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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

AstroDan said:
Crisis:
a time of intense difficulty or danger, a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.

A crisis is not just when someone has died or been injured on a theme park ride! In business terms, I believe Thorpe have a crisis going on. The park is rudderless.
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On that definiton, I suppose you're right. But for me at least, difficulty and crisis are two very different things.

Thorpe Park are quite clearly in a mess, with a lack of direction and questionable investment/branding decisions. However they are not in deep enough trouble to be in a crisis as far as I'm concerned.
 
I remember reading about that incident on their Facebook wall.

It provides another justification to Merlin to close their baggage hold areas... to reduce their liability when things go wrong.

If the bag had been stolen from a rack on the station, or even from lockers, then it would've been easier to distance themselves from the theft. However when your staff are handling the property which later goes missing then it's more difficult to dispute liability.
 
Matt N said:
On a different Thorpe-related note, I just saw this Guardian article on Facebook:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2...-thorpe-park-ends-with-lost-bag-and-car-theft
It must be terrible to have something like that happen to you, although I must wonder how someone was able to steal a bag from Saw's baggage hold...
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“Thorpe Park is required to perform its service with ‘reasonable care and skill’ – and that certainly doesn’t look to be the case here.”

Now there’s a surprise.

Charge £10 a day for the car park and don’t even bother having CCTV.
 
I think this is another example to refer to the board of 'Always keep your wallet and keys on your person'.

Also, whilst I'm here, I like the way that the woman claims that she's been hard done to because she's had to take out a loan to purchase another car, after earlier on in the article stating that the stolen car was already on finance (same thing). Also had a dig that her insurance company didn't cover the full price of her finance deal. Well, no luv, they won't. They'll only cover the actual value of the car, not the extra charge on top that you agreed to take out so that you could pay in instalments. Other than that, I feel sorry for her.
 
I don't know why she is fracking around, sue them for her losses and be done with it, the burden of proof is so much lower in civil court, all she has to do is prove on the balance of probabilities Thorpe were liable for the theft of her car, and even a blind man can see they are, she wouldn't even need a lawyer at that amount.
 
The one thing i find interesting in the article is this line
was told to hand over her bag containing her valuables prior to boarding the Saw rollercoaster. Then she was given a wristband to return later in exchange for the bag.
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This sounds like a staffed baggage hold. The question i have is how could the bag be given to the wrong person?

I am surprised the head line was not 'thrope park give a guest's bag to theft'

Sent from my SM-J600FN using Tapatalk
 
Mmm. Thorpe Park might not be liable for the theft directly, but they are liable for the actions of their staff, in the same way that if you went to a restaurant and were given the wrong order, you would expect the situation to be rectified or receive a full reimbursement.
 
In law there's a concept of remoteness. Any loss must be foreseeable in order for a claim of damages to be successful.

If there was negligence that allowed a bag to be stolen then Merlin could be liable for the contents of the bag as that loss is foreseeable. However, if someone's car is stolen or their property is then broken into as a result, is that loss foreseeable or is it too remote? One for the lawyers to muse over.
 
IanSR said:
I don't know why she is fracking around, sue them for her losses and be done with it, the burden of proof is so much lower in civil court, all she has to do is prove on the balance of probabilities Thorpe were liable for the theft of her car, and even a blind man can see they are, she wouldn't even need a lawyer at that amount.
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Been to the civil courts twice Ian...if life was so simple.
The civil court judges do not have the same idea of the balance of probabilities as us general public.
We had a nice lady screaming and shouting at our front door.
We had cctv of her on the path ranting with key in hand.
She carved the word cunt in the paintwork.
We had evidence of her screaming and shouting, a witness to say she was going mental at the door for ten minutes...with a key in her hand...witnessed by next door.
She admitted doing it in the pub to all the locals.
Police completely fucking useless.
Not guilty in the civil court.
His lordship had a nice chat with us after in camera...we all knew she had done it...just not sufficient evidence for the balance of probability.
Still worth every penny of the fifty quid it cost...but not justice.
Needless to say, justice was served in the end...in full.
Edit...pardon the fluffy language, I thought we were in pet hates !
Completely off topic...shoot me twice.
 
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It's been quite clear for anyone that Thorpe lack direction, given their change of target audience on a almost monthly basis, or even last year's "Year of the Walking Dead" being punctuated by "Love Island Lates"... It's like the park itself has ADHD and can't sit down long enough to decide what it wants to actually do with itself...

What other park has ever taken the effort to reduce a ride from 1.4m to 1.2m to boost the family offerings and then 2/3 years after changing it back to 1.4m with a SPOOPY theme added? Ever since Swarm was deemed a 'failure' because NOTHING ELSE WAS HAPPENING IN 2012 TO CAUSE A DROP IN ATTENDANCE, Thorpe have become a patchwork of IP nonsense that has seen one attraction now closed, and the BIGGEST INVESTMENT EVAR re-hashed and reduced 2 years after opening...

Towers Dungeons doesn't make much in the way of actual sense, but at least there could be some arguments made for its inclusion... Very little can be said of the stuff Thorpe have been doing over the years... But it's been a crap visit for years really (about a decade when thinking about it), so it's no surprise...
 
I have a question: If Thorpe park did have average ques again say 20 - 30 minutes (not inflated by fast track and poor operations) would the park these days actually be a whole day venue? With so few shows and non-ride experiences on offer I highly doubt it. In reality, if you were to do every ride, attraction and show from dispatch to end. How long would that add up to? I bet in 2003 it would be nearly double in length when you add all the entertainment that's vanished.

I'm not saying the farm, train waterbus and shows were an incredible experience (and don't forget Captain Lucky) but they added escapism and were joyful and could easily take up 2 and a half hours of your day.

I sound old but the Thorpe Farm cafe was the best!
 
Yep, Walking Dead the ride, is a better attraction than I was expecting, but still made no sense to convert one of the few family friendly coasters to an adult theme.

I think they made a big mistake trying to go down the VR route for Ghost Train, the technology just isn't reliable enough. I don't think it would have cost much different at this stage to have done a "proper" dark ride in the style of Spider-Man at IoA and I think guest satisfaction with the attraction would have been a lot higher.

They just need to decide on exactly what they want from Thorpe and target investment better, it did feel like the park was starting to realise that targeting young adults only doesn't bring as much money in as the family market. A few more 1m and 1.2m height restriction attractions (even a non-inverting coaster) would really help their line-up. Also some more we weather options, given the only indoor attractions are now The Walking Dead, Angry Birds 4D and Ghost Train.
 
jon81uk said:
Also some more we weather options, given the only indoor attractions are now The Walking Dead, Angry Birds 4D and Ghost Train.
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Totally with you there, but Angry Birds is outdated and can be wet. 4D cinemas are so 1997! The IP even feels older to boot! Maybe a live stunt show would work in that space?
 
SuperMuscleMan said:
I have a question: If Thorpe park did have average ques again say 20 - 30 minutes (not inflated by fast track and poor operations) would the park these days actually be a whole day venue? With so few shows and non-ride experiences on offer I highly doubt it. In reality, if you were to do every ride, attraction and show from dispatch to end. How long would that add up to? I bet in 2003 it would be nearly double in length when you add all the entertainment that's vanished.

I'm not saying the farm, train waterbus and shows were an incredible experience (and don't forget Captain Lucky) but they added escapism and were joyful and could easily take up 2 and a half hours of your day.

I sound old but the Thorpe Farm cafe was the best!
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My last visit was on a weekday in September so there were almost no queues, we arrived at opening and had done almost the whole park by lunchtime. We did skip Tidal Wave and Angry Birds 4D, but at least some of our group did every coaster and almost every flat ride. We left about 3 or 4pm I think as we had done everything at least once.
 
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SuperMuscleMan said:
Totally with you there, but Angry Birds is outdated and can be wet. 4D cinemas are so 1997! The IP even feels older to boot! Maybe a live stunt show would work in that space?
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We also want more attractions, a replacement wouldn't increase the amount of wet weather options!
 
jon81uk said:
We also want more attractions, a replacement wouldn't increase the amount of wet weather options!
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An ideal re-fit for the 4D cinema would be to remove the old seats and dated interiors and replace them with a 4D simulator attraction similar to Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios.
 
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