Thorpe Park

[slycat]

On Saturday, I visited Thorpe Park with arakinuk, with the main reason of trying out the new ride, Stealth.  We had both bought annual passes in advance at a cost of £85 a piece and so our first queue was just to get the damn passes.  As we had got there about an hour after the park had opened, there was quite a considerable queue for annual passes.  It took us just over 1hr in the blistering cold to get our passes.  While we were int he queue, we could see notices saying the cold weather meant that some of the sides might not be running, including the big 3 rollercoasters, Stealth, Colossus & Nemesis Inferno.  As such, we thought about not going in, but we could see them testing Stealth and our annual passes allowed us 52 visits during the 12 month period so we decided to have a look around anyway.

When we got in, we had a bit of a wonder around, my stomach was rumbling so I wanted to get some food.  In our wondering however, we noticed that Stealth was very much open.  We decided to joint he queue thinking it wouldn't be that long as it had probably only just been opened... but we were much mistaken.  We waited around 1hr 45mins to get on the ride, including a delay while they decided to introduce the second train to the ride to allow them to take on more passengers.  The ride itself lasted around 30 seconds... but what a 30 seconds.  You get launched from 0 - 80mph in the space of 2.3seconds, a force of 4.5Gs into the vertical track reachign a height of 205feet before decending vertically again and rolling back to the start.  Words can't explain how intense the feeling was... however pictures might explain better.  We got one of the snaps taken from on the ride which is where my current LJ icon is made from.  You can see the full scan of the pic here.  After getting off the ride however, it did result in a weird feeling in both our ankles... like someone had broken them or something while we were on the ride :P.  Rest assured, no damage was done, just an odd sensation.

- Click here for my photos taken at Thorpe Park (sadly my batteries ran out while in the queue for Stealth) -
- Click here (4.5mb) for a video I grabbed of Stealth in action -
After the ride, we seeked out KFC followed by waffles with ice cream :).  On our way back from the waffle stand, we noticed the Slammer ride was pretty much stuck vertially.  I wasn't actually sure it was stuck until I realise it just wasn't moving at all and wasn't supposed to be doing that.  The ride tried to level itself out but kept on tilting back vertically, and as it did so, you could hear a terrified woman screaming for the ride to be turned the other way.  BBC News covered it with this story.  Pretty scary stuff, I felt glad that Slammer wasn't really the kind of ride I'd like to go on anyway, my kick is the rollercoasters :).

After pulling ourselves away from the drama, we took a ride on the Nemesis Inferno, and decided to go to the front queue.  It took longer to get on the ride (although only about 30mins in total) but it was worth the extra wait.  I didn't realise how much more intense the ride is when you sit in front!  I so want to do more rides in the front now :).  After the ride, we wondered back with the intention of riding Colussus, but it seemed that due to it's proximity to the Slammer which was still having problems after our ride, it had been corded off.  As such, we decided to call it a day and leave, knowing that with the annual passes, we can go at any time in the future and get more rides done.

It's also worth noting that we went to see V for Vendetta after the Theme Park in Staines.  The film was much better than I had expected.  I did think it was directed by the Wachowskis but turned out they just did the screenplay.  Really liked the whole 1984-esque totalitarian future take on it and the way the story went.  I'd certainly recommend it.

Comments

[jdjam001.livejournal.com]

ok, actual comment time... :P

kool, glad to hear you enjoyed yourself, and i may be going Thorpe some time during the summer, so i'll have to try Stealth out for mehself - ooh it looks (and sounds) intense :D

[m-tiger.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, rollercoasters rock! I haven't gone to any theme parks in waaaaay too long. Hmm, it seems like you guys have all the awesome ones over there across the pond. ;)

We have a 'Stealth' coaster here in California (or had, I dunno if it's still there), it's completely different though. It simulates flight, like yer Superman or something. The only pic of me on a coaster I've got, is me grinning like crazy on it. :D

[a-skunk.livejournal.com]

Having worked at that theme park, I can tell you a thing or two about how impressive they are. Well, visually they are not. The rollercoasters are noticably smaller and there are far less of them than the average American theme park. However, at least at that park, the roller coasters make up for thier lack of size by having much tighter turns and thus generating rather high g-forces. I was amazed by how tight some of the loops looked on Nemesis Inferno!

[slycat.livejournal.com]

Well according to RCDB, you guys have the fastest at 128mph to our 80mph and tallest at 456feet to stealth's 205feet. However that's not to say it's a bad ride, it's very intense, however New Jersey's Great America seems to have twice what our Stealth can do with Kingda Ka! I'm not sure if I'd have the guts to ride it though :P

[a-skunk.livejournal.com]

Ha! I used to work at Thorpe Park.. in that KFC! They did a great job simulating an american small town with that water ride. I didn't notice that it was American themed at all until Clawz pointed it out. It just seemed like a recreation of an ordinary small town to me. Also I'm not sure if you know, but for all of the rollercoasters there is a "single person" line that lets you take the single spaces left over from the main line. It usually can cut your wait time down to a few minutes! You have to go by yourself though, and not look like you are part of a group just trying to get in faster. I wonder if they still do that...

[slycat.livejournal.com]

I know you used to work at KFC, you point it out every time I mention the place :P

And yeah, they still do the single person lines, but obviously I was with a friend so would rather ride with them. Also Stealth is only 2 people per row, so the single riders aren't used as much as you would think.

[a-skunk.livejournal.com]

Wot? I don't remember mentioning that in LJ recently. Oh well. My memory sucks.

[stu-ath.livejournal.com]

What jolly pics. I used to live right next to the park, cool place