Getting our thrills at Thorpe Park

Our weekends aren’t always that exciting but when they are, I’ve decided to let you know what we get up to, so here’s what we did two weekends ago.

First of all, you need to know that I LOVE rides. Chris loves them too, not so much before, but definitely after he’s been on them! We’ve talked about going to Thorpe Park for a while now and having both enjoyed days out at Alton Towers over the years, we’ve been dying to see what Thorpe Park has to offer.

We were due to go down to London that weekend anyway because Lincoln City FC were playing at Wembley on the Sunday (they won!), so we decided to make a weekend of it and combine it with a visit to Thorpe Park. I managed to find a great deal on Expedia for ‘The Bridge Hotel’ in Chertsey, which worked out at £81 for a double room for two nights – bargain! It didn’t include breakfast but that didn’t matter to us as we were going to be up and out early on both days. Given the price the hotel was great and it’s literally a 5-minute drive to get to Thorpe Park, so it’s definitely one to bear in mind if you’re ever visiting. You also get a bath which came in very handy to soak my tired legs after a full day of thrill-seeking.

When we got there, we decided to head straight for The Walking Dead: The Ride as it’s brand new to this year so we thought it would be the busiest / most popular ride of the day. That decision turned out to be both good and bad. Bad because whilst we were in the queue it broke down twice, meaning we ended up waiting around for over an hour to get on the ride, but good because after we went on the ride it continued to experience technical issues and ended up shutting completely, so at least we got to experience it unlike some visitors.

I have to say I was a little disappointed by the ride. The TV advert makes it look like it’s going to be really scary, but it didn’t live up to expectations. I think whilst the actual ride was OK, the theme was really lacking. The best part of the ride was standing in the queue because the staff were dressed up as zombies and chased you as you walked, which absolutely terrified me, and I screamed… a lot, possibly even accidently hit one of them as I made my escape! 

After that we went on Nemesis Inferno. I loved this ride as it’s very similar to the Nemesis ride at Alton Towers in the fact that it’s very fast with lots of twists and turns - just make sure you keep your head back because my head and ears took a bit of a battering.

Our final ride before lunch was Detonator: Bombs Away which initially didn’t look scary at all, but boy was I wrong. It’s one of those rides that gets your stomach as you drop, and it definitely feels like it goes much higher than it looks. One downside is that there’s a countdown when you reach the top, so you know when you’re about to fall, but it’s still a great ride and you can really feel the G-Force as you plummet down to the ground.
  
After lunch we tackled Colossus and SAW: The Ride. These were my favourite rides of the day, especially SAW. Colossus probably isn’t the best ride to go on straight after lunch as it has sooo many loops and corkscrews but they’re my favourite parts, so I loved it. Before going to Thorpe Park I’d not actually seen any of the rides in action, so I had no idea what to expect. This made SAW especially that much better, and without spoiling the ride for you there are definitely some surprises on this one that leave you screaming. We also sat at the front which made it that little bit worse… in a good way!  

We then headed for the big one - STEALTH! When you think of Thorpe Park this is the ride that pops into your head as it’s huge. I thought Chris was about to back out just as we were about to go on but luckily, he didn’t. It looks really scary but don’t be put off by the height, the ride goes from 0 to 80mph in 2 seconds and because it’s that fast, you literally don’t have time to realise what’s going on until you’re back down and the ride is over. I’m so glad we went on it, I think it’s a must if you visit!   

Our penultimate ride of the day was The Swarm. This ride was really cool because it was a rollercoaster, but everything was kind of in slow motion which made for a very different experience.

Our last ride of the day was, or was supposed to be, Derren Brown’s Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon. We queued up for an hour, which felt like a lifetime because it was the last ride of the day, our feet were hurting, and we were starting to flag. We eventually got on the ride but just our luck, it broke down whilst we were on it (I don’t want to ruin the ride for you, but it was a little traumatising and nearly sent us mad!) and we were evacuated through the staff exit! This was disappointing, as the ride looked really unique. Afterwards, we were told to go straight to the help desk at the front of the park to explain what had happened and we were offered free priority ride passes for our next visit.

We both agree that we prefer Thorpe Park to Alton Towers, mainly because we love rides that have lots of twists and loops in and Thorpe Park definitely supplies enough of those! I think we’ll 100% make the journey back down south for another visit someday – I’d love to go to one of their Halloween themed nights!  

My top tips if you’re planning a trip to Thorpe Park

1. Try and get your hands on a 2-4-1 voucher. When we went it cost £55 for one admission! Luckily, we had a Kellogg’s voucher, so we only had to pay £55 for two people, which is a lot kinder on the purse… although if you’re like us, you’ll end up spending the £55 you saved on admission on games (which we didn’t win) and food once you’re in the park.
2. Get there early. We got to the park at 9am even though the park didn’t open until 10am and it was already starting to get busy at that time. We managed to get parked really close to the entrance and the wait didn’t seem to take that long as we were chatting and looking at the park map planning what rides we would head to first. I think it’s definitely worth getting there early as it means you can get into the park as soon as the gates open and you can really make the most of the day.
3. Think about what you’re going to wear. The forecast for us was rain so I wore jeans, t-shirt, hoody, scarf and jacket. But the sun came out, meaning I was left carrying all my extra unnecessary layers around with me all day which wasn’t ideal. It’s also a good idea to think about what you’re wearing if you’re going to tackle the water rides. We didn’t because the queues were quite big, but we watched Tidal Wave in action and the splash on that ride is HUGE - I didn’t see a single person come off that ride dry. We didn’t fancy getting drenched, especially wearing jeans – it’s just the worst! I also overheard someone complaining that they had paid to use one of the ‘drying machines’ and it didn’t even dry them so maybe save some money and swerve those!  
4. If you have long hair, take a hair bobble. There’s nothing worse than having your hair in your face and flapping around whilst you’re on a ride.
5. To beat the queues, go early in the season when the park has only just opened. You cannot predict the weather at any point of the year in England so you may as well risk it and go early on in the season, we did and not only did the sun come out for us, but it meant that the park wasn’t overly busy and we didn’t have to queue for great lengths of time to get on all the rides!  

What's the best theme park you've ever been to and what's your favourite ride?