Leaderboard

I'll just give a boatload of info here... -The park's maximum capacity is around 15,000. They can officially hold more, but there's internal H&S/operational considerations they go with. A "sold out" day will probably have around 14,000-15,000 people, as a buffer and also as some pre-booked guests don't turn up. --There's some caveats to this. A "sold out" day may have less people if they have ride closures, expecting certain types of guests, etc. Buy out days are obviously capped at less. -The quietest days I've known of have been less than 1,000. Very rare, but has happened. Last time I think that happened was like 8-10 years ago, when the park was open for a full week after FN. Those weekdays were dead. -These days, September weekdays are probably the quietest. You're probably looking at around a couple of thousand people. Even then, that will vary quite a lot day to day. The park can still feel quiet if there's 2,000 people on park or 4,000 people on park. -A standard weekend day will again vary significantly, likely around the 5,000-10,000 mark. -A "busy" day, in terms of how the park feels and copes, will likely be anything above 9,000 I'd say. It's an interesting situation that the park are in. 10-15 years ago, their weekends / "peak" days were heaving, and their off-peak days were dead. Like 10,000 might he standard on a weekend, and 1,000 on a weekday. The park wanted to increase attendance by increasing attendance on those quieter days. They have of course managed to increase attendance on quieter days, but it seems to be that people are choosing to visit on those days over busier days, as opposed to attracting more guests. That helps on an operational standpoint in that the park can plan more consistent staff levels. But it now means that the park, and staff, are less used to busier days. As I say, back in 2012, for example, 10,000 on a Saturday was normal and the park coped fine. These days, 10,000 on a Saturday is abnormal, in that it is more than usual. So that means the park doesn't operate as well, and it feels worse. It also means that when we hit those capacity days, it can hit even harder. I guess the big takeaway is that Thorpe, and indeed basically every theme park in the UK aside from Towers, hit small arena / stadium numbers. For a football example, we're looking at like League One/Two football matxh attendances (which are weekly things) on a daily basis.

Not sure what I think about the pricing, even with the passholders discount on the mazes (I'm assuming they're doing that this year, although I haven't looked yet) paying about £8 each for 4 mazes is quite a big asking price for me. Although, I don't think I'm going to be able to make it this year, which I'm really disappointed about, I always look forward to my yearly FN trip. But then I guess it's partly my own fault for making myself so busy over the October holidays...

I wouldn't mind paying more for entry if it was unlimited runs on the mazes - like, the current price point would be acceptable if that was an option. I went to the Blue Light day for Fright Night's the year before last with a mate - was just like the glory days, multiple run throughs with no stress!

Was saying to Josh - I can afford to go this year, but, I don't think it's good value. £10 a maze is a lot. No maze at Tulleys is worth £10. If it was nearer £5 I'd go for it, but as I've said before, the Fright Night's model is not for me - I don't like the idea of one - paid - run through that can easily be ruined by the group you are batched with, or actors being misplaced/on a break etc. Am happy paying ~£90 for Tulley's VIP, because we normally get 20-24 runs in total on a night - so around £4 a run, and that's before you take off the £15 merch voucher and food and drink token. There's been times at Tulley's where we start a maze and straight away we'll be like "We'll do this again later because the group are slow/annoying/ruining it" (you know what I mean) whereas that is not an option at Thorpe unless you want to fork out again to roll the dice again for a good runthrough. And you know that run through is going to be nothing like the POVs from press night - whereas, genuinely - run throughs I see from Tulleys are at the same level for us mere mortals as that of the press night.

9th September 2024: Travel Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the start of my big foreign theme park trip for the year. This year, that trip is my first ever trip to PortAventura World in Spain! This will be my first time ever experiencing the likes of Shambhala and Red Force, amongst other major rides, as well as experiencing a pretty major European theme park resort in the form of PortAventura World for the first time and seeing the delights it has to offer through a fresh set of eyes! It’s also my first time ever going to Spain despite doing a GCSE in Spanish… there are quite a lot of firsts this trip! We set off early this morning, leaving our Gloucestershire home at a little before 7:30am. With us living in the South West of England, we flew from Bristol Airport, our nearest airport. Despite us not living very far from Bristol, it took us over an hour to get there; I can see why my dad jokingly calls Bristol Airport “Bedminster International”, because it’s miles out of Bristol… anyway, when we got there, check in and security were nice and prompt. Bristol Airport has a fancy new check in system where you don’t take anything out of your bag and it just checks the bag… other than me needing to take my shoes off and have them sent back round the carousel due to some sort of anomaly, it overall worked well and we got through quickly!: When we got into the airport, we then headed for our flight. It was an EasyJet flight to Barcelona El Prat Airport, and it was excellent! The plane was very nice, and everything ran to schedule; it took a little under 2 hours, and we even landed a few minutes ahead of schedule! The time went quite quickly on there; we ate lunch, and I played some games on my iPad and also read How Westminster Works… And Why it Doesn’t, an excellent book by Ian Dunt that explains how every part of the English political system is apparently structured to work against meaningful scrutiny and change. It’s a fascinating read… political books might be a fascinating new genre for me to delve into! Anyway, that’s besides the point; the flight was good, and immigration was also relatively quick: After we landed, we headed to find our shared transfer, booked through PortAventura. This was interesting… it was relatively easy to find and set up, but they like to send you walking for this! We landed in Terminal 2C, but the desk to arrange transfers was at the very end of the check in desks in Terminal 2B, which was a decent walk from where we landed, and then we had to walk even further to all the way past the taxis to catch our bus: The bus itself was easy to catch and we got on it with relative ease, but when we were on it, the flaws of coach travel began to emerge; I’m not sure how long the drive from Barcelona El Prat to PortAventura would normally be, but it took us around 2h 45m to reach our hotel from leaving our pick up point, in large part due to us spending at least an hour going on a whistle stop tour of the many different hotels of Salou to drop different people off. As such, we reached PortAventura at around 5:30pm despite leaving the original pick up point at around 2:45pm. On the positive side, however, I must say that from having driven along the road, Spain is probably one of the more picturesque foreign countries I’ve been to; the mountainous landscape and clear blue sea is absolutely gorgeous! I also found it interesting how large parts of the road network seem to be encased in tunnels; it was almost like being back in the Brynglas Tunnels on the M4 near Newport back at home, except without nearly the same volume of queueing! Anyhow, after our bus ride, we arrived at our accommodation for the trip; Hotel Gold River, one of the on-site hotels at PortAventura. I’ve often heard deeply mixed reviews of PortAventura, which gave me some degree of trepidation… but on first impressions, Hotel Gold River is absolutely stunning! It’s impeccably themed, with so many little details around the place, our Superior Callaghan Room is lovely, the place is pristine, it has a lovely ambience about it, and overall, the whole place is just wonderful! From a theming and ambience standpoint, it’s as nice as any theme park hotel I’ve ever been to, and that includes the ones at Europa Park; from the hotel, I’m getting a real Europa Park vibe, and given how excellent those hotels were and that park was, I think that’s encouraging: (I apologise for the bombardment of photos… Gold River is such a photogenic hotel, and there was so much I wanted to photograph!) After arriving and checking in, we initially went for a little stroll around the hotel complex to explore our surroundings (where many of the above photos were taken) and had a drink in one of the bars. My mum and dad were thrilled at the drink prices; 2 large Estrellas for them and a Diet Coke for me only cost €13.30, which seems very cheap! Later on, we then went for our evening meal at the Grand Hall buffet. This was lovely; the food was really nice, and we all enjoyed it! Although it was nothing too fancy, the food was lovely, and I’m not a huge foodie, so that suits me fine. Another interesting thing that happened during our meal is that at one point, the waiting staff all suddenly erupted into a song and dance show to a song with the primary lyrics “Hola, hola!”, where they were dancing and clapping along to the music! I’ve never seen that in a restaurant before, and I thought it was quite a fun touch… the restaurant also erupted into a chorus of “cumpleaños feliz” a couple of times for people’s birthdays, where the waiting staff were going through the restaurant clapping with cake to tables where people had birthdays, but I’ve seen that in plenty of restaurants. I’m already getting the impression that PortAventura is quite a “showy” park where they like to do a song and dance, and I’m sensing that that “hola, hola” song could be a recurring theme during the break, as we also heard it from one of the shows in the saloon bar… After our lovely meal at the buffet, we then got more drinks from the bar and sat outside in the central plaza area of Gold River. The hotel just has such a lovely ambience about it, and with the pleasant Spanish climate, being sat outside with drinks soaking up the night time ambience of Hotel Gold River was just lovely: After that, we headed back to our room for the night, ready for our first day in PortAventura Park tomorrow. So, that wraps up the first instalment of this series of reports from my first ever visit to PortAventura World in Spain! I have to say that based on my experience at the hotel tonight, it’s looking very promising for the park itself; Hotel Gold River is wonderful, and with its wonderfully detailed theming, nice food and lovely ambience, I could not say enough nice things about it! It’s made me very excited to set foot in PortAventura Park and see all of the delights it has to offer tomorrow; I can’t wait for Shambhala in particular, and I’m just excited to see what’s on offer at a new major European theme park! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I’m sorry that it’s a bit more of a boring one today, but tomorrow’s will be far more interesting, as we’re setting foot into PortAventura Park for the first time!

Finally been on it. Area looks crap. Station is a weird attempt at Icon for some reason. It's a great ride until the trims. All that momentum just thrown in the bin, leaving you wanting the rest of the layout rather than awkward corner. Best ride on park? Sure. Best ride ever? Not even close.