September 26, 20159 yr comment_218867 In a way we've gone full circle by having an electronic display over the entrance!
September 26, 20159 yr comment_218888 Was this long enough ago that I can jest about the Phantom of Liam White's ear haunting Thorpe without being a monster? Also: Wow progress. Behind the 2 ticket booths you can see that canopy building is the same structure that's there now, but roofed and with the 3 turrets added. The electronic display is funny.
September 26, 20159 yr comment_218933 We know by now it's not exactly Thorpe's style to demolish things and rebuild from scratch.
October 1, 20159 yr comment_219363 Wait... You could get wet on what is now Rumba? Oh yeah, Tussauds where running the place [emoji14]
October 1, 20159 yr comment_219365 There are lots of water effects on Rumba that have been removed fairly recently or that just don't work. There was the waterfall and leaking pipes just before you go into the tunnel, the waterfall on the side of the trough on the straight section heading towards the tunnel, water sprayers in the tunnel (not the waterfall, there used to be small sprayers which got you as you went through), three water jets just before the lifthill and I'm sure the shower actually used to work! Rumba is so dull these days, literally nothing happens.
October 1, 20159 yr comment_219366 Thunder River was one of those, I'm not going on that today I washed my hair this morning, rides. Rumba is a splish and splash.
November 9, 20159 yr comment_222981 I've always thought that the roads were designed to be theming, since the old areas ('Central Park' was one, the names of others escape me) leant themselves to having 'roads'. Could of course be wildly wrong and it might have been due to a more boring / practical reason, but that's the logical explanation I've always thought of.
November 9, 20159 yr comment_222984 Yeh I think you're right, they are supposed to be roads with pavements as part of the park's original design. Not to suit any particular theme as such, it's just another remnant of the rather plain or dated way the park was originally planned/built. This was well before the idea that even the paths and buildings are part of a total experience came about properly in the UK, at a time when most UK parks were very geometrically planned and quaint looking. I'm thinking mostly of the old 80s 'central' area which kind of 80% still exists under the surface. Of course they all function as real roads most the time when visitors aren't on park.
November 10, 20159 yr comment_223022 Sorry, I was born 20 years after the 80's so I don't know where the old Central Park area was. Can anyone tell me which current area used to be known as Central Park?
November 10, 20159 yr comment_223023 That's interesting about the roads, I always thought they were for vehicle access but that made no sense as they can drive across the paths where there is no road.
November 10, 20159 yr comment_223024 Sorry, I was born 20 years after the 80's so I don't know where the old Central Park area was. Can anyone tell me which current area used to be known as Central Park? Everything from Tidal Wave to Rumba Rapids basically... Whilst it fits thematically into Amity Cove, it's always been a tad questionable around Calypso, though it doesn't really matter... I don't get the book reference thing...
November 10, 20159 yr comment_223026 I was born 15 years after the 80s so not totally clued up, but doing some digging the blocks of buildings in the centre of the park was the imaginatively named 'central' area. It's actually more interesting than you think as all of those buildings once housed a lot of different things, and the facades once very eclectically decorated and diverse. Can anyone shed some more light on these old buildings...? KFC/arcade ("Amity Hotel") building was Space Station Zero & Carousel Kingdom once upon a time. There was also a fountain square out the back, where the path up behind Detonator is today, which is now gone. The building was about twice the length, going right across over the Detonator area and ending near the Nemesis Inferno entrance. This second half of the building housed Wicked Witches Haunt, it's kind of difficult to picture the exact footprint compared to today, unless you look at old aerial photos from before the 2000 fire. Then on the opposite side of the 'road' was the more European styled buildings, now the Pizza Hut, Burger King, toilets and 4D cinema. These were originally a theatre (now Angry Birds), the Thorpe Radio station, a set of restaurants and I'm not sure what's on the upper level. Obviously the facades on this building have been drastically altered from the old Central design, becoming 'calypso', 'pirates', 'Angry Birds' and 'Amity Cove' at one time or another. Most the exterior detail is gone, painted over multiple times and just all rather difficult to work out how it used to be.
November 23, 20159 yr comment_223841 Who remembers this music? https://youtu.be/8EGQQxAgrdE The memories!
November 23, 20159 yr comment_223856 It still plays that theme to date. Just that track was played more widely along with the other one in the area back in the day. It also played on the beach for a couple of seasons before the pop music.
December 10, 20159 yr comment_224498 Am I going mad, but sure until a few years ago, there was an iron age hut on the western side of the park - almost behind the VIP hospitality tent. Looking at Google earth its long gone, possibly as part of Swarm construction. Used to be able to see it from Tidal Wave before Stealth boxed it in.
December 10, 20159 yr comment_224509 It certainly existed, I thought it was listed and therefore couldn't be removed? If they had touched it we'd surely have seen planning? I think it's probably still there, but where its surroundings have changed so much we're not looking in the right place.
December 11, 20159 yr comment_224537 Possibly, certainly can't see it on Google earth - if you go back in time on it, you can see it. Having said that, from previous conversations there is nothing listed at Thorpe. I'd assumed it was.
December 19, 20168 yr comment_246021 Anyone with Spotify... Bizarrely enough the Thorpe Park Rangers Show songs are on there! Before my time but entertaining none the less!
December 30, 20168 yr comment_246301 God it's bad that I remember pretty much most of those attractions existing... #soold
December 30, 20168 yr comment_246302 Thorpe Park's lovely days were really something special. That's not the greatest footage of it but nice to see a bit more of it in video. I just started visiting at the end of that sort of era and it's pretty shocking to look back now and see the difference, and the things that I'd almost forgotten
June 11, 20178 yr comment_250224 Two pieces of nostalgia here, the park in the 90s, and a kids tv show I grew up with
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