Getting outside by riding roller coasters at UK theme park Thorpe Park. An honest review.
On the last day of September, my husband and I spent a day at Thorpe Park, thanks to some complimentary tickets from Merlin. As a bit of a roller coaster loving thrill-seeker, this was my chance to make up for lost time – I’ve not visited this theme park for more than 25 years. The day promised excitement, and in many ways, it delivered. From the adrenaline-pumping speed of Stealth to the weightlessness of Hyperia, the rides were nothing short of exhilarating.
However, the day wasn’t without its glitches. The weather decided to play spoilsport, with intermittent rain dampening the experience. Several rides faced reliability issues, leading to unexpected downtime and longer waits. And the park seemed a bit neglected, with grimy floors and areas in need of repair.
Despite these things, the thrill of the rides made for a memorable day out. I mentioned a little of the day in a recent weekly blog episode, but I wanted to share more about Thorpe Park, offering an honest take on what you can expect from a visit to this popular amusement park in the UK.
Theme Parks and Getting Outside
I’ll answer this question right at the start. You may wonder why an outdoors-focused blogger is going to Thorpe Park courtesy of free tickets… how does this fit with Splodz Blogz?
Well, other than the fact that I genuinely have always loved roller coasters, and so when the opportunity came along to ride a few on a September Monday, I was going to take it.
But seriously, this is a way to show that spending time outdoors really can be all kinds of things for all kinds of people. My opinion on what constitutes an outdoor activity is incredibly wide ranging. Is it outside? Then it counts. One Hour Outside is all about finding different ways that get you out in the natural light and fresh air, so you want to do it every day. If that involves riding roller coasters, then bring it on!
In any case, even at this small theme park in the UK, I still walked over 14,000 steps in four hours – so there was even exercise.
My Day at Thorpe Park
I can’t report our day at Thorpe Park was the perfect day out. It wasn’t a bad day, but there are some things that made it less enjoyable than it might otherwise have been. And yes, I’m going to the negatives first, because I don’t want you to think it was all sunshine.
UK theme parks are not a patch on Disney or Universal, and having had the pleasure of seeing how things can be done at those world-class parks, the ones here always feel a bit lacklustre in comparison. The magic and meticulous attention to detail that Disney and Universal are known for is missing here in the UK, and it’s hard not to notice the difference.
The weather, predictably, didn’t cooperate. It rained on and off throughout the day, which put a bit of a damper on things. While I know there’s nothing Thorpe Park can do about the weather, the park designers could at least add a lot more places to take shelter, especially with seating. It made me smile that there were free sun cream dispensers all over the park (a good idea), but hardly any rain cover – they know which country we are in, right?!
And while I’m talking about navigating the park, what’s with all the random kerbs and uneven surfaces on the walkways? I nearly went flying courtesy of a weird lump in the middle of the street, and noticed at least one “step free” ride entrance with a kerb immediately in front of it. A bit of construction laziness when changing routes around the park, I fear.
Rough Around the Edges
The park itself seemed quite rough around the edges. I noticed a build-up of grime in the corners, doors and walls in need of repair, and generally an ‘end of season’ look and feel, even though the park is open for many more weeks of the year yet.
Thorpe Park isn’t helped by the fact that the water-based attractions – of which there are several – are closed and emptied at the end of the summer period. This meant that by the time we visited at the end of September, visitors’ first experience of the theme park is a load of empty pools in need of refurbishment. I remember the water rides from my childhood with fondness, but on Monday they seemed a bit drab.
It just felt like the park, especially around the entrance dome area, could use some TLC. In fact, that dome itself needs some attention. I guess that once you notice a few things here and there, you notice a lot… it detracts from the overall theme park experience.
Ride Reliability
I can certainly forgive the park looking dull on a dull day, but there are clearly some issues with ride reliability, which are more disappointing. Several attractions were down at various points through the day, including Hyperia (more than once), Stealth and Saw. Nemesis Inferno was also closed all day, although that was for planned maintenance and had been advertised in advance.
Hyperia is Thorpe Park’s newest roller coaster, and riding it was at the top of my to do list. Along with pretty much everyone else that morning, we went straight there at the start of the day. Having waited for 40-minutes, first outside the ride queue area and then inside it, we got almost to the point of entering the station building when the ride was shut down.
We waited for a bit before eventually giving up when an announcement said an engineer had been called but was not yet on site. Being right near the front of the queue, we excused ourselves past the handful of people in front of us and exited via the fast pass lane.
Looking After Visitors
There have been a lot of issues with this new roller coaster, and there will be lots of reasons for that. I just think the queue was poorly handled; well, it wasn’t handled – prerecorded messages played over the public address system (I just learnt that Tannoy is a brand name… every day is a School day!).
If I had been at one of the Florida theme parks and an attraction had closed with me just one or two rides away from being on it, I’d have been given a fast pass so I didn’t have to queue again later. And those running the ride would have been working their way down the queue speaking to visitors. Two things Thorpe Park should consider.
Riding the Rides
All the above aside, I promise I had a good day. Being honest about the whole experience is important, as I don’t just want to feed you the best bits. Hopefully in the rest of my review I can give you a sense of the roller coasters – because the ones at Thorpe Park are fantastic.
After leaving the Hyperia queue, we decided to head to a walk-on ride or two to curb the disappointment of waiting for ages with no reward. I have to add here that the Thorpe Park app (find it here) was super useful during the day. It provided live queue times, and so we could work our way around the closures as they happened. It also gives distances and directions, and a bunch of other information about the rides and other attractions. If you are so inclined, you can also buy fast passes in the app too, so if you are visiting on a busy day in summer, you can pay to skip the lines.
Anyway, seeing as Colossus is right next to Hyperia, and was showing as a walk-on, that became our first actual ride of the day. Renowned for its ten inversions, this ride is a dizzying experience, thanks to its corkscrew twists and turns that leave you feeling like you’ve been spun in every direction. It’s a true test of your tolerance for spinning and flipping, a proper roller coaster like they used to make them.
Spins and Speed
Wanting something a bit more straight-lined, next up was the adrenaline-pumping Stealth. This catapults riders from 0 to 80mph in less than two seconds. The sheer force of acceleration is breathtaking, and before you know it, you’re shooting up and over a massive arc high up in the sky. That drop down is just incredible – stomach in the mouth stuff. Though the ride is super short, it’s incredibly intense and left me buzzing with excitement. I went back to ride it again, I loved it.
Almost as soon as I’d entered the short 10-minute queue for SAW, there was an announcement to say it had closed, so I did an about turn hoping it would reopen quicker than Hyperia. Instead, we decided to walk back over to the other side of the park to check out the show in the theatre.
The 4D theatre show based on Ready Player One was a change of pace (and helped with the lingering dizziness from Colossus!). The 15-minute film was enjoyable, and the in-theatre effects like moving chairs and wind and water sprays added some extra interest and made us laugh. I have to say, though, the highlight was the person doing the introduction – they were without doubt the best performer we saw all day. While it wasn’t the most exhilarating part of our visit, it was still a good addition to the overall day out.
Lunch Time
When it came to getting lunch, we knew we were going to have to spend a bit of money as theme park food isn’t cheap. We’re a captive audience, and all that. We found that quite a few of the food places were closed, and while this did reduce the choice, I can understand why not everything would be open on such a quiet day in the park. Even with that, I was pleasantly surprised by the options available; yes, I could have had a Burger King or fried chicken and chips, but there was also an Indian, an Italian, a Mexican, and various other cuisines to choose from.
We narrowed our choice down to loaded fries or burritos, but when looking at the menu for the former, an employee told us they didn’t have toppings for the chips on that day. They could stretch to chips with bacon bits on, but that was about it. In any case, the Mexican was indoors, which was a bonus on this damp day. The food was actually very nice – hot and full of flavour – it certainly did the job. (I’ll come to money spent a bit later.)
Two Thorpe Park Classics
After lunch I decided to give The Swarm a go, having heard a couple of Thorpe Park employees say it is underestimated. I would agree with them, this is a fantastic roller coaster, with some of the best theming in the whole park.
Sitting next to the track rather than on it offered a unique sensation of flying through the landscape. There are a few near-miss elements that make you feel like you’re skimming the ground and structures, and it’s said riders experience 4.5G on one of the loops. I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was very immersive, and was one of just two I returned to ride a second time before heading home.
Until Monday, I hadn’t been to Thorpe Park since before SAW The Ride was opened in 2009. Saw has always been on my bucket list of roller coasters, mainly because of its famous 100-degree drop. Drop rides are probably my favourite type, and this one did not disappoint. The anticipation as you climb the vertical lift hill, knowing what’s coming, is almost as thrilling as the drop itself.
Hyperia Success
I’d been watching the Hyperia queue in the Thorpe Park app, and had seen it had been consistently running for a couple of hours, and so decided I would put up with the queue again in the hope I’d get further than the first time. The standard queue was listed as 40-minutes long, so I took the single rider line hoping that might be quicker… It wasn’t, it turned out everyone in the main queue was in pairs. Oh well!
Hyperia is Thorpe Park’s newest and tallest coaster. Standing at a towering 236 feet, this roller coaster offers far-reaching views of the park and beyond. The ride features massive loops, rapid drops, and surprisingly long moments of weightlessness that make you feel like you’re floating in the sky. It reaches speeds of over 80mph, and is a decent length, too – nearly a kilometre.
It’s a spectacular addition to Thorpe Park’s lineup and a must-ride for any coaster enthusiast. It was absolutely worth the wait. Although it wasn’t quite good enough to warrant waiting in line for another 40-minutes to ride it again! Instead, I returned to Stealth and The Swarm, both walk-ons, to ride those a second time each before we decided to call it a day and head home.
My Thorpe Park Verdict
If you buy admission online before you go at this time of year, a day ticket costs anything from £29 (which it would have been for us if we’d paid) to £42 depending on the day you choose. Never buy tickets on the gate – it’ll cost at least £66, and there is just no need.
Despite getting my tickets for free, we still spent quite a bit on our day at Thorpe Park. Our morning cuppa at Costa (where we noticed the grime…) cost £6.50 for two. Lunch was a little over £32 for two chicken burritos and two regular-sized cups of soda. And the two Doughnut Time doughnuts we brought home with us were around £8. So that’s something over £46.50 for two just on quite a limited amount of food and drink. If I’d have paid for my tickets and parking too, the day out would have cost me in excess of £120.
The outdoors might be free, but days out like this definitely aren’t.
Okay, so the park was a little rough around the edges, and we did experience ride reliability issues, but I was glad I went and had a really fun day outdoors. There’s something about the rush of a roller coaster that can lift your spirits, even on a dreary day. The experience, which was literally filled with highs and lows, and put a real smile on my face.
And it has reminded me just how much I love a roller coaster. And how varied life spent outdoors can be.
For more information about Thorpe Park, and to book your own tickets, visit the official website.
With thanks to Merlin for the Thorpe Park tickets. While the tickets were free, this is not a sponsored post or advertorial; the write-up is my own and was not a condition of the gift.