ThomVD
Giga Poster
Day 6
Thorpe Park then. Thanks to our fabulous nadroJ we got free entry to the park (thank you so much!). Thorpe Park never appealed to me much as a park, more just for the fact that it has a couple of rides that I'm interested in. Queuing outside for like 15 mins to get into the park was a bad sign, but thankfully the day itself wasn't too busy. Though it could've been a lot less queuing if the operations were a bit better, but alas. I do like how you walk across the bridge to the island seeing all the rides looming in the distance. For some reason everything in Thorpe looks so massive. No idea why. My first impression of the park was that it was a lot more pleasant and a lot less concrete than I expected. We wanted to start out with Stealth, but as we kind of expected, it was closed in the morning. Colossus then...
Colossus
A ride I've been dreading for a long time. Those heartline rolls look so vile. And I expected it to be quite rough too. It had a 20 minute queue even though the queue didn't start until in the station. Burdenous one-train and slow operations... The Colossus station was very tiring to queue in as well, with all those obnoxious loud teenagers. I couldn't even hear the fab music
As for the ride itself. We rode towards the back. Strangely enough it was smooth... But at the same time it was so forceless and boring. You just went through all the inversions without anything really having any force or something about it that sticks out. Even the heartline rolls were pretty forgettable. It's not bad, just not very noteworthy either to me. I do like the landscaping in the area. And the music...... naaaa nanana na na-na-naaaa <3
Saw: the Ride
The ride next door to Colossus then. Absolute walk on <3 I sat on the inside seat this time (thank you James!), in the front, so the ride wasn't too rough. I liked the indoor part of the coaster. It was pretty well themed and fun with a fab drop. When it goes outside it wasn't very memorable to me. I think there were a couple of airtime pops but aside from that it's a pretty basic Eurofighter. Not nearly as bad as Typhoon though. Even though it was never that rough (bit jerky at most), I still got a bit of a headache afterwards. It's a decent coaster, though it never crossed my mind again after we got off.
The Swarm
It's a bit of a walk, considering how compact Thorpe is. But it had a 5 min queue so that was perfect. I think we rode front left first, but we got plenty of re-rides on both sides and in multiple rows. It's an interesting coaster. The first time I rode it I felt rather underwhelmed. It was over so fast and nothing about it stuck out. The more I rode it, the more I appreciated it.
It's not as smooth as most B&Ms that I've done, especially the helix on the outside seats had a bit of a rattle. But that helix also had more force than I expected. The inversions are very slow and floaty, but once I started to get a feel for them, I enjoyed them a lot. It's not a great coaster by any means, but it's fun and re-ridable. Still I constantly felt that it was missing something. Can't really put my finger on it. It doesn't have world class theming, but in a park like Thorpe the effort they put in it does stand out. I guess wing coasters naturally look very picturesque. I think front right was my fave seat.
Stealth
We noticed that Stealth was back open so we quickly went that way. I wanted to get my first ride in the front row. After about 15 mins we got on. I thought the launch was great, the top hat and the last hill both offered a good pop of airtime. It's very short but everything it does is great at least. Still the launch didn't blow me away. I have very odd taste in launches I think. I got much more of a rush from some of the Gerstlauer rolling launches. Anubis and Junker both had a lot more of a kick to it than Stealth, I felt. Stealth does feel very fast and fun, but I just don't get the same feeling of acceleration that I do get with the two aforementioned coasters. So for me the whole extreme adrenaline rush thing doesn't really work either. Junker for example does everything Stealth does, but then better (imo). Better launch, better top hat, lap bars and then a whole layout to follow. I still quite liked it while it lasted, but it's not something I'm blown away by. I think Taron's second launch is probably a bit better too, so maybe I just don't like Intamin *hydraulic* launches that much. Or I just love rolling launches.
The back row ride we had makes it even more interesting. I thought the launch in the back was quite weak... I didn't get any kind of rush from it. It's probably just me, but launches in the front are just so much better. The wind, seeing the track disappear in front of you and the sense of speed enhance it so much. Back row Stealth is very dull from my experience.
Couldn't bother to wait for a train, stupid slow operations.
Nemesis Inferno
For some reason this coaster had a 30 min queue full of annoying kids. Blegh. I have to say though, this coaster looks beautiful! The dark red colour scheme, the interlocking corkscrews, the lush landscape and the station inside the volcano. I just thought it was gorgeous to look at. One of the prettiest coasters in the UK. Sadly it isn't as exciting as it looks. It's hard to put my finger on why it isn't all that impressive. There's force spread out through the layout (though it never gets too intense). It has the same inversions as Black Mamba. But still. I think the first drop and zero G roll were both a bit meh compared to the other B&M inverts I've done. It's still a very fun coaster. I truly love B&M inverts <3 This is easily the weakest one I've done though. The others being Black Mamba, Nemesis and Monster.
I noticed that I didn't take a lot of photos of the remainder of the rides. Whooooops.
X
Ticking off some of the last creds before we tried the other rides. X is just hidden away somewhere and didn't seem to attract a lot of people. And for good reason. It's basically Temple of the Night Hawk but then with disco lighting and half as short. Meh. Vogel Rok is clearly the best of the Vekoma indoor coasters <3
Flying Fish
It's another powered coaster, but not nearly as nice as the one in Alton Towers or the one in Chessington. It's a small unexciting family coaster in a teenager thrill park.
Samurai
We started off with the best flat ride in the park. It has a decent program and like all Top Scans, it's pretty intense. Also like other Top Scans, my legs kind of felt like they were being torn off.
Detonator
The only other flat ride that was good for its type. It's a very small drop but so intense. The fabbri drop towers aren't exactly my fave kind of drop towers because it can be a bit too much for me sometimes and I don't like the restraints, but this was better than the one in Slagharen for me. I liked the view over Nemesis Inferno <3
Rush
****E! We got on, it was swinging for like a handful of times and before we even reached top speed it already slowed down again. I love Uppswinget at Liseberg. It has a great location and a decent program. But this was just awful.
Vortex
The world's worst afterburner? Or did we just get bad luck. We were on the low side of every swing for the 20 seconds it lasted. Bah. We saw the enterprise in the distance, which made it to an about 45 degree angle before it went back down again. We went nope and moved on.
We didn't bother with this one but it did look nice.
Rumba Rapids
Thorpe Park is pretty much the opposite of Phantasialand. Where Phantasia has a lot of the "best of its type" rides, Thorpe has a whole lot of the worst. This rapids was just awful. It was bare, barely did anything and was just boring. I think I got one little drop of water and James literally got none. Shame that Loggers Leap was closed as well.
Tidal Wave
We finished our day off with this insane little ride. Finally something that isn't half assed and disappointing in Thorpe. I love how at first you get a bit of a spray and you think, "that wasn't too bad", and then you get the entire wave of water all over the boat. Soaked. James was better prepared so he didn't get as wet as I did. Brrrrr.
So that was Thorpe. As you can probably tell by this report, I'm not very enthusiastic about the place. The coaster selection isn't bad but every single coaster there leaves something to be desired. The flat ride collection is just horrendous <//3 I can't really judge the water selection because we couldn't do Loggers Leap and Tidal Wave is kind of fab, but the rapids are dire.
The park itself would be quite pleasant if the clientele was nicer and the operations were better. I liked some of the landscaping and just the whole island with big rides thing. But the park didn't give me any kind of spark or excitement. It was my least fave park of the trip aside from Drayton Manor. It reminds me a lot of Walibi Holland, but with a weaker coaster selection. Goliath and Lost Gravity are better than anything in Thorpe Park imo. I had a nice day, but at no time during the day I felt as passionate and excited as I usually get in parks. Thankfully the next park of the trip makes up for that <3
Thanks for reading. Chessie is next!
Thorpe Park then. Thanks to our fabulous nadroJ we got free entry to the park (thank you so much!). Thorpe Park never appealed to me much as a park, more just for the fact that it has a couple of rides that I'm interested in. Queuing outside for like 15 mins to get into the park was a bad sign, but thankfully the day itself wasn't too busy. Though it could've been a lot less queuing if the operations were a bit better, but alas. I do like how you walk across the bridge to the island seeing all the rides looming in the distance. For some reason everything in Thorpe looks so massive. No idea why. My first impression of the park was that it was a lot more pleasant and a lot less concrete than I expected. We wanted to start out with Stealth, but as we kind of expected, it was closed in the morning. Colossus then...
Colossus
A ride I've been dreading for a long time. Those heartline rolls look so vile. And I expected it to be quite rough too. It had a 20 minute queue even though the queue didn't start until in the station. Burdenous one-train and slow operations... The Colossus station was very tiring to queue in as well, with all those obnoxious loud teenagers. I couldn't even hear the fab music
As for the ride itself. We rode towards the back. Strangely enough it was smooth... But at the same time it was so forceless and boring. You just went through all the inversions without anything really having any force or something about it that sticks out. Even the heartline rolls were pretty forgettable. It's not bad, just not very noteworthy either to me. I do like the landscaping in the area. And the music...... naaaa nanana na na-na-naaaa <3
Saw: the Ride
The ride next door to Colossus then. Absolute walk on <3 I sat on the inside seat this time (thank you James!), in the front, so the ride wasn't too rough. I liked the indoor part of the coaster. It was pretty well themed and fun with a fab drop. When it goes outside it wasn't very memorable to me. I think there were a couple of airtime pops but aside from that it's a pretty basic Eurofighter. Not nearly as bad as Typhoon though. Even though it was never that rough (bit jerky at most), I still got a bit of a headache afterwards. It's a decent coaster, though it never crossed my mind again after we got off.
The Swarm
It's a bit of a walk, considering how compact Thorpe is. But it had a 5 min queue so that was perfect. I think we rode front left first, but we got plenty of re-rides on both sides and in multiple rows. It's an interesting coaster. The first time I rode it I felt rather underwhelmed. It was over so fast and nothing about it stuck out. The more I rode it, the more I appreciated it.
It's not as smooth as most B&Ms that I've done, especially the helix on the outside seats had a bit of a rattle. But that helix also had more force than I expected. The inversions are very slow and floaty, but once I started to get a feel for them, I enjoyed them a lot. It's not a great coaster by any means, but it's fun and re-ridable. Still I constantly felt that it was missing something. Can't really put my finger on it. It doesn't have world class theming, but in a park like Thorpe the effort they put in it does stand out. I guess wing coasters naturally look very picturesque. I think front right was my fave seat.
Stealth
We noticed that Stealth was back open so we quickly went that way. I wanted to get my first ride in the front row. After about 15 mins we got on. I thought the launch was great, the top hat and the last hill both offered a good pop of airtime. It's very short but everything it does is great at least. Still the launch didn't blow me away. I have very odd taste in launches I think. I got much more of a rush from some of the Gerstlauer rolling launches. Anubis and Junker both had a lot more of a kick to it than Stealth, I felt. Stealth does feel very fast and fun, but I just don't get the same feeling of acceleration that I do get with the two aforementioned coasters. So for me the whole extreme adrenaline rush thing doesn't really work either. Junker for example does everything Stealth does, but then better (imo). Better launch, better top hat, lap bars and then a whole layout to follow. I still quite liked it while it lasted, but it's not something I'm blown away by. I think Taron's second launch is probably a bit better too, so maybe I just don't like Intamin *hydraulic* launches that much. Or I just love rolling launches.
The back row ride we had makes it even more interesting. I thought the launch in the back was quite weak... I didn't get any kind of rush from it. It's probably just me, but launches in the front are just so much better. The wind, seeing the track disappear in front of you and the sense of speed enhance it so much. Back row Stealth is very dull from my experience.
Couldn't bother to wait for a train, stupid slow operations.
Nemesis Inferno
For some reason this coaster had a 30 min queue full of annoying kids. Blegh. I have to say though, this coaster looks beautiful! The dark red colour scheme, the interlocking corkscrews, the lush landscape and the station inside the volcano. I just thought it was gorgeous to look at. One of the prettiest coasters in the UK. Sadly it isn't as exciting as it looks. It's hard to put my finger on why it isn't all that impressive. There's force spread out through the layout (though it never gets too intense). It has the same inversions as Black Mamba. But still. I think the first drop and zero G roll were both a bit meh compared to the other B&M inverts I've done. It's still a very fun coaster. I truly love B&M inverts <3 This is easily the weakest one I've done though. The others being Black Mamba, Nemesis and Monster.
I noticed that I didn't take a lot of photos of the remainder of the rides. Whooooops.
X
Ticking off some of the last creds before we tried the other rides. X is just hidden away somewhere and didn't seem to attract a lot of people. And for good reason. It's basically Temple of the Night Hawk but then with disco lighting and half as short. Meh. Vogel Rok is clearly the best of the Vekoma indoor coasters <3
Flying Fish
It's another powered coaster, but not nearly as nice as the one in Alton Towers or the one in Chessington. It's a small unexciting family coaster in a teenager thrill park.
Samurai
We started off with the best flat ride in the park. It has a decent program and like all Top Scans, it's pretty intense. Also like other Top Scans, my legs kind of felt like they were being torn off.
Detonator
The only other flat ride that was good for its type. It's a very small drop but so intense. The fabbri drop towers aren't exactly my fave kind of drop towers because it can be a bit too much for me sometimes and I don't like the restraints, but this was better than the one in Slagharen for me. I liked the view over Nemesis Inferno <3
Rush
****E! We got on, it was swinging for like a handful of times and before we even reached top speed it already slowed down again. I love Uppswinget at Liseberg. It has a great location and a decent program. But this was just awful.
Vortex
The world's worst afterburner? Or did we just get bad luck. We were on the low side of every swing for the 20 seconds it lasted. Bah. We saw the enterprise in the distance, which made it to an about 45 degree angle before it went back down again. We went nope and moved on.
We didn't bother with this one but it did look nice.
Rumba Rapids
Thorpe Park is pretty much the opposite of Phantasialand. Where Phantasia has a lot of the "best of its type" rides, Thorpe has a whole lot of the worst. This rapids was just awful. It was bare, barely did anything and was just boring. I think I got one little drop of water and James literally got none. Shame that Loggers Leap was closed as well.
Tidal Wave
We finished our day off with this insane little ride. Finally something that isn't half assed and disappointing in Thorpe. I love how at first you get a bit of a spray and you think, "that wasn't too bad", and then you get the entire wave of water all over the boat. Soaked. James was better prepared so he didn't get as wet as I did. Brrrrr.
So that was Thorpe. As you can probably tell by this report, I'm not very enthusiastic about the place. The coaster selection isn't bad but every single coaster there leaves something to be desired. The flat ride collection is just horrendous <//3 I can't really judge the water selection because we couldn't do Loggers Leap and Tidal Wave is kind of fab, but the rapids are dire.
The park itself would be quite pleasant if the clientele was nicer and the operations were better. I liked some of the landscaping and just the whole island with big rides thing. But the park didn't give me any kind of spark or excitement. It was my least fave park of the trip aside from Drayton Manor. It reminds me a lot of Walibi Holland, but with a weaker coaster selection. Goliath and Lost Gravity are better than anything in Thorpe Park imo. I had a nice day, but at no time during the day I felt as passionate and excited as I usually get in parks. Thankfully the next park of the trip makes up for that <3
Thanks for reading. Chessie is next!
