Here it is - the 2013 Review of the Thorpe Park season! I'll be sticking to a similar formulaic approach as the 2011 (sorry about the pictures being broken here; I'll be sorting it out asap!) and the 2012 Season Reviews I've done. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the style / format of it all, let me know! Sorry about the length of this; it's hard to a balance between a detailed review and keeping it short. Also, for anyone wondering, I won't be doing any for other parks, simply du
Hey all, my latest article on CoasterGeek; "Scare mazes, theatricality and the death of originality" is now online!
http://coastergeek.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/scare-mazes-theatricality-and-the-death-of-originiality/
Disagree with me? Leave a comment and I'll be happy to respond - Constructive debate is fun
Once upon a time a couple of months ago, TPM ventured to the outer whelms of the Northern Hemisphere to an alien species where people's speak a different accent in a land named Alton Towers. There was much excitement and amazement that these Maniacs were for the first time ever having an official overnight stay. So what adventures and situations will we see unfold in the upcoming 5 part adventure? It's 10th episode you know
On Arrival TPM came across this huge mansion - where it was decided
So I’ve discussed the UK parks, but what about the foreign ones I visited? Well here we goooooo!
Disneyland Paris
Well it snowed, oh BOY did it snow. Not that it ruined the enjoyment of course, there’s nothing more hilarious than riding Tower of Terror, getting to the top and the doors opening to a mini-blizzard. The park did extremely well dealing with the heavy snow and I take my hat off for the way they dealt with our booked restaurant situation.
The parks were their usually selves really,
So we come to the end of what has been a rather disappointing year in the UK (there’s no two ways about that) it was up to the park’s abroad to show us how to do things, and that is something they most certainly did.
United Kingdom
I didn’t actually visit any non-Merlin UK parks this year, I nearly made it to Mingoland but fortunately that didn’t pan out.
The additions to the Merlin parks sounded good (at least if you weren’t Thorpe, who seemingly cannot think of suitably well thought out add
2013 has not been the grandest years for theme parks in the country, more like a cheap table wine that you pick up for cheap at Tescos. From obvious budget cuts and rides standing but not operating for an entire year at Chessington too The Smiler trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink at passers by, it is clear that the Uk industry has stagnated somewhat in 2013.
And yet, shockingly and surprisingly, despite not adding anything substantial, Thorpe Park has come out as the clear winn
In what will probably be an unsurprising development, our 2nd park of the weekend was Plopsaland, because we all love it to bits.
It also has an immense amount of new things at the place this year, from a new MASSIVE theatre, two new rides in a newly themed area, and two rethemed rides (the kiddie cred and onion boats) which is really fantastic to see. Add this to the hotel development which is on-going and it does seem like the park is going places.
They had a good amount of Halloween
So after a month of going to all the Merlin Halloween events the ‘last’ weekend of the month needed to be something different. As such, discussions were had and plans put in place for a quick jaunt over the Channel on a Friday afternoon to enjoy a weekend of Belgian creds and scary things.
The Saturday was at Walibi, which has had an interesting life it must be said, and recently rebranded itself to a rather different park theme of a music band.
They also hold one of Belgium’s premier Ha
Thorpe Park Trip Report 27/10/13
After our short 25min drive from our hotel (following our 4.5 hour drive the day before) we arrived at Thorpe at around 10:15. We then proceeded to the MAP office to pick up our shiny new passes before heading in to the park just after 10:45, I checked the queue times using the app and saw that the majority of the rides were still on 5-10 min queue with the exception of saw and swarm which were both already up to an hour.
We headed toward X as we hadn’t been h
Having noticed the lack of FN trip reports I thought I'd make one for my visit after surviving the storm of 2013!
The park opened late, didn't affect our visit as we arrived at 1. The only things we noticed was they had moved Cabin's queue entrance to the Colossus side due to a huge puddle on the normal side, and a few metal fences had fallen over at the Inferno end of Blair Witch. The park was very quiet with the longest queues we noticed being 45 minutes for Saw and an hour for Asylum. Due to
With the weather looking okay, the only chance I'd get to visit this year, and having heard that the first Saturday is quiet I headed to Chessington today. Had a great day and it was indeed very quiet! Longest we queued was 35 minutes for Vampire with most other rides being 10-20 minutes. Operations also seemed slightly better on some rides (still generally shocking compared to other parks but an improvement none the less). Didn't venture over to the Hotel side of the zoo so I have no idea how w
This is going to be quick (for a change). I have mesed up a lot and just want to say a huge sorrry to those wwho have helped me massively this year. I cannot thank you guys here enough for helping me to overrcome many fears etc. But enough is enough so it is time for me to bugger off. I love this site but I can't stay anymore.
Au revoir
Sorry about being so lazy not to finish this and this won't I guess be the best installment ever but bear with because this is the last part in my trip report to Europa park!
Because the queue had died down, I decided to go on Euro-Mir again, unsuprisingly by myself as none of my family liked it apart from me
Such a good ride tbh!!! Like I said before it is very intense for what it is and by this point only had a 5min queue!
Shiny!
We were almost about to go straight to Silver Star wh
Day 3
And lo, the final day approached as we groggily awoke for one last B&M whorage session. However there was some unfinished business to attend to first, so we checked out the hotel, dumped off our bags and headed in to Baco once more.
It was announcing technical difficulties…
This turned out to be the addition of the second train however, so we waited it out and before long we were winging our way out of the station on the front row. The pre-show began, the brake fins dropped,
It was time for the Stars in their cars parade. Not great to be honest. Part of the problem here is that it's just generic cars and aren't that exciting to look at. It also blocks off the entrance/exit to the park so want to leave, nope you get stuck. Want to get on Tower whilst its quiet, no you have to wait for the Parade to pass. Not the greatest planning.
Not long Remy, Not long...
With the parade over and the two shows not starting for a while, we headed back to Toy Story playland and
Day 2
A lovely buffet breakfast began our long second day at the park, which was coincidentally the first day of their Halloween event. At 10 we walked very quickly past Baco and through Sesame Street. In order to faff longer, we popped on the wonderfully named Magic Fish ride, one of those Wave Racer things which was reasonably enjoyable.
Afterwards we sat in that pathway leading to China and mused until Khan roared into life, and we duly skipped the queue twice before doing exact
An Express visit to Port Aventura
Day 1
They always say you should keep an eye out for good deals in life, theme parks being no exception, so when Port Aventura had an offer for 50% hotel stays I leapt at the chance to revisit the park, namely for Shambhala.
A VERY early Friday morning was the backdrop to our journey via Gatwick and Barcelona, and after eventually finding the coach to the hotel, we arrived at the park armed with quite possibly the best value for money unlimited Express Passes
10 years ago, Thorpe Park were graced with the introduction of Nemesis Inferno. It was B&M's 22nd Inverted coaster, a type of roller coaster which had proven most popular over the previous ten years. Billed as 'the world's greatest roller coaster experience' and having a name that obviously was leading itself to be a successor to the extremely popular Nemesis, the ride had a lot to live up to.
Unfortunately, Inferno didn't live up to hype. From what I can gather, it's not a particularly
Day started with a 15 minute queue for breakfast. This was slightly chaotic with hundreds of people going for breakfast at the same time, a lot of people coming an hour early and not being turned away. Wouldn't happen at Towers
From there it was on to Studios Park, our first stop Crush's Coaster. We didn't arrive dead on ten so when we got to Crush, the queue was already displayed at 60 minutes. We decided to bite the bullet and just go for it. This was the only ride where we saw a queue line
With the rain coming down it seemed like everyone rushed to the nearest food place. As we were at the back of Fantasyland we were stuck with Toads Hall, a tinyish place which could't cope with the amount of people coming in. People were arguing and fighting over tables and staff couldn't control who was next in wait for a table. We were lucky, a lovely French couple noticed I'd been waiting the longest and offered me the table, even telling off others who tried to take it from me. We had fish an
Big Thunder is the quintessential family roller coaster. Mildly fast, full of variety and not too many large drops to scare kids. The general consensus is that Paris's version is the best of the four. While I can only compare to Florida, I'd go as far as agreeing with aspects of that opinion. The only real part where Paris falls down is its queue line. There seems to be various ways that the ride is run and none of them seem that great. On the first day for example, fastpass was available but th
Having been given a breakfast slot for 9:45, we decided to skip a bit of continental and headed into the park around 9:00 instead. Seeing a main street so empty is an experience you'll rarely get so we took the opportunity to get some photos and get some coffee from one of the various outlets along Main Street.
I'll never get tired of the Castle/Main Street view.
LOOK AT THE THEME!
We also approve of buying food and getting tickets for free coffee later in the day.
One thing I really not
Qui a besoin du monde, quand tout ce que vous avez besoin est une terre
When choosing the trips for 2013 there was two that were outright yes's and two that came about quite by chance. Disneyland Paris was not an all and all winner, in fact Chris and I were putting off Disney until our California trip next May. However with Disney extending their 20th Anniversary celebrations and with Chris feeling a little Disney craving, we decided to go for Paris even with no Ratatouille. After a speedy 2 an
