This post isn’t about entertainment such as movies, music or television… this is the entertainment of flying through the air on rollercoasters and being frightened in horror mazes.
On the 15th October I visited Fright Night at the thrill capital of the UK, Thorpe Park and I enjoyed it so much I returned again on 22nd October!
Both these trips proved to me how good Thorpe Park has become over the years converting from a family day out to more of a thrill seekers day out.
I have a merlin annual pass which I use quite regularly to visit theme parks such as Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures and Alton Towers. However theres one time a year you just have to visit Thorpe Park and that is in the month of October when Fright Nights are in operation.
The park is open from 10am-10pm and if the thought of soaring and spinning around on your favourite rides for 12 hours isn’t enough for you, then imagine them in the dark and wandering through themed horror mazes filled with actors to scare you till you don’t want to return.
On the 15th October I went spur of the moment and got into Thorpe Park shortly after 5pm, but with 5 hours still left of rides and scares, we were prepared to get at least a few of the best rides and mazes done. However seeing ride queues at 5 minutes whilst walking through some of the smaller thrill seeking rides such as Rush and Quantum we couldn’t resist a quick thrill.
Then we queued about 30 minutes for Saw The Ride, which anyone who has been to Thorpe Park recently will know is a quick queue, and after that the small queues continued and we didn’t queue much longer than 30 minutes the rest of the night!
In fact we actually managed to get on nearly every ride in the park as well as the horror mazes Asylum, Hellgate and Seven! It was an amazing night and we couldn’t believe how empty the park was and how much we managed to get on in just 5 hours!
In contrast to this my second visit on 22nd October was not so empty. In fact it seemed as though the park was filled to the absolute brim! We arrived at about 12pm and the 45 minute queue to get tickets for the non-annual pass holders of the group was a sign of things to come as we queued and queued all day long! There was even queues to the buffet in Pizza Hut!
However we managed to get on the big rides of the park such as Nemesis, Stealth, Colossos and Saw The Ride, which we queued 2 hours for this time round! We didn’t even fit in a single horror maze. It was a still a great day and the thrills on the rollercoasters throughout the day was enough to keep our adrenalin pumping all 10 hours we spent at the park.
It goes to show you that when visiting theme parks, your whole experience on the day can completely vary compared to which day you visit and how busy the park is. One week we go for 5 hours and do nearly all the rides and mazes and one week later we spend 10 hours there and get on half the rides and no mazes!
One thing remained the same though from both visits, and that is that if you want a day full of Thrills and Scares, a day at Thorpe Park is no doubt the answer.