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I have some throughput timings from my trip to Thorpe Park yesterday that I’d like to report! I managed to grab the following timings in the park yesterday: Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains): 717pph (unknown number of trains, average of 3, 20th September 2025) Hyperia (Theoretical: 1,050pph on 2 trains): 833pph (2 trains, average of 10, 20th September 2025) Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains): 977pph (2 trains, average of 5, 20th September 2025), 1,024pph (2 trains, average of 4, 20th September 2025) Saw: The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars/2 stations): 742pph (unknown number of trains/2 stations, average of 10 singular cars, 20th September 2025), 788pph (unknown number of trains/2 stations, average of 4 dual dispatches, 20th September 2025) Stealth (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 2 trains): 975pph (2 trains, average of 10, 20th September 2025) The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains): 1,046pph (2 trains, average of 9, 20th September 2025) In terms of some specific insights: Stealth had possibly the best operations I’ve ever seen on there; these operations were phenomenal! The staff were sprinting down the platform, and they were very frequently outpacing the 40s dispatch timer on the platform, something which I’d largely thought redundant in previous years! 70-75 second dispatch intervals were being hit very consistently, and the slowest I saw was about 80s, which is incredible! The Swarm was also operated very well given that it seems to have been a tad inconsistent as of late. When I was in the area, the ride was consistently achieving minimal to no stacking, the staff were efficient, and I saw some dispatch intervals as quick as 90s or below. Great job! Hyperia was operating well, and seems to have improved compared to its opening year, with 80-90 second dispatch intervals being attained pretty consistently where closer to 100-120 seconds seemed par for the course in 2024. From what I could see, the ride was consistently not stacking and was very often dispatching before the train in front hit the brake run; at its quickest, I saw them dispatch when the train in front was negotiating the final outerbank after the splashdown. I do think the slow brake run on here makes throughputs slower than they could be when the ride isn’t stacking; if the brake run was faster, I think it would shave at least 10 seconds off the dispatch interval! Nemesis Inferno seemed to be operating well, with minimal to no stacking being quite frequent. I noticed the staff were trying to hurry people along on here. Overall, then, I thought operations were broadly very good at Thorpe yesterday! Stealth was phenomenally operated, I also thought The Swarm was particularly well operated, and overall, most things seemed to be doing well! I’ve given up hope of Colossus ever attaining a particularly decent throughput at this point, but even that didn’t appear too slow by Colossus standards.

I'm not really feeling it for FN this year, normally by now there is a bit of excitement, and although I think that trailer isn't bad I can't put my finger on it as to why i'm not feeling it. We shall see!

Portaventura Trip Report – Day 1 Travel & Hotel Huge bucket list park for me: PortAventura. I’ve been watching vlogs and reading plenty of reports from PortAventura since a young age, but I’ve just never got around to doing it. They don’t have a huge coaster lineup, and with so many mixed reviews, particularly on operations, it’s never been high up on my list to tick off. I found a great deal on the hotel and flights that worked perfectly, so I booked a solo trip. 3 days and 2 nights, arrive Weds 17th and return on Friday 19th. I bagged return flights from Gatwick for £45, and booked Hotel Roulette for £210 (also got £20 cashback so worked out to £190), which also included 3 days entry at PortAventura and 1 entry for Ferrari Land. Absolute bargain. If it was for 2 people it would’ve been an even better deal as the hotel was the same price. Hotel Roulette is slightly cheaper and allocates you a random hotel - I was allocated El Paso. I got an early flight and arrived in Barcelona at around 11. I arrived at the hotel around 2pm, checked in, dumped my bag and walked straight round to the park. Whats that peeking through the trees. PortAventura First impressions were great. Lovely area of the park with great theme music playing, lots of nice seating and food outlets overlooking the lake. Furious Baco was the first attraction I came across being at the entrance, so I headed straight for the single rider queue. I was sat towards the back on the right side (normally being a single rider you get the left side, but as the group I was allocated with sat there I took the empty seat on the right). The initial launch and pop of airtime at the end of the launch is great. Very unique having the launch on an upwards slant too. But from there, I didn’t enjoy any other part of the layout and it was quite rough. Obviously I needed to ride it more and in different seats to share my thoughts properly. Spoiler: it gets worse. Having just arrived I was pretty eager to get on some more coasters, so I walked past Tutuki Splash then a very long way towards Shambhala and Dragon Khan, B&M land. I had no idea where I was going, just following paths till I found the B&Ms. The views of the 2 B&Ms are stunning. On my approach I noticed Dragon Khan was walk-on, so got straight on. I didn’t know what to expect with this - I love an old B&M but had heard lots about it being rough and showing its age. It looks absolutely stunning with its recent paint job, and I loved the colours of the train. And that roar. You just can’t beat the sound of these old B&Ms. And how did it ride? I absolutely loved it. Thought it rode excellently for an old coaster - I really don’t understand the noise about it being rough. It was very forceful, that zero-g roll in particular was ridiculous. The interlocking corkscrews look great. The cobra roll perfectly placed over the brake run looks stunning. Think I prefer this over Kumba, but hard to say as its now been 10 years since I've been on Kumba. But I don't remember Kumba hitting that hard intensity wise. Went straight back round for another go as I thought it was rude not to with no queue. I was then itching for the big B&M towering above me. I walked round to Shambhala and saw the SRQ was chained off, so joined the main queue which was advertised at 25 minutes, but was on in 20 mins. It wasn’t until I got to the station I realised the SRQ was still in use even though it was chained off - you just had to go over the chain or jump the main queue. That explains why I saw a few people jumping the main queue whilst I was waiting. Anyway. Once again, I didn't know what to expect. Lots of mixed reviews - some love it, some say it’s very overhyped. With all these new Intamins with aggressive airtime, I didn’t know if I was going to like it. I loved this thing. Really loved it. Completely exceeded my expectations. Brilliant first drop, and then floater airtime for pretty much the rest of the layout. The turnaround section is ridiculously forceful, a near grey-out on exit, then straight into a speed hill. My favorite part of the layout. The train design is perfect, I particularly love the ‘outer’ seats which pretty much feel like winged seats. The views from the lift hill are great, and I absolutely love the way the 2 lift hills are placed for this and Khan. So unique, and you get some funny interactions when they’re dispatched at similar times. Lots of waves. The splashdown was off but was randomly turned on midway through Thursday. Good fun on the outer seats and you can touch the water. Pretty much a flawless coaster for me and I decided pretty early on this is my favourite B&M. Nice to have a B&M back in my top 10 😃 After a couple more rides using the ‘closed’ SRQ, I continued to wander round the park and came across Hurakan Condor. I love a drop tower, particularly these Intamin ones. It’s brilliantly themed. I didn’t realize the roof was actually a bit tilted until I saw it in person for the first time. Had to Google if it was meant to be like that 🤣 I entered the queue which was very short, and there was no one waiting in the SRQ so I went for that. I was quite surprised to see all 5 towers operating, after seeing other people report it being on 2–3 in peak summer. I had 3 quick rides using the SRQ, first one being standard sit down and the other 2 being stand up tilt. Great drop tower with great views. I didn’t actually realize how huge this thing is until I was there. Bit of a shame you can’t pick to stand up or sit down, even if you were to go in the main queue. I do love the atmosphere around drop towers - it’s always the one ride at a theme park which scares people. Lots of people getting to the front of the queue and requesting the sit-down tower is quite amusing to watch 🤣 I continued to explore and stumbled into the Wild West area. Beautifully themed. I jumped straight on Stampida (blue side) and had no idea what to expect. I do like that you can choose which side in the queue. Groups together were going separately so they can race. It was not very enjoyable at all unfortunately. Very rough/jolty. Shame as it’s a fantastic layout (John Wardley classic), I particularly like the bit where the 2 trains go towards each other. But yeah, too rough to enjoy any of it really. Next up I wanted to try Uncharted. It was advertised at 50 mins, and unfortunately has no SRQ as that’s been replaced by an express queue. Shame this wasn’t designed with both, seeing as it’s a new ride. Even though it had the highest queue on park (which was a running trend) I just went for it as I know it had a terrible capacity and wasn’t likely to change. I hadn’t actually seen much about this coaster so didn’t know what to expect. The exterior and the indoor queue are both fantastic. Very highly themed. It’s a decent ride. The ride system is absolutely fantastic, really comfy trains and fun launches, and it’s brilliant how the ride vehicle rotates. However the theming on ride is dire. It’s just a dark building with a couple of screens. And I really hate that you can see the track in front of you so you know what’s coming. It’s a fairly short ride too, but the main problem is the theming for me. Big shame as that ride has a lot of potential. Fantastic ride system though so I look forward to seeing what other parks do with them. And that was it for my first day. It was about half 5 so I still had half an hour till queues closed, but Ferrari Land opened at half 4 and Red Force was calling my name. Ferrari Land There was only 1 reason I was bothered about Ferrari Land, Red Force, obviously. Walking into the park, everything looked very new and clean, as you’d expect from a fairly new park. Walking towards Red Force, you can’t help but notice the noise it makes. It’s so loud - love it. Sounds like a plane taking off every couple minutes, very fitting with it being Ferrari Land. I headed straight for the SRQ, walking past huge cattle pens almost backed up to the entrance. Main queue was advertised at 30 minutes which was nonsense. Later on in the evening when the queue was 1/3 of the size it was advertised at 1 hour and 20 mins. Strange as they seemed fairly accurate in Portaventura, most of the time. In Ferrari Land though, they were always wrong. This park seriously needs more capacity though. Queues like that on an 'off peak' day. Amazingly, I only waited 15 minutes in the SRQ, and even more amazingly I lucked out and got allocated the front row on my first ride. Thanks to 2 out of a group of 3 being too scared for the front. Unfortunately you have to wear glasses on the front, similar to Energylandia, but that didn’t take away from the ride too much. It’s a great coaster, the launch is fantastic, particularly at the end of the launch you can really feel the LSMs kick in. I love that there isn’t a pause either — straight out the station into a launch. Amazing views on the top hat. No airtime at the top as it goes over very slowly, but you do get some great views. This is the tallest coaster I’ve done and it feels like it when you’re up there. You then have a brilliant drop, and a nice pop of airtime before going into the brakes. I went round another 4 times all in SRQ and was allocated row 5 the first 3 times, then lucked out and got another front row ride. It is a great coaster, but I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed by it. The launch is great, but it really doesn’t have that same kick to it as the hydraulic launches. Which does make me sad I never got to do TTD or Ka in their original forms 💔 It’s a little rough too. Unless you’re on the front row, it shakes a lot the further you get down that launch track, and it isn’t comfortable. I probably prefer Stealth, purely due to the acceleration and it not being rough, but Red Force is still a fantastic coaster and does create a fantastic atmosphere in Ferrari Land. As I mentioned earlier, the noise that thing makes is incredible. On my 5th ride, whilst I was in the airgate, it had a short breakdown. The train advanced onto the launch track but didn’t launch. But it was dealt with quickly - engineers arrived and reversed it back into the station. They sent the train and it was back in operation, all within 10 mins. After 5 laps, I headed over to the Thrill Towers which were walk-on. This park really filters out as time goes on. It gets really busy at PortAventura park close (6pm), but it seems most people go in the park and have 1 lap on Red Force then leave. Except people like me 🤣 1 of the towers is on the ‘shot’ setting and the other is on the drop setting. You don’t get to choose, you just randomly get allocated one. I had 1 go on each. The shot tower was okay but I’ve definitely done better, the drop one was really good though. Very forceful. There wasn’t long left till park close at 10pm, so I decided to spend the rest of the evening on Red Force. The main queue was empty so I just used that, and managed 3 rides which were all in row 2. This also included another 10 minute breakdown, just a quick reset from engineers. This thing is absolutely incredible at night. There was such a good atmosphere too - the only people left in the park were all lapping it, and the staff on offload were encouraging us to run round to get a last ride in. I was on the 2nd-to-last train and everyone was clapping and cheering. Great fun. I then wandered back over to the hotel, had some fajitas in the restaurant (open till 11) which were nice, and went to sleep ready for a full day in the park tomorrow. Wrap up & Operations What a great first day. I just couldn’t believe how nice the park was and instantly fell in love with it - the pathways, landscaping, music, and views all create such a nice atmosphere. The weather was perfect too. Food was reasonably priced for a theme park, though drinks were very expensive. I wizzed round and got a feel for the park in the short time I had there so was looking forward to spending a full day there on Thursday. And the operations? Honestly, better than I expected. I’d heard horror stories, but on my trip it wasn’t too bad at all. I imagine busy days would be different, but I didn’t see much queue jumping or overuse of express. Furious Baco: 2/2 trains Shambhala & Dragon Khan: 2/3 on each (a third wouldn’t have helped, they were stacking). They had all 3 available as they were swapped throughout the 3 days. Hurakan Condor: 5/5 towers Stampida: 1/2 on each side (but didn’t need more) Uncharted: 3/3 trains Red Force: 2 trains (not sure if it can run 3). Again all 3 were available as they were swapped on Thursday. The big issue is Red Force. It’s the headline attraction and it draws a huge crowd, but dispatches averaged around 90 seconds — only about 480 pph. That’s terrible, especially once you factor in express and disabled access. Stealth dispatches faster, even with more seats and seatbelts to check. Red Force needs a better baggage system if they want to seriously increase throughput. They should also advance trains into the station quicker - waiting for the train to clear the top hat each time kills throughput. I didn't see any breakdowns all day apart from the 2 short breakdowns on Red Force. Will write up Day 2 & 3 soon with thoughts on the rest of the park and thoughts on re-rides.

This is a perfect summary of my thoughts as well. It’s quite an interesting subject really, because now that they’ve chosen to go down this new route of highly themed walkthroughs and dance shows etc I imagine it would be difficult to change course. The Asylum, Experiment 10 and Cabin in the Woods are examples of excellent Thorpe mazes in my opinion at least - but I imagine they would be poorly received if they “came back” exactly as they were, even if they were still “free” (or included in the event ticket price as I prefer to say!). I think now people have grown used to what a Thorpe scare maze “is”, and something like Asylum would probably now be seen as lazy, as it had next to no theming and just 2 stock songs playing in the queue, even though it could be an extremely intense experience. I also wonder if these sort of “more basic” attractions won’t be able to compete now adays due to the need for things to look good for social media etc, especially with Universal a few years away, Thorpe need to have impressive looking attractions I suppose so they can directly compete with HHN. I expect however, the real reason is that they need to justify the prices they’re charging for a run through, so it needs to look like it’s worth paying for, more so than the need for it to be scary. As you say Cal, times have changed I suppose.

^ I'm not either, in fact I've only just watched that trailer for first time which shows my excitement level. I don't think thats a this year only thing though, for me Fright Nights was good in the old days of the stronger mazes and being able to lap them till 10pm free of charge. I don't have an interest in the dance shows, scare zones, or paying money to stand in queue to get a weak runthrough in a maze. I miss the old intense Fright Nights days, getting locked in cupboard in experiment 10 and having actors in queue lines etc.. I do appreciate that times change though and theres clearly a market for what they do now though, and I do think that Fright Nights is in a much better place now than it was a good few years ago. Its a strong lineup again this year so I hope they have another successful year. I will still go to Fright Nights this year multiple times for the longer hours for rides and general atmosphere. I might give the odd maze a try if it has no queue and I'm with someone that wants to, but certainly won't be going out of my way to do so. I do get the vibe that they've just added this scarezone for the sake of having something new this year. I'll reserve my judgement until we see what it is but its a shame if that is the case, as everything else on the lineup is of high quality and will be a shame if they've just added this for the sake of it. Would rather they just use them actors and have a couple in Swarms area and SAWs queue for example. Would add more than a weak scare zone IMO. On another note, I do hope they make more of an effort with ride soundtrack overlays this year. They've been redundant for a good 2-3 years now which is a shame.

Had my first ever visit to Gröna Lund last Saturday. It’s a nice little park, and really impressive how much they’ve managed to cram into such a small space. Monster is a brilliant little B&M Invert. It’s amazing how well they’ve made it fit in the park - it just looks like it’s always been there. The underground station is really unique, and so is its layout for an invert. That airtime hill completely took me by surprise and was easily the best airtime moment I’ve had on an invert before. It’s silky smooth and definitely sits high on my invert list. Unfortunately, I got spited by Insane, which didn’t operate all afternoon/evening while I was there. I was particularly looking forward to it since I’ve never had the chance to do a Zac Spin. Not sure why it was closed or how long it’s been down? As a big drop tower fan, I was really impressed with their lineup - three towers all offering different experiences. Definitely the best drop tower selection I’ve seen at any park, and it makes sense given how limited their space is. The S&S tower was solid. It starts with the “shot” mode, then slowly takes you to the top for the drop. I like the towers that do both rather than just one or the other. Ikaros is an Intamin Skyjump, and after doing some research in the queue I learned Falcon’s Fury is the only other one, which I've also ridden. Surprised Intamin hasn’t sold more of these. The views were fantastic, but I found the ride itself pretty forceless. Hard to compare directly to Falcon’s Fury since it’s been 10 years, but I’m pretty sure Ikaros breaks lower down and swings a lot more on its return. Falcon’s still looks more intimidating though. Fritt Fall was my favorite of the drop towers - an Intamin the same as Apocalypse and Condor. These never fail to deliver and this was no different. The park also had a nice bar with views over Stockholm. You’re not allowed to leave the bar areas with drinks though so they can “watch” you, which made me laugh. ‘Vilda Musen’ the parks Gerst bobsled is decent, and Twister the gravity group woodie was okay. Smooth and a decent family coaster, but nothing to write home about. The day ended on an annoying note. The park closed at 10pm, and while I was at the front of a queue for my last ride, the host came down the queue to tell us their boss had said they had to close now and we wouldn’t be able to ride. The time was 21:57. Bit annoying since it was still before 10 and I was already in the queue, but it is what it is. On the way out I also saw them turning people away (already in the queue) for one of the drop towers too. Its a great compact little park with a great selection of rides, Monster being the obvious standout. Not somewhere I’d rush back to without a good reason to or in the area again, but I enjoyed my time there and do recommend a visit 😃

So let's dissect this a bit more / share some of my thoughts... I really like that they're making Lucifer a central figure this year. I've said repeatedly that this is something that park should look to do - have a headline character who is prominent in both marketing and on park. When the park introduced the Director character in 2013 and 14 (and even the Governor character in 2012), it was a nice touch. It didn't necessarily fully hit the mark as there was a lack of consistency due the character (naturally) having to be played by different actors. And the on-park character didn't quite marry up with the marketing character. But the park have had form there, and it worked. One criticism that occurred in 2015 was that the Figaro Bros were featured so heavily in marketing, but had no on-park presence (even in the original Big Top), which is why the park veered away from central characters. They've slowly reintroduced the concept of headline characters with "Fear" in 2021, the Locksmith in 2022 and the Toymaker in 2023. Again, they featured heavily in marketing. But aside from the Toymaker (who was only used for a special BTS tour of Stitches), had no physical on-park presence. Lucifer's Lair - in my opinion - has been the highlight of the past two Fright Nights. And given the plan to have the stage on the Beach this year, it wouldn't be surprising if they were hoping to turn that zone into a bigger thing this year. Having Lucifer has that central figure just works for the current Fright Nights set up. As a slight critique (possibly even a long-term suggestion), I'd rather the park have an 'original' character, as opposed to 'just' the devil, but they can make it work. I've banged on about this enough times on here, but if you look to Walibi Holland, their Eddie the Clown character has been a headline character for much of the park's Halloween event's history. Eddie the Clown and Walibi are synonymous now. And it leads to great marketing (and more recently, merchandise) opportunity. Thorpe can recreate that, in their own way. Now, the actual event. Upfront, I'm not enthused by Purgatory Town. It's being marketing as an 'interactive' scare zone, or a speak-to-characters zone. I'm getting a bit of a Swarm Invasion vibe, in that I expect there will be minimal theming and minimal actors, and guests will 'get out what they put in'. That is, you can walk through the zone and have basically no interaction with the actors, or you can spend time chatting with them and find out their story and lore and build up from there. The key difference is Swarm Invasion had an actual coaster with a backstory to help it, whereas Purgatory Town has...well, no pre-existing lore. Another issue is that Fright Nights has become quite...passive. A common discussion point on here, at the very least, is that the mazes are like walkthroughs of very well-themed sets, with less actual engagement. I'd argue Stitches and Trailers highlight that extremely well, but even DeadBeat has its moments. Now whether that's a good thing, a bad thing or just a thing is almost a mute point. If the reason the park are creating these passive experiences is because that's what guests enjoy and respond best to, then creating a scare zone which is the opposite to that is a hard sell to guests. Again looking to Swarm Invasion, that didn't exactly light the world on fire, and that could be because of the high engagement level required. The fact we're less than two weeks from the event starting and we have no theming or build is also telling of what to expect on that front (ie: not a lot). I'm certainly not writing it off, as we don't really know a lot about it still. But all signs point to this being little more than a nice experiment for the park to try. However, it is great to see Fright Nights further spread out across the park. Next thing to note is Survival Games changes. Hard to know what expectations should be, but the video and promo image make it look like the characters in the maze will be different at the very least: There's mentions of a "toxic twist", and any part of the marketing related to Survival Games does feature a strong electricity motif too. Trailers getting two new scenes is perhaps not unexpected given the new posters that appeared. A little excerpt from the park's press release gives us a bit more on what to expect... Evil experiments could be Experiment 10 (which could be the X poster seen) Forbidden Forests could be a Blair Witch throwback I hope that - unlike last year - the new scenes are more than just a redress of existing scenes. I know it's a less-common opinion, but I'm fine with a quieter year with no major new attractions as a one off. I'd argue that Purgatory Town isn't even necessary this year. But we'll see what happens!

At TP today, as the weatherforecast was so good. Luckily got to ride Stealth and thought it was a little slow going over the top, so (as I am familiar with the them) I mentioned it to the team. I observed the next twelve launches, thought that the transitions over the top were getting even slower, and again expressed my concern. The team offered me a ride and I informed them that I would not, as I believed the next launch would rollback. They launched, and it rolled back, I went for lunch.

There's been no confirmation either way really. Obviously the plan was for it to be this year, but planning delays stopped that. They pushed through and it was approved in Spring. That at least signals intent for them to do it. But whether the plan has changed since then is up in the air. They technically have 3 years from the approval of the application to start the work, so if it doesn't happen for next year it could still happen later. This is a very long-winded way of saying "we don't know". At the same time, I still think the default for now should be to expect it to happen.

To be fair, most of their Halloween days sell out, so it's much the norm. The operations are pretty slick. It was 6 years ago so I can't remember exact timings, but they were very tight with maze slots: if you arrived before your slot, you were turned away. If you arrived after, they would put you in a standby queue and only let you in when everyone from the current time slot was cleared. That meant that realistically you never waited more than 15 / 30mins. But their mazes are HHN/ continuous conga line esque

I only got one ride on Red Farce due to the terrible operations and wanting to get back into the park. Was near the back and it's notably juddery, and the brakes at the end I found very harsh. I find that Ferrari Land is a singular ride (Red Farce), which they stretched out into an area, which they stretched out into a "park". It's nonsense really. Seems like you had a decent trip to PA though. I think everyone I know who's done Hotel Roulette has ended up in Hotel El Paso too, but it's a decent little place

Very interesting write-up Cal. How did you rate the upturn gradient on Red Force? I.e. does it have the same G-force as Stealth?

20th September 2025: Thorpe Park Hi guys. Today, I took my first visit to Thorpe Park of the season. While there hasn’t been anything new at Thorpe since my last visit, I was still keen to get back and experience some of my favourites again! I was particularly excited to get back on Hyperia given that I’d only ridden it on one visit last year and it definitely made its mark on me, making its way into my top 10 and christening itself my favourite UK coaster! Also, I was frankly keen to get back to a park after the end of my Master’s degree and the start of my job; I wanted to have something to look forward to after an intense summer, and what better than a trip to Thorpe Park? The day started early, with me leaving home at 6:30am this morning to make my way across the Severn Bridge to Bristol Parkway to catch a 7:21am train to Reading. I then changed in Reading to catch a train towards Staines. All in, this took around 2 hours, and it was mostly a very smooth journey. Incidentally, I’m always surprised at how quiet South Western Railway trains are, and how well stocked they are in terms of carriages. We had 8 carriages going from Reading to Staines; on Transport for Wales, CrossCountry or GWR back home, anything more than 2 feels relatively exuberant! I then decided to use my good friend Uber to get between station and park, which once again worked really well; after having a very friendly chap who asked me lots of theme park questions drive me to the park, I arrived at around 9:45am: After getting to the park, I initially had to wait around 30 minutes in a queue for security before entering; that’s the longest I’ve waited there in a while. After getting through this, though, I got in at around 10:15am: Due to my long security queue, my usual strategy of heading towards Saw and Colossus and knocking those out with minimal queues was stymied, as they already had queues approaching an hour. Resultantly, I decided to head towards a different area of the park and ride… Nemesis Inferno Nemesis Inferno was on an advertised 5 minute queue, so I decided to head over there. As I was approaching, the queue time increased to 15 minutes, but I didn’t think it looked like only 15 minutes, and a little bit after I joined, an announcement came over the tannoy stating it to be 45 minutes. As it turned out, though, the queue took only 25 minutes in reality due to good operations with minimal stacking; it’s always great when expectations are exceeded! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and it was really good! I’ve always liked Inferno, and today was no exception! The ride was smooth, it had good forces, it had good speed; what’s not to like? I’ll admit, though, that I don’t think the ride did it for me quite like Nemesis Reborn up at Alton Towers did back in July; the original definitely has something special about it that Inferno, while a perfectly decent ride in its own right, doesn’t quite match: After I got off Nemesis Inferno, I headed to a nearby flat ride… Detonator Detonator was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so as I do love a good drop tower and I hadn’t done Detonator since 2023 (I think?), I was keen to give it a ride. The queue took slightly longer than advertised, taking around 15 minutes, but it was still short, so I can’t complain too much. So, how was the ride? Well, I am a fan of a good drop tower, and Detonator is a really good one! I’ve always loved how deceptively forceful the Fabbri towers are for their relatively diminutive stature, and if anything, Detonator was more forceful than I’d remembered. I was launched all the way out of my seat and stayed there for the whole journey down, and it was awesome! It was also my first time back on there following the Big Easy Boulevard retheme, and I have to say that I really like the changes; they add a really fun new element to the ride: After I got off Detonator, I headed for another coaster… Stealth Stealth was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so as it was one of the shorter queues at this point, I was nearby and I hadn’t ridden it yet, I decided to take a spin on there. I had a very pleasant surprise in the form of the queue on here. While advertised 40, I only waited 15 minutes, likely in no small part due to some of the best operations I’ve ever seen on Stealth. The staff were absolutely throwing the trains out; pretty consistent 70-75 second dispatch intervals were being attained on there, my logged throughput average was almost 1,000pph, and the staff were very frequently outpacing the 40s dispatch timer on the platform (something I’d thought to be largely redundant in years gone by). Great job! But enough about ops; how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 8, and it was absolutely fantastic; as per usual, the launch was fantastically punchy, the speed was phenomenal, and the airtime over the top hat in the back was on point! I do absolutely love Stealth; it’s easily my second favourite at Thorpe and among my UK top 5, and despite it being much shorter and slower than Red Force, I actually think I prefer it to Red Force. That hydraulic launch packs an unrivalled punch, and it’ll be a sad day when these hydraulic launchers go extinct: After I got off Stealth, the state of the queues elsewhere, and the comparatively short queue and high enjoyment I got from my Stealth ride, meant that I decided to go straight back round for another Stealth lap. I was seated in row 8 this time after a 25-30 minute wait, and the ride was once again fantastic! After my Stealth reride, I decided to head over to another coaster I hadn’t done yet… Saw The Ride Saw was on an advertised 65 minute queue time, but I decided to give it a ride because I was able to exploit a secret weapon… the single rider queue! I must admit it wasn’t quite such a secret weapon today, with it still taking 45 minutes, but even still, it was 20 minutes less than the advertised wait, so I can’t moan too much. So, how was the ride? Well, I got batched onto the back on an outer seat, and as much as I’m not the biggest Saw fan, I have to admit that it wasn’t running too badly today; it was rough in places, but not nearly as bad as it can be. There was also some good airtime on there, to be fair; I think Saw has some surprisingly good bits of air in places! On a side note, Saw seemed to attract some of the more memorable guest interactions today. In the station, two separate people were getting irate with the staff about their child being too short and were requesting multiple repeat measurements, one family tried to force a young girl on to the ride who was in absolute floods of tears and clearly didn’t want to ride, resulting in an argument (I was supposed to sit next to them, but they didn’t end up boarding with me due to said argument taking up too much time), and to cap things off, I was seated next to a teenage boy who kept yelling “F***ing hell, my balls!” throughout the ride: After I got off Saw, I examined the queues and decided to go for another Stealth reride, as it was on one of the shortest advertised queues at 20 minutes. The queue took 20-25 minutes, I was seated in row 9, and the ride was once again fantastic: After that Stealth reride, it began to rain, so I decided to take cover and buy a Burger King lunch. After this, my original plan had been to head to Swarm, but after seeing a certain golden goddess testing, my plans swiftly changed… Now, you might have noticed that despite me saying it was one of my most anticipated attractions of the day, Hyperia has been conspicuously absent from the report up to this point. The reason for this is because the ride had a “delayed opening” and did not open at all in the morning. However, when I left Burger King near Stealth, it was a little before 2pm, and high wind gusts were forecast to come in from 3:30pm or so. So with Hyperia having not opened at all and having suddenly started testing, and with its dislike of wind being well catalogued at this point, I decided I was taking no chances and headed straight over there to wait for it to open. I watched it test for around 10-15 minutes prior to it opening (seeing the unscrewed water dummies spill everywhere was interesting!), and the ride eventually opened at around 2:10pm. After it opened, I joined hordes of people in making a steady beeline into the queue… Hyperia As the ride opened and people gradually filed into the queue, the advertised queue time for Hyperia increased gradually, starting at 70 minutes, then increasing to 90, and eventually hitting 110 before I passed the threshold of the entrance. The queue time eventually hit 2.5 hours! I used the single rider queue, and midway through my wait, the ride actually went down for 10-15 minutes due to high winds. The gusts were registering as 26mph on my Apple Weather app, and were only set to increase… but after a few agonisingly slow test trains, the ride did thankfully reopen, and I waited 80 minutes for my ride on Hyperia from when it opened (probably more like 90-95 including the time I watched it test for), which I honestly don’t think is too bad given the circumstances. With me being initially spited out of the ride in June 2024, and with it delaying in opening and shutting for wind in September 2025, Hyperia really has done everything in its power to make me want to hate it over the years! But that’s enough about queues and wind delays; how was the ride? Well, despite the aforementioned, I’m happy to report that Hyperia was absolutely sublime, and it was possibly even better than I’d remembered from 2024! I was seated in row 8, and everything about it was absolutely cooking! There is so much to talk about with this ride; that first drop remains a highlight, with the mix of sustained ejector the whole way down and the lateral twist making for something quite unforgettable, but so many other aspects of it stand out! The general negative g-forces throughout are sublime, the speed is sublime, and unique elements like the outer banked turn and the stall dive loop also provide phenomenal hangtime and wonderfully weird sensations! And in general, the speed and execution of the entire thing is just delectable, and as well as that, it’s also so smooth and comfortable! I think it’s been a phenomenal addition to Thorpe Park and the UK industry; it’s certainly my favourite in the country by some distance, and to be honest, I’m pondering whether it should be an overall top 5 contender for me: After my ride on Hyperia, I resumed my original plan by heading over to… The Swarm The Swarm was on an advertised 55 minute queue, so as I’ve always liked Swarm and I hadn’t ridden it yet today, I decided to give it a go. Similarly to Stealth earlier, the queue was quite vastly shorter than advertised, with it only taking around 30 minutes. Once again, I think brilliant operations played a part in this; the staff were attaining over 1,000pph on here, and consistently attaining little to no stacking! But how was the ride? Well, I’ve always liked Swarm, but I have to admit that it was particularly potent for me today; I was sat in row 6, and I had an absolutely fantastic ride! Prior to Mako in 2016, Swarm spent 2 years as my number 1 coaster, and while it’s not nearly that high for me now, today’s ride made me remember why I always used to admire it so much; the sense of speed on there is brilliant, there are some great forces, there are some wonderfully floaty inversions, and overall, there’s a lot to love about it! On the plus side, the restraints were also nowhere near as bothersome as they have been in terms of tightening; have they adjusted these? Overall, The Swarm certainly went back up a little in my estimations after today’s ride; it was absolutely awesome!: After The Swarm, I’ll admit I got a little indecisive about what to do next. I briefly mulled over a reride on Detonator, and I also briefly mulled over a reride on Nemesis Inferno… but with how much I enjoyed it earlier, I made a spur-of-the-moment choice to reride Hyperia using the single rider queue. The queue was advertised at 110 minutes, and using the single rider queue, I got on in 75. Interestingly, Apple Weather said that wind gusts were now 36mph, 10mph faster than what it said when Hyperia was closed for wind earlier… yet Hyperia operated for the entire time I was in the queue, with only occasional vague threats of “we may potentially have to cease operation”. If nothing else, I think this speaks to the poor accuracy of Apple Weather! As for the ride itself, I was seated in row 5, and while I was concerned that the ride might be less potent in a middle seat, it hit every bit as hard as the previous ride, and if anything, some elements like the outerbank and the stall possibly felt more powerful further towards the front! I have to say that Hyperia today made me laugh and feel things like no coaster has in a while; in my slightly lighter year of only doing UK parks in 2025, it’s by far and away my favourite thing I’ve ridden this year, and my two rides on it have been my two favourite coaster rides of 2025 for sure: After I got off Hyperia, 6pm had arrived and it was time to leave the park and head back to the station, so I bade Thorpe Park goodbye before heading out to catch an Uber back to Staines station: Upon getting back to Staines station, I waited for my train to Reading, and I saw a rather cool Pullman vintage steam train pass through while I was there (apologies for the rubbish picture; I couldn’t take a picture of the front steam train car quickly enough…)! I unfortunately ended up being stranded in Reading for a solid hour due to my train back to Bristol being delayed by half an hour, which put a dampener on the end of the day; I ultimately arrived back in Bristol Parkway at just after 9:30pm and arrived back home at just after 10pm: So, that brings my day at Thorpe Park to an end! I’d be lying if I said it was my most fruitful day at the park in terms of ride count, with me only managing 9 rides, but even still, I had a good day and it was nice to get back to Thorpe! I particularly enjoyed getting back on Hyperia; it really is an absolutely sublime ride, and I dare say I liked it even more than I did in 2024! But as well as that, I also enjoyed getting back on some other Thorpe favourites like Stealth, Inferno and Swarm, and I just generally enjoyed getting back to the park for my first time of 2025! I rarely have a bad day at Thorpe Park, and there’s just something about the place that I really like! Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report! This trip to Thorpe Park brings my 2025 season to an end. It’s definitely been a lighter year for me compared to the last couple, particularly in terms of new things (I guess that’s what happens when you choose to do a Master’s degree and have to do a dissertation over the summer), but I’ve still had some really enjoyable visits, and I have been pleased with my efficiency of coaster riding this year (despite only having 5 theme park visits this year, I’ve managed my second highest number of coaster rides in a year ever, being only 9 rides lower than last year!). I don’t know when my next park trip will be or where it will be to, but I’ll definitely report on it either way; I hope to hit the hobby a bit harder again in 2026, with some foreign travel potentially on the table!

Very well done, rhat's cramming.

Yes it’s been implemented from today I believe

Another good report Matt along with good pics. Enjoy your studying, remember, it's not luck but you proving your worth.

They were using empty trains following the strong wind closure. Some of those empty tests were agonising in terms of how slow they were; the ride looked close to stalling in that outerbank! When the ride was initially testing before reopening prior to the strong winds, though, they were using water dummies. They were unscrewed, and water was spilling everywhere!

Glad you managed to get a couple rides on Hyperia in the end! Out of interest, when they were testing after strong winds did they use water dummies or empty trains?

I think there's a bit of a rose-tinted specs here to be fair. 2013 was the only year when maze queues had actors. Saw The Ride had a couple of actors in the queue on and off (both during and outside of FN). But it was more the exception than the rule in the past. The "getting locked in cupboards" only happened in one maze, for 2 years. Now, the likes of 2011 and 2013's Fright Nights still remain some of the strongest editions of Fright Nights even now. So it's completely valid to miss those editions and compare to them. But they weren't always like that, and still had their own issues. Queue times back then were very long even back then, outside of a few select dates, making lapping mazes uncommon. Sadly, anyone under the age of 20 won't understand what those amazing Fright Nights of yesteryear were like. Even anyone under the age of 25 won't fully appreciate what it was like. We're in a complete new age of Fright Nights, and of Halloween attractions. This certainly should be a focus for a quieter year. Spending time, resources and money on ride soundtracks - whether it's a park-wide idea or ride-specific takeovers - will really add to the overall atmosphere of the event. It's not exactly necessary (many parks don't do it at all), but it will improve an event like Fright Nights. In the past, simply using Midnight Syndicate (which of course is royalty free) did the job. That could still work now to be fair. But if they wanted to be more original, that would work too. I think it's easy to forget the shortcomings of each of the mazes you listed (as well as other well-loved Thorpe mazes from the past), and those may be highlighted more in the current line up, even if they were including in the ticket price. -Asylum is repetitive, and it's 'trick' (a strobe, mesh maze) is used as scenes in so many scare attractions. I get why people loved it (even if I didn't), but a maze which is an elongated scene from other mazes might not capture people's imagination. -Experiment 10 was short, even by 2011's standard. It worked, and the first half made up for it. It might work well as a free maze now, given the other mazes would be notably longer, but its length would be an issue. -Cabin in the Woods suffered from a very congested second half. It also got progressively worse each year, with the first half becoming further and further away from the original design and plan. This is me trying to be objective and nit-picky, yes. But I think there's lots of discourse about previous mazes in general, and people do look back too fondly. Give it a couple of years, and I reckon there'll be people crying out for the returns of Do or Die, Roots of Evil and even Vulcan Peak. But yeah, there is now a clear identity of what a Thorpe maze "is". It's very similar for Tulleys - everyone knows what a Tulleys maze "is". It's fine to have an identity and to do what works for you and your audience. But it does create a bit of a 'same old, same old', doesn't it. The social media thing is a good point, with the rise of it all. Prior to 2015, you never had anyone allowed 'officially' to take footage inside mazes except the park really. I'd argue that leaves us with these rose-tinted specs more, but that's a different point. People do judge on the look things a lot more. It will be interesting to see how Universal manage HHN in the UK. The near continuous flow of guests is very uncommon across European Halloween attractions in general. So I wonder how the public will react to that compared to how we usually operate. I don't think Thorpe (or any scare attraction in the UK) should try to play the same game as HHN though. They'll lose. Better to craft out a niche than play someone else's game and lose terribly. I imagine many guests however will look at it as a direction competition regardless though, so they'll have to compete. I think the biggest issue that Thorpe will face, at first at the very least, is that I expect actors will be chomping at the bit to work for Universal. If I was a scare actor, the opportunity to work at the first HHN UK would be something I'd be hugely tempted by. And if Thorpe is my otherwise closest major event, Bedford isn't exactly a huge upheaval to my life for a couple of months.

It had the issue of slowing on the brakes before that last turn quite a lot at the start of last year. They did correct and I haven't noticed any issues since. Hopefully not starting to happen again. The vests had tweaks done a couple of years ago I believe to stop the locking/tightening.

Unfortunately I agree with the above posts - other than the night rides, I just can’t get excited for FN anymore, and the teaser trailer does nothing for me at all. These new style trailers they’ve been doing over the past few years are so vague, and rarely bear any resemblance to the event what so ever. FN is massively successful, so it would be wrong to suggest that the event has lost its way. I suppose it’s more accurate to say that its new format with highly themed walkthroughs and more passive scares (at sky high prices) just doesn’t appeal to my tastes. If this new scare zone is going to be similar to Swarm Invasion however then I’m not sure it’s just me that it won’t appeal to… it was genuinely crap, and honestly was barely recognisable as a scare zone. I have to say as well, the relentless flow of throwback scenes is tedious. Clearly the past has been very much left in the past by this new direction - it’s best to leave the old stuff behind and move on since realistically FN isn’t about out and out scares anymore. I miss the genuine scare opportunities that the mazes used to offer the actors, and as mentioned above I too really miss the ride overlays, even if it is just a bit of nice dispatch music. I miss the simplicity of it all - not long ago the mazes were designed to be scary, and elsewhere in the park efforts were made to level the experience up with different music and simple smoke machines etc. Although to be fair the lighting across the park is very good now isn’t it. Having said that, I’m very aware that the event hasn’t even started yet this year, so who knows, perhaps some of this has been considered and addressed. I look forward to hearing about it! I hope it’s a successful year for Thorpe this FN, and I’m pleased to see that so many people do seem to love this new style of scare event. I’m sure it will be well received.

Stealth has been run very well the last two seasons! 1:13 is not the best they have done as I have seen plenty of launches around the minute mark and on occasion even 40 seconds! You can see near 40 seconds on this video I took on my Tik Tok page (would be great to get a few follows guys) https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdpHUhut/

You turned down a rollback 😱 Stealth and Hyperia are both operated exceptionally well most of the time, they have great teams. For comparison, I’ve just got back from a few days at PortAventura. They were averaging about 1 min 30 secs a dispatch on Red Force, 480 people an hour. They have no seatbelts to check and less seats. One thing I did notice though, they don’t advance the train from offload into load until the train has cleared the top hat. On Stealth they advance it as soon as it’s ready.

That's good news Matt. It always amazes me when someone who's been queuing for ages gets to the platform, then delays getting on, annoying.

For those interested in such matters, I have to say that Stealth is operating phenomenally this morning; my throughput average across 10 readings was 975pph, or a train every 1m 13s, which is as fast as I’ve ever seen on here! I’ve been witnessing dispatches as fast as 70s or lower, and quite frequently, the staff have been outpacing the 40s dispatch timer on the platform (something which I’d have said was largely redundant in past years gone by). 80s is a slow interval today! It’s way faster than I’ve ever seen Rita operate, and it made an advertised 40 minute queue fly by in 15 minutes! In the current absence of Hyperia (it’s on a “delayed opening”), it’s also definitely my favourite coaster at Thorpe, so as I liked it so much and the queue is moving so quickly, I’ve decided to hop straight back in the queue for another go!

Paid mazes combined with no "off peak" days killed Fright Nights for me, simple as. Pot luck to your group size and number of actors you will see, therefore experience, with no option to go again. You pay your money and you make your choice. No thanks.

No difference. The park run both events on the same day, but it doesn't matter whether you buy a Spooky Days or Fright Nights ticket. You still get access to park from 10am-11pm. Officially Spooky Days runs till 5-6pm, with HFN starting at 6pm. In practice all that means is the scare zones are friendlier until 5pm, and then scarier after 6pm.

Just as an update, I've just purchased my Halloween attraction tickets for Walibi Holland. The absolute cheapest way of buying tickets for all the Halloween attractions (which consists of 4 mazes, 3 experiences and 2 outdoor walkthrough) costs 116.50euros (just shy over £100). That includes a "before dark" ticket where you have to do 3 mazes and 1 walkthrough before 7pm, which is very tight to do since most open at 5pm. It is experience, but genuinely I think is worth it.

Walibi Holland (when I last went in 2019) was by far the best Halloween event outright I've done. Their standard mazes are good quality. They excel with their 'experiences' (of which they have 3), which are more intense, smaller groups / alone. Their scare zones, which they have several of, are brilliant, along with whole park atmosphere. It gets CRAZY busy though. I'm returning there this year for the event. I've had to budget to include ride and maze Fastrack - whilst it's possible to do all the Halloween stuff without extras, you will be rushed off your feet, and will almost definitely not get a chance to do any rides in the dark without it. I did Traumatica at Europa Park last year. Given it's Europa, the operations leave a lot to be desired (their Fastpass is necessary), and the quality of the mazes is very mixed. Atmosphere is very good though. You need to book in early September to have a chance of getting Fastpass / doing the alone experience. Linnanmaki have a fun event, but nothing to write home about. I haven't done any more, but some notable ones... -Walibi Belgium rebranded their event last year into Ibilaw. The best years of their Halloween event are arguably behind them, but they still do well (the Zombie Bar hasn't been around for a while) -Spanish parks tend to do great Halloween events, if you can deal with the queues / atmosphere. There's also a very well received scream park, Horrorland -Liseberg is pretty consistent

Since I don’t do mazes I rely on the resident expert at home for those. Liseberg's was good. Walibi Holland mazes were a bit meh. Toverland was ok. Best part of Walibi Belgium was the Zombie Bar on the lake but no idea if they do that anymore. General atmospheres are good though. Probably would need a fastpass equivalent though if available since you know, QUEUES.

This sounds like most of Thorpe's flat ride line up 🫠

👋 As you’ve no doubt noticed we have updated the forum software to the latest version which does have a number of visual differences. You’ll notice it also finally supports dark mode and will be based on your phones / computers setting - something I know a few people have asked for! Our old skin is not compatible but we will work on this over the next few weeks to make it feel less generic. One change you will notice is you can no longer login with your username and must login with your registered email - if you have any issues with logging in please feel free to reach out over social media or you can email contact@thorpeparkmania.co.uk Let us know any feedback here also!

I think the whole project was a shame really. They tried something different and have a great themed show building but it just has never worked and retheming it to ghost train or anything else would have never saved it. It’s demised has been written since 2016. It would have been 10 years next year since its opening and it wouldn’t surprise me after 10 years that they think it’s ok to scrap it. Thorpe have just got rid of all SBNO rides, so it will be sad seeing a massive one hidden in a building again. I’d rather have it open

Parm Pap translation service: Wait, this one actually makes sense. These must be troubling times.

I would say just as forceful if not more than Stealth. Obviously red force does have more speed, and that is noticeable. But I would say Stealth takes the crown for me. I prefer the initial launch, being hydraulic the launch is more forceful. The top hat on Stealth I prefer, Red force was too slow on the top hat but obviously did have much better views up there. And just general comfort. Unless you're front row on red force (assigned seating and no front row queue so its rare) its very rough. Even with just lap bars, the vibrations/shaking isn't pleasant.