Thorpe Park, September 2024

As is customary for us around the time of Evan’s birthday at the end of September, we planned a little roadtrip which included Legoland Windsor, the Warner Bros Studio Tour – The Making of Harry Potter and stop #1 at Thorpe Park.

We’ve only been to Thorpe Park once before and that was last year, on a very hot and busy day, back when the new coaster was just called ‘Project Exodus’ and was still in the early construction phase and Nemesis Inferno was closed. So, we were eager to get back and collect our credits for Nemesis Inferno and The Walking Dead (which we just missed out last time) and get on the biggest, newest, fastest, shiniest and goldest coaster in the UK – Hyperia.

And with just over a month to go before our trip, Thorpe Park announced that Hyperia would be closed for a week, and disappointingly it just happened to be the week we were there, with its last day the Friday we were due in the park. So, we had a disappointed 45-year-old and a very disappointed 10-year-old.

Then came the added news that Nemesis Inferno would also be closed the same week!!! Devastated didn’t come close to how we felt. 2 out of 3 coasters we’d never ridden closed. Thankfully, they changed the Nemesis closure to the week after and as Hyperia’s last day closed was while we were there, we held out hope for an early re-open.

It’s an early start from Wrexham to get to Thorpe Park in Chertsey, near London. We were up at 5am, in the car before 6am and on our way, praying for minimal traffic and no disruptions due to the heavy rain and flooding from the Wednesday before. We arrived at Thorpe Park just after 10am to a sodden car park and the rain hadn’t let up, so we were in for a dismal morning.

With sad faces on, already soaking shoes, we waited for what felt like an eternity to get through bag check and on to ‘the island like no other’, hoping that the rain wouldn’t delay too many rides. We decided to grab one of our 3 ‘to do’ coasters first, and as it was indoors, so we’d be out of the rain. We headed for AMC’s The Walking Dead: The Ride.

We didn’t enjoy this at all. Very much a ‘one and done’ for us. After a massive wait in the rain for bag drop, we went in for the pre-show and onwards for a walk down some pitch-black corridors. We genuinely couldn’t see anything and the idiots behind us were shouting for us to go faster, and Evan, who’s anxious at the best of times, was getting nervous and worried someone was going to jump out at us. No one did, but the threat was there at every dark corner.

We finally made it to the station and got on the coaster. This indoor Vekoma coaster felt like a very basic coaster with a few stop/start areas and some dodgy looking zombie mannequins placed around. It had more of a fun fair Ghost Train vibe than a big theme park coaster. Its only saving grace was getting us out of the rain. Not a fan.

While we were on The Walking Dead, Elliott needed entertaining. He ‘hates’ Thorpe Park as there’s not much to do for him, and he bears a grudge from being turned away from Rumba Rapids last year after being measured a 2nd time in the station, but we did check first. There’s always Flying Fish, which unfortunately was delayed. A couple of walk-on goes on Dobble Tea Party (teacups) followed by a big win on the 2p machine in the arcades cheered him up – he won 6 squidgy octopuses/octopi.

Flying Fish – the1983 Mack Rides family coaster did open later on, and he enjoyed several rides including two 5-lap specials and one minor breakdown!!

Their next stop was a trip to the 4D cinema where they were playing a 10 min version of the Spielberg movie ‘Ready Player One’ with added 4D effects. Elliott wasn’t really a fan other than the King Kong/T-Rex scenes (He does love King Kong). The cinema was a 12A rated screening but there was nothing bad in it for kids.

With the rain still coming down and Nemesis Inferno delayed due to rain we headed to the world’s first 10-inversion rollercoaster, the mighty Colossus. I really enjoyed Colossus last time we were here, especially the quad barrel/heartline roll at the end, so I was looking forward to getting back on. Evan thinks it’s a bit rough, and it’s far from smooth, but we’ve been on worse. Furius Baco, I’m looking at you!! And as it was still raining, we were trying to hold our hoods on to stop the rain from feeling like needles hitting your face. If anything, this just made me laugh more! 20ish minute wait. Not bad.

Saw: The Ride – the Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter themed around the horror film franchise – was showing a 15-minute wait, so we headed over. It was still chucking it down and the majority of the queue is outdoors and pretty much flooded, so we waded through and waited. It was definitely longer than 15 mins and the queue behind us had grown considerably. We were about 10 mins from the building when it happened. A young girl in front of us was checking queue times on the app and said “I thought Hyperia was closed. It’s showing 10 minutes?” I checked the app, and it was. I looked at Evan. He looked at me and shouted “Go!”. And we did. We fought our way out of the queue, through the puddles and people with the hope that the app wasn’t wrong. Then, just as we were jogging away from Saw, we saw a train full of people on the track. Hyperia was running, and now, so were we!

The Golden Goddess had done us a massive favour and reopened early. The queue was quickly filling up and was on 40 mins by the time we finally got there and quickly jumped to 90mins plus. It was still raining a bit, but we weren’t expecting to get on Hyperia at all, so we’d definitely take a rainy ride over no ride.

Wow. Absolutely amazing. Definitely the best Rollercoaster in the UK and I’d rate it in the top 5 coasters I’ve been on anywhere. It’s so smooth, and that first inverted drop is insane. The airtime you get and the seat restraints had a very Shambhala vibe (which is another one of our favourite rides) and the stalled dive loop was fantastic. We laughed all the way around and definitely found our fearless!

The ride station looks great inside and the Hyperia theme/story is good, but the queue around the ride needs tidying up, as it still looks like a building site and comes off feeling like its lacking something. More theming perhaps? Some statues of the goddess? Fearless Valley and the Hyporium shop looked great though. We did notice the splashdown section wasn’t running that day, and it’s already looking badly rusted. I hope they can sort that out.

So, congratulations John Burton, Thorpe Park, Mack Rides and all involved, Hyperia is an absolute beast (or Goddess) of a coaster for the UK. If you can keep it up, running and well-maintained, with operations as good as they were on this day, then Hyperia could surely be a world-renowned crowd pleaser – like Velocicoaster, Iron Gwazi or some of the other big names – for years to come.

As it turns out we took a LOT of pictures and videos of Hyperia, The Hyporium and Fearless Valley, so instead of adding them all in this post, you can find them here: Hyperia, Thorpe Park’s Golden Goddess

The sun was making an appearance, the rain had stopped and a ride on Hyperia had cheered us up no end.

It was lunchtime, so we made to regroup with Jo and Elliott – who were yet again on Flying Fish – but The Swarm was showing a 10-minute wait on the app, so lunch would just have to wait for a few more minutes.

We love The Swarm. It’s a great coaster and the first Wing Coaster we’d ever been on. The ride area is brilliantly themed and really stands out. The queue was showing 25mins as we arrived, and as Jo and Elliott had arrived ahead of us, we ate some sausage rolls and crisps together before joining.

The Swarm is great. Very smooth and we love that slow turn on the first drop. The whole ride experience did feel a little slow today, buy we’d probably just been spoiled by a ride on Hyperia. Great fun, nonetheless.

We then headed to Stealth – The Intamin launch coaster – on an advertised 10 min queue. We waited in it for probably 10-15 minutes before they announced it was stopped whilst they retrieved someone’s belongings from within the ride area, which must’ve flown from a pocket. I mean, zip pockets for phones or bags in the station people! – it’s not rocket science, it’s for everyone’s safety. And that wasn’t the only time this happened while we were here either, but I’ll get to that later. We abandoned ship for now, but we’ll head back later.

We exited the Stealth area to find Nemesis Inferno on a 35-minute wait, so we headed over to claim our final credit and enjoy our first ever ride, and it was great. We were expecting it to be a bit rough for a 21-year-old B&M, but it was surprisingly smooth. Not Hyperia smooth, but not a headbanger like Dragon Khan. Will it get the Nemesis Inferno Reborn treatment? Nah, its fine as it is.

Another lap on Hyperia? Go on then…Sun was out again, and the queue was about 45 minutes, so we had to have another go on this awesome coaster. It moved along pretty quickly, and we managed to snag a back row ride which was brilliant. That first drop was even better from the back row. A top 5 coaster for me. Evan agrees.

After a quick regroup so Elliott could have a look at Hyperia and a quick lap of the Hyporium for some merch (Just a Hyperia magnet and keyring today, and though I did like some of the t-shirts, it was the wrong side of payday for that kind of spending – Maybe next time), we went back to Stealth. Queue was again showing 10 minutes which looked more accurate this time, so hopefully we’d get on without someone’s mobile stopping it. We did, and we waited for front row. As short and sweet as these types of coasters are, they’re so much fun. Stealth’s launch is great and while it doesn’t have the height of a Red Force or Kingda Ka it’s still a pretty forceful drop.

It was nearing the end of the day and there were a few rides we’d not managed to do today but we still had time to squeeze one more in. We hadn’t done Saw: The Ride after abandoning the queue for Hyperia, but we’ve been on it before. We were hoping to get a few flat rides in as we didn’t do any last time we were at Thorpe Park. I really wanted to get on Samurai, which was unfortunately up and down through the day, we did manage to get on Rush, an S&S Swing ride.

We were fans of Serengeti Flyer over at Busch Gardens Tampa and we loved this too. Short cycle though which was a bit disappointing, but a good ride with some decent forces. We also missed out on rides like Detonator, Vortex and Quantum, and neither me nor Evan had been on Flying Fish. We’d even skipped Mr Monkeys Banana Ride. So, what should we do for our final ride of the day? Hyperia, duh!

One last flight with the Golden Goddess was just what we needed. We probably waited around 35 minutes and ended up near the back again. Just as smooth, fast and fun as the first two laps. This time we had the pleasure of seeing someone’s phone twirling headlong into the trees at the back of Hyperia as we went around the outer banked turn. It just swirled serenely off into the distance in slow motion. Again, zip pockets, people! That could have seriously hurt someone.

And with 3 laps on Hyperia done, we’d finally got our 3 remaining Thorpe Park coaster creds thanks to the early reopening. We headed back though the Dome, into the waterlogged carpark and on to our next location. We were staying the night at the new Legoland Woodland Village in preparation for a day in Legoland Windsor and some Adventure Golf the next day!

We’d used the Sun Superdays for our tickets this time and as we’d taken the kids out of school (Naughty, yes, but it was Evan’s birthday) so our selected dates were free (aside from the cost of the papers). Prices usually start from £29 to £40+ depending on dates, but there’s always Cadburys and Kellogg’s offers available. The only other cost for our day was car parking, which was £12.

We’d brought food with us to save money – when we do a roadtrip, we keep a cool box in the car boot full of frozen water and snacks, so we’ve always got food and drink on hand, but there were some great looking food shops and stalls around, and a Burger King. The street food stalls near Hyperia smelled amazing and the KFC in Amity with the shark going through the wall is brilliant.

It was a fairly busy day considering it was a Friday in term time, and there were a few school trips around, which seemed odd for so early in the first term of a new school year? The rain spoiled the morning, but Hyperia brought the sun out in the afternoon.

Both me and Evan love Thorpe Park as it’s made for thrill seekers and we both love the big coasters whereas Jo, who’s not a big coaster fan can take it or leave it. She’s more into the theming and fun rides, and Thorpe is very much big rides. Elliott struggles to find things to do, being sub-1.2m so isn’t fussed at all. And I know it’s a thrill seekers park, but even big thrill seekers might have smaller siblings that like coasters, so maybe rip out Amity Bay and add a family area with a few flats and a family coaster?

It’s a great park though, but a bit far for us to go regularly. Fingers crossed we get back soon though for another great day out!

Visit the Official Thorpe Park Website for details.