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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

With regard to Thorpe's new coaster; part of this is going to sound like a strange request, but the simple thing that I hope for from this ride is that it's fun and rerideable as opposed to out and out intense, and for the strange part, I actually hope it's something smooth.


I feel that something that's just pure fun and easily rerideable is something that Thorpe lacks at present. Something that's smooth, nice and floaty (or just airtime-filled), thrilling but not too intense, and just purely fun as opposed to some brain-draining out and out force machine. That's why I would love for this to be a B&M Hyper; I remember Mako ticking all of these boxes!


I used to think that Swarm filled this void, but a few things have happened with that one over time that have made it lose this status for me; the sustained g's in that helicopter helix are beginning to make me grey out for a sustained period of time most times I do it (which I don't especially enjoy), I'm growing to not be too keen on the restraints, and I also think it's getting a bit rougher. Not rough by any means, but in September, I had a back outer ride that really juddered quite a bit, and even the inner seats are beginning to develop a bit of a grind/rattle that the ride never used to have; it certainly seems to have lost that silky smoothness it once had for me. (Has anyone else found this, as I feel like I'm going insane here; most others still refer to Swarm as silky smooth and not intense in the slightest?) Don't get me wrong, I still like Swarm a lot; these are quite minor niggles in the grand scheme of things, and I think the ride's high points are still amazing enough to keep it in my top 10 (I do love its sensation of speed, and the speed of that first drop and huge negative g's of that final inversion are just absolutely spectacular!), but it's certainly becoming less my kind of thing, and is slipping down the top 10 for me (it's #8 currently, whereas it has been as high as #3 within the last year or two, and I reckon Europa next year could well move it out of the top 10 entirely, what with their big 3 aligning directly with my current top 3 in terms of ride types; we'll have to wait and see on that one. To be honest, based on my rides last September, I'm quite tempted to push it down to #9 or #10 and consider Inferno my favourite Thorpe coaster; Swarm currently just edges Inferno, but to be honest, I'm reconsidering that, in hindsight... Inferno has grown on me a lot).


Before I go off on too much of a Swarm tangent, I was going to lead on to say; the reason I'd like something smooth is because I actually think that Thorpe has a surprisingly rough (or at least, not smooth) selection of coasters given that none of them are that old. From my experience, while Swarm and Inferno are not especially rough by any means, none of their coasters are nice and silky smooth in the way that I personally really like in a coaster; Inferno is probably their smoothest, and Swarm isn't a rough coaster by any means, but Stealth is feeling quite jolty these days (the ascent in particular really bashed me around a fair bit and gave me a headache on my rides in September, and the descent also bounces you about a fair bit towards the back... but again, I never hear this brought up about Stealth, so I must ask; am I the only one who's noticed this), Saw, while it has been feeling smoother and growing on me a bit lately, is still quite rough in places, and Colossus... I don't think that one warrants an explanation from me based on many comments from enthusiasts about it over the years. Let's just say it's among my least favourite coasters and keep it at that...


I should preface the above by saying that my roughness tolerance is quite low, but my point still stands.


Of the 3 major UK thrill parks (Alton, BPB and Thorpe), I'd say that Thorpe is the only one that doesn't have something that fills that fun, floaty/airtime-y and effortlessly rerideable void. From my perspective, Blackpool has Icon to fill this void and Alton has Wicker Man to fill this void, and both of those coasters are in my top 3. From a personal perspective, I really hope that Thorpe's 2024 coaster, whatever it ends up being, fills this void for them.
 
I agree with what @Matt N is saying about Thorpe's new coaster but I'll also add that it needs to be marketable. In theory The Swarm should have been and it's advert wasn't bad. I think the main issue was that it was 2012 were lots of the UK parks struggled with attendance. I think if it had been any other year Thorpe would've been a climb in attendance.

But whatever this new coaster is it needs to be really marketable and marketed really well for it to be a success for Thorpe. If it is the UK's tallest that should make it relatively straight forward for the marketing team if it isn't it might be a little bit harder of a sell but they really need to push it. In my opinion they should focus on the London audience, in theory you shouldn't be able to move around London without seeing an advert for it. There also needs to be a big presence on both TV and social media about it.

I don't think we can under estimate the importance of this ride to the future of Thorpe. It will be there first coaster in well over 10 years when it happens so Merlin has clearly been reluctant to take the risk. Which is definitely understandable because several big investments have flopped in a row but that was because they were badly done. If this ride is successful we may well see more investment in Thorpe and Merlin actually starting to care for it. If not the park will probably end up neglected and running on a shoe string budget. This ride needs to create a new refreshed buzz around the park that makes Merlin want to invest more. The only way for Thorpe to get better if through big investment and this could well be an attempt at that.
 
My personal prediction is a B&M Hyper Coaster that will take the UK height record and open in 2024.

In terms of everything else; I wouldn’t want to be too conclusive on some of the other things, but I’ll take some guesses for a few of them.

I’ll take a punt on there being 3 trains, with each train containing 28 riders (so 7 row trains like Mako and Candymonium), and while this is a bit of a wilder guess; based on the Exodus teasers from Fright Nights, I’m going to take a stab at it potentially having a space/extra-terrestrial theme of some description.

I might have to bring this post up again on 8th or 9th December, depending on how early details leak…
 
My personal guess is B&M Hyper Coaster that will take the UK height record and will open in 2024.

In terms of everything else; I wouldn’t want to be too conclusive on some of the other things, but I’ll take some guesses for a few of them.

I’ll take a punt on there being 3 trains, with each train containing 28 riders (so 7 row trains like Mako and Candymonium), and while this is a bit of a wilder guess; based on the Exodus teasers from Fright Nights, I’m going to take a stab at it potentially having a space/extra-terrestrial theme of some description.

I might have to bring this post up again on 8th or 9th December, depending on how early details leak…
Take all my answers from my why don't you @Matt N (for clarity this is a joke)!
I'm not sure about a sweepstake but if someone makes one here would be my guesses for what categories @Matt878787 mentioned
  • Manufacturer - B&M
  • Theme - No idea but will go with the theme of flight
  • track colour - white because Stealth had to be white to not ruin views so I'll suspect this will have too as well.
  • Number of trains - 3 as most hypers have three trains
  • I'll also add in Matt N's number of riders per train - 32 so 8 rows like Diamondback at Kings island and some of the other older hyper. I think Merlin will want this to be the throughput machine of the park, especially as it will likely be the new signature ride and the most popular at the park.
 
So we want a yet another 1.4mtr height restriction coaster - in a park that has plenty already and has a history of alienating families and is suffering as a result - that costs £tens of millions - is 250ft + high - but has to be less intense than the Swarms relatively gentle Helix's?
 
So we want a yet another 1.4mtr height restriction coaster - in a park that has plenty already and has a history of alienating families and is suffering as a result - that costs £tens of millions - is 250ft + high - but has to be less intense than the Swarms relatively gentle Helix's?
Perhaps “intense” was the wrong word on my part, as I’ll admit that the rest of Swarm isn’t the most intense, but based on my recent rides, I’d personally say that Swarm’s low helix over the water is one of the most intense moments of sustained g’s in the country; I always grey out for at least a few seconds there now (sometimes close to 10 seconds, with it starting as soon as you pull out of the inclined loop and ending when you leave the corkscrew directly after), and for my money, it’s certainly the most intense moment on any Thorpe coaster (on my last visit, the only other coaster that even vaguely made me lose my vision was Stealth going up into the top hat, and even then I’m not sure if it made me properly grey out), and possibly right up there with Nemesis’ helix and Revolution’s loop as one of the most intense coaster moments in the country.

I know you could do a B&M Hyper less intense than that while still being great fun because for what it’s worth, I don’t remember Mako making me even vaguely lose my vision. The ride type generally isn’t known for sustained g-forces like Wing Coasters are, so I was hopeful that a hyper might provide something more fun, floaty and rerideable as opposed to out-and-out intense, which I think would provide a nice contrast to Thorpe’s current lineup. This is purely based on my personal preference, though; the average visitor may well want something completely different!

In terms of the park being failed by going for thrills; has it ever been confirmed that this is why the park has struggled in recent years? I only ask because the park made a big success of pursuing the thrill seeker market right up to Swarm’s failure in 2012, so I’m unsure whether it’s the thrill market alone that’s causing their present slump or just the fact that they haven’t invested in anything big and marketable in a while; the recent period has been a bit quiet on the investment front.

I’m not saying a family thrill coaster of some sort wouldn’t be great; I’d be thrilled with one, and I think it could be nice to even the park out! However, I do think that a thrill coaster would be a very worthwhile investment at this stage, and I don’t personally see it being the wasted investment that many make out.
 
Provided the people live locally I don't see the issue with local enthusiasts going to speak in favour of the construction.

The point of this in person consultation isn't to see who's in favour and who's not in favour of a new roller coaster.

The point is to let local residents know their plan for a future investment, the potential impacts it could have short and long term, and allow the locals to discuss any concerns they have.

I don't think there's a particular issue with anyone who is local going and not being against the proposals. But it's worth keeping in mind what the point of the consultation is, and being respectful of the process. Going so they can try and probe all the geeky details and get the exclusive YouTube clicks is against that imo
 
Unique and World Class are very much marketing terms at this point... but I don't think a unique hyper coaster is out of the question, it's just unlikely to come from B&M.

Here are a few examples of unique (or at least interesting) coasters over 200ft:

- Sky Rush / Flying Aces - Intamin's hyper wing coasters (sort of)
- Schwur des Kärnan - Gerstlauer's insane infinity coaster
- Big Air - Vekoma's half pipe. Ok it's not the type of coaster we'd want but it is over 200ft and very unique. Intamin also do a lot of unique shuttle coasters that go over 200ft.
- Flash - Mack's hyper coaster with a loop
- Zadra - RMC have already been mentioned a lot but I had to include them because they now have 3 coasters breaking the 200ft mark that are all fairly unique.

So there are a lot of options available for rides of that size. A few existing coaster types also have the potential to go beyond 200ft but havn't yet. There's a lot of possibilities.
 
My personal prediction is a B&M Hyper Coaster that will take the UK height record and open in 2024.

In terms of everything else; I wouldn’t want to be too conclusive on some of the other things, but I’ll take some guesses for a few of them.

I’ll take a punt on there being 3 trains, with each train containing 28 riders (so 7 row trains like Mako and Candymonium), and while this is a bit of a wilder guess; based on the Exodus teasers from Fright Nights, I’m going to take a stab at it potentially having a space/extra-terrestrial theme of some description.

I might have to bring this post up again on 8th or 9th December, depending on how early details leak…

I hope you’re wrong on the theme, purely because I don’t think that space themes work at all well for outdoor attractions (see Galactica). I’m also not convinced they’re seen as particularly marketable these days as it has connotations of Space Mountain and the deluge of similar coasters that it brought in the 80s (eg The Black Hole). For what it’s worth I’d love a space/ ET themed ride but it needs to be indoors for me, although I suppose there’s nothing to stop even a hyper having indoor elements.

It probably won’t happen, but as I’m a massive dark ride fan I’m going to say it will be some kind of indoor coaster, or at least a coaster with indoor scenes. Perhaps a Mack spinning coaster themed around time travel or something, that would be awesome and tick the family box more than a hyper would. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy with a hyper although I’d probably prefer an RMC given the choice.
 
So we want a yet another 1.4mtr height restriction coaster - in a park that has plenty already and has a history of alienating families and is suffering as a result - that costs £tens of millions - is 250ft + high - but has to be less intense than the Swarms relatively gentle Helix's?

Do we know what height restriction similar tall rollercoasters have?
I agree that Thorpe really needs more lower restriction rides, but I also agree UKs tallest would be great marketing.

Mako at Seaworld is 54" height restriction which is 137cm
The Big One at Blackpool is 52" which is 132cm.

So I would expect anything breaking a height record will have at least a 1.3m restriction, maybe a 1.4m.

But if it doesn't invert then it might at least look less intense and have a wider appeal compared to something like Nemesis or Colossus.

Although they probably should look at adding a 1.2m and a 1m attraction as filler rides.
 
Unique and World Class are very much marketing terms at this point... but I don't think a unique hyper coaster is out of the question, it's just unlikely to come from B&M.

Here are a few examples of unique (or at least interesting) coasters over 200ft:

- Sky Rush / Flying Aces - Intamin's hyper wing coasters (sort of)
- Schwur des Kärnan - Gerstlauer's insane infinity coaster
- Big Air - Vekoma's half pipe. Ok it's not the type of coaster we'd want but it is over 200ft and very unique. Intamin also do a lot of unique shuttle coasters that go over 200ft.
- Flash - Mack's hyper coaster with a loop
- Zadra - RMC have already been mentioned a lot but I had to include them because they now have 3 coasters breaking the 200ft mark that are all fairly unique.

So there are a lot of options available for rides of that size. A few existing coaster types also have the potential to go beyond 200ft but havn't yet. There's a lot of possibilities.
Out of interest, why do you feel a B&M is unlikely? Merlin have been working with them a fair bit lately.
 
Sorry to double post, but I think I badly phrased my earlier statement about not wanting a coaster that’s a force machine.

What I meant was; my personal hope is that this coaster is something more focused on negative g’s and airtime as opposed to strong positive g’s, and I also hope for something that focuses on fun and rerideability while still being thrilling.

Sorry if I didn’t make that clear.
 
Ironically i know a fair few people who have been on airtime filled coasters and come off saying they didn't like it as they thought they were going to fall out, so didn't ride again. The secret geek in me wanted to explain how safe they are, but the general public in me just agreed and went and bought a hot dog instead.
 
Ironically i know a fair few people who have been on airtime filled coasters and come off saying they didn't like it as they thought they were going to fall out, so didn't ride again. The secret geek in me wanted to explain how safe they are, but the general public in me just agreed and went and bought a hot dog instead.
I’ve only ever been on one B+M Hyper and the sensation you describe is what scared me with Mako (not enough to not go on it again, I went on it 3 times that day), but I do find it terrifying and no amount of logical reasoning is enough to curb that fear when I’m being lifted out of my seat and can feel my thighs pressing against the restraint. I like being scared though, so it’s fine, but I do think those small lap bar restraints add to the fear factor on a coaster that tall.
 
Out of interest, why do you feel a B&M is unlikely? Merlin have been working with them a fair bit lately.
Not unlikely at all. But not a certainty either.
I just wanted to offer alternatives to the general consensus. Everyone seems to be saying B&M hyper but I can't help think that's more a collective want than a guaranty it's what Thorpe Park will build. I too would also love a ride like Mako in the UK, but Merlin don't tend to build "by the numbers" coasters. Everything has to have a USP.
 
Not unlikely at all. But not a certainty either.
I just wanted to offer alternatives to the general consensus. Everyone seems to be saying B&M hyper but I can't help think that's more a collective want than a guaranty it's what Thorpe Park will build. I too would also love a ride like Mako in the UK, but Merlin don't tend to build "by the numbers" coasters. Everything has to have a USP.
I'm not saying that a B&M Hyper is a dead cert by any means (until 10th December, nothing is), but I'd just like to clarify that I am not simply making one a reality based on my own personal preferences, either; I have heard various rumours from reliable sources on the internet suggesting that one could be coming, and I’m not referring to that video that got absolutely massacred on here. I’ve heard the rumour from others too.

In terms of a USP; wouldn’t the UK height record be enough of a USP in itself? I’d argue that Wicker Man proved that Merlin doesn’t require a USP to be a physical ride hardware gimmick per se, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t (or at least, couldn’t) green light a UK height record breaker with no other gimmicks attached, personally.
 
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