Queue Times

[Tiddlywinks]

Do queue times affect your time at thorpe park. Due to me still being at school, and my 2 younger brothers are not tall enough to ride rides at thorpe park, my parents rather go Alton Towers as it has rides for me and my brothers. However, I go thorpe park once a year with my school. This is obviously a busy times. However, I do see that Thorpe Park are less organised than the towers, with queueing systems. Here is an example of differences of queue times.

FACT:

I went to thorpe Park: 17th July 2012

I went to Alton Towers: 26th October 2012

Thorpe Park Queues:

Swarm- 75 Mins

Saw- The Ride- 90 Mins

Nemesis Inferno- 80 Mins

Colossus- 120 mins

Tidal Wave- 60 Mins

Loggers Leap- 20 Mins

Storm Surge- 50 Mins

x no way out- 20 Mins

Alton towers queues

Air- 60 Mins

Nemesis- 45 mins

sub terra- 60 mins

The Flume- 0 Mins

Rapids- 5 Mins

RMT- 30 Mins

Battle Galleons- 5 Mins

Sonic Spinball- 40 Mins

Oblivion- 40 Mins

Hex- 20 Mins

Rita- 60 Mins

Th13teen- 45 Mins

Charile and the chocolate factory- 5 Mins

Ice Age- 25 Mins

[Ryan]

You have to take into consideration that Alton Towers is far more spread out so it takes time to get from one attraction to another, whereas if you exit a ride at Thorpe you can walk straight to another ride within a minute.

[AstroDan]

Queue times at Thorpe are generally longer, for a variety of reasons:

- As above, there is very little space and guests go from one ride to the next.

- Fastrack sales are higher.

- Ride capacities per hour are generally lower (in some cases significantly lower)

- There are less support rides at Thorpe Park

[Ryan]

When comparing a day in July to a day in October you also have to take into consideration weather, ride availability, opening times, special events etc

[Fred]

To be fair to him - he's compared school trips at thorpe to 2nd busiest day of this season at towers.

AstroDan has it spot on, though opening times may affect it slightly (6pm ride close compared to 9pm), due to it being schools the park has walk-on rides after 5 and is dead before 11 as well. Quiet hours compared to busy scarefest.

[TPJames]

To be honest, I went to thorpe park around the same time as you this year and I didn't have any particular problems!

The opening hours were 10am-6pm(I think they are really short hours!)

During the day, Colossus did hit a queue of 2 hours but apart from that most rides queues were under an hour! I got to the park early so I could hit a few rides without queues straight away! We went straight to saw and got a walk on ride! We then hit nemesis inferno which was also walk on! I don't remember the whole of my day but here are my queue times:

Nemesis inferno- x3(twice 0 mins, once 80 mins!)

Saw x3(twice 0 mins,once 60 mins)

Stealth x3(5 mins all three times!)

Swarm once(40 mins)

Colossus x2(15 mins both times!)

Samurai once (0 mins)

I did lots more rides but really the flat rides and water rides! Everything else throughout the day was 10 mins or less!

Remember, this was a peak day during the summer holidays and it was one of the busiest times I have visited!

To be honest, I think it is just how you plan out your day, yes you could have been taking down those queue times at the busiest time of the day at thorpe and the emptiest time of the day at alton! I'm not saying you did this, but if you plan out your day well you can get on most rides with small or no queues!

[Tiddlywinks]

Thank You! I didnt think of the size difference, and that is a very good point. In my opinion, I have been alton towers for school trips and thorpe park and there have been a huge difference. I have also been Fright Nights and Scarefest in 2012 and there have been a huge difference in queue times. I also find during halloween events that as soon as scare mazes open, queues decrease a lot.

Thamks to you all for your help

[Topsyturvy15]

Is it fair to say more people visit Thorpe than Alton? If you consider that Thorpe is so near London and therefore more appealing to tourists this could explain very long coaster queues. Alton is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and this could help explain shorter peak time queues?

[Dan9]

Is it fair to say more people visit Thorpe than Alton?

They don't.