Thorpe Park Lates - Why it was worth it

As previously mentioned Titch, the Husband and I had previously visited Thorpe Park in May. This time, however, we visited in the late evening and stayed on for Love Island Lates.

We travelled down from Stoke -on -Trent earlier that day as we Thorpe Park was one of the many things that we had planned to do in London over our 4 night stay. Reminder to all Merlin Passholders - MAKE SURE YOU REMEMBER YOUR PASSES. Yes we forgot ours and it wasn't until we had drove along the M6 toll and were on the M42 when we realised.  Luckily we had left early so we headed back along the M6 to fetch them. A lesson was definitely learnt.

We arrived at Thorpe Park around 4.30 and ,as it had been raining that morning, the park was relatively quiet, with the queues for most of the Thrill rides around 5 - 20 minutes, except for Colossus which was over an hour! 

We headed for Swarm first with it being the ride furthest away from the rest and with the queue time at 5 minutes. As we hadn't been since May,  I had completely forgotten what it was like. The ride feels much slower than other Thrill rides especially compared to The Smiler at Alton Towers, but it is so smooth and I think the slowness of the rides adds to the Thrill as each turn and loop is experienced in what feels like slow motion rather than at great speed.  Titch wanted to do Swarm again later  as we left. And I have to say riding swarm in the dark was definitely an experience - we also got to ride it 3 times in the space of 10 minutes as there was no queue.  For the final ride of the night we switched sides and went over the bridge; Titch was sat on the inside and I was sat on the outside and we were in the 2nd row - never again will I ride in that seat. Now I am normally fine on most rides , except spinning ones, but that seat with the first turn from the top made me ever so queasy and I screamed the whole way around. Titch and the Husband thought that this was hilarious.

After Swarm we made our way around to the main area of the park. This is the one thing that we really like about Thorpe park - everything is so close, so the walk between rides is shorter meaning you can, in theory, get onto more rides.  We headed to Stealth - one of our favourite rides - and queued for about 5 minutes.  As we love it  so much we decided to go back on it later at around 8.30 just before dusk and the view was spectacular - if you can keep your eyes open.  Making our way anti -clock wise around the park we noticed that the other Thrill rides such as Nemesis, Saw etc were over 30 minutes waiting time so we headed for Rush and Vortex before heading to Pizza Pasta for tea.  

Now having ate here on our last visit to Thorpe park we knew what to expect. This time as it was after 5pm, Titch was free and the Husband and I were £10 each - which we thought was a great deal.  Inside it was clear that the staff were trying their best to keep it clean and tidy; however, it did feel particularly dirty at that time of night. The pizzas were good and there was still plenty of choice with fresh ones coming out still every few minutes or so.  

Luckily after tea the queue time for Colossus had reduce from 70 minutes to 10 minutes, so we headed straight there. Now being a plus size lady, I am always nervous before getting onto rides, as I had to do the walk of shame once and it was awful.  Having read about Colossus before this was the one ride that I was most nervous about my weight. Unfortunately there were loads of teenagers messing around by the tester seat so I decided to just get in the queue and give it a go.   Unfortunately, the belt just would not click, so yes I had to do the walk of shame.  But this time, I did not cry, instead I held my head up and just shook it off.  To cheer me up we then decided to go onto Nemesis - no queueing required.  

If it hadn't have been advertised as Love Island Lates I would not have known that it opening to till 10 had anything to do with Love Island.  We did walk pass the beach area where there was music playing but there was only a few people on it.  Other than not there was no other indication that it had anything to do with Love Island. 

We all thoroughly enjoyed our evening at Thorpe Park. It was quiet, we got on all the rides we wanted to multiple times and got to ride Swarm in the dark - a great evening had for our first night in London.  We only wish that Alton Towers would do more late nights in the Summer too.