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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Jamie said:
Yes but how many other parks close their log flumes when it gets dark?
If you travelled out to an a european park would they close their log flume when it got dark?

Also, the "who wants to get wet in the dark" excuse doesn't cut it, as they've closed Rumba as well which barely gets you wet at all, but is good in the dark.
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Yes I have seen this done at plenty of European parks. Liseberg for example close their log flume and Rapids ride two hours before the rest of the park. As I've already said the reasons for the early closure at Thorpe is health and safety due to lack of visibility.

I don't mean to be rude Jamie but you obviously don't understand budgets. On quite a few of your posts you seem to think that Merlin have a bottomless pit of money which just isn't the case. Every department at every park has a strict budget which they have to keep to. If they overspend then jobs are on the line and that just the nature of the business. If Engineering were to spend thousands of pounds of their budget on installing unnecessary lighting around Loggers for the sake of a very small number of people who would actually want to ride it this would be a very unwise use of their budget. A much more sensible use of that money would be to spend it on making improvements to other rides to reduce downtime and keep them running. If they waste money installing lights at Loggers then the other rides will suffer. That's how budgets work. You have to prioritise. Getting Loggers open in the evening when people have already had 7 hours to ride is going to be a pretty low priority. If you were running this park and it was your money would you really want to waste it on that when the rest of your rides would suffer as a consequence? Of course you wouldn't.
 
I do understand budgets, but the fact is that Merlin parks make huge profits and so they could afford to install some lighting.

Loggers used to open in the dark, I don't see what the issue is to be honest.
 
Jamie said:
I do understand budgets, but the fact is that Merlin parks make huge profits and so they could afford to install some lighting.

Loggers used to open in the dark, I don't see what the issue is to be honest.
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Because this year profits are down by 50% due to the incident at Alton Towers so they are cutting back non-essential items at all the theme parks.
I think it is better to spend the money on making great Fright Night mazes and staffing all those instead of hiring some lighting for a ride that hardly anyone will want to ride at night. Most people go to Thorpe's Fright Nights for the mazes and the coasters.

Rapids at AT is a different case, the path winds around the ride so they need to light many areas anyway and Alton attracts more families for ScareFest (Fright Nights is only for over 12s really) so keeping a family ride going makes more sense.
 
Jamie said:
I do understand budgets, but the fact is that Merlin parks make huge profits and so they could afford to install some lighting.

Loggers used to open in the dark, I don't see what the issue is to be honest.
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I'm sorry but this shows that you clearly don't. Yes Merlin make money but it's not a bottomless pit for the parks to spend as they like without justifying. There are other priorities and it's more than just a simple case of "some lighting" Have you seen the area around loggers? It's massive, that lake is huge, it's a massive ride area and there are so many blind spots, it would be a huge job, Engineering have a budget and the budget does not extend to that because the cost would be enormous and would not be justified given the very small number of people who would actually want to ride Loggers after dark. I don't see why you have such an issue with that. It seems pretty obvious to me.

As for Merlin making lots of money, yes they do but, if you understand budgets as you claim to, you will know that companies aren't successful by throwing money around willy-nilly on things that aren't needed. That's why companies have budgets which they have to keep to. It's not a case of... This company makes loads of money so they can spend loads of money. That's a really simplistic way of looking at things and that's not how it works in the real world.

The fact that they used to operate in the dark is irrelevant. For all you know health and safety may have been tightened since then, incidents may have happened which they've had to react to hence the closure. I don't know this and you don't either but they certainly won't just close a ride for the hell of it especially not when rides like Teacups, flying fish and Depth Charge continue to operate during fright nights. They obviously want good ride availability during their busy period so the decision to close a ride won't just be because they feel like it.

And Jamie you still haven't answered my question, if it was your park and your budget, would you spend it on lights at loggers so that they could open a few hours later when this would mean you'd have to spend less money on other rides and their reliability would potentially suffer? This is the last thing Thorpe park needs. When loggers used to open late it got, at best, about 100 people per hour, usually a lot less. How on earth does that justify the massive costs of keeping it open when other rides would have to suffer as a consequence? I'm sorry Jamie but you really don't have a case here as far as I can see.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
And Jamie you still haven't answered my question, if it was your park and your budget, would you spend it on lights at loggers so that they could open a few hours later when this would mean you'd have to spend less money on other rides and their reliability would potentially suffer? This is the last thing Thorpe park needs. When loggers used to open late it got, at best, about 100 people per hour, usually a lot less. How on earth does that justify the massive costs of keeping it open when other rides would have to suffer as a consequence? I'm sorry Jamie but you really don't have a case here as far as I can see.
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The fact is that it's not my park, however I think that aiming for 100% ride availability should be quite high up the priority list.

jon81uk said:
Because this year profits are down by 50% due to the incident at Alton Towers so they are cutting back non-essential items at all the theme parks.
I think it is better to spend the money on making great Fright Night mazes and staffing all those instead of hiring some lighting for a ride that hardly anyone will want to ride at night. Most people go to Thorpe's Fright Nights for the mazes and the coasters.
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What has happened this year is irrelevant, the Loggers' Leap 5pm closure was in place last year.
 
100% ride availability is their priority Jamie. But you seem to think it's done by magic. Like I keep explaining to you they have a budget and can't spend more than that amount. Installing lights at loggers would eat in to that budget and other rides' availibility would suffer. Seriously what don't you get about that? I'm constantly repeating myself and I think you're just choosing not to get it. Obviously in an ideal world Thorpe would have as much money as they wanted to give to their Engineering department who could pump it into doing everything, but the fact of the matter is that, like every company in the world, they don't have unlimited money. They have a budget and opening Loggers at night is going to be a lower priority than spending their budget on ensuring availibility of other rides by spending money on parts, maintenance etc. I seriously don't understand what it is you find so difficult about that concept.
 
100% ride availability is an aspiration of most operators, but not always a priority for the simple reason that the operators are indeed businesses, as well satisfying your hobby. As @Enter Valhalla quite rightly says, there is not unlimited money, something has to give. It's all about spend vs. reward - the spend for lighting up Loggers so it can operate is fairly considerable.

@Jamie I dread to think what your credit card statement looks like if you spend £££ at every 'would be nice' purchase that life throws in front of you.
 
Is everyone quite finished yet? Its turning into the smiler thread...

loggers and rumba could easily open, but it would require lighting to be brought. Whilst Thorpe do have the money to do this, it would make very little return, and is not worth it. Very few (if any) people will be turned away because two water rides (which wouldn't be overly popular in October) were unavailable.
 
Just go to Europa-Park. No staggered openings. Period*

*Winter season/Horror Nights area aside
 
I know we're not meant to self-advertise so a million apologies but here's a POV of The Big Top from Thorpe Park! Filmed with permission from staff of course.

 
POV's never really do scare mazes justice but I can't say it looks that good. You would have thought they would have stolen some of the old set pieces from Carnival as the production value on that was quiet good.
 
I did The Big Top yesterday and was quite disappointed, there was a distinct lack of theming - most of it was just black curtains hanging from metal poles!
 
Jamie said:
I did The Big Top yesterday and was quite disappointed, there was a distinct lack of theming - most of it was just black curtains hanging from metal poles!
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Well it looked good to me from the outside. Jamie I don't think I've ever seen you do a positive post about any park other than BPB, especially not Merlin parks. It's getting quite boring to be honest.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Well it looked good to me from the outside. Jamie I don't think I've ever seen you do a positive post about any park other than BPB, especially not Merlin parks. It's getting quite boring to be honest.
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Well excuse me for having an opinion, obviously that's not allowed!

The exterior of the maze does look good, but it is idiotic to question the opinion of someone who has actually experienced the attraction by saying "it looks good on the outside."
The exterior doesn't tell you anything about what the maze is actually like!

And just to add, I'm not the only one who doesn't rate the new maze highly, but obviously everyone else who doesn't like it is talking rubbish as clearly only positive opinions are allowed!
 
I do have to say from that POV I am not impressed. One thing which doesn't impress me either is the transition from tents, where you go out to see the beach, I'd of rather had one big tent than a few smaller ones on the beach.

Feedback and reviews seem to suggest My Bloody Valentine isn't as good as previous years either, with some scenes being pulled out, making up for a smaller maze length, whereas Cabin In The Woods has apparently improved due to the actor quality being high.

Although Fright Nights did change a few years back, I'm already starting to feel the event get stale. We've seen My Bloody Valentine, Cabin In The Woods & Blair Witch Project here since the start (3/4 years now), and SAW: Alive has been operating for about 5 now. I know it's easy to do SAW because it's already up in place, but they really need to start looking into getting different films for their mazes again. I love the film idea, but franchises like Insidious & Sinister, which have both had new films released this year, would be 2 brilliant options to make mazes of at Thorpe, and then following that you can always do The Conjuring when the second film is released sometime in the next year or so.

It's good that they change 1 maze every year, but it always seems to be the 'new' maze or the own-branded maze, meaning as that changes the other mazes begin slowly to become stale, a similar thing happened at Alton Towers where all the mazes became stale and another over-hall was needed in order to fix that issue. I'd love them to keep The Big Top and expand on it every year and improve it slowly like they did with Carnival Of Screams, but at the same time change one of the IP-branded mazes in order to keep the mazes fresh and exciting, rather than introducing the same 4 mazes every year with 1 new one. That's my opinion anyway.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Well it looked good to me from the outside. Jamie I don't think I've ever seen you do a positive post about any park other than BPB, especially not Merlin parks. It's getting quite boring to be honest.
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To be fair the outside of a maze is not exactly going to say much about the experience. Reviews are very mixed to negative at the moment. It will be interesting to see if they make changes for next weekend.
 
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