Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[planenut]

Went to Thorpe Park yesterday, Friday, and it was a "fright night" event, which meant that for an extra £5 I got an evenings riding as well, as I don't do mazes etc..

First thing in the morning it was foggy and fantastic to ride Stealth up into the "clouds", I imagine like being on the outside of an aeroplane in cloud. As the fog dispersed, one could see the bank of it, yet see over it. The day was pretty sunny, yet cool in the shade. In the evening session, I noticed that as it became just very slightly misty, the shadow of Stealth was cast by the flood lights on that mist, weird, and could only be seen when going over the top-hat.

Then spotted the space station going over and able to point that out to people around me, who like most others, are oblivious to it's existence.

Oh, the park, yes well during the day, not too busy; in the evening it did become busier which was not helped by SWARM going down for most of the evening, and they had tested five trains by the time the park closed at 10p.m., and I think Nemesis Inferno had some down time too.

[Whiteknuckle]

Nemesis Inferno did have some downtime yesterday, think someone had dropped a phone or something like that. Down for maybe 20 minutes or so. Good to see you yesterday on Stealth, Planenut.

 

Colossus x1

NI x1

Saw, the ride x1

Swarm x4

Stealth x3

X x1

Rush x1

 

Oh yes, loving the Fright Night dispatch announcements on Colossus and Stealth, and the station music on Inferno.

[planenut]

Nemesis Inferno did have some downtime yesterday, think someone had dropped a phone or something like that. Down for maybe 20 minutes or so. Good to see you yesterday on Stealth, Planenut.

 

Colossus x1

NI x1

Saw, the ride x1

Swarm x4

Stealth x3

X x1

Rush x1

 

Oh yes, loving the Fright Night dispatch announcements on Colossus and Stealth, and the station music on Inferno.

Good to see you again Whiteknuckle, not sure if you came back to Stealth later, it was difficult spotting people in the dark.

 

The dispatch message was okay, I'm not sure about the arrival on the return though.

 

(Say "Hi" to your Mum)

[Matt 236]

Went to Thorpe today and was possibly my worst trip there for 4 years years, at least from an operational point of view, lots of ride breakdowns, mixed operations and many rides shut down completely at the end of the night including Colossus, X, Slammer, Swarm & depth charge, there was 14 rides closed by the end of the night before closing.

Mazes were very hit and miss.

Big Top

was shockingly poor today, waited 2 hours due to breakdown and the tunthrough severely lacked the greatness of Thursday's preview, even Blair Witch mk1 was better. 3/10

Cabin

Best maze by a long shot, actors were on a roll and really in character. 10/10

Containment

Proper good attraction, really felt involved in the games which involved people sorting puzzles, a bit like an escape room with some live/scare actors in really. Just about worth the £8. 8/10

Blair Witch

As good as preview night, actors are very good but the light of WC16 ruined settings a little, though couldn't be helped really. 7/10

Saw Alive

Much better this year, really grown to this maze this year which may be my second favourite now. 8.5/10

Did some BTS with southpark on Saw Alive & Big Top and was really interesting seeing the mazes and vsn definitely appreciate them more especially the former and interesting the changes the maze has gone through since its existence. Was a good event.

Also got an evac from Cabin too which was interesting how everything suddenly stopped and the actors going from scaring you to going out of character and guiding you to the exit.

Overall some good bite but some negative bits too, going back in a weeks time for the meet which will probe be my final trip this year due to major commitments, so hopefully ride operations will be much better as a whole, the BTS, cabin, containment and company made up for what doodle otherwise been a terrible day.

[Kerfuffle]

Also got an evac from Cabin too which was interesting how everything suddenly stopped and the actors going from scaring you to going out of character and guiding you to the exit.

Oddly enough I got an evac from BWP Friday night, and it was just hilarious to do the exact same thing all over again afterwards!

Talk about "Take 2" around a movie theme.

[Cal]

FN trip report here - http://forum.maniahub.com/blog/53/entry-725-fright-nights-2015/

 

Does contain spoilers.

[pognoi]

^ Clearly you and I were at a different park yesterday.

 

Ride operations were fab overall, I don't remember waiting more then 15 minutes for any ride (and this was X, I'm fairly sure all others besides inferno were near enough walk on).

Swarm had slow dispatch times because there were less then 50 people in the station. Understandably there wasn't any need to really rush. This was similar with Stealth and Colossus, Colossus was walk on from about 6 (maybe even beforehand!)

Whilst I did enter the park at around 1, I had no problems at all throughout my day with ride operations or maze ops. The only thing I'd say is we didn't do saw because the queue was a half hour, where as everything else was half that. 

 

Did big top twice, both times I didn't wait for more then 20 minutes. 

Cabins queue was similarly short, advertised as 60 but ended up being about 20 as well, same with blair witch and MBV. Saw alive also proved popular much like the ride, and had a longer queue, so I skipped it.

 

Our run throughs were amazing. Those who were there at the meet yesterday I'm sure would agree. Blair witch properly scared me, we found a nice route through cabin where the actors were very interactive, and the final run through of big top (WHICH WAS WITH YOU) was so good I find it unbelievable you haven't mentioned it. The actors stroked our faces, and sort of.... caressed them, they didn't just go up to us with 2 fingers and poked our eyes like you make out. I was literally right behind you so I saw what happened. I thought big top was truly amazing, and is now probably my favourite maze due to how good it was last night. A good amount of actors, good scares, and a fantastic use of props and scenes. The use of touching was also creepily good.

 

I'm glad I have finally done something the same as you because I now know what you say can be exaggerated into a negative light of unfairness. If you refer to the final run of big top then Boo you.

 

Ride count:

1 x Colossus

1 x Flying Fish

2 x Nemesis Inferno

1 x Stealth

2 x The Swarm

3 x X

1 x Mr Monkeys Banana Ride

1 x Vortex

1 x Cabin in the Woods

1 x My Bloody Valnetine

1 x The Blair Witch Project

1 x Big Top

 

 

PS. We too had a high volume of queue jumpers and smokers, however I believe nearly all of the occasions an operator or attendant addressed the incident. 

[Ian-S]

Queue jumpers should be kicked out the park, no exceptions, let them kick up a stick on twitter then have the social team say 'those are the rules if you are unhappy about being ejected, perhaps you shouldn't have queue jumpedn the first place then we wouldn't be having this conversation'.

I can dream right?

[Coaster]

^ Clearly you and I were at a different park yesterday.

 

Ride operations were fab overall, I don't remember waiting more then 15 minutes for any ride (and this was X, I'm fairly sure all others besides inferno were near enough walk on).

Swarm had slow dispatch times because there were less then 50 people in the station. Understandably there wasn't any need to really rush. This was similar with Stealth and Colossus, Colossus was walk on from about 6 (maybe even beforehand!)

Whilst I did enter the park at around 1, I had no problems at all throughout my day with ride operations or maze ops. The only thing I'd say is we didn't do saw because the queue was a half hour, where as everything else was half that. 

 

Did big top twice, both times I didn't wait for more then 20 minutes. 

Cabins queue was similarly short, advertised as 60 but ended up being about 20 as well, same with blair witch and MBV. Saw alive also proved popular much like the ride, and had a longer queue, so I skipped it.

 

Our run throughs were amazing. Those who were there at the meet yesterday I'm sure would agree. Blair witch properly scared me, we found a nice route through cabin where the actors were very interactive, and the final run through of big top (WHICH WAS WITH YOU) was so good I find it unbelievable you haven't mentioned it. The actors stroked our faces, and sort of.... caressed them, they didn't just go up to us with 2 fingers and poked our eyes like you make out. I was literally right behind you so I saw what happened. I thought big top was truly amazing, and is now probably my favourite maze due to how good it was last night. A good amount of actors, good scares, and a fantastic use of props and scenes. The use of touching was also creepily good.

 

I'm glad I have finally done something the same as you because I now know what you say can be exaggerated into a negative light of unfairness. If you refer to the final run of big top then Boo you.

No, we waited 45 minutes for The Swarm, and I think it stacked with every single train.  Just because it had a short queue when you went on it, doesn't mean it did all day.

 

Similarly with Colossus, it went down to near walk-on until they closed off two sections of the train (so three in total), at which point the queue built up again very quickly.

 

Nemesis Inferno should have been walk-on by 9pm as the queue was just inside the station, however it was stacking for up to 40 seconds on each train meaning that I didn't get the re-rides I wanted.  I know there wasn't a huge queue, but there was still a queue so they should have been trying to shift it.

 

Saw Alive had a long queue because the queue was being batched unfairly in favour of Fastrack, although we managed to catch it with a short queue near closing (but unfortunately it took 30 minutes due to an E-stop).

 

 

Our run throughs were amazing. Those who were there at the meet yesterday I'm sure would agree. Blair witch properly scared me, we found a nice route through cabin where the actors were very interactive, and the final run through of big top (WHICH WAS WITH YOU) was so good I find it unbelievable you haven't mentioned it.

I had already commented on The Big Top's improvement in the FN 2015 topic, although admittedly I did forget to put it in the TR (but I didn't think it was that good to be honest, but it was a big improvement on lst week!)

 

The actors stroked our faces, and sort of.... caressed them, they didn't just go up to us with 2 fingers and poked our eyes like you make out. I was literally right behind you so I saw what happened. I thought big top was truly amazing, and is now probably my favourite maze due to how good it was last night. A good amount of actors, good scares, and a fantastic use of props and scenes. The use of touching was also creepily good.

 

The eye incidents were not on that run-through, it happened earlier on in the day on The Big Top and in My Bloody Valentine just before we did TBT at the end.  They were definitely accidental, but should not have happened!  (In My Bloody Valentine, the actor made a grab for my brother's face and ended up prodding him in the eye and in The Big Top I'm not actually sure what happened, but it was in the dark room with the red carts and the actor had a teddy, so it could have been the teddy which hit me in the eye - either way, it hurt a lot!)

[Project LC]

 

The day started with us renewing our passes.

Sigh... 

[Mark9]

Another year of near constant Thorpe bashing. Still, at least you found two positives.

[Kerfuffle]

PS. We too had a high volume of queue jumpers and smokers, however I believe nearly all of the occasions an operator or attendant addressed the incident. 

Queue jumpers. When we were queueing for SAW Alive last night (around 8:15), there were a whole bunch of teenage jerks behind us who would CONSTANTLY (and I do mean constantly) ask us if they can go in front of us! I'm sorry, but that is not on! Ejected from the park? No! People like this lot deserve to be banned from visiting the park altogether.

 

Anyway, do excuse me for ranting. They eventually got fed up with waiting and finally left the queue via the revolving gate that alters the extension queue route. This was my reaction to their departure.

[JoshC.]

It's not "bashing" for the sake of it though, they are valid complaints.  Why would they be getting so many bad reviews on social media sites, 1 star reviews on sites like Tripadvisor and complaints on park if everything was perfect?

 

I really don't get this "Thorpe can do no wrong" attitude.

 

But where are the valid compliments?  

 

I mean no offence here, but this is what I don't get about you.  

 

You write a trip report, which has three good comments - one saying that the first few hours on park were good, one about MBV having a quick-moving queue and another saying that Cabin was good (though the latter is quite a back-handed compliment, since you mention that you had "no issues" with the way things were managed, almost as if you were expecting there to be issues?).  The rest of your trip report is essentially a rant about loads of different things about the park.

 

And this is the thing - that's not uncommon with how you post on here.  With Thorpe in particular, but also Merlin as a whole, you seem to be constantly pointing out the negatives, something making a fuss out of the most menial of things, and just generally making yourself out as someone who doesn't enjoy visiting the park(s).  Yes, you occasionally post about good things that happen, but only occasionally.  

 

But then after all this moaning, you still visit and already decide to the hand over more money and more loyalty to Merlin.  It doesn't add up.  You portray yourself as someone who hates Merlin and doesn't support what they are doing, and yet you hand over your loyalty to them.  I just don't get it - do you actually genuinely enjoy visiting these places, but use the forums as a place to rant about all things they do wrong?  Or do you actually just hate the place, but go out of habit / for something to do?  

[JoshC.]

You've completely missed the point of my post.  Your trip report highlights how all of your posts read, all of the time.  

 

 

The thing is, there really wasn't much to compliment them on yesterday IMO.

If that's your opinion, then fair enough. Not having a go at you for that. But in general, most of your posts just complaint after complaint after complaint. Can't you see that after all those complaints, it's easy to question why you visit the park? It simply makes it out like you don't enjoy the park.

 

So slow dispatches, 80% Fastrack ratios, terribly managed entrance queues and out-of-character actors are not valid complaints then?

A typo on my behalf there, I meant 'sometimes', not 'something'. But my point was you sometimes complaint about the most menial of things. I'm not saying those complaints are invalid, nor are any of your complaints, but some of ones you make are just so small and petty.

I post about good things when they happen.  I'm not going to compliment them for things like having rides on two trains, that should be the case anyway IMO.

I'm not saying you should compliment them for getting the basics right. But it just feels like there's very few things you do compliment them about. And if that's the case, are you really enjoying the park?

 

I have already explained this.  As soon as I am able to visit abroad parks then I will be, but at the moment it makes sense to renew my Merlin parks seeing as Thorpe is virtually on my doorstep (okay not quite, it's 40 minutes away) and I do enjoy visiting.  If I really didn't care about the place then why would I even bother posting at all?  I want to see the park operate better, is that really such a bad thing?

I'm not mentioning anything about visiting parks abroad. My point is nothing about visiting parks or anything like that. I have no doubt that when you can visit new parks, you will, and you will enjoy them

My point is - the way your posts come across is that you're either:

1) A person who loves visiting the parks, but mentions only the negatives 90% of the time.

2) Someone who only visits the parks as something to do, and gets very little out of actually visiting them.

Again, I have no doubt that you're the first of those two. But reading some of your posts. it can genuinely feel like you're the latter...

[SteveJ]

I don't think you should be getting so much criticism for voicing negative opinions, even if you always seem to constantly, I don't think you're over exaggerating ALL that much to be honest. There are some fans out there who really just com - plain unjustifiably and you're not really in that bag. A lot of your complaints are mildly put rather than angry, and just seem to come down to perception.

But really, stop visiting if you have that much of a bad experience. Just stop visiting, If you then find that you actually miss the park, it means you do like it really.

[Mark9]

It's not "bashing" for the sake of it though, they are valid complaints.  Why would they be getting so many bad reviews on social media sites, 1 star reviews on sites like Tripadvisor and complaints on park if everything was perfect?

 

I really don't get this "Thorpe can do no wrong" attitude.

 

I'm the first to say something when a place or a thing annoys me, I certainly don't have a Thorpe can do no wrong attitude. The difference is, I'm constructive. Majority of your posts read like you just really hate the place and are only going to have a good old moan about it. Trip advisor reporters probably don't start their comments with 'I bought an annual pass even though I've visited a lot this year and really think its run badly'.

[MattyMoo]

I was saying elsewhere - my visit to Thorpe on Sunday was my first in a year and a half - which meant I actually was genuinely excited about visiting, I was like a kid driving up the A3 and M25 and then doing the usual looking-at-the-rides-from-the-road across the empty Thorpe car park

 

Sure, there were a few niggles - Slammer she ded, Samurai unavailable (not that I ride it anyway ), Fasttrack oversell and E Stops on Saw Alive making the queue take ages and exaggerating of queue times on the mazes purely for Fasttrack upsell (no way was Cabin 120 mins, it was about 20 at 4pm when we went on)

 

BUT.... all that aside - I loved being back on Stealth, and riding Stealth & Swarm in the dark was all kinds of awesome. Big Top I was very impressed by, thought it was fantastic... Fear It Alone Big Top even more so.... Containment impressed me greatly too and was enjoyable and different, and I commend TP for that!

In short - I was pretty darn happy with my single visit to Thorpe Park this year!

[Mitchada04]

Minus the mess with Saw Alive and its horrid queue (Big Top had a big queue but the batching was actually in a good balance to Fastrack) and the overestimating maze queues (sometimes not due to Fastrack but just because they're impossible to guess) the park was fine all day. I didn't see a single ride close (not saying they didn't but there wasn't anything major) and the longest ride queue being 45 minutes on a relatively busy FN is pretty good I'd say. Okay you couldn't reride, so? The park isn't meant to be dead enough for you to reride, and I tell you now even if they weren't stacking at the times you said Jamie you wouldn't have been able to reride as there was a constant flow of people. Inferno at 9pm on two trains, little stacking there was still someone waiting for each row. 

 

Roaming actors were great, security was doing a great job at dealing with the crowd that FN sundays draw and so on. Was one of the better visits of the year that's for sure. 

[Deleted Users]

There was stacking on Inferno.... When it was walk on and the staff looked absolutely exhausted. I'm not one to give Thorpe an easy time at all but waiting an extra 30 seconds a train is not a big deal when it's walk on.

[Benin]

When you're starting to pick days that you assume will be quiet (is Thorpe EVER quiet now?), then you're clearly not enjoying the park, otherwise you'd just go whenever you felt like it...

 

You're not the only one sick of repetition here... Especially given that your highlighted issues are rather consistent throughout the year...

[JoshC.]

Is anyone planning at being on Thorpe on Tuesday?

 

I'm going for a few hours in the evening, so I can do Face it Alone, but wouldn't like to face the queues alone beforehand! 

[Jammy3112]

Thorpe Park - Friday 18th March 2016

 

Last friday, my friends and I decided to get our first trip of the season out the way by visiting Thorpe Park. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype I had built up in my own mind.

 

Positive =

 

+ Very quiet, not much queuing was done

+ Double figure ride count

+ Derren Brown's Ghost Train looks amazing from the outside

 

Negatives =

 

- Colossus & Rush closed (warned before hand, so not so bad)

- Saw closed, testing all day

- Nemesis Inferno, Swarm and X, all shut multiple times due to "Essential Cleaning"

- Not much "revamping" done over closed season

 

Now, before I start getting told that I'm bashing Thorpe over silly little things, I am aware that maybe my expectations were too high for 2nd day of the season. HOWEVER, looking at the effort that has gone into sorting out Alton Towers resort, I couldn't help but feel Thorpe had been left in a poor state. Whilst I understand that Alton Towers has a complete nightmare to try and come back from with the Smiler, I feel like a bit more could have been invested in Thorpe Park's up keep too. A Colossus repaint is sorely over due, and has been for a few years now. It's looking so tired and rusty. Personally I think that in the next closed season, Thorpe Park needs to start making itself a "Theme" Park again. Colossus, Nemesis Inferno and Stealth all need something more immersive, because while they can sell themselves as great thrill rides, I feel like a bit more attention needs to be paid to the queuing areas to tell a story of some sort about the ride. 

[David B]

Ref Friday 18th March 2016.

I rode on Saw on Friday. It was closed until about 13:30. I was told this because of the weather been so cold.

As for Swarm I was stood at the front of the queue line when it had to close. The reason it was closed was because somebody had been sick and this had to be cleaned up. Slammer closed early and this was despite the sign saying it had a 10 mins queue. I had some minor issues with digipass which was rectified later on. I could tell it was early season just from seeing how some things were done. Though nothing major. However it was not enough to spoil a good day out. I went on the last two Swarm rides back to back simultaneously and was a great finish to the day. I was back on Saturday to which was a lot more busy.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[Jammy3112]

Ref Friday 18th March 2016.

I rode on Saw on Friday. It was closed until about 13:30. I was told this because of the weather been so cold.

As for Swarm I was stood at the front of the queue line when it had to close. The reason it was closed was because somebody had been sick and this had to be cleaned up. Slammer closed early and this was despite the sign saying it had a 10 mins queue. I had some minor issues with digipass which was rectified later on. I could tell it was early season just from seeing how some things were done. Though nothing major. However it was not enough to spoil a good day out. I went on the last two Swarm rides back to back simultaneously and was a great finish to the day. I was back on Saturday to which was a lot more busy.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Don't get me wrong, I never said that it spoiled my day. It was still a great day out. There was just a few more negatives for me than positives. More so to do with the general up keep of the park than anything else.

[Coaster]

Thorpe Park - Friday 8th April

 

PARK OPEN: 9:30am - 6pm

RIDES CLOSED: Loggers Leap, Samurai.  (Tidal Wave opened at around 3/4pm).

 

I had an enjoyable first visit of the year to Thorpe today.  The park was quite busy, meaning that a high ridecount wasn't happening but I did manage to get on the major coasters and a few other rides, as well as having a look at the exterior of Derren Brown's Ghost Train and the shop (see photos in the DBGT topic).

 

I noticed that some improvements have been made to the park, for example X which has had a small update to the queue including repainted walls and new graphics on the floor/walls (really liked the new X:/ This Way Out sign, a nice recognition of the ride's history).  I'm not a fan of the new soundtrack, and it was playing far too quietly in the pyramid.

 

Tidal Wave has had a water effect fixed, and I believe that more have been repaired in the queueline.  Detonator has a new soundtrack, which I'm not keen on in all honestly, it's grating when queueing for the ride.  Rumba Rapids also has had a few minor changes such as the "source of the currant" sign being visible in the tunnel, and new lighting.  With that said, it still needs a major cleanup in most areas and some water effects.

 

It's great that The Swarm's back rows have been turned forwards again, it made the ride much more enjoyable again - although the station does need to be changed back, as the extra queueing space was causing confusion with people still thinking it was travelling backwards and therefore not filling the rows.

 

 

Unfortunately there were still issues with the capacity of some of the rides, which I'll briefly mention here.

In my opinion it is completely unacceptable to start a ride on one train, causing the queue to build up to over an hour, and then hold up hundreds of people whilst they add the second train.  This was the case with Stealth today which was very frustrating - after waiting nearly 40 minutes, we had to watch them add a train and test it three times (even the train that had already been on was being sent round empty), which took about 15 minutes.

This was also the case on The Swarm, however I'm not sure when the second train was added as we left it until it was running two.

This problem has been a regular occurrence at Thorpe for a number of years now, I'm not sure on the exact reason for it but something needs to change.

 

Several rides opened late, such as Saw (said 10am on the sign, but I think it opened later as it was stopped on the MCBR at 9:30am).  The park was advertised to open at 9:30am, and I haven't seen anything on the website to suggest that rides open on a staggered basis - if this is the case then it should be advertised clearly.

 

It was good to see that Nemesis Inferno and Colossus were running two trains, however dispatch times were slow with the rides stacking on several dispatches.  X was running two trains which wasn't good, they still have the two person rule as well which caused issues with groups having to split up etc.

 

RIDECOUNT:

The Swarm x2

Nemesis Inferno x1

Stealth x1

Colossus x1

Saw:  The Ride x1

X x1

Slammer x1

Detonator x1

Quantum x1

Rumba Rapids x1

 

TOTAL: 11

 

Overall it was an enjoyable day, but I'm not happy with the ridecount, the queues were long and slow on most rides which didn't help.  Thorpe Park doesn't hold my favourite selection of rides, but despite that it was good to be back after what feels like a very long time - I don't think I will be visiting again before the opening weekend of Derren Brown's Ghost Train though.

 

Thanks for reading.