Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[Coaster]

Spoiler Free TR - Fright Nights at Thorpe Park

TIME IN PARK:

2pm - 10pm

(This TR may contain very mild spoilers - my TR from Friday has more spoilers though).

After the promising preview evening we had experienced on Friday, I was looking forward to this trip.

It didn't disappoint, and whilst there are still some niggles it was very much improved on Friday in most respects.

The park was dead after 8pm, which meant 2 hours of rushing around going on all the rides and mazes multiple times. Before 8pm it wasn't really that busy either, so a very good day.

RIDECOUNT:

The Swarm x4

Nemesis Inferno x3

Stealth x2

Colossus x2

Saw: The Ride x1

X x1

Samurai x1

Storm Surge x1

MAZE-COUNT:

The Asylum x3

My Bloody Valentine x3

The Cabin in the Woods x2

Saw Alive x1

The Blair Witch Project x1

Overall (rides and mazes): 25

Despite the new investment in Fright Nights this year, The Asylum is still by far the best maze in my opinion. The actors this year are very energetic and enthusiastic (in all the mazes, but especially Asylum) and the strobes are very intense, as are the fog effects used. Much improved on last year, and the new scenery at the end makes it a lot more effective.

The Cabin in the Woods is a brilliant maze, and we enjoyed this a lot more today than on the preview evening. I won't spoil it for you, but the maze is very, very different from the others and is absolutely brilliant!

My Bloody Valentine wasn't as good today - you can't make out who is Harry Warden because the lights on the miner hats they wear blocks their face. The appearance of him at the very beginning also ruins it in my opinion.

Due to there being no queue (and being dared to), I did get the opportunity to go in this one completely on my own!

It did make the experience more intense, but it still didn't scare me (but then nothing does!)

Also, this was good as they charge £15 for "Face it alone" between 10 - 10:30pm so I basically got that for free as the park was so quiet from 8!

Saw Alive is the same as previous years, and didn't do anything for me.

The Blair Witch Project was a bit better today as the actors used jump scares very effectively. Whilst this goes against the film, it is the only way to generate scares from this scare zone and it was actually quite effective.

HIGHLIGHTS:

- The enthusiasm of the actors in the mazes this year. Much improved on previous years.

- The high levels of theming in the mazes. Even Asylum has lots of scenery and props this year - whilst hard to see due to the strobes they really do add to the experience.

- Park being quiet all day and dead by 8pm.

- High ridecount and mazecount.

LOWLIGHTS:

- The amount of chavs and arrogant idiots on park today. Really ruined some parts of the day! Idiots like that who are just out to ruin everyone's day don't have a place at theme parks (or anywhere for that matter).

- Staff working on the rides looked really bored and tired after 8pm.

- Staff at the top of the stairs on Stealth constantly ignoring someone asking a question as he was talking to his friend.

Overall I would recommend Fright Nights to anyone who likes Halloween events, and the quietest time to go is near the start of the event on a Sunday. Really good event!

Questions and comments welcome (and encouraged!)

[dragon2000]

Also went to Fright Nights yesterday 10am-10pm. Wow I was tired waking up at 5.30am this morning, but worth it for such an amazing day at the park.

On arrival it looked like the park would be quite busy. Turned out we were completely wrong and the park felt almost empty for a Fright Nights event. This meant average queues of 10mins for us on the coasters, after 6pm I think all the coasters were walk on or 'stay on'. Longest queue we had all day was probably 20mins for X because of the usual 'essential cleaning'!

We're not maze people so we ended up taking advantage of the small ride queues and night riding - I love the rides at night!

Ride count ended up:

Colossus x9

NI x12

Stealth x3

Swarm x10

SAW x3

Vortex x1 (night ride, 3 of us on board!)

Rush x1

Rumba x2

Flying Fish x1

X x2

Samurai x3 (highlight being chatting to friendly staff while waiting for 15 riders and ending up with a pod to myself! Awesome ride!)

Lots of travelling folk, but didn't give us any trouble. Park music sounding good & we loved the director's announcements.

Effects wise on park - Swarm fireball working well, Stealth looking pretty and has it's smoke, lights in Inferno tunnel but no mist, Saw main drop blades off, didn't see the flamethrowers on the shop roofs going off at all.

The lighting on the rides at night is pretty good with the exception of The Swarm's island. Floodlit in bright white light from the temporary generators. Shame.

One line summary: Sundays at the start of Fright Nights = Recommended!!!

[Cal]

My review of Sunday the 27th INCLUDES SPOILERS

MBV

Been both ways now as went on it 2 weeks ago. Thought the tunnel way was allot better, seemed longer plus the air bag thing was quite cool. A lot of actors in there but I don't like how there is no end to it? You just sort of walk out. I suppose they could of also made it a bit longer. The cupboards you got locked in was a good idea to add time. 8.5/10

Cabin in the woods

Went on this maze twice, had to fast track it the second time because it had an hour and a half que and had to do other mazes. Didn't find the control room so was a bit disappointed . Was a great maze as there was actors everywhere, there was even 3 in 1 room! The bit that really got me is that 3d room, and an actor like blended in and just came out of no where haha. The second time I went on it though they were letting far to many people in there at once, trying to increase the throughput and there was just people everywhere, spoiled it really. I guess the second time you also know where the actors are going to jump out at you but was keen to find the control room, but I didn't First time=9/10 Seccond time= 6/10

BWP

We started queing for this around 5 to 6 and the que want all the way around loggers and we qued from about where rockys express was. They said it was going to about an hour but the que moved really quick and we got on around 20 past 6. Really good the fact that you don't have to que very long. There was about 5 actors in the whole thing including 2 in the shed at the end. It was very predictable where the actors were going to be in my opinion, good for kids I guess but even for them theirs not enough actors! 4/10

Saw Alive

First time I've been on this maze since 2011 and it was amazing! Can't really remember the last time I went on it but I think it has much improved, fast tracked this one because it also had a 90 min que but was definitely worth the 5 quid. The actors seemed to be picking on my cousin alot, at the beggining they made her click a button then send her to the back and later on they made her let go of me and she had to go like by herself for abit. It was packed with actors and all the actors were really good! 9.2/10

Asylum

Didn't get round to doing it on Sunday, purely because it had a long que and it's not my favorite, did it 2 weeks before though and it was alright I guess. Theirs no like jumps in this maze because you can see them. The only bit I really enjoy is the ending when you get chased out. 7/10

Overall though it was a really good day even though it busy, coasters around an hour and a half but died down when the mazes opened, rides around 30mins, mazes around an hour and a half but what made the day really good was being stuck on loggers leap, that was alot of fun. Got given free fast tracks for that as well.

[TPJames]

Samurai is back open?

[Dan9]

Samurai is back open?

No, it isn't re-opening this season.

[Coaster]

Annual Pass Day - Saturday 15th March 2014

Time in Park: 12:00 - 5:00pm

Rides Closed (all day): Slammer, Samurai, Zodiac.

RIDECOUNT:

The Swarm x5

Nemesis Inferno x4

Stealth x1

Colossus x1

X x1 (Love the changes!)

Saw x1

Rumba Rapids x1

Very good day, there were a few issues but it's to be expected on the first day of the season. I avoided the flats as they were either running poorly or closed, Rush in particular looked rubbish.

We experienced a hilarious breakdown on The Swarm, on the first break run it virtually ground to a halt and we were left hanging off the last corner (we were in row 2), it was quite funny!

Saw was running absolutely dire, no better than it was at the end of last season.

The park seemed to have a really good, relaxed atmosphere today. Music wise it could have been better though - I was rather hoping for the entrance music back! Also, the Canada Creek playlist wasn't playing (playing some random jungle sounds instead) so that area lacked the feel it usually has. WTTP radio also seemed to be less songs, more adverts so I'm not sure if they are being a bit stingy with the royalties?

Overall it was a brilliant day even with the flaws, the park wasn't very busy and I was very impressed that they extended to 5pm.

[planenut]

An interesting day, mainly due to the changes in staff and so many managers with their "helping hands" with little groups of new staff. Noted that Security are "dressed down" not sure if this was because it was pass holders only.

RIDECOUNT:

Nemesis Inferno x 3

Colossus x 2

Saw x 2

Rumba Rapids x1

.............................................................................Oh Yeah.............................Stealth x 23

[EC!]

For me it was a really good day, got lots done even with the new people being shown the ropes but here is my count.

1x Swarm Backwards

1x Swarm Forwards

1x X

1x Vortex

1x Quantum

1x Rocky Express

1x Loggers Leap

1x Rumba Rapids

1x Stealth

2x Colossus

2x Nemesis Inferno

2x Saw (unfortunately)

2x Rush

Gosh when I put it in a list it looks mad! good ride count!

[Han30]

An interesting day, mainly due to the changes in staff and so many managers with their "helping hands" with little groups of new staff. Noted that Security are "dressed down" not sure if this was because it was pass holders only.

RIDECOUNT:

Nemesis Inferno x 3

Colossus x 2

Saw x 2

Rumba Rapids x1

.............................................................................Oh Yeah.............................Stealth x 23

23 rides on Stealth :o strewth!

Thought I would edit and put a quick trip report up......

Had a brill day at Thorpe on Saturday although I was a tad anxious about getting the train as I have not been on a train on my own for a while but I was absolutely fine

Got to the park fairly early and ended up joining a mahoosive queue and got in at around 10.15ish. Was so good to be back! On the signs at the front of the park it said that it was closing at 4pm but they stayed open until 5 which was good.

Started off on Rush which I love even though it scares me senseless - even more so when my lap bar was playing up and a ride attendant had to sort it out with a key thing

Ride count for the day was:

1 x Rush

1 x Vortex

1 x Rumba

1 x Loggers Leap

1 x Quantum

1 x Rocky Express

2 x Saw

2 x Inferno

2 x Colossus

1 x Stealth

1 x Swarm forwards

1 x Swarm backwards (first time - and I felt fine!)

Slammer and Samurai were both closed - not that I was bothered about Slammer - there is no way on Earth I would ever get on that thing, but was a bit gutted about Samurai being closed as it is one of my fave flat rides.

Had really smooth rides on both Saw and Colossus during the morning - however, it was a completely different story in the afternoon where my head got smashed about a lot on Saw

Had a chuckle at the park map - especially after enjoying 2 rocket LUNCHES on Inferno - speaking of which, on our first ride, our row was creaking so badly I genuinely thought I was going to come flying out of it on the vertical loop.

Was great to meet up with some fellow TPM members on the day - some of which I haven't seen for what seems like aaaaages

The park had various shut downs during the day - whilst queuing for Inferno I assume someone had been ill on it as they had closed it for essential maintanance - nice! Vortex swing was odd - not nearly as high as last year (or maybe it was because it felt like we were spinning pretty quick) - the loading on that took what seemed like forever.

I can now compare Swarm forward vs backwards - I never thought I would ever go on the swarm backwards due to coming extremely close to being sick on XNWO years ago (and also sitting backwards on the train there made me feel a bit ill). But thanks to Flipper, Rich and EC I did it and am pleased that I have. I have to say that I prefer facing forwards because of the near misses but that drop when you are backwards is just.... :O - unique experience, and I would probably do it again.

Staff were friendly as ever - one recognised me from last year I went that many times!

Edited March 17, 2014 by Han30

[StevenVig]

I'm off to the opening day today, will report when I get back!

[J.S217]

I went on AP day and My ride count is

Nemesis Inferno X4

Colossus X2

Saw X1

The Swarm X3 once Backwards

X X2

Flying Fish X2

Stealth X1

Rush X1

Quantum X1

Rocky Express X1

Rumba Rapids X1

Loggers Leap X1

Depth Charge X1

Vortex X1

Over all a brilliant ride count and a fantastic Day

[StevenVig]

Visited the park yesterday and for an opening day I was quite surprised.

Reliability gets a massive thumbs up from me with only Vortex going down once, what I saw anyway. However, Inferno and Colossus were running on one train all day, queues wern't particularly long, I'd estimate about a 20 minute wait for Colossus, and up to 40 for Inferno. All other rides were generally walk on.

I have to say I was really excited to experience the changes made to X, and rightly so, the new lasers and placement of the LED Moving Heads has made the ride even more enjoyable. A Main floodlight was on during the ride, which meant you could see the trussing and floor, which detracted from the experience a little, but again still very enjoyable. Something to note is that the Bag Drop at the ride entrance is back in use, not sure if they have chosen to move it back permanently or not. The signage just before the station for the 2nd drop is still up, as is the storage units on the otherside of the wall.

It was nice to see a few touchups around the park, but some effects failed to work. The jets by the helicopter on The Swarm were off all day, as was the flame projector. The area music was off all day too, somebody is slacking somewhere! Inferno's mist is back and its the largest amount I've seen pumped out for a while, great effort from Thorpe there.

The Stealth Store is looking great, and I'm really pleased that they've chosen to theme it to the area, unlike some of the new retail units that have appeared recently. The new indoor fish and chips restaurant is taking shape nicely, but has significantly reduced the width of the path leading up to the Stealth Plaza. I suppose this isnt *too* much of an issue. The old Amity Fish & Chips is now serving Hotdog meals.

Staff wern't as lively as you'd have thought they would be for opening day. Some didnt say a word or change their expression at all. Bit more motivation needs to be dished out I reckon.

Not sure what more to add really, Samurai was testing significantly today, a video of which you can see below that I took. It's looking positive and hopefully will be due for re-opening again soon. I did notice it was having a small difficulty finding it's Zero Position, but was not as bad as it has proven to be in the past.

Overall, a great first day to the season, very pleased!

[James_C]

Was Slammer testing/open at all?

[OldFarmerDean]

Visited today

Stealth x3 (front row x1, back row x2)

The Swarm x3 (front row x2, backwards x1)

Colossus x1 (front row x1)

Saw x1 (front row - if that counts aha)

Nemesis x1 (front row x1)

X x2 (front row x1, back row x1)

Vortex, Quantum, Detonator, Storm Surge & Depth Charge x1

Rush x3

Loggers Leap, Rumba Rapids & Tidal Wave x2

Got let in 10 minutes early as we were annual pass holders and managed two goes on The Swarm (which had all effects but water working) before the park opened to the general public which was great. The rides seemed to be running really well with the only downtime I noticed was Rush towards the end of the day (but was running a nice cycle the 3 times I was on it), Vortex was shaking quite bad, but once it got going had quite a lengthy cycle and did eventually get just over 90degrees and sustained it. Max queue was probably about 20/25 minutes all day which happened to be for Colossus as it was running one train, which made it almost an hour queue for us waiting for front row, but guess was worth it, as it's the only place I'll ride it considering it's so rough (but I do enjoy the layout so have to ride it), both this and Saw gave me a bit of a headache, so no improvement there - Stealth & Nemesis Inferno (which didn't have any mist today, such a shame) were also only running one train which made front row queue a bit of a pain, but the normal queue was only about 10/15 minutes. Loved the improvements on X, although the music had far too much bass at times so couldn't even hear/recognise the song(s)! I swear The Swarm & Colossus seemed a lot faster this year, as well as Loggers Leap & Rumba Rapids being a lot wetter! Highlight of the day was Rush being walk on, and got two consecutive goes which I have never seen before, and as it's my favourite ride, yes I was very happy! Seen people in the control booth of Samurai but never seen it going all day, and nothing seemed to be happening around slammer whatsoever, which is a shame but hopefully we'll see it open this season at some point (preferably when I'm there aha!)

Bring on what looks to be another great year for Thorpe with all the nice little improvements and gradually bettering park operations, as well as Angry Birds 4D cinema and dodgems which are going to be great fun, and a well needed addition away from head-aching rollercoasters and sickening flat rides.

[StevenVig]

Was Slammer testing/open at all?

Slammer was shut and not testing all day, no surprise there....

[Coaster]

Sunday 23rd March

RIDECOUNT:

The Swarm x3

X x3

Rumba Rapids x3 (Not really sure why!)

Stealth x2

Nemesis Inferno x1

Saw: The Ride x1

Colossus x1

NIGGLES:

• One train operation on all major coasters until at least 1pm (apart from Stealth). Colossus didn't even go up to two trains at all.
• Slammer closed despite the park stating clearly that it was going to be open. Bollocks to that.
• X having the bag drop at the entrance is stupid, creates queues where there isn't really room for them.
• Very, very slow dispatches today, even once second trains had been added.
• Calypso BBQ took 20 minutes to queue (wasn't even that long), then 40 minutes for our food to arrive. Plus it was freezing cold!
• A member of staff went into the Asylum building today whilst we were in the Inferno shop and it has been turned into a lecture room with a screen
• Parkwide audio was awful today, lots of it not on and randomly coming on for 5 minutes then going off again. Sort it out! Also, no entrance theme!
• Smokers outside of designated zones, staff did nothing.

Apart from that, lovely day!

[JoshC.]

• A member of staff went into the Asylum building today whilst we were in the Inferno shop and it has been turned into a lecture room with a screen

You can't expect them to keep it sat there all the time gathering dust! If anything, it's a good thing they've changed it to a lecture room; shows the park are doing more things outside of just opening a theme park (probably to do with National Science Week judging from posters around park)

• Smokers outside of designated zones, staff did nothing

I've noticed that, despite designated smoking zones appearing on the map since 2012, such zones don't exist in real life. Something that really should be addressed consider the obvious shift in target market.

[Coaster]

You can't expect them to keep it sat there all the time gathering dust! If anything, it's a good thing they've changed it to a lecture room; shows the park are doing more things outside of just opening a theme park (probably to do with National Science Week judging from posters around park)

I've noticed that, despite designated smoking zones appearing on the map since 2012, such zones don't exist in real life. Something that really should be addressed consider the obvious shift in target market.

Haha fair enough about the Asylum comment, I was under the impression that it was usually left open.

I noticed today that there are designated smoking areas by Saw and on The Swarm island, there must be more and yet people aren't using them! Worse still, some people were smoking in queues!

[JoshC.]

I do think they used to just leave there (at least, that was the case a few years back, dunno about the past couple of years), but nonetheless, good to see they're making use of an otherwise empty space.

As for smoking areas, I didn't see any marked out yesterday, but the park do really need to clearly mark them, and ensure people are aware of them!

[Dan9]

Sunday 23rd March

RIDECOUNT:

The Swarm x3

X x3

Rumba Rapids x3 (Not really sure why!)

Stealth x2

Nemesis Inferno x1

Saw: The Ride x1

Colossus x1

NIGGLES:

• One train operation on all major coasters until at least 1pm (apart from Stealth). Colossus didn't even go up to two trains at all.
• Slammer closed despite the park stating clearly that it was going to be open. Bollocks to that.
• X having the bag drop at the entrance is stupid, creates queues where there isn't really room for them.
• Very, very slow dispatches today, even once second trains had been added.
• Calypso BBQ took 20 minutes to queue (wasn't even that long), then 40 minutes for our food to arrive. Plus it was freezing cold!
• A member of staff went into the Asylum building today whilst we were in the Inferno shop and it has been turned into a lecture room with a screen
• Parkwide audio was awful today, lots of it not on and randomly coming on for 5 minutes then going off again. Sort it out! Also, no entrance theme!
• Smokers outside of designated zones, staff did nothing.

Apart from that, lovely day!

Their PR machine would only say what knowledge is available to them at the time, which evidently was that Slammer should have been open by now. Surely using your better judgement would be better here, and with the knowledge Slammer has been closed every day this year why would you expect it to be open? As for staff, lots of weekenders will have been having their first days at work yesterday and today and whoever worked last weekend will still be getting trained on new rides and learning completely new skills. There's only so much they can do...

[alexander]

Haha fair enough about the Asylum comment, I was under the impression that it was usually left open.

I noticed today that there are designated smoking areas by Saw and on The Swarm island, there must be more and yet people aren't using them! Worse still, some people were smoking in queues!

As a smoker, I can honestly say I never noticed these. I did make sure I used the one by Inferno though But a massive no no to smoking in queues, I agree.

[Coaster]

Their PR machine would only say what knowledge is available to them at the time, which evidently was that Slammer should have been open by now. Surely using your better judgement would be better here, and with the knowledge Slammer has been closed every day this year why would you expect it to be open? As for staff, lots of weekenders will have been having their first days at work yesterday and today and whoever worked last weekend will still be getting trained on new rides and learning completely new skills. There's only so much they can do...

Maybe I was a little harsh - although to be honest when a park doesn't even open until the end of march you'd expect things to be sorted out.

[TPJames]

Haha fair enough about the Asylum comment, I was under the impression that it was usually left open.

I noticed today that there are designated smoking areas by Saw and on The Swarm island, there must be more and yet people aren't using them! Worse still, some people were smoking in queues!

I've noticed people smoking in queues before(especially nemesis inferno) despite the many signs around the queueline saying no to smoking. I think the park should be stricter on this rule to be honest as it is against the park policy and I don't think it is very nice to have your day spoilt by someone smoking into your face when you have to wait an hour for a ride. Anyway, that's just my opinion but if they have the rules there, I think they should enforce them: of course if they didn't have the rules there it would be a completely different matter as people would be ALLOWED to smoke in queues and there would be no reason to complain about it!

[Rollercoasterfan]

How long were the queues for the main rides when you went Coaster Jamie?

[Coaster]

How long were the queues for the main rides when you went Coaster Jamie?

Quite long to be honest, they weren't very bad in length but dispatch times were awful causing low throughputs.

For example, the queue on The Swarm was just past the queueline shop, and it took an hour.