TR: Thorpe Park 08/30/16

[hesukaheadRBLX]

So, on Tuesday I was at Thorpe Park, and boy, oh boy, did I have fun. We went on only 4 rides - Stealth FasTrack was way too overpriced - £6 for one FasTrack pass per person, so for 3 people that was £18. To put it into perspective, Swarm was only £3 per person.

 

We started our day at about 8 AM. Daily routine, get up, all that shizzy doo-dah. Got in the car at about 8:30 and set off. Had a MacDonald's on the way there, probably our first mistake. We arrived at the park at about 10:40, maybe 11, and we actually got moving throughout the park 50 minutes later due to FasTrack collection lines and the time it took to get our day tickets. We got served by Natasha, a really nice lady, if you get a FasTrack pass there, I thoroughly recommend you speak to her - she gave us ride suggestions, tips and told us the queue times so we didn't have to take a shot in the dark.

 

We received FasTrack for The Swarm first, as it had the longest queue at the time, and we had the 12:30 time slot. Probably not so wise, but we didn't have lunch until later. To kill time, we went on Flying Fish, although it didn't produce as much air time (not that it produced much in the first place) as I remember, The photo booth was shut, so we didn't bother with that. The dispatch was horrendous, so bad that we almost missed our time slot for The Swarm. We were in the queue for about 20 minutes, and the ride dispatched 4 times. It took two thirds of the ride time to set the train off! However I honestly do not think it was worth the ride - as opposed to a great amount of laughter and smiling, it produced a heck of a lot of back and coccyx pain. I don't recommend it.

 

Next up was The Swarm. It had unfortunately broken down a minute after we crossed the bridge, we had loitered around but decided we'd give up for the time being. So, that was fun. In the mean time, we went to Nemesis Inferno, but that was closed too, due to 'Essential Cleaning.' Not particularly nice, and the clean up process is not nice either - more to come on that later. We sat about, taking in the beauty of the foliage and landscaping, observing an empty train that had been sent round on Nemesis Inferno, and just joking about with the test seat. We then saw The Swarm dispatch again after a good 20 minutes or so, so we made our way back.

 

We got to The Swarm, and the FasTrack queue was completely empty. Not even a single person in FasTrack, which is actually kind of unusual, seeing as we were caught in the FasTrack collection queue for a good 25 minutes or so. We got to the ride, and me being me, I thought that our FasTracks would be invalid. They weren't, and we got on. Boy, oh boy, was it fun! It was 'the perfect mix of forcefulness and smoothness' according to my brother, and we were all in awe and shock when the ride had ended. It was intense.

 

Next up was Rumba Rapids. I didn't go on that one solely because I knew that there was a broken water cannon and I needed to get hundreds of people wet. We loitered around, had fun, and we got somebody who had obviously put hours into his hair, although it didn't get wet. He ended up flipping a birdie at us, but it was all in good fun. I got a good few people, too, especially the ones that ducked down the lowest. I had even gotten somebody who was recording the ride - win! They didn't get their phone broken, but I did make a couple of witty remarks which made them chuckle and nearly drop their phone, so it wouldn't have been my fault anyway.

 

Next up was lunch. Not much, but their food over at Amity Fish and Chips is gorgeous. I had a battered sausage with stacks of fries and sauce, and we decided we wouldn't go on another ride for a while after that. We walked about, and eventually ended up near Colossus. We didn't go on, for one reason, and I quote:

 

57 seconds, 10 inversions? No thank you, I'll pass.

 

So, we just stood around, laughed, sat on the Intamin Throne and shat ourselves in the shop due to the rattling of the structure as the trains flew under us. Thoroughly enjoyable.

 

Finally, we got to Nemesis Inferno FasTrack. We got our tickets, and shuffled up the FasTrack. Here's the gross bit.

 

So, we were joking about about how I didn't want to ride and how I didn't want to be responsible for the ride's 3rd session of 'Essential Cleaning' with the lady in charge of managing the queues, and so she said that she was disgusted but intrigued by the way that they clean up vomit. She said something about a powder and a stirrer that you have to actually mix into the vomit to turn it into a gelatinous substance which can then be picked up and scooped off. Furthermore, she had to watch it happen in training with vegetable broth, which looks almost identical. Not fun!

 

The ride was rather rough and rattly, but we were grinning like maniacs. The girl sat beside us was like "WHY DID I GET ON THIS THING, WHY AM I DOING THIS TO MYSELF!?" when the train had dispatched, but by the time we got off, she was like "I want to do that again." Like, who would do that!? Anyway, it was amazing, but also kinda scary, but it was well worth it. Unfortunately the amber and red lights were turned off when we went on it, but besides that, it was just brilliant. We chilled out by the tunnel mouth, getting ready for that gust of wind, before heading off to Nitrogenie (Pun intended). I had an Oreo Vanilla ice cream which was bloody gorgeous, and I wanted another before we left. I never got it though, and we decided to head home.

 

By the time we were back home, I was as red as a tomato, my dad and my brother were fangirling about B&M and Intamin rides, and I just wanted sleep. It was safe to say that I hated roller coasters that night.

 

I'd also like to give a shout out to Eloise (who I don't think is on this forum) for being so informative about breakdowns and accepting our late Swarm FasTracks.

 

So, would I recommend Thorpe Park? YES. Would I go for a while? NO!

[TheoB]

I'd also like to give a shout out to Eloise (who I don't think is on this forum) for being so informative about breakdowns and accepting our late Swarm FasTracks.

 

At Thorpe Park they will always accept late fast track tickets, probably because the rides are always broken!