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.

[Mitchada04]

Once your time arrives, you get a 15 minute countdown to join the rides queue. If you don't arrive in that time the code that appears on your phone to be scanned expires. Don't know how strict they'll be but I presume if you miss the time slot they won't let you in as it won't scan.

[Coaster]

And then once you get to the RNR entrance, you queue for an hour even though you reserved a timeslot to go straight on.

Well, that's what happened at Fright Nights anyway!

[James.]

Hi there, I'm planning a visit to Thorpe on either this Sunday 14th or Monday 15th but I'm not sure which day to go. I think it will really depend on whether school trip weeks have started - anyone know when they will start? I'm thinking this Sunday will probably be better if they have but then if they haven't then maybe Monday will be quieter. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

[Mysterio Ka]

Already started. You'll seriously be hitting the crowds now too, after year 11 exams all of them just hit the theme parks, and you may well see queues on week days longer then weekends.

[Merry-go-girl]

Hi there, I'm planning a visit to Thorpe on either this Sunday 14th or Monday 15th but I'm not sure which day to go. I think it will really depend on whether school trip weeks have started - anyone know when they will start? I'm thinking this Sunday will probably be better if they have but then if they haven't then maybe Monday will be quieter. Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

My advice would be to go on a Wednesday or Thursday, Monday's and Friday's tend to be the worst weekdays. 

[Ryan]

I went last Sunday and it wasn't too busy at all, Swarm was walk on in the afternoon!

[James.]

Thank you for your replies. I think some GCSE exams are still going on into next week so that's why I thought it might still be okay to go during the week.

[Celia Mae]

I know at GCSEs my exams didn't finish until the middle of July... But most schools will at least be on study leave and we know not all students use this wisely

[kalvinstweart]

I go into thorpe park on 24 of wednesday june 2015 and me and my twin sister marissa stewart going to it.

[MachoMachine]

Thank you for your replies. I think some GCSE exams are still going on into next week so that's why I thought it might still be okay to go during the week.

I finished my GCSE's during this week last year. Can't comment on whether they're finished now but I think some A-levellers have some exams left?

[Project LC]

Nearly all AS exams are over and a large majority of GCSE exams have finished. A level still has about 2 weeks left. 

[EdwinOkli]

That's a pity. I was looking forward to a quiet park...

[Merry-go-girl]

You could try a Sunday in late September/early October, around that time of year a lot of people will be waiting till Fright Nights start to go. 

[TPJames]

Is it just me or does thorpe seem to be a lot quieter this summer than in previous years? Usually around this period of time all the rollercoasters are hitting 2hours+ and flat rides are reaching 45-60minutes. In the past two years I've visited at the end of August it's been absolutely rammed but this year most queues are staying under 60minutes and those which are gaining over an hour appear to be on reduced capacity.

I wonder if gate figures will drop this year as even though there have been a few extremely busy periods this year, it seems a lot quieter overall as a whole. Maybe this is due to the amount of downtime rides are having, the smiler incident, or the fact that I'm a celebrity wasn't a big enough draw to get guests to return. It will be interesting to see how Merlin move forward from this point as all of their parks seem a lot quieter this year than in previous years. Fright nights at thorpe park will also be an interesting one as it will definitely be interesting to see how many people decide to return after the disaster last year.

I imagine things will pick up again in 2016 for merlin however it has been an extremely unlucky year for them and they will have lost a lot of money overall.

[Mattgwise]

All but Colossus were on full capacity yesterday and queues that I saw ranged from 10 to 30 mins. I think they have upped their game since the period of complaints from around a fortnight ago. Also it turned out it was all for technical reasons they ran one train on all but Nemesis Inferno, not lack of demand.

[Mattgwise]

All but Colossus were on full capacity yesterday and queues that I saw ranged from 10 to 30 mins (excluding Colossus). I think they have upped their game since the period of complaints from around a fortnight ago. Also it turned out it was for technical reasons they ran one train on all but Nemesis Inferno, not lack of demand.

[Cal]

All but Colossus were on full capacity yesterday and queues that I saw ranged from 10 to 30 mins (excluding Colossus). I think they have upped their game since the period of complaints from around a fortnight ago. Also it turned out it was for technical reasons they ran one train on all but Nemesis Inferno, not lack of demand.

 

Out of interest, were most rides open for 9:30?

[JoshC.]

I imagine Smiler incident has had a knock on effect towards the park's popularity. I expect Merlin predicted that, plus they had a low investment year, so I don't think slightly lower figures should be ringing alarm bells to anyone to be honest.

[Ian-S]

Playground chatter before the Summer hols indicated most parents round here had banned their kids (those young enough to not speak back) from going on Rollercoasters after the Smiler, most of you are old enough to be able to make your own decision so may not understand, but Smiler scared a lot of people. I was even accursed of being irresponsible by a few for daring to encourage mine.

I can count on one hand the parents I know who have taken their kids to Thorpe /Chessie/Alton this summer. I think as fans we have a slightly bias view, but a lot of parents are now petrified of the places and won't go.

[Mattgwise]

Out of interest, were most rides open for 9:30?

Not sure on that as I didn't reach Thorpe until 12 due to being at Chessington until 1130.

[Merry-go-girl]

Then we might be in for a slightly less heaving Halloween season across the parks. Too bad this looks to be the year I have no chance of attending. 

[TPJames]

Playground chatter before the Summer hols indicated most parents round here had banned their kids (those young enough to not speak back) from going on Rollercoasters after the Smiler, most of you are old enough to be able to make your own decision so may not understand, but Smiler scared a lot of people. I was even accursed of being irresponsible by a few for daring to encourage mine.

I can count on one hand the parents I know who have taken their kids to Thorpe /Chessie/Alton this summer. I think as fans we have a slightly bias view, but a lot of parents are now petrified of the places and won't go.

The smiler incident was absolutely devastating and of course I feel so much sympathy for those involved. If it hadn't been such a life changing event then it wouldn't have had as much effect on the parks as it has done.

It's ovbiously upsetting that this event has had such an impact on the theme park community as a whole, as it's likely to drop attendance dramatically all over the UK. However, at the same time I can only feel that this event is beneficial for merlin as a company to learn from this traumatic experience. Not only do merlin now know how to handle a situation like this if it were ever to arise again, however the drop in gate figures across the board may make merlin realise that they need to improve the way they operate their parks if they want to retain their customers.

Of course I and I'm sure everyone would have rather the incident never happened however now that it has happened I feel like Merlin can learn from it to improve as a company(whether they actually will is an entirely different matter altogether).

[Merry-go-girl]

I feel like there should be an extra colour in your legend entitled, 'don't even bother' for peak summer and Fright Nights days. 

[Project LC]

The 5th and 6th of September is an interesting one. Most schools go back on the 3rd and I know not many people go to theme parks in the first weekend back. So that weekend is tough to call. There is also a death week coming up where schools are heavily discounted. Normally its towards the end of September or early October where I would call it moderately busy rather than very quiet. Otherwise pretty spot on from my personal experience over the last few years. 

[Ian-S]

A lot of the local secondaries round here have scheduled two of their inset days for 1/2 Oct this year, might not mean much but might also keep it in consideration if planning trips to Thorpe or Chessie.