To Loathe Theme Parks

[devilinme]

All of them. Expensive, queues, incessant noise, terrible food

DS is desperate to go to Thorpe Park and I'd rather stick pins in my eyes. And, I've raged on how I hate the places so now have GUILT as he's said its ok, we won't go.

Tell me the great things about these places, not just that I will be with lovely DS for the day

The queues can be bad. But I love theme parks. We always buy fast passes. Expensive but worth it to avoid the long queues.

We love theme parks, get fast track passes. At 11 you might get away with Chessington rather than Thorpe if DC not too much of an adrenaline junkie, but of all the Merlin parks Chessington is the one that most needs to have some tlc as parts of it are quite tired looking. if you really can't bear it, surely you have a friend or relative who would go instead?

Thorpe Park is unpleasant. I spent years taking year sixes there on an end of term trip. Noisy, crowded, hour plus long queues and no shade. If you do go, avoid June/July Term time as it's heaving with school trips and teenagers on exam leave. If I ever had to go I'd get the pass. Chessington a little better.

I love theme park rides, especially coasters. But I think going to WDW and Universal a few times have spoilt UK ones for me- the UK Ones just don't have the same theming and atmosphere, have longer queues and everything isn't geared up for the crowds in the same way, and they close so early too. Mind you, Disneyland Paris wasn't anywhere near the US Disney parks either.

The chessington zoo is grim. I've only discovered this after buying an annual pass . We're only going on inset days and early on weekends or school hols . I am not queuing for ages for a 2 min ride.

What about gullivers land ?? They're really nice parks and the queue's aren't silly as they aren't overly popular.

Viz Comic has this right, via Twitter

Gullivers is aimed at under 10s really; may be a bit tame for an 11 year old.

was

I used to love them as a teenager but can't be arsed any more. All the UK ones I've been to in the last 5 years have looked really run down.

I do like Puy du Fou in France, it's shows only and no rides. Also Europa Park in Germany, again it has good shows and there's loads of rides for the younger ones. I remember having to wait for over 1.5 hours at DLP for some crappy car ride. Europapark had several similar rides for younger ones which had no waiting at all.

I've taken dcs to Chessington a few times but can't cope with the standing. Mostly its been a day out on climbing things with a bit of animals and the Octonauts. The queues were terrible so I was glad not to have dc old or brave enough for the big rides. I'm sure you never had to queue for more than 20 minutes when I was a teenager.

Took ds to Legoland as a huge treat last year. It was rubbish compared to the Denmark one I went to as a kid - it shouldn't be called a theme park if they can't be arsed to theme it like Lego! Beyond the entrance, Star Wars exhibition and Miniland areas, you could have been anywhere and all the rides had 45 min queues. And the two we went on were rather pathetic - little train going past about 6 Lego animals, aquarium one was better but not "wow" after the wait. Monorail broke and the best bit for ds was getting to borrow some Lego kits, make them, then swap for another. Would have been cheaper and easier to just buy Lego! And a car accident blocked the road out so took 2 hours to escape the car park.

I figure I'll do what my parents did and pretend such places don't exist until the dcs are old enough to wander about by themselves. And I can buy a queue-jump pass and go on the good coasters myself!

I think I would feel the same going to one of the big theme parks.

However, we have some great them parks in Devon which are smaller and great for younger children. They do not have big roller coasters but do have plenty to do and see. They tend to have many smaller rides such as log flumes and many big slides.

We really like Woodlands. It is a bit rough around the edges but has very small queues. We went last week and the longest we waited was for the toboggans and that was around 15 minutes and most had no queue at all.

It is also extremely good on a wet day as it has many indoor soft play areas.