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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

I also can't help but feel they are massively oversold at the moment resulting in a terrible customer experience.

- Security queue taking well over an hour to get into the park (I've seen many reports of over 90 minutes)
- Multiple coasters over 2 hours queue
- All mazes over an hour queue for a paid time slot
- Car park nightmare getting out (again not a new issue)

For comparison, I went to Walibi Holland on 2 sold out days this year. I waited 15 mins to get in one day and 5 mins the other. Getting out, about half hour one day due to a car accident and about 15 mins the other day. You also don't have to pay for car parking during for Fright Nights there.

I don't know another theme park where you get greeted with huge cattlepen queues to get in. Realistically, how many people who wait 90 minutes to get in, stuck in queues all day and then another queue to get out are going to enjoy there day and return?

I don't think it helps matters having the rapids closed and ghost train opening at 3pm on the busiest days of the year. The park really does need all the capacity they can get.

I do think theres more they can do with the mazes too. Towers opens theres at 1pm on peak days, so opening them earlier could definitely help with the queues.

And of course 10pm closes. With Fright Nights as busy as it is (and generating nearly half the parks yearly income) it would be great to see the return of 10pm closes.
 
Call_um said:
I don't know another theme park where you get greeted with huge cattlepen queues to get in. Realistically, how many people who wait 90 minutes to get in, stuck in queues all day and then another queue to get out are going to enjoy there day and return?
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I think you'd be surprised. The demographic of Thorpe Park and Fright Nights in particular are teenagers in groups who won't really care or know any different. As others have mentioned, this season is always very busy which suggests people are indeed returning.
 
Haven't y'all heard? Queuing is cool.
www.bbc.co.uk

Queuing: Is waiting in line for hours the new cool thing to do?

Whether it's waiting in line to try a new bakery, or to grab a bargain at a sample sale, queuing is becoming an activity in itself.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

Wait until the kids start pairing it with rawdogging...
www.theguardian.com

‘Rawdogging’ marathons: has gen Z discovered the secret to reclaiming our focus?

In a world of distraction, it’s easy to jump from one interruption to another. Could sitting doing nothing for an hour help us cope – or is it just meditation by another name?
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Poisson said:
I think the Merlin parks would do better running the car parks like PA and some of the American parks, where you pay on entry. Stops the massive bottlenecks.
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It would also stop people from skipping the pay point, which is probably easy to forget on the way out (if you’re anything like me, anyway…)!
 
For Towers specifically a key part of the planning when introducing the car park charge was the council didn’t want pay on entry as it would cause the potential for cars backing up onto the road network.

I suspect the same came into play for the other parks.
 
AT86 said:
For Towers specifically a key part of the planning when introducing the car park charge was the council didn’t want pay on entry as it would cause the potential for cars backing up onto the road network.

I suspect the same came into play for the other parks.
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Set the road network up so the pay booths are inside the park land.
 
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Should you not put a registration plate in when you buy your car park ticket. The gates seem to have ANPR already as MAP holders register a number plate and the barriers open automatically. Most of the delay is people faffing to find the ticket or can't reach the machine. If the barrier just opened as you've paid, most of the problem would go away. You can't fix the local roads unfortunately but I guess that's not down to the park as it's out of their control.
 
MrTowers said:
Should you not put a registration plate in when you buy your car park ticket. The gates seem to have ANPR already as MAP holders register a number plate and the barriers open automatically. Most of the delay is people faffing to find the ticket or can't reach the machine. If the barrier just opened as you've paid, most of the problem would go away. You can't fix the local roads unfortunately but I guess that's not down to the park as it's out of their control.
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Everyone has the option of entering the registration number when buying parking online for Thorpe, its not a MAP only thing.
 
Quite a lot of the time the ANPR doesn't work anyway even if you've provided your registration number with your MAP/ticket booking. Simply, they need more barriers and for the ones they do have to work reliably.

Or, you know, they could just stop charging people for parking...
 
Poisson said:
ANPR also doesn't work on all numberplates so cannot be the only way.
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Works fine for me at Thorpe but nowhere else.

At Thorpe yesterday. Some impressive ops. Managed to get some rides in before it got busy, with most coasters +100 mins by 12.

Later in day waited almost 2 hours for Hyperia in Single Rider. Though there was a 20 minute stoppage ‘Due to Guest action’. Get the impression someone tried to retrieve a lost item from the ride area.

Left around 18:30, though more down to the fact that I had a 3 1/2 hour drive home and up at 5am for work, not that the waits were still 90 mins plus. 😅
 
The first year Thorpe got the new barrier it never worked with my annual pass or number plate and I would always have to press the help button for them to open the barrier.

The best was one day I got to the barrier and it said I owed £100s because it must have got me going in and then never leaving, and thinking I’ve just left by car parked for weeks.
 
Poisson said:
ANPR also doesn't work on all numberplates so cannot be the only way.
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And I'm evidence of that...my number plate starts VK74 and at a shopping centre once it was read as VH, so when I entered my numberplate to pay on the payment machine, it couldn't find it. So I paid using the "number" it had read. Then on the way out it read it correctly so wouldn't let me out the barrier as it was a number it didn't know! Ended up having to speak to a human who let me out when he realised what had happened.

Imagine that at Thorpe Park on a Fright Nights day!! :oops:
 
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