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Slammer - The end may be near?

Much better ;)

To be honest, it makes kind of sense to have a hotel like that. Was the one at Chessington funded by the park itself or was it joint funded by Holiday Inn too? There's obviously some reason in which the park decided to have Holiday Inn in a joint partnership.
 
Chessington/Merlin paid for the building and own it and lease it back to Holiday Inn.

Personally I think the hotel would have been better off going for a unique theme and then operated by Merlin themselves like the Alton hotels rather than having holiday Inn operate it.
 
Idlewild said:
The cycle is small medium large.

2003- nemesis inferno - large
2004 - samurai (relocation) - small
2005 - slammer and rush - Medium
2006 - stealth - large
2007 - flying fish(relocation) - small
2008 - Time Voyagers - medium
2009 - Saw - large
2010 - Saw:Alive - Small
2011 - Storm Surge(relocation) - medium
2012 - The Swarm - large

This fits in with Alton, who now get large investments in Thorpe's small year and legoland Windsor who get large investments in Thorpes medium year.

Also next year Chessington are getting a large investment(finally) so it is unlikely that Thorpe will get a medium investment.

For those who are wondering saw alive cost around £550,000 and storm surge although practically free, had to be relocated halfway around the world.

As you can see Thorpe have had much less of a budget for the 2008 and 2011 years than they did for the 2001 and 2005 years and 2009 had a reduced budget as well. Presumably due to the credit crunch.
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There is no cycle. Honestly, there isn't.

In 2005 Tussauds was sold to DIC. Prior to this, Tussauds spent two-three years investing in their parks to increase their asset value and to increase gate figures to inflate the value. This is why there was relatively high spending at the Tussauds parks in 2003/4/5 and badly made choices like Spinball and Rita - they were rushed in low budget (or as low as they could get away with).

In 2007 Tussauds was taken over by Merlin, until then Legoland and the Tussauds parks had been rivals, so the investment in Legoland doesn't work with the investment "cycle" at the other parks.

Each park is also self-contained in terms of investment and relies on individual gate figures, spends, profits, projected gate figures, etc, etc, etc and Merlin's investment won't have started to hit the parks until 2008 at the earliest, so we've only seen four years of actual Merlin investment so far. As the group was sold, investment would have changed as the desires of the share holders changed and the individual reliance of each park on their own funding justification would have also altered.

It's far more complicated than small/medium/large. It's simply "what can we afford to do in the next few years and what works out best for the budget and what depends on attained projections".
 
Yes you look at Alton and there was no real big investment from Air until 13 which is a huge gap.
 
spicy said:
Personally I think the hotel would have been better off going for a unique theme and then operated by Merlin themselves like the Alton hotels rather than having holiday Inn operate it.
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I dunno, it's not in your face like Legoland and Alton Towers but the theme seems to work pretty well - looks like a colonial building, and the guests get to see zebras wandering the fields from the veranda.
 
furie said:
There is no cycle. Honestly, there isn't.
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Yes there is, I'm sure Thorpes MTDP introduced it.

It started after the 2002 season when colossus, air and the new vampire were built. Vampire ran over budget when Vekoma went bankrupt.

In 2005 Tussauds was sold to DIC. Prior to this, Tussauds spent two-three years investing in their parks to increase their asset value and to increase gate figures to inflate the value. This is why there was relatively high spending at the Tussauds parks in 2003/4/5 and badly made choices like Spinball and Rita - they were rushed in low budget (or as low as they could get away with).
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Blame the alton's park management for that. Thorpe and Chessington were building rides like dragons fury and inferno. Stealth was already chosen to be an intamin rocket coaster and early planning had started on saw by 2004.

In 2007 Tussauds was taken over by Merlin, until then Legoland and the Tussauds parks had been rivals, so the investment in Legoland doesn't work with the investment "cycle" at the other parks.
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Before 2007 Alton's cycle was on the year before Thorpe's, when Merlin took over it was moved to the year after.

After Merlin took over the cycle broke down slightly(I'll admit that) and the two medium investment years since then have been questionable. This could be due to the credit crunch as prices on flat rides have increased dramatically over the past few years.

Each park is also self-contained in terms of investment and relies on individual gate figures, spends, profits, projected gate figures, etc, etc, etc and Merlin's investment won't have started to hit the parks until 2008 at the earliest, so we've only seen four years of actual Merlin investment so far. As the group was sold, investment would have changed as the desires of the share holders changed and the individual reliance of each park on their own funding justification would have also altered.
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I think you're wrong here.
Merlin sets the investment budgets for each park and has final say on what the parks install.

The parks have free choice over what they install with the exception of the above.

It is definitely not self contained as Thorpe and Alton get similar ride budgets but have very different gate figures, also legoland gets the same gate figures as Thorpe but no where near the amount of investment.

It's far more complicated than small/medium/large. It's simply "what can we afford to do in the next few years and what works out best for the budget and what depends on attained projections".
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The cycle is their ideal investment plan, they do mix it up a little like in 2008 and 2010, but the basics have been there since 2002 and in Thorpes case have been almost unchanged.

Now to the argument of is next year a small or medium year, it is certainly a small investment year because Thorpe have always had a small investment year after a large investment year going back all the way to the parks opening.(with the exception of 2002-3)

Also we haven't had a proper medium investment year since 2005.
 
Development and investment plans are completely fluid and utterly dependent on gate figures, profits, projections, current economic climate, shareholder interests, investor profits and projections and a thousand other things we can't even begin to comprehend.

There is no cycle, there is only a potential plan local management will try to stick to, but changes in management will also have an affect.

Look at the Alton Towers development plan. It was created by the new Merlin led management team and the only link it has to the old Tussauds plan was 13 which was the last plan brought forward by previous management before they were replaced.
http://www.towersalmanac.com/features/index.php?id=69

I don't know if we'll even see the planned four medium/large installations.

Plus, the GCI wood was meant to be Saw. The plans change constantly, things get shifted around as timing and money change. There really isn't a set cycle. They will try to stick to plans as best they can (that's the idea of having plans), but anything beyond the current committed project is just mist.
 
Merlin will never realease its long-term plans even if they had decided to do whatever comewhat May. They're typically smokscreens and deflections just designed to impress councils.
 
Not really relevant, but I'm pretty sure that the Chessington hotel has nothing to do with Holiday Inn anymore. Where's Peep when you need him?

Oh, and Slammer wasn't THAT bad a ride experience. It looked really intimidating, which is fab, but didn't ride as terrible as it looked (at least, not in the back). Considering how dreadfully unreliable its been though, I won't be sad to see it go, and would actually be more surprised if it stays. Getting rid of it would release a key plot of land that, in conjunction with ditching X and the arena, would be a huge area for a park that's so short on space.

Whoever said about the area being extended - where did you get that from?
 
^ If you mean the Arena, then I said that. I've read it on quite a few websites and forums that the park are planning on doing it up, and apparently extending it. Not sure how they could extend it at the moment though...
 
Ethan said:
^ If you mean the Arena, then I said that. I've read it on quite a few websites and forums that the park are planning on doing it up, and apparently extending it. Not sure how they could extend it at the moment though...
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But what would they do? Thorpe doesn't seem like the sort of place to attract crowds that would watch shows there - what has it been used for already?
 
Robbie said:
Ethan said:
^ If you mean the Arena, then I said that. I've read it on quite a few websites and forums that the park are planning on doing it up, and apparently extending it. Not sure how they could extend it at the moment though...
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But what would they do? Thorpe doesn't seem like the sort of place to attract crowds that would watch shows there - what has it been used for already?
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It has Mash Up events, and the Anual Sun Scream event which use the arena for stunt shows etc. Also, Experiment 10 sits there in October. In my opinion, I hope it does go. But i'm pretty sure they plan on keeping it.
 
^^Me too! I adore Slammer, it's so weird and unusual and one of the only hang time rides I actually enjoy! It'd be a shame to see it go to waste, but then again if it were to open up a new, big piece of land for future development I wouldn't say no, although relocation would be preferable to dismantling the thing.
 
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