The Walking Dead: The Ride at Thorpe Park- Review

The Walking Dead: The Ride is Thorpe Park’s brand new attraction for 2018 and officially opened on March 31st. As you can tell by the name of this attraction, the ride is based on the extremely popular AMC series, The Walking Dead. The ride is located in The Dock Yard section of the park. The attraction is an indoor, themed rollercoaster. Prior to being The Walking Dead: The Ride this rollercoaster was known as X. X originally opened in 1996 and was the first non-powered rollercoaster in the park.

The outside of the attraction and outdoor queue area have been well themed. Elements from both the prison and terminus have been incorporated into the queue. Daryl’s bike can be seen lying on the floor to the right of the attractions entrance. At the entrance to the building, Thorpe Park have constructed a replica of a watch tower from the prison.

Riders then enter the attraction building through the basement of the watch tower and into the pre-show room. In the pre-show you hear a voice asking you questions, such as how many walkers have you killed? This is also where you find out that Thorpe Park is a ‘safe zone’. However, the talking is then interrupted as the safe zone has been breached. This leads to you being told to exit the pre-show. You then have to make your way through a series of corridors and then onto the ride. The corridors are very dark and both light and sound effects are used to increase the tension.

The rollercoaster itself, although not as good, is not too dissimilar to Space Mountain in Anaheim. The ride was built by Vekoma and the ride carriages sit two people per row and have basic lap bars as restraints. Two people must be sat in each row. Groups with an odd number of people may have to wait a little longer until they can pair up with another group with an odd number of people so that all seats can be filled on the train.

The theming on the ride itself was rather disappointing as it lacked any real scares and failed to create an immersive environment. There are no major show scenes in the attraction and it’s very hard to follow the narrative of the ride. The rollercoaster does stop a few times at different break stations and at this point you expect something to happen. However, disappointingly, nothing really happens apart from the odd sound and flash of light.

As you exit the ride, you then walk through another set of dark corridors. There can sometimes be scareactors that will jump out at you at this point.

Overall, this new attraction is an improvement in comparison to X, mainly due to the added theming around the attraction and in the queue. I do feel that the theming of the ride itself could have and should have been much better. With the huge popularity of The Walking Dead, I think that by Thorpe Park not making this attraction as good as it could have been they have missed a big opportunity. However, I still feel that this new The Walking Dead attraction is worth a visit to Thorpe Park for people who are big fans of the comics and tv series.