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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-25

Bowser said:
That's two Merlin parks closing their water rides early this year.

Chessington currently have Tiger Rock as open till November 2nd albeit with 11am opening...
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Towers will still have Battle Galleons open as well. Both that and Tiger Rock don't require as many staff as rapids rides do.
 
Skyscraper said:
Towers will still have Battle Galleons open as well. Both that and Tiger Rock don't require as many staff as rapids rides do.
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Still, the Rapids is a major water ride as a family attraction, the rapids were a staple of my early Scarefests and were fun to ride just as things were starting to get dark.

This is in addition CBeebies also closing early, if you’re a family during Scarefest the options are Mutiny Bay, Mine Train and Curse and then a big walk away to Walliams, Hex and possibly the family Scarefest attractions. There isn’t really anything significant apart from Mine Train, Curse and Hex that is accessible unless all of the family is down for Wicker Man and 13.

If the rapids aren’t going to open until a month into the start of the season, and then close a month ahead of the end of season then they need to re-evaluate the value of that attraction. If they had a water coaster where they could adjust the wetness like they can with Toxicator then they might be on to a winner.

I’d imagine a water coaster might even have cost savings compared to the staffing and energy costs of the rapids, which theoretically speaking, they could also compliment with a new family flat ride in the same footprint. The rapids has too big of a footprint on park to only be open 6 months a year, because without it the park feels a lot flatter.
 
Let's do the maths on this rapids,

These are very quick numbers (I found them on Google)

They apparently use 400hp pumps, they have 4 of them (although I think not all run at one time) one pump is about 300,000watts* (assuming it is 100% efficient) and uses about £90 per hour of usage (assuming a rate of 30p/kwh) so over 3 motors that is £270

From memory it uses arround 10 staff, minimum wage for 18-20 year old (£10, because for some reason the government think you can live of less money if you are less than 20 years old) that is arround £100 per hour.

So in total it may cost £370 per hour of operation, over a day (10-6 as it closes at dusk) that is about £3,000 over a month (30 days) it is about £88,800

I would assume it also costs less from insurance (rapids are the most dangerous ride types in theme parks

* accidentally put kw
 
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flyingguitar said:
Let's do the maths on this rapids,

These are very quick numbers (I found them on Google)

They apparently use 400hp pumps, they have 4 of them (although I think not all run at one time) one pump is about 300,000kw (assuming it is 100% efficient) and uses about £90 per hour of usage (assuming a rate of 30p/kwh) so over 3 motors that is £270

From memory it uses arround 10 staff, minimum wage for 18-20 year old (£10, because for some reason the government think you can live of less money if you are less than 20 years old) that is arround £100 per hour.

So in total it may cost £370 per hour of operation, over a day (10-6 as it closes at dusk) that is about £3,000 over a month (30 days) it is about £88,800

I would assume it also costs less from insurance (rapids are the most dangerous ride types in theme parks
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We don't need to rely on Google for estimates. @DistortAMG posted the power usage from the spec sheet of Drayton Manor Park and Zoo's Intamin Rapids ride yesterday.

You've severely overestimated how much electricity the pumps will use, with Drayton's same model requiring either 92KW or 84KW each, depending which mode is used.

300,000 KW of power, which is equivalent to 300 MW, could power a small to medium-sized town, a large industrial facility, a major data center, or a collection of thousands of homes continuously.

If you meant 300,000 kWh, you're still severely overestimating. That could power about 28 homes for an entire year.
DistortAMG said:
This is the official specification sheet I have for the pumps on River Rapids at Drayton Manor. They are almost identical in specification to the pumps on Alton's Congo River Rapids, I would expect they are the same for Thorpes Rapids too. Seeing as all three have very similar flow rates, channel widths, water depths and pump outlet sizes. Which are the key factors in determining what pump sizes you need. All three also appear just visually, to be pumping roughly the same volume of water, you can clearly see that when riding all three.

The pumps run at either 92KW or 84KW each, depending on if P1 or P2 mode is selected. There are 4 pumps, with 3 in operation at any one time, one is for redundancy. This means the rapids use between 274KW and 252KW of power continuesly on the pumps alone. Far, far lower than the 1500KW mentioned. SIX times less energy infact, which is a monumental difference.

I have worked on maintaining a few river rapids and will also say just from experience, even without this data below to back up my claim, there is no way Thorpes pumps use 1500KW of power, if they do, they are seriously faulty as they are not moving anywhere near 1500KW's worth of water.

Screenshot-20250902-153911-Chrome.jpg


If I am honest, the fact that the 'rough' estimate of the power usage for the pumps is so wildly out (on a different continent actually), it brings into question the validity of any of the other power usage figures. They are probably hugely out too.

I like the idea and like what you are trying to do, but it needs huge amounts of work as it is clear that the figures are so wildly out, it is borderline spitting out pure misinformation at this point. You cannot call something so wildly out a rough estimste.
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flyingguitar said:
Let's do the maths on this rapids,

These are very quick numbers (I found them on Google)

They apparently use 400hp pumps, they have 4 of them (although I think not all run at one time) one pump is about 300,000kw (assuming it is 100% efficient) and uses about £90 per hour of usage (assuming a rate of 30p/kwh) so over 3 motors that is £270

From memory it uses arround 10 staff, minimum wage for 18-20 year old (£10, because for some reason the government think you can live of less money if you are less than 20 years old) that is arround £100 per hour.

So in total it may cost £370 per hour of operation, over a day (10-6 as it closes at dusk) that is about £3,000 over a month (30 days) it is about £88,800

I would assume it also costs less from insurance (rapids are the most dangerous ride types in theme parks
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One pump about 300,000kW is it, or 300MW? Blimey. 900MW for three running? Wowsers

Incredible when you realise that it only takes about 200MW to run the entire Large Hadron Collider…
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
We don't need to rely on Google for estimates. @DistortAMG posted the power usage from the spec sheet of Drayton Manor Park and Zoo's Intamin Rapids ride yesterday.

You've severely overestimated how much electricity the pumps will use, with Drayton's same model requiring either 92KW or 84KW each, depending which mode is used.

300,000 KW of power, which is equivalent to 300 MW, could power a small to medium-sized town, a large industrial facility, a major data center, or a collection of thousands of homes continuously.

If you meant 300,000 kWh, you're still severely overestimating. That could power about 28 homes for an entire year.
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The power I mis typed, I did the maths for 300,000watts but wrote it as kW, so it was 300kw, although that is higher than draytons specs if you could get 300mw for just £90/hour I think we wouldn't have a cost of living problem
 
Poisson said:
Roughly 1/4 of the train on RMT being given to RAP today. Combined with FT and the main queue is struggling. Should be about 6 places/3 bays a train for RAP, not 12 seats/6 bays.
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Lucky if you can pre-book RAP these days. Here today without it and just making the best of it.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
 
I think some of the seats cannot be occupied as well which doesn't help throughput. It really needs to be replaced with something more modern as it was new back in 1992 and hasn't really changed since.

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karl.stubbs said:
I think some of the seats cannot be occupied as well which doesn't help throughput. It really needs to be replaced with something more modern as it was new back in 1992 and hasn't really changed since.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
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But it's still popular and reliable? Why replace something that's a) working and b) draws in the crowds?
 
I do believe that next year there will be some sort of new queue related thing (a revised RAP?) accessible through a website accessible by QR codes near the respective ride. I think it was from Digital Dan
 
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