Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[TPJames]

Had a relatively relaxed trip at Thorpe today... It was absolutely rammed though; 204 school coaches were present on site and the lady at guest services says that today had the most amount of school children they've seen this year so far.

Time in park: 10:30-5:45

The park became virtually dead with most rides going to 20minutes or less after 4pm... However before that 90-140minutes for the big rides was not uncommon.

Ride count:

Slammer x2

Detonator x3

Colossus x1

Nemesis inferno x1

Quantum x1

Rush x1

Saw x1

Stealth x1

Swarm x1

Total: 12

We got on more rides than I was initially expecting however one thing I want to point out is how inaccurate the queue boards are. This has been brought up a fair few times on the forums but the boards seemed more inaccurate than ever today:

-Saw displayed 60 and was announced by the operator that the wait was 75mins... We waited 35minutes.

-Stealth displayed 60 and was announced to be 100mins by the operator... We waited 45minutes.

-Zodiac displayed 5 on entering the queueline.. Must have been at least 30minutes.

-Vortex was displaying 25minutes however was coming to the entrance with most extensions open.

-Detonator said 25minutes on the main board however we must have waited about 40minutes.

These were only a few of the inaccurate waits however it clearly shows the point that they are either not updating the boards regularly enough or their predictions are currently very inaccurate and need to be modified.

[Coaster]

-Saw displayed 60 and was announced by the operator that the wait was 75mins... We waited 35minutes.

-Stealth displayed 60 and was announced to be 100mins by the operator... We waited 45minutes.

-Zodiac displayed 5 on entering the queueline.. Must have been at least 30minutes.

-Vortex was displaying 25minutes however was coming to the entrance with most extensions open.

-Detonator said 25minutes on the main board however we must have waited about 40minutes.

It's funny that Saw and Stealth (the ones with the massively inflated queue times) are the ones which will sell the most Fastrack, unlike the flats which probably wouldn't.

 

Was Reserve and Ride in operation out of interest?

[TPJames]

It's funny that Saw and Stealth (the ones with the massively inflated queue times) are the ones which will sell the most Fastrack, unlike the flats which probably wouldn't.

Was Reserve and Ride in operation out of interest?

Nope, just standard and fastrack lines in operation; But surprisingly barely any people fastracking at all today, the lines to buy fastrack were huge but there were barely any people actually fastracking the lines for the coasters. I presume this is due to the fact that teenagers don't have as much cash to splash on fastrack tickets.

(Also a staff member tried to sell us fastrack at the nemesis inferno entrance when the queue board said 40minutes and we only waited 15minutes to get on!!- The fastrackers were entering the back of the main queue line at the merge point!)

[Ian-S]

Sorry to go slightly OT but at the fast track merge point on the stairs of inferno, you're saying it's about a 15 minute wait?

[Coaster]

(Also a staff member tried to sell us fastrack at the nemesis inferno entrance when the queue board said 40minutes and we only waited 15minutes to get on!!- The fastrackers were entering the back of the main queue line at the merge point!)

And yet people on here claim that they don't do that sort of thing. I'm sorry but how anyone can defend that is beyond me, it's blatant manipulation of the queue time to sell Fastrack.

Absolutely disgusting to be employing people to rob money from guests, I'm sorry but it's nothing better than stealing to be honest.

[TPJames]

Sorry to go slightly OT but at the fast track merge point on the stairs of inferno, you're saying it's about a 15 minute wait?

When the stairs are full it is about 10-15 minutes when the ride is operating two trains.

(Taken from personal experience).

[Ian-S]

When the stairs are full it is about 10-15 minutes when the ride is operating two trains.

(Taken from personal experience).

Thanks, I always try to have a mental note of queue length points and times, but I've been lucky and never had to queue for inferno

[Benin]

And yet people on here claim that they don't do that sort of thing. I'm sorry but how anyone can defend that is beyond me, it's blatant manipulation of the queue time to sell Fastrack.

Absolutely disgusting to be employing people to rob money from guests, I'm sorry but it's nothing better than stealing to be honest.

 

People on here don't deny that this happens at all...

 

It's the misconception that the ride and sales teams work together to create this falsehood of longer queues to sell Fastrack... I'd wager that the majority of the rides team members would rather see Fastrack removed completely, rather than deliberately assist them to sell more... Why would the rides team even care, it's not their performance targets...

[Ian-S]

Well just got back, not a fast track seller in sight

Time on park 7.30 to 10pm

Ride count: 21

Colossus x3
Saw x3
Detonator x1
x x1

Fish x1

Swarm x3

Stealth x4

Inferno x4

Storm surge x1 (I know! wife was looking bored so we gave her something to laugh about).

 

Summer Night really are the best kept secret of theme parks, everything was walk on and all our multiple rides were re-rides, with the exception of Stealth where we walked through the station gate, and Swarm where we had to jump through the air gates to get to the cattle pens (much to the annoyance of the ride op when one girl inadvertantly got herself trapped in one, funny thing was she wasn't even doing what we were and was just chatting to her friend while they picked up their bags lol) , my wife was talking to one of the ride ops who had been there from 9am and she said at one point people were waiting 2 hours for rides during the day, madness.

 

After the concert everybody in that headed for Colossus and X, so we went to Swarm, as they came over to Swarm we went to Stealth, both times 5-10 minute queues built up, we had a bit of a laugh playing queue pingpong to avoid them hehe.

 

Still don't know who Little Mix is.

[TPJames]

Out of interest... Were the rollercoasters on one or two trains this evening?

Last year, they would remove the second trains before summer nights began to save money as the second trains weren't needed whatsoever.

[Ian-S]

Single train on Colossus, Stealth, Inferno, not sure about X but it was more than one (could have been 3) and I'm pretty sure I counted 5 cars on Saw, I never saw a full train all night and I had a car to myself on Saw

[Han30]

Think I overheard a member of staff mention X being on 3 trains this evening

Went this afternoon/evening and had a fab time -

X x 2

Rush x 1

Quantum x 2

Colossus x 3

slammer x 1

Loggers x 1

saw x 3

Rocky express(!) X 1

Mr monkeys banana ride x 1

inferno x 3

Stealth x 3

Rumba x 3

Swarm x 4

Flying fish finger x 1

Nice quiet evening - really good staff (one who helped assist me calm my nieces nerves before her first ride on Swarm)

Loggers water tastes and smelt like fish - yummy

Discovered a new ride buddy in the form of my nieces 11 year old friend who had no fear on anything and actually talked about theming and atmosphere of some of the rides - was a bit apprehensive about taking her on Saw but she was desperate to go on and she remembered every single detail of the ride and it is her joint favourite along with Swarm (same as me). Was concerned that Billy might scare her but I made light of it and she was more concerned about the pigeons on the way back into the station

My sister hadn't been to the park since 2003 and didn't look too shocked about the paintwork on Colossus?! She said that she prefers the atmosphere at Chessie but then she has visited CWOA a lot more

Bargain stealth drinks bottles for £1.....£1!

Oh and we saw a group of boys who looked about 12 swamped with teenage girls - no idea who they were but I took a pic because I am nosey

[Ian-S]

Oh so that's that little characters name.

Never seen the films myself, too old for that stuff.

[Han30]

Do you mean Billy? That thing used to freak me out a lot to the point where it gave me a panic attack on one occasion! I hadn't see the Saw films until 2 years ago and after riding Saw many times. They are a bit, no a lot gory but pretty good if you are into that sort of thing.

[Ian-S]

Yeah, billy the puppet, I just googled him, he freaks my son out too, he won't go on the ride now.

I'll take a pass on the film too, the original Cary and Friday 13th series are the exent of my horror film experiences.

[Han30]

Billy is kinda scary although I have a pic of him on my living room wall along with a ton of ride pics/maps etc.

When I took my nieces friend on Saw for the first time (she is 11) we got the second train which stops next to Billy so I was a bit worried - she was totally fine with it but got a bit scared later on when it was getting dark. I know there is a recommendation that people are 12 or over but she was desperate to go on it and I've seen kids that look younger than her on it before. Yeah I'm not a massive fan of horrors as I scare easily - I won't name the film but I watched one (not sure if it is horror as it was more gory than anything) and I felt so ill I couldn't even drink anything as I was convinced I would bring it back up again. I don't understand people who watch gory films while packing away a load of food!

[Matt 236]

Ok, so I've just had a two day extravaganza weekend at thorpe with the wonderful members of TPM and my first ever lift hill walk (more to come on that later).

Day 1 (TPM meet & MOS)

Busyness- moderate

Ride count/

Colossus

Inferno

Stealth

Saw

Swarm

X 2

Rush

Vortex

Detty

Fish

Teacups

Dodgems

Rumba

Loggers

Rocky 2x

Depth Charge

I'm a Celebrity

Banana boat

Mos

Colossus

Saw 2x

Inferno 3x

X 3x

Swarm 1x

Stealth

Pros

Operations were generally very good

Colossus paint up looks better

The new added theming a bits in the park look great

WC16

TPM fun

Fish & chips were better than Chessie's

Thorpe at night is lush

Saw reopen

Rush's cycle being slightly longer

Being held on Detty longer (getting good wc16 views)

I really liked the ministry part

Tpm being drunk (was great fun and worth a round of applause)

Amity kebabs are ok (much nicer than quite a few of your typical town centre late night ones)

SNAKEBITES!

TPM being drunk

Cons

Saw not having its effects on at the start of the day (they were on later though)

I bashed my head on the slide of IAC (giving me yet another headache that weekend)

Colossus night was incredibly rough (my first ride on saw was quite rough but this was worse)

X's music was a bit too quiet

Inferno was not quite as reliable as it normally is

Samurai was dead

The pathway near vortex being closed

No discount for alcohol for MOS

Iac's throughput is dire

Losing 80% of my chips (kebab) due to bad handling (I still ate them though)

Day 2

Unsurprisingly I woke up with a fair bit of a headache (which wasn't at all surprising). Most people would probably just take it easy and watch TV all day. But me? Of course not, as I was going to have another epic day Thorpe Park! (Not to mention my lift hill walk)

Doing inferno, saw & Colossus at the start of the day (because you can tell I take it easy after w night drinking) I had lunch at Fin's before meeting the remaining Tpmers on park who quite a few I think we're a lot more hungover than I was where we had a few relaxing rides together before most went home and I did a bit of my own thing then rejoined the few around before then going my lift walk.

Busyness Moderste

Ride count

Inferno 3x

Swarm 2x

Colossus

Stealth

X 2x

Saw 2x

Quantum

Loggers

Storm surge

Detonator

Pros

Operations generally good

My 'relaxing' Rapids ride with 'hungover' tpm

Inferno burger at fins was great (today was inferno day by the looks)

Saws effects worked

I'm getting in to the teacups new music gradually

Cons

Storm surge's views of WC16 weren't as good as I had hoped

Inferno's mist was noticeably weaker than it was Saturday

Vortex loading

Having a headache Sunday morning (somewhat expected though)

Samurai still dead

Rumba in its current state is quite a disappointment

I really enjoyed thorpe park last weekend and despite the Sunday headache (which was gone by 12 anyway) was one of my favourite trips do far. Don't think I'll be leaving it four months for my next visit.

[EC!]

This is probably the wrong place to put this but I don't suppose anyone wants to meet up with me on Friday or Sunday. And to those that I invited on the fb page, I accidentally deleted it, I still want to go

[Cal]

Wednesday 29th July

 

Rides closed all day: Slammer  , Samurai

Rides that opened at 11ish: Saw, Stealth, Loggers, Rocky express, Angry birds 4d, Dodgems, Quantum, Tidal Wave, Colossus also broke down at 10ish and reopened at 11ish. We got no early ride time as rides weren't ready, and the rides that were available at 9:30 was ridiculous.

All coasters were on 2 trains, X was also back on 2 trains, and tidal was on 2 boats.

 

Ride count: 36 

Link: http://ridecount.com/browse/trip/15195

 

Pros:

Park was pretty quiet, didn't expect to get re-rides in the Summer holiday 

All of Storm Surges effects were working!? Haven't seen them on since it opened.

Dettys speakers have been repositioned and was playing very loud so you can hear the count down at the top. Created a very good atmosphere around the ride as well.

Vortex running very well again and music back.

They've done a lot of work on WC16  

Angry birds 4d show time countdown was very useful, and is very accurate.

Coke Freestyle was very cool, flavours I didn't know existed like Coke Orange? I made a mix of Coke, Fanta and Cloudy Lemonade which was actually very nice!  

 

Cons:

Slammer was closed all day AGAIN. Was teasing me by testing all day 

No music on Rush, Quantum and Zodiac, Dodgems and no entrance music. Creates a dull atmosphere.

None of the Swarms effects were on and no mist on Inferno.

Very weird incident happened on IAC but that'll not be shared on here.

Rush wasn't running well. It was very out of time all day, and 1 swing was going a lot higher than the other.

Got stuck on Colossus  

Staff were very blunt/unfriendly compared to normal. 

Lots of breakdowns.

Lots of rides opened late and no early ride time.

Queue time boards were very inaccurate on most rides, and a few queue time boards weren't working/turned off.

 

I know inaccurate queue time boards and selling fast tracks get brought up a lot, but I saw something yesterday which is completely unacceptable and I think should be brought up. Inferno was advertised as a 15 minute queue but the queue was empty and you could walk straight into the station. With the queue being empty there was still a member of staff standing at the merge point accepting fast tracks of people, so people that had paid for fast tracks were waiting the same amount of time as people in the main queue. Why on earth was this member of staff still accepting fast tracks knowing there wasn't a main queue annoys me.

 

This sounds like a very negative report but all true and still had a good day 

[Mattgwise]

Strange as I was there Tuesday and the staff were really friendly and seemed to be having fun. Quantum and Dodgems were both playing music and loudly on Tuesday as well. The fire was also working on Swarm, although the mist and fountains were not. Goes to show how inconsistent the park is with multiple factors and each day can be totally different.

[Cal]

Strange as I was there Tuesday and the staff were really friendly and seemed to be having fun. Quantum and Dodgems were both playing music and loudly on Tuesday as well. The fire was also working on Swarm, although the mist and fountains were not. Goes to show how inconsistent the park is with multiple factors and each day can be totally different.

 

I normally find the staff really friendly, but they just weren't

 

Yeah that is strange, it makes such a difference without the music though especially on Quantum.

 

The Swarm did have long periods of downtime throughout the day so all the effects were probably off as they never got reset after it went down? 

[Daniel.S312]

14th August

 

I went with my brother Slendermanjake.

 

Here is our ride counts for the day -

 

Saw x2

Swarm x1

Colossus x1

Nemesis Inferno x1

X (x4)

Depth Charge x1

Tidal Wave x1

Loggers Leap x1

Storm Surge x1

Dodgems x4

Slammer x1

Vortex x1

Quantum x1

Rocky Express x1

 

Pros - Very quite day on park no queues really exceeding 20-25 mins, Used reserve and ride and had a nice relaxful day without having to rush around, Pizza Pasta was very nice first visit there since it was Pizza Hut (Even Spicy Beef now has BBQ) also got a nice Stealth Resin and Stealth drink bottle.

 

Cons - Saw closed a couple of times, Storm Surge kept getting stuck on the lift hill,I'm a Celeb the Cyclone/Slide was still shut. Samurai still taken apart pretty much no signs of activity (Me even thinks it could be sent off to Mondial for another refurb and sent back to Chessie), 

 

Apart from it raining some of the afternoon was a great day.

[Matt10]

15 August (Sat)

Rides:

(RnR) Stealth x3

(RnR)Nemesis Inferno x2

(RnR)Saw The Ride x2

(RnR)The Swarm x2

(RnR)Colossus x1

IAC x1

Mr Monkeys Banana Boat x1

Rumba Rapids x2

Storm in a Teacup x1

Dodgems x1

Detonator x1

Tidal Wave x1

Flying Fish x1

X x2

Quantum x2

Vortex x1

Zodiac x1

Rush x1

Loggers Leap x2

Slammer x2

Pros:

-Got 10 rides from RnR

-Good Throughputs and capacity generally

-Despite bad reliability on rides, the park operations were good on tides such as loggers leap which at about 1:30 dye to flooding and had more problems later on.

-The park had a few minor improvements in places.

-Nearly got on every ride that was open.

-Staff being really pleasant and nice and helpful, especially the guy on RnR on Colossus before normal park close.

Cons:

-Colossus on one train, wouldn't normally mind this but this year it was like it for a few months and has gone back, whereas last year it was mainly two trains, meaning that about half an hour before park close you could stay on.

-The park hours seem a lot less then last year.

- Losing my phone on X and have to collect it from lost and found as my zipped pocket broke without me noticing and my phone ended up in the bottom of the train which led to me missing an RnR on Nemesis Inferno.

-Colossus looks like a complete mess with the new and old paint mixed together.

-Samurai completely dead looking like its going to be leaving.

-Nemesis Inferno Misters not working and IAC audio playing in the station about 10 seconds before dispatch.

-Reliability of the rides as many broke down and big rides failed to open on time.

[Cal]

Saturday 29th August

 

One of the best days I've had at Thorpe. Was there from 9:30 till 7:30. 

 

Colossus opened on 1 train and the second got added around 1. X was on 3, Saw was on 8 and everything else was opened on  2.

Stealth opened around 1 as they were doing stuff to the launch breaks all morning but everything else opened when it was meant to, and the only thing I saw breakdown was Swarm at 5ish.

 

Although I wanted to go to Summer Nights I couldn't so originally planned to be picked up at 6, but was getting picked up slightly later so bought a £5 annual pass ticket. Even though I was only there for an hour and a half of Summer Nights it was still so worth it, wish I could've stayed for the whole event but I probably will next year. 

 

Ride count: 

Stealth x8

X x5

Inferno x4

Swarm x4

Saw x4

Slammer x4

Detty x4

Colossus x3

Rush x3

Vortex x2

Fish x1

Storm Surge x1

IAC x1

Dodgems x1

Rocky x1

Zodiac x1

Loggers x1

Rumba x1

 

Total: 49!

 

Pros:

-Finally got on Slammer this season  It didn't close all day and the staff were great, best operations I have seen on it.

-I expected the park to be a lot busier.

-Had a very good run on IAC, our actor was great.

-Vortex single rider queue was very useful, no one knew it existed. The staff didn't expect it either, they just asked me if I had fast track or an exit pass.

-They've done a lot of work on WC16 since a month ago  

-Operations were amazing, and all the staff were very friendly. 

-Saw was very smooth and seemed more forceful.

-Swarm seemed very forceful, I'm liking it more and more each time I go.

-7 re-rides on Stealth at Summer Nights, op was very funny and the staff were great, they made effort to send out the trains quick even when they weren't full.

-Met union J and sat behind them on Stealth   

-X was running 3 trains at Summer Nights and had a train to ourselves 

 

Cons:

-No early ride time again.

-Pop music at the entrance. Theres either pop music or nothing, what happened to the entrance music? 

-Rush wasn't running well. It was very out of time all day, and 1 swing was going a lot higher than the other.

-Still areas in the park with no audio, and some playing audio very quietly.

[Kerfuffle]

Better get my FN report in!

Ride Count:

SAW: x1

Stealth: x2

Detonator: x1

Teacups: x1

X: x1

Rumba Rapids: x1

Maze Count:

SAW Alive: x2

My Bloody Valentine: x2

Cabin In The Woods: x2

The Big Top: x2

Blair Witch Project: x1

Pros:

- MBV was actually a lot better than expected.

- SAW Alive and BWP were absolutely fantastic in comparison to last year. SAW actors were really going for it!

Cons:

- The Big Top was rather poor today...although the second run was only a little better, as it saw more actors and strobes etc.

- Cabin was too dark at times, but otherwise a good maze still.