James Salter

Thorpe Park (yes, again)

I headed off to Thorpe Park on Sunday to meet up with Paul O and have a few rides on Rush. Paul hadn’t yet riden Rush, because he had to go on holiday to Florida. Yeah, don’t feel too sorry for him.

Unfortunately, come opening time, Rush was closed and was being worked on by an engineer up the top of a cherry picker. A slight change of plans resulted in an early morning ride on Colossus instead (my suggestion, guilty as charged). As Sunday was the hottest day of the year so far, Tidal Wave was the necessary next stop. At least we were cool for the rest of the morning!

Since we were already wet, we decided to do a mini-tour of the water rides. After stopping off at Loggers Leap (where we somehow managed to flood the boat - sorry about you being in the front Paul - total accident!) we headed for Rumba Rapids.

It was as uninspiring as usual, until we reached the end of the ride where we encountered our first breakdown of the day:

For some reason, the lift had stopped meaning boats were backing up at the bottom
Eventually the entire fleet of boats surrounded us
When the lift was restarted, we still didn’t go anywhere: all the boats had wedged themselves together, out of reach of the spinners

A member of staff was dispatched to come and, well, just stare at all the boats with a puzzled expression on his face

The current eventually pushed our boat onto the lift

There were still a lot of boats stuck

The empty boats pushing their way in front didn’t exactly help

Finally somebody had a sensible idea: hold the boats back so that when one moved, it didn’t get wedged against the others

After escaping our river adventure, we took a couple of rides on Detonator. From the top of the tower you get a good view over the Stealth construction site. A fair amount of progress has now been made. They’ve begun to put in footers and groundwork for the launch. It really is a compact site!By that time, Rush had finally opened and we were able to ride … after it breaking down while we were in the SRQ.

Paul gets a Rush (4th from the left, with his hands up)
Following some lunch, while in the Pirates 4D queue, we spotted one of the trains stopped at the top of the Inferno lift hill. According to The Sun, it was a major incident where 50 people were stuck in blistering heat for half an hour. Apparently the passengers began to panic and shout for help, but it took ages for anybody to notice or for staff to go to their aid.From what I saw, and after talking to other people stuck on the ride, the reality was somewhat different. The ride was only stopped for about 10 minutes. Staff were almost immediately climbing the lift hill to make sure all the guests were OK. As for the blistering heat - apparently it was actually quite pleasant up there with a nice cool breeze. Oh, and also only has 28 seats per train, not 50.
Attending to Inferno riders on the lift hill
Staff decending a few minutes later
I’m surprised the tabloids didn’t pick up on the real news story of the day: Slammer broke down again, trapping riders for 30 minutes at the top. (See the separate blog entry for the full story)
We also noticed that Detonator had broken down and had staff/engineers on the cage mid-afternoon
Throughout the day we managed a few rides on Rush, although it broke down every time we were in the queue. We had to be evacuated off it once (hardly a big deal since it can’t stop anywhere but the bottom of the swing - just step off the ride and out of the exit gate). Worryingly, the engineer then went to fiddle with the restraint and look under the seat I had just been sitting in. Another breakdown meant they had to clear the queueline - oh well, another exit pass to add to our growing collection!
Rush broken down … again
Overall, Rush stands to become a brilliant ride. Its only a couple of weeks old, so the breakdowns are understandable. The real problem at the moment is the short ride program, but that should be sorted soon.We spent the end of the afternoon on Inferno, which had a minimal queue by that stage. It was getting too hot to walk all the way around, so we ended up using SRQ a couple of times. When that closed, we used one of our exit passes (don’t worry, its not exactly as if we’re short of them and as I said, it was hot).
Inferno in the sunshine: its been getting quite intense recently - following in the footsteps of its big sister?
A hot, busy day resulted in piles of litter in the N:I queueline by the end of the day
Possibly the biggest shock of the day - Slammer reopened only a couple of hours after it threw its wobbly. Strangely, we declined to ride it, even though it was walk-on for the rest of the afternoon. The blue sky and sunshine did allow for some nice photo opportunities though:
Slammer and an aeroplane
Heading for the ground
Just before park close, we walked past Rush in the hope of a final ride. You’ve guessed it: it had suffered another breakdown, meaning the queueline had been closed for the day. Closed, that is, for everybody but us. Courtesy of a friendly staff member, we were allowed to join the back of those already in the queue who had been promised a ride when Rush was fixed. Huge thanks to her for adding yet another “magic moment” to our day!A day in the park when there are so many breakdowns on major rides (Rush, Slammer, Inferno, Colossus, Rumba Rapids and Detonator were all down at some stage) can be miserable - especially in the heat we had on Sunday. However, thanks in large part to some great staff members we had a fantastic day, proving its always worth being friendly and stopping for a chat.