Thorpe Park 2022

[JoshC.]

The Access Hub felt like it was crumbling apart, so I imagine they had to knock it down - I'm sure a well placed hammer would have done the job. It has now been relocated to the right of the turnstiles, which is where people can hire wheelchairs and Radar keys (good call!).

 

Inferno is also getting a working lift to the station again for the first time in at least 15 years. A dedicated RAP queue is good, as is the new fencing, but the mishmash of fencing and paving isn't the greatest look (a minor complaint I know).

 

All in, some good changes on the Accessibility front.

[Benin]

Now they just need to fix the Saw lift.

[Inferno]

Oh dear Inferno's queue is a bit of a mess isn't it.

Good news about the lift though, it's been so long I forgot it had one.

Hopefully Saw's will be next.  It can't be that big a job can it? It's a lift... Fix it people!

 

Glad to hear about the old Depth Charge building going as well, it was very dated!

 

No doubt Mr Silkstone's video will be out in the coming days giving a proper overview of everything. 

There's even time to rename Fin's Vibe 360 and re-do the all the park sign posts again before opening day.

[JoshC.]

We have another resort update:

 

https://fb.watch/bP70P-s8x_/

 

Really nice video; tone of it is *justttt right*.

 

Key updates of things not known:
-The addition of a playground by Depth Charge, called The Playground
-The removal of Wet Wet Wet
-The refurbishment of the toilets in the Lower Dome
-New queue boards and an improved queue system.

 

 

Some nice additions. A playground by Depth Charge is a bit full circle, given there used to be one there up till like 2008/9. Ultimately it's a harmless addition which will give the younger guests something extra to do, but it does once again highlight the ever see-sawing nature of the park.

 

 

Also, slightly grumble. Loads of things are coming soon. High Striker, The Playground and a toilet refurb not ready at start of season. That's a lot of things not ready that really should be. I'm sympathetic that there's been storms which have delayed work. But really, it's a bit poor to have so many things not ready.

[JoshC.]

A better look at the extension if the wall feature in the Dockyard:

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbNpcLXJ-mB/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

It looks good, but the large black space makes me feel like there's more to come / it just isn't finished.

[LukeKenno]

Great video and nice additions for thorpe agree they should of all been ready for opening though, also looks like sunken gardens will be back aswell this season which is a much needed quiet area now the seating area in old town has been fenced off to prepare for Exodus. A possible future space for a kids ride in the former wet wet wet space perhaps? To go with high striker the playground and beach etc.. A kids area is important aswell as Exodus if it wasnt for octupus gardens and ranger county when I was a kid going there I probably wouldnt be still going now some 20 plus years later

[Matt 236]

Calling the playground, the playground? Erm, least people will know what it is I guess?

 

Wet Wet Wet won’t really be missed, apart from the name. I’m glad Inferno’s lift has been added, but they could’ve really done more to the queue line, which is looking rather dilapidated now? More so.

 

It looks like they’ve added a fence to where Old Town was according to the video. I feel mixed emotions. 
 

Overall some nice improvements here, but some that do make you wonder if such approach was necessary.

[Mattgwise]

Some interesting choices. Once again feels like confusing messages about what direction they want to go.

 

Theres more insight into everything new/updated/changed from Jack's annual behind scenes video.

 

 

Interesting that they've shyed away from Rumba Rapids and it's mostly reverted paint job/refurb. 

[Inferno]

Thorpe Park is like the kid doing their homework on the bus isn’t it..

But I suppose at least the homework is being done now adays!

 

I can just never understand why everything’s always left until the last possible second!

 

Some really nice changes here though.

 

I really like these videos they’re putting out.

promising to hear that they’re listening to feedback now!

[coasterverse]

12 hours ago, Mattgwise said:

Some interesting choices. Once again feels like confusing messages about what direction they want to go.

 

Theres more insight into everything new/updated/changed from Jack's annual behind scenes video.

 

 

Interesting that they've shyed away from Rumba Rapids and it's mostly reverted paint job/refurb. 

 

I did notice that watching this - Kieran seemed very reluctant to pan the camera to certain areas (such as when they were talking about the dodgems roof, queue time boards and especially the new 'Vibes' restaurant not being shown at all even though it was talked about). Makes me a little nervous considering that Russ said it was filmed only days before opening, so if the Vibes restaurant is STILL not finished - are they going to open the park whilst still doing construction on it?

 

Maybe I am being pessimistic but it seems like an awful lot of cleanup and finishing to do ahead of the official resort opening next week (especially passholder day tomorrow!)

 

Also received an email this morning that said Detonator, Dodgems, Storm Surge, Vortex and High Striker aren't quite ready yet and therefore won't be open for the passholder day. As much as I gathered High Striker wouldn't be ready (not that I would probably ride it anyway), it's still a little disappointing to hear that there's quite a few rides still not ready - especially if there's a high turnout tomorrow, which from what I've heard tends to be the case with these passholder days. Makes you wonder just what the extent of the damage that storm eunice actually caused to the resort.

 

Hey, at least all the coasters will be open though. Hopefully...

(famous last words)

[MattyMoo]

Yes "last minute" certainly feels the order of the day. Agree that Kieran didn't want to / wasn't allowed to show some bits. Can't see why you can't show the Dodgems roof though in detail, at least it proves what they are saying if you see what I mean, it's not as if it's their fault. Appreciate you could see it a bit in the background but still.

 

I had no idea passholder day is tomorrow. Wow. That's the definition of last minute. The MAP group might make interesting reading!

 

Playground, toilets - ready for "the spring" - why couldn't work on those start in December? It's almost as if they don't know what budget they are getting until the last minute and then panic to do things. 

 

I like those new queue boards though, so that's nice.

[JoshC.]

I think it's worth remembering that every year, everything is always last minute. Whether that's the park making the most of every second of closed season, or just poor planning, is debatable. But that's always how it is.

 

Storm Eunice has probably thrown in extra challenges, delayed some things and thrown schedules off. We've seen that with Chessington and Towers already.

 

But even then, it does feel a bit shoddy. Watching through Jack's video and the park's other official videos, it seems as if:

 

-High Striker! is "coming soon"

-The Playground is "coming in the Spring"

-We need to "watch this space" for the toilet refurb in the Lower Dome

PLUS

-Damage to Dodgems taking longer to repair (not the park's fault, I hasten to add, but another thing)

-We *might* have plain white boards around Old Town still

-An unknown surrounding any work in Vibes

 

That's a lot of things being done still when the park is opening for passholders, as well as a buyout day. 

 

I'm sympathetic and understanding surrounding the issues that will have come up from Storm Eunice. But at the same time, it's a poor introductory look for the park from a brutally honest view. 

[ML27]

Always the case, if anyones seen drone footage/ monks walk updates. Every year, Nov-Jan nothing happens. Even fright nights stuff is left out until January  at least…..

 

if they started the second they closed, they would be finished by now and could undertake other tasks. 
 

always wonder why they just don’t go round painting things over closed season such as queue like fences . Doesn’t need to take long or need a specialist team..

[coasterverse]

2 hours ago, JoshC. said:

I think it's worth remembering that every year, everything is always last minute. Whether that's the park making the most of every second of closed season, or just poor planning, is debatable. But that's always how it is.

 

Storm Eunice has probably thrown in extra challenges, delayed some things and thrown schedules off. We've seen that with Chessington and Towers already.

 

But even then, it does feel a bit shoddy. Watching through Jack's video and the park's other official videos, it seems as if:

 

-High Striker! is "coming soon"

-The Playground is "coming in the Spring"

-We need to "watch this space" for the toilet refurb in the Lower Dome

PLUS

-Damage to Dodgems taking longer to repair (not the park's fault, I hasten to add, but another thing)

-We *might* have plain white boards around Old Town still

-An unknown surrounding any work in Vibes

 

That's a lot of things being done still when the park is opening for passholders, as well as a buyout day. 

 

I'm sympathetic and understanding surrounding the issues that will have come up from Storm Eunice. But at the same time, it's a poor introductory look for the park from a brutally honest view. 

 

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

Especially with the lower dome toilets, you'd expect them to have been done pretty much as soon as the winter period started - they tend to get a hell of a lot of footfall over the day for obvious reasons and having them closed with an ambiguous opening date of 'by easter' is going to be quite the inconvenience to a lot of people. Granted it's not the end of the world and there's still other toilets for people to use, but personally it's almost routine for me to get into the park and use the Lower Dome toilets before making headway for any of the rides, lol.

 

I get that the construction at Thorpe always takes them right up until the last second, but this year feels like they've bitten off much more than they could chew, obviously.

 

I'm not sure what the reasons were for not moving High Striker earlier in the closed season, but from the winter Monk's Walk vlogs that Jack uploaded to his channel last year - High Striker/Lumber Jump was left in place for quite a while. Like ML27 said, if these things were done right at the start of the closed season and they utilised every second of the closed season that they could, I'm pretty certain none of this would still be 'under construction', or at least would be very minimal.

 

But, these things happen and Storm Eunice clearly did have an effect on the resort, probably more than we'll ever realise.

[Inferno]

I've always wondered that too.

I think they used to start earlier and things were usually just about ready for opening day.

 

Maybe it's all down to staffing?

I guess there's hardly anyone there at all over Winter, and they hire people / contractors etc a month before opening to keep costs down?

[Mark9]

Bare in mind that December and January would have had massive covid-related issues which may explain why everything is far behind. That being said, a lot of European parks have had the same operational issues and still have been able to open with few issues.

 

Merlin finished last season quite poorly and it seems to be continuing.

[coasterverse]

You know what, I was very pleasantly surprised at passholder preview day today. The walkthrough had me concerned about the state of the park, but other than Old Town (and the pathway that goes alongside SAW: Alive) being closed, there didn't really appear to be any signs of construction anywhere which is what I was a little wary of.

 

Vibes, other than the new name and logo, appeared to be essentially exactly the same as before - albeit from the outside as I have never ventured into there.

 

Detonator was testing but was disappointed that it was closed all day, although I do appreciate the park letting us know ahead of time which rides were going to be closed so it avoided disappointment on the day. I really do like the fact that Thorpe Park finally are starting to be transparent and keeping us all in the loop with stuff like this.

 

All in all, it was a really good day. Good weather, good selection of rides, and after a slight hiccup for an hour or two after opening this morning, operations seemed to be pretty good too - even managed to get three rides on SAW today which is unheard of for a Saturday!

 

High hopes for this season.

[JoshC.]

Some final new things, from Jack Silkstone's video:

 

A mini stage has been set up in Amity

This will apparently be used by the roaming actors

 

Some posters have appeared around Swarm island:

They're plastered on the station building too.

Not a fan of these. Way too many, and they lean very heavily on a theme away from the original Swarm story. Things change I guess, but it feels like adding something for the sake of it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Finally, a new graphic on the service road gates by Old Town Burger King (which originally had the Old Town logo on):

This seems to be a big nod towards Exodus, somewhat mimicking the lift/drop

[ML27]

The roaming actors are weird….. like they aren’t advertised anywhere on the website nor do I get the point of them (yes, they are fun ect) but I mean what do they actually do? 
If they are around to do party dances like it’s some sort of caravan park, I don’t see the point. It was okay for park vibes, but not again…

Maybe I’d like them more if they had relevance to the park (story, branding) otherwise it just looks like a group of people on a stag do.

I like the posters, there’s way too many though. The soundtrack change last year already took away from the original story. But I feel that’s the entertainments team and general Thorpe management trying to divert from the original MMM concept slightly. Too focused on the “Les Coogan” reference.

 

New graphic is a good little teaser, looks like mountains to me. Again playing to this wilderness theme from the Trailers poster (clearly showing a forest) and the planning application which states they are gonna use the environment as part of the theme. Is the coaster themed to an expedition and the coaster is the mountain, which you climb and takes you on an “unexpected journey” also could nod to Canada Creek still.

 

That is very very light speculation, only pulled from a few hints. I can imagine it will be wrong. But hey, starting to speculate the theme!

 

[Mark9]

Why do they insist on filling Amity Cove with so much stuff. 

[Benin]

1 hour ago, Mark9 said:

Why do they insist on filling Amity Cove with so much stuff. 

 

Big Bob Jones must receive sufficient levels of sacrifice.

[Inferno]

Yeah I agree about the roaming actors being an odd choice.
The brief seems to have been "VIBES. YEAH, JUST DO VIBES ALL YEAR."

It's good they have them though - and I assume it takes away the recruitment problem when it comes to hiring for events?

 

I very much look forward to vibing with them in a few weeks before soaking up the vibes in the Vibes Bar & Kitchen. Might even treat myself to a vibe on Vibena Rumba Rap-vibes.

[MattyMoo]

14 hours ago, ML27 said:

the planning application which states they are gonna use the environment as part of the theme. Is the coaster themed to an expedition and the coaster is the mountain, which you climb and takes you on an “unexpected journey” also could nod to Canada Creek still.

 

This money tastes funny... unexpected journey... this is your stop... who's Railway is it....

Derren Brown's Ghost Train Return Of The Demon: The Rollercoaster (DBGTROTDTR) seems 99% confirmed to me.

 

Poop papp wiff waff.

[jessica2]

I agree that from that art on that board, something mountain related seems to be jumping out especially with the flag on the 'summit'. I think that could work well and makes sense as a theme with the height of it. but who knows - I do hope they only went with that red and yellow colour scheme to tie in with the BK building because its not really giving me any natural mountain vibes at all, more like the scheme you'd see in a 90s mcdonalds so wouldn't want the new building to have that(!)

 

On swarm, I also saw you me at six are running a competition to ride it with them and they are going to be on the park I think on the 3rd May. I'm also not a huge fan of the posters but I guess some people I've spoken to after visiting the area didn't seem to pick up the alien theme, as the only place you really see it is on the ride vehicle, and even then not everyone notices so I guess they are just trying to make it more obvious.

[Matt 236]

On Friday, visited the park for opening day. There were vibes I guess?

 

Security process was long with many taking over an hour to get in. 
 

Some areas looked fresher, such as the new mural & (yet to open) Highstriker and others less-so. Banana looks naff without it’s theming. 
 

Amity seems to be a hive of activity with the new stage. I like that the park has more entertainment, but unsure how I feel about the location. 
 

Operations were a mixed bag. Stealth had the best, Inferno didn’t open until the afternoon. Colossus ran one train. Saw was squirting loads of water on the in-line. Still painful!

 

Old Town is (basically) dead! Events/advertisements dominate the new white fence surrounding the former area. The toilets, BK etc. are likely now just part of the jungle. Wet Wet Wet gone (no real loss) and a new (random playground). 
 

Tried Vibes Kitchen. It’s alright, but basically Infinity with a new name and random menu IMO. The Cod goujon baguette meal was adequate. 
 

Overall a fun day, helped by the weather. As much I’m excited for Exodus, I feel most of the park is looking rundown and tired. Especially The jungle. Not to mention audio was messy.