Thorpe Park Trip Reports

[cptnmingo]

Had an amazing trip on the last ever day of the season (services day private event) where Fright Nights was on and all the staff seemed to be having a blast. I'll start off by saying we rode SWARM three times in a row at the start of the day and Nemmy three times in a row at the end of the day, so yeah the queues were pretty damn short which made for an even more amazing day.

 

SCARE MAZES - Blair Witch leads this one as the best experience for us, mainly because the scare actors within did such a fantastic job and the 'last day of season' atmosphere means people were having a little more fun than ever before. My better half got trapped in the cabin at the end, much to my amusement. Big Top was a fantastic experience, Platform 15 in third place (I fell over a bin though) and Cabin in the Woods worthy of a mention too for my friend hilariously breaking the maze and wandering out of it into a staff room... Oops!?

RIDES - Along with the three rides in a row times two (which makes you feel a little dizzy by the way...) we also got on pretty much everything else we wanted to. Sadly though the Ghost Train was broken yet again. It was running for about 50 minutes at the start of the day with a 100 minutes queue from park open. Then it broke about 1pm and didn't reopen at all for the rest of the day. I tweeted T.P who said they were working on it but it didn't surface. Little gutted as my two friends wanted to experience it for the first time ever but its to be expected with that ride. Made up for it with multiple rides on SAW, Colosuss etc.

As usual I made a little vlog of our day at the park, if you don't believe me about the queues check it out and I'll see ya'll next season for more madness

 

 

[Josh3103]

Just got back from a great day at thorpe. It wasnt very busy and the queues were short. 

 

Time on Park- 10am-5pm

 

Rides Closed

Slammer

Zodiac

I'm a celeb

DBGTROTD 

 

Ride Count 

Colossus x2 

Rush x1 

Tidal Wave x1

Nemesis Inferno x3

Saw x2

Rocky express x1

Swarm x4

Rumba Rapids x1 ( hate the new song)

Dodgems x1

Detonator x2

Samurai x1

Depth Charge x1

 

I'm looking forward to coming back next weekend to ride DBGTROTD!!!

 

 

 

[Coaster]

Great day at Thorpe today, queues were very low, staff friendly and noticed lots of improvements around the park!

 

The day started off very quiet, which meant we could get round the coasters easily, it got slightly busier later on but didn't really pick up at all.
Stealth opened later but we were lucky enough to be in the area as it opened, so got straight on.

 

The Swarm was running really well, as was Nemesis Inferno.  Colossus was running terribly, very uncomfortable and unpleasant.

 

A few of my thoughts from the day;

 

The refurbished entrance area looks great, as does the newly painted bridge - great for a first impression!
I liked the new entrance music but preferred the original - though there's no doubt that this is better than the chart music.

 

The "Island Shop" (inside the dome) has had a revamp and looks great, I like the beach theme and having the tills as beach huts is a nice touch.

 

There was generally a very nice atmosphere about the park today with the low crowds and new audio in places, though I'm glad they have kept some of the older ride themes.  New playlist on X!

 

Nemesis Inferno and The Swarm were running two trains all day, Stealth and Colossus on one train and X on two.

Slammer and Zodiac were closed, as well as Derren Brown's Ghost Train which is reopening on the 31st March.

 

The two flats in Old Town don't fit in at all IMO, though I suppose it's better than nothing for the families.  As with Ghost Train these are not opening until the 31st.

 

I'm all for increased security, but only having two scanners is not ideal - also the tents ruin the view of the entrance screen.

 

New music on Rumba Rapids is terrible!  Totally devoid of any character and to think it's replaced one of the most "fun" themes of any ride! 
Ride itself looks like it's part-way through a refurbishment, most of the trees are gone and the tunnel has had some lighting and sound changes.  Also, the queueline has been repainted in duller colours to replace the green.

 

Several effects weren't working such as The Swarm's water and fire, and the blades on Saw are still not spinning!  With that said, the mist on Nemesis Inferno was brilliant.

 

Loggers leap looks like nothing has happened to it since it closed at the end of 2015 - a very sad sight.

 

Ride Count:
Rumba Rapids x5
Nemesis Inferno x3
The Swarm x3
Stealth x1
X x1
Saw x1
Colossus x1
Detonator x1
Samurai x1

Overlooking the park;

 

 

Entrance area and shop;

 

 

Overall a very enjoyable day, was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly things were running and the park is looking the best it has for a while.

 

Thanks for reading

[Josh3103]

I went to thorpe today to try out ROTD and I wasn't disappointed it was fantastic a big improvement on last year. The park was quite busy but I still got a decent ride count.

 

Time on park- 10am-6pm

                      

Ride Count

DBGTROTD x1

Quantum x1

Tidal Wave x1

Swarm x1

X x1

Nemesis inferno x1

Rumba  X2

Saw x1

Storm in a teacup x1

Total 10

 

Overall a good day but still haven't got on stealth this season.

[Matt10]

Went to Thorpe on Sunday the 23rd and it was a good day. Most coasters opened on time with the exception being stealth opening at around 12ish, on only one train. Every other coaster was on multiple trains. The park really wasn't to busy, with stealth sitting at around an hour all day with the other coasters starting at 45, but being between 10-20 mins for the majority of the day. Dispatches were alright, but on Colossus for example there was a large amount of time being spent stacked on the brake run, with the same going for inferno. Also noticeably rush ran half the day on one swing before the issue was resolved, storm surge didn't open till late afternoon and samurai broke down at around half 12 and didn't manage to reopen, with engineers in attendance until closure working on the issue. Also DGBTROTD closed early at around 3 with a technical issues.

 

Time on park 10am (Would have been earlier if the security checks didn't take so long)-6pm.

 

Ride Count:

Colossus x5

Stealth x2

Saw X1

Swarm X1

Nemesis Inferno x2

Rumba Rapids X1

Flying Fish X1

Rush X1

Vortex x1

Quantum x1

Zodiac X1

Detonator x4

Dodgems X1

X x2

Tidal Wave x1

IAC x1

Storm in a Teacup x2

 

Total: 28

 

Overall, a very good day, finally getting on stealth at the third visit, and after having been in the queue 11 times before this year. Very happy to finally get two trains on Colossus, and get in some solid rides on it, the main drawback of the day being that I was unable to get on samurai. It was really nice to see the park running fairly well on a fairly quiet day this year, and restores some of my faith in the park to actually be able to reliably operate the rides.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Earlyspencer]

My very first visit ever to Thorpe Park (on 25th and 26th of May 2017 ):

Bull's eye, thanks to ...

- the weather: I didn't know the theme park was situated on a tropical island!

- not that long queues on Thursday (an official holiday on the continent: Ascension Day)

- We scored the Big Five already around 1 PM on the first day of visit

- AN EXTRA EVENING OPEN BECAUSE OF A VIP EVENT (and open for us, the regular hotel guests from 7 pm - 9 pm).

- DBGT during that VIP evening

- Nice Shark Hotel with very good but noisy airco. Luckyly we were only two persons in this container room.

- One hour ERT on Friday

- Celebrety Maze was a try-out version on Friday, but I liked it (it even reminds me a bit of Dungeons in Hamburg and Berlin)

- Friendly staff

- Reliable public busses on time! 

 

Also some small disapointments:

- Ugly park entrance and Dome Hall

- A lot of attractions temporary out of order (e.g. Depth C. early in the morning, Stealth several times and DBGT whole of te regular Thursday, Storm Surge didn't open before 2 PM and had a failure just when it would be our turn)

- Permanent water level (ap. 10 cm) in SS's rafts

- Not that much shelter (from the sun, but in other occasions: from the rain) in in the queue lines.

- Colossus is .... (censored), but a pain in many ways (queueing: do they have only one train?, dispatching: to get in and out is a kind of contortionisme, the ride itself: I'm sitill aching in neck, back 'n bones)

- Flat rides (among others Quantum) are rather small 

- Trash as decoration around Tidal Wave (we had it too around Dizz at Bobbejaanland and still have it around Lost Gravity at Walibi Holland): not my cup of tea.

 

Please find my trip report (written in Dutch) here: http://board.pretparken.be/showthread.php?237-TR-Thorpe-Park-25-26-05-2017 I guess Google translate also works in the other direction

 

[TR] Thorpe Park 25-26_05_2017.pdf

[JoshC.]

Thanks for the report!  It's always great seeing Thorpe from a first-timer perspective, even more interesting from someone from a different country.

 

I was around on the Thursday you were there (I think I actually I saw you at one point!), and it wasn't the best day for ride availability.  Such a shame with the beautiful weather that day, but it seems like you enjoyed yourself; certainly helped by having 2 days and the VIP event being opened up to you.

 

Totally agree about the Dome.  It feels very dated, and they need to completely redo rather than little bits at a time.  

 

Google translate hasn't made it very clear, but it sounds like you enjoyed the Ghost Train?  Great to hear if so.

 

Thanks again for the report!

[Kerfuffle]

On 6/19/2017 at 10:30 AM, Earlyspencer said:

- Reliable public busses on time! 

 

On 6/19/2017 at 10:30 AM, Earlyspencer said:

- Reliable

[Earlyspencer]

On 2017-6-19 at 10:51 PM, BaronC. said:

... but it sounds like you enjoyed the Ghost Train?  Great to hear if so.

Ghost Train was the best attraction in its kind (live acting + VR + real theming).

In that (one but) last room, we stood very close to that eh ... surprise act (please censor me here if you think this is a spoiler).

 

But ...

It isnt' an attraction you want to visit several times a day / week ...

I guess it is a very expensive attraction, but who will visit this within two or three years?

So is it worth the investment?

 

BTW any news about the extra space that will becreated on the sites of Slammer and the old log flume?

 

@Kerfuffle: The late night buss LHR - Staines and the busses Staines - Thorpe - Staines did very well.

Maybe I was just lucky, as two days later LHR suffered from a digital meltdown, not to mention the recent awful news from the UK.

 

 

[Josh3103]

58 minutes ago, Earlyspencer said:

 

BTW any news about the extra space that will becreated on the sites of Slammer and the old log flume?

 

@Kerfuffle

 

 

The Only News we've gotten about Loggers Leap is that it is Closed for Redevelopment with it being unknown if it will ever reopen. No Work has happened since it closed at the End of 2015.

 

In Regards to Slammer, Thorpe Park are Saying to " Watch This Space" Which Suggests To me that they will be replacing it with a new ride, most likely another Flat. 

[Mermalizer]

This is probably a bit late, but I thought it would be good to talk about the trip to Thorpe Park I had earlier this month.

 

The first time I went was last year and I had to do the rides on my own, but this time I had my sister and her boyfriend come with us. We had two days on 'the Island' and stayed over in the Shark which I absolutely loved. Did all of the big coasters except for The Swarm on the first day (we did other rides such as the Ghost Train and the water rides), then used the hour's Fastrack to do The Swarm on the next day, plus another go on Stealth and Inferno. We did Colossus again but I found that incredibly rough on the second go - though I was near the back so I wasn't surprised. We did Saw again too which my sister loved, and personally I didn't find it rough, in fact I loved it. Later on in the day we went back to do Saw again and they let us go round again (we had to get off first, but we didn't have to go in the queueline again). Doing Saw four times in two days was one of the highlights of the visit because I'd chickened out on it last year, but now I love it. The indoor section is incredible, and the indoor drop (the bit I was worried about) is great and not as intimidating as I'd thought. Getting my sister to go on Stealth was also a highlight...she didn't like it as much as I did xD

 

The queuetimes weren't too bad mostly because it was after the schools had started again but before my time at university had started. This was balanced out by most of the big coasters only having one train on; Colossus, Inferno, Stealth (which is understandable), and The Swarm (which we did on the hour's Fastrack from the hotel). On the other hand, I have to give major props to Saw's operating team. They were operating like a machine! I don't think the queues ever got over 15 minutes while I was there. The new music is also great, though I miss Rumba's old music. The Island Theme is great for setting up the atmosphere in the park, and I love the improvements in The Dome and around park. We even got to go on the grabber machines at the end of the night - they were playing The Hunger Games films on the big screen during the evening, does this happen usually? 

 

I really enjoyed my trip to Thorpe Park, and it helped me get a little more happy since I haven't been feeling good lately. The only thing I didn't like was getting stuck on the M6 on the way home. 

[planenut]

3 hours ago, Mermalizer said:

This is probably a bit late, but I thought it would be good to talk about the trip to Thorpe Park I had earlier this month.

 

Never too late to discuss theme parks, interesting report.

Thorpe Park is different to some, it's a gravel pit, and not an ornamental garden. It's also not a wall enclosed seaside funfair.

Certainly the position one sits in on some rides alters the comfort or not.

I know some people who never ride but enjoy going to parks, each to their own.

 

Well done.

[cptnmingo]

Sounds like you had a really good experience Mermalizer! We just did the Services Day end of season event and got to experience The Walking Dead Fright Nights as well as ride everything in the dark. I put the vlog trip report below but I echo your comments, park operations were on point for this one.

THE GOOD
Living Nightmare Walking Dead maze was incredible. The scare actor who played Negan had the character down to a tee, mannerisms and accent and all. The maze itself was just wonderful for me as a fan of the series, to see all the scenes they'd set up was excellent. I also really enjoyed Big Top again, the chainsaw guy really got the group in front of us scared and I ended up shouting RUN FOR IT causing all 10 of us to comically leg it out of the maze. Platform 15 has also improved, I didn't expect a huge burst of fire like that! 

Also got to experience the ghost train again. I have to say the Rise of the Demon vastly improves it in the second half of the experience. We used the Thorpe Park app to keep track of when it opened and only ended up queuing for 20 minutes, queue time jumped up to 80 minutes while we were waiting to board.

THE BAD
Couple of bad points this trip. Sanctum, the second walking dead maze, wasn't AS good. It was a little too short for my liking? Mega thumbs up to the female zombie scare actor who cornered me and creepily stroked my face though, not sure if I was laughing out of fear or something else! The Thorpe Park hotel wasn't that great. My first time staying in it and it was just my personal preference, I think it is a cool idea but I guess I'm just used to a more airy and open feel to a hotel room and I struggled with how warm the room got! I loved the shark facts though.

THE UGLY
One sore point I am still waiting for a reply from customer service from. Amity Fish & Chips. I stopped there with friends for a £7.95 meal deal which was just awful. Chips weren't cooked and when we went to complain we received some pretty poor customer service. I get that it's the last day of their contract, but ya'know. Just a small blip on an otherwise epic day!



... Oh, and my friend won a toy on the 2p machines in the arcades so he is happy is a pig in poop.

 

 

[Matt 236]

Glad you enjoyed Big Top, Platform and Living Nightmare, can safely say I found them all highly enjoyable mazes and have found this year's lineup one of the best in recent years.

 

Sanctuam I feel will hopefully receive some noticeable improvements next year, although on my run through this year, I found the actors to be of very good quality.

 

It's pretty clear that Shark isn't a long term solution to their accommodation situation and hopefully they will eventually receive a full permanent hotel in the forseable future. Shark what it currently is and trying to be, works fine currently though.

 

Shame about the Amity chip place, when I visited there last May, I couldn't really fault    the food or service, but perhaps that depends on the staff and day.

[stealth888]

Hi guys, haven’t done a trip report in pretty well over 5 years and it’s nice to be back on the site reading how everyone is enjoying their days out.

 

I felt the need to mention a few things about my visit to the park on Sunday (bit late, I know), as it was my first visit in probably 2 years. 

 

First off, the park was clean, well-maintained and very quiet. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had a more chilled day at the park, considering the near-enough 10-20 minute queues all afternoon, and the availability of my cousin’s disability access pass.

 

 

Having said that, we achieved a fairly average ride count for what it was, a day I could have only dreamed of 5 years ago when most of my visits were dominated by 45-min queues for the coasters.

 

We arrived to a park with maybe half the rides open; Swarm, Saw, Colossus and most of Lost City flats were closed (Walking Dead & Rumba Rapids were also closed all day), so after running all the way to Swarm island and politely directed away by two members of staff, we opted for our first ride of the season on Stealth.

 

 

Never has a more beautiful sight beheld me: Stealth was operating, with two trains, upon park opening. One exhilarating ride later, I could have gone again at least three more times, but members of our group fancied getting the Big 5 done before lunchtime so we headed over to Swarm, which was ‘Coming Soon’ on the app.

 

A walk-on queue, but as we walked across the bridge and down the left-hand side of the station, the operators had to call a mechanic due to a faulty restraint buckle on the right-hand side (not entirely sure what was wrong with it, but fair-dos, safety first).

During this time, the professionalism and courtesy of the ride staff was second-to-none. It was also cool seeing the engineer at work, even though all I saw was just him giving the seats a once-over and sending the train for a test-run. It was also around 30 mins later that a second train was added to compensate for the building queue (which wasn’t a massive one).

 

 

All-in-all we waited 20 minutes in the station for the fault to be fixed, and the ride was fab - I have realised I enjoy the left side as much as the right. The second near-miss on the right-hand side of the billboard is astonishing. Made me duck!

 

Now, I feel I should add a disclaimer - my cousin is 10 years old, and we considered this in our day’s plans. Walking back to Amity, the next ride we went on was Depth Charge 

 

In the dozens of times I’ve visited the park, I had only ridden Depth Charge twice before, and to be honest, it’s quite fun! The queue stairs give you a great view of the northern side of the park, and you pick up a fair bit of speed on the slide. So, it was worth the 15-minute-or-so queue we waited, at a time in the day I usually reserve to getting a half-dozen rides in on Nemesis Inferno.

 

 

Walking towards Lost City, I took the opportunity to enjoy my favourite flat Rush, which was excellent despite a similar restraint problem to Swarm (they had to release them about 4 times before our ride).

 

When Colossus reached its peak of an 80-minute queue around 11.30, we utilised the disability access pass to enter the short queue at the ride exit. It is at this point where my second appraisal of TP staff comes in: a queue-jumper had reached the station and was being asked to leave the queue by the ride host (who I can only assume could be heard over the tannoy by everyone in the queue line). He must have asked the bloke to leave around 4 or 5 times, repeating the same pre-written request each time. It was at this point where the guy kicked off, threatening the host and demanding he keep his space because he had left his kids in the queue line and was returning to them after taking a much-needed slash. He had apparently waited around an hour by this point.

 

The ride host ceased operation of the ride, and waited for security to arrive, who escorted the bloke out of the queue line (he had calmed down), but his kids were allowed to stay in the queue as they had waited. An entirely reasonable outcome in my opinion.

During this time, the engineers also took the rare opportunity to add a second train to the track, which then needed 3 test runs (so 6 test runs including both trains) before the ride continued operation. We had waited around 30 minutes in the exit to use my cousin’s pass, which wasn’t signed by the staff because of the extra time we had to wait. Which we appreciated.

As for the ride itself, Colossus has had it’s day. Really uncomfortable, and maybe 30% enjoyable. I would put money on it’s departure within the next five years.

 

 

After an early lunch, we got a ride each on Nemesis and Saw. I still massively enjoy Saw’s theming, and the dispatches were really good as usual.

Nemesis had no effects throughout, but we still had a lot of fun and it was fab that two trains were running.

 

Now... I have a love and hate relationship with Samurai, as the previous time I rode it I was left hanging upside-down for the better part of a full minute. Not fun. This time, it wasn’t the ride that was the problem - it was the queue staff.

We had joined the fasttrack queue to use my cousin’s pass when there was probably a ride’s worth of guests queuing in the main entrance. However, when the ride completed its first cycle, everyone was let off at a glacial pace, then the host went to add more people from the main queue into the ride waiting area - ignoring myself and my cousin in the fastback queue. Not great.

Although it was partly my fault, we subsequently waited two ride cycles to be let onto the third, when really we could have entered the main queue and be allowed onto the first. Meh. Ride was fab though - went around clockwise & anti-clockwise three times. Ride time must have been more than 4 mins - felt very dizzy after!!

 

Not much to report about the rest of the afternoon apart from that if I was to be left to my own devices, I would have ridden Saw, Nemesis and Swarm at least 4 more times each, but it was not to be as everyone had conked out by 4pm and wanted to go home. Sad Chris.

 

Having said that, we managed another ride on Stealth and Swarm, before Stealth had ceased operation due to the rain that had started to pour down (not fun in crap weather).

Nice effects in the Swarm area though, especially in the misty rain fog:

 

Overall, a good day that had been given some stumbling blocks by technical problems and bad weather, but fun nonetheless and will see my return very soon to ride DBGT and The Walking Dead, both for the first time.

 

Stealth x2

Swarm x2

Rush x2

Depth Charge x1

Colossus x1

Nemesis x1

Saw x1

Samurai x1

Dodgems x1

Storm Surge x1

[Mark9]

All those rides and you managed to get to Towers for Nemesis! Impressive.

 

Thorpe does seem a little bit quieter then usual this year, whilst Towers has been pretty rammed the last two weeks. Maybe its the effect of having no 'new' rides this year or maybe Thorpes operations are better at the moment.

[JoshC.]

56 minutes ago, Mark9 said:

All those rides and you managed to get to Towers for Nemesis! Impressive.

 

Thorpe does seem a little bit quieter then usual this year, whilst Towers has been pretty rammed the last two weeks. Maybe its the effect of having no 'new' rides this year or maybe Thorpes operations are better at the moment.

I don't want to be that guy, but I also wonder if the weather is putting people off a bit? Wind and rain most of last week, meh weather this week. Word is getting out about how often rides close at Thorpe for weather too, which is less common at Towers. Might mean people are thinking "we'll leave it till later in the year"?

 

Plus you've got Thorpe pushing all this 'unmissable events', of which there wasn't one for Easter, except TWDTR opening, which was hardly an event.  One-off visitors might be holding out.

 

But yeah, would agree anyways that that's what happens when you don't add a 'new' ride (which is fine if they back it up with improvements elsewhere).

[stealth888]

11 hours ago, Mark9 said:

All those rides and you managed to get to Towers for Nemesis! Impressive.

Haha yeah I have a habit of omitting 'Inferno'...but what a feat that would be 

 

As for the quietness, I think you're right...the operations generally were really good, as I said apart from the tech problems & weather (things out of their control).

 

11 hours ago, BaronC. said:

I don't want to be that guy, but I also wonder if the weather is putting people off a bit?

The weather itself wasn't actually that bad, it looked worse on the forecasts so yeah I think the weather might actually be putting people off - would have to return on an equally badly forecasted day to see if this is the case.

 

 

[MattyMoo]

Casual first post in this thread in 4 years.... park was absolutely DEAD today, don't think I've ever seen it so quiet, with rides on 0-5 minutes for most of the day - longest I saw was Colossus peaking at 30 minutes at the start of the day.

 

Ride/eXpErIEncE count (could've easily done loads more, but I like to keep my food in my stomach cheers huns)

 

Stealth x3 (including one front row, still love love looooove this)

Swarm x2 (no queue all day)

Inferno (feeling INTENSE)

Saw (feeling sore)

Colossus (feeling 20 years old)

DBGTROTD (don't get me wound up)
Black Mirror

Purple Boat In The Tunnel Sit Down Please

[planenut]

I went on Tuesday and as Matt had remarked, this day too was very low on attendance figures with only 2500 registered.

[MattyMoo]

Forgot a ride from my rIDe CoUnT, inexcusable.

 

It was of course - Wild Hog Dodgems NEW FOR 2022 WITH ADDED CENTRAL PLASTIC SHEET VIEWING WINDOW 🤩

[tomathy]

Warning, somewhat negative post coming up.

Had my first visit to Thorpe this year yesterday and given the warm weather and it being the summer holidays the group I was with and myself were ready for what we knew would be a very busy day. I don't tend to have the same amount of spare time as I did when I was younger and so I hadn't put a lot of planning into attending, we are all MAP holders so figured that it would be fine.

So on arrival to the park, we see Saw isn't on the app (extended closure) and more than half of the attractions had not opened just after 10am. Slightly disappointed we make our way to Stealth, queue for 45 minutes on a one train service, broke down, received a fast track. Not a great start, realistically no real problem though. After some filler we make our way to The Walking Dead, see the hosts closing the gates as we approach after what looks like a full evac, make our way to Ghost Train instead.
 

I'm not actually sure if I think Ghost Train is an improvement over the previous incarnations of the ride. The ride system could 100% be better utilised though and we really felt for some of the actors who were obviously giving it their all but with very little reaction from the guests on our train. Chapel scene is a big build up for that scare, slightly too quick but nice to see a decently size physical effect. The finale on the train was somewhat laughable with the

Spoiler

terrible full white face masks

leading to almost everyone on our train laughing. Actual ending feels super stale now, and the additional shaking effects are a bit too travelling ghost train for me.

Lunch time, we wanted to try the Tacotaria and honestly this was ridiculous. I really feel for the staff working in here yesterday, after queueing for almost 20 minutes to get food we were told that they had no beef. This is fine, we swapped to chicken. Also no fries. Again fine, nachos instead. No naked burritos because they didn't have the right bowls to put them in. Kinda the final straw for our group considering these made up 4 of the 5 meals we wanted. Staff said that they had all of the ingredients but had been told that they could not serve them in a different container, just seems ridiculous to us. Went to Peckish instead, where we received most of options we wanted (although they ran out of jacket potatoes halfway through our group). Watching staff sit around whilst one person makes 5 meals is irritating whilst you're trying to make the best of your day out. 

A few extra points to add:

• Ride availability triggered the Island Return Guarantee which is great but doesn't really change how we felt about the day.
• Staff at some attractions were incredibly rude, even called us out during rides over the tannoy after overhearing one of our group state that they thought that the staff were being rude.
• RAP queues are still large, and I know this is an ongoing debate and I fully believe that this system does need to exist for people who struggle to queue for both physical or mental health related reasons. Hard to stand by it whilst listening to groups bragging about faking evidence, not even providing it and just getting the pass from guest services anyway, and in some cases people showing their pass for 4 others to ride but not riding themselves. Surely this isn't how this system is meant to work, but whether it be guests abusing the system or staff not bothering to implement it, something needs to change. 
• Saw appears to be down indefinitely at this point, not all guests were aware of this though and some had bought fast track for the ride on the app during the date of our visit. It should not be possible to buy fast track for a ride that isn't planned to be open.

Overall we've had some really good years out of the merlin passes, and they are extraordinary value for money, but the quality of the days out at the parks has been going downhill as far as I'm concerned for a few years now. I've got to the point where I no longer enjoy my days out on park (not just Thorpe, Chessington and to some degree Alton are the same). I think it's time for me to give merlin a rest for a few years and go and enjoy other attractions that we haven't had the chance to visit yet.

Apologies for the long and somewhat negative post, but I think a lot of these things can be overlooked by a lot of people based on being able to visit the park regularly and the passes being good value, but when there are other reasons for not being able to visit as often as before, the quality of a day out on park quickly diminishes. 

 

TLDR: Busy day, poor ride availability, rude staff, poor operations regarding both food and rides, fast track money grabbing, probably going to get rid of my merlin pass.

[planenut]

9 hours ago, tomathy said:

 

..............................
Apologies for the long and somewhat negative post, but I think a lot of these things can be overlooked by a lot of people based on being able to visit the park regularly and the passes being good value, but when there are other reasons for not being able to visit as often as before, the quality of a day out on park quickly diminishes. 

 

TLDR: Busy day, poor ride availability, rude staff, poor operations regarding both food and rides, fast track money grabbing, probably going to get rid of my merlin pass.

Tomathy, you really ought to write to the park with your comments. There certainly appear some valid points you make, and you and your friends are the customers. Never be afraid to express your displeasure or in fact, your pleasure .  Don't expect anything in return but it is important to the operators.

I have always wished they could make it the staffs' aim to make everybody smile.

Thanks for your report.