YAY Merlin!

[Tonkso]

Following on from last year's great visit to Thorpe, today's was fantastic too. It really does feel like the place is back on the up again (literally in Hyperia's case) and they've remembered how to run a Theme Park.

Breakdowns weren't too bad today with engineering getting rides back online pretty quickly. Queues were good with decent dispatch and nothing running single train. The park is looking really tidy with the project sparkle progress looking amazing, the park atmosphere is really good now too.

Colossus probably needs a full refurbishment at this point but still a fun ride capable of drawing a crowd, and the repainted sections are taking me right back to 2002. I really would like to see Inferno repainted too though, it's more brown than red these days.

Overall an amazing day with 21 rides done. Hyperia looks incredible.

 

[Dan Nguyen]

You guys have no idea how good you really have it with these Merlin parks.

I went to Alton Towers for the first time and had a blast. It's easily one of the best parks I've ever visited. Operations are amazingly efficient. While the coasters aren't really in my top 10, they're all best in their class. The Towers makes a great focal point and you have this massive botanical garden surrounded by world class coasters.

My Thorpe visit was a little rougher, but you still have a really solid park with a great collection of coasters. They have a habit of underestimating wait times and ops were a little spotty so I was waiting a bit longer than expected for Swarm and Stealth. Inferno was closed for a good chunk of my visit so I wasn't able to ride that, but 3 rides on Hyperia made up for it.

I come from the US and I'm a bit of an outsider when it comes to these parks, but comparing them to some of the parks I've been to, Alton and Thorpe definitely top them for sure. At the very least, the operations at both would put a park like Hersheypark, BGT, or SFDK to absolute shame. Atmosphere-wise they stomp all over a pretty good chunk of parks in the US.

I'm looking forward to my first visit to Chessington, which is a park I've heard a number of people say is pretty bad. I'll have to see how it compares to an actual bad park like Kentucky Kingdom lol

I also really like the idea of attached hotels. Why more parks in the US don't take advantage of that, I'll never know.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

You guys have no idea how good you really have it with these Merlin parks.

I went to Alton Towers for the first time and had a blast. It's easily one of the best parks I've ever visited. Operations are amazingly efficient. While the coasters aren't really in my top 10, they're all best in their class. The Towers makes a great focal point and you have this massive botanical garden surrounded by world class coasters.

My Thorpe visit was a little rougher, but you still have a really solid park with a great collection of coasters. They have a habit of underestimating wait times and ops were a little spotty so I was waiting a bit longer than expected for Swarm and Stealth. Inferno was closed for a good chunk of my visit so I wasn't able to ride that, but 3 rides on Hyperia made up for it.

I come from the US and I'm a bit of an outsider when it comes to these parks, but comparing them to some of the parks I've been to, Alton and Thorpe definitely top them for sure. At the very least, the operations at both would put a park like Hersheypark, BGT, or SFDK to absolute shame. Atmosphere-wise they stomp all over a pretty good chunk of parks in the US.

I'm looking forward to my first visit to Chessington, which is a park I've heard a number of people say is pretty bad. I'll have to see how it compares to an actual bad park like Kentucky Kingdom lol

I also really like the idea of attached hotels. Why more parks in the US don't take advantage of that, I'll never know.

Awesome post… We’re a nation of complainers, and when you spend 30 plus days on park a year, it’s easy to see all of the little flaws, which gives us plenty to moan about.

But you’re right, Alton Towers really is special, and the direction it’s taking lately has reignited my passion for the place, and filled me with excitement.

That being said, we don’t like to be beaten, we’re a nation of sore losers, and several parks in mainland Europe give us a lot to be jealous of, which probably helps to fuel the moaning.

 

[Dan Nguyen]

Awesome post… We’re a nation of complainers, and when you spend 30 plus days on park a year, it’s easy to see all of the little flaws, which gives us plenty to moan about.

But you’re right, Alton Towers really is special, and the direction it’s taking lately has reignited my passion for the place, and filled me with excitement.

That being said, we don’t like to be beaten, we’re a nation of sore losers, and several parks in mainland Europe give us a lot to be jealous of, which probably helps to fuel the moaning.

My home park is BGW so I know where you're coming from. I've gone there and KD so many times, it's really easy to see the flaws, but visiting other parks around the world really helps me appreciate how good those parks really are at heart. I've noticed BGW declining over the years and it's sad to see, but the park has plenty of bright spots and it's still my favorite Sea World park in the whole chain.

Yeah I'm spoiled with being able to travel and see the best and worst parks around. I guess it helps that most US parks are concrete pits with no theming, little shade, and mediocre operations so when I visit a park like Thorpe, I end up being more impressed than the locals.

 

[Niles]

So considering i was spited by Hyperia yesterday we had a nice day. While the park was busy we allways waited less than the time advertised (25mins longest wait) and on most of the rides ride ops were dispatching fast (guy running Stealth was rapid)

We left at 3:30 as we did everything we wanted, due to Hyperias closure sister got a free return ticket which is nice. Also we saw three groups queue jump and all got escorted off the rides which was great to see.

In total we did all the coasters apart from Hyperia and Colossus, for the first time ever i enjoyed Saw?? Im so very confused, it was nothing like i remember it, not rough and great forces. We also did the majority of the other rides.

Also Rumba Rapids is 18+ now, so it was quiet all day.

Staff were nice, sister got a decent curry, toilets were clean, no litter, compared to my last visit years ago park seems better. Also they have a euros football area with a big TV if thats your thing, i was amazed how many people were there watching it.

While i only saw it go backwards it is stunning on the skyline, once i get to ride it, it will be well worth it.


Stealth is still breathtaking and for now my No1 in the park.


But yea, ive now done all London Merlin parks this year. Had a great day at all and as i have the discovery pass, i think its good value. Not to far to travel for me and while 10£ is a bit much for parking its not awful. Alton i still have to do and my last visit was 2019 so im looking forward to it.

Really do hope they get Hyperia going consistently as i dont mind missing it but if people are coming from afar its not fantastic for them to have this uncertainty it currently has on if it will be operating.

 

[Bentleya]

If Rumba Rapids is for 18+ only now, surely it's going to be on the chopping block soon? especially as it's unable to be operated in the rain…

 

[JoshC.]

Rumba has been set to "you have to ride with an adult" during June/July for the past few years. This is because it's peak school trip season, and they do it to alleviate some of the risk of kids being stupid and standing up / jumping out. It's not a perfect solution, but after the Drayton incident, Merlin have done it to be extra cautious.

The adult rule will be dropped after school trip season ends.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Rumba has been set to "you have to ride with an adult" during June/July for the past few years. This is because it's peak school trip season, and they do it to alleviate some of the risk of kids being stupid and standing up / jumping out. It's not a perfect solution, but after the Drayton incident, Merlin have done it to be extra cautious.

The adult rule will be dropped after school trip season ends.

Didn't they do the same at Alton Towers too, or am I fabricating that memory...

Makes perfect sense to me, and it's genuinely to protect their lives. Unfortunately, as good as kids are these days compared to in the 90's and 00s, get groups of teenagers together and there's bound to be occasions where they stand or move around the boat. This is a perfectly sensible solution to that.

 

[Ollie]

Didn't they do the same at Alton Towers too, or am I fabricating that memory...

Makes perfect sense to me, and it's genuinely to protect their lives. Unfortunately, as good as kids are these days compared to in the 90's and 00s, get groups of teenagers together and there's bound to be occasions where they stand or move around the boat. This is a perfectly sensible solution to that.

They did and still do. Seems to be a policy across all the Merlin parks and pretty sure Drayton do it as well.

 

[owenstreet7]

They did and still do. Seems to be a policy across all the Merlin parks and pretty sure Drayton do it as well.

Drayton definitely have that policy in place, Stormforce 10 is also included in that policy during school trip season.

 

[spicy]

This in depth video AT just released about what has been going on with Hex and all the work that has taken place is awesome.

 

[cookie]

Heide-Park was actually a good boy this year. My visit on July 16th may have actually been the best visit I've ever had to the park.

Everything was running, and operations were fairly consistent. The log flume had a delay in the morning, but it was the only one that had any major issues and it didn't last very long. It's annoying how Bobbahn and Toxic Garden don't open until noon, but at least it's advertised on the app and they opened on schedule. Colossos had a lot of fresh wood along the track and ran amazingly. I think they've turned off the trims and the camelbacks now hit like a meteor in both the front and back rows. The effects on the big tree monster were working consistently, as were many other effects throughout the park. Some of the speakers along the path were blown out and could use replacing, but other than that the upkeep seems to have improved in a lot of places.

Dämonen Gruft was interesting if underwhelming, and Toxic Garden aka Limit was still as horrendous as ever, but it at least doesn't look as garish as before. The abandoned areas are still a major blight to the park, but there at least seems to be a concentrated effort to improve the areas that are operating and replace some of the areas that don't. It's amazing how just a little bit of focus on maintenance, operations, theming, and park atmosphere can vastly improve the experience without even needing to invest millions in new rides every year. I'm actually optimistic for the park's future for the first time in decades now.

I think between this and Legoland Billund, it seems like the non-UK Merlin parks actually give a bit of a ****? Is it just because they have actual competition to deal with? Heide is still behind Hansa in my opinion, and leagues behind the likes of Europa and Phantasialand, but I would rank it above Movie Park Germany now.

 

[JoshC.]

I've only done Heide once, 2 years ago, but I really enjoyed my visit there. I can see why some people have issues with it - especially if they know about the dead rides - but I found it a decent park, with a good, varied selection of rides, that was well presented. In fact, I enjoyed it more than Hansa.

Maybe it was just because I went on a quiet day, but I do think it's perhaps overly criticised.

 

[Burniel]

Thorpe Park once again rocking it with the ops today. Not a single moment of downtime on Hyperia, all 6 major coasters operating pretty reliably and trains being hammered out - staff are clearly being incentivised to produce high throughputs given how much the Hyperia team went into overdrive in the last hour of the day. I also noticed and appreciated staff being quite firm with people trying stuff like saving places for others in queues. Despite how rammed the place was, I truly believe the average visitor could easily have ridden everything significant while still leaving time for breaks etc, which I'd consider the ultimate measure of a park being able to handle its crowds.

This is just one of a number of more customer-friendly policies I've noticed them putting more focus on over the past year. The free water/suncream, 7pm closes all summer, and re-ride policy on dead days are all things I don't recall from visits pre-pandemic. Arguably basic customer service, but they could easily (and have, in the past) get away with not doing any of it. Good on the management team, the other parks in the chain could learn a lot.

 

[Benenen]

I echo the above and have found Thorpe to be weirdly good this season. I live 40 mins away and used to go once or twice a year but this year I’ve already been 7 times and it’s not just because of Hyperia. The whole place has an energy and sense of professionalism and pride that I’ve never seen at Thorpe before. Today was great, a busy day in the middle of summer holidays and I managed the following ride count:

Hyperia x6
Stealth x4
Saw x3
Swarm x1
Nemesis Inferno x1

15 rides in the holidays would have been unheard of years ago but a mix of longer hours, faster dispatches and single rider queues plus I’m sure lots behind the scenes that I’m not noticing makes it possible in 2024. I worry this may just be the honeymoon period for Hyperia and we’ll gradually sink back to midweek closures, planned 1 train ops, glacial dispatches, grotty upkeep and another 12 years without meaningful investment but I’m hoping Thorpe can keep this up and maintain the higher standards. Some nice sunny pics from the day.

 

[Jamesss]

I visited Thorpe and Towers a couple of weeks ago and found the dispatch times on the coasters to be excellent across the board. It was one of the things I was most impressed by actually. If it wasn't for all the downtime, I would've said ops were almost like Europa

 

[Matt N]

I too have found Thorpe very good on my recent visits; my two most recent visits, in September 2023 and June 2024, were both excellent days! The operations have been really, really good, with many of the coasters really whacking the trains out, I’ve had very decent ride counts, and on the whole, I just seem to have had a really good vibe from the place and enjoyed it thoroughly!

It’s not operationally related, I know, but I’ve also found myself really enjoying Thorpe’s coasters a lot more on my recent visits; even sans Hyperia, which I haven’t ridden yet, Stealth, Inferno and Swarm are all absolutely excellent coasters, and Colossus, while still not an absolute favourite of mine, has been running a lot better on my most recent visits than it used to!

I’m going back to Thorpe for my second visit of the year on Sunday to try and finally get on Hyperia, and I can’t wait! It’s so encouraging to see all of these recent positive reports from the park!

Out of interest @Benenen and others, did the park seem quieter than usual for a summer holiday day? I’ve noticed that the queue times don’t seem excessively long, with even Hyperia having periods where it’s advertised not much over an hour. It doesn’t seem quiet either, by any means, but it doesn’t seem absolutely rammed like you might sometimes expect in the summer, particularly in the summer of a big new ride launch. Do you think these lower queue times are caused by lower crowds, or more by improved operations?

I haven’t been to Thorpe yet during these summer holidays, but I know that Alton Towers on 28th July certainly seemed quieter than you’d expect for a summer Sunday, with some big rides on queues of 20 minutes or less pretty much all day.

 

[owenstreet7]

Over the last year, I have found Thorpe Park to have improved substantially.

Operations have become a lot better than before although there's still tweaks that need to be made. Queues have been more manageable and I'd say that's credit to the team.

Some things still need sorting such as ride staff not calling out for 1 or 2s when there's empty seats and with single rider queues added for those rides (I'm looking at Rush and Vortex along with some of the other non SRQ coasters). Saw's Single Rider queue seems to be blocked more often during the summer holidays which isn't good for operations and queues.

I personally think having staff at the entrance of SRQs to ask groups to go in the main queue or at least advise that groups will be split like at Europa when busy would be a fantastic idea.

I'm very excited to see what the future holds for this park and investments should hopefully continue whether that's Slammer, The Beach site or "RMC" island behind Swarm

 

[Callum]

I echo the above and have found Thorpe to be weirdly good this season. I live 40 mins away and used to go once or twice a year but this year I’ve already been 7 times and it’s not just because of Hyperia. The whole place has an energy and sense of professionalism and pride that I’ve never seen at Thorpe before. Today was great, a busy day in the middle of summer holidays and I managed the following ride count:

15 rides in the holidays would have been unheard of years ago but a mix of longer hours, faster dispatches and single rider queues plus I’m sure lots behind the scenes that I’m not noticing makes it possible in 2024. I worry this may just be the honeymoon period for Hyperia and we’ll gradually sink back to midweek closures, planned 1 train ops, glacial dispatches, grotty upkeep and another 12 years without meaningful investment but I’m hoping Thorpe can keep this up and maintain the higher standards. Some nice sunny pics from the day.

Completely agree with this. Thorpe has been gradually improving the last few years but this is one of my favorite seasons since I started visiting around 2011.

I do also worry about the future though. With Chessington having midweek closures and hours cut, Towers having staggered openings and hours cut, how long is it until we start seeing cuts at Thorpe? Thorpe have great management and have made some better decisions in recent years, but theres only so much they can do with budgets they're given by Merlin.

 

[Will]

I personally think having staff at the entrance of SRQs to ask groups to go in the main queue or at least advise that groups will be split like at Europa when busy would be a fantastic idea.

At the very least, there's signs and such - it's common sense. No problem with groups using single rider, but it doesn't require a staff member.

Rides management are AWFUL at Alton Towers, it is known.

...I'm also amused by the posts saying 'Thorpe had a good day and ran their rides' - this should be the norm; not the exception.