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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Call_um said:
I got to the park just before 5 today for the first of the 9pm closes this summer and had a great evening. Managed multiple rides on Hyperia and Stealth, all other major coasters and a few flats.

They got seriously unlucky with the weather, so I hope this doesn't put them off late closes in the future as today clearly wasn't successful. After half 6 the park really filtered out and the only ride with a queue was Hyperia.

Great ops across the board. Stealth team were smashing trains out as per usual, putting in 100% effort even when there was no queue.

I'm surprised they didn't offer discounted tickets for late entry. Could've tried marketing it a bit more on social media with later entry tickets maybe..
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Yeah the weather was bad... Think of those folk at reading and Leeds festivals! But your right if they had a evening pass (say from 4) I'd have definitely gone! It's something they should consider.
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Maybe we could get a whole new coaster that uses both buildings.
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Yeah I had that thought but wouldn't it be better to rip out the x building? Because of its shape your limiting yourself alot. The train/tube section of the ride could be the pre-show?

Something along the lines of a coaster in a tube tunnel?
 
It seems Thorpe Park has updated the ride availability page to say that Rumba Rapids will close from 9 September with no reopening date (possibly for the rest of the season).

Could this mean that we may see Rumba Rapids get a retheme and refurbishment for 2025? 😉 Or could the Rumba Rapids site be home to the next major rollercoaster or major water ride?

It has struggled this year with frequent downtime and closures so think a major refurbishment and retheme is needed.

I'd like to see it become Thunder River again with the rapids being wilder like before.

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owenstreet7 said:
It seems Thorpe Park has updated the ride availability page to say that Rumba Rapids will close from 9 September with no reopening date (possibly for the rest of the season).

Could this mean that we may see Rumba Rapids get a retheme and refurbishment for 2025? 😉 Or could the Rumba Rapids site be home to the next major rollercoaster or major water ride?

It has struggled this year with frequent downtime and closures so think a major refurbishment and retheme is needed.

I'd like to see it become Thunder River again with the rapids being wilder like before.

1000041421.png
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The land is big enough to accommodate a family thrill ride like Wicker man. I think a woodie would add some great variety to the lineup
 
owenstreet7 said:
It seems Thorpe Park has updated the ride availability page to say that Rumba Rapids will close from 9 September with no reopening date (possibly for the rest of the season).

Could this mean that we may see Rumba Rapids get a retheme and refurbishment for 2025? 😉 Or could the Rumba Rapids site be home to the next major rollercoaster or major water ride?

It has struggled this year with frequent downtime and closures so think a major refurbishment and retheme is needed.

I'd like to see it become Thunder River again with the rapids being wilder like before.

1000041421.png
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I imagine it is just a cost saving exercise. Merlin parks seem to have been trying to reduce operating expenses in various ways this year. Rapids are expensive to run and staff these days - as the weather gets colder and ridership drops it’s an easy target for cost savings.
 
AT86 said:
I imagine it is just a cost saving exercise. Merlin parks seem to have been trying to reduce operating expenses in various ways this year. Rapids are expensive to run and staff these days - as the weather gets colder and ridership drops it’s an easy target for cost savings.
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Yeah I imagine it’s purely down to demand - it’ll be cold soon and no one will want to ride it anyways, so effectively it saves Thorpe park money and helps with staffing.

I say let’s not get our hopes up, I honestly don’t see them doing anything to the ride to make it better
 
If it’s for cost cutting wouldn’t it be cheaper to close Tidal Wave instead with the amount of people a day willing to get soaked compared to a few splashes on the rapids. Honestly they could close them both and just have storm surge open.
 
my few visits to Thorpe this year have been pretty decent. Operations have been pretty good on most rides, and bar the earlier issues with Hyperia, not seen massive amounts of downtime. Plenty of things need some TLC though. Rumba Rapids looks like a cess pit and there are many areas looking a bit tired and need a bit of a refresh.

Good to see some late openings. this Saturday was hampered by the poor weather at start of the day with pretty much constant rain until around 2pm. The forecast no doubt put many off coming as it was quiet for most of the day and late afternoon/evening was pretty pleasant.

The queue times displayed on the App were wildly off. Inferno 40 minutes when the back of queue was just popping out of the station building. Swarm 30 minutes when it was walk on. Stealth 5 minutes when the queue was at the entrance (with no extensions open).

The only down point of my trip on Saturday was taking the bus to Staines where we were staying for the night. Made it in time for the one that was supposed to depart at 21:15 and indeed, was just about to set off and go only to be told we needed to wait for staff who needed to catch it. We ended up departing at 21:50, and only then because of a lot of passengers starting to get very irate as they had trains and connections to catch. Also another 2 buses came and went in that time with just a couple of people on so I can't see why we ended up waiting another 35 minutes for when there were later ones available. Could of walked quicker or just picked up the 'Normal' service bus from just outside the entrance.
 
Really wouldn't mind seeing the end of Rumba to be honest. I'd say its quite easily the worst rapids in the UK and I imagine its very expensive to run especially with the amount of staff it requires nowadays.

Would rather see it used a re-development area in the future rather than a re-theme or some work, but I imagine there are favorable sites for new attractions so can't see it being used for a long time.
 
Not entirely sure when this came in but they've converted the entire tarmac part of the car park to "priority" by putting some red and white traffic barriers at the end of the gravel section. At the moment there's no dedicated entrance to priority so I'm not entirely sure how you're meant to get into it and when exiting the main car park you'll drive through priority to get to the barriers (unless you're in one of the first few rows and use the 2 exit lanes adjacent to security). Presumably the main appeal is priority security, which they're hoping is a big enough draw to justify allocating it a large chunk of their car parking space.

I can also confirm that if you're at the back of what is now priority it can still take a very long time to get out, based on my unfortunate location on Sunday (which was right next to priority). They just don't have enough exit barriers - beyond them traffic flows freely to the roundabout.
 
Call_um said:
Really wouldn't mind seeing the end of Rumba to be honest. I'd say its quite easily the worst rapids in the UK and I imagine its very expensive to run especially with the amount of staff it requires nowadays.

Would rather see it used a re-development area in the future rather than a re-theme or some work, but I imagine there are favorable sites for new attractions so can't see it being used for a long time.
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would fully agree, I think they will be the next type to go (like log flumes) as they require a large amount of staff and are more dangerous compared to a rollercoaster (not that it is dangerous, just there are more things that can go wrong and they are hoping that guests don't do stupid things like jump into the rapids) so there would probably be more liabilities it would also make a good plot for a multi launch coaster weaving through some trees
 
owenstreet7 said:
It seems Thorpe Park has updated the ride availability page to say that Rumba Rapids will close from 9 September with no reopening date (possibly for the rest of the season).

Could this mean that we may see Rumba Rapids get a retheme and refurbishment for 2025? 😉 Or could the Rumba Rapids site be home to the next major rollercoaster or major water ride?

It has struggled this year with frequent downtime and closures so think a major refurbishment and retheme is needed.

I'd like to see it become Thunder River again with the rapids being wilder like before.

1000041421.png
Click to expand...
Amity Beach has also been added to the list now, closing on the 9th.
 
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