Thorpe Park

thorpe park is a great amusement park for kids to go to for birthdays and any special occasions you have it really is indescribable the words i'm looking for is amazing and terrific you should go there

So every year I use up my Tesco clubcard points to purchase a Merlin pass for the kids and me and for the last 10 years have visited at least 4 times a year. Thorpe Park has evolved into a teenage theme park as opposed to a family day out. Practically all the small kids ride have gone – I can remember when they had a boat crossing to a lovely family friendly farm. Stealth, Saw, Colossus, Nemesis are all solid rides. Great fun. Keep a close eye on queue times, get here early and use the single person queue whenever you can. Fright Nights are the pick of the year – the live mazes are seriously scary.

Update:

Back again for the first time in 2012 – teacher training day and drizzle – no queues! The Swarm is here – come for this alone – just do it! Awesome…

Having been to Thorpe Park only twice so far,(which is a bit poor considering its such a great place to go for rides and fun!) I have enjoyed the atmosphere and the rides are very good but they’re not for the faint hearted! If you get thrills from heights and being spun up and down on rides, this is the place to go.

Thorpe Park was built in 1979 with the intention of creating a water based theme for the park.

In 2009, the park had 1.87 million visitors, making it the second most visited theme park in the United Kingdom, after Alton Towers.

It was sold to The Tussauds Group in 1998 and was heavierly marketed towards the teenage and young adult market with a series of exciting new rides.

These include the new Saw ride and Saw Alive, live action theatre experience based on the scary Saw film series.

This was my first time at Thorpe Park and even though I am no longer a teenager, I felt a burst of excitement at entering the park and hearing the laughs and excited screams of the people enjoying themselves.

Though thrilled by the scary rides in my youth, I decided to stay clear of them and stuck to fun, if a little wet, Water Rides. I played some Air Hockey and rode a Banana Boat.

All in all it was a great afternoon and choosing to go out of the summer holidays meant I didn’t have to queue for anything.

And that is a bonus worth screaming about!

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I went here every year for school trips while I was at school. We would arrive at about 11 and leave about 4. In that time we would only get on about 3 rides if we were lucky. The queue times are ridiculous. 3 hours for Stealth (a 10 second ride which was awesome btw!) other than the waiting times and the amount of £££ spent on food and photos it's a nice day out with family and friends. The Colossus is pretty cool too. Do not go on it if you're kind of on the big side. Not to be mean but there was and incident last year where a woman and her child has to get off the ride because the mother couldn't fit underneath the harness. I really felt it for her so to save you the embarrassment make sure you try the seat they normally have before you queue. If you do go to Thorpe Park make you leave at the crack of dawn to make sure you have the best chance of going on at least 4 of the rides. I would definitely go there again but next time I'm bringing a brolly (English weather) and a thick jacket and a packed lunch. You do get a little peckish... especially in the long queues.

By far the best theme Park in the south of England, friendly staff and plenty of choice of rides! Been an annual pass holder for 2 years running and can see it becoming a third!!! Need of a ride like Air though :)

Thorpe Park is eyewateringly expensive. I mean, ridiculously so. Once you’ve factored in £3 for the shuttle bus, and £11.10 return train fare from Waterloo, the idea of forking over £38 for a ticket made me want to cry. So, I bought four tickets off ebay for £26 all in instead which made it infinitely more reasonable.

We went on my birthday, which happened to be the Tuesday after autumn half-term had finished so it was a) a bit cold, hurray for jackets and b) less populated with frenetically hyperactive children and hideous queues. We still had a bit of queueing to do, about 30 minutes each for Nemesis, Stealth and Saw, but compared to the nightmares of going in summer, this was an absolute doddle. By half three we were able to walk straight onto Colossus, which was ace, but we really should have paid more attention to the many, many signs for Tidal Wave pointing out that we’d get wet as we were a miserable bunch of sodden rats on the train home.

We paid £15 for a photo package of four pictures which was much better value than buying them individually, but I made the terrible mistake of paying £20 for the two DVDs of the four of us on the Saw rollercoaster. Do not do this. It only films you from the halfway point when you’re climbing up to that huge drop, which is hilarious to watch, but also means you’re a complete fool for forking out so much for 30 seconds of the ride. If it was the whole lot, that would be utterly brilliant, but it isn’t, and you only discover that when you get home. Bit misleading as it says it’s the ride, not a tiny bit of the ride.

The rides are great, the food depressingly awful (although contrarily, our Pizza Slut lunch was exactly what was needed after a morning of abject fear and screaming). I’d certainly never pay full-price, or go in summer, but for a wonderful day out with friends it really hit the spot. We only bothered to queue for the front seats of a ride once, on Nemesis, as it took absolutely ages and while it made the ride really fun, it didn’t need to be repeated.

I was also really impressed by the views. The park is in a really lovely area, made even more special by the combination of a lovely sunny day and trees still covered in gold and orange leaves. There was one surreal moment just as I was about to hurtle 250 feet in a straight line down from Stealth that I looked down and went “Wow – that’s incredibly beautiful.”

I went to Thorpe Park for 2 days in June (2010)
I am glad we went for 2 days and not 1 or we would have been a bit disappointed as 90% of your day is queuing.
This has a lot to do with going on a Sunday in summer, what can you expect but to Queue in that case?!
We hoped for a quieter day on the Monday but unfortunately that was a school inset day so it was jam packed with teenagers haha.. (remind me to plan better next time!!)
Food is ridiculously expensive. ( as all Theme park food is.. amazes me seeing as they charge so much to actually get in the park!)
My advice is to take food with you if you don't want to pay over the odds.
They should also be sued for the fact that the donuts they sell look NOTHING like the picture on the stall wall! Nice fat, light puffy donuts.. mouth watering?
Not a chance.. they resemble wet onion rings! Yuck.
On the 2nd day we ran straight down to 'STEALTH' the minute the doors opened and managed to get 2 rides in very quickly before the queue was miles long.
I have to say i have never been more scared on any ride when i sat in that seat the first time and I am not very easily scared! I liken it to a bungee jump.. you know you want to do it but every inch of you tells you its a bad idea. ;-)
Well worth it though.. keep your eyes open and take in the experience, its over fast!
I thought SAW was over rated, the scary ( I use the word loosely ) bit was the beginning climb, the actually drop is not very high as its set up on higher ground than the climb.

One thing that REALLY got to me was the sheer volume of smokers there.
There is a no smoking in the queues policy but NON of the staff actually stopped people lighting up from what we could see. I was stuck behind 2 teenage lads smoking roll ups for the entire hour and a half queue for RUSH.. are the staff blind?!

We also think that the fact there is a little 'beach' and seaside area at the park isn't well enough advertised on the Thorpe Website.. there was a family with 3 little children that we spoke to in the long queue for a drinks refill that said they had no clue about the beach and hadn't brought swimming things for the children which they would have done if it had been advertised properly on the web site. We agreed that we had no clue it was there either.
As for drinks refills.. there is not enough of these stalls, we had to search for one on several occasions. A few more of them would be nice Thorpe!

Thorpe now charge for parking £2.00 per car. Just another money making scheme on top of very high admission fees.

We bough 2 day tickets online which was a lot cheaper than buying on the day and stayed at a local travel lodge that was only £19 per room on a Sunday :-)

The rides broke down often which was frustrating if you had already queued for an hour and a half! I hate that theme parks now have fast track tickets.. who likes to see rich teenagers stroll past you filling seats up when you have queued for 2 hours for your ride? haha No one!

Warning - this park is for thrill seekers, its not great for young kids, I could see a lot of frustrated parents as the little kid ride area is AWFUL! LAME! and not much for the little ones to do. I'd say go to Chesington if you have youngsters.

3 stars for the thrill of the rides.
2 stars for the food costs/queues/not good for young kids

Would I go again? err.. maybe in 5 years if they get new rides but I'm in no rush to.

The Good: Fantastic Rides!!

The Bad: it all seemed just a bit tatty.

The irritating: the car park is £2, something not mentioned in the online ticket ordering.

In Need of: a proper virtual queuing system like Lo q (http://www.lo-q.com/)

Thorpe Park i loved it. whoop whoop

I love this place. I visit it every year and never gets boring.

I <3 Thorpe park!=] Thorpe park has some of the united kingdoms extreme rides including stealth, coloussus, nemisis inferno, x:/ no way out and the brand new ride saw based on the movie. There are plenty of places to eat even a beach!!! There are SOME little kids rides. I recommend getting a fast pass for the rides named above beacuse you could be queing for over an hour :p your legs will hurt after a while. Thorpe park also has great senery but saws is scary!!
p.s. I wouldn’t go on rumba rapids it broke down on me. =[

I went to Thorpe park in April and had a great day out. It’s fun for all ages and improved so much over the last 10 years. I couldn’t believe how wet you got on tidal wave! I wish I brought a spare change of clothes with me. I think the driers are a bit of a rip off as they’re something like £3.00, Luckily we picked a really nice sunny day and dried off pretty quick. I loved the new saw ride and would def recommend anyone going to thorpe park to go on that! Loved it!!

With a complete chilling out mood I went to Thorpe Park a week ago.This is located at Staines and easily reachable from Waterloo station and this was another reason why my friends prefer this to others.

The park is easy to get around as you get a map of the whole park laying out the location as well as the rides and activity.There are plenty of rides to make you scared and thrilled.I particularly like nemesis and stealth.I will also recommend Rumba rapids and depth charge.If you want to experience the true extreme ride experience do go for Vortex.

The queues can be really frustrating and takes very long.We almost felt like skipping few rides because of waiting time.I couldn’t see much in the way of deighting kids apart from fantasy fish,the showcase and fee lsit.So in case you are planning for family just think twice.I find Thorpe park is on the pricey side although there are few deals both online (check now -month of May-June) and supermarket with the option for fast-track tickets but still it is on the higher side.

In a nutshell it is a feel good factor for screamy rides.

i would rate thorpe park as the best theme park in england. constantly updating its rides, you can never get tired of this place. stealth is unmissable and fast track is recommended because the queue can be very long otherwise. nemesis is also brilliant and the old style collosus with ten loops is unseen anywhere else in england. pay it a visit!

Thorpe park has a fantastic atmospehere. If you are a thrillseeker as soon as you see the rides you feel like a kid in a candy store! First of all, the admission price has increased to £35 which is admittedly a lot as you can get an annual thorpe park pass for (last time i checked) £62 which is great if you live locally and enjoy the rides. There are a variety of rides from rides for the littl’uns right up to the big boy rides such as SAW and Stealth. At peak, there is even a massive queue to get in but it doesn’t take long as they have an effective system. There is a massive variety of places to eat, from fish and chips, to burger king, to kfc, to pizza hut (which i would recommend the most). There are also various drink stations and donut stations but all with shockingly high priced food and drink as expected. The only problem is if it’s a sunny day, the queue lines can go up to 180 mins long which can be really boring as there is no real in line entertainment. It took 2 hours for me and 2 friends to get to the front of SAW and then it broke down and we were only told that they did not know how long the repairs would take so we waited and fortuantely it was only 20 minutes so we got on after that however Vortex also broke down and we weren’t given a time there either so that is why it is only 4 stars; high prices and not very informative when things go wrong & long queues.

Prepare to get the rush of your life for less than £50! Ok, slight exaggeration there but you get the point of the whole experience. Been living in the United Kingdom for four years and only now do I find a few friends that can stomach the rides. I was in for a pleasant surprise the minute we walked through those gates. My friends were a little too enthusiastic about going on each and every ride but I am proud to say that I only did not opt for one ride because I was starving by then.

The food in the park can be a bit pricey unless you go for Burger King or KFC which is more to the middle of the park. We waited in some of the ride queues for while and decided to fork out the extra £3 to get a queue jumper for the rides we really wanted to go on. It was a great day out, just a pity we had to take the bus back to the train station and then only got on the train. We were knackered at the end of the day. Oh, take some of your own food with, there are plenty of places to have your own picnic!

Oh, the new SAW ride… does not look so great but be prepared to wait at least 2 hours as there are no queue jumpers for it YET!

Thorpe Park is the best!! The only downfall were the queues… TOO LONG!! But what do you expect from the most amazing theme park ever?? Was it fun?? Understatement!! I loved it. I am a 13 year old girl and all of my school friends were too scared to go on all of the big rides like stealth and even detonator. They regreted it after we left because I kept going on about how great it all was. The only things I would say/warn, is:
- Don’t go if you don’t like waiting ages for the rides.
- Don’t go if you don’t like paying a lot of money.
I can’t wait to go on SAW!!

There are times when you want a peaceful Saturday afternoon activity; something you can do which relaxes you and chills you out for the rest of the weekend. However, on one of those Saturdays when this isn’t your prerogative, Thorpe Park is a great option. The rides are unbelievably good- much better than those at the other theme park reachable from London, Chessington World of Adventures, which is quite a snooze-fest if I’m honest- with roller coasters like Stealth, the tallest roller coaster in Europe, and the new Saw ride with an 100degree drop. Wow. Not one to ride on if you’ve had a heavy night on Friday.

There are plenty of eating and drinking options throughout, most of which inevitably veer towards the junkier end of the food groups, but the selection is welcome. As with all theme parks, Thorpe Park is definitely on the pricey side at £35 for entry- although there are a lot of deals going round from WHSmith, Tesco and Sainsburys so you should be able to get in half price- and the option for fast-track tickets which miss out the queues for the bigger rides at £3 per ride, but when you step off of one of the roller coasters with your heart beating, your stomach churning and your throat raw from screaming it somehow all seems worth it.

Thrope park Rocks…i felt samurai,slammer were the scariest rides…must be daring to play all games…great weekend outing place….

Even kids have lots of games to play…my daughter loved the beach…

and finally to relax and eat..u have pizza hut,burger king,KFC…

Most imp thing is management of time if u wish to try all games…