Thorpe Park

19 & 20 June 2016

A couple of friends had visited Thorpe Park in the past, and had raved about rides like The Swarm and Stealth. So after a long morning drive from Alton Towers to Thorpe Park, I was feeling pretty excited!

I was getting used to the overcast dreary UK weather, but an English summer was still better than a Southern Australian winter. The onsite hotel called the Shark Hotel wasn’t ready for an early check in, so I dropped off my luggage and went on my merry way. The park was nowhere near as big or scenic as Alton Towers, so it was nice and easy to get around. I went straight to the Swarm, a great looking wing coaster that lacked the 4^th dimension of rotating seats like X2.

I thought the bag handling system was great, which I had first experience at Alton Towers. You handed over a bag, you got a numbered wrist band in exchange, and you would collect your bags from the other side of the storage boxes after the ride. This made a nice change to some rides that force you to pay money to store your stuff (cough cough Superman Australia…). This was also my first experience with the ride operators at Thorpe Park, and they seemed as miserable as the weather. No smiling, no hello, no eye contact. As a single rider, I was expecting to jump the queue and fill empty seats, like at most other parks I had visited. However I was becoming increasingly annoyed watching trains go by with many empty seats, and not once did the staff call out for single riders.  The Swarm also had one of the slowest load rates that I can remember. Instead of organising groups of people for the next ride, staff would stand around talking to each other. Then when the ride was emptied, they would slowly get people on (without filling the empty seats.) Grrrr! Despite all this, I really enjoyed the high quality coaster and the wonderful g-force it provided. I went on a second time, and although I really wanted to go again, the inefficient loading was doing my head in so I moved on.

Time to go play with the big kids though, so I moved anti clockwise to Stealth. It was not yet open, but I wasn’t willing to lose the front seat opportunity so I hung around until the chain came down. Stealth was like a smaller version of Top Thrill Dragster/Kingda Ka, with a fast launch start and giant hill. Although I am generally a back row coaster girl (love the extra pull) I do enjoy the front row on these faster rides. The load system was way better, and I managed to jump on three times without much of a wait. Good job Stealth staff!

The park really wasn’t that busy, and it started raining which lowered crowds even further. That didn’t mean that you got to miss out on a good wait though. It was made more painful waiting for Colossus, since I was stuck behind a group of teenage boys who were comparing the size of their manhood throughout various discussions. I waited for Colossus for close to 1.5 hours, for the world’s first 10 loop coaster. Though it has since been beaten in the record stakes, I do like to pay tribute to the historical coasters. In addition to the loops, there were a huge amount of rolls to ensure you were damn dizzy by the end. I’m sure this was an absolute champion of a coaster when it first opened, but I found it excessively rough which took away some of the fun factor. My mood was about to improve dramatically though.

Tidal Wave splash

Cranky woman on boring coaster in the rain. I have now seen what I will look like as an 80 year old…oh dear

Wish I had a travelling byddy at this point, cause this looked like fun!

A new ride was in the making, called Derren Brown’s Ghost Train. It wasn’t yet open to the public but they needed ride testers, and because I was staying on site, I got an invite!

I went to sleep in my teeny tiny little room at the Shark Hotel, which felt like I was stuck in a submarine. I was looking forward to testing out the new ride at my scheduled time the following day. I had to sign a contract saying I wouldn’t take any pictures or talk about the ride to anyone prior to it being open to the public. The ride was being advertised as a psychologically intense experience, so I was keen to see what mentalist Derren Brown had in store.

Hotel ‘room’

View from the balcony

It started with an interesting intro video about fear, and human reactions to it. I already knew that I was in the category where laughter was my general response to fear, and not tears. You then get taken to an old fashioned railway carriage that is suspended from the roof, and given a VR headset. At this point, a ride error occurred, so we all had to leave and return later. This didn’t bother me, because I was really interested in the process of ride testing and was happy for the staff to get some practice in with evacuation procedures. The second attempt went off without a hitch. It was a very cool experience putting the VR headset on, because it showed you the actual inside of the carriage that you were sitting in, but all the people around you suddenly disappeared. My favourite part was when some zombie like creatures boarded the train via the VR, but the staff then ran down the carriage tapping your legs which was hilariously freaky! At one point, you leave the train without your headset, and start walking down a tunnel. Some great special effects make it feel like a train is about to hit you, and sure enough some people in my group jumped out of the way of the fake train. You got back on the train to continue some more VR action. This was no doubt the best ghost train experience I had ever had. I guess the only problem is that the ride is not one that you could enjoy repeatedly. Once you have been on, there are no surprises, and it was those surprises that made it fun. It was still a wonderful addition though, and shows some promise for good use of VR at fun parks in the future.

I went on all the big coasters again, and waited for stupid amounts of time again. I really believe that Thorpe Park could be excellent with some modifications that wouldn’t cost a fortune. Single rider queues, second trains for the big coasters, and staff who had incentives to do their job well would be a good start. The park really lacked atmosphere, with very little in the way of street entertainment and shows. They did have fast track options, but I have found these unnecessary at most other parks when you are solo. On a busy day, a fast pass would be the only way to get on the majority of rides.

Next time I’m in the UK, I think I will head to Blackpool Pleasure Beach instead.