Updated: August 8th 2020

I’ve been here a few times now, but this time coming during Covid, I would advise pre booking your tickets to avoid disappointment as only so many can be sold a day with the new restrictions. We came on a Saturday with all the Covid-19 social distancing rules having been implemented and less people allowed to enter we thought perhaps it wouldn’t be as busy. I took a screenshot of my ticket when I bought it, but what I didn’t think about was the scanners don’t like dark mode, they asked me to change it to normal white mode, but being it was a screenshot I couldn’t. Luckily they saw the date was good and thankfully waved me through anyway, but it did hold me up a little.

The rides that weren’t up and running upon opening were Tidal Wave, Derren Brown Ghost train and Walking Dead, we had to do them later. They have painted circular yellow markers on the floor as you enter each ride, though many of these are already looking faded with the footfall. Hand sanitiser was at each entry and all were full until near the end of the day around 5pm when we got to Swarm the two in the queuing system to the ride were both empty. Throughout the day while queuing, some people obeyed the 2 meter rule but very few actually did. There were regular announcements reminding people to social distance and once you got near the station there was a member of staff waiting to make sure everyone put on their masks before going near the rides. I had no problems with the mask falling off, in fact the forces are in your face, so it actually pushes the mask on tighter. Queue times on average I would say were 45 minutes a ride, there is often a short delay while they stop the rides for cleaning procedures, but this only takes no more than 5 minutes. The longest we queued was near the end of the day for Swarm which was 140 minutes on the board and actually took 2 hours. In the 32ºc heat near the end of the day, that wait pretty much zapped us, so we went on one more ride, Saw and then left. We only just had enough time to do all the coasters and a couple thrill rides once. Saw was the only ride we got to do twice.

Thorpe Park is a great day out with your mates. I’ve been three times now twice out of season on a Thursday and once on a Saturday. I would definitely recommend going during the week if you can and out of season to avoid the worst of the crowds, as the majority of kids have gone back to school. Both times on the Thursday we arrived just after the park opened and we got to go on a number of rides without queuing at all before the park started to get a little busier. The time I came on the Saturday, I was first in the queue waiting for the shutter to rise, managed one ride within 3 minutes of opening and then queued for each ride at least 35 minutes or more for the rest of the day.

On the Thursday the longest that we waited was 40 minutes for Derren Brown’s Ghost train just after lunch, which is a VR ride. I have to say I was a little disappointed and didn’t find it at all scary. They ask to keep it a secret, so I won’t give away any spoilers, but I have since found out that there are over 20 variations, so you won’t have the same story as the person sat next to you. Next time I’m there, if there’s no queue for it, then I would give it another go, but I wouldn’t queue for it again. The ride takes 15 minutes with 50 or so people onboard, so the queue can quickly jump to an hour’s wait.

The new Walking dead ride was sadly the same, a disappointment. It was a bit stop start and never really gets going. If you like walkthrough story telling then you’ll probably like them both, but I like the adrenaline thrill rides, which is probably why I wasn’t that impressed.

As for my favourite rides that’ll be Saw, Stealth, Swarm and Tidal Wave. The later if you don’t mind getting a little wet. We went on it four times, of which 3 times in a row at the end of the day. I’ve never been so soaked through in my life, I could even feel the water trickling down around my balls 😱. We did try one of the £3 drier machines, but It just made the wetness more of a warm moistness, lucky the sun was still shining though to help dry us off.

Tip: Take a towel and a change of clothes if you plan to go on Tidal Wave.

I preferred Thorpe Park to Alton Towers as there’s a lot less walking involved, it’s all squeezed onto an island, so all the rides are within a couple minutes or less of each other. Even from parking the car, you can be on a ride within 5 minutes, unlike Alton where you have a bus journey that can take 20 minutes. We still didn’t manage to go on all the rides, as we did a few more than once, but that just means we’ll have to go again.

It’s a shame like with most theme parks in just about the world there is a ban on selfie sticks which is crucial for hand held 360 photos. I didn’t want to be carrying around a tripod that’s for sure, so I had a fair bit of editing to get rid of my ugly mug and the dreaded big thumb nadir!