Sunday 10th March 2013 – Annual Pass Preview Day!
Ride Count:
Swarm backwards X 2
Swarm forwards X 2
Nemesis Inferno X 1
Saw X 1
Slammer X 1
As it was mother’s day and we all needed to renew our annual passes, my family and I decided to venture off to Thorpe Park for the first visit of the season! We arrived at around 9:30 as I remember last year the park opened a bit earlier on some occasions, and we had to get our Swarm backwards tickets. Upon arriving at the park I was delighted to see barely any cars parked, perfect, it was going to be a quiet day. It seemed like Thorpe Park definitely learnt from the mistakes on the previous AP day by reducing the capacity and only letting in Annual Pass holders. I’d heard that chart music was being played at the entrance/dome from the Friends and Family day so I was interested to see what songs etc they’d be playing, whether they’d be up to date music or just classics. But to my disappointment we were just queuing in silence as no music was being played, not even when I was crossing the bridge into the dome just before 10am.
But on to Swarm and to get my backwards tickets! As there was 5 of us we got 5 backwards passes, although only 3 of us were using them as my parents chickened out I was worried there’d be a long queue in the dome for these tickets but we managed to walk through the queue and just pick up our tickets straight away, brilliant! We headed straight to Swarm were we were held by Depth Charge until 10am. Walking to the Swarm area the first thing I noticed was the new billboard, very quirky with the advertising on the front and back, loved it! I was quite worried about the queue system for backwards Swarm and as I expected it was a mess. For some reason the earliest backwards ticket time slot was 11am, so before then it was a free-for-all to get back seats. It seemed like the staff weren’t too sure
what to do either as a lot of people were complaining and saying they wanted to go backwards. This is where the big problem of the day occurred, some idiotic fanboy started shouting at a poor member of staff (who was clearly a new starter) as he wanted to go on the backwards seats, (even though he had timed tickets for later on in the day!). The lady obviously got quite upset over this and already backwards Swarm was causing problems. So we finally got on the ride after waiting a while due to there being only one train, already on reduced capacity as there was no current running back row queue…. My first time riding Swarm with the billboard was a huge ‘meh’. I didn’t really feel the billboard was as effective as I first thought it’d be. It wasn’t until I rode it later on in the day in the front row when it really wow’ed me, but more on that later. One thing I liked is that the ending was better this time as after the break you’d speed round the corner towards the station!
The next ride we headed to was the glorious B&M that was Nemesis Inferno. I never really enjoyed this ride as much as other rides when I rode it in previous seasons, mainly due to effects not working etc. But this time, I absolutely loved it. Walking through the empty queueline my excitement levels were pounding and as I reached the top of the volcano and into the station I was in awe. The music and lighting in the station was top-notch and it created a really great atmosphere. The red lights on the queue along the wall were a lovely touch, along with the fantastic ride= music in time with the dispatches. The ride to me seemed a lot more thrilling than usual, I’m not sure if this was because it was only the 2nd rollercoaster I’ve ridden since last October or if the cold weather had anything to do with it, but it was purely fantastic. I’ve been on some great B&M’s in the past few years (Nemesis and Montu to name just two) but this ride is right up there. Obviously I haven’t ridden some of the European beats such as Black Mamba and Ozlris but that’s for another day. Inferno is my favourite ride at the park at the moment, I just really hope they keep the effects up because that tunnel filled with smoke and with the red lights is absolutely fantastic.
Now it was for the main attraction, 11am had arrived and it was my time to #braveitbackwards. We
arrived in the queue for it (which is where the fastrack queue used to be) andwent to the left hand side of the ride (which is theright if you’rebackwards). Going up that lifthill and seeing everyone in the station and upnext to the control room was such a strange feeling. Then you get to the top ofthe ride and you’re slowly creeping backwards, the full weight of the train flings you down that drop and the sky falls away from you as you swoop under the plane which comes out of nowhere. I can’t really describe the rest of the ride when backwards as I felt so disorientated, but wow it was such a good feeling. The fact that Swarm is as smooth as anything makes it such a great experience. Obviously you can’t see the near misses as much but the spinning over the station area backward more than makes up for it. With Swarm now you have two completely different experiences, frontwards you have the near misses and backwards it is more disorientating and I’d say thrilling.
I’m not going to bore you all with exactly what I did for the rest of the day as I’ve got the main bits I wanted to say out of the way, but this is a summary of the rest of the day:
Swarm front row is absolutely brilliant with the billboard, it really does look like you're going to hit it and with the fire effect, that is my favourite part of the ride when forwards.
Pizza Hut was fantastic, the price is £9.99 for an adult (not sure what it was last year) but the food quality has definitely increased and the garlic breadsticks are so good!
I met up with Ricky, Marc and Luke which was nice and I went on a few rides with them.
Learnt that Saw is a big fail as when you lean on the airgates it can E-stop the ride, seriously, what a stupid design flaw!
The whole park is looking absolutely beautiful with paint-jobs and touch-ups all around.
Music in some areas was non-existent, there was a silent Saw queue which was rather strange (sure that will all be sorted soon though).
I didn’t get to ride Loggers so can’t comment on the lack of tunnel, same with Colossus and it’s freshened station (I’ll be riding those on my visit on Thursday)
The crashpad just looks meh so far but I’ve heard it isn’t finished with the exterior so we’ll see what happens there. I’m sticking with my opinion that they are a fantastic addition for the Ministry of Sound nights and were desperately needed for the event to reach it’s potential.
All in all I had an absolutely fantastic day at the park. It was a shame I couldn't stay the full day as I wasn't feeling too well and I was freezing cold.The staff were all very polite, it looked clean and even the reliability wasn’t bad for an annual pass preview day in what was my coldest day at Thorpe Park. I can’t wait to visit on Thursday and ride the ides that I missed out on, Detonator and Stealth I’m coming for you!
I leave you all with this smashing image of me and Marc on Swarm.
