Thrillography Goes to Thorpe Park: My Smashing ACE UK Tour Trip Report- Part X

  

 It all ends here, folks. 

I'm not just talking about the ACE Uk Tour, mind you.

It's the end of the world.

Welcome to Thorpe Park, Europe's favorite apocalypse-obsessed regional theme park! 

As we cross the bridge to Thorpe Island, we prepare ourselves for the trials ahead. 

Certain doom waits in the distance.

Look alive, people! We've got a lot of ground to cover!

Thorpe has some of the strongest coaster curb appeal I've ever seen. Once you're on the island, steel giants surround you.

 More on this devastating mess later.

First up is Thorpe's first thrill coaster: the 2002-built Colossus!

The 10-inversion Intamin coaster gave us a fabulous ride through the ruins of The Lost City. Then it broke down for a while. 

Then we walked over to this monstrosity. It hadn't even opened yet. Moving on.

Whatever this is, it appears to be open. Shall we?

Oh my God it's like a gay club in here. Make it stop!

Standing in line for X is like a never-ending discotheque from hell. I'm pretty sure it broke down at one point, since we were stopped in this particular room for a while.

Somebody comfort these doors before it has a panic attack. 

Hey look! It's Joe! And a roller coaster! 

So it turns out that X is basically Space Mountain on Ecstasy (hence the name). It's a great ride considering it's just an overgrown Vekoma Rollerskater. 

Ok, enough of this business. Let's get out of here. 

Yay! Colossus is back open!

Whatever this is, it looks really unsettling. 

Just beyond Colossus is a friendly reminder that we're not in America. 

It's a terrifying roller coaster themed to an R-rated horror movie franchise!

SAW: THE RIDE! 

AND it's a Eurofighter! *__*

Saw had just re-opened a few weeks prior to our visit. Because of its similarities with Alton Towers' Smiler, the ride had closed for an extended technical review. We got lucky!

Well…actually…maybe "lucky" isn't the best word to describe the situation we're in. 

If you're not familiar with the Saw movie franchise, the basic premise is that this creepy mastermind called Jigsaw kidnaps bad people and puts them in these Rube Goldberg-style death devices that force victims to torture themselves in order to stay alive.

Pretty grizzly subject for a roller coaster, right?

Merlin never skimps on telling a story. Standing in line for this thing is just as uncomfortable as the movies would suggest. 

The execution of Saw: The Ride is sensational. Picture Mystery Mine at Dollywood, except with LOTS of blood. 

Jigsaw may be sick, twisted freak, but he sure knows how to market his brand. 

As far as Eurofighters go, Saw isn't exactly the smoothest, but damn is it impressive.

Speaking of impressive, the world's only S&S SkySwat ride calls Thorpe Park home. However, it only ever tested throughout the day, taunting us with its weirdness. 

The heart of Thorpe Park is CalAmity Cove, the remnants of a 1950s beach town destroyed by various natural disasters. 

Oh look. It's broken.

Don't tell me this picture of the sky doesn't scream apocalypse. 

WOOOOO! B&M invert time!

The people of Calypso Quay are being threatened by an active volcano called NEMESIS INFERNO! 

As the name suggests, this ride is the sequel to Alton Towers' Nemesis. 

And, while they're both B&M inverts, the two rides couldn't be more different.

Just to the right are some fantastic views of Britain's fastest coaster, Stealth!

Thorpe Park is very much Alton Tower's high-octane little sister. Much like the kindred Nemesis coasters, Stealth is kindred to Rita: Queen of Speed. 

However, while Alton Towers is focused on both thrills and family attractions, Thorpe is focused squarely on thrill rides.

This is because fellow Merlin parks Legoland Windsor and Chessington Worlds of Adventure are designated family parks in the London area. Thorpe began its thrill ride manifestation shortly after Merlin (then the Tussaud's Group) acquired the park in order to offer something on the opposite end of the spectrum for the London area. 

As a result, Thorpe Park hasn't built a family ride in over 10 years.  We at ACE are just fine with that. :}

I see some familiar faces in this train! 

Something interesting about Nemesis Inferno is that it's the only B&M invert with an extended pre-lift section. It takes riders right through the belly of the volcano!

While not nearly as inspired as the original Nemesis, Nemesis Inferno's layout gives a great ride akin to Batman: The Ride. 

Beneath the ride are swamps full of little animals. Soon they will flee from the excessive geothermal heat of Nemesis Inferno!

If nothing else, it's certainly more lush around here than the stony nest of Nemesis Classic. 

Nemesis Inferno also has the only interlocking corkscrews on an inverted coaster! 

Dragon's Challenge at Islands of Adventure has interlocking corkscrews, but it's technically two different rides. :}

Rumba Rapids is a great way to cool down after the molten hotness of Nemesis Inferno. :}

Thorpe quickly became my favorite park of the trip to take pictures of (except for maybe Blackpool…it's a toss-up).

Time to ride Stealth!

Just kidding! Stealth broke as we were walking up to it.

(are you noticing a trend here?)

Lunch time! Thorpe's pizza buffet is everything. I ate an entire cheese pizza plus breadsticks and probably half a red onion.

:}

Ok! Let's try this again!

Thorpe's coasters like to close periodically throughout the day for one reason or another. Lost articles, sensor trips, safety time-outs, etc. 

Fortunately the rides would always re-open in short order, AND Thorpe gave us FIVE (5) fast passes to use on whichever rides we wanted! Even with constant breakdowns, everyone got all of their credits and plenty of re-rides. :}

Thorpe's newest section is Angry Birds Land. Because destruction.

You know what's better than one great B&M?

TWO great B&Ms!

Welcome to Swarm Island, where everything's dead and points don't matter. 

The Swarm is an invasion of bug-like aliens that have come to harvest the entire human population. We are the last ones left!

Thorpe may be morbid, but they still have a sense of humor. 

Swarm's station is a decimated cathedral. 

As you stand in line for Swarm, it may occur to you just what kind of story is being told here.

We are the last survivors of an alien Armageddon seeking refuge in a church.

We are here to ask forgiveness for our sins before The Swarm returns to take us away. 

Yeah.

This might be the only roller coaster in the world with a more brutal thematic premise than Saw: The Ride. 

In other news, Swarm is the best B&M Wing Coaster. 

Swarm's layout is excellent; it's more aggressive than the other three I've ridden (X-Flight, Wild Eagle, Thunderbird) and it really ramps up the near-miss effects. There may be better Wing Coaster layouts out there, but none of them have better theming than this. 

Every last detail on Swarm Island contributes to the story being told.  There's a lot to see!

The Swarm startles queuers every time is passes overhead!

Oh, and you may have noticed that you can ride Swarm backwards.

This needs to be done to every Wing Coaster. Now. 

There's a few nets around to catch any falling articles, but they're not particularly noticeable. 

*swoon*

Hi Joe!

After we finished our second ride on Swarm, the ride closed for the third time that day. We wanted to take more pictures of it running, so we waited around in the area and admired the various theme elements. 

The most amazing and disturbing soundtrack ever: instrumental grunge music coupled with the warped siren of a crashed ambulance and the occasional screaming / roaring of Swarm. 

WOO! Swarm rides again!

This ride is just so awesome. Look at this thing. 

Swarm is the most recent in a steady stream of thrill coasters at Thorpe Park. It opened in 2012, just three years after Saw, which opened just three years after Stealth, which opened just three years after Nemesis Inferno, which started construction as soon as Colossus opened. :}

This was the first B&M inclined loop built since Riddler's Revenge. Glad to see it making a comeback. 

X____X

Bye-bye!

After the extended roll, Swarm plows into the first of two brake runs. 

You've just been abducted by The Swarm! How does it feel?

So on point. 

Had enough Swarm yet? Yes?

Well too bad because we're not done yet. 

>:}

As you can see, the girl between the rail and the spine is NOT HAVING IT. 

Swarm is more than just inversions strung together. Let's take a moment to appreciate this wing-dip turn over a stagnant body of water with a helicopter in it. Outstanding. 

You never really get used to the pieces of crashed commercial airliner. It's relentlessly disturbing. 

The emergency supplies are actually souvenirs, candy, and soda.

It's nice to know that Merlin and I both have the same definition of emergency supplies. 

Every time Swarm swoops down the first drop, the hair-rising sound of crunching metal briefly drowns out the theme music. 

I've always found Wing Coasters to be rather elegant. This is still the case with Swarm despite it's gruesome atmospheric embellishments. 

Look at that death grip in the front seat! If that's not the face of terror, I don't know what is. 

Ok, I'll admit I'm obsessing a little over Swarm. But can you blame me?? This thing is friggin awesome!

One last look!

No, but seriously, every Wing Coaster should have backwards seats. 

The park's Mack powered kiddie coaster is also their oldest coaster – a relic of Thorpe's former commitment to family-centric entertainment. 

Thorpe might be the most water-centric park in Great Britain. They've got a log flume, a rapids ride, a giant shoot-the-chute, a spinning raft slide, wet/dry slides, and a giant pool!

God I love this park. 

Methinks it's time for another Colossus ride!

I swear, one minute the sky is blue and beautiful, and the next minute it looks like brewings of a biblical downpour. 

Colossus broke the record for inversions when it open. It wasn't broken again until Smiler 10 years later. 

Colossus' biggest claim to fame is this obnoxious quadruple barrel roll. 

It's a lot of fun to watch first time riders endure the barrel rolls with mixed results.

The train is roughly the length of 1/2 a barrel roll. :}

This shot would be cooler if I was about twice as high off the ground.

Is anyone else reminded of Ultra Twister?

Next to Colossus is a series of flat rides. It's always nice to see a magic carpet still in action. :}

Woo! Log Flume time!

Logger's Leap anchors Thorpe's Canada-themed area, which is the only part of the park that isn't explicitly themed to some form of devastation. 

However, Saw: The Ride is technically in Canada, so the area's not without an obligatory entity of terror. 

Logger's Leap goes way back into the trees – far enough to hear not a trace of Thorpe's thrill rides. 

See? No coasters here.

Look how far away we are from the rest of the park!

How beautiful! What a pleasant surprise. :}

Wow! What a view!

Bombs away!

The double-dip drop of Logger's Leap has some great airtime. :}

Let's check in on Jigsaw again while we're here. 

o.o

We did another round of X, too. ;}

What have we here…?

Looks like an exciting new development is coming to Thorpe!

Oh look Nemesis Inferno is broken.

What. A. Surprise.

Yay! That didn't last long. 

*shakes fist*

Yes! More Stealth action!

Hi boys! 

Gotta love these trains!

XTREME STEALTH STATION POV FASTNESS!

I love how you can reward yourself with a trophy for surviving each of Thorpe's marquee attractions. 

Looks like things are starting to wind down on the island.

Thorpe Park = complete.

Bye Swarm. I'll miss you. Call me!

Time to cross the bridge back into reality.

"Glad to see you all made it out alive" says the swan.

Looks like everyone on the tour survived the apocalypse! 

Last plaque ceremony of the trip!

We had a closing ceremony for the tour back at the Radisson Blu. 

The reception area comes complete with decorative fish.

We sat at the upper deck. The meal was very nice. :}

View from our table. From here we enjoyed a few words from the people in ACE who helped put this trip together, and to them we gave a resounding thanks. 

And so ends another amazing ACE international excursion. :}

Thank you to all who read this entire thing. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did composing it. 

The ACE portion of this trip report may be over, but some of the best parks of the trip are still yet to come! Tomorrow the squad and I embark on an amazing adventure to the city of lights and its amazing theme parks! 

See you in Paris! :}