First Visit From USA, Help!?

[shb5007]

Quick recap: I am honeymooning to Ireland and England in May and I am a roller coaster fan, and my fiance is a Harry Potter fan.  We have a crazy idea for May 9th (Tuesday) and I am wondering if anyone can help us figure out if this idea is possible.  I know it isn't the best (more time can be spent at each place), but we are limited on time.  Anyway...

 

08:45am: Land in Heathrow (from Cork, Ireland)

12:00pm: Thorpe Park

04:00pm: Warner Brothers Studio Tour (Harry Potter)

 

1.) Is is possible to get to Thorpe Park by noon?  We land at 8:45 am at Heathrow, but I saw online where passport control isn't necessary when coming from Ireland.  We plan on renting a car and driving straight to Thorpe Park.

 

2.) I plan on getting the "Full Throttle Fastrack" to lessen time waiting in lines.  I want to ride the 5 major coasters, and possibly the Ghost Train.  Is this possible in 3-3.5 hours to leave by 3:30pm?

 

3.) Hoping to then drive to Warner Brothers Studios to get in for the last ticket slot (4pm).  It looks like this is around a 30 minute trip, but this will be my first time traveling / driving in England.

[Project LC]

I don't think it would be possible to get get all 5 coasters done in time and get to Harry potter by 4.

Heathrow is regularly delayed with landing and take off and also takes a while to get through the terminal depending on which one it is. Factoring in time of renting the car, getting to the park, ticket picking up and all that I suspect that would be around 11:30 onwards. 

It's a weekday so the M25 will be conjested so thrope to Harry potter will be 45 minutes minimum. You would have to leave Thorpe at around 2:45/3:00 to get there in time. Which does not leave long at all in the park. Seeing as it costs so much I'm not sure it would be worth it. However if it's the only time you have it is possible, just a very busy day.

[Jack]

You will easily get to Thorpe by 11:00 if there is no passport control, coasters should be fine if you are buying fast tack but ghost train is very risky if you want to garuntee getting to the studios in time for your tour.

 

correct me if I'm wrong but the Warner bros studios is in Hemel Hempstead so with London traffic the journey could take from 45 minutes - 2 hours, personally I wouldn't risk trying to cram it into one day, but If that's all you have then it's better than nothing I suppose

 

 

if you were planning on doing chessington or legoland it is a lot easier to share that day with Thorpe park but I don't know how long you are here for or how much spare time you have

 

let me know if this has been helpful, if it hasn't I'm sorry, if it has I'm more than happy to answer any other questions you have 

[ThemeParkCrafter]

Warner Bros Tour is in Watford and will be a 1 hour car journey away from thorpe

[shb5007]

Thanks for all of the great help so far, it is much appreciated.  I am leaning 75% towards skipping Thorpe.  I really wanted to attend, but it just doesn't seem realistic.  We have roller coasters in the USA, but we don't have the "true" Harry Potter experience (other than theme parks).  This is her trip (for the wedding), so I guess I should let her have this one.  But, one last thing, how much am I truly missing at Thorpe Park?  I know this might be hard to answer about your home park, but am I really missing that much?  I have been fortunate to travel all of the USA to ride coasters (Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Texas, California, etc.)...but there does seem like some fun / unique rides at Thorpe.  Thanks again for all of the help!

[JoshuaA]

You're generally not missing much.

Actually a lot of the rides at Thorpe are outclassed by American Counterparts.

For example Gatekeeper/X Flight are probably better than Swarm, though Swarm has better theming.

Nemesis Inferno is a fairly weak invert compared to the likes of Afterburn/Banshee/Montu.

Stealth is outclassed in nearly every way by Xcelerator at Knotts.. As well as Kingda Ka/Top Thrill Dragster dwarfing it in comparsion.

Saw and Colossus aren't anything to shout about as both are fairly rough too

Derren Brown's Ghost Train is the probably the main thing you'd be missing out on, but they're better dark rides out there IMO.

[StevenVig]

You aren't missing out on much with Derren Browns Ghost Train, based on its poor performance last year

[Benin]

Potter Studios is definitely worth more effort than Thorpe, though I recommend mentioning that any money spent in the gift shop will take away from the wedding fund...

 

Plus, I never like rushing through 'major' parks, really does detract from the enjoyment of the overall trip... Also you might end up stuck on the M25 for hours on end anyway...

[Matt A]

Big tip: make sure you book for the Harry Potter studios! The queues are long to get in even with a ticket, and make sure arriving at 4 is going to give you enough time, I remember staying there for a good few hours when I visited (you can see as much or as little as you want to though). In my opinion I wouldn't try to visit both places in a day, you'd be better off visiting Thorpe another day if you can (it's best visited for the entire day) whereas you could easily fit the HP studios in after you land.

Speaking of landing, I can second what everyone else says, Heathrow is very prone to delays, and I'm not 100% sure but you may still have to go through passport control if you're not an EU citizen. And as people have said the M25 is often slow moving (it's the nearest motorway/major road to Thorpe Park and the best route to get to Watford for HP). Hope this helps a bit!

[shb5007]

Thanks to everyone for the help, you all have been wonderful.  We have decided to skip Thorpe Park on this trip, and just head to Warner Brothers after our flight.  It is the easier and safer option.  We are just going to book some tickets in the middle of the afternoon to play it safe.  I appreciate all of the help from this lovely forum.  I hope to get back to Thorpe (and other regional parks) one day.  I will say, that I am working on talking her into adding another 2-3 days on our trip for a quick trip to Disneyland Paris.  Again, thank all of you for the wealth of knowledge!  Much appreciated!

[Shwervin Mervin]

On 19/02/2017 at 9:34 PM, shb5007 said:

Quick recap: I am honeymooning to Ireland and England in May and I am a roller coaster fan, and my fiance is a Harry Potter fan.  We have a crazy idea for May 9th (Tuesday) and I am wondering if anyone can help us figure out if this idea is possible.  I know it isn't the best (more time can be spent at each place), but we are limited on time.  Anyway...

 

08:45am: Land in Heathrow (from Cork, Ireland)

12:00pm: Thorpe Park

04:00pm: Warner Brothers Studio Tour (Harry Potter)

 

1.) Is is possible to get to Thorpe Park by noon?  We land at 8:45 am at Heathrow, but I saw online where passport control isn't necessary when coming from Ireland.  We plan on renting a car and driving straight to Thorpe Park.

 

2.) I plan on getting the "Full Throttle Fastrack" to lessen time waiting in lines.  I want to ride the 5 major coasters, and possibly the Ghost Train.  Is this possible in 3-3.5 hours to leave by 3:30pm?

 

3.) Hoping to then drive to Warner Brothers Studios to get in for the last ticket slot (4pm).  It looks like this is around a 30 minute trip, but this will be my first time traveling / driving in England.

I would say it's a bit of a hectic journey... The fast track would be necessary 

[Shwervin Mervin]

On 20/02/2017 at 7:24 PM, JoshuaA said:

You're generally not missing much.

Actually a lot of the rides at Thorpe are outclassed by American Counterparts.

For example Gatekeeper/X Flight are probably better than Swarm, though Swarm has better theming.

Nemesis Inferno is a fairly weak invert compared to the likes of Afterburn/Banshee/Montu.

Stealth is outclassed in nearly every way by Xcelerator at Knotts.. As well as Kingda Ka/Top Thrill Dragster dwarfing it in comparsion.

Saw and Colossus aren't anything to shout about as both are fairly rough too

Derren Brown's Ghost Train is the probably the main thing you'd be missing out on, but they're better dark rides out there IMO.

I disagree. Thorpe is a very good park and the staff are very nice! The  rides provide a good experience and that's what we want!!

[JoshuaA]

2 hours ago, Shwervin Mervin said:

I disagree. Thorpe is a very good park and the staff are very nice! The  rides provide a good experience and that's what we want!!

I didn't say the park was bad.

I was saying most American rides outclass Thorpes lineup..

And yeah I agree, the slow dispatching and frequent breakdowns along with the teenagers runnning the place is 10/10 operations.

[Mark9]

On 31/07/2017 at 7:04 AM, Shwervin Mervin said:

I disagree. Thorpe is a very good park and the staff are very nice! The  rides provide a good experience and that's what we want!!

 

Of course. However look at the list of parks that the OP has been on, Thorpe would be a 'credit' run at best for him with the limited time he had back in May. Nothing at Thorpe really stands out.

[Clonecommander Tom]

I would say that it isn’t possible to do the 5 big rides, I would try to prioritise 3 and don’t go on the ghost train if your on a tight schedule, it breaks down a lot and might ruin you planning for the day sorry if this wasnt any help