Thorpe Park 2023

[Glitch]

2 hours ago, MattyMoo said:

Had a sticky beef Po' Boy (essentially like a posh-ish kebab/sub) yesterday on the Island Like No Other, with cajun fries - this was from one of the pop up Mardi Gras food stalls which are not Aramark run. £14.50 in total for both, and it was genuinely decent. Pint of Camden Pale was £6.75 but had to be done because sunshine innit.

 

Similarly, at Fright Nights I bought food on two occasions from the Ghost Train Smokehouse near the teacups, again, external, and was very good indeed.

 

So basically, just go when there are pop up traders xoxo

 

 

Did you get RAP discount? 

[ML27]

The screen above the turnstiles is starting to get darker and darker, soon it will be a black screen. I get why they are doing it, but if maintenance is such an issue, why don’t they get a smaller screen or turn it off 

[MattyMoo]

Oh wow, they really are minimising the amount of panels they use on that screen now 😆 I have no idea why they haven't got the dead panels fixed, I can only assume that it's too old to replace, or, they just don't care.

[coasterverse]

I genuinely don't understand how they think this looks better than the alternative of just... ignoring it? Like, obviously in an ideal world I'd like them to replace the dead panels, but this is such an intrusive way of skirting around the problem. Maybe if the video inside the small area was resized to fit accordingly it wouldn't be so bad, but there's literal bits of text and graphics cut off by the awful black borders.

[tactic]

Do we know what’s going on with thorpe so that the rides have to open later?

 

Good to see they are being upfront about it though, regardless of how many people see it considering this page is in the most obscure part of the website.

[Mattgwise]

Nope. At least it isn't permanent like Chessington's 3:30pm closures.

[coasterverse]

It really is strange... what on earth could they be doing to warrant only a 45 minute delay on opening? If whatever they're doing only takes 45 minutes, why can't they just do it when the park is closed?!

[JoshC.]

The fact that it's all during one week makes me wonder if it's for some sort of filming / marketing, which is why the rides are opening slightly later. Obviously lots of questions remain if that is the case.

 

Closures / delayed openings are always a pain, but ultimately 45 minutes for one coaster at the start of the day on an off peak day isn't the most disastrous case.

[coasterverse]

2 hours ago, JoshC. said:

The fact that it's all during one week makes me wonder if it's for some sort of filming / marketing, which is why the rides are opening slightly later.

 

This was my initial thought too, but I wonder why 🤔 Unless it's for some sort of television show, I can't really imagine why Thorpe themselves would need to film anything on those coasters! Even so though, the question remains as to why they can't just film outside of park hours instead 😂

[MattyMoo]

It's to film the new series of this television masterpiece.

 

https://youtu.be/265BhqcgD2Q?t=839

 

[tactic]

Very odd guys, saw opened with the park today at 10. The website said 10:45 open so I’m slightly confused.

 

Also app says all rides are closed for some reason.

[MattyMoo]

Some juicy queues today with the park being advertised as sold out. Stealth was at 160 minutes earlier!

 

Not quite sure how/why today in particular is a sell out day? Inset day? People on strike?

[Cal]

I wonder if they lowered the capacity not knowing if they’d have Inferno? 
 

Very rare for them to reach capacity this time of year but looks like it was justified looking at them queues

[ML27]

I think they are more aware of guest experience than ever before. Might have slightly lowered that capacity. Even those queue times are horrible tho

[ML27]

Is this a new policy, if so it’s pretty good!

 

I'm glad that they’ve decided to do this as it makes no sense to have to pay £32 for a child which can’t go on much at Thorpe.

 

Cant see any new kids rides for a while anyway, so makes sense to implement this policy

[tactic]

Park has sold out again tomorrow. School trips are the cause I assume…

 

What is the max capacity of thorpe cause surely for them to have sold out they must have sold a bunch of tickets?

[coasterverse]

 

A great idea coming out of the annual passholders group this evening, but I can't help but be a little frustrated that passholders are still required to pay so much money?! I understand that it's so they can pump more money into Fright Nights (apparently), but honestly as the years go by it seems that annual passholders are receiving less and less perks and feels like they're trying to totally phase out the extras other than free entry at this point.

 

Fright Nights/Scarefest maze tickets only being discounted and not free (there's no reason why they couldn't be for passholders), Alton Towers Dungeons at Towers being discounted rather than free for passholders... I'm sure the list goes on, but surely you would want to reward those that are opting to either pay a large sum of money annually for their pass, or paying an ongoing monthly fee to support the company.

 

This is definitely a Merlin-wide issue and not a park specific issue - but bringing it back to Thorpe specifically, I've said it countless times that I honestly don't see that big of a Fright Nights improvement since they introduced paid mazes. Take The Big Top for example - a free entry maze that easily levels (if not surpasses) the experience of Trailers.

 

Survival Games being the big investment for last year, but even that I don't see how that is the biggest Fright Nights investment to date? The building is just big. The quality of scares isn't any greater than it was pre-paid era Fright Nights, so what is the point honestly?

 

Fright Nights is one of the busiest (if not, the busiest) time of year for the park - if they're not able to make free mazes work financially with the amount of income they must be receiving on a daily basis through the doors in admission and merch sales alone, then surely something needs to be looked at internally rather than passing the buck to the guests.

 

The value of Fright Nights compared to any other scare attraction over the halloween season is unprecedented. Their mazes for the most part are weak and are charged each time you want to go through. Most scare attractions from what I see have moved away from this model now and are now allowing their guests to do the scare mazes multiple times for the price of admission - which is how it should be in my opinion. The only leg up that Thorpe Park (and all the other Merlin parks offering a Halloween event) have on them is that they have rollercoasters to compliment the lineup. That's it.

[tactic]

I think the problem with offering free experiences for passholders is for the cheaper pass options. Owning a silver merlin pass myself, the £10 a month is pretty much nothing (even for a 16 year old with a super inconsistent job…) and I save ungodly amounts of money using it. I probably go to merlin attractions at least 15 times in a year, which if each ticket would be £30 (which it usually isn’t) would still have cost me £450. I don’t need any more perks with my pass, yes they would be nice but from a financial perspective it would be detrimental for the park imo. And the discovery pass exits too, that’s like £60 a year I seem to remember. Giving free maze access and other experiences with the cheaper annual passes just wouldn’t be financially viable for merlin because sooner or later everyone would catch on that its a no brainier buying an annual pass and the company would be losing money.

 

I hope my waffle makes sense…

[JoshC.]

2 hours ago, coasterverse said:

A great idea coming out of the annual passholders group this evening, but I can't help but be a little frustrated that passholders are still required to pay so much money?! I understand that it's so they can pump more money into Fright Nights (apparently), but honestly as the years go by it seems that annual passholders are receiving less and less perks and feels like they're trying to totally phase out the extras other than free entry at this point.

 

I think it's worth pointing out that as Halloween event at theme parks have grown, it is very much the norm that parks charge their passholders extra for Halloween attractions. Even moreso post-Covid. This isn't just a Merlin thing, it's an industry thing.

 

Now there's loads of arguments that can be made both ways about this. And of course we can say that 'just because everyone else does it, it doesn't mean Thorpe should'. But I think it's a point worth stressing. Most theme parks charge for their mazes, and that includes charges for their passholders. Thorpe aren't some special case here. That means whatever the reasons they have, they won't be unique to the park, they're a common, industry trend.

 

2 hours ago, coasterverse said:

Survival Games being the big investment for last year, but even that I don't see how that is the biggest Fright Nights investment to date? The building is just big. The quality of scares isn't any greater than it was pre-paid era Fright Nights, so what is the point honestly?

I asked this to people in the know, as I was somewhat confused as to how Survival Games was the most expensive maze investment myself.

 

The answer is simple, albeit underwhelming. The cost of raw materials. At a time where the cost of everything is soaring, even things like the wood used to build sets has gone up in price (I hear it had quadrupled in price compared to even Creek Freak Massacre). That adds a significant amount of cost.

 

Another, separate issue, is that Thorpe are once again using external companies to build their mazes. That has pros and cons. One of the main cons is the price: the external company can name their price, and Thorpe will pay, and it can mean that the cost of labour is significantly more than if they had an in-house team, or even worked with MMM.

 

Obviously there's a marketing incentive to advertise mazes as expensive to build. People hear "expensive to build maze" and they think "it must be quality". Whether that ends up being true or not is a different matter.

 

Ultimately I think that the overall quality of the event has improved. The park are investing more money into the event (even scaling for inflation), and have expanded in a sensible way in recent years. 

 

 

2 hours ago, coasterverse said:

This is definitely a Merlin-wide issue and not a park specific issue - but bringing it back to Thorpe specifically, I've said it countless times that I honestly don't see that big of a Fright Nights improvement since they introduced paid mazes. Take The Big Top for example - a free entry maze that easily levels (if not surpasses) the experience of Trailers.

 

Big Top is a great example of a great maze, yes. It's also a great example of what I mentioned above.

 

2015 Big Top was made by an external company. To some degree, that would have involved Thorpe giving said company a brief and a discussed-upon budget, and from there, it was out of their hands. We ended up with a maze which had potential and was different, but not well received.

 

2016 and 2017 Big Top were designed in house, by the park's scenic and tech team at the time. They had greater freedom and creative control, the money that would have gone to the pockets of an external company could instead go into the maze in some way.

 

Here's where an issue lies with the current creative identity of Fright Nights. By having mazes designed by external companies, you can get that expertise in, and get a solid product. But that doesn't mean you will get the best value for money, or the best product. But at the same time, there currently isn't the skill-set at the park is design and build mazes from the ground up. They can conceptualise, work with external companies, etc, but they can't do it all. 

 

Again, I stress that's not a bad thing. But it can hamper the processes and result in some poor experiences, or experiences not being as good as they could (/ should) be.

 

2 hours ago, coasterverse said:

Most scare attractions from what I see have moved away from this model now and are now allowing their guests to do the scare mazes multiple times for the price of admission - which is how it should be in my opinion. The only leg up that Thorpe Park (and all the other Merlin parks offering a Halloween event) have on them is that they have rollercoasters to compliment the lineup. That's it.

 

I don't know how true it is about 'most scare attractions allowing multiple runs'. But here's the biggest thing that Thorpe (and Towers) have to deal with: competition from scare parks. 10-15 years ago, the idea of a scare park was a huge novelty, and outside of a handful, they just didn't exist. These days, they're much more common. That creates significantly more competition. 

 

The competition from scare parks when it comes to quality is very strong. In part, this is because scare parks have...less strict H&S regulations to follow (because Merlin impose such strict rules on themselves). In part it's because they have stronger creative freedom over their attractions, usually designed in-house by specialists with a passion for the industry. In part it's just because they are a scare park, and focus solely on that.

 

It's a very broad and layered landscape now. And the comparisons that brings makes it very challenging for the parks to be on top.

[tactic]

I didn’t do Breakout at Bozo’s last year at thorpe. I’m planning to go this year at least a couple times in carnival, is it worth doing the maze. At £4.80 it seems extremely cheap, but that makes me think it’s not going to be up to standard as the other fright night mazes. Is it worth giving it a go?

[coasterverse]

10 hours ago, tactic said:

I didn’t do Breakout at Bozo’s last year at thorpe. I’m planning to go this year at least a couple times in carnival, is it worth doing the maze. At £4.80 it seems extremely cheap, but that makes me think it’s not going to be up to standard as the other fright night mazes. Is it worth giving it a go?

 

I've not done it either, but not heard raving reviews about it to be honest. Definitely not on par with Fright Nights mazes as it's (from what I've heard) massively toned down for a younger audience. As someone that has never found Trailers even remotely scary, I reckon I'll definitely be steering clear of Bozo's.

[ML27]

It was the same price last year,

It could be funny, like the actors were making you do stupid walks ect as you walked through as every scene is clowns. Again, I think it depends if the actors knew you, which they wouldn’t know me 😂

 

Trailers isnt scary, but it’s atmospheric and try’s to build tension. This maze doesn’t have tension or atmosphere because of its jovial tone and the nature of clowns. All the lighting is like you’re at a circus, red, yellow ect. 
 

It’s another attraction to do at thorpe at £6 or £4.80 it is quite a lot of money to add on to your day for what you get out of it.

 

I’ll be happier spending £4.20 on Bruno Mars from doughnut time sitting by the lake (not sponsored)

[tactic]

I never really found trailers that interesting tbh, if bozos is just a worse version of that it’s not worth it for me.

[coasterverse]

Trailers has definitely been one of the weakest mazes as of late - I just don’t understand why some people love it so much. I hope it’s either on the way out this year or heavily rethemed inside. Three years of Trailers without any real changes is nothing short of laziness imo.

[BBoyJD10]

This looks so bad !