Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[Mark9]

I really enjoyed your trip report so thanks for that Cat. Sounds like you had a good day in spite of pricing for food and drinks. retro family.. sounds like the kind of people who hang around in Hackney to me. Thanks for the entertaining read though, definitly do one each time you visit a park.

[Jamie_Hk]

I do this all the time, so why stop now? ;)I went to Thorpe Park yesterday and had quite an enjoyable day, bar the weather...First thing I went on was Storm Surge - pretty fun spiralling down but the end of the ride is a big disappointment...didn't even get a drop of water on myself. Having said that, it was pretty fun to be fair and it seemed to be popular throughout the day.Managed to literally walk straight on X. Seemed a lot more enjoyable yesterday, although the parts where the car stops are annoying. Kinda ruins the atmosphere for me...not too sure why.To be honest, there's not much more I can say about the day. It was disappointing that SAW Alive was closed but I knew this. SAW The Ride being closed was a real shame, even though it's not my favourite ride, I enjoy queueing up for it...haha.Colossus is officially my favourite coaster at the park. In previous visits, the queue has always been far too long but yesterday, I queued once for about 25 mins...later on in the day, me and my friends literally stayed on the ride and went round 5 times before a little bit of a queue built up. I didn't think the staff would allow us to stay boarded, but they did :PStealth's queue was about 20-25 mins...and felt pretty amazing in the rain, as well as painful.All in all, I had a good day. Wasn't great but it was nice to not have to queue for ages (Y)Ride count (from what I can remember)...Storm Surge - 1.X - 1.Nemesis Inferno - 3.Stealth - 1.Slammer - 1.Samurai - 2.Colossus - 6.Loggers Leap - 1.So to be fair, that isn't really that big of a selection of rides...but it's all I could be bothered to do :DAs for Vortex...does anyone know why that's not open at the moment? It was shut yesterday from what I saw...

[Mer]

So went to Thorpe today with college peeps.Overall I had a lovely time, mainly because I was catching up with college friends and they hardly go to Thorpe, so their excitment made me feel more excited than usual!The park was so quiet! The longest we queued was about 30 mins if that for SAW The Ride.I got there before their coach arrived, so took the opportunity to browse the shops. I'm very impressed with the merchandise this year, across Merlin parks in general! I love the new Thorpe clothing and how it's styled, it kind of takes away the geekiness of it. Lots of variety to choose from, I was wondering around for ages! Now that's the sign of good merchandise, when you can look and look. Before at Thorpe, there was just keyrings, mugs...yes much of it is still the same but there are more keyrings, like the Colossus one, I like how the word Colossus can be spun around the keyring, representing the ride, and how the handles of the mugs are like a piece of ride track. It's the little things like that which show how much effort Merlin are putting into the merhcandise this year!Theey haven't yet got any ride bears But they do have Thrillseeker Bear, which has red hair B)Met up with friends, so good to see them again!Ride count: and queue timesSAW The Ride - 20-30 minsStorm Surge - 20 minsNemesis Inferno - 20 mins, front row queueStealth - 10-15 minsRush - 5 mins, almost walk onVortex - less than 5 minutes, more or less walk onColossus - 15-20 minutesLogger's Leap - 15 minsSlammer - 10-15 mins, although one cycle took forever to start, I mean much longer than usual and no communication to us.XNWO - walk onTidal Wave - 15 minsSeeing as we were only there from 11 - 16:45, 11 rides is a good count!The SAW team and Storm Surge team were great, Inferno too, the train stopping for about a second before entering the station. The Slammer team didn't appear to be bothered. I know it was a quiet day and quite hot, but there's a difference between having a chilled day at work, and looking fed up and walking as though it's sooo much effort.Samurai was looking rather sorry for itself, I forgot to take a picture but basically there was a cherry picker and the arm was on it's side with the pods facing SAW. Later on it was facing the other way and a piece of the platform was missing, at the back centre. Apart from that reliability seemed pretty good, saw one shutdown on Stealth but after 5 minutes it was back up and running.XNWO - like the new music and the lighting on Animation 3 but I was expecting more...but then again, I don't know why, it's Thorpe. But what has been done is better IMO, it's a change to the dull "hammer" music the queueline used to have and it makes the ride more "fun". It adds something, and that's a start! Vortex is getting very juddery, you can really feel it, and the bars lower very fast now, no wonder the operator has to do a warning over the PA! But the ride has audio again! I seem to remember last year it having none.Speaking of which...audio was pretty odd and amusing today. Vortex's queueline announcement playing in the Zodiac queueline, Colossus station announcements playing in the queueline and on the lift hill, and on the Storm Surge lift hill I had the operator coming out of the speaker asking Ricky to do some batching Nice!Inferno's station is absolute poo, they really should sort out the dispatch theme and bass cannons. I don't know what actually happened to both of these (I was probably told but I have forgotten!) but now they don't work, the audio quality is poor and there is no atmosphere. The constant main theme cutting in and out without that bass...ugh.Colossus has some new stationn music! It still has the backing drums/beat of the theme, but a different tune. Not sure how to describe it, but I think it suits it.Staff as I said were pretty awesome today, except for Slammer. Lots of interaction and happy people :DSo overall a nice day, mainly due to spending time with friends, the pleasing merchandise, good staff and quiet park for a change!

[Tom]

Went to Thorpe the other day and was unimpressed by quite a lot:Pizza Hut. Got to Pizza Hut at 11:00 to be told the all day buffet opened at 11:15 - That's fine, we waited.11:20 They opened up but the tills weren't working so we couldn't pay straight away, and the Pizza was supposed to be ready in 5 minutes.11:30 Pizza is still not ready11:40 Pizza has just come out, but due to the high volume of people in Pizza Hut at this time, the queue for Pizza was wrapping round the seats and joining the queue was pointless as people were pushing in in front of you - extremely frustrating.If I'd known I'd have to wait 30 minutes longer for Pizza than I was told, I would've eaten at KFC. So I had a good old complain to staff at guest services who were extremley rude and were having conversations about me while I was standing right there, claiming 'young' people always do this kind of thing. But you can't complain to GS about GS? So I just went on with my day.Rides were breaking down here and there, standard for Thorpe and it's just so yawn - You trail the park looking for a ride that isn't broken down. And the staff reaction isn't great either - 'Hi why is Colossus closed?' 'We're closed mate *leans on Pillar and looks uninterested*' - In fact apart from one person in the X bag room, and a girl on Colossus exit, none of the staff were very friendly or helpful.Due to the rain and the fact it was just after half term we managed to do everything before 3pm and so went home early, but really did not enjoy my day.

[Benin]

A quiet day means 15 minute queues on all major rides?Mer hasn't been to many quiet days at other parks

[Mer]

^^ I have :lol:I just have my own little terminology Dead is when things are walk on. Quiet is when rides have short queues

[Fred]

Wow, would've thought thorpe was at least slightly busy. Towers is getting 40min queues on most major rides every single day at the moment. Gah!

[Mattgwise]

Colossus has some new stationn music! It still has the backing drums/beat of the theme, but a different tune. Not sure how to describe it, but I think it suits it.

I believe it is what I have attached below, well it was when I went in April.Colossus Beatbed

[thorpeparkjack]

Today was the day. Exams over therefore it was time to get the ball rolling theme park wise. In preparation for what should be a fantastic season I purchased a new Panasonic Lumix TZ8 camera which I tried during this visit. I found the camera to be very user friendly and although the weather was rather miserable, some of the images still turned out pretty well. Packed in 34 rides without really trying to be honest, the park was relatively quiet for a weekend with Saw and Colossus peaking at 45 but staying at 30 for the most part of the day. I never thought I would say this but operationally Thorpe were fantastic. Especially in the morning. Headed to inferno first thing and was convinced it was on one train. However even if there were just us two they were dispatching before the train reached the break run. Brilliant from the inferno team. Also, massive well done to the Stealth team. The best dispatching I have ever seen on the ride. Unfortunetly the usual problems with Rush staff have continued this season, lots of staff dossing by the console. Even so, with only Storm Surge down for around 90 minutes even reliability was decent. Yet despite all of this I felt something was missing. I can't quite place it. Something small, just left me very slightly underwhelmed. Maybe it was the ease of which rides were riden or the weather but I dont think so. Maybe I will find what it is later in the season. Still, great visit and a promising start to my 2011 season. Till the next report, thanks for reading and here are the photos...Rush in all its glory. Swing A on both my rides was pretty poor barely reaching 90 degrees. Bit of Stealth. Bit of tree. Happy days. Detonater was excellent as usual. Only queued ten minutes for it. I think I have lost it with Inferno now. It completely lacks ANY sort of forces/unique ride experience. I think Vampire packs more of a punch. Hopefully LC12 will at least have some character. Sad to report that Colossus is now ROUGHT AS boo. It had improved over the last couple of seasons but my two rides bashed the crap out of me. Saw was fantastic. Defo my Thorpe n.o 1. It has everthing. A decent theme, fun indoor section and an outdoor section which really does blow your mind. The last turn into the bracks is really intense!Another shot of Mr Forceless himself. Lots of deceleration on the brakes. Intamin goodness. The overback is the only slight let up after the main drop. Ejector airtime of the MCBR. End is nigh. Loggers was good fun as usual. Into the MCBR.Didnt get on Storm Surge today, stayed at around 60 minutes pretty much all day. After the loop, you could fall asleep. Decent shot of Stealth from Crumba. Through the trees!Final shot of the coma inducing Colossus. Thanks for reading, more PTRs to come soon!

[Sheepie]

I've not read your TR yet, but I had a skim through..DAYYUMMM you took some awesome photos. Wow!EDIT:Really enjoyed your TR, that's definitely a lot of riding you did! Usually I find Thorpe underwhelming if I feel like I've done everything loads of times in one day, I know that doesn't make sense, but it makes me feel as though there isn't much to do.The same happens with Chessington when it's very quiet. Although there you have the option of the zoo.If you work out what it is or have other trips then let us know; a very enjoyable read!

[thorpeparkjack]

Thanks for the reply Sheepie! Much appreciated. Glad It is not only me that feels like that once everything is done in a day!

[Mark9]

I love the way you take photos. I must admit I take them in the same way, either close up's so you can see guests reactions on rides or at a slight angle to make the ride look more imposing. gorgeous stuff.

[thorpeparkjack]

Cheers Mark! Yes I try and be a tiny bit inventive with the angles, otherwise you end up getting the same old "seen a thousand times before" shots. Hopefully more to come soon. Thanks for all the positive feedback guys, much appreciated.

[pluk]

Short trip report from trip today. It won't be a post of beauty like Jacks as I couldn't be bothered to get the camera out.Went with a group of 12 workmates who don't have the same ride addiction issues as me, so much time wasting messing around with toilets, shops, decision making etc. grrrrr.Arrived just after 10, heart sank at the size of the queue to buy my ticket but it moved along at an impressive rate with all but one booth open and it only took 10mins. Some of my friends had pre booked their tickets but with only one collection window open it took them ages, meaning we didn't get in to nearly 11 which really takes the piss. Not the best start to the day. I also wanted to get some cash out but the (free) machine outside was out of cash, so had to get it from the (expensive) machine inside. I'm sure this was just one of those things and not another Merlin money making scheme.Straight to Stealth, 10min queue, all good. By the time we got off it was up to 45mins and all major rides were a similar length, by my standards that's a busy day and I was not impressed. We found though that many advertised queue times were wildly inaccurate, Saw showed 60mins, was really 20, Rush showed 10mins was really 35. Don't know if the system they use was broken but it's not a problem I've had before.Rumba Rapids, since I last went at the start of the season (and moaned about the state of it on here) has had a bit of a clean up. Someone has gone at the queue line and tunnel with a pressure washer and some fairy lights have been but up over the old berry advertising in the dark (both things suggested on the forum). It's not amazing, but looks respectable and is exactly what was needed.Detonator sounds like it's blown it's speakers at the top, just muffled noise which kept cutting out. Still a great ride though.Tea cups, always fun. One of my group commented on how great it is that they were actually Tetley teacups, not my feelings but goes to show that sponsorship isn't seen so negatively by 'normal' people.Saw and Colossus were brilliant, neither felt rough to me.X/WTF - I appreciate them making some effort with the lights and music, but it just illuminates the whole inside too much for me. I've always thought the only thing that made it in any way good to ride was the darkness making it disorientating, and that's been lost. Lasers which don't throw light in all directions would work better for me.Rides on Slammer and Rush were great, but the dispatch time is shocking. The staff just seem to meander about the place with no real purpose and certainly no hurry. I know safety checks must not be rushed but I think someone needs a kick up the bum. Girl checking our restraints on Rush was great though, gave us jazz hands and did a little dance throughout the ride. Random but fun. (To balance this out all the coasters were being run with mega efficiency which I'm not used to on my quiet days. Well done all round).What the hell with Vortex restraint slamming itself into my nuts at a thousand miles an hour. Least safe safety feature ever.Inferno has had it's station given a much needed clean (something else I'd moaned about on here). Lack of tunnel effects throughout.Loggers suddenly has all it's backstops out on the top half of the lift, some of which looked shiny and new (another thing recently discussed on here at length - begining to think we are being watched! If we are, please put a bin liner or something over the tunnel roof hole - ta).Surprise of the day - Samurai. Rode at lunchtime, the standard short and so much less forceful than before ride. Then rode again later, last ride of the day (they shut the queue line behind us) and WOW. It honestly felt like stealth when it started, acceleration wise. It was so intense, I thought I was back at Chessington. And it went on for ages, it really is an amazing ride when it is like this. So, can someone tell me: did the controller use a more intense setting (does one even exist), or was it because it weighed less at only about 30% full it was able to be so awesome?Got on basically everything, some multiple times, on a 'busy' day with an indecisive group. Quite impressive. One of my best trips in a long time.

[JoshC.]

So, whilst my college was still open yesterday owing to the teachers' strike, all my lessons were cancelled, which meant a trip to Thorpe was in order. I arranged to meet up with thorpeparkjack, after postponing a trip for ages. :PWe met at the bus stop in Chertsey and were due to arrive at Thorpe by around quarter-to 10 for a 10 o'clock opening. The bus came, and we got there about 20 minutes early, or so we thought..Well, that's the weather. Nice and warm, but not boiling hot like it was earlier in the week.Somewhat to out surprise, the park had opened early - probably due to the large numbers that would be inevitable! We didn't complain though, and decided to head to Inferno first thing. However, a short queue on Storm Surge caught out eye, so we opted to do that, as Jack had only been on it once. It was relatively spinney, but not wet. A shame really. Now we went over to Inferno, as originally planned..A shot of Tidal Wave on the way.And of Stealth. Inferno love. One of the most photogenic rides on park in my opinion.After a thrilling ride on Inferno, though with less mist then on previous visits, we opted to do Rumba Rapids. 3 rerides were easy to get and we did get quite wet, much to our enjoyment as the weather was hotting up.Random bird house feeder thingy I noticed. Dunno how long it's been there, but it caught my eye - I had to get a photo!

[JoshC.]

More Inferno admiration. We decided to head over to Stealth (I think), but it had closed temporarily, so we went over to Detonator. Imposing look of Detonator.I really wanted to get a photo of the gondola coming down, but the sun prevented me from seeing the screen, so I needed a bit of guesswork and luck. Bit too early on this one.Much better!Detonator was done, and it was great as ever. We headed over to Stealth again, which was still closed, but was testing. We opted to wander round Sunken Garden for a bit to see if it would open. Sunken Garden is by far the greenest area of the park.After a bit of wandering and spying on the LC12 site, Stealth had reopened. But so many people were outside, we couldn't be bothered with the wait, so went straight to single rider and both got on within a few minutes. Spinney times on the Teacups was had afterwards.Before it got too busy, we headed over to Loggers as the weather was just too nice. On the way, we saw how busy the Inferno queue was and we were glad that we'd gotten that out of the way:Busy busy busy.Never seen all 3 extensions open that early before.Fastrack generating much popularity at this time of course!So we did Loggers and got very wet indeed. I know loads of people say there's a terrible smell after the tunnel, but it honestly has gone now. There's no dodgy smell and the water is quite clean too I'd say. Walking over to the Lost City flats, I spotted a stray Viking Longboat from the 90s floating about. A photo had to be taken.Another obligatory photo shot for me. Nature and Thorpe Park.

[JoshC.]

The random squirter that goes in the water to the left..The flats were, of course, busy. Quantum was only a few minutes though, so opted to do that. Quantum - that ride that's tucked away over there.After a good, but slightly short, ride we went for lunch at the noodle bar - on the other side of the park where we just came from. I braved using the chopsticks, whereas Jack was boring and used a fork. :L CCR followed, and the first train of the day too.Time to humiliate Jack now. He tried opening the train gate from the left hand side, failing to notice it was from the right hand side you opened it. Silly boy.The CCR sign on the trains. Much love. <3Waiting for the train to go, I got a shot of Saw with Samurai sneaking in.Random wheel near the station.Despite my improving camera skills, I still failed with the Colossus shot to be perfectly on the top of the vertical loop.. Saw must have been on reduced capacity or something, it has been running bad earlier and not a single car went past whilst we were on the train. So you'll have to do with some track.The driver was going so fast today, and there was literally no interaction, which left us both a little bit disappointed. This was the best bear shot; yes, that is a toy fish in its mouth! Random digger underneath Logger's lift hill.The splash did actually reach us - just like I remember as a young child! Aww, memories and that..Whilst we're on the topic of Canada Creek, they've changed the audio loop to 'new' country music - half of which isn't really country. From recollection, there was Taylor Swift and some remixed Lady Gaga. Much to my upset to be honest - I loved to old loop! :(We did some wandering and we saw this:Loong Fastrack queue still! Coming in 2012 - Fastrack for Fastrack..We ended up going to Flying Fish, which was actually for our second time. First time there was this epic op who was singing through a loud speaker thing, which was hilarious! He was there again, but no singing this time. Love these little bits.Tidal Wave in general has epic theming.Flying Fish was as fun as ever really. What was an amazing laugh for us both is seeing 3 chavish looking people, Jack branding them part of the infamous Staines Massive, going in the single rider queue, and a couple being sat next to little kids. During our general wandering, we also did Time Voyagers - the screen had this random patch that was visible whenever the screen was dark, which was very annoying to me. We also did good old Rocky, which was a laugh and a half as ever.We also popped back to Sunken Garden for a longer nose around:Reminiscent of Thorpe Farm.As you can probably tell, I'm quite fond of Sunken Garden. It brings back memories for me of coming back from Thorpe Farm on the jetty and having a wander round it, followed by Model World. I love how quiet it is as well. I think it's a shame that it will eventually end up going to make way for access to a new island.. By about just after 2, the weather was on the turn.It was getting silly busy now so we were thinking of calling it a day. However, I wanted to do X to check out the change to music. The queue board said 30 minutes, then 45 minutes, then 60 minutes, then 30 minutes - could not make it's mind up. In actual fact, it was about 20 mins - not bad at all. The music change and addition of flashing lights on the final brake run (oh, and like 3 track ties being glow-in-the-dark) is better, but it was too disco for my liking. However, definitely an improvement, and I think it is a step in the right direction!As I said, we decided to call it a day here. We wandered round the shop in the dome and that was that. It was a great day, despite it being very busy. That's that really. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it; until next time! *Sorry about splitting the report, silly image limitations*

[Mark9]

That fastrack queue scares me. Thorpe are like the ultimate masters of manipulation to be honest, they've managed to make fastrack irresistable to paying guests. All the credit to them for it as well. No wonder I haven't been for ages. Thanks for the report Josh, looks like you had a good day to.

[MattyMoo]

Thanks for all these amazing reports peeps - makes good reading! Some fantastic photos too!!I think my favourite quote was "Coming in 2012 - Fastrack for Fastrack" - don't tempt them! That mini Amity Water tower is v. cute haha

[thorpeparkjack]

Right. Thorpe time. I was looking forward to this visit. It acted as a 'warm up' I suppose for my Alton Towers trip which will begin this Sunday. And overall I had a really good visit. However the start was shocking. Arrived at 9.20 and joined the back of a long annual pass line. With no organization whatsoever the queue line quickly collapsed when the park opened and became a free-for-all. Nonetheless we were quickly in and decided to head to Stealth. Closed. Ok, no biggie headed up to Inferno. Made it into the station and waited for about 30 seconds before someone wondered over and said they were closed. Nice of them to close the queue line. So headed back over to Stealth which was testing. Waited with a large group of people for around 10 minutes before there was a another free-for-all run to the queue line. Got in the queue for the front and had a 3 train wait. Train didn't launch for even the first group of people. So we waited for around 30 minutes before the queue line was evacuated. By now it was 10.30 and we had got on nothing in the quietest part of the day. The weather was gorgeous and the park was getting busy quickly with Saw, Colossus and Stealth all picking up 90 minute lines before 2pm. We decided to just chill and enjoy quality of rides rather than quantity. I have decided this is the best way. We rode at the front of all four major coasters and forgot how much the experience is enhanced. The rest of the day was just spent chilling and generally enjoying ourselves. So from a terrible start, we managed to have a great day. The weather helped, as did the banter between staff and guests. Reliability was terrible though, with Saw, Stealth, Inferno, X having periods of downtime and Colossus opening on one train. Thorpe need to get this in their heads, OPEN RIDES AT 9.30 ON FULL CAPACITY not 20 minutes late on reduced capacity. Despite all of the operational flaws, I had fun, and that is what it is all about. I do like Thorpe, no doubt about that I just wish they would start treating their guests with a little more respect. I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking.A busy entrance for a Sunday morning. Bit of Chase and Statuses Blind Faith created a great atmosphere. I love the chart music on entry. Inferno was running OK actually not quite as forceless as a remember. Detonater is always good especially when the operator is in a playful mood!Stealth on pole is one of the best experiences on park. Cheeky little Stealth picture. Quite like this. Can't beat a little old school WWTP. The Stealth team were doing a really good job with the SR queue in the afternoon. Suppose we should so Colossus a little love. Yummy 25+ Temperatures. Saw had problems in the afternoon. Loggers is still one of the best rides in the park, in my opinion. Especially good in these conditions. Colossus shuffling through the Cobra. And out the other side. Thorpe + Sunshine = Pretty picture. I was in the mood of multiple rides in one shot yesterday. Tidal got a 70 minute line. Not surprising to be honest. The splash was pretty poor and wasn't soaking people in the zone or nearby. Lots of dissapointed people!Bit of LC12 theming, sunken gardens is now out of bounds. I believe that is the Dead End entrance from FN10. The fastrack line for Stealth must of been a good 30 minutes, complete oversell. As per usual. No doubt about it, Infero is Photogenic. More Detonater love. Photos are so much better on a sunny day. Love this one.Think this is my best of the day. Inferno was running well in the heat. I was suck on the brake run for about 10 minutes for some... essential cleaning in the station!

[thorpeparkjack]

Queued about 35 minutes for Inferno, very reasonable. More two rides - one shot love.Saw was great as per usual, crazy intense. Arty Colossus shot didn't quite work out. Twisty Intamin goodness. Saw this in the Rush Console. Seems like mangement is really pushing the throughput. Sorry if you guys are getting bored of Inferno! Two rides again, one of course is Inferno!Probs to many now...Last one I promise!Thanks for reading! More soon with Alton next week. Hope you guys enjoyed. Any comments or feedback are most welcome.

[TPGG]

How do you add photos from My Pictures onto here?

[JoshC.]

So, I went to Thorpe Park yesterday with some old friends from secondary school. The park seemed to be off form on the day, and if it weren't for the company I was with, I'd think I would have felt somewhat disappointed with the day out..We got the park at about 9:20 for a 9:30 opening. As ever, Inferno was on the cards to start the day (and we felt almost confident of a reride due to the quietness that there was). But, before we get to all that, a couple of pre-entry photos:It was a scorcher today, despite rain being predicted at some point.I had to get a photo of the LC12 stamp, even if it did take 3 attempts with my friends jogging me... :shifty So yeah, we got into the gates and the usual beginning of day rush occurred, with people piling all over each other. We took a gentle stroll over to Inferno, with most other guests being distracted by Storm Surge, Tidal Wave or headed over to Saw. JoshC. approved of the emptyness surrounding the area.So yeah, we walked through the queue and reached the silent station, see a train half way through leaving. Fair enough we thought, probably just a sign to show the ride is actually working. Being the first ones there, we opted for the front row. I smugly thought to myself how I have more luck than thorpeparkjack... Anyways, the second train came into the station and stayed there. The staff were happy to talk amongst themselves, but tell us nothing. The train went off empty (by this time, more people were arriving at the station..) The other train arrived with a couple of staff members on and, after they unclipped all the seats for about 10 people, the gates finally open! I can't lie and say I didn't enjoy front row Inferno, it was pretty sweet. As the ride ended, we were hoping to be able to move rows and get what seems like now as the sacred reride. However, it seemed as if the staff hadn't got their finger out and were still testing the other train - in other words, it was one train operation meaning no reride for us. Can't say I wasn't a little bit peed about that, considering with both trains working, a reride would have been possible. We got to the photo unit, which wasn't actually showing any photos, just the Inferno logo. Oh dear, not the greatest start. Using my keen eye, I had realised whilst on Inferno that Saw wasn't open, which disappointed me, as it has been doing well for most of the season. Also, I had realised Storm Surge had broken down and staff were evacuating people from boats on the lift hill... That, and having Stealth down meant that what rides were open were going to get right busy..We went for Rumba Rapids times instead, which left me pleasantly surprised when I saw that the waterfall before the tunnel had returned - leaving 3 out of 4 of us soaked! We had the classic reride to ensure everyone in our group was wet.I tried to get a photo of the waterfall, but failed...A closed Stealth.As we were rather wet to say the least, we opted to go over to Loggers Leap to continue the wet themes. I noticed that by this time, Saw was testing. Due to how, somewhat surprisingly, quiet Loggers was, we were able to get a reride on this too - I was happy.The little grassy bit before the tunnel was flooding for one reason or another...We were now thoroughly soaked. We decided to not do another water ride, but instead do Samurai. We had noticed Saw was carrying passengers whilst we were on Loggers, but everyone was leaving the queue and it was testing again...An empty Saw car.Spin Samurai, Spin!After an intense ride on Samurai, leaving half the group feeling a bit ill, we opted to do a slightly gentler (in the eyes of all the group) ride, Slammer. It had no queue, but due to the poor loading, we were there for a looong time. I was pretty bored half way through to be honest - personally, I find the ride little more than a short filler.After a little wander round, we opted to do 'Techno X', which is certainly warming to me more now. Oh, and one more track tie has been painted to glow in the dark! *OMG, WOWZ* We just had a long break and chat now, sitting on the little grassy area by Stealth, before having lunch at 12.The Swarm site has 2 drillers on site now.The group decided to split for lunch, with half going to the Pizza Hut Buffet whilst it was relatively quiet, and me and another going to the Mexican Cantina opposite. First time I've properly been to the Mexican place, and I really enjoyed it!We both had a Chicken Nachos each. With AP discount, it came to £3.88, which considering the size of the dish, is probably one of the best values deals on park! By the way, it does look more appetizing it real life, it's just a poor shot.We plodding through lunch, taking about half an hour and not even finishing it! The group re-met and after more chatting (and me getting about 3 refills from the amazing AP drink refill...) we did some wandering around, and ended up at the Flying Fish, which had no queue. I was fortunate enough to get back row, and we also got an extra circuit, because the platformer seemed to forget about the water squirting he did on the previous ride, which left everyone on the train a bit disappointed.. Anyway, we got quite wet from it - more wet than you get on Storm Surge anyway, now they've gotten rid of the free water squirters and that...As we were getting off, I spotted Les Coogan (I guess that's the character's name in general) running away. I moved slightly quicker than everyone in my group, who were still looking at our ORPs from the Fish. I noticed that Les was being chased by a 'police officer'. Les slowed down to a walk, whilst the police officer slowed down to a brisk walk shouting at Les. Les then stopped by what will be the entrance to Swarm's island pointing, jumping and shouting 'LOOK, LOOK!' before running off again. The officer then started chasing after him, then they disappeared out of sight, which was slightly freaky.. I guess they were going off for a break or something, as we didn't see them in Neptune's Kingdom. My friends had also seen the thing and were shocked, wondering what on earth had happened and were obviously taken into the story, believing it. They had trouble believing me when I said it was advertising! What I liked even more was, after they passed Flying Fish, we were the only people around - the only other people that could have seen it were those on Depth Charge, who may have overlooked it even. I really found that a great touch; acting realistically when next to no-one is around - adds to the belief. In honesty, it is the best acting I've ever seen at Thorpe. Unfortunately, I was only able to get one shot of the goings on..This seemed to be when Les broke into a run...After all that, we opted to do Depth Charge. It's a little favourite in our group; we enjoy racing each other okay! When we got to the top, and promised not to 'cheat' (as in push against the sides at the beginning to give a little head start, my trick the first time we did the ride as a group a couple of years ago...), we all ended up cheating, though I was probably last to leave. However, what with me being a little heavier than everyone else, I still just reached the bottom, and also got the furthest on the ground.. losers..! (I'm not at all competitive, am I?) Due to the extreme busyness of the park at this time and after a bit of general wandering, we left at 2..So yeah, it was a bit of an odd day. Reliability had gone downhill massively, but there were some real highlights from the park too. As I said at the beginning, if it hadn't have been for the company, I would have felt a bit disappointed and almost on a bit of a downer. However, having to only pay £3.88 for the day out makes it that little bit better. I look forward to seeing how the park is next week, before my Chessington and long awaited Alton Towers trips later in the month...

[Mattgwise]

Good day at Thorpe Park today. Park wasn't busy for August at all, longest queue (that I queued for) was 40 minutes for Storm Surge and I think 60 minutes was the longest I saw all day (Colossus and Saw up until about 3pm). Most rides we queued for 20-25 minutes including Saw which for me was very unusual. Saw Alive, No Way Out, Loggers Leap, and Rumba Rapids all had less than 10 minutes wait when I went on them.Only problem was almost every Queue time board was wrong throughout the day, normally they are fairly accurate.Staff were brilliant today, almost everyone smiled and made the day that little bit better.Park music not brilliant in places today. No music at all in Stealth area except for the speakers that have been put in at The Swarm advertising area, Tidal WWTP very low volume, Colossus Very Low volume, Depth Charge silent, Annoying bird tweeting Queueline music for Samurai which I have only heard once last year I think. And my goodness I can now see what people mean about Canada Creek, the music there is awful compared to the old Country playlist. On a plus, Detonator, Nemesis Inferno and Samurai ride area loud.I like the gradual changes to X:\\ No Way Out but not as good as people have made out in my opinion.Overall a good day and was nice to not have to rush about.Sorry but no pictures so I'm afraid its a poor trip report compared to the last few brilliant ones

[thorpeparkjack]

Just a few words about my trip yesterday...Overall I had a really good visit. Just a nice chilled and relaxed day. Reliability is still a huge problem with Tidal being down all day with Rumba, Rush and Saw all having extended periods of downtime. Inferno opened on one train and stayed like that for at least 90 minutes. Rush was on one swing all day, but swinging incredibly high! There was nothing wrong with the Staff, but that was it. They were neither good or bad. Maybe my expectations are too high after my recent trip to Alton. Throughputs on the main queue lines were actually really good early on, but then fastrack kicked in and that went completely out the window. I was disgusted at how the member of staff outside the Colossus entrance was shouting at guests and the surrounding area about the benefits of fastrack. BBQ bar was good as always though and to be honest it was a pretty good visit to Thorpe. Despite all the abuse Thorpe gets, and most of the time deserves, It is still in some way special to me. Alton may be better, but not to the exaggerated extent that I believed before the start of this season.