As reported by SouthParks News, Quantum has reopened this afternoon! It appears popular with guests, as it has quickly jumped up to a 20 minute queue.

So Samurai and Vortex have now given up, with Quantum looking suspiciously like it only operates Friday afternoons and the weekend.

The park appears extremely busy already this week, and I believe they opened Creek Freak Massacre early, possibly as a result of this.

They did not, they just let us into the queue early.

As reported on SouthParks Social Media, Thorpe Park have released their 2020 Season Passes, with the price of a Standard Season Pass currently being £45.

The Standard Season Pass is valid from the start of the 2020 season until 1st November, with Friday-Sunday exclusions throughout the school summer holidays and all Fright Nights dates. During the exclusion dates pass holders can gain entry to the Resort from £10 per day.

Premium Season Passes are also on sale for £75 and include unlimited access throughout summer, parking, a Thorpe Park Digipass, and entry on 6 selected dates during Fright Nights. The Premium Season Pass currently has Fright Night exclusion dates of 3rd, 10th, and 17th October – 1st November 2020.

Barely 3 weeks after going on sale, the Thorpe Park Season Pass is having a sort-of sale. Purchasing now will see a £35 Thorpe Park DigiPass thrown in for free.

So before the season even starts, we have a sale that essentially values a Thorpe Park Season Pass at £10. I can't help but feel they're massively devaluing their product.

Or they value the digipass at £0!

Premium pass costing £75, includes a stated £35 DigiPass and £30 car parking pass. Really appears to me that that they've valued a season pass at £10.

All I can see happening is the park being very busy next year, but with gate sales being practically zero, meaning the money making for the park is reliant on food, merchandise and fastrack sales.

As 2019 comes to an end, we take a look back at the 2019 season for the Island Like No Other. 





The closed season brought no changes to the ride line-up, with the majority of the visible winter work having been to improve presentation across the park and draining the water under Colossus. Notable news included the confirmation that Loggers Leap would not be returning to the Resort, and the appointment of a new divisional director to oversee the Resort's future. However, on preview weekend the Resort surprised guests with the launch of their new family friendly roaming actors, alongside the planned roll-out of Coca-Cola Freestyle across the Resort.



 

With no new rides, the Resort introduced a range of events throughout the year to help keep the experience fresh. GameFX took place at the start of the season, with a selection of retro, new and VR games to be played. Jungle Escape lured in budding escapists in a race against the clock to escape from the evil Huntsman from May to September. Also in May the Resort celebrated the 10th anniversary of SAW - The Ride, and provided the backdrop for the 2019 Malibu Boats Wakeboarding Nationals in June. The summer events brought a party atmosphere to the island, with BounceZilla's colourful exhausting fun giving an alternative to the Resort's thrill rides, whilst Club MTV provided music across the Island. Fright Nights provided the usual spooky season finale, with returning favorites and a brand new high intensity maze.





But what did you make of Thorpe Park in 2019? Did you particularly enjoy an event, or have a great experience with the expanded entertainments team? What do you hope to see in 2020, and what would you love for Thorpe Park to install as their next thrill ride?

Having been without decent investment for a concerningly long time, and with general park upkeep and management going further downhill in 2018, it felt to me that the 2019 season was starting from a difficult position. The build up to the season continued to not fill me with great confidence as whilst other parks were talking about new things, or things to be excited about for the upcoming season, Thorpe finally confirmed the removal of Loggers Leap. So in the weeks leading up to the start of the season, the focus was on the continued removal of attractions from the park rather than excitement for the 2019 season.

Then we had this...



With a season of events being led in by whatever that was, 2019 was to me looking like it would be a complete write off.

But then Thorpe did something somewhat unexpected. It opened with a new set of positive management decisions and what felt like a breath of fresh air across the park. Rides were operated at full capacity at all times, unless maintenance work prevented it. Managers were overly visible patrolling the park, identifying and resolving issues, even waiting to say goodbye to guests as they left the park in the evening for the first month or so. Retail had managed to ditch a large amount of the rubbish that had been on sale in previous years, brought in Freestyle to finally remove the drink refills problem that F&B had never managed to get right, and added a range of better quality merchandise items than had been seen in a long while - along with bringing in Krispy Kreme! Marketing and the parks online presence had also remarkably improved, no longer trying to hint or essentially troll on things they knew were never going to happen, and instead giving useful and accurate information and appropriate teases. The speed at which their social media customer service representatives responded to, and resolved, minor on-park issues was outstanding. Then finally, but by no means least, the fantastic additions to the entertainments team, and the wonderful actors that worked across the park making fun interactions throughout the year.

The events were perhaps hit or miss, but given the diversity of them I can't really fault that. GameFX would never have appealed to me, but it did bring about better collaborations with Player Ready VR who came back with what looked like a fantastic addition for Fright Nights. Jungle Escape had decent quality, but felt too short and somewhat stunted by an unnecessary story need for a competition between two teams, and really shouldn't have been an additional charge attraction. BounceZilla, which from the face of it was one of the UK's largest theme parks installing a bouncy castle to mop up the issues caused by a lack of investment, went down incredibly well - regardless of any quality views, people came off laughing and smiling, so it was a success.

Sadly a little later on the season some issues did start to crop up. Ride reliability took a slight downhill, but didn't feel anywhere near the drops seen in recent years. Freestyle had some moderate recurring stocking issues, and had trouble dealing with the hotter weather and things like ice. Whilst the car park, security queue and general site crowd management became its usual joke.

I spent a fairly large amount of time at Thorpe this year, and overall enjoyed it. There were certainly things that didn't go well that shouldn't have happened, but there were also a lot of very enjoyable things that occurred. Does the park still need to improve - for sure - but it felt that a lot more of the fundamentals were back and working this year. It was also felt far busier than previous recent years, so presumably other people thought they were doing something right too.

For 2020 Thorpe needs to finally sort out that ridiculous parking system, along with the entry procedure that is significantly slower than either Alton Towers or Chessington. An actual food and beverage line up would be good - different topping flavours on processed meat in a bun is not a food offering for me. Then the park finally needs their budget returned - flat rides are ageing and need either replacing or major servicing else there'll be endless downtime, and something new needs to be added by 2021. Else if the London Resort were to get planning permission this year, I can easily see Thorpe Park becoming irrelevant to the UK market.

I would say Thorpe started the year a bit wobbly but come the summer they seemed to have found their feet and delivered two fantastic things. Bouncezilla was the thing that I was most worried about but I enjoyed it way too much and want it to come back bigger and better. Fright Nights had a lot of work done on it and it really upped their game. It will be interesting to see what they have planned this year!

As reported by SouthParks News, The Huntsman returns to THORPE PARK Official, with trials running from 27th March until 21st September.

Remaining as an additional charge attraction, tickets will cost £5 when booked online in advance, and £4.50 for guests with a Merlin Annual Pass or Thorpe Park Season Pass.


Will you brave the Jungle Arena?

So I wonder why it was spotted, painted silver at the back (Powers Towers Productions closed season vlog apparently) and also, is this a filler year for something new in that space for 2021?

Still unanswered questions about why there were rumours of its closure in the first place...

As far as I can tell, the rumours of its removal were based upon incorrect information and assumptions.

Wasn't it mainly because it disappeared from the app?? Even though the season hasn't started so wouldn't expect the app to be anywhere reliable until the park reopens 

As far as I was aware it was removed from the app before Fright Nights started, after its final day of operation last year.

I remember seeing speculation about the App being updated and removing mazes but it didn't come back so everyone jumped to it being removed. can't remember where. 

Speculation appeared to spread quickly, presumably when various YouTube channels started referencing each and making it appear to have greater validity than it did.

The weird thing was it was never removed from the source that said it was coming back in the first place.

Got to love speculation! 

I mean speculation sends enthusiasts into a detour but absolute meltdowns as well aha

I’m still slightly surprised by this. It starts off so well but then it goes down hill very quickly. I am not surprised the price has been dropped though. I wonder if the puzzles will be the same or different? I hope they have updated the puzzles.