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Thorpe trip-ALMOST enjoyable

Mr Nash

Hyper Poster
Easter Sunday trip report.

Arrived at the park around 11.15,and was greeted by a horrendous looking queue to get in,luckily enough,my friend had pre-booked his ticket online,and with my Annual Pass,we just strolled straight in. :--D

Knowing the park would be rammed,I decided to buy Fastrak tickets,the queue for this was quite long too,but about 15 mins later,we enter the park.First on the list was either Loggers or Tidal Wave,we decide on Loggers,and was quite surprised to see there was virtually no queue. :roll:.I like it,it's a nice fun ride,and the bump on the main drop litterally throws you up out the seat,and would have escaped realitively dry,apart from some horrible little brat on the water cannons getting me with a direct hit in the face. :evil:

Next up was Colossus,and we joined the Fastrak queue with about a 20 minute wait.Not sure what happened here but,it was really good.Probably the best ride I've had on it,didn't feel as rough as it normally is,and I remembered to stick my head forward,so no ear bashing whatsoever.Wow.

We then had about half an hour to kill before riding Inferno,so went to see what kind of queue Tidal Wave had.Again surprised to so no queue at all,we strolled straight into the station,and jumped on the first boat.Not sure if it matters where you sit,but we got back row,and was absolutely soaked,socks,pants the lot,I don't think there was one dry patch on me.I've got wet on it before,but never to this extent.As usual,the queue for the dryer was longer than for the ride itself,so we walked off dripping wet.

Inferno was next,and I wanted to do something at Thorpe that I had never done before.No,I don't mean enjoy myself,but ride very front row,which I did.Oh wow,it was awesome,the forces at the front were incredible.I've only ridden three Inverts,Inferno,Nemesis and Raptor,and of the three,Infernos always been in third place,but after riding front row,I'd say it's gone into second.I don't think I'd ride it in any other row again. :lol:

The last ride on our Fastrak list was XNWO,but having convinced my friend that it's a major pile of poo,we decide to do Rumba Rapids instead.I can now see what people are talking about with the water effects,they get you from all directions,it's getting almost as bad as Tidal Wave. :lol: Sometimes you can move to avoid getting hit,but not now,and especially from the waterfall over the tunnel,major soakage yet again.

So far,I'm soaked to the skin,at Thorpe park,and yet I'm having fun,serious wtf moment.........And then............

We now decide to do Stealth,the queue line is announcing a 120 minute wait,but we go ahead anyway.The queues moving quite steadily,and we are about an hour in,as I'm standing looking at my phone,the crowd starts jeering and clapping,and I hear a few "Oh knows",I look up to see Stealth has launched about 15 feet,the brake fins are up,and it's completely stopped.The usual announcements start and I can't help but laugh.I'd say we held out for about another 20 minutes,but the announcer kept saying,it's broke,don't know for how long blah blah blah,and with time running out,we abandoned the queue.

Now there was only one thing left to do,Saw.......

Got to the queue about 3.30,and noticed the board was displaying a 140 minute wait.About 20 minutes in,an announcement was made about general daily maintenence checks,and that the ride would be closed for about 5 minutes. :roll: Out comes a juggler to keep everybody entertained,(who was crap and kept dropping everything),and at least 20 minutes later,the ride restarted.I really don't know what the capicity of this ride should be,or how many cars were running,but my God,I've never been in such a slow moving queue.After queueing for about an hour and a half,and only just reaching the barbed wire fence section,there was another announcement.Because of queue jumpers,the ride was temporarily shutting down.Now seriously WTF!!!!!Yes queue jumping is bad,yes get them chucked out the park,but why shut down the ride.Had these queue jumpers got onto the tracks or something?.By this time people were getting seriously hacked off,some were kicking the fences,some were climbing up the fences to see how much queue was left,and the amount of people leaving and walking back through was huge.Although by now I'm seething,I did laugh when one girl walked back past us and said "What a complete and utter waste of two and a half ****ing hours" :lol: So another hour goes by,and we've got about as far as an asthmatic ant with heavy shopping, :lol: ,it's now six o'clock,and could see that there is at least another good hour or more of queueing,we just give up,and walk out disgusted.As much as I would have liked to ridden it,there's is no way on Earth I'm queueing four plus hours,just for a bloody Eurofighter.

So it was a good start,ruined by a bad finish.All those hours wasted queueing for Stealth and then Saw,and still not got on them,when I could have re-ridden Inferno front row again. :lol:

Ride Count

Loggers Leap x1
Colossus x1
Inferno x1
Rumba Rapids x1
Tidal Wave x1
 

Dave

CF Legend
I think Saw is doing good buisness for Thorpe....*whistles*

Sorry to hear you didn't get on it!

p.s. I thought you were some n00b with your name and realised it had changed!
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
Saw seems disgusting. I thought the queue line was capped at 90mins (so Beans told me). I have to laugh at the lame excuses for the break downs. They've shut the ride for daily maitenace checks and queue jumpers? I've never heard of a park close a ride becuase of queue jumpers and I thought maintenance checks were done at the start of the day.

Joke.

Then again, if people continue to keep going to the park, then it wont improve.
 

Mr Nash

Hyper Poster
I would say Saw had at least a 4 hour queue yesterday,maybe more.Some people were saying they had been in the queue for 3 hours already,and were still a fair way from the building entrance.Loads of people left the queue complaining.It didn't help with losing 30 minutes,20 minutes for "daily maintence checks" and 10 minutes for queue jumpers.I'd say maybe 4 cars were running,there just seemed to be a huge wait after seeing one car,to seeing the next one.What I don't understand is,people were still joining the queue around 6 o'clock when we left,surely they wouldn't have got on till about 10 o'clock?
 

A-Kid

Giga Poster
^^On the 10th April they didn't even start morning checks untill 10.30!!

Saw is on low capacity at the moment due to the first problems it had weeks ago. Its a design fault that Gerstlauer made (1 of many). Running how it should, the full queue would be 90 mins max.

So its 6 cars on 1 minuet 30 sec dispatches...

Meh, its open atleased.

Glade you had half a good day considering it was Easter!
 

Dave

CF Legend
I wouldn't say its entirely Gerstlauers fault, they are probably doing all they can, its Thorpe asking too much of a manufacturer that caters for medium size parks.
 

marc

CF Legend
Then they should not have said they could do it Dave.

Its like buying a car that you get told will do 70 but when you drive it it will only do 30.

But also Thorpe should have looked around and seen this has not been done before and not taken the risk.

Thorpe are fully in their rights to take the matter further, remember what happened with Knotts and Togo if not look it up :)
 

Infernus

Hyper Poster
Ian, When you get some nasty Q-jumpers, best thing to do is lock em' into the restraints.. Then atleast you don't have to worry about them until Security arrives.

And just so you know Mr. Nash, We got out around 9pm after cleaning the Saw queueline... and after we had a couple of rides :)
 
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