Thorpe Park

martinbuckley

Yesterday, my wife and I took our kids (13 & 11) to Thorpe Park. Eldest likes thrill rides but my wife & younger one dont much care for them.

We very quickly established that being there on a Bank Holiday wasnt a great idea - it was packed, so being Merlin passholders we took ourselves off to legoland.

Now my daughter & wife would happily never return to Thorpe Park, but my son and I would like to return at a later date when it is less busy as we enjoyed the rides we managed to get on.

What I did notice about Thorpe Park however was it wasnt packed with parents and their teenage kids, but the main customers seemed to be groups of young adults in their 20s - probably of working age taking advantage of the Bank Holiday.

My question is therefore would a weekday Tuesday or Wednesday in the August school holidays be a good time for me and my son to return. My thinking is that these 20-somethings will be at work, so school holidays should not increase the amount of visitors.

If anybody has been to Thorpe Park with their teenagers in school hols, I'd appreciate some feedback so that I dont go back to spend all day not going on anything!

Thanks in advance.

SimbaSimon

martinbuckley wrote: »

Yesterday, my wife and I took our kids (13 & 11) to Thorpe Park. Eldest likes thrill rides but my wife & younger one dont much care for them.

We very quickly established that being there on a Bank Holiday wasnt a great idea - it was packed, so being Merlin passholders we took ourselves off to legoland.

Now my daughter & wife would happily never return to Thorpe Park, but my son and I would like to return at a later date when it is less busy as we enjoyed the rides we managed to get on.

What I did notice about Thorpe Park however was it wasnt packed with parents and their teenage kids, but the main customers seemed to be groups of young adults in their 20s - probably of working age taking advantage of the Bank Holiday.

My question is therefore would a weekday Tuesday or Wednesday in the August school holidays be a good time for me and my son to return. My thinking is that these 20-somethings will be at work, so school holidays should not increase the amount of visitors.

If anybody has been to Thorpe Park with their teenagers in school hols, I'd appreciate some feedback so that I dont go back to spend all day not going on anything!

Thanks in advance.

Can't comment specifically about Thorpe Park but we went to Alton Towers in the last school holidays (we didn't realise it was the school holidays!). It wasn't a hot day and the crowds weren't too bad. Especially if you get there early and/or stay that bit later.

So get to Thorpe Park for opening if possible and you should be fine. Still, expect queues of an hourish on some of the big rides during the middle of the day, so try to get those done first!

Bunnie1982

Weekdays at parks are usually quieter, just check that your pass will give you full days in the parks in August as I know that some restrictions were imposed last year (think it might have just been central London attractions though)

lily_the_pink

It does attract crowds of older teenagers (GCSE/A level age) - I live sort of locally and see them waiting at the train station for the shuttle bus. How busy it gets in the school holidays I don't know but August will be busy no matter what as it is peak time. Legoland is best avoided in August! Chessington is just down the road by the way and is another option with the Merlin pass.

mew

If the Summer School holidays are anything like the Easter School holidays, then it will be horrendously busy. The quietest time I have been to Thorpe park was on a sunny school day at the end of September last year.

Thorpe Park (and Blackpool Pleasure Beech) are offering reduced priced tickets for Sundays this year, As such are Sundays possibly ‘quieter’ days than Saturdays/School holiday weekdays?

nikki702

Last time I went to thorpe park it was on a weekend day and it was PACKED!

The rides were like 90 min wait and some of the bigger rides were even more :eek:

look_after_the_pennies

Myself and my boyfriend went to Thorpe Park on Saturday just gone. We got there before opening and had a queue of around 15 minutes to buy tickets. I figured that there wouldn't be too many people on a Saturday as everyone would assume it would be busy and pick the Sunday or Monday instead. The weather may have also been a factor as although the park was busy, it was not jam packed. We were fortunate enough to have Fast Track tickets but I appreciate that this is rather costly if you have a family. The longest we queued for a ride was 1 hour 30 minutes for Colosseus but this was partly due to someone on the ride dropping something and the ride had to be stopped whilst a member of staff went to retrieve it. They then had to run tests on the ride to make sure it was safe to continue.
I did notice during my visit that it was mainly teenagers rather than families there. I think maybe Chessington is more family orientated. At Thorpe Park, you have to be at least 1.4m tall to go on the scarier rides so this may deter some families.

loulou123

I went last year at the end of september on a weekday and even then it was quite busy. (This was before the saw rides opened.) Have never even contemplated going at a weekend or during summer holidays so cant comment on that.

Had about an hours queue for Colosseus and the more popular rides, but used the single rider line for Stealth and the wait for that was only about 10 minutes (main queue was huge though.) I think due to the age groups that Thorpe park mainly attracts that most days will be quite busy.

susancs

We have Merlin passes and my eldest daughter loves Thorpe Park, but there is very little, apart from the beach area for our younger daugher to do, so we drop our eldest daughter and a friend off there for the day, heading off to Chessington until after 4pm ,when we return to Thorpe Park to meet up later with her and the friend. If you go for opening time,on a Sunday the queues are not so bad for the bigger rides, but after 11am the wait times are usually big. We went also a couple of times in the school hols and it was heaving with teenagers from opening time. Rainy days at theme parks are usually the best day to go, I have found, as less people about.

skintas_2

i got thorpe park at least once a week. depends what days are busy and which are not, i go with my friend we are both in our early 30s its our way off escaping our lives, we go when kids are at school. have just been in holidays. thorpe park always seems busy, we went chessington that just seemed complety dead

skintas_2

went today sunday 6th june was only 6,000 people there 10 mins at the most to que, thought sunday would be really busy as on the web page its 241 on sunday