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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Classic Thorpe Park.

It’s so frustrating see it continuing to look shabby and slapdash after so many years of people saying the same things.

Colossus, Ninferno, Rumba Rapids, Tidal Wave. They all seem to spend their lives under a layer of grime or rust. This isn’t damage and vandalism caused by guests. It’s plain neglect and slackness from the park themselves.

You’re charging people top dollar to come here. Make it look like you actually give a damn.
 
The biggest issues I have with Thorpe is the overall lack of attention to detail, care and cohesion across the park. It's almost as if TP went on a bender (lasting a few years 🙄) & is now in a permanent state of hangover; it's a bit dirty, confused and needs to brush its hair! The current presentation of Rush & the new painted wayfinders isn't promising but... they're trying, I guess.

There have been more glimmers of hope this off season than I've seen in a long while (imo) so I'm clinging to that for dear life!
 
It also hasn't helped having several obviously SBNO rides in visible states of disrepair, this has been most obvious with Saw Alive, Slammer and Loggers Leap. At least now Loggers Leap is actually being demolished.
 
Ian said:
Classic Thorpe Park.

It’s so frustrating see it continuing to look shabby and slapdash after so many years of people saying the same things.

Colossus, Ninferno, Rumba Rapids, Tidal Wave. They all seem to spend their lives under a layer of grime or rust. This isn’t damage and vandalism caused by guests. It’s plain neglect and slackness from the park themselves.

You’re charging people top dollar to come here. Make it look like you actually give a damn.
Click to expand...

At the moment Merlin seem to have a clear “give a crap” rating for their UK parks (excluding Lego).

1) Chessington - invest and maintain
2) Towers - Maintain (can’t decide if this is because the maintenance required is so expensive or they just rate Chessington higher)
3) Thorpe - meh but stick a big coaster in soon.
 
Dave said:
At the moment Merlin seem to have a clear “give a crap” rating for their UK parks (excluding Lego).

1) Chessington - invest and maintain
2) Towers - Maintain (can’t decide if this is because the maintenance required is so expensive or they just rate Chessington higher)
3) Thorpe - meh but stick a big coaster in soon.
Click to expand...

I don’t really begrudge Chessington for getting attention as, let’s face it, the park was quite literally decaying for over a decade. The place needed major work in practically all areas to bring it up to scratch, and it did seem like the storm of bad press after the Tomb Blaster incident and subsequent “investigations” gave them a rocket up their arse to sort the place out.

Towers still has a way to go, but has been steadily moving in the right direction in some areas (albeit at a glacial rate). There’s still plenty of presentation issues, but it feels less stagnant and rotten on the whole than it did from around 2011 onwards.

Thorpe is almost forgotten. They did some good work smartening up the entrance area after the accommodation went in, but the park is totally unloved. What really doesn’t help is being so compact it only takes a couple of rough looking areas to overwhelm the look and feel of the whole place. Realistically, repainting Colossus and Ninferno while tidying up their associated landscaping would make a huge difference to the overall presentation of the park. Rush and other attractions would still need work, but these would stick out far less and have a much more isolated affect than the two coasters.

Cleanliness and presentation is a basic.
 
Rush really does look awful there, unacceptably so. And because of that it probably need a fair whack spent on it in one go to get it back up to standard (which probably won't happen). If they had just done a little bit of non-technical upkeep on the ride each closed season at relatively low cost then it would be nowhere near as bad.
 
The park map has now been lifted directly from the app, rather than going for an arty-farty approach. Looks very bland in the grand scheme of things, but practical at least.

FrVX2MlWAAEI2UR
 
Danny said:
The park map has now been lifted directly from the app, rather than going for an arty-farty approach. Looks very bland in the grand scheme of things, but practical at least.

FrVX2MlWAAEI2UR
Click to expand...
Disney went the same way using north-oriented practical maps a long time ago. Easy navigation is probably a good thing.
 
Danny said:
The park map has now been lifted directly from the app, rather than going for an arty-farty approach. Looks very bland in the grand scheme of things, but practical at least.

FrVX2MlWAAEI2UR
Click to expand...

This is the third year of this style of map and the removal of themed areas from the map
 
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