walker1104
Mega Poster
So, last weekend I travelled down to Thorpe Park for a couple of days with three friends. We’d had it booked for ages and stayed in a Premier Inn 5 minutes away from Heathrow (the advantages of working for Costa Coffee means I get 25% off there). Sadly, I didn’t take many photos as my phone was in my bag the majority of the time, but there are some!
Day 1 – Saturday 9th April
Day 1 was pretty much just travelling down to the hotel. We ended up leaving about an hour after we’d intended due to people forgetting things and us having to go back. But eventually, at about 12:00, we were on the road. Only to hit a massive traffic jam on the M1. We ended up being stuck in said traffic jam for just over an hour, which sucked. But soon enough, we were moving again. After numerous stops at motorway services to buy stupidly overpriced food and drink, we arrived at the hotel. About 5 hours after we’d set off due to 50mph speed cameras and just general traffic.
Not much happened that night, we went out to TGI Fridays because my friend works there, so gets a 50% discount. We then went back to the hotel for a few beers.
Day 2 – Sunday 10th April
Sunday started off reasonably early, with a 7:30 start, which isn’t too fun after drinking the night before
. We left for the park around 8:30 with the intention of stopping off in Staines for a McDonalds breakfast. Double sausage and egg mcmuffin ftw. Then for some bizarre reason, the satnav couldn’t find a route from the McDonalds to the park. Every time we tried to enter the parks postcode, or even selecting it from the Theme Park category on the Tom-Tom, it just said no route found. So we just set off and guessed at which direction we needed to head in. Soon enough, we picked up some signs and could see Stealth in the distance.
We arrived at the car park for about 9:15, 15 minutes before opening. As we already had tickets, we could just walk through the turnstiles and avoid the humongous queue for buying tickets on the day. They let us into the park around 9:20. For the first hour or so, everything was pretty much walk on. First ride of the day was supposed to be Stealth, but as usual, it wasn’t up and running yet. We opted for Colossus instead.
Now I don’t find Colossus to be a bad ride usually, but for some reason, it absolutely killed my shoulders this time.
Next we tried to do Saw I believe, but it was still testing. I then spotted Stealth running, so we quickly wandered over that way.
Sure enough, Stealth was up and running now and with a queue time of around 5 minutes, we had multiple goes, including 2 on the front row. I love Stealth, for some reason, I never get bored of it. It’s just sheer adrenaline rush all the way through. After 5 consecutive goes on Stealth, queuing no more than 5 minutes each time, we wanted to see if Saw was up and running.
It was. Although it had built up a 40 minute queue somehow. Pretty much everything else topped out at about 30 minutes that day, except Saw. It was consistently busier round that area for some reason.
We got the second train, front row, for our first ride on Saw. I prefer the second train, I think the talk with Jigsaw at the beginning builds up the tension as you can hear the screams from the car in front.
Now, after this I can’t really remember what order we did things in to be honest. I think we went to Loggers Leap afterwards because it was such a hot day. It was up at 24 degrees according to a staff member. After Loggers Leap I’m pretty sure we did Rumba Rapids and Tidal Wave. I got absolutely soaked on Tidal Wave. I didn’t realize how wet you actually got, until I’d been on. It was entertaining though. We tried to get onto Storm Surge, to try and get all the water rides done at once whilst we were already wet, but sadly this was advertised as having an hour’s queue. And, let’s be honest, it didn’t look to be worth queuing that long for. So we gave it a miss and headed to Nemesis Inferno.
The queue was about 30 minutes I think and we made sure that we ended up on the back row. I don’t mind Nemesis Inferno, I think it’s a decent ride. My friends on the other hand, decided it was crap and didn’t want to do it again. I managed to convince them on it again the next day, but I only ended up having two rides on it, sadly.
To be honest, I’m losing track of the time here and I can’t remember the exact order that things happened in lol. But anyway, KFC times happened at some point, so I reckon that will have been around 3:00.
We then decided to go on a few flats. We did rush, and ended up waiting around 20 minutes for it. After Rush, we had another go on Colossus as that still only had a 15-20 minute queue and my friends all seemed to love it. We then headed over to Detonator. I’d never been on Detonator before and drop towers always seem to catch me out, so I was slightly apprehensive about it. But nevertheless, we joined the queue and after about 10 minutes, we were on. The ride operator for this was brilliant, he didn’t play the countdown and we seemed to be held at the top for a different amount of time each time (we ended up having about 4 consecutive goes). I really enjoyed it.
Now, after Detonator we did something which I regret. We went on X:\NWO. I hated this ride; it just made me feel ill. I’d heard people say about how bad it is on the forums before, but I just thought, surely it can’t be that bad… How wrong was I? It was awful, seriously. I think we did Saw again after this. We definitely went on it a couple of times that day.
It was now getting to about 5:00. So we decided multiple re-rides on Stealth were in order.
Stealth still had around a 15 minute queue at this point, but we waited it out anyway. I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. We had another 3 or so goes and then for the final ride we decided on front row. But then, as we were 3 trains away from getting on, it broke down. The engineers were called out and we sat around for 30 minutes before it was up and running again. Then we took our bags to the desk and in the meantime, 2 people decided to push in front of us in the front row queue. I said something to a ride op and she just said that there’s nothing she can do about it. I was like, alright then, fine. I suppose we’ll all get on at some point anyway. Wrong. They then announced that the next train would be the last, so we had to fill up empty seats. So the two guys that had pushed in from the normal queue had ended up on the front. And me and my mate, who had genuinely queued, ended up sitting in the middle! We were pretty pissed off about it, obviously, especially as the ride op said there was nothing she could do.
But we were cheered up in the car park on the way out when an epic horn war started. It only started when one car hit the horn at another to tell him to move up to the barrier, but then another person hit theirs. It wasn’t long before there were about 15 cars in the car park all hitting their horns at different points! It was hilarious to watch the staff run up to people’s cars to ask them to stop. Then the one guy next to us, who literally held his horn down for about 30 seconds. It was brilliant!
We then headed back to the hotel for food and beer before hitting the sack for another early start the next day.
Day 3 – Monday 11th April
Once again, the day started with us leaving for the McDonalds in Staines at about 8:15. I had a porridge this time in a feeble attempt to try to be healthy. We arrived at the park at about 9:15 again, and once again, we had prepaid tickets so we could just walk straight through. First ride of the day today was to be Storm Surge, before the queue picked up. We got in the third boat of the day, awesome. I was unsure about this ride, it’s not bad, but there’s no way I’d queue an hour for it. I enjoyed the foot massage on the way up the hill though . Other than that, it was a good laugh with friends I guess, with lots of spinning.
After this, we wanted to get on the front row of Stealth after our disaster last night. So that’s what we did. Stealth was still walk on, to the extent of they had some guy shouting “who wants to ride again?” and letting you back through the gate to jump straight onto the next train. So with one front row ride and 3 back row rides, we decided to do something else. The queue had built up by this point, so we could no longer use the gate sadly.
We then fancied another re-ride on Colossus. So we called on that on our way over to Slammer.
I hated slammer. It was just painful. I refuse to ever go on that ride again. I can’t really remember the order again now, so I’ll just try to make it up lol. We did Saw again at some point.
We then milled around for a bit and doing some of the flat rides. We went back on Rush at some point too. I then took your advice and went to the kebab place for dinner. That place is amazing! The chicken tikka kebab was awesome!
I think we went back to Detonator after this. But seen as though I don’t have any pictures of Detonator, have this picture of Stealth from the side of Detonator instead
Saw and Colossus still only had queue times of around 20 minutes, so we had re-rides on those again. Saw still gives me a headache for some reason. By this point, we were exhausted so had to take a break and sit in the coffee shop in the dome for a while.
We then, wandered back over to Nemesis Inferno to see if I could change their opinions on it. It’s not the best of rides, but I didn’t think it was as bad as they made out for it to be. Queue time was around 20 minutes.
(Yes, I know I missed the train on this one, but if I’d have waited any longer, my friends would have just abandoned me lol)
It was getting to be about 5:15 now, so we decided to hit stealth again.
It had dropped in temperature now and was getting cloudy. It looked like it was going to rain. We had a few spots of it, but nothing major. After another 3 rides on Stealth, including 1 front as the queue was only 5 people long, it was nearing 5:45. So, with the park closing in 15 minutes, we wanted one last go on Saw.
It was pretty much walk on to be honest, no longer than a 5 minute queue. Then, once we arrived back in the station and got off the ride, one of the ride ops asked if we’d like a re-ride because the back 4 seats needed filling up. So, we took them up on that offer and got on the last train of the day.
Then, it was time to leave the park and hit the motorway for a long drive back up north. But not before hitting traffic and queuing around Heathrow again. But, eventually, after about 3 hours and a couple of coffee stops, we arrived back home.
Total ride count: (these probably won’t add up with what I said in the report, but I missed out some of the re-rides due to not being able to remember the order exactly)
Stealth x16
Colossus x5
Nemesis Inferno x 2
Saw x 5
X:\NWO x 1
I’ll not list all the flat rides too, but everything was done at least once.
Also, whilst in Thorpe, I took my iPod on a couple of the rides and used the accelerometers to log the data for the g force. I only did it for Stealth and Inferno as they don’t crush whatever is in your pocket like Saw and Colossus do. I’ve put the data into Excel and uploaded it to Mediafire if anyone’s interested. Here’s the download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?j35u5bwx6iwemff
Obviously, it’s not going to be very accurate or anything, but I found it pretty interesting to look at. I’m going to Alton Towers tomorrow, so I’ll do the same for the rides there. If people enjoyed looking at this one, I’ll upload the others after tomorrow too.
Thanks for reading!
Day 1 – Saturday 9th April
Day 1 was pretty much just travelling down to the hotel. We ended up leaving about an hour after we’d intended due to people forgetting things and us having to go back. But eventually, at about 12:00, we were on the road. Only to hit a massive traffic jam on the M1. We ended up being stuck in said traffic jam for just over an hour, which sucked. But soon enough, we were moving again. After numerous stops at motorway services to buy stupidly overpriced food and drink, we arrived at the hotel. About 5 hours after we’d set off due to 50mph speed cameras and just general traffic.
Not much happened that night, we went out to TGI Fridays because my friend works there, so gets a 50% discount. We then went back to the hotel for a few beers.
Day 2 – Sunday 10th April
Sunday started off reasonably early, with a 7:30 start, which isn’t too fun after drinking the night before
. We left for the park around 8:30 with the intention of stopping off in Staines for a McDonalds breakfast. Double sausage and egg mcmuffin ftw. Then for some bizarre reason, the satnav couldn’t find a route from the McDonalds to the park. Every time we tried to enter the parks postcode, or even selecting it from the Theme Park category on the Tom-Tom, it just said no route found. So we just set off and guessed at which direction we needed to head in. Soon enough, we picked up some signs and could see Stealth in the distance.We arrived at the car park for about 9:15, 15 minutes before opening. As we already had tickets, we could just walk through the turnstiles and avoid the humongous queue for buying tickets on the day. They let us into the park around 9:20. For the first hour or so, everything was pretty much walk on. First ride of the day was supposed to be Stealth, but as usual, it wasn’t up and running yet. We opted for Colossus instead.
Now I don’t find Colossus to be a bad ride usually, but for some reason, it absolutely killed my shoulders this time.
Next we tried to do Saw I believe, but it was still testing. I then spotted Stealth running, so we quickly wandered over that way.
Sure enough, Stealth was up and running now and with a queue time of around 5 minutes, we had multiple goes, including 2 on the front row. I love Stealth, for some reason, I never get bored of it. It’s just sheer adrenaline rush all the way through. After 5 consecutive goes on Stealth, queuing no more than 5 minutes each time, we wanted to see if Saw was up and running.
It was. Although it had built up a 40 minute queue somehow. Pretty much everything else topped out at about 30 minutes that day, except Saw. It was consistently busier round that area for some reason.
We got the second train, front row, for our first ride on Saw. I prefer the second train, I think the talk with Jigsaw at the beginning builds up the tension as you can hear the screams from the car in front.
Now, after this I can’t really remember what order we did things in to be honest. I think we went to Loggers Leap afterwards because it was such a hot day. It was up at 24 degrees according to a staff member. After Loggers Leap I’m pretty sure we did Rumba Rapids and Tidal Wave. I got absolutely soaked on Tidal Wave. I didn’t realize how wet you actually got, until I’d been on. It was entertaining though. We tried to get onto Storm Surge, to try and get all the water rides done at once whilst we were already wet, but sadly this was advertised as having an hour’s queue. And, let’s be honest, it didn’t look to be worth queuing that long for. So we gave it a miss and headed to Nemesis Inferno.
The queue was about 30 minutes I think and we made sure that we ended up on the back row. I don’t mind Nemesis Inferno, I think it’s a decent ride. My friends on the other hand, decided it was crap and didn’t want to do it again. I managed to convince them on it again the next day, but I only ended up having two rides on it, sadly.
To be honest, I’m losing track of the time here and I can’t remember the exact order that things happened in lol. But anyway, KFC times happened at some point, so I reckon that will have been around 3:00.
We then decided to go on a few flats. We did rush, and ended up waiting around 20 minutes for it. After Rush, we had another go on Colossus as that still only had a 15-20 minute queue and my friends all seemed to love it. We then headed over to Detonator. I’d never been on Detonator before and drop towers always seem to catch me out, so I was slightly apprehensive about it. But nevertheless, we joined the queue and after about 10 minutes, we were on. The ride operator for this was brilliant, he didn’t play the countdown and we seemed to be held at the top for a different amount of time each time (we ended up having about 4 consecutive goes). I really enjoyed it.
Now, after Detonator we did something which I regret. We went on X:\NWO. I hated this ride; it just made me feel ill. I’d heard people say about how bad it is on the forums before, but I just thought, surely it can’t be that bad… How wrong was I? It was awful, seriously. I think we did Saw again after this. We definitely went on it a couple of times that day.
It was now getting to about 5:00. So we decided multiple re-rides on Stealth were in order.
Stealth still had around a 15 minute queue at this point, but we waited it out anyway. I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. We had another 3 or so goes and then for the final ride we decided on front row. But then, as we were 3 trains away from getting on, it broke down. The engineers were called out and we sat around for 30 minutes before it was up and running again. Then we took our bags to the desk and in the meantime, 2 people decided to push in front of us in the front row queue. I said something to a ride op and she just said that there’s nothing she can do about it. I was like, alright then, fine. I suppose we’ll all get on at some point anyway. Wrong. They then announced that the next train would be the last, so we had to fill up empty seats. So the two guys that had pushed in from the normal queue had ended up on the front. And me and my mate, who had genuinely queued, ended up sitting in the middle! We were pretty pissed off about it, obviously, especially as the ride op said there was nothing she could do.
But we were cheered up in the car park on the way out when an epic horn war started. It only started when one car hit the horn at another to tell him to move up to the barrier, but then another person hit theirs. It wasn’t long before there were about 15 cars in the car park all hitting their horns at different points! It was hilarious to watch the staff run up to people’s cars to ask them to stop. Then the one guy next to us, who literally held his horn down for about 30 seconds. It was brilliant!
We then headed back to the hotel for food and beer before hitting the sack for another early start the next day.
Day 3 – Monday 11th April
Once again, the day started with us leaving for the McDonalds in Staines at about 8:15. I had a porridge this time in a feeble attempt to try to be healthy
. We arrived at the park at about 9:15 again, and once again, we had prepaid tickets so we could just walk straight through. First ride of the day today was to be Storm Surge, before the queue picked up. We got in the third boat of the day, awesome. I was unsure about this ride, it’s not bad, but there’s no way I’d queue an hour for it. I enjoyed the foot massage on the way up the hill though . Other than that, it was a good laugh with friends I guess, with lots of spinning.After this, we wanted to get on the front row of Stealth after our disaster last night. So that’s what we did. Stealth was still walk on, to the extent of they had some guy shouting “who wants to ride again?” and letting you back through the gate to jump straight onto the next train. So with one front row ride and 3 back row rides, we decided to do something else. The queue had built up by this point, so we could no longer use the gate sadly.
We then fancied another re-ride on Colossus. So we called on that on our way over to Slammer.
I hated slammer. It was just painful. I refuse to ever go on that ride again. I can’t really remember the order again now, so I’ll just try to make it up lol. We did Saw again at some point.
We then milled around for a bit and doing some of the flat rides. We went back on Rush at some point too. I then took your advice and went to the kebab place for dinner. That place is amazing! The chicken tikka kebab was awesome!
I think we went back to Detonator after this. But seen as though I don’t have any pictures of Detonator, have this picture of Stealth from the side of Detonator instead
Saw and Colossus still only had queue times of around 20 minutes, so we had re-rides on those again. Saw still gives me a headache for some reason. By this point, we were exhausted so had to take a break and sit in the coffee shop in the dome for a while.
We then, wandered back over to Nemesis Inferno to see if I could change their opinions on it. It’s not the best of rides, but I didn’t think it was as bad as they made out for it to be. Queue time was around 20 minutes.
(Yes, I know I missed the train on this one, but if I’d have waited any longer, my friends would have just abandoned me lol)
It was getting to be about 5:15 now, so we decided to hit stealth again.
It had dropped in temperature now and was getting cloudy. It looked like it was going to rain. We had a few spots of it, but nothing major. After another 3 rides on Stealth, including 1 front as the queue was only 5 people long, it was nearing 5:45. So, with the park closing in 15 minutes, we wanted one last go on Saw.
It was pretty much walk on to be honest, no longer than a 5 minute queue. Then, once we arrived back in the station and got off the ride, one of the ride ops asked if we’d like a re-ride because the back 4 seats needed filling up. So, we took them up on that offer and got on the last train of the day.
Then, it was time to leave the park and hit the motorway for a long drive back up north. But not before hitting traffic and queuing around Heathrow again. But, eventually, after about 3 hours and a couple of coffee stops, we arrived back home.
Total ride count: (these probably won’t add up with what I said in the report, but I missed out some of the re-rides due to not being able to remember the order exactly)
Stealth x16
Colossus x5
Nemesis Inferno x 2
Saw x 5
X:\NWO x 1
I’ll not list all the flat rides too, but everything was done at least once.
Also, whilst in Thorpe, I took my iPod on a couple of the rides and used the accelerometers to log the data for the g force. I only did it for Stealth and Inferno as they don’t crush whatever is in your pocket like Saw and Colossus do. I’ve put the data into Excel and uploaded it to Mediafire if anyone’s interested. Here’s the download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?j35u5bwx6iwemff
Obviously, it’s not going to be very accurate or anything, but I found it pretty interesting to look at. I’m going to Alton Towers tomorrow, so I’ll do the same for the rides there. If people enjoyed looking at this one, I’ll upload the others after tomorrow too.
Thanks for reading!
. I wasn't sure whether it read alright or not. I never was much good at English at school :lol: 