Islander
TS Member
Don’t believe that figure for a second lol. Where did it come from?
Really feel like we should be more careful about spreading false information lol.
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Thorpe Park: General Discussion
- Thread starter Ted
- Start date
Really feel like we should be more careful about spreading false information lol.
Skyscraper
TS Member
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- Nemesis
The keyword is "apparently". It's up to you whether you believe it or not, and if you don't then that's fine.
It's a sold out day and the queue times are extremely high, so I can believe that.
Islander
TS Member
Ok fair. Then I can say categorically that number is false
Skyscraper
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- Nemesis
How do you know, though? You don'tOk fair. Then I can say categorically that number is false
Dhev123
TS Member
Skyscraper
TS Member
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Can't verify it but members on one of the PH Facebook groups are apparently saying that people aren't being checked for MAP prebooks, they're just being allowed in. Not saying I believe that though.
Enter Valhalla
TS Member
I believe that Thorpe Park call it sold out when they reach 15,000.
Technically they could hold more if they wanted to. 15,000 is not maximum capacity and many years ago they used to allow more than this in. But I believe that for at least the last 10 years, they’ve been capping at 15,000. (excluding covid times of course, when the cap was significantly lower)
Technically they could hold more if they wanted to. 15,000 is not maximum capacity and many years ago they used to allow more than this in. But I believe that for at least the last 10 years, they’ve been capping at 15,000. (excluding covid times of course, when the cap was significantly lower)
GooseOnTheLoose
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It depends what they mean by this. Since the new Prebook Portal, your pre-book is tied to your pass. If you have a valid booking, you scan your MAP at the gates and they will open for you. If you don't have a valid booking, and they're not allowing walkups, the gates won't open.
The only official public communication about the park's capacity comes from an article published by The Guardian in 2006, which cites that the park had to close its gates after it had let in 15,000 guests.
Crowds force closure of theme park
One of Britain's largest theme parks was forced to close its gates and turn visitors away yesterday after it became too packed with thrillseekers.
NuttySquirrel
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I'm pretty sure there's no evidence that the pre-book portal and the gate scanners are linked in any way. If you have a pass and haven't pre-booked I'm pretty sure you can just walk in, although if you were challenged to show a pre-book you would be refused entry. On sold out days, it's on the staff to check that people have pre-booked.
NuttySquirrel
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They always check them at Legoland, regardless of whether it's a sold out day or not.
GooseOnTheLoose
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I've only got anecdotal evidence from visits to other attractions, which I've posted about before, from earlier this year.
Under the previous system, because you in effect had two tickets, pre-books needed to be manually checked.
We weren't asked to show anything at Legoland Windsor for our visit, this August, apart from our ticket / pass, which they then scanned on a hand scanner. I had booked our entry in the morning before leaving.
BigShadowtinytree
TS Member
I’ve never had my pre-book checked at Thorpe or Alton. Legoland are sticklers for it, Chessington have checked on some visits but not others.
I don’t think the new portal does anything to link passes to the turnstiles. Its main purpose seems to be to make it easier to make, amend and cancel bookings. If they were linked, there wouldn’t be a need to ask to see pre-books at all because the system simply wouldn’t let you in without one.
I don’t think the new portal does anything to link passes to the turnstiles. Its main purpose seems to be to make it easier to make, amend and cancel bookings. If they were linked, there wouldn’t be a need to ask to see pre-books at all because the system simply wouldn’t let you in without one.
Tom
TS Member
They have had safety procedures for 15,000 people in the past. It is a massive risk from a PR perspective with queues and complaints, even if not safety. As we have seen at Alton though, it is likely that there has been a decree to ignore PR risks and allow maximum safe capacities to be reached in the aid of cash flow during the final weeks/days of the season.
Was at the park today - it was rammed and like usual they weren't even checking annual pass pre-books. The pre-books definitely aren't linked to the ticketing system either, as someone in our group forgot to pre-book and got in completely fine at 1pm (not condoning this obviously). All coaster queues flowing out the entrances most of the day (even Flying Fish at one point!), my friend even had to queue 30 minutes for the toilets.
The worst part was the car park at the end of the day though - it's always bad but genuinely never seen it that bad. The drop & collect was all completely gridlocked (even with the barriers just completely open) and cars queuing all down the neighbouring roads to get into it. It got so bad that in the end most people ended up walking out of the car park and onto the road to meet their cars. Chaos!
Another thing, which probably won't ever change, but the behaviour of some of the guests who Thorpe attracts never fails to amaze me. So many areas of the park that absolutely stunk of weed, saw many many people openly smoking it in queues and talking about it.
Overall, only got on 2 coasters all day which was painful but on a positive note I have to say I was quite impressed with the 2 mazes we did. Trailers was absolutely awesome and Deadbeat was good fun too. They also seemed to be letting in smaller groups more frequently rather than the usual massive groups less frequently which worked really well.
The worst part was the car park at the end of the day though - it's always bad but genuinely never seen it that bad. The drop & collect was all completely gridlocked (even with the barriers just completely open) and cars queuing all down the neighbouring roads to get into it. It got so bad that in the end most people ended up walking out of the car park and onto the road to meet their cars. Chaos!
Another thing, which probably won't ever change, but the behaviour of some of the guests who Thorpe attracts never fails to amaze me. So many areas of the park that absolutely stunk of weed, saw many many people openly smoking it in queues and talking about it.
Overall, only got on 2 coasters all day which was painful but on a positive note I have to say I was quite impressed with the 2 mazes we did. Trailers was absolutely awesome and Deadbeat was good fun too. They also seemed to be letting in smaller groups more frequently rather than the usual massive groups less frequently which worked really well.
We visited last Friday afternoon and while it was very busy I must admit that we didn't see any of the behaviour that we were expecting to see. Mind you, there were a lot of police there including sniffer dogs at the entrance so maybe that had something to do with it.
We did manage to get a warning from security during our visit, we were queuing for Depth Charge and before we could stop him our son dropped a leaflet over the side on to the path below right in front of the security guy. I ran back down to retrieve it and got told we had been given a warning, I explained that our son has multiple issues and he dropped it before we could stop him but the guy was having none of it and told us if he did anything else we'd be ejected from the park.