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Merlin Entertainments: General Discussion

John_P said:
2026 not exactly looking great so far regarding the Merlin parks.

Only Chessington to my knowledge with anything new coming for 2026, and the same for 2027 as well. You'd have to assume based on how early planning permission was put in for the Minecraft area that probably rules out anything of real note heading to Thorpe, Alton, or Legoland Windsor in the coming years.
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For AT there are plenty of options they could build without requiring planning permissions as they have quite a few GDO's (I think submission, enterprise, blade, DF has a couple, etc) none of those would require planning, and could go along with that 3 ride huss deal thing (one flat per year).

whilst not a big addition flat rides really don't need that much work (unless you are building a concrete bridge for it) if they needed planning permission, it would probably come at like august / September so it can be approved for November closed season.

If they wanted to do something else such as a retheme (e.g Gal, TWODW), it would also not take too long to do, and planning permission would probably be submitted aiming for approval for November closed season.

It is only really big additions (rollercoasters or new lands) that would take a while to build, and probably approve)
 
Interesting that there's still so many animals there. I had assumed they'd moved all the animals out by now, wonder how much its costing them to keep everything running?

I'm curious whether Merlin will follow through on their threats, BGA is covered by Merlin's High Court Injunction so I think this group could be held in contempt of court in theory.
 
spotweld said:

From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_kQq9oMnXg


I don't condone urban exploration, but I think this is worth a watch. Stick around for her speech at the end especially.

Sorry if this is not the correct place to post this.
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Poor animals how cruel are Merlin.

Unless they are still being looked after there.

I feel sorry for the Tigers at Chessington as well with the Log Flume going its not a natural emviroment for them not to mention the noise of the other rides.
 
Now you see...
If there was one thing that stopped me renewing my (only one ever) Merlin pass...
The thought of all those poor fishies in glass boxes (cages) looking glum, bored and contained, forever.
For profit.
Captivity is crap, especially so when done for the entertainment of the superior species.
Scrap 'em all, get your education in a boat.
I hate sealife.

And I'm not sure leaving the building wide open to any bloody fool is Merlin looking after their animals well.
 
Jb85 said:
Did they though?
Early years yeh I tend to agree to around 2004….. after that though weren’t they bought out and made some questionable decisions themselves
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They brought us Nemesis, Toyland Tours, Oblivion, Haunted House, Runaway Mine Train, Air, Ripsaw, Submission, Hex, Astrodancer, Ug Land so many iconic rides got there start during this period
 
MaxPower said:
Merlin were actually a welcome change over the latter Tussauds days.


They brought back alot of entertainment and pumped alot of money into the parks to begin with. Then the Smiler got built and it was all downhill from that point really.
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The first 2 things they did Remove the Black Hole and Toyland Tours both beloved and I know people didn't take kindly to Toyland being removed
 
Hid said:
The first 2 things they did Remove the Black Hole and Toyland Tours both beloved and I know people didn't take kindly to Toyland being removed
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Tussauds, not Merlin, can be blamed for Black Hole and Toyland Tours going though while admittedly Black Hole was at the end of its working life, Toyland certainly had more potential had they kept maintaining and kept promoting the thing which the lack of either led to that ride's downfall.

But yeah, 2005 was a bad year for Towers in which not only we lost those two rides but It's was plonked in without much thought.
 
I’m actually not so certain that an overly different direction would have been taken had Tussauds kept the park. Heck, I don’t think it would have been that different had Pearson Tussauds kept the park.

A lot of the root causes of the present day problems were baked in before Merlin arrived in 2007.

A mass removal of flat rides occurred in 2004. Things like The Haunted House still slipped into a poor standard of maintenance such that it had to be heavily renovated at only 10 years old. Oblivion, built under Pearson, was arguably the start of the very marketing-driven mentality of the park for the ensuing decades afterwards.

If you remember when John Wardley made his brief appearance on here a couple of years back, he said that him and Keith Sparks wanted to add additional scenes to the Haunted House… but Pearson wouldn’t allow it because the ride had already delivered its required financial return and adding new scenes would not generate any additional return on investment. I’ve heard it said before that the Haunted House got poor in terms of maintenance as early as 1998, and the fact that most of John Wardley’s original classic dark rides had been heavily renovated by 2005 would suggest that Tussauds was never particularly great at upkeep.

This might be a controversial view, but from what I’ve heard, I actually think Pearson Tussauds were no different to Merlin in terms of upkeep. They simply had an easier time because they invested more in terms of CAPEX into new things and the bulk of the core infrastructure was a lot newer.

People idolise the Tussauds era, but I don’t think the direction taken would have ultimately been that different had Tussauds kept hold of the park.
 
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If we're talking about the golden years of Tussauds, shout out to The French Revolution. I've always said that Tussauds did well when they had to work under pressure, whether that's the tough planning laws at Alton Towers, or the 15,000 beheadings in the French Revolution. Tussauds were always very good at taking those difficult situations, and turning them into world class tourist attractions.
 
Matt N said:
I’m actually not so certain that an overly different direction would have been taken had Tussauds kept the park. Heck, I don’t think it would have been that different had Pearson Tussauds kept the park.

A lot of the root causes of the present day problems were baked in before Merlin arrived in 2007.

A mass removal of flat rides occurred in 2004. Things like The Haunted House still slipped into a poor standard of maintenance such that it had to be heavily renovated at only 10 years old. Oblivion, built under Pearson, was arguably the start of the very marketing-driven mentality of the park for the ensuing decades afterwards.

If you remember when John Wardley made his brief appearance on here a couple of years back, he said that him and Keith Sparks wanted to add additional scenes to the Haunted House… but Pearson wouldn’t allow it because the ride had already delivered its required financial return and adding new scenes would not generate any additional return on investment. I’ve heard it said before that the Haunted House got poor in terms of maintenance as early as 1998, and the fact that most of John Wardley’s original classic dark rides had been heavily renovated by 2005 would suggest that Tussauds was never particularly great at upkeep.

This might be a controversial view, but from what I’ve heard, I actually think Pearson Tussauds were no different to Merlin in terms of upkeep. They simply had an easier time because they invested more in terms of CAPEX into new things and the bulk of the core infrastructure was a lot newer.

People idolise the Tussauds era, but I don’t think the direction taken would have ultimately been that different had Tussauds kept hold of the park.
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I can understand why you’d hold this view without visiting the parks back in that Tussauds era, because a lot of the headline details aren’t massively dissimilar. With that being said, when you compare that period to where we are now, I struggle to think of anything that is really an improvement. Cleanliness, entertainment, yearly investment, general upkeep, ride availability… they were all better.

The car park was free, the monorail was clean (and open, operating efficiently), the hotels had an abundance of good quality entertainment, a great restaurant with good wine list, the park had daily live shows, a “working” farm, edible food and not extortionate prices, more flat rides, a relatively more innovative ride lineup.

Tussauds weren’t perfect, post DIC certainly pretty poor, and the initial Merlin takeover generated positive changes. Comparing 90s Tussauds and present day Merlin however is not even close.

The rot seems to have gotten so bad that the reaction to their seeming abandonment of animals is not even viewed as that much of a surprise.
 
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