THORPE PARK Reviews

AVOID
this place is badly run and you will not have a good experience.
Long queues and if you are lucky enough to get on 2 rides in a whole day

Our family of four (two parents and two young adults) stayed mid-July 2022 for a night in one of the shark cabins, with a 2 day park pass. Check in was easy, although the dedicated parking implied for hotel guests is non-existent. Considering it was a weekend, we did not experience particularly long queue times compared to other parks. Staff on the rides were typically young and disinterested, but in the UK, that's quite normal! We didn't find them outright rude or unhelpful. Best rides for us - Saw and Swarm - awesome. Colossus would have rated higher for me but for the head rest, which rattled my head like a dried pea in a tin and left me with a killer headache. The cabin experience was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because with four adults in what is essentially a shipping container, expectations were moderate at best. It was a scorching weekend, and when we opened our cabin door at the end of the day, we were met with a blast of beautifully icy air from the excellent aircon unit. Cramped, yes, but we all had a great night's sleep. And hotel staff were helpful. We had an unfortunate issue with a dirty towel and they were very apologetic, and they provide as much bottled water as required (cabin tap water is non-potable). Fast pass for the first hour on day two was very welcome. Negatives were around the park organisation - too many food and snack venues closed, food quality not great and, of course, expensive. Served the worst excuse for churros we have ever known - sold as 'freshly made' but actually microwaved, limp, leathery and weird-tasting. Over a fiver for three of these insults to the fried culinary arts. Park-wise, Alton Towers still has my heart, and I would not travel more than an hour or so for a single day at Thorpe, but the two-day Shark Cabin package was a pretty good deal.

Told my son was tall enough to get on ride qued measured etc qued for 30.min about to get on ride was told he's not tall enough and to leave the ride. No consistency at all, an hour wasted. Chessington far far better for families. Also hundreds of groups of kids aloud to run full speed round the park, one ran into a young girl, staff just look on and do nothing.

Not worth it, rip off...waste of time and money for me and our school, staff operating the rides were rude maybe because they are underpaid?. Long queues 2 hours waiting, then the rides break down.. The rides are old and rusty. Staff are unfriendly and do not even smile because they are miserable. Do not go here..save your money and do something else.

After reading a few reviews here, what I had experienced is not a one-off experience. The security (he gave me his number as 26) was extremely rude. Before the security check, I followed the crowd to one side and realised there was a big queue and turned back and tried to queue the other side, the security said I had to follow his instruction and queue that side, but he was just stood there like a lemon when I joined the long queue. He then became aggressive and start shouting. So I just walked back to the original queue. After watching groups of students went in front of our queue constantly, it took us over one hour just to pass the bag search area! There are 6 people searching bags for thousands of people. The average queue time for the rides are over 60 minutes. We decided to leave after one ride. It was horrible, I wouldn't come even if it is free.

Absolutely awful.During our six hour visit we only rode 2 rides, due to the hideous two hour queues with no coverage from the unbearable midday sun. The food was abhorrent and ridiculously overpriced, and the rides themselves painfully mediocre.Do not go here. Save your money and go somewhere else.

Just when you feel you reached the ride, you go around a vorner and there is another hour of queing.
You will cook in the sun more than going to the beach. My gf and i apent 2 hours waiting for a ride. It felt like the queuing was a bigger emotional ride than the attarction.
The attractions were mediocre

Worst experience ever. We chose to come on a weekday hoping for shorter waiting times, going through bag searches took forever, security were very aggressive and screaming at us to move when it was so crowded we couldn’t go anywhere. Couldn’t get into the park properly due to one of our party being a carer, almost no staff to help us with this. No access pass was accessible to a disabled member of our party because we hadn’t booked over 7 days in advance. When we got in we were greeted by swarms of people, waiting time for rides was over 100 minutes and the duration it took to get on was far more then that. Waiting was painful, standing in the sun in groups of thousands of children, we were on the verge of passing out and on many occasions had to leave the line after 30 minutes because we felt physically ill. In the end, in 8 hours, we managed to get on tidal wave, the flying fish, and the monkey banana ride. Not worth your time coming and spending 8 hours standing in hot, exhausting conditions just for around 4 minutes of ride time in the entirety of the day. And this is all without mentioning the seating. You cannot call yourself accessible when there is almost no seating in the whole resort. As I previously mentioned we had a disabled member in our group, who was unable to sit down for the majority of the day because there was simply no where to sit. People were fighting for a table to sit at, while others resorted to lounging around on the ground in the middle of the pavement to get a break. That wasn’t an option for us so we suffered for the whole day. You
Should not let as many people in as you did if you can not comfortably accommodate for them. Even if we had the spare money for a fast track pass, they weren’t exactly fast track. Still a 40-50 minute wait on most rides for those with the passes. Overselling the passes too until their intended use is useless. Waiting times like this just aren’t realistic for children burning in the sun, or even worse disabled people. They need to put a cap on admissions instead of trying to make as much money as possible without a care in the world about the customers. It’s safe to say we will not be returning ever again.

Unacceptably long queues!!
We’re a family of four so paid nearly £160 for the tickets.
We only got to try 3 rides as the queues were too long.
Waste of time and money!!!

I had booked tickets for my wife and 15 year old daughter for Monday 4th July as she had a school inset day so thought this would be better than going in the summer holidays with all the queue's, HOW WRONG WAS I. We made the 3 hour drive for just after opening time, after 45 minutes of queuing just to get to the bag search before we even got to the entry gate, this really set the scene for the day. Thank God we had someone sensible doing the search and we were done pretty quickly but the poor girl and her mother on the next table got stopped as she had a water bottle, this was a clear bottle and filled with water, but the poor girl was nearly in tears with the jumped up airport security wanabee accusing her of all sorts, what did he think a young girl and mother had in there, VODKA, what an idiot, then there were another 3 or 4 of them surrounding the poor girl very intimidating, I believe eventually a senior person came over, saw sense and let them through. So in we went and stayed a whole day, managing to get on 4 rides in 8 hours, unless you buying a fastpass for a minimum of £35 each (thats on top of the entry fee price) forget coming to Thorpe Park, even when there was no people left in the fast track queue for staff to let through to the ride the staff remained there not letting any of the normal queue through unless they really had to, and don't get me started on customer service, that would mean that the staff had to actually speak rather than just the occasional grunt. With the safety of guests being paramount out of the 4 rides we managed to get on, Stealth and Swarm had no staff directing to any bay, in-fact there was no staff on the gate part just before the ride, so it was a dangerous free for all - CRAZY, How can Alton Towers be so organised and safe and Thorpe Park be like it is, needless to say we will not be coming back, very disappointing, and to add insult to injury £8 parking gets you absolute chaos when leaving and not a staff member in sight.
One thing when we entered did make me laugh, NO ALCOHOL, THIS IS NOT NEEDED TO ENJOY THE PARK, not that we drink anyway but if we did you can buy what ever you fancy inside at inflated prices, Alcohol No No, unless you but from us of course.

Really poor - AVOID! Swarm now has more queuing which they have hidden behind the ride (so you don’t see it til it’s too late) and not told people about. So the queue times are way out. The staff have zero process of fairly managing fast track queues, weaving with non fast track. The place is a joke compared to other well run resorts.

2 of my kids arent just 140cm yet and this place is not for them. The weak effort to cater for them is a joke. Honestly I think the big rides are great but if you arent 140cm then avoid this place would be my advice.

Majority of staff are extremely rude. The worse staff were the ones that were working on the ride vortex on the 30th of June 2022. They had extremely bad mannerism and did not make me and my friends feel welcome and comfortable whatsoever. I think one of the workers name was Mark as I remember an announcement made that it was his birthday, he had attitude for no reason. PLUS, as a person from a south Asian background with a headscarf, I felt a lot of the staff were giving certain looks and were more talkative and nicer to their own people. You could ask a basic question and the staff would give some looks/attitude as if you were taking their food off them. Staff need to fix their attitudes majority of them look bored and as if they are forced to work there. This is big let down for thorpe park as it seems they hire just anybody.

BRING YOUR OWN FOOD.
The food is so expensive and not worth the portion size. The staff be touching cash and food at the same time ?. The que was ridiculous for the food shop Amrity, over 45 mins in the Que and then a further 10 minutes or more to get the food. They are more bothered talking to each other then making the food. Staff were as slow as snails and took forever taking orders and preparing food.

AVOID at all costs!!

I honestly feel Merlin are loosing their edge with managing their parks.

Their online purchase platform for tickets is nothing but a joke. Their ques system is horrendous, their opening times are from the dark ages and finically their overall customer services support is from what I can see is non existent.

Other than all the other issues I have experienced in the past few years, my latest one is nothing but a slap in a face with zero support.

I was making a last minute booking so that I could join friends where we’re going to Thorpe Park while down in London. As I was making my booking I managed to secure my ticket and fast track pass for the day. Perfect! No so much! When I made the purchase I added my payment details hit go waited. Only to be faced with an error message. I had to rebook all over again…. Annoyingly I did. Only to find fast track was no more I could order the ticket…. Why not?? Zero explanation. So I had to tell my friends I will not attended the day out due to not having the same passes. I raised an issue on their chat no reply, Twitter no reply. So I feel I need to make this review and I can clearly see now Merlin doesn’t seem to care about their customers. Awful

This is basically paying to stand in queues all day.

I went previously during Covid and got on 4 rides all day. I gave the benefit of the doubt due to the restrictions and came back in 2022 on a Monday outside the school holidays. Well if anything it was even worse. "85 minute queues were actually 2.5 hours. Numerous food outlets closed causing big queues at the outlets that were open. Despite paying online for parking the ANPR didn't work on exit either. However the final straw was being in the queue for Saw towards the end of the day for it to breakdown with very little communication while waiting for 75 minutes to not even get on it. Oh and this was while joining the queue in the morning while the ride opened late. Ultimately it's just not enjoyable to stand in such big queues all day.