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Thorpe Park- Saturday 23rd April 2022

My parents have decided that we're doing Thorpe/their party in 1 day instead of staying over the night before. I'm really panicking about getting to the park early. It's a three-hour drive and I don't want to have to get up at 6am lol. :mad:
Is it even worth the hassle and stress?
 
rob666 said:
This is a trip bolted onto someone else's plans though isn't it?
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Basically, we'll either go in one car and my parents will drop me, my sister and her boyfriend off at the park before heading to the venue (only 10 mins away), or we'll go in two separate cars and me, my sister and her boyfriend will go straight to Thorpe, and our parents will leave later and go straight to the party venue. Two cars might be better as that would save my parents from having to leave at 6am. :p
 
pluk said:
I've done Towers in a day from sunny Essex many a time. Just be relaxed about it. Yes you might not hit opening, but what's better, most of a day in a theme park or none of a day in a theme park? I know what I'd prefer!
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Crikey, how long did the journey take you?
Thanks, yeah I really do need to stop stressing about it. Especially as it's still two months away. :p:oops:
 
While I obviously don’t know your exact location, Thorpe is only 2h 56m from the Sheffield marker on Maps (I assumed Sheffield as your approximate location based on your profile), which would mean to get there for 10am, you’d have to leave at about 7am if you wanted to get there for bang on opening time, probably slightly before 7am if you take into account the time required to actually get into the park. I don’t know how long you’d typically take to get ready, but if you literally did the bare minimum of your morning routine in your house and took breakfast in the car with you (we’ve done this before), I reckon you could quite easily get up at 6am.

From my experience, getting to Thorpe at around opening time or only slightly before is adequate, as their policy when we last arrived there super early was to hold you at the Dome area until 10am anyway, so arriving super early wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference. On my solo visit September, when I was getting into the park itself at 10am or slightly later (so I didn’t arrive phenomenally early by any stretch), I got on 4 or 5 rides within the first hour. This was admittedly a Tuesday when the kids were in school, whereas it appears you’re planning to visit on a Saturday, so it might be slightly different for you, but from my experience, arriving at opening time is fine.

If you’re concerned about ride count, knocking out Stealth & Inferno first would be my advice. They always seem quietest in the morning, weirdly… particularly Inferno, which can amass quite a queue later on. Unless you get there later, in which case Swarm might be a good shout, as the opening time crowds would have moved away from it to the other rides.
 
Matt N said:
While I obviously don’t know your exact location, Thorpe is only 2h 56m from the Sheffield marker on Maps (I assumed Sheffield as your approximate location based on your profile), which would mean to get there for 10am, you’d have to leave at about 7am if you wanted to get there for bang on opening time, probably slightly before 7am if you take into account the time required to actually get into the park. I don’t know how long you’d typically take to get ready, but if you literally did the bare minimum of your morning routine in your house and took breakfast in the car with you (we’ve done this before), I reckon you could quite easily get up at 6am.

From my experience, getting to Thorpe at around opening time or only slightly before is adequate, as their policy when we last arrived there super early was to hold you at the Dome area until 10am anyway, so arriving super early wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference. On my solo visit September, when I was getting into the park itself at 10am or slightly later (so I didn’t arrive phenomenally early by any stretch), I got on 4 or 5 rides within the first hour. This was admittedly a Tuesday when the kids were in school, whereas it appears you’re planning to visit on a Saturday, so it might be slightly different for you, but from my experience, arriving at opening time is fine.

If you’re concerned about ride count, knocking out Stealth & Inferno first would be my advice. They always seem quietest in the morning, weirdly… particularly Inferno, which can amass quite a queue later on. Unless you get there later, in which case Swarm might be a good shout, as the opening time crowds would have moved away from it to the other rides.
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From my exact location, it's just over three hours. I'm hoping to leave at 6am to allow for traffic and a stop if needed, and we''ll hopefully arrive between 9-9:30. I'll have to go to the ticket office to collect the carer ticket, then once in the park I'll need to collect the timecard for my RAP, so will want to leave extra time for those. Plus the timed tickets for DBGT and Black Mirror if they still require them (Will definitely do Black Mirror but not 100% sure about DBGT- Timed tickets will mean I have to make a final decision upon arival at the park as opposed to when we get to the ride)

My plan is to go to Depth Charge first to get that out of the way then Stealth. I'm not 100% sure I'll be doing Stealth yet (part of me wants to, part of me isn't sure), so it's a good idea to do it early as it will be quiet like you said. We'll then do Rumba Rapids as it's on the way to Inferno, then we'll do Inferno
 
Skyscraper said:
From my exact location, it's just over three hours. I'm hoping to leave at 6am to allow for traffic and a stop if needed, and we''ll hopefully arrive between 9-9:30. I'll have to go to the ticket office to collect the carer ticket, then once in the park I'll need to collect the timecard for my RAP, so will want to leave extra time for those. Plus the timed tickets for DBGT and Black Mirror if they still require them (Will definitely do Black Mirror but not 100% sure about DBGT- Timed tickets will mean I have to make a final decision upon arival at the park as opposed to when we get to the ride)

My plan is to go to Depth Charge first to get that out of the way then Stealth. I'm not 100% sure I'll be doing Stealth yet (part of me wants to, part of me isn't sure), so it's a good idea to do it early as it will be quiet like you said. We'll then do Rumba Rapids as it's on the way to Inferno, then we'll do Inferno
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One word of warning; Depth Charge often has a huge queue first thing in the morning, from experience. It’s what people see first when they enter the park, which naturally inflates the queue a fair amount compared to the other rides (e.g. the coasters). I’ve never actually done it (in spite of having had a total 9 days at Thorpe now), but the advertised queue is always quite large first thing in the morning, and the actual queue often looks to live up to this (people are often queueing all the way down the tower or further). I’m also led to believe that the throughput is quite low. If you do want to do it, I’d probably advise trying it later on after the initial opening time crowds have passed it.

This is just me, though; you might have a totally different park visiting strategy to me. Do whatever works for you. Personally, at a park like Thorpe, the 5 big coasters would be my highest priority as a first time visitor, with everything else sort of being “it would be nice to get on that if we have time”, but I don’t know how you tend to work, so do whatever works best for you!

I may admittedly have a different take on Thorpe to you, though, as I’m only around 2 hours away from it, whereas you’ve got a whole extra hour’s journey on top if you ever want to go to Thorpe again.
 
Matt N said:
One word of warning; Depth Charge often has a huge queue first thing in the morning, from experience. It’s what people see first when they enter the park, which naturally inflates the queue a fair amount compared to the other rides (e.g. the coasters). I’ve never actually done it (in spite of having had a total 9 days at Thorpe now), but the advertised queue is always quite large first thing in the morning, and the actual queue often looks to live up to this (people are often queueing all the way down the tower or further). I’m also led to believe that the throughput is quite low. If you do want to do it, I’d probably advise trying it later on after the initial opening time crowds have passed it.

This is just me, though; you might have a totally different park visiting strategy to me. Do whatever works for you. Personally, at a park like Thorpe, the 5 big coasters would be my highest priority as a first time visitor, with everything else sort of being “it would be nice to get on that if we have time”, but I don’t know how you tend to work, so do whatever works best for you!

I may admittedly have a different take on Thorpe to you, though, as I’m only around 2 hours away from it, whereas you’ve got a whole extra hour’s journey on top if you ever want to go to Thorpe again.
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Thanks for that. I actually rode Depth Charge on my first visit 9 years ago, although it was chucking it down all day so the queue was walk-on. It does indeed have a low capacity; only one adult is allowed in each boat. When we exit the dome (hopefully at 10 I'll have a look, and if it's busy I'll leave it til we come back to that area for Rush, Quantum and Storm Surge later on. Does it also tend to get a long queue at the end of the day too?
 
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Skyscraper said:
not 100% sure about DBGT- Timed tickets will mean I have to make a final decision upon arival at the park as opposed to when we get to the ride)
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Why? Just get yourself a timed ticket when you arrive and then if you don’t fancy it when your time slot comes around, then just don’t go on.

They will absolutely factor in a proportion of no shows into the number of tickets they give out. So it’s not really an issue.
 
Skyscraper said:
Crikey, how long did the journey take you?
Thanks, yeah I really do need to stop stressing about it. Especially as it's still two months away. :p:oops:
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About 3 and a half hours on a good run, so 7 hours driving in all. My old silly work shift pattern meant I was quite used to being up for over 20 hours and driving for 7 or 8 hours in a day, so no great hardship for me!
 
AT86 said:
Why? Just get yourself a timed ticket when you arrive and then if you don’t fancy it when your time slot comes around, then just don’t go on.

They will absolutely factor in a proportion of no shows into the number of tickets they give out. So it’s not really an issue.
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Yeah that's a good point, I'll get a timed ticket anyway. Will eliminate the risk of me changing my mind later in the day and finding no tickets available. :p
I am edging towards doing DBGT, I'm just anxious as I've never tried VR before and have always been wary about doing so.
How quickly did timed tickets sell out last season for both attractions?
 
Skyscraper said:
Thanks for that. I actually rode Depth Charge on my first visit 9 years ago, although it was chucking it down all day so the queue was walk-on. It does indeed have a low capacity; only one adult is allowed in each boat. When we exit the dome (hopefully at 10 I'll have a look, and if it's busy I'll leave it til we come back to that area for Rush, Quantum and Storm Surge later on. Does it also tend to get a long queue at the end of the day too?
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I think it does often get a long queue at the end, yes. It has a bit of what I like to call “the Spinball effect”, I think, where it’s that ride with a capacity that isn’t that high really close to the entrance that draws in the opening time and closing time crowds.

Storm Surge is the same, although perhaps to a lesser extent. Although that one seems to maintain a fairly long queue, from experience… very odd.
 
Matt N said:
I think it does often get a long queue at the end, yes. It has a bit of what I like to call “the Spinball effect”, I think, where it’s that ride with a capacity that isn’t that high really close to the entrance that draws in the opening time and closing time crowds.

Storm Surge is the same, although perhaps to a lesser extent. Although that one seems to maintain a fairly long queue, from experience… very odd.
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Well Storm Surge doesn't have the best capacity either.

Just noticed that the app has been updated :)

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I live miles away from every decent Theme Park in the country. Thorpe is about 2h20, Towers about 3h with a comfort break (done it in 2h35 on straight run though). On theme park days, including Scarefest and Fright Nights (one particular Thorpe visit I got up at 6 and got home at 1am) I just get up early, drive, have my day then drive back. Like @pluk I have no body clock really due to working shifts all my working life so I'm used to staying awake for a day or 2 if needs be as long as I get a good sleep afterwards.

Just get up early and have your money's worth I say.
 
If I’m doing Thorpe or south parks I will always try and stop over somewhere. Either the day before or after. There’s nothing worse than being stuck on the M25 during rush hour on the way to a theme park, or on the way home after a long day.
 
djtruefitt said:
If I’m doing Thorpe or south parks I will always try and stop over somewhere. Either the day before or after. There’s nothing worse than being stuck on the M25 during rush hour on the way to a theme park, or on the way home after a long day.
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Unfortunately I'm definitely doing Thorpe in a day from the North. Going to be a long and tiring day but I'm really looking forward to it. :)
Not looking forward to the 5am start and late finish though. :p:(
 
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