I'm intrigued. Skeptical, but intrigued.
Thorpe's audience is a dangerous one. If you look at parks around the world, and it's family parks that are the most successful. Parks like Thorpe don't do that well, they certainly aren't destination parks in the sense that people from worldwide or even nationwide flock to them. They rely on locals, and that means constant development to entice revisiting.
To add a hotel makes a statement - we are a destination. In Thorpe's case, as Nic has touched on, a hotel makes sense if there's a point to staying over. If the park opened late, had a decent bar, perhaps even a club? Would it potentially entice even those who do not live that far away to stay over, much alike it does us lot with GhosterForce? But other than this, I cannot see who would want, or need, to stay in the hotel.
I'd like to see Thorpe really develop into a park that is truly unique, a park which offers entertainment geared at the thrill-seeker audience after the park closes. But they won't. Even Alton, with it's proper resort hotels, has nothing to do after the park closes.
Bar 360 is actually a dump. It needs a lot of work. It's main problem is that the staff are clearly not trained properly as bar and restaurant staff. I bet they are the same staff who work in the rest of the park's catering. They almost always forget to bring out knifes and forks, they are slow, disinterested. The place is grubby and doesn't have a very nice bar/pub/restaurant atmosphere. It is just like you're at a crappy theme park. It NEEDS to change if they want to have the Dome open late for hotel stayers... I like the concept of the Dome being open late, though. They just need to change a few key things.
