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WTF Merlin?

Isn't it just the back of the Walking Dead / X building?

Really wonder what the future holds for Thorpe Park. It seems really bleak what's going on.
 
Well, I did keep telling people they weren't getting that RMC after the banner that people thought was track and I thought looked more like the entrance bridge ;)
 
So many wrong decisions across the last decade or so. A park that was so massively on the rise across the 00's has really stagnated and fallen. Turd IP after Turd IP after Turd IP.

Their investments (if you can call them that) 2010 onwards (bar Swarm) remind me of the Simpsons episode when sideshow Bob keeps treading on all those rakes.
 
I don't think it's too bad tbh but then expectations are currently very low.

This could surely be Merlin's most profitable season in years due to the travel restrictions, so hopefully things will look a bit brighter in the coming years.
 
Marcus said:
So many wrong decisions across the last decade or so. A park that was so massively on the rise across the 00's has really stagnated and fallen. Turd IP after Turd IP after Turd IP.

Their investments (if you can call them that) 2010 onwards (bar Swarm) remind me of the Simpsons episode when sideshow Bob keeps treading on all those rakes.
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As I think I've said a few times too many already, the stagnation is even worse when you take into account that one day, the mechanical attractions will be too old to operate and will need replacement. These rides were all built within a very short timespan, so when that day comes, they will have to rebuild almost the entire park at once.

Let's see, I did the math once: Thorpe currently operates 25 main attractions: 7 coasters, 12 flat rides (counting the dodgems), 4 water rides, DBGT, and the 4D cinema (plus Amity Beach, for what it's worth). By 2035, 14 years from now, 18 of these attractions will be 30 years old or more (and 8 will have reached 40). Assuming that half of these rides will have to be retired around age 30, Thorpe is due 9 replacements before 2035 to retain its current lineup. Or in other words, if they don't build one major ride every other year starting now, they will be falling behind schedule. Mind you, this is only to preserve the park as it currently is, not expanding it, and assuming half of their aging attractions are surviving longer than that. I'd call those assumptions quite optimistic. One major ride, at a scale of which the park hasn't seen since Swarm or so, every two years, starting immediately.

If they wait another five years before starting, they'd have to build a new ride every year to make up for the wave of rides going defunct in the mid-2030s. From an outsider perspective, it doesn't look like they are preparing much for that wave. A maze attraction or upcharge escape room will not compensate for the loss of a major coaster. Nor will they form part of a park's "backbone" of attractions ten years after opening.

To take an example: Guests have as much fun on Samurai today as guests had when it was built in 2004. After 17 years, it still goes strong. But I have a hunch that Black Mirror Labyrinth will not be as enjoyable to 2038 audiences as it is today. A large part of the fun of the current Thorpe is the attractions built 15-20 years ago. When 2030 arrives, what 15-20-year old attractions will Thorpe have to fall back on? Swarm, the Dodgems, and the Angry Birds 4D cinema, plus DBGT if it lasts that long. That's literally every ride in the park manufactured between 2010 and 2015 (Storm Surge was built in Florida in 2001). In the next five-year period, there were only two kiddie flat rides and the aforementioned escape rooms/mazes. When the day comes for the late-90's-early-00's rides to retire, that lineup is what Thorpe will have to rely on. Four family attractions, a crappy dark ride, and an aging coaster. That plus whatever they build between now and then. If they don't build anything, well, there won't be much left to form a park in the future. Or they will need one heck of an investment at once to get back in shape, that's an option too of course. But it's not an option I see Merlin going for anytime soon.
 
Yes, it's to encourage people to stop grabbing single use paper maps, whilst still providing them for those who want to collect them, that said £3.50 is quite steep, should be a quid.
 
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Tonkso said:
Yes, it's to encourage people to stop grabbing single use paper maps, whilst still providing them for those who want to collect them, that said £3.50 is quite steep, should be a quid.
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It comes back to the discussion that was had when Movie Park Germany announced they weren't doing paper maps this year. Printing maps adds costs to parks, which is unnecessary when digital maps are a thing thanks to apps. If parks charge for them, it's there simply to squeeze money out of guests imo. Particularly the case when the map is literally something one could just print off at home.
 
I agree that maps need to be cut down on. Every park has an app nowadays and should be working in real time to show what is closed/queue times, so pushing to use the app (and the revenue derived from that) should happen. But those who want a map should get one £1-£2 is reasonable, £3.50, even with a lanyard is too much.
Cannot say I'm surprised.

That Black Mirror attraction though, got to be one of the worst attempts in the past 5 years for sure, that's embarrassing.
 
JoshC. said:
Chessington are charged £3.50 for a park map this year apparently (source: https://live.themeparkguide.biz/?live=CWOA21)

THREE POUND BLOODY FIFTY

(edit: it also includes a lanyard as well apparently, but still)
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Remind me of Roller Coaster Tycoon and how you could make guests get lost then charge them for maps. Soon Merlin will be doubling the price of umbrellas on rainy days...
 
I think it opens a wider conversation on waste in parks in general. I love parks, I wouldn't be on this forum if I didn't, but they're probably one of the most wasteful things we do at the moment. By this, I mean bins full of plastic cups, single use cutlery and other plastic crap that belongs back in the 90s. I'd love to see more parks invest in an on-site bioreactor facilitating the proper rollout and disposal of veg-ware in place of single use plastic in place today.

I also want to see, and I am well aware this is in the category of 'easier said than done' and 'with what money', dark ride roofs absolutely covered in solar.
 
With regard to your second point @Tonkso; quite a lot of modern dark rides do use solar power. For example, I know that Symbolica at Efteling has a load of solar panels on its roof!
 
Which is awesome. There's so much real estate on park roofs that could be used, here in the UK we'd probably be better off installing some of those smaller vertical aspect wind turbines or those new um, skybrators. I did ponder if coaster supports could support some vertical aspect turbines, but the resonation would likely be problematic.
 
I'm sure I read Efteling are looking to install solar panels across the entire car park.

Would be good to see parks promote the use of metal water canisters far more along with water fountains and/or coke refill machines, rather than the constant plastic bottle stuff. Has to be one of the biggest wastes.
 
What's the quality of the map like? I wouldn't mind paying £3 for a souvenir map if it was a reasonable size on decent paper/card stock, but I'd be pretty miffed if I got a regular old map for the price!

Mind you, kudos to Merlin for just eating the £2 each map must have been costing every year before this!


I'd love it if more parks started adding renewable energy sources to stuff. Obviously you couldn't reliably run Taron off solar, but you could power a lot of the rest of the area!

I wonder how feasible retro-fitting some kind of regenerative braking on older rides would be?
 
Used to be quite common to pay for toilets in The Netherlands. I remember Efteling had that about 13-14 years ago. Pretty sure it has all been done away with in theme parks at least.

Much rather pay higher entry fee than all that kind of stupid nonsense. Regardless, change / coins is a thing of the past in a post Covid world.
 
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