Yay for 600-mile round trips for Paultons, Flying Fish, Zodiac and the Tea Cups. I should've gone to Alton!
Okay, so saturday was pretty terrible, even by Thorpe's standards. My big complaint isn't about the breakdowns, I can just about accept that (even if it is pretty bad luck for all that to break down on the same day), it was just the poor organisation in the park.
I think i've seen things from a different perspective this weekend with having Dylan with us, but Thorpe just wasn't prepared for anything but adults on saturday. Some might say that they're only ever prepared for adults, but seeing as Dylan's over 1.1m, there is a bit of stuff he can ride at Thorpe. Sadly, until 12 o'clock, there were only two of those rides open (Fish & Tea Cups), so while we were all queuing for Saw (unsuccessfully), Lucy & Dylan had to make do with two rides for two hours.
At 12, the Train was opening, that ran for about 20 mins before that was evacuated too, so we headed towards Ranger County where there's theoretically three rides suitable for Dylan. Fungle Safari is no longer operational, the carousel was having maintenance done still (clearly the off-season isn't enough time) and the Banana Boat just never opened, that wasn't bothered with. So, there go three suitable rides straight away. We'd already seen by this point that Loggers had no water in it, so that was never going to be an option, 4 ride options down. Over to the rapids, which were originally 'opening at 12'. By half 1, they were 'opening at 2'. By half 2, they'd 'overfilled them and they were probably not going to open at all'. Well done Thorpe, 5 possible rides down now.
Sometime around then we were led to believe that Rocky Express was now shut too (and that too didn't open til 12), so that was another option out. It was literally just Octopus' Garden and Depth Charge left, and by this point, Depth Charge had almost an hour's queue, and that's too much to keep a child waiting, especially in that queueline, so at that point, Guest Services beckoned, and I had a nice whinge.
Thorpe also missed a trick in that we complained and got free tickets, which were for Alton seeing as we'd travelled 200-odd miles for ****-all, and then still managed to exchange our tickets on the way out for replacement Thorpe ones. Well done Thorpe, you're all absolute organisational geniuses!
I barely even passed a thought to the fact that Slammer and Stealth were down all day too, but considering they've had all off-season to maintain them and fix them, you'd hope they'd at least have some life by March. I think Thorpe need to ditch these early season openings, they're pushing themselves too much, and making a royal mess of stuff.
Paultons on the other hand, absolutely cracking day, beautiful weather, excellent company, and more operational rides! Well done to the little independent park in gaining victory over the big corporate chain with all the money up the road!
