With all the cancelled holidays this year, and just cancelled fun in general, it was just a relief to have some plans that finally followed through. I genuinely had that exciting feeling you get before going on holiday. The place I was going? Thorpe Park. I know… how anti-climatic. It’s nothing super exotic, but I was so ready for a day out away from it all.

Theme Park Fun In a Pandemic

As we are still in the era of coronavirus, it was obviously a very different visit than normal. Temperatures were checked at the gates, social distancing markers placed on the floor, and masks are now compulsory on most rides. We also had our own little bottles of hand sanitiser, although this was provided all over the park too. Overall, I felt very safe with the measures in place at Thorpe Park to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Merlin has done what they can to ensure guest safety. You just have to hope everyone else will also adhere to the rules out of respect for one other.

I thought wearing a mask on rides was going to feel strange but in all honesty it didn’t affect my experience in any shape or form. Much to the dismay of the people around me, I don’t think it muffled my screaming that much either. It did help hide my fear in the ride photos though. My mask almost fell off on Stealth though. Somewhere in the middle of going 0 mph to 80 mph in 1.9 seconds my mask decided to try and escape my face. Thankfully I managed to keep a hold of it!

Planning Your Thorpe Park Day

Before you go, you should make sure to download the Thorpe Park app to check ride times. We only figured this out halfway through the day, but it was quite useful to see which rides were busiest! In saying that they seemed to be overestimating ride times. This was probably a mix of social distancing in queues and rides now no longer being able to operate at full capacity. A 70 minute wait time actually took us only 35 minutes at one point. But in general the park was a lot emptier than it would have normally been on a sunny day. 

It also appears to be a good idea to go around the park clockwise. Most people seem to head to Swarm first as it’s right there when you enter the park. Later their line seems to get shorter whilst Saw will only get busier as the day goes on. Also, remember that the park ‘closing time’ is the time they close the ride queues not the actual closing time!

A Quick Run Down of the Rides

One ride I have to give a lot of praise to is Saw. I always think the best rides are ones that put its themeing over everything else. Saw has a great inside section which is meant to replicate a Jigsaw puzzle and you’re trapped in it. It’s all very dark, quite scary, and I’m shocked that I didn’t wet myself. In all honesty though, the unforeseen scariest part of the ride was actually the vertical lift hill. I am also a huge fan of The Swarm, which is a wing coaster and the smoothest ride you will ever go on. My only criticism being the ride itself is way too short. 

Some of the more family friendly rides were heaps of fun too! Quantum is faster than it looks, and we were embarrassingly more terrified than the kids on that ride. But surprisingly the most traumatic ride for us happened to be Storm Surge. This is just supposed to be a cute little family-friendly raft ride but we had the wildest time on it. Every time we hit a corner we would spin uncontrollably! This was all whilst everyone else was just having a relaxing ride down the slide. We eventually realised it was our unevenly distributed weight around the raft which caused all the chaos.

One ride I would not recommend if you enjoy a pain free life is Colossus. The ride is old, rickety and you spend the entirety of it bashing your head on the restraint. I think they need to scrap it and replace it with something new. Still it’s shockingly one of the most popular rides in the park and constantly had a long wait time.

Oktoberfest

I don’t know if they do this every year, but Thorpe Park is currently embracing the German beer drinking festival, ‘Oktoberfest’. With this came new Oktoberfest merchandise and themed food and beer. Bizarrely there was also a group of people wandering the park wearing lederhosen and playing Bavarian music which was an odd sight to see. The ride ‘Detonator’ also seemed to be yodelling and counting down to the drop in German… I’m unsure if they enhanced the ride for Oktoberfest or if yodelling is normal for the ride. Either way it fit in with the vibe.

We grabbed some lunch from Infinity Bar & Kitchen in the main building. I was very excited to see they had their Oktoberfest menu here. I went for the ‘Traditional Bratwurst’ which turned out to just be a normal hotdog. It still tasted good but it just wasn’t what I was expecting when I ordered bratwurst. It came with chips and a curry dipping sauce, and only cost £9.95 so it was still a good deal.

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Me and my friends are looking at going back to Thorpe Park during their Halloween Fright Nights. Obviously they’re unable to make their infamous Fright Nights as extravagant as they have in previous years, and they will no longer be doing any scare mazes inside. So that sucks, but I believe they’re planning extra things in outdoor areas of the park which will be fun to see!

Also, my brilliant friend Michaela is back at the blogging thing! So check out her blog here!