A 12 hour at Thorpe Park Shift

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Going Out

Saturday 15th October is the day that I spent just over 12 hours at Thorpe Park, along with five friends. Arriving just before 10am and then leave at just about 10:30pm. It required stamina, strength and the ability to fall into fits of hysteric giggles at the drop of a single degree in temperature.

Thorpe Park

You might think it’s overkill to do a full 12 hour day at Thorpe Park. It’s not. You’ve got all the lovely daylight hours to do all the rides you want to do. Then as the sun sets you can do them all again in the dark AND the horror mazes, which open at 4pm.

I think they need a different term instead of horror maze though. They’re not mazes, however they can be slightly horrifying. Especially when you’re told by a Thorpe Park staff member that one of the actors in the maze has a criminal record and if you feel uncomfortable, let a member of staff know.

Yet again, we only managed a couple of the horror mazes. The Saw Alive maze (we had free fast track tickets) and The Curse. I’ve done Saw Alive before so I knew what to expect out of it. You go around various different rooms all based on scenes from the Saw films. Just moving from room to room is probably the most terrifying. But as you slowly plod in the rooms, it’s not so bad! The actors do their best to terrify.

The Curse wasn’t bad either. Located on Neptune Beach and with doors with ‘Crew Only’ written on them, my canny brain figured out that this will be a boat based horror. Right! I didn’t actually read what the mazes were about… Anywho. After a few technical difficulties which required a technical technician to fix them (Their words, not mine!) we were off. Cursed didn’t horrify me. I may use laughing as a coping mechanism. Actors talking to you is amusing though. Asking if you’re drunk for example. The ‘maze’ did have some nice port holes in doors where the actors could stare at you through. Unseen gaps in walls for them to jump out at you from.

I did really want to do Experiment 10 – their new maze for this year. However the queueing on The Curse killed us. We didn’t see the logic in their queue system. Fast Track ticket buyers get to go straight through. Fine. However, when there’s a queue of Fast Track ticket holders, that whole queue needed to be cleared before the other queue. I didn’t get the sense and thought it would have been better to try to sift through both queues. *shrug*

It was exciting to go on a new ride at Thorpe Park – Storm Surge. I was mostly concerned about how wet I was potentially going to get. Though watching people come off the ride, they seemed fairly dry. Thankfully, I did come off mostly dry. Other people in my party weren’t so lucky! Despite a bit of dampness, it was a fun little ride. Great in the summer months when it’s a little warmer.

The rides that we managed in the dark were Storm in a Tea Cup, Rush and Saw the Ride. Yes the Tea Cups. As I said before, the queue for The Curse was epic and left time for a quick Burger King and a few more rides.

Rush and Saw the Ride still remain two of my favourite rides to do in the dark. Rush, because at the highest point, if you tilt your head back, you can see all the twinkly lights of Thorpe Park. Saw because doing that vertical climb into darkness is brilliant. Adds to the drama! Though I’m sure the Thorpe Park radio ads are lying. They were telling me that Saw – the Ride was more terrifying that before. It was the same!

Again, missed out on doing Stealth and Samurai in the dark. Both were done during daylight hours though. One for next year! Also for next year will be Thorpe Park’s new rollercoaster – The Swarm! Managed to see the very beginnings of this – including a track that just ended in thin air. It’s near Stealth and will make Thorpe Park the theme park with the most rollercoasters in the smallest area. I’m guessing. Who cares – I can’t wait!

2 Comments

  1. With reference to the whole ‘fast-track queuing’ thing. If both queues are building up, to me it would seem to make more sense to reduce both by taking the group size to be admitted and making it up of say 70% fast-track and 30% regular queue until the fast-track queue is cleared. Even if people remain in the fast-track queue by doing that, they’re still going to get in faster than J. Average.

    Queues at theme parks are brutal. My family used to get free passes to go to Drayton Manor and the queues for some of the rides would be 45 minutes to an hour long. I used to get bored stiff, since I’m limited in the rides I can actually go on.

    • A lot of the queues we were in were at least an hour. Well, they were sign posted as such. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. Though nothing will match the 3 hours I stood in line for Dragon Kahn at Port Aventura. That was my madness!
      The staff just didn’t seem to have a clue about simple maths. There was a lot of rage in one queue!

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