• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Thorpe Park: General Discussion

The Simpsons Off Work GIF


Live footage from the Facebook group being shut down.
 
I guess without the traffic of Hyperia based updates there's no need for a place dedicated to Annual Passholders venting. Plenty of places available for that.

Tis a shame though as it was a decent idea.
 
Well I did my first trip to Thorpe park in over 12 years on Sunday I just love the coasters at this park. the operations on colossus and Inferno was terrible. The finishing of theming around Hyperia is really bad! so much snagging.

Glad I brought as fast pass for the coasters else I would not have been able to do everything. It was very busy for a Sunday still better compared to looking at Monday's queue times.

WOW the food at this park is just shocking! I ordered a hot dog and fries and it was probably the worst hot dog I have ever eaten. Ice cold bun, no onions, tasted Blahh I took one bite and thew it in the bin. I then stood in the queue for the Mexican place started looking at what was being served in front of me and left the queue. Ended up in KFC. I am not sure if this is the first time iv been since Aramark have taken over but they really need to up their game. I'm sure I remember when I last went they had a bbq place serving ribs, fries, corn, etc which I remember enjoying

Overall I had a brilliant day
 
Are Thorpe going to be hosting the nonsense Theme Parks UK awards thing? Since that's literally all they're currently posting about.

I mean social media posting drivel is part and parcel (most of Towers' stuff seems to consist of reposts of influencer types visiting the park) but it's asinine that every post is some obscure award section nomination.
 
The park have announced two late nights in August 24th and 31st ,open until 9pm.

Appears for pass holders only, source official Facebook page
 
Excellent news! Hopefully the extension of hours rather than cutting hours like Alton Towers are is a sign of Thorpe Park doing well this year!

My only concern, though, is that there may not be demand for it. I remember Thorpe Park doing 8pm closes back in August 2019; I went to one of them, and the park had completely emptied out before 6pm. It was brilliant for repeat riding, but a damning indictment of the demand for late night openings… those 8pm openings were quickly dropped shortly after my visit.

This is a positive sign on the whole, though! I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but overall, it does seem to me like Thorpe Park is the most prosperous UK Merlin park this year. The Hyperia buzz could be partially contributing to this, but it doesn’t seem like Thorpe has the general air of negativity surrounding it that Chessington and particularly Alton Towers currently have.
 
Hi all,

Is there a way of missing the awful queue at security in the morning if you don’t have a bag? Took 45 mins and it was so painful.

I experienced Ghost Train for the first time…never did the previous version, the queue moved at a snails pace, is this the norm? What even is this ride, it was so cringe…makes little to no sense! And I recall the ‘fake gift shop’ mentioned before, now you miss that out? Did they really spend 30 mil on this? It’s trash!
 
deathproof69 said:
Hi all,

Is there a way of missing the awful queue at security in the morning if you don’t have a bag? Took 45 mins and it was so painful.

I experienced Ghost Train for the first time…never did the previous version, the queue moved at a snails pace, is this the norm? What even is this ride, it was so cringe…makes little to no sense! And I recall the ‘fake gift shop’ mentioned before, now you miss that out? Did they really spend 30 mil on this? It’s trash!
Click to expand...
The ride cost £13 million at the time, god knows where this daft £30 million came from (not a dig, seems a lot of people think it cost that.

Queue has always been slow but I believe they are on less capacity/trains since it re-opened last year. The fake gift shop is broken, it was running last year.

I think the ride is improved on last season, or maybe I just had a bad run last year. Glad you didn't experience it when I did if you hate it this much now!
 
Matt N said:
Excellent news! Hopefully the extension of hours rather than cutting hours like Alton Towers are is a sign of Thorpe Park doing well this year!

My only concern, though, is that there may not be demand for it. I remember Thorpe Park doing 8pm closes back in August 2019; I went to one of them, and the park had completely emptied out before 6pm. It was brilliant for repeat riding, but a damning indictment of the demand for late night openings… those 8pm openings were quickly dropped shortly after my visit.

This is a positive sign on the whole, though! I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but overall, it does seem to me like Thorpe Park is the most prosperous UK Merlin park this year. The Hyperia buzz could be partially contributing to this, but it doesn’t seem like Thorpe has the general air of negativity surrounding it that Chessington and particularly Alton Towers currently have.
Click to expand...
Definitely! It’s about time thorpe gets its flowers. Sure it isn’t the most perfect theme park, but it’ll be great to see merlin start investing in the place more over the next few years after a whole decade of them ignoring the place
 
Tom said:
The ride cost £13 million at the time, god knows where this daft £30 million came from (not a dig, seems a lot of people think it cost that.
Click to expand...
It came at least in part from the fact that Thorpe Park claimed in marketing that it was "[their] most expensive investment ever", which a £13m investment wouldn't have been seeing as they built Saw for £13.5m and Swarm for £18-20m.

Regardless of how much it actually cost (which was never officially confirmed by Thorpe Park), I think most can agree that it's been a bit of a failure for the park overall.
 
Last edited:
Matt N said:
Excellent news! Hopefully the extension of hours rather than cutting hours like Alton Towers are is a sign of Thorpe Park doing well this year!

My only concern, though, is that there may not be demand for it. I remember Thorpe Park doing 8pm closes back in August 2019; I went to one of them, and the park had completely emptied out before 6pm. It was brilliant for repeat riding, but a damning indictment of the demand for late night openings… those 8pm openings were quickly dropped shortly after my visit.

This is a positive sign on the whole, though! I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but overall, it does seem to me like Thorpe Park is the most prosperous UK Merlin park this year. The Hyperia buzz could be partially contributing to this, but it doesn’t seem like Thorpe has the general air of negativity surrounding it that Chessington and particularly Alton Towers currently have.
Click to expand...
The issue is that Thorpe have literally no signs to say what the days closing times are as you enter. if like back in the day an LED board at the entrance showed the opening times then people would stay. People just assume it's a normal 6pm close like most the country. Even the last few Saturdays with 7pm closes the park has massively emptied around 5:30.

I filmed this short clip at just before 6pm Saturday just gone.
From: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeW58VLy/
 
Mattgwise said:
The issue is that Thorpe have literally no signs to say what the days closing times are as you enter. if like back in the day an LED board at the entrance showed the opening times then people would stay. People just assume it's a normal 6pm close like most the country. Even the last few Saturdays with 7pm closes the park has massively emptied around 5:30.

I filmed this short clip at just before 6pm Saturday just gone.
From: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeW58VLy/
Click to expand...

I think don't think that is the problem, as if they rides arn't shut why leave?
I think the problem is more that there is little reason to stay until 6, (don't get me wrong for us, we all probably stay until 6) but for average guests they aren't normally aiming to go to a theme park just for rides, they are there for a day out, most of that is rides but it also includes a break to sit down, haveing a snack and not tiring themselves out. Not endless ride -> ride -> ride.
I find that around 4 a lot of people get exhausted, and remember if there is another 2+ hour car journey home and they have done everything they wanted then they will head home, eventually I feel it becomes self fulfilling where people leave because they are exhausted so queue times go down, then people are able to finish the rides they want to do / finish rerides due to shorter queues and are exhausted so leave and repeat.

I think that some event at 6 that draws some crowds would do wonders, not just for bringing later day attendance up but probably also food revenue as if people stay longer they will need to eat. The problem is the event, disney had fireworks, a night time parade and fast passes but most the night time stuff probably wouldn't be viable and they aren't making fast passes free any time soon (it would be terrible from a guest experience as well as it would increase the queue times and make going to the parks a competition for fast passes)
 
flyingguitar said:
The problem is the event, disney had fireworks, a night time parade and fast passes but most the night time stuff probably wouldn't be viable and they aren't making fast passes free any time soon (it would be terrible from a guest experience as well as it would increase the queue times and make going to the parks a competition for fast passes)
Click to expand...

Sorry that it's a slight thread deviation but i've seen this mentioned before, that Disney gave out free fastpasses and i'm curious as to how this worked?
 
Bowser said:
Sorry that it's a slight thread deviation but i've seen this mentioned before, that Disney gave out free fastpasses and i'm curious as to how this worked?
Click to expand...
There's a great video on disney's fastpass system on youtube if you haven't seen it, it's called 'Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History' by Defunctland. It goes over all eras of fastpass but the first part is about the free version.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top