Just Theme Parks
Park GuidesThorpe ParkUK

Thorpe Park Guide

admin

Our Thorpe Park Guide will help you plan your visit to the park.

Thorpe Park is a British theme park owned and operated by Merlin Entertainments. Thorpe Park initially opened in 1979. Since 1979 the park has undergone many expansions, which have turned Thorpe Park into one of most popular theme parks in Europe. These days,  approximately 2 million guests visit Thorpe Park each year. The park opens Mid- March and closes in Early- November. The park does not operate every day during this time period so be sure to check the parks official website for more accurate operating dates and to find out park opening times.

Location

Thorpe Park is located in a small town called Chertsey in the county of Surrey in England. Thorpe Park is about 20 miles from central London. The most convenient way of getting to Thorpe Park is by car. Parking at Thorpe Park currently costs £7. The park is also accessible by public transport. The nearest train station to Thorpe Park is Staines. From Staines, the park is a short bus trip away. The bus to Thorpe Park from the station operates every 15-20 minutes. Five trains run every hour from Waterloo station in London to Staines.

Address;

THORPE PARK Resort

Staines Road

Chertsey

Surrey

KT16 8PN

 

Time needed

 I would advise that you plan to spend one whole day at Thorpe Park. I do not think that it’s possible to do everything in the park without spending the full day there. During busy periods, you would probably need two days at the park to make sure that you go on every ride.

Attractions at Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park has a total of 27 rides. Out of these 27 rides, 7 are rollercoasters. The rides in the park range from kid friendly to very intense. Although the park does cater for all age ranges, the park is definitely best suited to people above the age of 12. In recent years, the park has definitely focussed on attracting guests of an older age range. With major additions to the park in the last 10 years, such as Saw- The Ride, The Swarm, Black Mirror Labyrinth and Walking Dead: The Ride, the park has definitely focussed on attracting thrill seekers and fans of the horror genre.

The park has six major steel rollercoasters: The Swarm, Saw- The Ride, Stealth, Nemesis Inferno, Colossus and Walking Dead: The ride (check out our review of the Walking Dead: The ride). My personal favourite attraction at the park is Saw- The ride. This rollercoaster (Eurofighter) , themed to the popular Saw movies, has 3 inversions a max height of 100 feet and a beyond vertical drop.

Top 5 coasters at Thorpe Park

  1. The Swarm (B & M wing coaster)
  2. Nemesis Inferno (B & M inverted coaster)
  3. Saw: The ride (Gerstslauer Euro-Fighter)
  4. Stealth (Intamin Accelerator)
  5. Colossus (Intamin multi inversion coaster)

FastPass

Thorpe Park does offer a skip the line option for nearly all of its attractions for an additional cost. The skip the line system at the park is called Fastrack. Both single ride and a variety of multi ride tickets can be purchased online before your visit or on the day of your visit at certain marked locations within the park. If you aim to ride most attractions in the park then Fastrack is definitely worth considering. When visiting on busy days (during the weekends or school holidays) I would definitely suggest that you get Fastrack for some of the more popular attractions in the park, such as Derren Brown’s Ghost train, Saw- The ride and The Swarm.

Food at Thorpe Park

The park offers a variety of your typical fast food type restaurants, including a KFC, which serve the expected theme park food, such as burgers, pizza and fries. The park also has two sit down restaurants; Infinity Bar & Kitchen which serves dishes such as jerk chicken and BBQ beef ribs and Inferno’s Pizza Pasta Buffet.

Events at Thorpe Park

Thorpe park hosts several different events throughout the year. The most popular seasonal event at Thorpe Park is Fright Nights. This is the parks annual Halloween event. Fright Nights usually operate on select nights throughput October. During Fright Nights, the park operates several horror mazes and scare zones which include live scare actors. Admission into the horror mazes must be purchased separately. We strongly advise that you book these in advance as they often sell out in advance on busy nights. 

Oktoberfest was Thorpe Park’s new event for 2020 and is aimed at both families and thrill seekers. The event provides themed entertainment and delicious food, such as bratwursts and pretzels. Oktoberfest runs on select dates towards the end of September and start of October. 

There is also the Easter Extravaganza (April), Mardi Gras (May/June) and Carnival (July/August) . These events all feature themed entertainment and make the park a lively place to be!

Hotels

There is one hotel at Thorpe Park, the Thorpe Shark Cabins. The cabins are located inside the park and guests must first enter into the park before they can reach the hotel entrance. Guests stopping at the hotel also get one Fastrack for The Swarm. The location of the hotel makes it a very convenient place to stay when visiting Thorpe Park. The fact that the hotel is located within the park makes it very easy for you to be able to pop back to your room during the day.

As well as the parks hotel, there are a variety of other hotels located within a few miles from the park.

 

Stuff to do nearby 

Chessington World of Adventures, a more family oriented UK theme park, is only a 30 minutes drive from Thorpe Park. LEGOLAND Windsor is also roughly 20 minutes from Thorpe Park. These are great parks to visit if you love theme parks and want to make your visit to the area. With the park only being 1 hour from the centre London we would strongly advise anyone visiting Thorpe Park from a far to combine their trip to Thorpe Park with a day or two visiting London.

 

Thorpe Park Guide Top Tips

  • Queues will be shortest at the start and end of the day.
  • Book tickets online to save money.
  • Ride Saw: The ride and Nemesis Inferno first then work your way back to the front of the park.
  • Pay for parking at the start of your day to avoid queues.
  • Queues close when the park closes so if the park closes at 5pm you can still get in line at 4:59pm no matter the wait time.
  • Thorpe Park has a very useful app which shows live queue times, can help with directions and is also a good place to find out about park hours, special offers and any special events.

For more information, visit Thorpe Park’s official website.

Thanks for reading our Thorpe Park Guide.