How Busy Is It Going To Be?

[Mark9]

Right, so instead of endless topics asking us how busy the park is going to be, instead here is a rough guide to the kind of business the park/s should be expecting this season. It's not set in stone and remember business can be effected by weather, ride reliability, mount of trains/cars on the rollercoasters, amount of staff working on things, fastrack etc etc etc!10am - 5pm Weekday. Likely to be very empty, particularly in term time. Queue time should be minimal (Unless your name is Stealth and you have a stupid system where you can only load 4 in the first, 8 in the second and then you end up rolling back anyway etc etc) 10am-5pm Weekend. Will be emptyish, however likely to be long queues for Saw, Colossus, Stealth and Nemesis Inferno.10am-6pm. Busy but not so bad. Queues for the coasters could reach 45/60 minutes, whilst the rest of the flat rides should be a max of 30 minutes. June and July are when schools start rolling in, so between 11-3 the park will be very busy.9.30am-6pm. Should be busy. Queues for the coasters could reach 60/90 minutes and the rest of the rides queues will be between 20/40 minutes. Fastrack will be in operation.9.30-7pm. Expected to be busy. Queues should be similar to 9.30-6.00 close except the last hour should be quite empty.9.30-8.00 Again should be busy. At least you have a long day to get on quite a few rides. 10.00am-10.00pm Will be busy. Last year wasn't as bad as previously however if it ever hits peak capacity, queues will be up to 2 hours for the rollercoasters and between 45/90 minutes for the flat rides.Remember guys, read this guide to help if you beat the queues without wasting money on Fastrack. Also use the park well. Head to Stealth and Inferno instead of Saw and Colossus. Do rides whilst they look empty instead of following the majority of the crowds.

[celia_coba]

Oh thank you for your answer, so then I hope on June 10th the park won't be packed?

[fizzo]

So, in the week of half-term, it should be a bit quieter than the weekends? Monday will be bank Holiday so do you think Tue, Wed or Thur would be a good bet. I am assuming more people will be there on Friday as they may be making a weekend of it. What sort of queue times are we talking for half-term?

[adstratt]

Hi all

I want to visit Thorpe at some point between end of exams (18th June) and before schools break up. Obviously GCSEs will have finished and A levels as well so I am not expecting to hear a pin drop there, the main thing I am worried about is the school trip season. When abouts does this period start and on this basis, when is the best time to go? I sometimes check the Ride Hopper app on a school day for a (very) rough guide on queue times but this isn't always reliable.

Frustrates me that so many schools see fit to take their kids to a theme park in the middle of term time (if we ever had them they were during half term) but that's a rant for another time

Thanks in advance

[Mitchada04]

The general school trip season will be between the 8th July and 19th July as it is usually the last two weeks of term this trips occur. My school also has an inset day on the 5th July so there could be a few other schools around the area also on inset (my school is 5 minutes away). Fridays and Mondays are also the busiest with school trips so midweek would be best but Thursdays also tend to be a bit busy. I did visit one day in the first week of July last year and there were a fair few school trips there, but most didn't arrive till 11 and had left by 4 which gave us 3 hours of peace and quiet.

So basically I'd recommend avoiding July just to be safe and visiting midweek.

Whenever you do chose to visit though have fun and I hope its not too busy

[adstratt]

Hi, thanks for your reply. Looks like we will have to go before July then. If no-one else does I will report back on how busy it is for the interest of others who might also be going around this time

Last went 3 years ago during half term, place was heaving but we still managed to do a fair few rides - and we went at 4!

[Coaster]

Has anyone been to Thorpe on a weekday in the past few weeks?

If so, how busy was it? And do they make an effort? (Like running two trains on rides efficiently etc...)

(I am visiting on a weekday next week and would like to know what to expect).

Help much appreciated!

[Michelle]

I went to Thorpe yesterday and whilst it wasn't dead there was plenty of time to get on all the rides. Stealth, Colossus and Inferno were running on one train so queues peaked at 40 minutes or so (Note to Thorpe - Why do you do this?! You have two trains so use them. It's incredibly frustrating). Swarm reached a queue of about an hour before they added a second train, at which point the queue dropped to about 15 mins, and Saw varied from 15-30 mins.

Most of the flats were quiet so no problem there

[darkadder312]

Simple, they do a one train operation because of Fastrack - they want to make money.

[Jack97]

Hey guys I'm new here but I was just wondering if any of you know roughly how busy it will be tomorow (Wednesday the 19th)?

Thanks in advance

[Marc]

When I went last Friday it wasnt quiet but it was far from busy.

30/40 min queues on the main coasters maybe, the parks open till 6 so you will have plenty of time to get on everything quite easily too

Have a good time!

[darkadder312]

I am going this friday what do you think the queue times for coasters will be?

[Mark9]

Just for you, (and this is a Mark9 special)! I am going to predict accurately all the rides queue times from 10am to 6pm. If I am wrong then you will have to blame the spirits, we have a bad connection where I live so occasionally queue times get jumbled with the local Chinese.

Saw: The Ride 10am - 10-20 mins. 11am - 30-50 mins 12pm - 60 mins 1pm - 60 mins 2pm - 60 mins 3pm - closed due to technical problems

4pm - closed due to technical problems 5pm - reopens at 5:29 with a 20 minute queue.

The Swarm - 10am - 50 mins 11am - 30 mins 12pm - 10 mins 1pm - 10 mins 2pm - 30 mins 3pm - 20 mins 4pm - 5 mins 5pm - 5 mins

Colossus - 10am - 30 mins, 11am - 60 mins, 12pm - 60 mins, 1pm - 30 mins, 2pm - 20 mins 3pm - 20 mins, 4pm - 5 mins, 5pm - 5 mins

Nemesis Inferno - 10am - 5 mins, 11am - 15 mins, 12pm - 30 mins, 1pm - 30 mins, 2pm - 25 mins, 3pm - 10 mins, 4pm - 5 mins, 5pm - 5 mins

Stealth - 10am - 10 mins, 11am - 30 mins, 12pm - 60 mins, 1pm - 40 mins, 2pm - 60 mins (due to a guest being sick), 3pm - 30 mins, 4pm - 15 mins, 5pm - 5 mins

I hope this helps.

[Jack97]

Thanks guys

[darkadder312]

thanks mark9 I can cope with 60 mins queues but when its like 120+ mins it gets a joke

[J.S217]

Well I can say my visit today was rather busy with Colossus and Swarm peaking the 70+ mins mark but the other Coasters and flats were around 30/40 mins

[Merry-go-girl]

It's begun, the first school trips have started flocking to our nations attractions. It's queue season till September in my books.

[adstratt]

Just got to keep fingers crossed it isn't going to be so bad Thursday or my hopes of avoiding the rush are out the window....

[Fred]

It's begun, the first school trips have started flocking to our nations attractions. It's queue season till September in my books.

It's queue season until the first week or two of the summer holidays.

Then it's as quiet as an offpeak day, like september. Oh, I just cannot wait to be visiting.

[Merry-go-girl]

It's queue season until the first week or two of the summer holidays.

Then it's as quiet as an offpeak day, like september. Oh, I just cannot wait to be visiting.

For real? I tried to visit Chessington at the very end of the school holidays last year, took one look at the gate and left. It was the stuff of nightmares. Is there a 'quiet days in summer' strategy?

[Mark9]

The beginning of the school holidays are the sweet period as lots of families fly off in the first week of August. Towards the end of the holidays, the queue times really go up and they don't really go down over the course of the day.

[Fred]

For real? I tried to visit Chessington at the very end of the school holidays last year, took one look at the gate and left. It was the stuff of nightmares. Is there a 'quiet days in summer' strategy?

Yes. Hence why I said the beginning of the holidays, not the end.

As mark says - noone visits right at the beginning, everyone visits at the end as they are in the UK/realise they said they were gonna take them/bored of other things to do.

Infact it's pretty much the same of any school holiday - the parks are busier towards the end of the holidays compared to the beginning, weather permitting of course.

[Merry-go-girl]

I'm not around kids or kid people much so these things are a mystery to me. I know the very basics, like you get the school trips then school holidays but then kids go back to the dungeon.

[NikhilSharma]

I visited yesterday and all I can say it was pretty busy..

Queues ranged from 120-60 minuets for the big rides. So many schools were there!

[chorna]

I was thinking of going next Monday/Tuesday as I assumed it would be relatively quiet with kids still at school. Certain posts above are saying school trips have started so not looking good. Expecting 60 min queues minimum now.

I think I might hold off til September when they all go back or I think a few people have said first few weeks of summer holiday are usually pretty quiet?

[TPJames]

I have an option of visiting thorpe park from the 8th-19th and I was wondering which day would be emptiest- I understand due to school trips the days are likely to be busy but which will be emptiest?

P.S a note to those visiting during school trip season- although the days are really busy the beginning and end are empty as the school trips have left (: