I have been to Thorpe Park on a number of occasions over the last few years. The university I went to was about a 15 minute drive away from the park, so it was one of the places we went to at least once a year. I’ve always had a good overall time there, though when I visited last weekend there were a few downsides to the park that somewhat let down our visit. Although some of these factors are things that are not necessarily in the park management’s control, I personally felt that there should be more measures in place to combat this type of thing. Anyway, let me explain.
Last weekend, me and three friends of mine decided to head over to
Thorpe Park. We had decided a couple of weeks in advance to go, as I had received some 2-for-1 ticket vouchers in the post recently, so we picked a Sunday and crossed our fingers for sun. As we woke in the morning we realised that we were in luck, as it was a bright sunny day and so we drove over to the park. Thorpe Park is pretty easy to get to, with a sign on the M25 telling you which
junction to come off at, and then signs pointing you all the way to the front gate. As we drove in we could instantly see the swarms of other people who had had the same idea as us, but parking was not a problem. There was still masses of space left, and with the attendants directing us into spaces it was easy to park. We then headed over to buy our tickets, and were greeted with a massive queue. This was just after 9.30, so the park has already opened but the queue was snaking round towards the car park. Luckily, an attendant told us that a booth to the right of the gate was about to open, so we joined the 15 or so people milling about there. About 9.45 the booth opened and we finally managed to get to an open window. I handed over our 2-for-1 voucher, so our tickets were cut down to £16 each. We bought a park map as well that cost 50p, so for two people I spent £32.50. This price is fine I think, though I don’t think I would go if I didn’t have a half price voucher or such like, £32 each is far too much money I think. Clutching our tickets we made our way into the park.
As you enter, you put your ticket into a reader above a turnstile. This reads the barcode on your ticket and the turnstile is opened. You take your ticket with you, so you can get in and out of the park as you please. After entering the main gate you walk across a bridge, and into a complex where there are shops selling food and Thorpe Park merchandise. There is also a Caffe Nero here and a Thorpe Park branded restaurant, regaling signs offering a full Sunday Roast. You walk straight through this area into the open air again, which is where the main attractions are. By this point it was getting really hot, and I was glad I had chosen to wear a skirt rather than jeans. We decided to head over to the back of the park and work our way forwards, focusing first on the most popular rides. We headed to the ‘Lost City’ where some of the bigger rides are, and decided to first go on Colossus.
At this point the park was starting to fill up, and we noticed that the queue time advertised for the ride was about 30 minutes. We joined the back of the queue and waited.
And waited.
The queue was definitely much longer than half an hour, and after about an hour we were nearing the front. By this time it was nearly unbearably hot, and unfortunately nearly the whole queue area was not covered by any shade. Eventually we got to the front, a bit pink faced. The ride itself is pretty good, lots of twists and turns; loops and corkscrews. It lasts about a minute, which is average for roller coasters I’d say. After the ride we went to look at our photos, which, naturally, were awful, and decided to head over to Stealth.
Stealth is one of Thorpe Park’s newest attractions. At the start you are plunged from 0mph – 80mph in a matter of seconds (2 to be exact!) up to the dizzying heights of 205ft and then plunged straight down again. This roller coaster is definitely not for the faint hearted. As one of the newer rides this is also one of the most popular, and the queuing time stated was 45 minutes. Again the queue was not covered by shade at all, and as the time approached 11 we began to feel swelteringly hot. We were also desperate for a drink by the time but we stayed where we were figuring that we’d already wasted nearly an hour as it was. As we started to near the front of the queue we decided to time one of the cars from the second it took off to the second it came to a halt. 26 seconds. Hmm. 75 minutes after joining the queue we got to the front. Obviously, the ride is really good but are the 26 seconds worth the 75 minutes waiting time?
After this we were starving so decided to get some food. There are many places to eat at Thorpe Park, but obviously, none of them are particularly healthy. Three of us got
KFC, while one of us went to Caffe Nero. The food was the same as you would expect from any other KFC / Nero outlet and the same price. There are also Thorpe Park branded places to eat, but I’m not sure of the prices or quality of the food from these.
After eating we decided to head onto a water ride to cool down. We looked at the time boards, and saw that the queue for Tidal Wave was 90 minutes, and Rumba Rapids was 75 minutes. We decided to head to Rumba Rapids as usually these queues move faster, and as it didn’t seem that long we decided to join. We didn’t want to go on anything too exciting straight after eating anyway. Luckily, the queue time for this was only about 20 minutes, so goodness knows why they were stating 75. Also, some of the queue this time was in the shade for this ride, so that made a welcome change. For the rapids you sit in a circular boat that takes 8 people, and due to the busy nature of the park the 4 of us were sat with a family of 4 to fill the boats up. This then bobs along the river, bumping along the sides and the current occasionally going under sprays of water and waterfalls. This is a ride with a height minimum of 0.9m, so is one for the entire family.
I got a bit wet, but not soaking, and in that heat it didn’t really matter anyway. You also get your photo taken on this ride, but as there are 8 of you in a circular boat, it is inevitable that a couple of people will either have their back to the camera or won’t be in the photo at all.
After the rapids, we decided to head over to one of the other popular rides; Nemesis Inferno. Nemesis is one of the rides that is well established at the park, and has a good reputation. T lasts much longer than Stealth, and is slightly more exciting than Colossus. With a stated queue time of 45 minutes we joined the back.
This was without a doubt the worst queuing experience of the whole day. At about 1pm the temperature was at its hottest and, surprise surprise, the queue had practically no shaded areas. As you slowly moved along the queue we noticed that the stated queue time at the entrance had now risen to 90 minutes. As the sun got hotter and hotter we got thirstier and thirstier and we wondered why there was no way of buying drinks or ice creams in the queue. Surely this would be a perfect money making exercise?? We even moved along the queue at one point behind the back of a stall selling drinks to people not queuing, it seemed ridiculous that we were stuck so close to this but unable to buy anything. You could see that everyone in the queue was hot and thirsty, any drinks that had been bought before we started queuing were either long gone, or warmed by the sun so much they weren’t really thirst-quenching. We finally got to the front after about 2 hours of queuing, and although the ride is good and arguably the best in the park, it’s definitely not good enough to justify the long wait.
After this we were all feeling a bit hot and bothered, with visibly bright pink faces and shoulders. We went on a couple more rides, namely Rush and Vortex (Rush being one of my favourite rides) both which had about a 45 minute queue time. We were going to go on X:/ No way Out, but it was closed when we got to it s there was an engineering fault, and Samurai, but there was an hour queue time so we decided not to bother. It was just over 6pm by now so we decided to head home.
I wouldn’t in any way say that we had a bad day out, but there are definitely some things that I think should be done to make the park run more smoothly, and more enjoyably. Firstly, it was infuriating seeing how much of the queues were not covered by shade. Not only is this uncomfortable but it is dangerous. In the UK many people don’t even think about putting sun tan lotion on, and 8 hours spent in the sun can be very harmful. Similarly I don’t see why there is no way to buy drinks whilst you are queuing. This would be beneficial to both the park and the guests. In the big theme parks in places like Florida, there are water fountains scattered everywhere. You get none of this in Thorpe Park, and the bottles of water are all £2 a go. You can buy big cups that you can refill as much as you like with Coke, Sprite or Fanta for £5, but when we tried to buy these the two outlets we went into didn’t sell them.
Another thing I think they could work on to improve the queuing times is to make better use of the fast-track tickets. These are tickets you can buy to go in a faster queue, but the process isn’t really made clear, and these can’t be used on all of the rides. At £32 a ticket it seems a bit much to have to shell out even more to be able to queue less anyway.
Like I said, we still had a good day out, but there were lots of rides that we didn’t get a chance to go on as we ran out of time. Obviously, this was a peak time as it was one of the first weekends of the school holidays, but as we all work full-time we are limited in the times we can go anyway. I would still recommend Thorpe Park as a good family day out, but I would definitely say to scour the internet for 2-for-1 vouchers before you go, and to remember to take the
sun tan lotion.
Thorpe Park is situated in Chertsey, Surrey about 10 minutes from the M25. It is clearly signposted.
Tickets cost £32 per adult on the day, but booked online are £24 each. Under 12s are cheaper, and family tickets also work at a discount.
Until the 2nd September the park is open from 9.30am – 8pm, but times vary throughout the season. The park is closed from roughly the 5th November to the 17th March.
All toilets have disabled access, wheelchairs are available for hire and disabled tickets are cheaper than child tickets.
www.thorpepark.co.uk
Queue Park 
