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[2025] Toxicator: New Forbidden Valley Suspended Top Spin

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John said:
A lot will depend on whether or not they pre-batch like they did on Ripsaw. If they don't start counting people through until the previous cycle has finished there's no chance it'll achieve 500/hr
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Given the story it wouldn't surprise me if there was a pre show somewhere. From the plans am I right in thinking the queue goes into the structure before going up the steps to the platform?
 
Skyscraper said:
Given the story it wouldn't surprise me if there was a pre show somewhere. From the plans am I right in thinking the queue goes into the structure before going up the steps to the platform?
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it enters an area bellow the structure, not inside the structure, it is a bit like a T with overhangs either side with one side above the merge point for the queue: but it should be easily visible from the entire queue, so I would think there probably isn't any preshow (unless it is similar to nemesis sub terrors pre show with some rolling video.
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Bowser said:
Good job they removed The Blade with its potential 1800pph in a park desperately struggling with capacity.
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To be fair, I seem to remember the park mentioning that the actual throughput of Blade was closer to something like 400pph in the press releases announcing its closure.

I’d certainly imagine it was far lower than 1,800pph, anyhow; I don’t think I’ve ever known a flat ride do anything even close to that number.

With this in mind, I can’t imagine that there will be much, if any, net difference in throughput between Forbidden Valley in 2025 and Forbidden Valley in 2024. The addition of Toxicator should balance out the removal of Blade.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, I seem to remember the park mentioning that the throughput of Blade was closer to something like 400pph in the press releases announcing its closure.

I’d certainly imagine it was far lower than 1,800pph, anyhow; I don’t think I’ve ever known a flat ride do anything even close to that number.

With this in mind, I can’t imagine that there will be much, if any, net difference in throughput between Forbidden Valley in 2025 and Forbidden Valley in 2024.
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Looks like the expectations of throughput at Merlin and Alton Towers seems to be much lower than the theoretical throughputs from the manufacturers which is concerning.

I wonder why they don't aim for numbers close to theoretical 🤔

That would surely help soak up the numbers of people in the park if they aimed for those numbers.
 
Burner said:
I'll always remember Wardley's comment in Themes, Dreams, and Scream Machines about capacity being one of the major considerations when deciding a new attraction. Shame Merlin don't think the same most of the time.
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The recent trend away from building capacity attractions doesn’t seem to be a Merlin-specific thing either. Manufacturers over the past ten or so years having been building lower capacity attractions intended for smaller parks. Then for larger parks to build those attractions on a ‘one-off’ basis, only for it to become a recurring trend.

Especially with the cost increases in ride infrastructure since COVID, parks are allocating the same budgets and are getting less and less out of those attractions. It’s shrinkflation just repackaged.
 
Bowser said:
Good job they removed The Blade with its potential 1800pph in a park desperately struggling with capacity.
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I'm sure they didn't want to but it was old and had been patched up for years. It's not outside of their capability to get another swinging ship either.

Even if they did intend this ride to be a direct replacement for Blade it's a good replacement.*


*unless your kids are too short
 
Burner said:
I'll always remember Wardley's comment in Themes, Dreams, and Scream Machines about capacity being one of the major considerations when deciding a new attraction. Shame Merlin don't think the same most of the time.
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To be fair, couldn’t you also apply the same criticism to Tussauds in 1997 if we’re criticising Merlin for building a low throughput Top Spin in 2025? Toxicator is a very similar style of ride to what Ripsaw was, so surely any capacity flaws of Toxicator were shared by Ripsaw to a large extent?
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, couldn’t you also apply the same criticism to Tussauds in 1997 if we’re criticising Merlin for building a low throughput Top Spin in 2025? Toxicator is a very similar style of ride to what Ripsaw was, so surely any capacity flaws of Toxicator were shared by Ripsaw to a large extent?
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I agree. It’s not that we needed one flat ride in particular, we probably need about 4-6 more flats to really improve capacity. We need them in volume to take attention away from the big rides
 
Stuie said:
I'm sure they didn't want to but it was old and had been patched up for years. It's not outside of their capability to get another swinging ship either.

Even if they did intend this ride to be a direct replacement for Blade it's a good replacement.*


*unless your kids are too short
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Hopefully they do or at least something.

As a direct replacement, a ride with potentially a third of the capacity and less accessibility doesn't strike me as a good one even if it is visually impressive.
 
Bowser said:
Hopefully they do or at least something.

As a direct replacement, a ride with potentially a third of the capacity and less accessibility doesn't strike me as a good one even if it is visually impressive.
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Not just visuals, Top spin thrill factor > Pirate ship that doesn't even go 360.

Especially a new floorless one on a good cycle.

I'm not bothered about theoretical throughput and haven't bothered to ride Blade (or anything similar) for a long time!
 
Regarding the throughput issue with Toxy vs Blade, the latter may have had a larger throughput rate but towards the end how many did you see ride it when from what I remember it was mostly a walk on.

Toxy might have a lower capacity but if it does it's part in easing pressure of Nemesis and to some extent Galactica to lower queue times then that is what you want for a flat ride to do it's job.
 
QTXAdsy said:
Regarding the throughput issue with Toxy vs Blade, the latter may have had a larger throughput rate but towards the end how many did you see ride it when from what I remember it was mostly a walk on.

Toxy might have a lower capacity but if it does it's part in easing pressure of Nemesis and to some extent Galactica to lower queue times then that is what you want for a flat ride to do it's job.
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By that logic they should also remove The Curse and replace it with a low capacity thrill ride to further ensure more people are spending time in queues that aren't the other queues.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, couldn’t you also apply the same criticism to Tussauds in 1997 if we’re criticising Merlin for building a low throughput Top Spin in 2025? Toxicator is a very similar style of ride to what Ripsaw was, so surely any capacity flaws of Toxicator were shared by Ripsaw to a large extent?
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But you could afford to add attractions with lower capacity then, as the park had way, way more attractions, increasing the overall park capacity by quite a large amount.
 
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