I was feeling rather basic about not having ridden Hyperia yet. The 200+ foot tall Mack Hypercoaster would look great on my coaster spreadsheet, I thought. Therefore myself and friend of the blog Aaron made the trip to Surrey.
It took me almost three hours to reach Thorpe Park from Cambridge, the M25 was not playing ball for a change…
Once inside the park we headed towards Nemesis Inferno for a front row ride. I’d ridden several B&M inverts since my last ride on Inferno and I was excited to see what I thought of it now. It’s a bottom tier invert. Not particularly big and not very forceful.
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| Here’s a really old photo I found. |
Hyperia had now opened and we headed straight there. Thorpe Park’s newest coaster has been plagued by issues since opening and seems to never have a good run of operational days. Just a few days before our visit Hyperia had an issue which closed it, we even debated cancelling our visit because we didn’t wish to visit and find the coaster we needed was closed.
Happily we were granted a back row ride for our first go!
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| Am I getting any better at taking photos? |
The first drop is pretty good and my highlight of the ride. The second drop is also decent. The rest of the ride is over very quickly and the strange hang time element is well, meh. I’m really struggling to be nicer about this coaster. We waited years for a new coaster at Thorpe and this is the best that we got? Yes it’s got the UK height record and it’s smooth but overall it just isn’t that good. I totally understand why less travelled enthusiasts love it but it really doesn’t compete with big hitter Hyper Coasters like Nitro, Fury 325 (yes it is >300ft but RCDB calls it a hyper), Apollo’s Chariot (watch out for geese), I really could go on.
I really wanted a second ride, hopefully closer to the front of the train, but Hyperia decided to do what it does best:
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| Again…. |
It valleyed and would be closed for the rest of the day. It was a pretty windy day.
Since Stealth had opened we rushed there for a walk on ride!
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| Another old photo I found! |
Stealth was the first Accelerator Coaster I’ve ridden since Kingda Ka (RIP), which was over twice the size of Stealth and much faster. Stealth is still a good coaster but again doesn’t stack up against bigger hitters. How could they implode Kingda Ka…
We then decided to have lunch. We chose Pizza Pasta Buffet which was almost as expensive as the admission ticket. For that price you get bland pizza and passable pasta.
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| Yes that’s ’garlic bread’. |
Post lunch we headed for a ride on The Walking Dead. I’ve never bothered to watch the show, which seemed to shock some random woman in the queue. The sound effects on this ride are genius! Teenagers screaming from entering the queue until exiting the ride building. Good job Thorpe on your free theming! I actually miss X:/No Way Out because now I can’t point at fire exits and say “there’s one”. It’s an alright indoor coaster but the theming is naff.
At this point several attractions were closed and what remained open had large queues. Therefore we rode The Swarm and called it a day before 14:00.
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| I rode this on its opening day back in 2012! |
I’m actually in despair at the state of The UK’s theme parks. Thorpe Park just isn’t a good day out anymore. It’s expensive to get in, expensive to eat rubbish food and costs £12 to park! The attractions, even the newest one, have poor reliability and are frequently going down for large periods of the day. Colossus only opened for the morning on this visit.
The last theme park I visited with Aaron was Phantasialand. Now I know that it is unfair to compare Thorpe to Phantasialand, but I’d much rather save my money and use it to visit a European theme park where the people running it actually give a damn and do their upmost to provide a good day out. Perhaps a fairer comparison to Thorpe would be a Six Flags/ Cedar Fair Park. Both don’t really care too much for theming or good food but where the Six Flags/ Cedar Fair parks trump Thorpe is fact that there’s places to stop for a coffee or a beer and in my experience the ride reliability is so much better. It’s little things like stopping for a drink and some nice snacks that help to improve your day. Thorpe is full of closed food and drink kiosks which look like toll booths.
I won’t be visiting any UK parks until there’s a new coaster to get. I just don’t think it’s worth it and it’s better to save money for a better adventure and day out.
Before you ask, Nemesis. Nemesis is the best coaster in The UK.
Thanks for reading.
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