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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

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I don't have any strong view whether they should or not. When I worked in a park we did the same and were excited to do so - especially when guests commented on it. It was much cooler and more fun to do it yourself than to turn up in the morning and see what had been dumped on 'your' ride by corporate.

I am not sure going the extra mile in your professional life is a bad thing, really. I work more hours than I am paid for, buy refreshments for meetings, buy Christmas decorations, get employee of the month swag out of my own pocket, etc. That's how the world works, in my experience.
 
TakeYourMedicine said:
And how naive they are, giving a global company something for free year on year. I've done things like this in the past too and learnt the hard way. It should be discouraged, along with the "volunteer to clean our park for a day so we don't have to pay" thing they encouraged staff to do in the closed season not long ago.
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Just for the record: the Thorpe staff were not asked to volunteer their time. That "event" was a thing where all permanent staff were required to spend a day helping with cleaning and simple painting across the park. They were paid as normal.

For whatever reason, the marketing team decided to brag about it, making it out as something different. In reality, it was just staff being asked to help get the park ready as always - this always happens, but it's just when staff are less busy. That year, they just squashed all the extra help into a single day as a way to boost team spirit or something.
 
Prophecy said:
For whatever reason, the marketing team decided to brag about it, making it out as something different. In reality, it was just staff being asked to help get the park ready as always - this always happens, but it's just when staff are less busy. That year, they just squashed all the extra help into a single day as a way to boost team spirit or something.
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That's great to hear, thanks for clarifying. What a stoopid way to promote it then by the social media team, just makes them look really poor.
 
I visited Fright Nights on both Saturday and Sunday and experienced each maze multiple times, here are my reviews.

- SPOILERS BELOW! -

Creek Freak Massacre
The new maze for 2019 has a fantastic presence from the exterior, however the queue-line feels a bit sparse with you being able to see the workings of the sign. There are theme music and announcements however I couldn't hear these very well due to there only being two speakers towards the end of the queue.

Onto the maze itself, it's very good fun. There is some good theming, multiple routes and the actors really get into their roles. The maze uses some really ambitious effects such as the heat room, the "blade table" with water and the strobe flash rate near the end is excellent and reminiscent of The Asylum's chaotic feel. It felt as though some of the effects were not working as intended, for example the blade was just round, did not move and I believe it is supposed to have a lighting sequence on the theming object itself? Hopefully they are able to rectify this.

The chainsaw scares were mixed. Out of six goes in the maze, I had one excellent one where I encountered three chainsaws; one in a corridor, one in the strobe room and one at the end. Unfortunately, the first time I saw three chainsaws however the first one wasn't working. On all four other run-through's I only encountered two chainsaws.

I'm not sure whether one chainsaw was broken and they had no spare or whether it depends on how busy the maze is, but I noticed a severe lack of actors (and chainsaws!) towards the end of the evening on Sunday. We walked thorough many corridors without encountering any actors, with there only being a few in the key scenes. This was a massive contrast to Saturday evening where the maze was full of actors who took us aside into corners, split us up etc. The maze is very inconsistent.

In my opinion, some more low-level scenic lighting would be beneficial in places such as spotlights highlighting the "good wood" and "bad wood" signs in the first scene as these are currently not visible under show conditions.

I feel that the park's marketing let the maze down by building falsely high expectations which the attraction did not deliver.

It is not the most intense Fright Nights maze ever - in my opinion. The maze is not intense; it's well themed with some good effects/scares, but even on the best run-through it felt very calm and controlled with the exception of the short strobe maze section. Claiming it to be the most intense Fright Nights maze of all time is an insult to the creators of Experiment 10 and The Asylum, both of which were, in my opinion, far superior and much more intense than Creek Freak IMO. I have also seen it claimed on the park’s website that it’s the UK’s most intense scare maze? Laughable.

Overall, Creek Freak Massacre is a solid addition to the Fright Nights line-up and a huge improvement on anything the park did last year. I wouldn't consider it a top-tier Thorpe maze and unfortunately it was let down by it being over-hyped, but it's definitely one of the better ones in recent years and there is still room for improvements to be made.

6/10


Platform 15
I felt that Platform 15 was improved on the whole this year. The actors made much more of the story-line on our walk-through's and there seemed to be a good balance between scripted scenes and scares throughout.

Unfortunately, there was light leaking into the long tunnel which completely spoiled the effect and made it far too predictable in terms of where actors were positioned. I could see Saw: The Ride at one point through a hole in the sheets!

The new final scene was excellent on the Sunday run-through and genuinely made our group jump!

4/10


Blair Witch
Again, a lot more scripted talking from the actor the early scenes and a new addition of going around and around in circles made it... different.

I really liked the long periods of pitch darkness from the original version of this maze, and it unfortunately it feels too illuminated now and therefore does not have the same effect. With that said, I liked the more creative route this year.

3/10


Walking Dead: Living Nightmare
The maze remains largely the same as previous years but with an improved ending. The actors were doing a great job during our goes however I feel the attraction misses the mark somewhere.

There is some good theming but nothing particularly stands out, it isn't scary and the strobe maze feels poorly executed compared with others.

4/10


Walking Dead: Do or Die
I don't understand this attraction, why are we sitting in a bus, how are we supposed to be scared walking through temporary tarpaulin sheet fencing with bright white floodlights and what are we supposed to be "doing"?

The interior of the containers was better than last year and the actors were brilliant once again, but it's just a poor attraction IMO and I really don't think we need two Walking Dead mazes.

2/10


Overall Event and Park Atmosphere
Fright Nights feels improved on last year with the addition of Creek Freak Massacre and a reduction in poor quality attractions, however the event still feels a shallow rendition of its former self.

Whilst we gained a new horror maze, we lost Saw Alive and are down to just two indoor horror attractions. This is not enough and we found ourselves having to wait until it got dark to walk through the remaining three attractions after doing the first two as both Platform and Do or Die rely on darkness to create a sense of mystery that would be lost during daylight. The event used to have five full-scale indoor horror mazes, what happened?

I like how every scare attraction has had an improvement made to it and I have to say that the actors were largely fantastic throughout both days/evenings. It appears as though the park have taken feedback on-board from last year and tried to make changes where they can, which is great.

The Amity High show outside Stealth is brilliant and created a fantastic atmosphere around the area.

Lighting around the park is terrible with floodlit queue-lines (and mazes!) and hideous emergency lighting left on around Platform 15’s queue which ruined the effect that the scenic lighting would have otherwise created. One particular annoyance was that there is a bright white floodlight shining directly onto the Derren Brown’s Ghost Train entrance sign which destroys the effect it used to have with the blue light shining through and illuminating the letters (similar to the effect The Asylum’s sign also had). How can they build such an elaborate sign only to have such terrible attention to detail a few years down the line? Will we see bright flood lights shining onto the Wicker Man structure in a few years? So, so poor.

The park did not feel like Fright Nights was running at all, there was none of the smoke effects in vehicles we have seen in recent years and a lack of coloured lighting as mentioned above. With that said, there was some theming dotted around in places such as old Vulcan Peak queue theming and body bags. It was a shame to see old Big Top theming dumped in a visible location whilst queueing for Do or Die.

Nemesis Inferno looks fantastic with the mist working fully and a new orange light, Colossus’s station has also seen some theming added which is great and reminded me of the event’s glory days.

There was some good themed audio around the park, more could be done but what was there was good. With that said, it was amusing to hear the original upbeat end-of-the-day track on Saturday night whilst leaving the dome!

Overall, I enjoyed my visits to Fright Nights this year and particularly enjoyed Inferno in the dark. Creek Freak Massacre is a solid addition and with improvements could be up there with the best Fright Nights mazes, however I feel that the overall event is still lacking in quality and depth.
 
D4n said:
I suspect the reason for the Colossus station looking tacky is that the ride staff have done it off their own backs. To be fair I think something a bit cheesy and naff is genuinely better than nothing in this case.

General atmosphere at Fright Nights has been drab for years now and I have no intention of returning after last year's shambles.

The new maze sounds promising though.
Click to expand...

Well it looked crap. Very sorry to those who might have done that work, it's pleasing to see you have passion.

If I was a manager I saw it I think I'd have to find some money and link them with a creative type. So they still have some control over their ride, but can do better than zip tied skulls.

Also forgot to mention that in saw there seemed to be an uptick in Billy/Jigsaw puppets. Not sure myself, but my partner swore they'd added two (one at the corner of fast track entry and stairs up, and the other in the station, between loading bays for each train). Anyone know if these are new? Maybe they came from saw alive?
 
Coaster said:
I visited Fright Nights on both Saturday and Sunday and experienced each maze multiple times, here are my reviews.

- SPOILERS BELOW! -

Creek Freak Massacre
The new maze for 2019 has a fantastic presence from the exterior, however the queue-line feels a bit sparse with you being able to see the workings of the sign. There are theme music and announcements however I couldn't hear these very well due to there only being two speakers towards the end of the queue.

Onto the maze itself, it's very good fun. There is some good theming, multiple routes and the actors really get into their roles. The maze uses some really ambitious effects such as the heat room, the "blade table" with water and the strobe flash rate near the end is excellent and reminiscent of The Asylum's chaotic feel. It felt as though some of the effects were not working as intended, for example the blade was just round, did not move and I believe it is supposed to have a lighting sequence on the theming object itself? Hopefully they are able to rectify this.

The chainsaw scares were mixed. Out of six goes in the maze, I had one excellent one where I encountered three chainsaws; one in a corridor, one in the strobe room and one at the end. Unfortunately, the first time I saw three chainsaws however the first one wasn't working. On all four other run-through's I only encountered two chainsaws.

I'm not sure whether one chainsaw was broken and they had no spare or whether it depends on how busy the maze is, but I noticed a severe lack of actors (and chainsaws!) towards the end of the evening on Sunday. We walked thorough many corridors without encountering any actors, with there only being a few in the key scenes. This was a massive contrast to Saturday evening where the maze was full of actors who took us aside into corners, split us up etc. The maze is very inconsistent.

In my opinion, some more low-level scenic lighting would be beneficial in places such as spotlights highlighting the "good wood" and "bad wood" signs in the first scene as these are currently not visible under show conditions.

I feel that the park's marketing let the maze down by building falsely high expectations which the attraction did not deliver.

It is not the most intense Fright Nights maze ever - in my opinion. The maze is not intense; it's well themed with some good effects/scares, but even on the best run-through it felt very calm and controlled with the exception of the short strobe maze section. Claiming it to be the most intense Fright Nights maze of all time is an insult to the creators of Experiment 10 and The Asylum, both of which were, in my opinion, far superior and much more intense than Creek Freak IMO. I have also seen it claimed on the park’s website that it’s the UK’s most intense scare maze? Laughable.

Overall, Creek Freak Massacre is a solid addition to the Fright Nights line-up and a huge improvement on anything the park did last year. I wouldn't consider it a top-tier Thorpe maze and unfortunately it was let down by it being over-hyped, but it's definitely one of the better ones in recent years and there is still room for improvements to be made.

6/10


Platform 15
I felt that Platform 15 was improved on the whole this year. The actors made much more of the story-line on our walk-through's and there seemed to be a good balance between scripted scenes and scares throughout.

Unfortunately, there was light leaking into the long tunnel which completely spoiled the effect and made it far too predictable in terms of where actors were positioned. I could see Saw: The Ride at one point through a hole in the sheets!

The new final scene was excellent on the Sunday run-through and genuinely made our group jump!

4/10


Blair Witch
Again, a lot more scripted talking from the actor the early scenes and a new addition of going around and around in circles made it... different.

I really liked the long periods of pitch darkness from the original version of this maze, and it unfortunately it feels too illuminated now and therefore does not have the same effect. With that said, I liked the more creative route this year.

3/10


Walking Dead: Living Nightmare
The maze remains largely the same as previous years but with an improved ending. The actors were doing a great job during our goes however I feel the attraction misses the mark somewhere.

There is some good theming but nothing particularly stands out, it isn't scary and the strobe maze feels poorly executed compared with others.

4/10


Walking Dead: Do or Die
I don't understand this attraction, why are we sitting in a bus, how are we supposed to be scared walking through temporary tarpaulin sheet fencing with bright white floodlights and what are we supposed to be "doing"?

The interior of the containers was better than last year and the actors were brilliant once again, but it's just a poor attraction IMO and I really don't think we need two Walking Dead mazes.

2/10


Overall Event and Park Atmosphere
Fright Nights feels improved on last year with the addition of Creek Freak Massacre and a reduction in poor quality attractions, however the event still feels a shallow rendition of its former self.

Whilst we gained a new horror maze, we lost Saw Alive and are down to just two indoor horror attractions. This is not enough and we found ourselves having to wait until it got dark to walk through the remaining three attractions after doing the first two as both Platform and Do or Die rely on darkness to create a sense of mystery that would be lost during daylight. The event used to have five full-scale indoor horror mazes, what happened?

I like how every scare attraction has had an improvement made to it and I have to say that the actors were largely fantastic throughout both days/evenings. It appears as though the park have taken feedback on-board from last year and tried to make changes where they can, which is great.

The Amity High show outside Stealth is brilliant and created a fantastic atmosphere around the area.

Lighting around the park is terrible with floodlit queue-lines (and mazes!) and hideous emergency lighting left on around Platform 15’s queue which ruined the effect that the scenic lighting would have otherwise created. One particular annoyance was that there is a bright white floodlight shining directly onto the Derren Brown’s Ghost Train entrance sign which destroys the effect it used to have with the blue light shining through and illuminating the letters (similar to the effect The Asylum’s sign also had). How can they build such an elaborate sign only to have such terrible attention to detail a few years down the line? Will we see bright flood lights shining onto the Wicker Man structure in a few years? So, so poor.

The park did not feel like Fright Nights was running at all, there was none of the smoke effects in vehicles we have seen in recent years and a lack of coloured lighting as mentioned above. With that said, there was some theming dotted around in places such as old Vulcan Peak queue theming and body bags. It was a shame to see old Big Top theming dumped in a visible location whilst queueing for Do or Die.

Nemesis Inferno looks fantastic with the mist working fully and a new orange light, Colossus’s station has also seen some theming added which is great and reminded me of the event’s glory days.

There was some good themed audio around the park, more could be done but what was there was good. With that said, it was amusing to hear the original upbeat end-of-the-day track on Saturday night whilst leaving the dome!

Overall, I enjoyed my visits to Fright Nights this year and particularly enjoyed Inferno in the dark. Creek Freak Massacre is a solid addition and with improvements could be up there with the best Fright Nights mazes, however I feel that the overall event is still lacking in quality and depth.
Click to expand...
To be honest I saw creak freak as good but a clone of altonville mine tours with a splash of tott.
On that note on Saturday Alton staff with an Alton staff lanyard were walking around with a TP manager (saw them on the path between crusts and SAW)

Sent from my Swift 2 Plus using Tapatalk
 
ihaveaspergers said:
To be honest I saw creak freak as good but a clone of altonville mine tours with a splash of tott.
On that note on Saturday Alton staff with an Alton staff lanyard were walking around with a TP manager (saw them on the path between crusts and SAW)

Sent from my Swift 2 Plus using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Not surprised there’s similarities of towers mazes in Creak Freak - Towers staff created it
 
spinba11 said:
The only “new puppet” is at the bottom of the stairs which is from the maze.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I said the one in the station was always there, but my partner convincingly pointed out it was too clean to have been there for any time. Wonder if anything else from the maze will be recycled.
 
How much are fast passes for mazes?
Can only see 3 mazes for £28 online no mention of other mazes.

Presumably you can get these on the day?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Crawleyboy01 said:
Can anyone tell me the prices for fright night at thorpe...I've looked online and cant find how much it is for a pmap. Entry and mazes

Tia
Click to expand...

Mazes don't cost extra at Thorpe (except the Containment escape room) - PMAP can book a £1 ticket to guarantee entry on Fright Nights dates.
 
AT86 said:
Mazes don't cost extra at Thorpe (except the Containment escape room) - PMAP can book a £1 ticket to guarantee entry on Fright Nights dates.
Click to expand...

Thanks for quick reply. I thought that was the case but where can I book the ticket for entry and how much is the escape room??
 
Following on from the announcements of Chessington and Towers' new for 2020 attractions, it was inevitable Thorpe were going to announce their additions at some point. Thankfully, a friend of a friend of a friend managed to slide me the press release for their new addition.

M25: The Journey Never Ends
00c0284fe2dd998921bd84446b6699e2.jpg


This second hand brand new, state-of-the-art attraction will be situated underneath the former Stealth's top hat, resembling the delight of taking a journey around the iconic orbital London motorway. Each ride vehicle will be themed to some of the various foreign lorries that take great pleasure in failing to indicate, cutting you up and navigating roundabouts in the totally wrong direction.

Branding and Innovations intern Georgian Littleton said: "We are delighted to bring the the thrills of the M25 to life here at THORPE Park Resort".

"Thorough guest research indicates that 99.1% of our guests get stuck in traffic on the M25 on the way to and from the resort, so it's only natural that we replicate this adrenaline pumping sensation in the nation's thrill capital".

Alongside the new addition, Amity Speedway is to be re-themed to London Heathrow Airport, with Stealth undergoing an extensive re-theme to Swissport: The Ride. Guests will be invited to climb aboard their very own luggage themed train carriage, before replicating the experience of their luggage being launched from a conveyor belt up into the hold of an aircraft; before plummeting back down to the ground in a crashing and chaotic manner - much like the genuine Swissport handling procedure.

Merlin Entertainments CEO, Nick Varney, commented: "We are really pleased with the new additions across our UK parks next year".

"The world's first Duplo Dream Coaster at Legoland Windsor Resort will continue our mission to introduce low capacity rides to further increase extortinate queue lengths, driving revenue from Q-Bot sales at the parks".

"At Chessington World of Adventures Resort, we are fulfilling our next bold step in our game of HUSS Removal Bingo by removing Rameses Revenge, replacing it with a much lower capacity drop tower. Our industry leading new log flume will also help to detract guests from the shoddy re-theme of Tiger Rock's tunnel into a concrete turd, further enhancing the guest experience we are somewhat passionate about".

"Alton Towers Resort will also see our game of HUSS Removal Bingo almost draw to a close, with The Blade being replaced with an exciting, top secret world's first HB Leisure Game that we can't wait to tell you about in the near future.

We are finally giving Cloud Cuckoo Land a repaint with an open tin of paint we found round the back of B&Q; naming our area "What in the World of David Walliams" after the first four words David Walliams said when he first saw our plans to put a cut/paste midway attraction into the ride area that should have been dedicated to him the year previously".

"Our addition and re-theme at THORPE Park Resort continues to boldly direct the park into the direction of mishap and chaos that we've been striving for since we first accquired the park".

"By re-theming Stealth into Swissport: The Ride, we are also able to market the product as not only the world's first airport themed baggage roller coaster, but also as brand new to insinuate we've finally built a brand new roller coaster since our last addition in The Swarm back in 2012".

"Brexit or no Brexit, Merlin Entertainments is launching itself into 2020 with an exciting portfolio of world-beating attractions that we can't wait for guests to experience. Wait, what do you mean we've got no accommodation pl"

An opening date for the new additions is yet to be confirmed.
 
Couldn’t find a quick questions thread for TP so will ask here.. what’s the reason for Nemesis Inferno only having 7 rows per train when Nemesis has 8?
 
Interesting question. Most inverters have 8 rows, whereas Nemesis Inferno and a few others have 7 rows. There's also one with only 6 rows.

I would guess it's to do with the track layout to ensure the train maintains a suitable pace. Perhaps when the layout is more constrained than normal then an 8-car train would not complete the circuit or it would have undesirable speeds or g-forces, so reducing to 7 rows it makes the forces acceptable again.
 
I recall Walter Bolliger was asked about this at a Q&A and he essentially said they provide what parks ask for... which doesn't really mean anything.

Six Flags have bought BTR clones with seven and eight rows. Plus I think the six row inverter is also a BTR clone.
 
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