https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attra...ORPE_PARK_Resort-Chertsey_Surrey_England.html
Thorpe Park also continues to get trashed to death on TripAdvisor, while Alton at least has recovered a little bit from the... let's call it "bumpy" start into the season. Also speaks for that whole "target audience" argument, since most of my GP-collegues who I imagine to enjoy Thorpe are exactly the kind of people who can't be bothered by 120 minute queues since they are well entertained with shouting all over the queue and line-jumping in general.
For reasonable people with some common sense and most basic expectations, Thorpe is absolute cancer right now.
BTW, how come that Chessie even is such a big deal in the UK that it is mentioned so often in this thread? From the looks of it (and yes, I know it's also an animal park), it's a perfect example for a park that is largely popular with the locals, and completely unknown for everybody who lives more than 2 hours away, and plenty of similar places nobody has ever heard about also exist in Germany (Serengeti-Park, Stukenbrock etc). For me as a foreigner, it really exemplifies the poor state of the UK theme-park scene if this place suits a chain like Merlin as a cash cow and is known all over the UK, when it screams "mediocrity-fest" all over my face.
I as a spoilt German consider Movie Park to be a mediocrity-fest and that place got a Mack Multi-Launch last year (it's totally worth the visit again, but Movie Park used to be probably the most Merlin non-Merlin park I know). For me the most interesting part about Chessington is the fact how uninteresting it is.