I know its early but thought it would be good to keep conversation of 2025 separate. 

 

Opening hours for the 2025 have been released already.

 

https://www.thorpepark.com/plan-your-visit/before-you-visit/opening-times/

 

- Season will start on Friday 28th March and end on Sunday 2nd November.

- Continuation of 5pm closes for off peak weekdays, 6pm for holidays and every weekend.

- Couple of closed Wednesdays during April and May but they were very quiet this year.

- 7pm closes throughout the summer holidays and every Saturday from mid June. 

- September has a couple of closed Wednesdays. 

- Park will be closed in October except for Fright Night dates + Thurs 2nd which will likely be press night. Fright nights has the exact same amount of nights and structure to 2024.

 

Overall, they're pretty good and very similar to this years apart from some extra closed days, which were all very quiet this year. Its good to see they haven't been cut with the uncertainty around merlin at the moment. Of course they are subject to change but I've never seen Thorpe reduce their opening hours once published.

 

I would love to see the return of some 9pm closes in summer and 10pm for Fright Nights, or even trial a later opening and closing time for Fright Nights so we have more time in the dark. 

Looks good. I'd assume it isn't just a copy and paste job as there would have been some thought about publishing it.

 

I don't think these tend to get finalised until later in the year / early 2025, so we could see some tweaks yet, as well as additions / later closing times like we did this year.

 

But yeah, stable opening times is a win at the moment. Hopefully they can experiment with some later closings over summer, but even if they stay as is, I'm happy with what we've got.

Just surprised they haven't had any days of fully booked RAP yet.

On 11/2/2024 at 11:15 AM, Cal said:

- Park will be closed in October except for Fright Night dates + Thurs 2nd which will likely be press night. Fright nights has the exact same amount of nights and structure to 2024.

 

No bargain 2 day stay in non FN's October for me and my pal next year then

 

5 hours ago, MattyMoo said:

 

No bargain 2 day stay in non FN's October for me and my pal next year then

 

 

Have you got a merlin pass/thorpe pass? 

 

If you book a date either side of a closed date in September for 2 people its currently £65 and include unlimited all day fasttrack including on Hyperia. Crazy value seeing as Hyperia 1 shots are currently £20.

 

https://www.thorpepark.com/short-breaks/offers-packages/merlin-holiday-club/

@Cal that's an incredible bargain, however I'm a fake fan and am MAP-less!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDIFgmQPS5P/?igsh=bHB5emRqa3VyOGwy

park announcing something today?

“Memorabilia” - I guess the online shop is getting some new stuff?

 

If only this was an announcement for a log flume - I really miss Loggers Leap

Old stuff shifted out the shed to flog to goons with too much money.

 

What you buying @JoshC.?

49 minutes ago, Benin said:

Old stuff shifted out the shed to flog to goons with too much money.

 

What you buying @JoshC.?

 

I'm flattered you think I have too much money.

 

If it's parts of Loggers Leap in any way (signs, boats, wheels, whatever), it's wonderful to see the park offer that stuff, but will be priced way beyond my limit (or, if it's an auction, the bids will go way beyond anything I'm willing to pay).

 

If it's a new memorabilia merch line related Loggers Leap / old rides, then it's a good thing for me the teacher pay rise for the last few months gets stuck onto the December pay packet...

You sure you don't have £600 (starting bid) for an old Loggers boat?

 

http://thorpepark.com/auction

Pricing is inconsistent but why does it matter when everything will be in the £1000s

 

Only 20% for charity?

are they really that struggling for money?

3 hours ago, MattL28 said:

Pricing is inconsistent but why does it matter when everything will be in the £1000s

 

Only 20% for charity?

are they really that struggling for money?

I thought that was very telling. 20% is very poor

I absolutely love the Inferno, Stealth and Colossus carnival posters - but alas, I am poor.

 

As much as I'd love all the proceeds to go to charity, to be fair I don't think that should be an expectation - other businesses sell their unused stuff and it isn't expected of them.

Weird one isn't it.

 

On the one hand, it's Thorpe's stuff, they're selling it, so they have no need to donate any money to charity. No one bats an eyelid when Towers or Blackpool or any other park sells off old ride parts / signs for complete profit.

 

On the other hand, it's an auction. The money they could make is quite literally limitless. They could have just set these as limited edition, first-come-first-serve items at a set price, and told people to suck it up. It's smart they haven't gone down that route. But y'know, they could have given more to charity.

 

At the same time, the charity is Merlin's Magic Wand, so it's still all going to Merlin one way or another really.

 

Will be very interesting to see how much some of that goes for...

They gotta pay for that Minecraft license somehow. 

 

And whatever nonsense they decide to tack onto Hyperia next year.

7 hours ago, Benin said:

And whatever nonsense they decide to tack onto Hyperia next year.

 

Please don't say such things 😥

The only thing I want them to tack on is a proper fence around the "landscaping".

Auction went live yesterday. People learnt that, because you didn't need credit/debit card details, you could inflate the prices forever with a couple of accounts.. 

 

 

Thorpe are deleting obvious stupid bids, but it's a shame that they couldn't find a way to have stopped such shenanigans...

Prices seem a bit more "normal" now.

 

People really are idiots though.

Are you saying several billion for a Loggers Leap boat isn't worth it?

After being retired, reinstated, retired, and reinstated again, the recently retired area names have been reinstated on the map on the app.

I wonder how long this will last before they are retired.

 

Interestingly ‘The Jungle’ name has been retired, and the previously retired ‘Calypso Quay’ name has been reinstated.

 

 

It actually kinda annoys me, last season they were saying that land names were pointless because there are no defined entrance portals and then at the same time create big easy boulevard and fearless valley.

 
I genuinely would be happy if in 2025 they have entrance portals located at points in the park. 
 

Even as simple as the rainforest at Chessington.

No name for the ghost train area, but makes sense as it looks like they are saving the slammer area for when they knock ghost train down and have a big area to use

 

Ah, we're back to that point in the Thorpe branding cycle.

17 hours ago, Inferno said:

After being retired, reinstated, retired, and reinstated again, the recently retired area names have been reinstated on the map on the app.

I wonder how long this will last before they are retired.

 

Interestingly ‘The Jungle’ name has been retired, and the previously retired ‘Calypso Quay’ name has been reinstated.

 

 

The one thing I've noticed is that Saw Island is simply known as "Saw - The Ride and Samurai" which isn't a very good area name. It's just two rides put together by the sounds of it.

It's weird as the marketing team has been largely consistent for a number of years. In fact, I think it's pretty much the exact same team as the ones who made the decision to drop areas. My point being: it's not like 7-8 years ago where we were in a marketing carousel which chopped and changed every year.

 

Thing is, if you're doing themed areas, you need to go quite far with them. You can't half-heart it, or pick and choose where on park you do it. And it's very hard (and not to mention, uncommon) for a park to switch from non-themed to themed areas. When parks do it, it's a long, slow process (Walibi Belgium is a good example of this).

 

But yeah, with this map, we've got multiple parts of the park which aren't themed areas. Depth Charge, Beach and the Arena space are in No Man's Land. So too is Ghost Train and Walking Dead. Saw and Samurai's land is...Saw And Samurai.

 

I wonder if they've just added it as a test to see what would happen, what the reaction might be, etc. 

 

Frankly, I don't care even way at this point if Thorpe go with themed areas or not. Just pick a lane and be consistent with it.