I with a friend ventured to Thorpe Park in Chertsey on Wednesday ( 30th March ) something of an annual thing between us. I usually enjoy visiting the place but with a large grey cloud following us on the way there, it clearly was going to be a wet and cold day. We were greeted at the car park entrance by a young girl in an orange security coat informing us that to park in the car park we would have to pay, that's new. Thankfully it was only a £2 charge for the whole day. As we walked through the gates we could see that we more or less had an easy day, No queues, No screaming Kids and Two Free Tickets. The weather sure looked shit but the day could be salvaged.
The First Insult : We walk through the main gate and are pulled over by a group of guards for security checks which lasted longer than five minutes. There was plenty of people walking through the gate without even being looked at but for some reason the Guards were after males between the ages of 20 and 25 and unlucky for us there was a few College Lads limping about the place. " We always do this mate, about six or seven years" said one of the Guards. "Didn't do it the last three times I have been " I said rather impatiently as I watch a few more Chav like boys walk through the gate, hand down their trousers ,baseball caps 90 degrees, kissing their teeth. After finding nothing we are free to enter the place officially.
Our eyes are drawn to the new ride, Storm Surge...an eyesore located slap bang in the middle of the park, where the children's octopus garden used to be. It is a brightly coloured flume type ride that sends visitors in inflatable rafts spinning round corners before hitting the water.( Teacups, waltzers on a slide ) It was rubbish. New For 2011. Clearly rushed for the new term. The Ride wasn't themed for the area it was in and although it was supposed to have a hillbilly theme there was no sign of it, We spotted cannons alongside the queue line but thankfully because there wasn't a queue there was no way to get to them, so we stayed dry....even as the raft hit the water on the way down the chute. The climb up the 65ft slope was slow, boring and although you got to see the rest of the park, you realise how small it really is. Not exactly worth advertising as the Main Event for 2011, I would have preferred it if the Ride was just there as an addition to the Water Themed area.
After a few more rides with no queues it was easy to see that Thorpe Park is Poorly conditioned, Ride entrances and Sets were really old, Paint peeling off, bits of scenery was damaged and the Videos that play in the queuing system have been taken away. The Ride X: NO WAY OUT is by far the worst looked after ride they have to offer. The Paint on the outside is faded, the Long maze like corridor has all the features taken out (cyborgs, Flashing Lights, Music and Video Monitors) so you are left with a blue wooden hallway, T.V units hanging on brackets and Large empty spaces. The Ride itself was also poor, It is supposed to be a dark backward rollercoster based on a Biohazzard outbreak. The Ride Was so dark, the Cyborg Figures that usually light up were even hidden, There was a feeling of unsafe seating as the safety bar lifted up allowing me to slide out should I want to. It's not the first time I was let down by the ride, Once I went on it and All the lighting was switched on allowing me to see the workmen walking about below.
Another thing I will mention about the Park is all the cobwebs you can see on the Ride, Entrance to and so on....
The 4D show was rubbish, Located where the Pirate show used to be. The surrounding set was still pirate themed as was the inside. I can understand trying to update the show ( completely CGI now) but it was rubbish. The TIME VOYAGERS made no sense, The plot was hard to follow and the 4D effects were not that impressive and everyone left asking what happened. The Original Show had the late Leslie Nielsen and the effects although dated worked well. NOT A GOOD UPDATE AT ALL.
I can Not say anything bad about SAW the ride ( my personal favorite) apart from the Video that records you as you go round wasn't working on our cart. So after spending Ten minutes waiting to see the result we were told that not all were working that day. A little upsetting as I would have enjoyed watching.
The Ride had been updated and the effects inside worked better than they did in 2009, and even the location and layout of the place looked great. A fan of the films it was nice to see something that worked....the same couldn't be said for SAW ALIVE : Live Horror MAZE
Picture a scare attraction, ( London Dungeons, Tower Bridge Experience, Passaje DEl
THIS IS THE WORST PART....as we entered a room we found THREE members of staff talking to each other, and they had not noticed we were in the room. As soon as they saw us One hid in the corner and faced the wall, one backed off and went into the next room and the other ran the other way. By the time we got to the next room we were not scared as the girl on the bed was the one we saw talking and had ran away. we also passed the girl that backed off , she was slumped in the corner obviously we had caught up with her again.
Other than this upsetting display,SAw Alive was a decent thing to do if you like Scares and Bumps in the night. It was a shame you couldn't have a better look at some of the Scenes recreated.
I think the novelty of Thorpe Park is worn off on me, despite a few decent rides there is nothing much different there. The amount of closed food places and the poor conditioned rides have put me off from visiting again this year. It needs a revamp...
Even the rubbish looking maps have opted for a big head look, they look too cartoon like and the classic Thorpe Park rangers are no where in sight. ( unless you include the carousel ride).
