Tag: Merlin Entertainment

Blog, Reviews

Thorpe Park Carnival

Loops&Lapbars

For a little weekend getaway we decided on a visit to Thorpe Park, and that we’d stay on site in the Thorpe Shark Cabins. I’ll have a full dedicated blog talking about our experience with them but needless to say it’s the weakest offering of the Merlin Parks on site accommodation. That’s not to say it was bad, far from it! Just a little room for improvement!

During our visit, Thorpe Park were hosting their new Carnival event. I had a small feeling that it would be an almost identical event to Mardi Gras but aside from reusing a few assets, it felt like a completely new event from the ground up.

As the carnival events started around 12, and we had 1 hour fastpass bands due to our hotel stay, we went on a few rides first.

First stop of the day was The Swarm, and it gave a good ride and a few of the water effects were working today which was a nice bonus!

Next was Flying Fish and besides it being a very tame ride with not much to mention, there does seem to be a lot of noise coming from the front of the train as it pulls away from the station. Whether this is normal, a sign that maintenance is needed or something bigger is going on I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be too upset if Flying Fish ended up having to be removed as it is quite jerky for a powered coaster.

After Flying Fish we had a go on Stealth and got a fantastic back row ride. Even Tracy, who has been a stern hater of the top hat, had fun this time around, which was pleasing to hear!

Our next stop was supposed to be Rumba Rapids, but for whatever reason, the ride wasn’t operational, and stayed closed throughout the day. This is a shame as the weather was perfect for the light spraying this rapids ride gives you!

Onto Nemesis Inferno and yet another good ride here. Nearer the back of the train this time, and we got very little headbanging at all and a lot of force in the final helix. The more I ride Inferno, the closer it gets to the original at Alton Towers, but I’m fairly adamant that it’ll never take the top spot!

As our fastpass hour was coming to a close, we managed to get onto The Walking Dead. Though lacking any live actors again, the ride was just as enjoyable as it always has been. A really nice solid ride.

Trailers: Breakout at Bozo’s

The biggest thing to talk about with regards to Carnival, has to be their reintroduction of the Trailers scare maze that first opened at Fright Nights 2021. I didn’t experience this the first time around so I can’t compare this iteration to the original but as a standalone event, it was good fun!

Breakout at Bozos follows the story of the SuperSpark cinema that regularly suffers from power surges and these surges open portals into the film’s on-show, only this time the portals work both ways so Bozo and his crew have broken free and are wreaking havoc.

Though the maze was advertised as a scare maze with a twist, it just felt like a standard scare maze to me! There were some funny elements such as being asked to kiss a shark and the Brainsburys shop but because of the rushed nature of the attraction, you don’t get time to pick up on all the scenes.

In terms of fear level, I’d say it was on par with the others I’ve done, probably not as scary as Creak freak massacre but definitely up there with Platform 15. A decent entry level Scare maze!

Carnival

The main carnival event was held behind Colossus’s turnaround, right next to Zodiac and Rush. It featured a stage, a couple of food shops, a stall selling carnival merchandise and a few paid for sideshows.

The stage played host to a few different acts through the day such as fire performances, mime troupes and a plenty of dancing and music!

The performances we managed to see were good, and the actors were very entertaining. I think the highlight for me was the Ringleader show, where he introduced his Circus troupe and faced competition from another group of his ex-colleagues, now working in the Junkyard as a rival group.

There wasn’t many roaming actors outside of the area setup for Carnival like there was with Fright Nights, or the Mardi Gras parade, but they were all in character and fun to watch, even if the mimes were a bit creepy…!

Aside from the main area behind Zodiac, there was also a smaller area called the Junkyard. This was between Nemesis Inferno’s shop and the central arcade, and had a selection of food vendors and a little space for more acts to perform, primarily the rival group to the Ringleader I mentioned earlier.

There were also a few audio tracks added to the bigger coasters. Stealth for example, featured audio about being a human cannonball, Colossus had an acrobat talking about its 10 ‘acrobatic loops’ and Nemesis Inferno played more into is fiery theme by suggesting you walk on fire and brave the heat.

Overall Carnival was good, probably on par with Mardi Gras, definitely not better but certainly not worse either!

The rest of the day

After we’d finished with Carnival, we got on more rides starting with Black Mirror Labyrinth and then Derren Browns Ghost Train. Both were as you’d expect, though Ghost Train was noticeably worse than usual. Black Mirror Labyrinth didn’t have much more to show us than the first time we tried it and really does feel like a one and done attraction already.

I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little excited to talk about Zodiac. Though the ride is nothing special, and doesn’t quite function how it once did, it was my 100th unique flat ride. It wasn’t planned at all until I looked on Logride (an app I use to track what I’ve ridden) and it showed I was up to 99 individual flat rides.

Zodiac and High Roller were showing as the last two attractions I’d yet to ride at Thorpe Park, so I had a go on High Roller before finishing off the list, and achieving my 100th flat with Zodiac! (As a side note, High Roller is classed as a children’s ride)

After we’d had some dinner at the Pizza and Pasta Buffet, we had another ride on Nemesis Inferno which was once again really intense. After Nemesis, I managed a walk-on over at Colossus to see how it rides after it’s been running all day. It wasn’t quite as rough as it has been, but still had an element of roughness to it and with Sik being as good as it is, Colossus needs looking at in my opinion!

Our next rides were a back-to-back on The Swarm, and though the earlier ride was good, these were insane! The ride runs so much better after it’s properly warmed up. It feels so much faster and yet still as smooth as it always has been. Highly recommend a late ride on The Swarm.

After that we had another go on Flying Fish before our final ride of the day on Tidal Wave. Once again we got thoroughly soaked, and even got a second dousing upon leaving the station as the next boat came down the drop! Great ride in hot weather and a perfect end to a packed day.

Conclusion

Thorpe Park Carnival was a great day out, not only for the Carnival event but the park was very quiet for the time of year. Stealth didn’t seem to get longer than 10 minute queues, and even Saw: The Ride managed to stay under 45 for the most part.

Carnival was certainly a good, enjoyable event and hopefully it’ll blossom out into an even better event next year too.

Blog, Reviews

Thorpe Park Mardi Gras!

Loops&Lapbars

Mardi Gras is something of a new thing in the UK. In writing this blog I’ve found out that the UK equivalent is Pancake Day which I can’t see Merlin Entertainments hosting in their parks, so Mardi Gras it is!

This is our first visit to Thorpe Park this year (of many to come) and though we could have picked Alton Towers, we decided on Thorpe Park for their Mardi Gras event, and to get on some rides for the first time too.

We went over two days, intending to ride the rides on one of the queiter first day and put more of a focus on seeing the Mardi Gras events on the busier second day when ride queues would be longer.

Day 1

Our first day we arrived nice and early, got through security, purchased the digipass and recharged our refillable drinks then headed to Stealth. Second train of the day, pretty much a walk on and the ride delivered! I haven’t been on Stealth in about 7 months so it was great to get back to my second favourite coaster! Part of me was hoping it would be able to pull out all the stops and dethrone The Smiler as top dog, but alas, Stealth remains second!

Next we had a go on Detonator, a first time ride and another walk on. Now this ride impressed me quite a bit. Even though it’s only 115ft tall and is essentially a drop and done, it’s more than the sum of its parts. If it were simply a drop and nothing else then it probably wouldn’t have been quite as much fun, but we were at the top of the tower for a good 60 seconds waiting to drop.

The ride operator controls when you drop so you could be there any length of time. I’ve seen the ride drop immediately as it gets to the top, or be held there like we were and its just a nice fun bit of interaction for me!

After Detonator, we went to Nemesis Inferno, the parks B&M invert. Though I talked at length about how I prefer Nemesis over Nemesis Inferno, this has got to have been the single best ride I’ve had on an invert. It’s pacing was excellent, intense and very smooth too.

The ride operator was also going off the rails with singing and really pleasing the crowds and adding to the fun!

Next up was Walking Dead, besides not having any live actors today, there wasn’t much to say about it. Fun, little indoor attraction, well themed and a laugh.

After Walking Dead, we went over to Saw and queued for about 20 minutes for the best themed Eurofighter in the country.

As with Nemesis Inferno, Saw was running really well too. I’d go as far as to say it was the best ride I’ve had on Saw and and Eurofighter yet! I usually get a small amount of head banging in the transitions as it is quite a brutal ride, but not once did I get that here. I was in the back row, in the centre seat with Tracy on my left and she said she didn’t have any issues either. Very commendable!

On the inverse is Colossus however. We elected for a back row ride to see how it faired verses our previous front row at Fright Nights and it was truly awful. I’ve ridden Infusion and Hero, Grand National and Big Dipper and yet this 1 ride will stand out as the worst and most uncomfortable that I’ve ever had. I don’t know what was wrong, but we had another ride on the second day and it was bad too. Middle of the train this time though.

While writing this I’ve noticed a lot of people complaining on various social media outlets about the sheer roughness of Colossus. Maybe Merlin will retrack it and give it the attention Nemesis is getting at Alton Towers?

I’m looking forward to seeing what Flamingo land’s 10 invertion coaster is like and hopefully Colossus can be retrained to remove the over shoulder restraints to help with the head banging we had here. Such a shame as it’s its 20th anniversary and it left such a sour taste!

Once we’d finished on Colossus, we went for some dinner and to have a little break. We tried Peckish for the first time and I risked it with a Chilli dog. Needless to say I’ll certainly be having those again, not too fiery but just right!

To cool off after dinner we had a go round on Rumba Rapids and this was probably the longest we queued all day, and even then it was only about 20 minutes or so! Not much to be said really, a fun rapids ride with a good tunnel and layout, but not much more!

There’s a couple of things that could be addressed with all the UKs rapids rides. For one, you barely get wet on any of them, which is nice on the one hand but would add to it on the other. The second issue is that people don’t seem to follow the rules and because of what happened with Drayton Manor, the staff have to constantly bark orders at people to tell them to sit down and stop being a nuisance which does take you away from the ride

We then had a saunter around, taking photos and enjoying the summer air before making our way to Flying Fish for a couple of runs around. We managed a record 5 laps in one sitting as the ride op just kept it going! The most I’ve had one one of these junior coasters has been 3 on Runaway Mine train at Alton Towers so once again, another very memorable ride!

We then made our way around to The Swarm. This was another near walk on, only queuing on the bridge over to the far side seats which took no time at all. The ride was running well, plenty of thrill and the right amount of intensity on the turns!

We finished day 1 with our first ride on Tidal Wave. Due to the nature of the ride and how soaked others looked that were getting off, we saved it until last. I’ve been to Thorpe loads of times and never gotten on Tidal Wave, either the queues have been far too long, the ride hasn’t been running or its not been particularly warm for it, but today was perfect.

The ride doesn’t last all too long but its a great crowd pleaser. It has a huge splash down element and splash zone to not only soak riders but also on lookers too! There’s even a set of upcharged water cannons to further soak riders through.

Needless to say we got completely drenched on our ride and I even managed to record a decent splash with my GoPro after exiting the ride too. After that we got changed, headed out the park and to the hotel for the night.

Day 2

With day 2 being a Saturday, we decided to focus more on the Mardi Gras part of the visit and less so on the rides. We still got a few rides here and there such as Colossus (which was still rattling around) and Nemesis Inferno, but primarily we watched the shows and took in the atmosphere.

The events started around midday with ‘The Crowning of the Krewes’, a show that saw 4 party crews performing to become champions of Mardi Gras. Each act was great though some were better than others, and each had a connection to one of the rides. Stealth, Nemesis Inferno and Rumba Rapids each had an act loosely themed to them, and then there was another called Aqueous who represented water whisperers and was ‘a champion of harmony’. Not really sure what ride or attraction she was representing, if any, but she was still good!

The Crowning of the Krewes was enjoyable and after the show, each of the krewes stayed around for meet and greets and photo opportunities.

The next thing we watched was the ‘Drum Works’ community band who were very good too, though a little repetitive in my opinion! Their set lasted about 45 minutes but there was only so much they could do with drums on their own. Don’t get me wrong , it was a great showing, just a little too long for the amount of variety they offered.

While they were playing, the Mardi Gras parade rolled through which comprised of a themed vehicle carrying the Mardi Gras royals and a few members of the krewes. The parade did feel a little like it was interrupting the Drum Works band and neither stopped while the other was coming through so it did feel a little mixed up.

One of the biggest things that Mardi Gras has highlighted to me is how little room Thorpe Park has. I’ll bring it up in detail in a future blog about what I’d do if I ran Thorpe Park, but in brief, they need room for events!

The other issue was the lack of members in the parade. I could put this down to the staff shortages that the tourism sector are having, so I’ll let this one slide as it wasn’t a big issue, just something I noticed.

After we’d seen the parade and watched a few of the acts on the mini stages, we continued wandering around, had another few rides on Swarm, Rumba Rapids and Storm in a Teacup before heading to the shops and then to the hotel.

Overall I enjoyed Mardi Gras, the costumes, actors and stages were all well made and the park looked good in its colours. I don’t think it was as good as Fright Nights, but I doubt anything other than another Fright Nights/Firework event will top that! Still, it was well worth the visit and I’d like to see Alton Towers’ and Chessingtons take on the event next year!