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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Matt N said:
On another Saw-related question; do cars vary substantially between one another in terms of roughness?

I only ask because I can’t seem to identify a row-based rule based on my experiences with Saw. I’ve heard many say that the front is rougher than the back, but oddly, the fairly OK ride I had on it on Tuesday (a bit rough in places, but nowhere near as bad as usual) was in back centre, yet the most brutally rough ride I’ve ever had on it, back in 2020, was also back centre; possibly the exact same seat, in fact…

For some idea, the front centre ride I had in July was quite rough, but not the roughest I’ve had on Saw by any stretch.
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I've always found being central rather than row.

Some people are so ungrateful to have a tolerable ride, but not you, not anymore......
 
Matt.GC said:
I've always found being central rather than row.

Some people are so ungrateful to have a tolerable ride, but not you, not anymore......
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I think from memory, all of my rides have been central; I always seem to have been sandwiched in the middle, either between both of my parents, between a parent and my sister, or in the case of my Tuesday ride, between two complete strangers!

As much as Saw isn’t my favourite coaster and never has been, I’ve got to say that it wasn’t bad at all on Tuesday! Yes, the first drop jolt and rather rough ending do still take away from it for me, but the roughness was not as bad as usual; the whole section between the first drop and the MCBR was not rough at all! I’ve got to say, I do actually like Saw’s layout itself; it’s fast-paced, with quite a few pops of excellent airtime! Controversially, I’d possibly go as far as to say that I prefer Saw’s layout to Smiler’s, as far as the Merlin Gersts go!

Put it this way; Tuesday was the first time I’ve ever come off of Saw without a pounding headache, so even though it was still perhaps a touch rough to be one of my favourites, I’ll take it!

I’ll admit I find that utterly bizarre, as the exact same back centre seat was where I also had my roughest Saw ride ever in 2020…
 
Matt N said:
On another Saw-related question; do cars vary substantially between one another in terms of roughness?

I only ask because I can’t seem to identify a row-based rule based on my experiences with Saw. I’ve heard many say that the front is rougher than the back, but oddly, the fairly OK ride I had on it on Tuesday (a bit rough in places, but nowhere near as bad as usual) was in back centre, yet the most brutally rough ride I’ve ever had on it, back in 2020, was also back centre; possibly the exact same seat, in fact…

For some idea, the front centre ride I had in July was quite rough, but not the roughest I’ve had on Saw by any stretch.
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Without a doubt yes, car to car makes a difference, so does front vs rear.
 
Yesterday was our 5th trip to Thorpe this year. Overall low ques, saw was backing up as usual and colossus at times, the usual restraint faffing etc.

The standard 10am no availability of saw, samurai or colossus.

We had a spin on samurai which was painfully slow. According to one of the hosts on DBGT its recent removal and return came with a quarter of a million new gear box....

This is why its running so bad so it doesn't burn out again apparently......yet surely it would be better to purchase the new style electric top scans rather than keep the hydraulic one we have ?

Also can anyone explain why the middle two rows on Quantum are always closed off ? .
 
Mattie boy said:
Yesterday was our 5th trip to Thorpe this year. Overall low ques, saw was backing up as usual and colossus at times, the usual restraint faffing etc.

The standard 10am no availability of saw, samurai or colossus.

We had a spin on samurai which was painfully slow. According to one of the hosts on DBGT its recent removal and return came with a quarter of a million new gear box....

This is why its running so bad so it doesn't burn out again apparently......yet surely it would be better to purchase the new style electric top scans rather than keep the hydraulic one we have ?

Also can anyone explain why the middle two rows on Quantum are always closed off ? .
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Quantum would usually have one middle row closed to allow staff to access both sides of the ride, it will only ever be fully used if the ride happens to have 3 fully trained staff which is not really needed for the additional throughput of 4 seats per ride vs the queue length it gets
 
Took a trip up to Thorpe yesterday (19/09) to sample their Oktoberfest. My expectations were pretty low as to what to expect and Thorpe certainly didn't disappoint on that front.

From a ride perspective got a pretty decent ride count as the park was fairly quiet (maybe that rather heavy downpour mid morning scared people away??), with many a re-ride on Stealth at start and end of the day with no queue. With only Colossus letting the side down with one train with a thru-put calculated at around 280 peeps per hour.

As for Oktoberfest didn't really notice it to be honest. Plenty of bunting around and a nice little tune blasting out everywhere which seemed to repeat every 5 minutes or so, and thus quickly became annoying. Better beer choice than usual and nice to be able to sit under cover.

Negatives being that nothing available until gone 12 noon. Surely a Pretzel can be served before 12? And with ride close 18:00, everything had pretty much shut up shop by 17:15 and the one place that hadn't was simply told 'We're closed'. Didn't see any entertainment. Did wait, but the advertised start time came and went, and once that had been consigned to history gave in and wondered elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a couple of hours later sitting in a pub in Chertsey I see photos from Alton Towers with entertainment ongoing after ride close, and you could still get food and beer if you so wished.

Needs to massively improve next year. Needs some decent entertainment that starts at or around the advertised time, and places need to stay open beyond ride close and not shut up shop and everyone vanish 45 mins to an hour before. As well as a better generic 'theme tune' that doesn't repeat every few minutes and become tiresome quite quickly even though it is quite good.

Look forward to sampling Alton Towers offering this weekend and from what I've heard & seen so far my expectations are quite high. My expectations on Thorpe improving their offering next year will remain pretty low.
 
Vik said:
Took a trip up to Thorpe yesterday (19/09) to sample their Oktoberfest. My expectations were pretty low as to what to expect and Thorpe certainly didn't disappoint on that front.

From a ride perspective got a pretty decent ride count as the park was fairly quiet (maybe that rather heavy downpour mid morning scared people away??), with many a re-ride on Stealth at start and end of the day with no queue. With only Colossus letting the side down with one train with a thru-put calculated at around 280 peeps per hour.

As for Oktoberfest didn't really notice it to be honest. Plenty of bunting around and a nice little tune blasting out everywhere which seemed to repeat every 5 minutes or so, and thus quickly became annoying. Better beer choice than usual and nice to be able to sit under cover.

Negatives being that nothing available until gone 12 noon. Surely a Pretzel can be served before 12? And with ride close 18:00, everything had pretty much shut up shop by 17:15 and the one place that hadn't was simply told 'We're closed'. Didn't see any entertainment. Did wait, but the advertised start time came and went, and once that had been consigned to history gave in and wondered elsewhere.

Meanwhile, a couple of hours later sitting in a pub in Chertsey I see photos from Alton Towers with entertainment ongoing after ride close, and you could still get food and beer if you so wished.

Needs to massively improve next year. Needs some decent entertainment that starts at or around the advertised time, and places need to stay open beyond ride close and not shut up shop and everyone vanish 45 mins to an hour before. As well as a better generic 'theme tune' that doesn't repeat every few minutes and become tiresome quite quickly even though it is quite good.

Look forward to sampling Alton Towers offering this weekend and from what I've heard & seen so far my expectations are quite high. My expectations on Thorpe improving their offering next year will remain pretty low.
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To be fair to them they do seem to put more oomph into the event area on weekends.

Sent from my Swift 2 using Tapatalk
 
WillPS said:
Why not just do the event at weekends then? Quite easy to just not do any of it, advertise it as weekends only and manage expectations correctly.
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A fair point! I guess marketing is easier if it's a block of dates, makes me wonder why FRIGHT NIGHTS has that weird 5 day gap.
 


I do think we can start to be more sure of something coming with:
-Continued tree clearance on Logger’s site
-Markings in Old Town
-Confirmed to be the last year of Platform 15
-Rumblings about a 2024 project
-The park reactivating their planning application processing request last year.

If the tree clearance is for a new coaster, and the coaster extends from the markings in Old Town to that area, we could be looking at a very sizeable investment here.
 
MakoMania said:


I do think we can start to be more sure of something coming with:
-Continued tree clearance on Logger’s site
-Markings in Old Town
-Confirmed to be the last year of Platform 15
-Rumblings about a 2024 project
-The park reactivating their planning application processing request last year.

If the tree clearance is for a new coaster, and the coaster extends from the markings in Old Town to that area, we could be looking at a very sizeable investment here.
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Yes interesting. I do think we could see something at thorpe we'd got some decent evidence at this point. I don't like speculation with no actual evidence but there is some. I hope we see something and I hope it's different and exciting as they really need to draw people. I'd like to think Merlin have thought out the box a little.
 
Tree clearance is often done for economic reasons.
Small trees can be cut down for about fifty quid.
Big trees can cost thousands to remove or pollard.
Cutting down trees before they get too big, and planting new ones in their place, can save many thousands in overall estate management costs.
 
rob666 said:
Tree clearance is often done for economic reasons.
Small trees can be cut down for about fifty quid.
Big trees can cost thousands to remove or pollard.
Cutting down trees before they get too big, and planting new ones in their place, can save many thousands in overall estate management costs.
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Given that Thorpe don't have many other areas available for expansion, I think it's highly likely that the recent tree removal is for some sort of new attraction.
Time will tell though! :)
 
Matt.GC said:
Are RMC on site yet or do we still need to pretend we don't know what's being built there?
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No one knows what, if anything, is being built there yet; whether it's an RMC or not is anyone's guess at present!
 
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