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:-
I truly believe they have a great product and I experienced it today. They just need to find a way to deliver it consistently.
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 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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