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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

I was there on Thursday 16th October and while Stealth ran for most of the day, it was squeaking a lot as it was going round. This was on both trains 2 & 3 which they were using. I wonder if it's something to do with the wheels perhaps?

When I went a week ago on the 10th October, I don't remember hearing the squeaking a lot. Although it did run from 12-9, it had a fair amount of periods with downtime.
 
Isn't that the point of a Scare Maze to get lost the maze, Scare Mazes actually don't really live to their name they have the Scare part but not much of a maze since you go one way
In some mazes, yes. Old Survival Games for example. Stitches is quite a linear maze though, and you're dispatched in groups, meaning if the group in front of you gets lost, you'll join them, and almost make a mega-group, which makes it very hard for the actors to properly scare. You're also never meant to end up in an actor's corridor, and it's hard to when you go through a curtain to get to the next room that in most cases looks identical to the actor's corridors, covered by a curtain.
 
In some mazes, yes. Old Survival Games for example. Stitches is quite a linear maze though, and you're dispatched in groups, meaning if the group in front of you gets lost, you'll join them, and almost make a mega-group, which makes it very hard for the actors to properly scare. You're also never meant to end up in an actor's corridor, and it's hard to when you go through a curtain to get to the next room that in most cases looks identical to the actor's corridors, covered by a curtain.
I have gotten lost before ended up in the actors quarters in a maze Sub Species: The End Games I did that in due to it being actually difficult to navigate
 
Hyperia and Stealth presently being closed can’t be helping matters. If those two were open, it would at least distribute crowds a little.

Thorpe has always been busy in October, though. In that Independent article recently, it was stated that nearly half of Thorpe’s annual profit is made during Fright Nights season!
 
One thing I forgot to mention last night that @Call_um included in his post the other day - when the park closes, they play an announcement similar to the Fright Nights beginning alarm that they've done for a few years. They then start playing a bizarre "end of day" playlist that has no relation to Fright Nights at all. Bittersweet Symphony, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Don't Look Back In Anger, before a load of weird "movie trailer" style remixes of different songs - Zombie, Final Countdown, Bittersweet Symphony (again). For some reason, I guess because it's area music and not ride music, Hyperia is part of the parkwide loop, so this takes over the Hyperia queue.

I cracked up laughing when Oasis were interrupted by "ATTENTION TO ALL THOSE IN FEARLESS VALLEY"

As a sidenote, someone in Thorpe Ents must absolutely love Bittersweet Symphony. It plays in the Dead Beat exit and now twice while you're exiting the park
 
Queues on peak FN dates have always been, and continue to be, dreadful. That said, I don't think it's acceptable to expect people to pay £10 for a maze ticket and then have to wait 90 minutes for it. The park has control over the number of tickets they sell and the wait times should reflect this.
 
Queues on peak FN dates have always been, and continue to be, dreadful. That said, I don't think it's acceptable to expect people to pay £10 for a maze ticket and then have to wait 90 minutes for it. The park has control over the number of tickets they sell and the wait times should reflect this.

Agreed, it’s happening at Towers too but not to the same extent. Compound has a 50min posted queue right now for example.

I suspect the pressure is on from above to get that revenue in and so they up the amount of tickets available.
 
The problem with scare mazes is that their throughput is so much lower than that of other attraction types.

Many rely on quite small, intimate groupings, which when combined with the multi-“scene” nature of many (as I understand it) that requires staying in scenes for a good bit of time is not conducive to being a queue muncher in the way that, say, a roller coaster with long trains might be.
 
Queues on peak FN dates have always been, and continue to be, dreadful. That said, I don't think it's acceptable to expect people to pay £10 for a maze ticket and then have to wait 90 minutes for it. The park has control over the number of tickets they sell and the wait times should reflect this.
I remember that the queues for mazes seemed to be much lower just after COVID, so I assume that there are now more tickets available.
 
I have a feeling that the overlap between the Fearsome Four packages between 5pm and 7pm for the afternoon and evening slots has had a massive impact on the queues.

I don't think overlapping both slots is going to be right moving forwards as it makes it more difficult to achieve doing the four mazes.
 
Thorpe has struggled with crowds for a long time now (it is the only place I know where a 30 year old family coaster can get two hour queues). Covid is interesting because they let too many people in during the summer which led to regular queues over 2 hours and heavy overcrowding (you may also recall there was a stabbing on park). Fright Nights that year only had two mazes (both outdoors) but had multiple scare zones so it worked out better. The main thing Thorpe needs is a high capacity dark ride like Alton Manor to soak up the crowds. I also think closing Rumba early was a mistake since that ride has a good capacity if they fill the boats (yes I accept it has to close at dusk) and it gives the park less leeway when it comes to downtime on other rides.
 
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