Kids in (outer) London – Thorpe Park

Make sure you get hold of one of the many “buy one get one free” offers as the entrance costs are high - £35 for an adult, £21 for kids. Then you are encouraged to buy “Fast Track” tickets, which, at £4 per person a ride, can quickly add up. It was absolutely packed yesterday - how do all these people afford such days out? Maybe they have one of the annual passes – which at £150 for a Merlin card (giving free entrance to numerous attractions such as Chessington, Sea Life etc) may be sensible if you visit them a lot. Please note that they do not accept American Express.

You can hear the screams (of delight, not of parents paying the entry fees) from the massive car park. Arriving around 1pm meant that there were no queues – outside the park at least. During August, the park is open until 8pm – I couldn’t see that the adults in our group would last more than seven hours.

After passing through the entry barriers, you walk across a bridge on a really pretty lake (former gravel pit) and take in a bit of greenery. Make the most of it as you will be in commercial land for a long while. Then there is a huge hall containing a stage, sweet shops, food outlets and, thankfully, a Café Nero. I like this bit – it is themed as an underwater cave with lots of interesting features on the walls. But the kids were intent of getting onto those rides and we passed through in a flash. Past the beach area we stood in front of a display board looking with mounting depression at the seriously long queue times for the rides. And I have to tell you that, unlike at Legoland, they err on the side of optimism (ie at Thorpe Park, magically a 60 minute queue time usually means a 90 minute queue time). I reluctantly allowed my kids to buy some Fast Track tickets – although those for Saw (the newest ride) were all sold out.

In order to get at least one ride in relatively quickly, we queued for 20 minutes to go on Zodiac. You sit in a cage and go round and round, and then it goes on its side so plenty of squeals there. We stopped to get some paninis at Crust (about £4 each – and dubbed by my group “Fast food served slow”). Then we joined the “60 minute that turned into 90 minute” queue for Saw. I haven’t seen the films, but my 17 year old had so he described how the various instruments of torture were used. My 11 year old listened intently. The queue line goes through a series of cages, topped with authentic looking barbed wire. There are notices everywhere about anti-social behaviour and encouragement to report anyone found smoking or queue jumping (and we actually saw some folk being escorted out of the park – talk about a walk of shame). Some enterprising Dr Pepper sales folk had set up a base where people had been queuing for about an hour in the hot sunshine (was the lack of shade part of the “punishment”?) and they did a brisk trade (water £2, Cokes and other sodas £1.50). Finally you enter the miserable looking shed and see some video clips themed on the films as you climb the stairs. Then you are strapped into your seats and whisked away. The adult, 11 year old and 15 year old in my party all agreed that this was the most exciting ride of the day.

Then we had to race across the park to get to Stealth as we had timed Fast Track tickets for 4pm. The Fast track queue looked very long. And then there was a technical hitch and the ride stopped while engineers were summoned. My lot finally got their ride (and it is a HUGE rollercoaster – acceleration to 80 mph in under 2 seconds) after an hour. Money on the Fast Track tickets not very well spent then. And I then paid £10 for two fridge magnets to prove that our lot actually did get on this ride.

We stopped for some lunch here – Fish and Chips and sides and drinks for the four us wasn’t cheap (about £26). And the fish “tasted like a big fish finger” and the chips were “floury” but plentiful. Then we walked to Rumba Rapids to find the queue was so long there was no time displayed! Gave up and went to Rush instead – just a 30 minute wait here. Whilst it looked harmless, I have to say that the loud “whoosing” noises paled into insignificance when you are a couple of hundred feet in the air, with only a lap bar between you and the ground directly in front of you. My tummy turned.

The day was drawing to a close so we invested about 30 minutes queuing up for Nemesis Inferno – a rollercoaser where you are suspended from above and your feet dangle free. Despite the loop-the-loops, high drops and corkscrews this was actually a good, fun ride. Screaming but without the terror. I think this one was my favourite of the white knuckle rides (although there seems little else there these days – unless you are under five).

For our last ride, we queued about 40 minutes for Tidal Wave. And I have to say that even though I knew I would get completely soaked, the coldness of the water shocked a huge and long laugh out of me. And the bemused – and slightly agitated – looks of the people sitting in the seats in front of and behind us (didn’t they read the signs that said “You will get very wet on this ride”?) just added to my mirth. My 17 year old son then ensured that I was in the splash zone when the next boat came in, so I was drenched again. Thanks!

A cup of coffee to warm us up and it was back to the cars just before 8pm. The kids were delighted that they had managed to do pretty much all of the most important rides (we had done Collossus lots of times on a previous visit) in one visit. Me and my friend were glad that no one could see us in “drowned rat” mode.