2025 Season

[Mark9]

I'm really impressed by the ride teams at Thorpe. We really take for granted how hard they work to keep the rides moving so efficiently. It's really telling how good we have it, The Swarm probably had the worst ops but they were still only stacking trains for about 10 seconds per cycle (and that is an exaggeration). 

 

The Hyperia team must have been chosen by the goddess themselves, because they run that ride so well, never stacking, always dispatching as soon as they can. Also shout out to Inferno's team who were doing a great job. They need a batcher though as lots of trains going out with two empty seats next to each other.

 

And finally, the older I get the more I see myself preferring Thorpe's coaster line up to Altons. As much as I like Nemesis Reborn, I think the rest of the line up is either gimmicky nonsense, run awfully or just dull. Whereas Inferno is running the best Ive seen it (honestly, it's so good right now), Stealth and the Swarm are just so much fun, Hyperia manages to be open (  ) and I still love hanging out around Colossus and hearing that music.

 

In general Thorpe is just a better experience all round. Better hours, better rides, better food, better operations. I would have never said that 20 years ago, but now, to me, Thorpe is in a different league. 

[Inferno]

Totally agree with that. While Towers has had a huge fall from grace, Thorpe has worked incredibly hard and really have turned it around, especially over the last 5 years or so.  
 

Not many years ago, Thorpe’s reputation was at rock bottom.  That’s certainly not the case anymore.

 

There isn’t a single SBNO attraction anywhere in the park, the operations are excellent, and most of the park itself is in great shape actually.

 

I agree about the ride lineup too. It’s actually a very good and diverse list of rides. To be honest I’ve always thought that, but Hyperia really has boosted it. (Shame we lost a log flume for it though!)

 

Staff is also something that has stood out for me at Thorpe in my last few visits. Again, as said in Mark’s post, they really do work very hard, and it does show.

 

With a new entrance and security area, and a little money spent on maintenance of effects, Thorpe would really be punching above its weight.

 

It’s definitely the most exciting Merlin park that shows the most promise isn’t it.  I really hope attendance is good at Thorpe and they continue with all the improvements.

[Cal]

Thorpe have certainly done a lot right the last couple years and its great to see. 

 

It was great to see an American enthusiast group so enthusiastic about Thorpe are Hyperia in particular on twitter. Believe Hyperia got its record throughput of 54 trains in an hour on their ERT too. 

 

 

I used to love Nemesis but have never liked reborn as much as the original. Inferno seems to get better and better every year, can't beat an old school B&M.

[MattyMoo]

First not-too-good day at Thorpe in a while it appears today.

Colossus is closed all day, and was yesterday.

Nemesis Inferno closed all day.

Stealth on one train.

[Benin]

Colossus being closed would improve my visit 😉

[planenut]

On 7/1/2025 at 9:11 AM, Mark9 said:

I'm really impressed by the ride teams at Thorpe. We really take for granted how hard they work to keep the rides moving so efficiently. It's really telling how good we have it, The Swarm probably had the worst ops but they were still only stacking trains for about 10 seconds per cycle (and that is an exaggeration). 

 

The Hyperia team must have been chosen by the goddess themselves, because they run that ride so well, never stacking, always dispatching as soon as they can. Also shout out to Inferno's team who were doing a great job. They need a batcher though as lots of trains going out with two empty seats next to each other.

 

And finally, the older I get the more I see myself preferring Thorpe's coaster line up to Altons. As much as I like Nemesis Reborn, I think the rest of the line up is either gimmicky nonsense, run awfully or just dull. Whereas Inferno is running the best Ive seen it (honestly, it's so good right now), Stealth and the Swarm are just so much fun, Hyperia manages to be open (  ) and I still love hanging out around Colossus and hearing that music.

 

In general Thorpe is just a better experience all round. Better hours, better rides, better food, better operations. I would have never said that 20 years ago, but now, to me, Thorpe is in a different league. 

So true, but it annoys me that Merlin does not appear to pick up on the difference. How can they not assess their operations.

[MattL28]

According to a LinkedIn, A new role at Thorpe Park has been created: Creative Manager - overseeing creative maintenance across the park, while continuing to support the conceptualisation of future Fright Nights, as well as new projects, land developments, and ride rethemes.

 

The person is quite well known, but I’ll leave that to linked in.

 

It’s interesting to see a role as such created in the current climate and will be interesting to see how much impact they have on implementing changes and maintaining theming. That’s is something key to all Merlin parks as MMM can create something really good and the parks let it go downhill.

 

Also very interesting in this current climate is the mention of lands and ride rethemes. I mean there’s not much at Thorpe which could be rethemed other than the walking dead which is long rumoured to be next. The rest have been rethemed in the past couple of years.

 

 

[Project LC]

There is always Saw. If Merlins approach becomes cost cutting everywhere IPs may be moved to the chopping block. 

[Cal]

I've just seen on Linkdin that Russ Gaines, who was the commercial director for the last 6 years has left his role at the park.

 

He was a very public figure, appearing in lots of Jack Silkstones videos and clearly had a lot of passion for the park, so its a shame to see him go. 

 

Don't really know what impact hes had at the park during his time but always a shame to see someone with clear passion leave. 

[Inferno]

Ah interesting - there have been a couple of fairly high profile people exit their roles at Thorpe now… 

Hopefully all will be well at Thorpe, because these last few years it’s been run better than it has for a very long time.

 

Good luck to them all

 

I have wondered if a few of the current and recently ex Merlin employees will pop up in Universal. Time will tell!

[MattyMoo]

On 7/9/2025 at 9:09 PM, MattL28 said:

Also very interesting in this current climate is the mention of lands and ride rethemes. I mean there’s not much at Thorpe which could be rethemed other than the walking dead which is long rumoured to be next. The rest have been rethemed in the past couple of years.

 

 

 

 

"Lands" at Thorpe is a cyclical process, they get removed and re-added every 3-5 years 😁

 

I know it's peak season but some of those queue times yesterday were horrific - Hyperia being ded all day didn't help, but Detty on an hour, Walking Dead on 80-90 minutes, Storm Surge on 80-90 minutes. Stealth, Nemmy and Colossus were all 100+ at one point. Grim. But at least the park is making some money so the Tidal Wave flame effect is instated for 2026.

 

[Inferno]

Imagine queueing 90 mins for twd 😬 

[Benin]

School trip season and kids don't know any better.

[JoshC.]

On 7/13/2025 at 6:12 PM, Cal said:

I've just seen on Linkdin that Russ Gaines, who was the commercial director for the last 6 years has left his role at the park.

 

He was a very public figure, appearing in lots of Jack Silkstones videos and clearly had a lot of passion for the park, so its a shame to see him go. 

 

Don't really know what impact hes had at the park during his time but always a shame to see someone with clear passion leave. 

 

Certainly a shame that Russ left. 

 

We'll never know exactly what he was responsible for, but he obviously served as a face for the park for a long period of time via Jack's videos, having a reasonable open Instagram page and being quite visible on park.

 

He joined as a director at the park at a time when there were several directors coming and going at the park, before the current long-running stability we've seen. Regardless of what's happened at the high Merlin level, and the issues this is causing Thorpe and the other parks, I do think Thorpe's current success was built on stability at their leadership level.

 

On 7/9/2025 at 9:09 PM, MattL28 said:

According to a LinkedIn, A new role at Thorpe Park has been created: Creative Manager - overseeing creative maintenance across the park, while continuing to support the conceptualisation of future Fright Nights, as well as new projects, land developments, and ride rethemes.

 

The person is quite well known, but I’ll leave that to linked in.

 

It’s interesting to see a role as such created in the current climate and will be interesting to see how much impact they have on implementing changes and maintaining theming. That’s is something key to all Merlin parks as MMM can create something really good and the parks let it go downhill.

 

Also very interesting in this current climate is the mention of lands and ride rethemes. I mean there’s not much at Thorpe which could be rethemed other than the walking dead which is long rumoured to be next. The rest have been rethemed in the past couple of years.

 

 

 

I'd expect that the role description is sort of all-encapsulating. In other words, it's not saying "Rethemes and lands are coming", but rather "If a retheme or a land was to come to light, it would be in the remit of the Creative Manager".

 

I imagine that part of the reason the role was created is because the Entertainments Department is set to be outsourced, like Towers and Legoland. So the person's previous role, which was related to Ents, would change significantly, so it makes sense for that role to develop and make use of the creative skills they have.

 

The big thing here is that there's now someone looking after the "creative maintenance" of the park. Hopefully that means ride effects. So hopefully there's some positive changes there (looking at Swarm and Inferno), and also moving forward, there's someone at Thorpe who can liaise with MMM to say "This is not a worthwhile effect we can realistically maintain, do not include this" (looking at the Hyperia splashdown)

[MattyMoo]

No Russ, no Tidal Wave flame effect 😥