Thorpe Park, April 2025

Day 2 of our roadtrip was a 2 parter. Elliott, who’s sub 1.4m cant get on much at Thorpe Park. Jo, over 1.4m doesn’t want to get on anything at Thorpe Park. Both Evan and I, over 1.4m really want to go on some big coasters at Thorpe Park, so we dropped Jo & Elliott off at Legoland Windsor and hit the road for a lads only day at Thorpe Park. We’ll be having a full family day at Legoland the next day, but today, for us two, it was all about the big rides, and one big ride in particular: Hyperia.

The queue to get into Thorpe Park was manic. One queue into another queue, to security then the gates. Its crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it at any other park. Granted, it is mainly full of adults and teenagers so I understand the extra security, but the queue to get in is so poorly organised and laborious, you end up missing 30 mins of your day waiting to get in.

Finally thought the gates and we learn that because its windy Hyperia is down. Colossus was also down. Nemesis Inferno… down also. The wind was affecting the majority of the rides, and Stealth had been down for maintenance all week, so that wasn’t looking like it was on the itinerary either. We had a feeling it was going to be a bad day. Luckily, The Swarm was open, so lets do that!

Swarm island is one of the best themed areas in the UK. It is literally on its own little island in the corner of the park and is set like a city suffering from an alien invasion. Upturned ambulances crashed planes and helicopters, the ride station is a demolished church building, the operator booth is an upturned police truck. The area is brilliant. As is the ride. It’s a B&M wing coaster that is pretty smooth with some fun elements.

That first overturned drop is one of my favourites of any ride I’ve been on. The way it slowly turns you over before diving is great. The queue said it was about 40 mins, but we were in the ride station and on in under 15, which was a great start to the day. Love a ride on The Swarm. The gift shop in the shipping container in the middle of Swarm Island was open too. Never usually is when we come.

Nemesis Inferno was now open and we were close by. We jumped in the 45 minute queue which was moving well. Then disaster. Rain. The heavens opened for 20 mins. Nemesis and EVERYTHING was closed. Colossus, Detonator, Rush, Swarm, Saw, Vortex: all closed. Hyperia was still delayed due to the wind and the park was looking like a complete bust for everyone. Luckily, as the ride was down, many people left the queue, so when it reopened, we’d moved along quite a way. We got to the steps of the volcano and it looked like the rides were slowly starting to re-open. Also good news, Stealth was testing. We might be in luck. This was only my 2^nd ever ride on Nemesis Inferno, and I really enjoyed it. It doesn’t feel it’s age, looks good and has a decent layout. Not quite as good as its counterpart over at Alton Towers, but still a great B&M Inverted coaster.

Now… Colossus is great. I’ve heard many people saying its rough and needs a re-track, new trains. OK, it can leave you a little tender around the shoulders on the quad roll, but I’ve never found it to be that bad. Until today! Ooosh. Today, it was a bit on the rough side. Jolty, and very sharp on the shoulders on the inverts. It still has a great layout and looks immense, but yeah, new trains please, or at least new restraints and some padding. Looking forward to riding Sik at Flamingo Land this year to see how it compares. It’s a clone of Colossus, but newer with better trains, so we’ll see how that goes. Don’t get me wrong, we still rode Colossus 3 or 4 times during the day and I’d still go again, but if they can improve it and keep the Worlds First 10 Inversion Coaster going for longer, then they absolutely should!

This was our 3^rd ever trip to Thorpe Park and we’re usually in queues trying to get on all the big coasters, but today we had time to experience some of the flat rides we don’t usually get on. I was determined to try Samurai, Evan wanted to get on Quantum and Zodiac, but we’ve been on Rush before, so it wasn’t a priority. Samurai I loved. It had a bit of a queue, so I got a beer before jumping in the queue, plus the sun was now out so it felt like summer. Samurai is the craziest looking ride I’ve ever seen. It’s a Mondial Top Scan ride, and if I can best describe it as a spinning arm, with a ninja star on the end and every arm of the star flips and rotates as the arm swings around. Good fun, not the comfiest restraints, but definitely re-rideable and made me laugh.

Lunch today was a KFC. We had some emergency snacks but I hadn’t had a KFC for a while, so needed some of the special blend of herbs and spices. The KFC in the Amity Beach area is brilliant. The shark tail sticking out of the roof outside, and just inside the door, it’s head, jaws wide open, staring down at you. It’s a standard KFC, maybe a little more expensive, like a service station version, but a standard KFC none the less. It was rammed in there too, so if you’re going, eat early or late, avoid lunchtimes. Service was pretty quick when we eventually got served, and we managed to find a table in the melee.

We finally got on Zodiac, the Huss Enterprise (remember Enterprise at Alton Towers? Yeah, same thing) that rapidly spins you with centrifugal forces pinning you inside your cradle as it rises up from the ground. You can really feel the forces on that one. Its only got a 1m height requirement, so while Elliott could get on it, I doubt he’d like it. Jo would hate it!

Quantum is a standard issue Magic Carpet ride made by Fabbri. It was fun with a few good swings and drops. Was a bit slow to load, with guests having to shuffle about for weight distribution, which seemed to annoy one or two who got off before it started, but it was still enjoyable.

Stealth had reopened! Great news. It had been closed for over a week while they were sorting an issue, but we’d seen it testing earlier and they’d finally re-opened it. So off to Amity Speedway we headed for a ride on the fastest accelerating launch in the world: 0-80 in 1.8 seconds.

Stealth is great. We love this kind of coaster and would have loved to get on other similar record breakers, like the now imploded Kingda Ka or Top Thrill 2. We’ve done Red Force over at PortAventura/Ferrari Land though, and that was fantastic. What Stealth lacks in height compared to Red Force, it certainly makes up for in launch. It’s great fun and makes for an awesome photo.

The other two rides nearby were Vortex, a KMG Afterburner model pendulum swing, that was closed when we got near it so we’ll try again next time along with Rush, the S&S Screaming Swing, which we’ve been on before and is good fun. I love the fact that Thorpe Park has this small area with lots of flat rides in. There are a few others around the park, like Detonator (Drop Tower) and Mr Monkeys Banana Ride (a kids swinging ship) but the majority are all together in this area. Feels like there’s more flat rides in this spot than in all of Alton Towers.

We headed down to fearless valley for a look around to see if there was any movement in the Golden Goddess today. Wind had stopped it from running for the entire day, and as you can imagine we were disappointed to not be getting on it but we did have a back up plan. We were at Legoland Windsor the following day, so if she hadn’t opened up by the end the day, we’d leave Legoland at 4pm and head back to Thorpe Park for the last few hours. We were out of luck today, and we’d even forgotten to check in on Hyperia duck to see how she was getting on.

The end of the day was approaching. The park closes at 6pm so we had to pick a queue to jump in for our last ride. Hyperia was out of the question, we’d done Stealth a few times, Colossus a few times and we’d been on Swarm. The Walking Dead we’re not bothered about, so that left one coaster to finish on. Flying Fish.

I jest, we went to Saw: The Ride.

This Gerstlauer Eurofighter has a bad rep for being a headbanger of a ride, and it is a bit, but the theming is good through the queue, in the station and on the ride, so its overall a good experience. There’s a few sudden drops in there too so watch out for those. The end of day queue looked slow and said it was on the 45 minute mark, but we whizzed through and were done in under 30 mins. A good end to the day, but not quite the one we wanted.

Thorpe Park is a great theme park, but really struggles with weather. All the rides are big, so they all suffer from the same big ride problem: they cant operate in the wind. For large portions of the day the wind had stopped many of the rides. There were entire pages of the app marked as closed. All of the coasters, several flat rides, all down, but luckily they were reopening after it had calmed, only to be closed again. I think we were stopped 4 times due to wind across 2 attempts at Colossus. But you choose the theme park life and you have to live with it. We made the most of our day and did manage to still do lots of rides, even if we had to nip back the following day for one…

Sorry Legoland Windsor, but that ethereal sound of Hyperia’s music was flowing on the breeze and calling us back. We left Legoland a little earlier than we thought and headed over to Thorpe Park, and me and Evan ran straight to Fearless Valley to jump in the 75 minute queue for Hyperia.

We spotted Shawn from Theme Park Worldwide while we were waiting, watched security laying down the law with some ruffians in the queue, had some sweets form Cloud 9 Treats, and the queue took about an hour in all. Hyperia is definitely the best rollercoaster in the UK, but felt a little rougher than on our visit last year. Still awesome though and that first drop is nothing short of amazing.

Whilst we waited for Hyperia, Jo and Elliott did a lap on Flying Fish (The only coaster Elliott can do here) and Mr Monkey’s Banana Ride. After Hyperia, we had time for a few quick laps on Stealth before a long wait in the car park and a long drive home! Can’t wait to get back to Thorpe Park again soon.

Find booking details and such on the official Thorpe Park website.