by most rides having good operations (one or two rides less so but nothing horrendous)
• Music seemed a mixed bag, much clearer and louder in some places (bridge, upstairs Dome, Saw area (around the shop) and Colossus area)
  • But some areas were far too quiet or had problems (Swarm and downstairs Dome too quiet, Nemesis cutting out)
• Coke Freestyle looked to be a very good addition, much better than previous refill cups, although it did have a few teething problems
• Had my personal best ever run-though of DBGT, only one or two very minor issues but overall a near perfect run-through
  • Detail on DBGT:
    Spoiler

    VR worked flawlessly apart from two minor tracking problems that resolved quickly. Staff acting was brilliant, people were genuinely convinced there was an emergency in the middle section at first. Middle section had actors in and I'm a fan of this version, makes far more sense to actually walk through the tunnels. Quite a long sequence of trying to open the door, staff did a good job of covering up a delay if it was one. Excuses for holding people in the shop are quite funny too.

• Nemesis
  • New lights had gotten stuck on the white stage and did not change on dispatch
  • Bose bass cannons in the ceiling were working (first time I've ever heard them, sounded great!)
  • Station floor desperately needed to be cleaned of gum
• Rumba Rapids must have had some changes as half our boat got soaked!

Tuesday

• Very quiet and rainy day, most queues on 5 mins
• Nemesis' lighting changes had been solved, changes to red on dispatch again, audio cut outs also appear to have been resolved
• No smoke to be seen anywhere on Colossus, either broken or turned off I'm guessing. Old music still playing too!
• DBGT: 
  Spoiler

  No actors today and staff acting in the middle section wasn't quite as good. Much shorter as nothing much happened in the middle section, just a bit of audio and then you're on to the 2nd VR section. 2nd section was also shorter, didn't show the "I want to get off" person. No delays or technical issues though.

• Got soaked on Rumba again
• New speakers on top of Detonator are a big improvement, can actually hear the countdown on the ride now

Overall two great visits, would be nice to see some more TLC around the park and for the quiet audio to be sorted out in some areas. Really felt on Saturday that the park needed another major ride there, not sure if I've just been too many times though!

[James Allgood]

I find it strange why Thorpe have repainted the station and transfer track and supports but nothing else again...

 

[SteveJ]

2 hours ago, EpicSmatty said:

New speakers on top of Detonator are a big improvement, can actually hear the countdown on the ride now

That's funny, I remember yyeeeearrrs ago when you could hear that from the top and it echoed all around the park. "3... 2... Juan"
Nice they fixed that after so long.

[Mark9]

3 hours ago, EpicSmatty said:

Visited Thorpe twice lately, with TPM on Saturday and went again on this very rainy day, thought I'd post some thoughts from the two days and some observations for those who are intrested.

 

Nemesis

• New lights had gotten stuck on the white stage and did not change on dispatch
• Bose bass cannons in the ceiling were working (first time I've ever heard them, sounded great!)
• Station floor desperately needed to be cleaned of gum

• Rumba Rapids must have had some changes as half our boat got soaked!

 

 

It sounds like INFERNO  has not really had any cleaning attention this year as you're not the first person who has spoken about all the chewing gum.

[Matt A]

2 hours ago, Wumbamillio said:

That's funny, I remember yyeeeearrrs ago when you could hear that from the top and it echoed all around the park. "3... 2... Juan"
Nice they fixed that after so long.

And it does once again! Can hear that countdown everywhere now, really confused me at first, thought they'd turned the speakers right up at the base but then saw the ones on top.

1 hour ago, Mark9 said:

 

It sounds like INFERNO  has not really had any cleaning attention this year as you're not the first person who has spoken about all the chewing gum.

Meant to write Inferno, not sure why I put Nemesis only! I did see some gum removal equipment being moved around elsewhere on park so maybe they're working on it? Fingers crossed.

[JoshC.]

33 minutes ago, Ivsetti said:

GameFX starts Saturday. Further note: the park's new social media team don't use sarcastic gifs anymore!

 

The social media team is exactly the same as it was at the start of the year.

[Stuntman707]

What's changed? Have they finally been told to stop being rude and sarcastic to guests?

[pluk]

8 hours ago, JoshC. said:

 

The social media team is exactly the same as it was at the start of the year.

You sure? I can't believe people would be able to stick it out that long!!

 

Every time they post there are just constant waves of negativity thrown back at them from nearly every responder. With the (lack of) direction of the park at the moment it's quite understandable, and they must realise they've missed the mark with the promotion of this year's offering but seem too far commited to it to change tack. It must be absolutely soul destroying.