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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

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AT86 said:
This just seems like poor local management as opposed to anything Merlin specific. Take Fireworks at Alton Towers for example, they lift the barriers on those nights to focus on just getting traffic moving. In reality most people don’t know they won’t be asked for a ticket so they buy one anyway, therefore the money lost is probably small comparative to the better guest experience and the money saved on not having to pay staff to hang around for an extra couple of hours.

Nothing stops Thorpe doing this on capacity days like this weekend gone.
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THORPE guests are fairly well known for not buying tickets and holding up the queue....
 
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I went last night, shockingly oversold as usual. Times slots don’t mean a thing if it takes you time to get to a point of getting to the entrance.

No one using scanners on maze entrance to validate tickets. As long as you waved a mobile in front of them with some kind of ticket, they let you through!

Platform 15 que almost back to old town toilets, you get excited to get to the entrance of the tunnel then realize you have another 30mins in a sweaty condensation dripping black plastic bag.
Was at the back of group so had plenty of chase scares.

Creak batching was the best of all for getting the line moving.
Less actors than I remember

Trailers waiting in the pen was painful.
Nice run through

Remind me not to go half term week next year!!!






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monkeyboy said:
I went last night, shockingly oversold as usual. Times slots don’t mean a thing if it takes you time to get to a point of getting to the entrance.

No one using scanners on maze entrance to validate tickets. As long as you waved a mobile in front of them with some kind of ticket, they let you through!

Platform 15 que almost back to old town toilets, you get excited to get to the entrance of the tunnel then realize you have another 30mins in a sweaty condensation dripping black plastic bag.
Was at the back of group so had plenty of chase scares.

Creak batching was the best of all for getting the line moving.
Less actors than I remember

Trailers waiting in the pen was painful.
Nice run through

Remind me not to go half term week next year!!!






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The scanners not being used isn't because they don't want to use them, but they are having issues.
At a guess the same wireless radios that host The Cloud also host whatever network the scanners use hence them failing to connect.

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imanautie said:
The scanners not being used isn't because they don't want to use them, but they are having issues.
At a guess the same wireless radios that host The Cloud also host whatever network the scanners use hence them failing to connect.

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Yeah cloud was constantly kicking off all day within minutes like constantly renewing release.l also didn’t have good 4g data so probably related.(brexit labour?)

Although I did get in early at dbgt by 30 mins with a scan which rejected but they still let us through.

My point was if you book for a 7pm slot you should be able to get in at 7pm not 7:15 then have to wait for 30 mins to start, this then causing a knock on effect to the rest of your pre booked time slots.


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Sounds awful, but unsurprising. Fright Nights on a bad night is always a misery. They had the opportunity to fix one of their biggest issues with the timed maze tickets, to allow for shorter queues, better batching and therefore overall maze experience, but sounds like they've screwed up.
 
It’s the one thing that really puts me going Thorpe for fright nights. I went a few years back and it was awful, few years earlier it was the same.

The ride queues are always massive, the fastrack queues are just as bad, and then the maze queues are awful. And that was when they used to be free. The idea of paying for them is to help the queues. But by the sounds of it the queues are worse than when the mazes were free.

I think you’ve basically got to visit the first weekend or so before it gets too awful.
 
I think a lot of the queuing problems could be reduced if the park stopped adding staff intensive, low capacity attractions like Black Mirror, Derren Brown and Jungle Escape and put in conventional ride hardware instead, it would also mean they wouldn't have to worry about timed tickets.
 
Its amazing that both AT and Thorpe are part of the same theme park group.

From reports it seems the timed maze tickets at Alton are sometimes a bit off but the system generally works. Whereas at Thorpe they must just be greedy and overselling or not learning from the mistakes or previous years or don't care.
Managers at Thorpe could talk to managers at AT about how to run the events but they seem to be a world apart.
 
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jon81uk said:
and yet people keep going back. Although I suppose Thorpes attendance has been on a decline since 2010.
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I'm probably a special case (and even then I'm not far off taking action against the park).

There's a fair few stand out rock star staff, but it doesn't take much to put people off going.

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imanautie said:
I'm probably a special case (and even then I'm not far off taking action against the park).

There's a fair few stand out rock star staff, but it doesn't take much to put people off going.

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Agreed the guy on creek was on top form, it’s like he was one meth and his one job was to get the next batch through, unfortunately this was the only maze I saw this.

I think the main problem with staff at thorpe is there is no overseeing management, whether that be a food stall or ride. When a problem arises which could be handled or improved by a senior member of staff this is usually left to the poor operator.


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It's me again, and I have yet more fuel to add to the fire of new coaster rumours for Thorpe!

Theme Park Guide went on a backstage tour at Thorpe Park recently, and they discovered that it's not just tree clearance that has been taking place on Logger's Leap's spot; the back section of the ride going through the forest has been entirely removed! As well as that, removal work has also begun on the second lift hill, with the conveyor belt and rollers being removed from the lift hill! Here's the link if you want to take a look at some of the pictures they took: https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Loggers-Leap-Removal-Begins

Exciting stuff, no? I don't know about you, but the fact that actual ride removal is happening indicates to me that stuff is happening... I think the imminent future could be very exciting for Thorpe!
 
Matt.GC said:
Thanks for the pictures Matt. It is interesting but I wouldn't call removing a Log Flume that's been closed for years exciting really. It's more of an inevitability.
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I guess that is true, but the fact that it's being removed after nearly 6 years stood SBNO suggests to me that they might be intending to do something with the area in the not-too-distant future... if they weren't intending to use the area at some point soon, surely they would have just saved the money on removing it and left it to crumble away for a few more years?
 
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