Thorpe Park (Leanne's 22nd Birthday)

Last Saturday felt like the start of the Summer as I returned to Thorpe Park after a long time and this time I wasn't chicken to go on any rides at all.
It's been 8 long years since I was here and it was an amazing and fun packed day with the squad shouting and wooing on the corkscrew and loop de loop rollercoasters all day long. Here's what happened on Leanne's 22nd Birthday at Thorpe Park.
Leanne made the right call on a load of us travelling up in cars to Windsor (not at 8 in the morning ha) for a warm cloudy day at Thorpe Park. You see, I hadn't been there since the end of the Year 10 exams back in 2003. That was when Mr McDermott (legend) took us all there by coach for a day on the rollercoasters for having finished our Mock Exams. Unfortunately, I was a year after my Crohns Disease began and I was sensitive to pressure and fear of being able to control myself whilst even attempting to go on any rides. I only managed to go on Rumba Rapids a few times since it was the one that me and my small group of people that I was stuck with ended up agreeing on back then.
But after 7/ 8 long years, I returned and didn't have second thoughts about any rides at all and it was a way better time than I could have imagined because I didn't let my fear of heights or conditions stop me this time.

Our 7:50am drive began with Kurt, David and I heading up to Windsor and me having to actually drive pretty damn far than I've driven before on a Motorway (I've usually been limited to driving to my Grandparents from Pease Pottage to Horley via Motorway).
But I got us there in one piece at 8:45am and the others  (Matt with Leanne, Ben and Sam) arrived shortly after (David almost convinced Leanne by phone that the park was shut for repairs) haha.

The park didn't open till about 9:35am since hundreds of us were all early birdies this Saturday morning. I even saw a Richard Attenborough look a like near us and got a sneaky picture and quoted to Matt "Welcome to Thorpe Park!" (RIP Mr Hammond!)

Our first ride was The Swarm which looked like an apocalyptic area with broken buildings, crashed planes, erupted billboard and a firetruck crash "It's the end of the world as we know it". I loved it as did the others too to start the day already. We didn't like our photo shots so we figured we'd get em again later on our 2nd ride.

*Gulps in fear*

Next up was Stealth, I gulped in fear at this one as it looked intimidating even 7 years back. My face says it all in the pictures... But Kurt and I braved the speed and we didn't even need to hold hands haha. It was f***in fast (0-80mph in under 2 seconds up a 205ft slope) and it was incredible and I'm glad I did it this time and survived.
It was after the ride that Leanne and the others agreed on purchasing the DigiPass where we paid £30 between a couple of us (me included) in order to get receipt copies of our snapshots for us to download off the website later on, great deal! Which is exactly what we did for the rest of the day.

This next ride was the one that I actually queued up to go on back in 2003 but unfortunately when there wasn't much further I had to go to the toilet after our 1hr40mins queue for Nemesis Inferno.
 The queue was a lot smaller this time and moved quicker than last time too. Though we did have a super cringe and awkward/ embarrassing moment where one of the staff members actually started singing to us whilst we were waiting to go up the steps.

I'm sorry but this guy was so awkward that it made us all smile in embarrassment as he did "Busted - 3000" which took a while to recall from his straight to lyrics act. Matt and Ben even got their phones out to look for Pokemon Go since this was just too much to feel comfortable around. Luckily after he was done we were allowed to go up, phew that was awkward...
The flame printed coaster with our legs hanging was better than I could have imagined. Shame I didn't get to ride it back then but this time there were no worries or anything.


In the Nemesis Inferno gift shop and snapshot area, we noticed an I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here Maze sign next to the end of the slide leading to the Nemesis shop. We'd never heard of it before so we figured we'd go and check it out next (after we'd all purchased Park Bottles with unlimited refills for the day).
In the zigzag queue we kept hearing the Main Theme through the speakers and even a poor Australian imitation of what to expect during our expedition.
Inside the 5 areas that we follows through like a tour, the staff were in full character and were a little over the top (if that's what keeps them going) and we had 5 silly group activities to do to get the stars (passing a star through holes in the wall, answer question in shower and hang up J.U.N.G.L.E underwear on the line). We even saw a Kiosk "Katie" (cousin to Kiosk Keith from the series) to get our Dingo Dollar question (she was so sarcastic and bored lol).
The last two were funny as we had to shuffle through s pitch black air current tunnel between two airbags limiting our space and no one knew where to go as we were laughing our heads off and lastly we had to run up a steep hill with a fan blowing in our face like in "Celebrity Cyclone" only without the Watersports hilarity and slippery layout. And we finished it by going down the slide which lead back to the Nemesis gift shop (overall it was okay but not the best attraction) but funny thing from it was the last 2 activities and our group shot at the beginning of the tour that Sam looks faded out from having not stood in the Photoshoot properly haha (he looks like he was with us in spirit).

Before Katharina and the other Matt showed up, we had a quick gentle cruise down the Rumba Rapids. It has to be the most easy going ride there is for anyone to feel okay and sit with 8 people in a giant circle (I wasn't allowed to sing Sea Shanties...)
During the ride, Matt phoned up to notify us of their arrival and then we found them after the Rapids.


We wanted to give this a go since everyone saw the advert on the big screen whilst queuing in the morning. A few of us weren't sure but we did it anyway as our next challenge was to do Derren Brown's Ghost Train. The queue took 1hr30mins ugh, but we managed to speed up after loads of people chose to skip the 2nd box to get a picture taken so we could have taken much longer if it weren't for that.
Before beginning, we had a screen preview with Derren Brown talking to us about the Train itself and giving us a little spooky warning before our train arrived.
We saw the actual train hanging in the building just like in the advert (it looked like a nostalgic carriage or something from the Hogwarts Express) but the inside looked like a common Underground carriage. We were all instructed to put on these cool Oculus Rift headsets with headphones to begin the experience... What happens next??? Well you'll have to go and see for yourself! But BEWARE! As some actually found the plot to be a bit off track with the 2 sequences we saw individually but I thought the graphics and sound effects were incredible but the hidden message behind both experiences was clear as daylight and something both very serious and happening right now in the world.

So not everyone agreed on the experience but to make up for it since we had under an 3 hours left, we decided to do Rumba Rapids again and then Colossus next. David had fun on the water cannons before we started queuing up (he got a few groups and I was worried they'd want revenge when we were gonna flow down the rapids) haha.

Oh boy, the queue for Colossus took forever. There must have been under 75 (I think) people but we never really moved forward after a few paces forward. We all ended up sitting on the ground since our legs and ankles were killing us. We must have missed the announcement but we had no idea why we'd been stuck still for an hour with no reasons why.

One of the staff members later came over to explain the situation about a test being done on one of the rollercoasters, but luckily we managed to finally go on after a little but longer.
The corkscrew spins were the best part of the ride (apparently it's famous in the Guiness Book of World Records for inversions until The Smiler took the record in 2013 at Alton Towers). I loved it and it left us all with our head-spinning afterwards and sadly Katharina and the other Matt had to leave for work.



With about an hour left till closing time, we decided to redo The Swarm again. But before that, Kurt wanted to get something from the Saw Merchandise Area since there was no time for him to go on the ride or maze since it was something he always ended up doing.

After he got his killer shirt, we met the others at The Swarm for our last ride of the day.

It felt good to commemorate the day by going on our first ride again as our last. Plus the design of the rollercoaster was cool with the insect like face between me and the other seat. Plus the layout was apocalyptic and cool. I was hoping but also not hoping that this was the one or the chance for it to go backwards (oh well, maybe another time or when I find the right ride).

This time we got our snapshots and the queue wasn't so bad since by the end of it all, there were 10 minutes to spare until closing time *fistbumps the air*.

Doing the Deadpool
whilst the others save me.

David, stop trying
to crush our friends!

Thus began the long journey home down the M25. David and Kurt had a little snooze in the car whilst I kept us alive heading home with my random music playing quietly (since I'm nice).

Sunburnt, Matt?

Originally, Kurt and I were planning to head on over to Leanne's later on with the others from today to celebrate round hers and Bens. And with the release of Pokemon Go (will be talking about that asap), we're bound to go on Pokemon Adventures regularly to catch em all (plus I need to give her her belated Birthday present when it arrives)!
But we had another birthday to go and celebrate with since we hadn't seen Tommy in a long time. We go back since my 2nd year at Evans Cycles and then he left a year and a half ago. I came over a while later after having uploaded all the pictures to Facebook from today. But I was starving, so after popping over to his for a bit, I had to pop out at 10:00pm to a Petrol Station for some snacks. My haul is an odd combination but I knew these would fill me up under different food categories.
Kurt couldn't take any longer at 11:00pm and headed home whilst I was at Sam's with Tommy, Liam and meeting a whole load of new faces who were all hyper and fun.







Tommy's West Ham United FC Cake looked great as it came out dead on midnight since he then turned 21!
I had to call it quits at 12:30am but I was glad that I made it and lasted 18 hours that day (been a while since I've done eventful days like that). And I plan on seeing them lot again sometime over the summer, hopefully. I'm glad I met Tiffani and Maxine since we learned we had a few things in common. I look forward to seeing them all again next time.

So as you can see, this has been quite a day last Saturday. And yes, my Sunday was lazy as usual and worth the laziness since I was cream crackered.  I look forward to more days like this with the right people and I'm glad that this time at Thorpe Park that I managed to go on so many rides than before!