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The Retrosquad: General Discussion

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I’ve been thinking for a while that the park could do with another playground or two outside of CBeebies land. The Duggee playground is great for younger kids, but there’s not really anything like that for the 6-12 year old age bracket. My two love a good playground, they’d spend hours on the ones at Drayton Manor given the chance, particularly Tidal Towers, it’s a good way to keep kids occupied whilst the adults take turns going on the big coasters, or to burn off some energy after lunch etc.
 
I really wish I could join in celebrating the demise of these ugly, tacky and immersion ruining contraptions. But then we'll be back to being left with nothing yet again. We had a taste what we'll return to this year with Dark Forest, once again returning to being just a lifeless area with little theming, a large fence, 2 coasters and nothing else to do. Just a corner of the park where you go to tick off 2 coasters.

Applauding the reopening of existing attractions such as Sub Terra, Nemesis and Hex, whilst casually overlooking the fact that we've actually lost another permanent flat during the Retrosqauds tenure, is a sign of how bad things are and how normalised these low expectations have become. There was a time not very long ago when Forbidden Valley had 5 attractions, Dark Forest had 3, Fountain Square/Williams Cuckoo Dungeon World had 8 and X Sector had 4, concurrently.

Let's go for the new higher end prediction (not guaranteed) of at least 1 new addition next year and say that they're insane enough to put it in Forbidden Valley rather than X Sector. That'll leave the park with the following gains/losses compared with around decade ago - FV (-), DF (-1), FS/WW (-1, I refuse to count the upcharge attraction), XS (-2). X Sector would be particularly badly effected as you'll now walk all the way down that steep hill to find just 2 coasters and 2 obviously flat ride grave sites.

Of course that's just numbers and not quality. Wobble World is now a Dark ride. You wouldn't worry about a couple of flats moving elsewhere if the Dungeons went back to being a new family dark and the cinema reopened, but we know that's not going to happen next season.

If Retrosqaud were garish sticking plasters, then in reality, next season the wounds will just be left open like they were before. Other than not having to see and hear them anymore, on balance over the last few years we'll only be marginally better off than we were in 2016. Once again, a tenner was taken from your hand years ago, they've held on to it for a while and given you a fiver back with the other. Bright future eh?
 
Matt.GC said:
Once again, a tenner was taken from your hand years ago, they've held on to it for a while and given you a fiver back with the other. Bright future eh?
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I've made a fiver then. The tenner is a sunk cost, it's already been incurred and cannot be recovered.
 
Poisson said:
Towers are in a hole with flats whatever they try and do. I doubt CAPEX is there for Nemesis retrack and 4 flat rides.
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Nemmy re-track and 1 flat in FV could be possible though. The other areas can wait but FV needs a new flat when Nemmy opens.
 
I think that X Sector is in the greatest need of a flat, but FV will be the area that will get a flat.
 
AT86 said:
I would argue that X Sector is in greater need of a flat than FV. At least FV has two support rides already, without Retrosquad XS has none.

However I’ll take either at this point.
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That's a good point actually, yes FV will be down to just two rides after the RS leave.
 
Retro squad may be leaving but there isn’t anything to say they won’t replace the temporary flats with others and do a different theme.

As long as twistatron burns in flat ride hell i don’t care.
 
I know Merlin aren’t immune to making own goals, but generally that is due to unintended errors.

Regarding the Retrosquad, the fact the park are advertising their removal, along with statements like ‘what do you want to see replace them?’ coming from Merlin it really points towards there being something in their place next year.

Otherwise why bother doing any of this? Why bother advertising their removal? They’d just keep quiet and focus the attention on the return of Nemesis.


From: https://x.com/merlinapuk/status/1718996490646081556?s=46&t=zG_i8R9vX93ZZU0RljfzWA
 
For me there aren't enough reliable rides and these tiny fillers are popular with some people.. whilst I get they shouldn't have a place in a modern park they were fun for a short time. Farewell but the face there is no alternative is bad.
 
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