Thorpe Park Theme Park - August 2006
On our visit to Thorpe Park, near Chertsey in Surrey, we attempted
many of the scary rides including Colossus, Pirates 4D, Rumba Rapids,
Loggers Leap, Slammer, Tidal Wave, Nemesis Inferno, Detonator and
Stealth. Oh, and Storm in a Teacup. We also took the Canada
Creek railway to Thorpe Farm. Phew!
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We arrived at Thorpe Park bright and early, paid our £28.50 entrance fee
and, guide pamphlet in hand, headed for the café to plan which rides to
go on.
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Here's Mike pondering all the rides at the theme park over a Latte.
There were many new rides since our last visit to Thorpe Park in 2001.
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One of these was Colossus, which not only had several large drops, but
corkscrewed upside down about five times! We wanted to go on it
again afterwards, but the queue was an hour's wait and the Fastrack time
was way into the afternoon.
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After Colossus we tried something a bit tamer and went in the Pirates 4D
show, complete with large 4D glasses as modelled here by Belinda.
The 4D effects included getting squirted and and vibrated as well as all
the items coming at you out of the screen!
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Next up was the Rumba Rapids, a wild ride round a fast flowing river where
you often get sloshed and squirted with water! As by now we were a
little wet, we headed off to...
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...Loggers Leap and got even wetter!
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This is us on Loggers Leap. We took this picture from the TV screen
you see after the ride where you can buy your picture for £4.99.
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As you can see, Mike got pretty wet on Loggers Leap. The down side
were the long queues, the Fastrack system does allow you to get an
allocated time to ride, but we found you often miss your time slot as
you're the other side of the park when your time comes up. Bummer!
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There's a number of catering outlets at Thorpe Park, we lunched next at
Kentucky in Amity Cove. This shot's looking towards the Rumba Rapids
near the Detonator ride.
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Here's Slammer, a 105ft rotary thrill ride that flips over to slam you
towards the ground at 30mph! Another upside down experience, just
what you don't want after lunch really!
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Well by now we were just starting to dry off so we went to top up on
what's probably the wettest ride ever, Tidal Wave. After climbing to
a great height (85ft), Tidal Wave thunders down and throws up a huge wall
of water above you which then...
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...crashes down on top of you! You can see the water surge created
here, with the Tidal Wave track in the background. To the left is
the large arch of the new for 2006 Stealth ride which unfortunately we
didn't get to go on as Stealth kept breaking down whenever we went back
for our ride (gotta away with that one then, phew!). It rises 205ft
in the air and does 0 to 80 in 2.3 seconds. A little faster than
Mike's car then!
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Here's Nemesis Inferno, a ride that involves your feet dangling down most
of the time except for when you're upside down when your feet are flying
through the sky! There's a number of upside down loops on this
ride. A real stomach churning ride is this one! Ooo, is that
my lunch again?
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Detonator rises slowly to 100ft then plummets rapidly, causing you to
think you're going to come out of the seat!
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After getting soaked and having our stomachs ripped out on all the thrill
rides we wanted something a little more gentle so headed to Thorpe Farm on
the Canada Creek railway.
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Thorpe Farm has many animals including sheep, pigs, goats and rabbits and
is rather relaxing after all the Thorpe Park thrill rides earlier in the
day! There's also a café and gift shop.
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Here's Belinda exploring the barn at Thorpe Farm. We really enjoyed
our day at Thorpe Park, their website is on our UK
tourist links page. Home now to dry off then!
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Ar! A cute little, er, what is it?
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