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An AWESOME day at Thorpe Park

Rick

Rick

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Crux
I've had mixed luck with Thorpe over the years, it's always been a bit of a lottery in terms of ride availability and I've had some fairly sucky days there, but today we had an absolute blast.

Visiting with a newbie, I took her lead after we'd got the coasters done (see more below) and ended up riding some things that I typically wouldn't. The key to our success was being in the park at 9.30am, seemingly people don't know it's open that early, or they know and just come later anyway. We were in the park for 9.31am and had done front row rides on Stealth, Inferno, Colossus, Swarm and SAW before 10.30am. By the time we had done our little marathon the Colossus queue was already showing a 75 minute wait.

Our experience on Ghost Train today was absolutely flawless. The ride worked perfectly, the staff were engaged and enthusiastic and the new ending is wonderful. The new storyline works wonderfully. It's hands down one of my favourite experiences in the country in a park.

As I have said before, if you don't 'get' the Ghost Train or Swarm, I'm not sure you'll get anything that Merlin do. I think those are my two favourite rides in the park.

Disclaimer - We didn't wait the 150 minute posted queue. If we had, perhaps my experience would have been different. We certainly couldn't have done Storm Surge and Tidal Wave at the end of the day.

We rode stuff I don't usually bother with including Storm Surge, Tidal Wave, X, Angry Birds 4D, Banana Boat and the Tea Cups.

Other notes:-
  • The new entry system in Pizza/Pasta was very well executed. This format works so much better at Thorpe than it ever has at Alton, just in terms of the square footage and that two queues form, rather than one awkward one.
  • The Storm Surge crew were managing that ride very well. Hats off to them, I just wish they would deal with the flooded boats a little more than they do.
  • We did experience a couple of cretins in the crowd, but at this stage, I am not really sure how you deal with that. There was a fair amount of smoking in the queue lines, but to give them their dues, the one instance of queue jumping we saw was promptly dealt with by the ops team.
  • The waterfalls were running on Rumba - not sure if they were ever switched off?
I had a great day - I warned my friend that we could experience some of the things that the park is becoming notorious for, but that wasn't the case. Ride availability was generally very good as were operations.

I truly believe they have a great product and I experienced it today. They just need to find a way to deliver it consistently.
 
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This could have been my write up !
I will say me and my friends too had a fantastic day at Thorpe on Saturday.
They had never been and was stoked to get them on Ghost Train. They didn't know anything. Alas it broke half way round.
I was guttered.
They thought it was all part of the thing when we had to take the headsets off and just sit there.

Their worlds of the whole thing. "What a load of old ----"

Other than that a fantastic day was had by all and their fave ride of all .. The Swarm :D
 
I have a soft spot for Thorpe on a good day. I had an excellent day there on the first night of fright nights in 2015. Everything fell into place, ride availability was good and the park generally operated very well.

It also has some damn fine attractions when you think about it in context of core offering. Stealth may not be Formula Rossa or Kinda Ka, but is still a fine launcher. The Swarm is a very well themed and enjoyable wing rider, even if it is woefully short. Inferno may not be Nemesis, but it's still a B&M invert. I know it's an uncomfortable gerst Euro fighter but I actually really enjoy Saw as a ride experience. Some people even allegedly get some enjoyment from riding that torturous abomination that is Collosus.

Then you have a flat ride line up that Towers should really have. Tidal wave also does exactly what it says on the tin and I actually really like this year's Ghost Train - when it actually works. I actually think it's a really good attraction, even if it is a massive waste of money.

But with so much going for it, the park just let's itself down. X is abysmal. Hands up who knows why Storm Surge even exists, let alone the justification for its positioning. What the hell is Angry Birds Land and why is it slap bang in the middle of Amity Cove? Rumba is in a shocking state, the once half decent Old Town is even worse with its closed flume and new Tug.

Then you get to the operations. Ghost Train breaking down all the time. Coasters on 1 train even when the park is busy. The over selling of Fast tracks. No ERT. That I'm a Celebrity.... thing. Cretins everywhere, some behaving appallingly to the staff and the park seeming to do very little to discourage this with the way they market the place.

Thorpe is frustrating because it has a lot going for it. Run it properly, extend the opening and sell off some of its stranger offerings in favour of more family friendly attractions and it could be a superb park.
 
Reason for Storm Surge , it was free. Brought over from Cypress Gardens When Merlin turned it into Legoland.
Is that a agood enough reason to plonk it in the middle of Thorpe ... they thought so :rolleyes:
 
Storm Surge gets a lot of hate from enthusiasts but I had a great time on it today, in fact, the family that we rode with said it was their favourite ride in the park and "never miss it".

It has a lot of things going for it really. It's very accessible with a 1.1m height restriction, it's a tall ride but isn't particularly intimidating because it doesn't have any big drops and more to the point, families can ride it all together.

The hardware was 'free' in that it came with their multi-million dollar purchase of Cypress, but it's not cheap to disassemble, shift it across the Atlantic - plus there was a fair bit of groundwork involved in its construction. It doesn't get a 10/10 for presentation, I grant, but I think it's a solid ride for a demographic who might find it hard to fill their day at Thorpe.
 
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On a good day, Thorpe can be like heaven. Especially if the place is dead, like when I went there with my school in May 2012 and the longest we queued up for was 10 minutes for Swarm, plus we rode Rush 8 times in a row at one point! At the TST meet in 2015, I lost count how many times I rode Stealth as it was dead, but still ran two trains so we just went to the airgates and waited for the train we just got off.

As others have said, when everything is fine there, it can still make a great day out.
 
I've only done Thorpe 3 times, and I won't be in a rush to go back until they build another coaster, but all 3 trips were freebies (Sun vouchers), very off peak, and fantastic days overall.
It took 3 trips to do all the rides because of regular shutdown of individual rides, but each closure wasn't too much of a big deal, and the general atmosphere was fine...I was wary of the "Chav" rumours.
I think the main problem with Thorpe is that it struggles during peak times...school holidays and Hallow'een in particular.
And that is true of most successful parks.
 
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