Jared
Hyper Poster
On June 4th, I and my “other half” ventured out into the realms of Thorpe Park to check out their new roller coaster Saw the ride.
Walking across the park’s entrance bridge you can already see what a very intimidating ride is. Just walking across I could already here some girls and full grown men saying “no way am I going on that”, but think if you thought that was going to stop me then you are very much mistaken. Just walking up onto the “island” that houses Saw you could already feel the theme and the atmosphere immensely, it’s not just the staggering beautiful first drop that gets your heart racing, but the sound of screams, the sirens and the vibrations through the ground as the train plummets through the first drop. It’s just amazing.
“Saw” is a new custom Euro fighter built by Gerstlauer and I must say I thought it was brilliant. In fact it is my new number 2 coaster on my top 10 list. Now I’m not going to give away any of the special effects that take place inside the warehouse, but there are some pretty intense moments that really caught me out (even thought I knew they were there). The prelift section is without a doubt my favourite of any prelift track; it offers a really great set of head choppers which really caught me off guard.
The theming on the outside of the building is pretty darn good. It’s easily on par with some of the other well themed rides in the UK, such as Nemesis at Alton Towers. It gives a great atmosphere and the ride itself really gets the heart racing and the adrenaline pumping. I felt that the queue section on the inside of the station building left a lot to be desired, but other than that it’s quite easily the best coaster at Thorpe Park. It’s packed full of airtime, not just on the first drop or on the top of the lift hill, but coming out of the mid course break run gives a great pop of floater airtime. The inversions were great fun, but like a lot of riders, I felt that the bottom of the first drop had quite a bad bump to it. Just looking at the trains going through that section you could see the bump and it’s not a nice feeling. But in my opinion, the rest of the ride really makes up for it. It’s a great coaster from Gerstlauer. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more from them, soon we’ll be talking about them in the same way we talk about Intamin and B&M.
After we rode Saw, we checked out the queue lines and made sure we headed for the next great coaster in the park, not Stealth, but Nemesis Inferno. Probably one of the most under rated B&Ms around, Nemesis Inferno offers some great speed and elements combined into a pretty tight area. It fly’s around the track with the ever so famous B&M “roar”.
Next we headed up to ride Stealth, but being Thorpe Park, it had broken down, which is something of a regular thing here, but we tried not to let it ruin a great day. We then headed off to ride on X : / No Way Out. Another great coaster and I am sure it’s one that all you guys know about. It’s a great ride, but the operations on it were not so good, we stopped in every break run along the way and even in some situations had to wait a minute or two before we moved on. Overall this rides usually great, but running like that gave very little adrenaline and a sore elbow from the rapid breaking.
We then headed over to Colossus, which was also closed. So from there we headed back to Stealth after seeing it testing once again. To our luck we got to the queue line entrance just as it re-opened. We were on the first train and had a very plain ride on Stealth. As a coaster it’s a great load of fun, but just like a few of the other rocket coasters it’s a one trick pony, offering nothing new the second time round. If you’ve done it once then it doesn’t really get the adrenaline pumping the second time round. Well not for me anyway.
The thrill rides as usual were far too busy for me to be waiting around with Slammer, Rush and Vortex all having one and a half hour queue lines, but that was a good thing. It meant that the coasters had hardly any queue time, with Saw only hitting an hour’s queue line the once.
Overall the park seems to still have the one big problem; it’s not the rides or the food, or even the facilities. It’s the operations. Thorpe Park really needs to sort out their maintenance staff if they want to be able to compete with some of the other parks in the UK. Sure only the two rides went down for a little while, but for them to be two of the more popular attractions makes me pretty angry. They need to fix it all; Chessington has no problems or does Alton Towers, so why do Merlin Entertainments find it so hard to get it right at Thorpe Park? Maybe some new engineers are needed. Anyways, enough of the text, onto the pictures:
Saw - the ride, as seen from across the Lake:
Colossus:
Colossus:
Saw's Wonderful lift hill:
Saw:
100 Degrees!!!
Nemesis Inferno:
Nemesis "Fire" sounds better to me. Anyone agree?
B&M coasters just rule!
B&M goodness
Nemesis Inferno again:
Stealth:
Tophat sexyness!
God this ride is Photogenic
Zodiac:
Rush:
Rush again.
S&S rides always get busy here.
Quantum:
Colossus:
You just got Corkscrewed!
Colossus through the Trees!!!
Going down!
Saw flying down the drop:
This picture took 6 tries to get:
Me stood by Saw:
Saw going down:
Those riders are doomed:
Saw's beautiful overbank:
Logger's Leap gets a small part in this report:
Saw's behind:
Don't you just love the same picture from all these different angles?
I love the look of those small trains. There so cute
Smaile for the Camera
Wonderful Gerstlauer Track Shaping
Back to pictures of the B&M, but thats not really a bad thing. Right?
Pilgrams Plunge? Eat your HEART out! (if you don't get it, look at the shape of the water)
i almost had two trains in this picture, but Saw decided to disapear.
Waiting for Stealth to open after a break down.
Yay!!! It's open!! But look at the queue.
Stealth!!
I tried to get the sign in, but it's not what I hoped it would be. Oh well.
Your going down!!!
Missed the signage again!!! Grrr!
Wingover beauty!
The Level of detail was great!
Coming into the Lifeless break run! The airtime on the exit is brilliant!
Through the Trees!!!
This is where you come to a nice smooth stop.
Theming?
Colossus from Saw's queue line
And thats the end of my camera antics.
I hope you enjoyed my report. I hope to do another one soon.
Walking across the park’s entrance bridge you can already see what a very intimidating ride is. Just walking across I could already here some girls and full grown men saying “no way am I going on that”, but think if you thought that was going to stop me then you are very much mistaken. Just walking up onto the “island” that houses Saw you could already feel the theme and the atmosphere immensely, it’s not just the staggering beautiful first drop that gets your heart racing, but the sound of screams, the sirens and the vibrations through the ground as the train plummets through the first drop. It’s just amazing.
“Saw” is a new custom Euro fighter built by Gerstlauer and I must say I thought it was brilliant. In fact it is my new number 2 coaster on my top 10 list. Now I’m not going to give away any of the special effects that take place inside the warehouse, but there are some pretty intense moments that really caught me out (even thought I knew they were there). The prelift section is without a doubt my favourite of any prelift track; it offers a really great set of head choppers which really caught me off guard.
The theming on the outside of the building is pretty darn good. It’s easily on par with some of the other well themed rides in the UK, such as Nemesis at Alton Towers. It gives a great atmosphere and the ride itself really gets the heart racing and the adrenaline pumping. I felt that the queue section on the inside of the station building left a lot to be desired, but other than that it’s quite easily the best coaster at Thorpe Park. It’s packed full of airtime, not just on the first drop or on the top of the lift hill, but coming out of the mid course break run gives a great pop of floater airtime. The inversions were great fun, but like a lot of riders, I felt that the bottom of the first drop had quite a bad bump to it. Just looking at the trains going through that section you could see the bump and it’s not a nice feeling. But in my opinion, the rest of the ride really makes up for it. It’s a great coaster from Gerstlauer. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more from them, soon we’ll be talking about them in the same way we talk about Intamin and B&M.
After we rode Saw, we checked out the queue lines and made sure we headed for the next great coaster in the park, not Stealth, but Nemesis Inferno. Probably one of the most under rated B&Ms around, Nemesis Inferno offers some great speed and elements combined into a pretty tight area. It fly’s around the track with the ever so famous B&M “roar”.
Next we headed up to ride Stealth, but being Thorpe Park, it had broken down, which is something of a regular thing here, but we tried not to let it ruin a great day. We then headed off to ride on X : / No Way Out. Another great coaster and I am sure it’s one that all you guys know about. It’s a great ride, but the operations on it were not so good, we stopped in every break run along the way and even in some situations had to wait a minute or two before we moved on. Overall this rides usually great, but running like that gave very little adrenaline and a sore elbow from the rapid breaking.
We then headed over to Colossus, which was also closed. So from there we headed back to Stealth after seeing it testing once again. To our luck we got to the queue line entrance just as it re-opened. We were on the first train and had a very plain ride on Stealth. As a coaster it’s a great load of fun, but just like a few of the other rocket coasters it’s a one trick pony, offering nothing new the second time round. If you’ve done it once then it doesn’t really get the adrenaline pumping the second time round. Well not for me anyway.
The thrill rides as usual were far too busy for me to be waiting around with Slammer, Rush and Vortex all having one and a half hour queue lines, but that was a good thing. It meant that the coasters had hardly any queue time, with Saw only hitting an hour’s queue line the once.
Overall the park seems to still have the one big problem; it’s not the rides or the food, or even the facilities. It’s the operations. Thorpe Park really needs to sort out their maintenance staff if they want to be able to compete with some of the other parks in the UK. Sure only the two rides went down for a little while, but for them to be two of the more popular attractions makes me pretty angry. They need to fix it all; Chessington has no problems or does Alton Towers, so why do Merlin Entertainments find it so hard to get it right at Thorpe Park? Maybe some new engineers are needed. Anyways, enough of the text, onto the pictures:
Saw - the ride, as seen from across the Lake:
Colossus:
Colossus:
Saw's Wonderful lift hill:
Saw:
100 Degrees!!!
Nemesis Inferno:
Nemesis "Fire" sounds better to me. Anyone agree?
B&M coasters just rule!
B&M goodness
Nemesis Inferno again:
Stealth:
Tophat sexyness!
God this ride is Photogenic
Zodiac:
Rush:
Rush again.
S&S rides always get busy here.
Quantum:
Colossus:
You just got Corkscrewed!
Colossus through the Trees!!!
Going down!
Saw flying down the drop:
This picture took 6 tries to get:
Me stood by Saw:
Saw going down:
Those riders are doomed:
Saw's beautiful overbank:
Logger's Leap gets a small part in this report:
Saw's behind:
Don't you just love the same picture from all these different angles?
I love the look of those small trains. There so cute
Smaile for the Camera
Wonderful Gerstlauer Track Shaping
Back to pictures of the B&M, but thats not really a bad thing. Right?
Pilgrams Plunge? Eat your HEART out! (if you don't get it, look at the shape of the water)
i almost had two trains in this picture, but Saw decided to disapear.
Waiting for Stealth to open after a break down.
Yay!!! It's open!! But look at the queue.
Stealth!!
I tried to get the sign in, but it's not what I hoped it would be. Oh well.
Your going down!!!
Missed the signage again!!! Grrr!
Wingover beauty!
The Level of detail was great!
Coming into the Lifeless break run! The airtime on the exit is brilliant!
Through the Trees!!!
This is where you come to a nice smooth stop.
Theming?
Colossus from Saw's queue line
And thats the end of my camera antics.
I hope you enjoyed my report. I hope to do another one soon.