Thorpe park

On our normal trips to the fair I very rarely go on the rides, I'm the one that watches the kids and carries all the bags while everyone else enjoys themselves, so when a friend asked if I wanted to join her and her daughters on a trip to Thorpe park I was quite reluctant. When I was younger I didn't mind being thrown all over the place, legs up in the air at 60mph but as I've got older I've gone off that dizzy/sick feeling and prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground!

However my girls were quite excited about a girls day out and I didn't want to be a party pooper. It also dawned on me that with them being older I wouldn't have a pushchair to accompany me and nobody to watch on the little teacups, I would actually be free to go on all the big people rides like I was a teenager again... no excuses!

So here is a guide to a few of my favourite rides

Stealth

This ride travels from 0-80mph in 2.3 seconds and it is seriously not for the faint hearted!After it shoots you from the starting block it reaches a height of 205ft and straight back down again.
The first time we queued for 45mins and the ride took a total of 15 seconds. Yes that's a 45 minute wait for a 15 second ride!! but it was worth the experience and we decided to go back on at the end of the day, luckily we only had a 5 minute wait by then.









Detonator

Looking at this ride it seemed a bit boring, it went up and then came back down again! From the bottom it didn't even seem very high but the queue wasn't as long as some of the other rides so we decided to try it out. It was quite amusing seeing some of the faces of the people on the ride while we were waiting in the queue and it made you wonder what it was really like. I have to say when you are going up it is a lot higher than it seems and there is a great view of the park from up there! (as there is on a lot of the rides)
Then the countdown begins... and drop!!
It is the most strangest experience ever, you will literally lift out of your seat and it feels as if your stomach is in your mouth, I can only imagine what my face looked like, luckily there was no camera on this one for me to find out as I'm sure it wasn't a pretty sight! I must say I did enjoy it but not sure I would EVER go on there again.
  



Tidal wave

Now you cant visit a theme park without going on a water ride and if you are going to get wet you might as well get soaking wet! You sit in a boat with 11 other people, ride up to the top and back down again, now you expect to get wet on the way down as that's the whole point but the water seems to shower over you forever and you will be soaked right down to your underwear, so much so that when you get off there is a giant drying machine that you can get into! Although this costs an additional £2 but we managed to fit 9 people in there so quite good value. I must say it doesn't dry you off completely but does warm you up a bit!

All in all we had a great day. There are loads of choices to eat but I would bring your own snacks and drinks otherwise it can get expensive.  If you are planning a trip I would get to know the map before you start off because we wasted a lot of time going round in circles looking for rides and there are not many signs to direct you around. Also its worth putting all the bags you don't need into a locker while you are on rides, you can put them to the side of each ride while you are on if you want to keep them with you but as there is so much time standing around its better to not have loads of stuff to carry.

It made a nice change for me to join the kids on the rides but as I still felt a bit sick/dizzy 2 days later I think my theme park days are over (at least until we visit Disneyland) and next time I will sit in the cafe with a coffee and watch all the crazy kids enjoy themselves.