Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[SH Peter]

Hey,First post so sorry if I'm not doing something I should but ...I am one of the roaming actors at this years Fright Nights and I'd like to thank everyone who has visited and a big thank you for all your positive reviews. :)As JackR said earlier"The day got progressively more and more busy and despite the roaming actors, the atmosphere was ****. Maybe a few smoke machines would have improve it, but nooses and barrels scattered around didn't do the trick for me. All of the mazes were very good (The Curse was substandard) and Other than E 10 we had no queues for them. One of the roaming actors stood on the barrels under the Colossus sign by the over banked turn after the barrel rolls and hit his head on one of the hanging balls "That was me! I smashed my head and nearly knocked myself out lol!

[pluk]

Quick report from yesterdays visit. Went with wife and (as they had free tickets too) my parents.Overall we had good visit, but this was despite Thorpe trying to make sure we did not enjoy ourselves at various times throughout the day.......Arrived wit our free Sun tickets at 11 expecting an empty park as it was event no mans land, but the carpark was surprisingly full. Straight in, straight to Stealth, 15 min queue, great ride. Then detonator walk on (messing around with the timings of the drop, love that), and thought if it stayed like this all day we were on to a winner. It did not.Next storm surge, and the mission to piss me off began. It was literally walk on, two guys were just getting in a boat. A miserable looking large blonde woman barked "get in that one" and turned away. I said to her back "Cant we get in our own one, there's four of us", she could be bothered only to turn half back to me and said "maximum 6, minimum 4, get in that one". Rude doesn't cover it. It may be tiresome going over the same thing all day but it's your job love, do it with a smile or go home. So then stepped into the boat to about half a foot of water. I've heard people moaning about that before here but never had it myself. Our boat looked like a floating pilates class in our attempts to keep our socks dry, but it didn't work so the next two hours we were uncomfortably squelching around the park. And to top it off the damn thing does not even spin any more. This sort of thing is just basics, the ride it self was worse than it's usual bad self and left with the annoying wet feet.Then a walk on x, back to pitch darkness with no music. Meh, either way really but probably prefer it with music and laser.Then the next piss me off moment. To Saw, approach with time board declaring 60 min queue and a member of staff by the entrance shouting at you as you approach "Skip the hour queue, but fast track tickets, save an hour....". This on it's own I find most objectionable, standing literally infront of a 'no queue jumping' sign but basically saying 'queue jumping is fine as long as you give me a few quid" is a vile way for Thorpe to line their pockets. But it gets better, we obviously ignored her and walked into ....... a 5 minute queue before the merge point! I'd call this fraud. A man who approached the queue directly behind me fell for it and bought himself and 4 kids the tickets. He ended up on the actual same ride as me. I went to have a moan at the seller when I got off but she'd buggered off, for her sake a good thing.Anyway, we went on basically everything. Slammer down all day, Colossus down most of the afternoon (but when it reopened they stuck it on two trains to clear the backlog so got a go later. Glad I didn't wait in the queue that looked huge and was advertised at 70mins in the morning).Got my last ever ride on CCR and after being scathing of the decision to shut it realised how bloody pointless it is now it goes nowhere. Still, it's a lovely little ride and I'll be sad to see it go.Goodbye old friend.Had to queue about 40 mins for both stealth and inferno later on,both on one train operation. Why? what do they achieve by not having two trains running, it's not like it was dead in the end as those queue times demonstrate. And I've never seen such lazy and slow dispatching on inferno, the staff member on the oncoming side just sat by his little green light, thumb poised, for the two minutes the ride was out there each time instead of checking the rows were full. The result? loads of empty seats on a large queued one train operation. A little more pissed off right there.Good to get an hour or so in the dark too.Damn, got to go out. I alwys end up writing more than I intend to. They hadn't finished pissing me off yet, I'll finish this later.........

[JoshC.]

So, Saturday was the day for me - the last visit to Thorpe for the 2011 season. I must say I was a bit sceptical about the Blow It Up event, unsure as to how the park would cope with visitor numbers, or how what they were planning would work. Well, due to one thing after another happening in the morning, we arrived at 2pm, which reduced time spent focusing on the park to 4 hours (we aimed to get to our positions for the fireworks at 6ish). A crane that greeted us. The whether wasn't particularly sunny or warm either.. Collecting pre-booked tickets. There were 3 windows open, which was to cover everyone - pre-bookers, walk-up tickets, etc. A bit silly in my eyes, and with no music playing as well, it started the day at the park on a low note. Blew it up.Would've liked to have seen them!'Test run' of the fire engine, to be blown up at the end, to sort it's positioning and timing out I guess..Side view.Any point in the Depth Charge ORPs now?After a quick visit to guest service was out of the way, we made our way round to...Flying Fish! This sorta sums up my season to a degree - not fussing with the big rides, and going for something nice and relaxing (and getting views of The Swarm too... ). A general lack of music, atmosphere and staff activity meant it wasn't the greatest. After the Fish, it was evident that there was a serious lack of atmosphere around. Music, even just the chart music, was seemingly sparse, and there was a lack of anything really. I just felt like I was walking down the local high street, except instead of shops, it was rides. Not the greatest feeling to have at a theme park.. Also, Fright Nights theming was still around. Yeah, I'm fine with the mazes still being up, but what's the point in having their signs, info. boards and park-wide theming around when it is not Fright Nights!? It just feels like Thorpe couldn't be bothered. At this stage, it really felt like Thorpe blew this event up...FN theming still around..One positive was how the park didn't really seem that busy, for one reason or another. Maybe people were waiting later to just watch the fireworks? Maybe people were holding off till Sunday? I dunno, but whatever happened, I liked it.. Random point - sign in the Thorpe Megastore. Never noticed it before.. XDAfter some general wandering around, I saw this...Slammer was, yet again, closed. Okay, seriously, this ride is starting the get on my nerves. It's reliability, though improving, is still shockingly bad. I mean come on, doesn't it seem ridiculous to say a ride's reliability is improving, yet is being closed for around a month of a 7 month season, 6 years after it opened!? (Personally, I'd wish Thorpe just shut it down now, and the money they would have spent seemingly always repairing it could go on keeping CCR running instead, but hey ho.. :whist )We made our way over to CCR for the last ever trip around Canada Creek.. To say it was a bit sad would be true. Much like with my previous visit, no photos, as I'm 'saving them' if you will for something a little special...watch this space I guess! One thing I will say though is that, like with some of my other rides on CCR this season, the driver tends to go to fast round the circuit. Okay, I'm fine with going through the barriers quickly, to shorten the time the barriers are down. But after that, it should be a nice, slow, relaxing journey around, not whizzing round like Stealth. A shame really.After CCR was said, done and given its goodbye, more wandering was had. Saw Alive was on the cards after an above average experience over FN, but it has temporarily closed with an alarm going off. A bit of bad luck more than anything I guess.. Photos from the way there:Have some trees been cut down?Fright Night theming by the turn before the inline twists, which was still there...Random Saw photo.Place where fireworks are let off.Though I said it wasn't busy, there was a large queue for Zodiac.. Surprised people are prepared to wait quite a long while for a fairground ride in honesty.Rush had a short queue, with original audio playing (though the end announcement must not have been working, as the op was saying it rather monotonely at the end of each ride...). Rush was as good as ever really; no fault to it.. RushhhAfter some more wandering round and a pop into the nachos place for a quick snack, it was nearly time for the fire performers. Now, in honesty, they weren't the best. It was a bit boring, a bit awkward and the performers seemed a bit lost as to how to cope with the set up. There was no accompanying music which didn't really help, and a lot of the tricks they did are pretty standard - it's never good when you do a performance like this and people start walking away saying they know how it's done. There was one stunt I really liked though - holding some fire on a 'stick' in the mouth - very good! In short, the performers were a nice idea, but didn't really ignite the crowds... I'm on fire! Shame I can't say the performance was flaming good here, it would have been rather punny! (Also, you can play spot the TPM member )Fire twizzling.We popped over for lunch/dinner at the Bar 360 Grill, as we had to go to the bridge for 6 (due to having disabled access within out group). We got there just after 5, and, well, it was a bit of a shambles. Yes, it was busy, but that is no reason to justify messing up on our order and failing to tell us the food would be about 45-1 hour wait (which we only found out about after half an hour). The food wasn't the greatest I've had either from Thorpe in general - they blew it up a bit there...Anyway, we made our way to the bridge afterwards, with hot chocolate in hand and waiting for the burning of the effigy. As soon as the huge model was being brought up, it was evidently Jedward! A bit of a shame being side on for the burning, but the display was good. Also like how they used some of Jedward's song quite well within it. I've got a video, but it's seemingly taking forever to load... A couple of (poor) photos though:On fire!The wait went quickly and the lights across the park dimmed. Excitement overcame me; I could not wait. The performance was outstanding, well coordinated and the song choices worked well. The bring up over the fire truck early on in the performance got loads of people very excited as well - on the video I recorded, all you can hear for about a minute is 'What's that?', 'They're gonna blow up a fire truck!?!?', etc. The only bug bear I had about the performance was how the DJ (who was good, nonetheless - even if he did originally get Swarm's opening date wrong, hehe) had to say 'Hold on guys' between the end of the fireworks and The Swarm audio / explosion. The actual audio and general piece gave me goosebumps, and still does when I watch it over (and when I watched it last night down my street). It is very effective and well created. The explosion was amazing as well - the heat from it was amazing! A photo of the fire engine afterwards; sorry about quality.So, the actual fireworks display was pretty spectacular, and a great way to end the season. Well done Thorpe! :clap Not much else I have to say now. Another little teaser is that in the coming couple of weeks, I'll be doing a 'Review of the Season', which will basically be one great, big, epic PTR for you all the enjoy! Hope you've enjoyed this little TR and thanks for reading!

[Ryan]

Hello me in the fire entertainer photo Completely agree with all you said there Josh!

[JoshC.]

So, after attending the media night a couple of Thursdays ago, and plans to visit Thorpe on opening day falling through, today was my first public visit of the year to the park. As ever here's a quick PTR for your enjoyment!So, a couple of friends and I decided to meet up for the first time in a while, and decided that Thorpe Park would be the place to be this weekend. With one of the group arriving just after 12, two of us decided to get there for opening time... Well 10 o'clock at least. We arrived at 20 to 10, and noticed the gates had already opened...apparently they opened half an hour early because so many people turned up early. A bit annoying for us, but I'd much rather the park end up opening earlier than later I guess.The weather for the day way a bit dull and rainy. It didn't deter many people though, it would seem.As we approached the turnstiles (with the old entrance music back, which is great!), I noticed Lez Cougan and his followers causing some commotion with visitors - with Lez saying how he has told us that this would happen and the Swarm would come, and his followers just generally worshipping the ground he walked on.. They all had 'The Swarm symbol', as it is marketed, on them, which is a triangle with what looks likes wings through it - would be interesting to know what the idea behind the design is. (Also, on a bit of tangent, does anyone know if the LC in LC12 stands for anything?) I did record a short video, but won't be able to upload until my laptop decides to start working again. Anyways, a couple of photos:Lez Cougan.Cougan and his followers.Just wow.Me with the crew! Love how you can make the symbol with your hands..We decided that we may as well just progress straight to Swarm, and try it out once, even though we knew we'd probably be doing it later as well. Some photos from on the way:Some bands were performing during the day, which is something nice I guess. (Sorry about it being sidewards )Much love for that fire truck!The area was not as packed as I was expecting, though there was some competition on the stage where the bands were performing relating to The Hunger Games, which made the entrance area quite congested. The queue board advertsied 90 minutes, but we knew that it would probably advertise above an hour pretty much all day. Some queue line pictures:A bad photo from underneath the tower, where it comes really quite close! Also, the 'Swarm noise' really did make people queueing jump!Wet looking plaza..More or less the whole queue past the tower. There are TV screens here as well.After 70 minutes of queueing, we were on. The particular queue batcher we had wasn't telling us which side to go on, and we decided to go down the left - and after arriving at the station, we walked straight on. As per, the ride was amazing.The ORP (sorry abou the quality, I have no scanner at the moment )The Roast and Relish food outlet - review of that to come shortly!I then went to the shop and had a bit of a spending spree...a pin badge, lenticular pass, shot glass, pen and model set me back a mere £12.60 with AP discount, which I thought was pretty good. On my next visit, I won't be splashing out on things like the grenade mug alarm clock or hat... ;)Anyways, after Swarm was said and done, we had a go onthe ever dependably Flying Fish, and had an amazing operator. He did some great interactivty, even though some annoying little brats at the back tried ruining it.*Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave it here. I did finish the review, but then it was lost thanks to dodgy net connection, and this was all I could retrieve. So, until tomorrow, I'll have to leave it here.*EDIT: In light of my visit today, which was more than just going on Swarm and a couple of other filler rides, I will finally abruptly finish this TR now. My review of R&R is in my next PTR; look out for it. XD After Flying Fish, a ride on Rumba Rapids followed, which was of course thoroughly wet, with the pre waterfall tunnel and an in-tunnel water squirter drenching us. After drying off and warming up in the dome, lunch followed along with another 70 minute wait in the Swarm queue (the queue was slightly shorter than before, but Fastrack happens!). It goes back to the point of this TR - SWARM IS EPIC!The day ended on a ride on X:NWO. I'm disappointed by the fact that they've got rid of the strobes - they added so much to the ride. However, I'm glad that they've fixed the robot mannequin lights in the queue, and the ride seems a fair bit faster.. Strange. As said, an abrupt end to the PTR, but time to focus on the next one!

[Joegibbon]

I visited the park yesterday and have now finished writing my trip report.

On Saturday 17th March, Me and Luke visited Thorpe Park for the Premiere Screaming event.After getting up at 7am, we were in the car by 8.15. After an uneventful journey we arrived to an already packed entrance plaza at 9.10. The park wasn’t scheduled to open until 10, and it already looked like this.Not put off by this sight, we joined the annual pass queue and then got our hands stamped.This is a great idea as it really speeds up the annual pass queue through the turnstiles. Our next surprise was the park opening early. As the entrance was already packed, they decided to open the park at 9.30. Now we rushed straight over to The SWARM. As soon as we got into the park its size was intimidating.Running over the bridge we got our first glimpse of the actors. The Lez Coogan trio were walking along shouting that they were right,whilst army officers were trying to set up barriers to stop people from reaching The SWARM.Running round the back of depth charge is when you see the first piece of theming. A burnt-out fire-truck. This is actually the one that Thorpe Park blew up during the fireworks event last year. Looking up at The Swarm from here is a magnificent sight as it just towers over everything else around it, looking menacing with the first drop under the plane wing. Running over the bridge you get your first proper look at the island. It really is amazing, Debris everywhere, actors roaming around and especially the ruined church. But we didn’t have much time for sightseeing, we had a brand new rollercoaster to ride. The queueline entrance is at the other end of the island, by the brake-run of The SWARM. Walking through the queueline you are greeted with this sight.

To read the rest of it click here.Warning: very photo and text heavy.This took me over 3 hours to write

[Topsyturvy15]

Excellent review! Really enjoyed reading it

[NickD]

23rd March 2012I've just returned from my first trip to the park for about 2 years, overall I am impressed by the improvements and the place seems to have made some changes for the good. The park seems much fore easy to navigate around than previously. Additions such as the walk from the saw island towards crust by Colossus is great (I understand this is probs due to the addition of saw alive) but it is something that frustrated me previously.Staff -, well , it's a difficult one .. they deffinately didn't stand out for me a majority of the time today. It's a toughy because there are some that really do make the effort and some than seem like they really don't care. There also seem to be others who are too busy shouting between quantum to their mates working on zodiac. I understand it's a social workplace, but for people that are in control of safety I would expect maybe a little more professionalism. I think the main point on the staff issue is that a fair number didn't seem very enthuasitic at all , alot of 'Face like a slapped ass' kind of people.Presentation - seems to have improved absolutely miles since I used to visit, a few things maybe here and there. I understand though that it is early in the season, if the standard that has been set so far can be maintained it will be noticed by guests. If something needs to odd paint job, don't leave it all until the end of the year, because come the end of october the place looks like a bombsite.Reliability - .. well , it was terrible today. But I understand it may have been one of those days, I'm not too bothered but if this was in the peak of summer it would've been a fair problem.Music - Seems to be better accross the park, I don't mind the change of music on rides such as vortex, fits in for the target audience and makes perfect sense. Only nag would be Stealth area, a short delay 50/50 of speakers , short but is awfully frustrating and irritating when you are in the area.Swarm - If future additions to the park can follow suit, the park is heading in the right direction, an excellent addition. Well doneI'm a very critical person , and I've come away today thinking that I will be coming back with some friends later in the year. If the park can manage to do that for their other guests, they will be in a great situation.That's all for now.

[Benin]

Swarm really shows how bad the rest of the park is...Went to ride Saw, it broke, Slammer died, Colossus broke for a while, Inferno on one train (which was a result of it having problems apparently), Stealth broke when we joined the queue as well...Bleh, least Inferno was running brilliantly <3 And of course Swarm <3 B&M superiority ftw!

[NickD]

Swarm really shows how bad the rest of the park is...Went to ride Saw, it broke, Slammer died, Colossus broke for a while, Inferno on one train (which was a result of it having problems apparently), Stealth broke when we joined the queue as well...Bleh, least Inferno was running brilliantly <3 And of course Swarm <3 B&M superiority ftw!

Wouldn't go so far to say swarm done well. Operating with one train for more than 50% of the day and I witnessed 3 shutdowns.

[Mark9]

Thing is though, Swarm is new, it is bound to have these problems (even if the ride technology isn't that overly complicated, it is still new for the park)Everything else is 3 years old or more and their downtime is small little problems. According to staff, Colossus went down four times yesterday due to sickness. I can believe that as in my opinion, the ride is running very well and very fast at the moment, especially through the inlines. Saw keeps having small little problems and Inferno and Swarm both had ill trains at some point.Stealth is.. well it's Intamin and sometimes you just cannot forgive poor ride systems ;)One thing I've found on my visits this year so far is that with five major rollercoasters now all running (for the start of the season I might add ) and because of the relative size of the park, if a coaster goes down its effect has become far more negliblie compared to the days where losing Stealth meant Colossus and Inferno would be rammed 10-6. It has become a far more balanced park with Saw and Colossus on one side, Stealth and Swarm on the other and Inferno slap bang in the middle.If it helps I'll be Stealth/Swarm/Inferno/Detonator side of the park for the majority of my visits.

[Benin]

Colossus was indeed running fast...Unfortunately, it's also stupidly rough as well, meaning that any possible enjoyment is completely sucked out...Some things never change...

[Mark9]

Colossus was indeed running fast...Unfortunately, it's also stupidly rough as well, meaning that any possible enjoyment is completely sucked out...Some things never change...

Now now Benin, I never gave my opinion on Colossus, I just said it's running well around its circuit. For the record though, I don't feel any of this roughness on Colossus that some do. I think it's running the best it ever has actually and certainly doesn't share the problems of rides like Blue Tornado, Rock 'N' Rollercoaster or Rita. Imo of course

[Benin]

I meant to say to you yesterday that I thought it was almost as bad as Sequioa Adventure...Imo

[Marc]

For the record, Colossus was closed because of Sick, it ran fine apart from that

[JoshC.]

So, I popped down with the family to Thorpe Park, for what was the fourth time this year. However, with two of those visits being before the park opened, and my visit last week being all about Swarm, today felt like my first 'proper' visit of the season.With a 10 o'clock opening, and the sun shining gloriously, we headed to the park for half 9. We arrived just before, and to what was not really my surprise, the gates were open. It seems as though Thorpe are making a habit out of opening earlier this season, which I have mixed opinions on. Whilst it's great that they're making the effort and helping guests who arrive rather early, those who will be planning on arriving say 10-15 minutes before opening may get a slight sour taste in their mouths (a similar feeling that my friend got last weekend). The decisions are probably for the best and please the majority, but I won't be surprised if some people get a little bit annoyed by it.The glorious sunshine.As the park had opened early, we decided that we may as well go for Swarm. I like this little idea of putting up these signs; it just 'feels' right.Water effects behind the leftover stage. They were working slightly more in sync than before.The queue for Swarm moved incredibly quickly. It was just after the tower, and we never stopped for more than a minute or so it felt; the staff really must be praised for how well they worked on getting the trains through!The Swarm arose to the heavens.One thing which I half like / half hate about Swarm is that the near misses do look much nearer off ride than on ride. I like it because of how visually stunning it is, but dislike as I fear people may be left feeling short changed afterwards. We decided that we may as well try the front row queue out, and see what the system was like. We queued for the pass for a couple of minutes, and then we were in. As a side note, I like how they've added numbers to the split queueing. Probably makes it easier for staff if someone asks 'Can I go on the left hand side of the ride?' for example. Anyways, we were directed to the right hand side of the ride, and were greeted by a massive front row queue; it took up about 2/3 of the length of the bit in the station. I don't mind queueing extra for front row if that's my choice, but I was surprised (and other front row queuers were shocked) at how long it was. I also think there was too many from rowers put on the right hand side as opposed to the left; we had the huge queue, whereas the left was struggling to get people in the front.. Many people were giving up there front row passes just to sit anywhere, seeinghow the queue for it was so long. Sorry Thorpe, the front row queue needs a rethink or getting rid of. The dispatches were running extremely well, and at times they were waiting for the train to finish the circuit to send the next train - much praise should be give to Swarm's team! Also, as ever, the ride was fab.. Yeah, not much else to say. If the only negative point I can really think of for this coaster is the fact the front row queue doesn't work, this just shows how good of a ride it well and truly is!ORP.. :PWe moved our way to Storm Surge, and queued for about 10 minutes. I really don't know what to make of this ride any more; the boats aren't spinning (which, at beginning of season, is not good), but the water squirters were permanently turned on, which left for a good bit of water being splashed upon us. Really and truly, it's an okay ride made out of a hunk of junk.. It was also INCREDIBLY squeaky. With the hot weather and big attentions of the coasters, the water rides didn't have much of a queue, so we ended up on Rumba Rapids. Okay, it's not the longest rapids, or the best looking, but I love this ride so much - the pre tunnel and in tunnel waterfalls are just working so well, and you do get quite wet on the ride. Much love for this ride, and hope it gets a spruce up in the near future.There was also a Dr Pepper event today. The whole idea was to set a Guinness World Record for the most people in a pair of pants (I believe), and there were some games set around pants and stuff. Nice bit of fun for guests I guess. Swarm in the background.The big pants (no, not Stealth...)We headed back over to the dome and decided that we may as well get the new Annual Pass refill a-ma-bob. I really dislike it if I'm honest. It seems smaller (which people may say doesn't matter, as it's unlimited, but a smaller cup = more refills), it looks ugly, and it just doesn't feel right. The only plus I have about it is the fact that the label seems much better. Rant of the day over. We then headed over to Roast and Relish (R&R for short ) for lunch. So, pretty much you choose a gammon baguette or pork baguette (and the baguettes are fresh and are of more than generous size!), have free stuffing, crackling or sauce and that's that. I love the place. At £4.75 a baguette, or 4 for £15, I think it's well priced and you get more than your money's worth. I'd highly recommend the place for anyone who likes their meat.Being close to Swarm, the tables have subtle, yet appropriate, theming.Swarm shadow.We headed all the way to the other size of the park to go on good ol' Loggers Leap. Good solid log flume, not much else that can be said about it. We passed Saw Alive on the way. It had a big queue...I'm disappointed in how 'leftover' Canada Creek feels. There's been so much focus on Swarm side, the other side of the park seems a bit forgotten. If CCR has gone, and isn't returning, get rid of the track, the barriers and open up that space a lot.A fence has now been put up to conceal Miss Hippo's Fungle Safari. Sign of future development, or lack of it?Crazy bikes have been moved next to the Loony Ladders, opening up a nice bit of space.The new Ben and Jerry's unit by the Lost City flats has yet to open. Shame, could've done with one today. :(We threw in quick rides on X:\NWO (which still feels faster than normal, but lacks the extra dimension without the strobe lights) and Quantum (a good fun, ride). A final couple of shots to do with Swarm:By midday, the mist under the plane had conked out. Under the lift hill / drop.How the Swarm area looks now...How the area looked on the 14th April last year.And I'll leave you with that.

[Fred]

With a 10 o'clock opening, and the sun shining gloriously, we headed to the park for half 9. We arrived just before, and to what was not really my surprise, the gates were open. It seems as though Thorpe are making a habit out of opening earlier this season, which I have mixed opinions on. Whilst it's great that they're making the effort and helping guests who arrive rather early, those who will be planning on arriving say 10-15 minutes before opening may get a slight sour taste in their mouths (a similar feeling that my friend got last weekend). The decisions are probably for the best and please the majority, but I won't be surprised if some people get a little bit annoyed by it.

What a stupid thing to moan about. It's far, far, far nicer for all guests (and better for guest experience) for the park to open early rather than being stuck in cattlepens forever.People moaning for stupid reasons annoy me.

[JoshC.]

Not really moaning about, just simply saying that it may give a small minority a little grumble. (Of which I'm not one of; I'm glad they're opening earlier, I was just saying the small minority of people may not be).One thing I did notice is the queue boards on park were showing that some ride opened at 9:30 as it was. So, by the looks of it, they're changing opening times to extend them - whch is of course only a good thing.

[Mark9]

Not really moaning about, just simply saying that it may give a small minority a little grumble. (Of which I'm not one of; I'm glad they're opening earlier, I was just saying the small minority of people may not be).One thing I did notice is the queue boards on park were showing that some ride opened at 9:30 as it was. So, by the looks of it, they're changing opening times to extend them - whch is of course only a good thing.

I think the idea is, if enough rides are ready to go then open the park because you stop the bottleneck of guests at the entrance and instead of creating an influx of people travelling across the bridge at once, you have a steady flow. Excellent idea in my opinion. The only issue being, if like last week they start the day with Swarm, Colossus and Inferno on one train, you end up having to close the ride for quite a hefty time whilst the second train gets put on.People may moan, but they'd have no grounds to because the park are giving you more time. If you decide to get there at 10 you aren't really missing out..

[pluk]

Anything that stops a turnstile scrum is a good thing, I'm all for staggered opening and closing to stop the rushes. Always amazed at how much of a hurry they are in to get you out at closing - the eating and drinking places could coin it if they encouraged us to spend once the rides are shut and there's nothing else to do other than sit in heavy traffic.

[Coaster]

Thorpe park trip - Sunday 25th March. (My second visit of the 2012 season and first FULL day.)RIDECOUNT:The Swarm - 7Saw the ride - 1Saw Alive - 2Colossus - 1Nemesis inferno - 1X:/ No way out - 2Loggers Leap - 1Rumba Rapids - 1Zodiac - 2Highlights of the day -- The Swarm's queue being really short resulting in repeat rides! (4 in a row then 3 random throughout the day)- Some nice changes to the X:/ no way out queueline.- Just an enjoyable day spent at Thorpe park!- Miss Hippo's fungle safari being covered up.Lowlights of the day -- Chart music back at the entrance and in a silly pitch, also Detonator's audio has been changed and it is not as good now. (Old black hole music)- Storm surge stuck on chainlift all day, also rush closed and Stealth broke down.- No single rider on Stealth - Rumba rapids being back to how it was last year. (On premiere screaming it was really good, the tunnel was lit up and there were more water sprayers!)While this might seem negative I actually really enjoyed my day and I am going back again soon for a third time this season! (MAP holder)

[TPGG]

"Lowlights of the day -- Chart music back at the entrance and in a silly pitch, also Detonator's audio has been changed and it is not as good now. (Old black hole music)"*Flashbacks of riding Vortex to We Found Love*

[pluk]

My lowlight from Fri was probably being subjected to a poor (is there any other kind?) Nicki Minaj remix on Quantum. Not good.

[Stealthowl]

My Trip Report 23rd-25thFriday 23rd AprilWho Went: Stuz & MeRide CountStealth x7 (5 in final hour)Swarm x9 (8 on the ERT)Inferno x3Samurai x2Rapids x2Saw LoggersTidalStorm SurgeX:No Way OutColossus Saturday 24th Who Went: Stuz,Rob & Me (Only on park 4 hours as did Chessington in Morning)Ride CountStealth SawSamurai x2ColossusX:No Way OutSunday 25th TPM MeetRide Count:StealthSwarmFishSawSamurai (Others did Saw Alive)InfernoBanana :PRockyLoggersHightlights:*The Swarm Love it​*TPM Meet & the laughs we all had on Rocky & Banana*ERT on Friday*Getting to meet-up with Friends*The Weather felt very hot down sooouth!*Queueline random moments and dancing Lowlights:Hard to find one but few issues with downtime that was it.Thanks for reading :)Jonny

[Flipper]

Don't forget the SAW queue-line charades. Billy Puppet FTW