Thorpe Park hosts "Fright Nights" during October which is incredibly popular over here in the UK.
Another difference between the US - Halloween isn't a huge holiday here. You don't see many (or any) haunted houses or corn mazes, and Thorpe (and Alton Towers) are some of the only places that offer mazes. That being said, I wasn't expecting much from Thorpe's 5 mazes, but I left impressed.
First though - I rode roller coasters. I decided to sleep in and didn't get to the park until 3PM, but luckily since it was a Friday and early in the month, queues were short and managed to get on all the coasters multiple times and all the mazes as well.
Thorpe refers to itself as the Nation's Thrill Capitol. It's located 20 miles outside of London and features a host of different coasters. It'll be home to one of three windriders being built next year called The Swarm.
Difference between Six Flag's signage and Thorpe's in regards to a new coaster.
They ended up topping off the lift by the end of the night.
The only way into Thorpe is by a bridge that takes you across a small lake in front of the park. Creates a brilliant bottleneck for the park at the end of the night.
First up was Colossus. It's the only (that I know of) Intamin coaster with 10 inversions. This ride beat the living hell out of me back in March, and I was hoping for a better ride this time around.
The Cobra roll wasn't the most pleasant experience I've ever had. All in all the coaster was improved from March, but still horrible. I vowed I wouldn't ride it again - but I ended up doing it again later with stunning results. We'll get to that.
I always said that I wanted to steal Raging Bull's test seat because it was so damn comfortable - but I never thought it would actually happen to an Intamin. Especially Colossus, which has the smallest seats known to man. The restraints are annoying enough, but the legroom is what kills you. If you've over 5"6 you'll be uncomfortable on this.
Nice part about Colossus is that it's a great coasters to photograph. Couple that with the rapidly dimming light at 4PM and you'll be seeing a lot of Colossus...
After finishing with Colossus I decided to keep going down the Midway until I reached this beauty...
Saw: The Ride. It's a Eurofighter with a GREAT prelift sequence (which includes a verticle drop, and inversion, and one of the best headchoppers I can remember since riding Ninja at SFStL.
Best part of Saw? How about the anti-line jumping fences they've put in place?
A bit rougher than I remember the ride back in March, but it's fast and a lot of fun. There are a couple of airtime hills included which I loved. It's got plenty of turns and smooth inversions. The biggest problem the ride has is the amount of shaking at the bottom of all the big hills. Probably my favorite ride at the park.
The park has a host of decent flat rides as well to compliment their coasters.
Next coaster on the list was Nemesis: Inferno. Why in god's name the Tussaud's Group chose to build two different B&M Inverts 2 1/2 hours from each other with the same name I will never be able to understand. This one isn't as good as Nemesis at Alton Towers, but that didn't make it a bad ride. It's very much like BTR. Infact the first drop and loop felt exactly the same to me.
Same font as Nemesis at AT.
One of the only B&M inverts I've ever seen with interlocking corkscrews.
To Brad's dismay, parks over here really don't have large fences (or signs that say you'll be banned forever) to keep people out of ride areas. There are certainly fences surrounding key points of the ride, but if I wanted to hop a fence and stand on coaster track, I probably could without a problem.
Saw this guy over in the distance. This is Stealth - the UKs tallest and faster launched roller coaster which brings you from 0-80 in 1.8 seconds and takes you 205 feet in the air. Essentially Stealth is Kindga Ka cut in half. It has the same airtime hill after the tophat, a shorter launch, and doesn't go nearly as high.
Oddly enough, even after being on TTD and Kingda Ka I really enjoyed Stealth. The problem I have with TTD and KK is that their launches are extremely intense. It's fun the first time, but after 3 I just get a headache. Stealth is quick and still gives a great sense of height and airtime without the headache. I wouldn't rank it higher or lower than I do TTD or KK. It is what it is, but I rode it three times and enjoyed it each time.
Stealth's theming makes absolutely no sense. And with the addition of Swarm next year right next to it I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "Amity Speedway" thing gets tossed for something cooler.
After Stealth I went back to the front of the park and met up with a few friends who just got out of work to tackle all of the scare mazes. I don't really have many photos from this point because A - it's dark and B - there really wasn't much to take photos of. All the haunted houses are either in white tents or hidden away somewhere.
Instead of rank and rate each maze individually I just want to quickly write about the overall feel for the houses.
The mazes didn't create much or any of a story before going in with the exception of their new maze called Experiment 10. I love getting a little storyline first off, so it was a bummer to miss that on most of the mazes.
Big difference - actors can touch you here. It will never be violent or anything like that - but I got pulled back into a room on three separate occasions when I was in the back of our group, the first of which I really didn't see coming. They will grab at your sides and one actor even brushed my hair when I didn't know he was standing behind me. Really (really) added to the scare factor. Brilliant.
Experiment 10 was their new maze, and it was brilliant. To start off they switch around your group with other groups so you are mostly with strangers. Then they separate each of you INDIVIDUALLY and stick you in your own small closet which is pitch black as you hear the people around you scream. That was brilliant. There was also a tunnel to crawl through where actors would grab your back as you scampered through.
All the mazes with the exception of The Curse looked really good with amazing rooms (some even smelled like death).
Saw: Alive is a year round horror maze that is stunning inside as it recreates scenes from all the Saw films.
I saw maybe 5 scareactors roaming around the park all night. There was also practically no theming around Fright Nights to speak of other than the horror mazes. That was a huge disappointment.
All in all I had a great 7 hour day at Thorpe. It is one of the UKs top theme parks, and right up there with Alton Towers with quality of roller coasters. Compared to American parks Thorpe would be considered fairly small, and I think it would benefit greatly from a hyper coaster. The Swarm will be a fine addition to the park next year, but the UK in general just needs more airtime.
This will probably be my last theme park of the season (just realized that as I was writing, crap) until I make a trip to Eurodisney sometime in January. Until then - thanks for reading.
