Thorpe Park Resort

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Wagstaff04
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I know that you can pre-book DigiPass, but where do you pick it up and how can you prove you’ve booked one?
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Swarm Chris

Wagstaff04 wrote:I know that you can pre-book DigiPass, but where do you pick it up and how can you prove you’ve booked one?
Collection will most likely be in The Dome. The DigiPass center is on the right hand side as you enter, between the arcade and the shop. I would expect you will get an email confirmation that they would use.

Unless there is a price difference between online and on-the-day (which I'm not sure there is), you may find it much faster to just get one from the first ride photo collection point you go to. If you're getting a day pass, then you will be given a wrist-band, which they will have at all photo points. Just be sure to always ask for a receipt as well when adding photos, and check that the receipt has the same ride photo number that you asked for. :)
Swarm Chris

With Thorpe Park having some difficulties presenting queue times at the moment, here are some handy visual guides for roughly estimating the queue times for some of the top rides at the park:

The Swarm
10 minutes: No visible outside queue.
30 minutes: Queue has half filled outside area
60 minutes: Queue has reached near-enough the entrance sign.

Stealth
15 minutes: Queue almost at entrance, but they haven't opened up the full queue line by The Swarm and Sunken Garden.
60 minutes: Queue almost at entrance and the full queue line is being used.

Nemesis Inferno
5 minutes: Empty cattle pen
25 minutes: Full cattle pen
40-60 minutes: Extended queue being used.

Colossus
15 minutes: Queue starts just before fast-track merge point.
60-90 minutes: All other queues.

Saw: The Ride
20-30 minutes: If using just the first cattle pen queue.
60 minutes: Using the extended queue line that heads towards the ride area.

The Walking Dead: The Ride
5 minutes: Queue starts near batching
15 minutes: Queue starts alongside the pyramid wall
Roughly an additional 5-10 minutes per switch-back.

Derren Brown's Ghost Train
15 minutes: Queue starts at batching
30 minutes: Queue starts in area just before batching, but not alongside the building.
60 minutes: Queue starts in area alongside the ride building
90 minutes: Queue starts at photo point.
120 minutes: Queue starts in the entrance cattle pen.
Swarm Chris

Be aware on The Swarm, they have started to use the queue line a little differently now. If you arrive and spot there is seemingly no queue, just keep in mind that they may be using the old overflow.

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Was surprised to see this being used rather than the normal queue line. As it certainly didn't seem busy enough to warrant the full queue and extension queue today.
Swarm Chris

The park was extremely busy today, but to the parks credit things did appear on-the-whole to be working, with ride throughputs seemingly good across the park.

But seriously, that car park needs rethinking. I'm honestly concerned at the state of the exit, with cars arriving from two directions, with lanes filtering into them, then people walking straight through the mass of cars to the pick up/drop off point directly from the park gate. The exit is a faff as it is, but you need to be so alert now to exit safely.
Swarm Chris

As reported by SouthParks, Thorpe Park Resort will be operating entirely cashless on Sunday, including all restaurants and shops.

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Easter Sunday is often one of the busiest days of the year by far, so this may help speed things up across the park. Personally, I'm going to wait until either Monday or next weekend before returning to the resort.
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AltonOperator
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Not sure about this but I seem to think Easter last year was travellers’ weekend?
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Thanks Jack
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Justin
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Not surprised to be honest. With it being Easter and one of the hottest weekends so far, then it makes sense to have it open, although it is such a bore queueing in that area as you're tucked away from everything. I'd say that after the weekend has passed it will be closed up again until school season and the summer holidays.
Swarm Chris

I guess it makes sense to have that open first if they expect a long queue, as opening that after they already have a long queue would be a pain for batching, with the time it would take for the front of the queue to get back to the station.
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Justin
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It is one of the slowest moving parts of the queue, so I expect you are right with saying it would take a while to clear.
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Dom
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AltonOperator wrote:Not sure about this but I seem to think Easter last year was travellers’ weekend?
Yeah it is. They always go cashless when the travellers descend on the park so its not a permanent thing.
Swarm Chris

Another warm and busy day at the park and it definitely seems like they have got operations pretty much there this year. Minimal empty seats, with staff moving people where possible to fill things. Even Ghost Train appeared to just operate without ride-stopping issues. Walking Dead seemed to go down about midday and I'm not sure it ever opened. I even got pretty wet on Rumba. So all in all, a good day and people seemed to be happy. Well, until they tried to leave.

Even at 4pm, a mini chaos was beginning at the exit gates (park close is at 6). A single member of staff had been stationed there, but even though everyone had bought their parking online or had a pass, pretty much no one's phone worked with the scanners, meaning the staff member had to scan every phone user. Of course 1 staff member and 4 gates doesn't work. So the horns started, albeit I think to try and get the staff member's attention to another lane rather than through aggression. But I'm not convinced the staff member realised this, and from their expression I suspect they would have preferred some help at the very least.

Disappointing to see the park never bothered to make any changes to the car park exit, despite them using the promise of changes coming this year to appease the numerous complaints and videos of the ridiculousness that is trying to exit the Thorpe Park car park.
Swarm Chris

The exit turnstiles have broken. They're no longer affixed to the ground and so instead of rotating, the entire frame moves. Watched a lot of people get caught in them. The left station is particularly awful.

But the queue line audio was working, as were the TV screens in the unused today overflow. So there's that! :lol
Swarm Chris

So Fins has apparently gone part-time. Apart from preview day, every subsequent time I've been there it has been closed for food until 5:30pm. Today it appeared that it at least opened for drinks in the early afternoon. Bit of a shame, as none of the other food places have the same atmosphere or food available.

There's also a new menu available in Sombrero's Burrito Bar.

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Ladyofthelake
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If it is the case that Fin's is no longer going to be open for lunch then that is really disappointing. It was always my go to place to eat on the Resort as it generally offered a nice range of food options from lighter bites, to a more substantial meal.

However, I do like the look of the new menu at Sombrero' Burritos. Whilst it clearly isn't mexican themed, I do like the look of the Indian and Malaysian wraps (plus they appear to have the added bonus of being a rare food item that doesn't have cheese in them!) and may have to give them a go next time I visit.
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ProfBurp
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The car park exit is still becoming a serious issue this season, despite of the promise of investments, it really is a big problem and it took me 90 mins to get out the car park earlier in the week. It’s such a shame as really doesn’t leave guests feeling anything but angry at the end of the day, especially if unlike me they are not a Premium Passholder meaning they have to pay the parking fee to then sit in a queue.
Swarm Chris

Whilst Project 2020 is seemingly no more, a new sign has appeared on Swarm Island, asking people for their ideas on the park's future.

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Strangely, this is only found on Swarm Island. Also ironically, the feedback point in front of it is just a standard "how was your day" feedback machine, with no ability to give the ideas being asked for.

Will be interesting to see if the park expands on this communication of it's future?
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Bert
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Not an RMC please.

People have been pleading for Thorpe Park to get one but I don’t think they it’s the best option for them.

They need a reliable roller coaster with a strong USP (No ridiculous World’s First though) and there are plenty of manufacturers out there such as Premier, S&S, Intamin, Gerst etc who can all provide good coasters that people want from would be an RMC with unique inversions, airtime etc. People forget RMC’s layout aren’t designed by RMC themselves but in fact another company called Ride Centreline. Also recent RMCs have had a number of operational problems recently, Thorpe can’t afford to spend a ridiculous amounts of money for another ride to have constant downtime.

It also should establish it’s own IP and not rely previously established IPs in order to sell the ride. Thorpe Park is currently oversaturated with outdated IPs such as Angry Birds, Derren Brown and TWD. Establishing their own IP will help bring in visitors in the long term rather than just the short term.

Something in the vain of WM would be perfect for Thorpe. A new IP with a large target audience due to a lower height restriction and a strong USP without relying on Merlin’s apocalyptic themes.
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Swarm Chris

RMC reliability is certainly a valid point. Whilst I think it would be a fantastic addition to not only the park, but the UK as well, and could certainly increase visitor numbers from abroad, a lot of RMC's new installations last year had issues. Reliability is certainly something Thorpe will need, plus the sorts of issues RMC were having last year would be disastrous with the UK press.
Swarm Chris

Well they fixed the exit turnstile problem on the left side...

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The winds caused a fair amount of disruption today as expected, but interestingly once it was open the ride felt very slow in the weather conditions, making nearly every element feel like a stall turn. Was different and fun!
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