August 9, 201510 yr comment_214432 I still keep going back to my favourite park, why!? I felt the same after my last visit No early ride time and when the park did open there was about 2 rides open, the amount of rides which didn't open until 11 was ridiculous (Including Stealth, Colossus and Saw), lots of rides had a lot of downtime, Slammer Samurai closed all day, effects and music not working, some queue time boards not working and most were inaccurate, staff unfriendly etc...
August 9, 201510 yr comment_214433 I felt the same after my last visit No early ride time and when the park did open there was about 2 rides open, the amount of rides which didn't open until 11 was ridiculous (Including Stealth, Colossus and Saw), lots of rides had a lot of downtime, Slammer Samurai closed all day, effects and music not working, some queue time boards not working and most were inaccurate, staff unfriendly etc... Yeah, forgot to mention no mist on Ne'moist'is Inferno... that's the best part! oh dear oh dear aha! to be honest I haven't had a problem with staff (except some in the baggage rooms who are just not happy or busy chatting to another worker - but you can't blame them, gotta be the worst job ever)! And someone who works there said to me, thorpe don't close rides or not open them on time just for the banter! but personally I'm sure they don't help themselves!
August 9, 201510 yr comment_214434 Yeah, forgot to mention no mist on Ne'moist'is Inferno... that's the best part! oh dear oh dear aha! to be honest I haven't had a problem with staff (except some in the baggage rooms who are just not happy or busy chatting to another worker - but you can't blame them, gotta be the worst job ever)! And someone who works there said to me, thorpe don't close rides or not open them on time just for the banter! but personally I'm sure they don't help themselves! Haha yeah there wasn't when I went either, and not a single effect working on the Swarm. Staff are normally great but yeah all seemed a bit rude and operations weren't great. The actor we had in I'm a celebrity ruined it as well. Yeah I understand that they can't help it, but they shouldn't advertise a 9:30 opening time when they aren't opening most rides until 11. I keep seeing people complaining on Twitter people saying there leaving early due to the amount of rides open.
August 9, 201510 yr comment_214435 Haha yeah there wasn't when I went either, and not a single effect working on the Swarm. Staff are normally great but yeah all seemed a bit rude and operations weren't great. The actor we had in I'm a celebrity ruined it as well. Yeah I understand that they can't help it, but they shouldn't advertise a 9:30 opening time when they aren't opening most rides until 11. I keep seeing people complaining on Twitter people saying there leaving early due to the amount of rides open. any bets they'll be given priority passes next time they go... while priority passes are okay for a quick sorry you've been waiting for a while and now we have to close this ride... it doesn't fix the fact it's happened, and the fact these are probably happening more than they should, in comparison to reliabilities at other parks! Yeah the no swarm effects working at all, and some doors were open with sand bags around and water leaking/running out from a pump room, so that might have something to do with the water effects at least. But how they struggle so bad to keep seemingly simple effects working is laughable; all the more reason to be worried for WC16 aha!
August 9, 201510 yr comment_214437 any bets they'll be given priority passes next time they go... while priority passes are okay for a quick sorry you've been waiting for a while and now we have to close this ride... it doesn't fix the fact it's happened, and the fact these are probably happening more than they should, in comparison to reliabilities at other parks! Yeah the no swarm effects working at all, and some doors were open with sand bags around and water leaking/running out from a pump room, so that might have something to do with the water effects at least. But how they struggle so bad to keep seemingly simple effects working is laughable; all the more reason to be worried for WC16 aha! Probably, seems to be the only compensation they give out I think they should open the park at 9:30 like they used to but have the opening time at 10, in my opinion they don't seem to get enough rides open at 9:30 to advertise that as the opening time.
August 9, 201510 yr comment_214443 It's pretty embarrassing. I'm assuming after so many engineers walked out earlier in the season, that they've found it difficult... Although listen to me, another excuse.. Thorpe always have one. The effects bother me. Every other park that wants a water skim effect (for example) can have theirs working, why do Thorpe/Merlin always fail at this hurdle (with effects)? The inferno mist discussion at the start of the season should be banned on here too, as it CONSTANTLY fails mid season.
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214450 Not just priority passes are given out. For you non annual pass holders they give out come back for £x each vouchers with priority passes bolted on the side. Opening at 9:30 is just not do-able. Aim for 10. Very few people will miss the 30 minutes of everything closed. RnR is causing horrific estimates on queue times again, as always. Another problem that should have been fixed in its 3 year trial. Most of the effects are broken all year round. I haven't seen the water splash by the fire engine for ages. I don't expect them to be fixed anytime soon either. Too busy spending time and money on samurai.
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214453 Hi, I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the site. Looking at what you described, I believe the reason for the inaccuracies you mentioned was that you were viewing the 'Thorpe Park Reserve N Ride' page of instead of the 'Thorpe Park' page. The difference is, the reserve n ride page shows the virtual waits, while the main page shows you the actual queue times. Hopefully you will be able to have a better experience next time . Yeah I know there's a reserve and ride page too... I'm pretty sure I was looking at the main one. At least you know if there is a problem to look in to it thanks for the website and usually it is brilliant and very handy to use!
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214454 That people are returning is also part of the problem... I get people enjoy their visits to the park and stuff, but if you keep going (even if you complain every single time you do), then you're not helping things get better... Sad but true...
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214459 That people are returning is also part of the problem... I get people enjoy their visits to the park and stuff, but if you keep going (even if you complain every single time you do), then you're not helping things get better... Sad but true... With an annual pass and the fact that I still enjoy a day out there. What else can I do, there are hardly alternatives in the UK and especially at the value of my annual pass. I feel more sorry for the people paying full price for a ticket and experiencing the park. I try and go to a theme park most weekends, and although we complain about them all the time, none of the other UK parks are as good as Merlin ones, so what am I supposed to do, and as others have been slated for complaining about the park all the time, there's no other options so if they enjoy theme parks enough to outweigh the complaints then of course they're still going to return all the time, and therefore find more and more issues aha. It's forum I think we'll have to put up with complaints all the time!
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214460 Cool, the reason I suspect that you used the reserve n ride page is that tidal wave yesterday only had a queue time of 14 mins on the reserve n ride page . My bad if that was the case aha, but I was definitely using the main page on one of my internet tabs.. It didn't update that loggers and Colossus were closed for the rest of the day when the signs around the park said closed/unavailable? But do keep up the good work
August 10, 201510 yr comment_214464 With an annual pass and the fact that I still enjoy a day out there. What else can I do, there are hardly alternatives in the UK and especially at the value of my annual pass. I feel more sorry for the people paying full price for a ticket and experiencing the park. I try and go to a theme park most weekends, and although we complain about them all the time, none of the other UK parks are as good as Merlin ones, so what am I supposed to do, and as others have been slated for complaining about the park all the time, there's no other options so if they enjoy theme parks enough to outweigh the complaints then of course they're still going to return all the time, and therefore find more and more issues aha. It's forum I think we'll have to put up with complaints all the time! Wouldn't it be great if all these problems could be sorted. I never think of it as complaining though because if people are that burnt by visits, they would never go back. In spite of all the issues, you still enjoy the place and thats the most important thing.
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214657 Reading some of these, and spotting that at 1pm today, according to Queue-times.com, there were no less than 8 rides closed! Seeing that there is also a massive shortage of music, effects etc, it seems to scream Alton Towers circa 2006 when Tussauds just gave up...
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214663 Samurai, Vortex and Loggers all closed all day again today. Storm Surge broke down 3 times and finally gave up at 2, Rumba was open for and hour and 10 mins before getting evaced and closed for the rest of the day, and I'm sure many rides opened late again. They don't seem to be having very much luck with reliability at the moment.
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214672 Agreed. I visited the park yesterday... Storm Surge got stuck multiple times throughout the day Samurai shut Vortex shut Loggers Leap shut Saw shut in the morning Rush broke down twice if I remember correctly Quantum shut the moment we stepped off the ride I know I hate it when people complain about Merlin but it is ridiculous! The whole park has no atmosphere or character whatsoever. You arrive at the entrance to be greeted with R&B music? No thanks. Everything looks dirty and unloved, it's full of chavs (which isn't all their fault) and as said above by multiple people here, the reliability of the rides is appalling. We even had to queue about 30 minutes for Detonator because people had nothing much else available to ride, and it was being run very badly. We had a bloke on the microphone in the booth constantly interrupting the soundtrack to make annoying comments to his colleague and people in the queue. I get that a bit of banter is funny, but it looked so unprofessional and it was more awkward than anything if I'm honest. I won't be visiting again in the near future unless reviews of WC16 are good. Not only because I'd rather not hand over my money to them, but I didn't actually enjoy the day very much because of it.
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214680 To add to today, Slammer shut down temporarily in the middle of the afternoon. Not for having a breakdown or fault like it usually does, but for checks by the engineers. I know the ride can be a nightmare to operate and service, but shutting the queue in the middle of the day for over half an hour when quite a few guests clearly wanted to ride it? Is this a new procedure I'm not aware of that occurs daily can someone tell me please? Samurai looked like it has no chance of being open within the next few weeks, everything was in pieces. Quantum gave up around the early afternoon, as did Storm Surge multiple times during the day starting in the morning. Vortex and Loggers Leap both shut with no work around them and 2 coasters were on 1 train operations, despite the fact there were 60+ minute queues for each of them and both had Fastrack queues half the length of the main queue as a result. (Off topic, but Fastrack bothered me a lot on some rides, as it was almost a 50:50 ratio between the main queue and Fastrack queue such as Detonator and X creating what could have been a 15 minute queue to nearly a 45 minute one.) Can't remember the last bad visit I had but this was probably one of the most unreliable and frustrating days I've had at Thorpe Park in quite a few years. And like Altitude said, I too won't be visiting again until this gets sorted out. During the quiet times like March, September or November, it might be OK. But in the middle of the summer holidays when it's one of the busiest times of the year? No. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214682 Slammer usually closes at around 3pm for checks I believe. I hope they had closed the queue at a set time, cleared the queue line, then did the checks, rather than chucking people out of the queue?!
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214686 You arrive at the entrance to be greeted with R&B music? No thanks. Better than nothing, I got greeted with nothing on my last visit What's happened to the entrance music?
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214693 ^ Nah I think I'd rather have nothing! For me, R&B belongs in people's iTunes accounts, not a "theme" park!
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214699 music like that is a matter of opinion. I believe most of the pop music around the park belongs in peoples iTunes, much better to have themed specific scores and sounds for rides and areas then Nicki Minaj being blasted out in unfitting places around the park.
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214703 To be fair my last trip, I heard the Thorpe theme playing at the main gate, which was great. Detonator and Angry Birds Land was nice and loud. The R&B over the Lost City however..
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214704 ^ In Lost City? I think I just threw up. Luckily they were playing all the right soundtracks throughout the rides and areas, just the awful rap music at the entrance and in the dome ruined the first impression!
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214725 ^ In Lost City? I think I just threw up. Luckily they were playing all the right soundtracks throughout the rides and areas, just the awful rap music at the entrance and in the dome ruined the first impression! When I went for Rizzle Kicks at "Island Beats" pop music was playing over every single ride from about 4pm except Saw, Nemesis Inferno and The Swarm. Was awfully odd to be standing in the Slammer queueline hearing the likes of Ed Sheeran and Duke Dumont blasting out of both the slammer and Colossus queueline/ride speakers.
August 11, 201510 yr comment_214737 Rumbas tunnel speakers play the island beats music from 4pm #ravetunnel It's such a poorly themed park in places I don't mind if they play pop music
August 12, 201510 yr comment_214774 Ok so Inferno and Saw are the only major coasters open, and Rush is 60 minuets. Well done there.
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