So, Charlie had an “occasional” day at school. They were supposed to have it just before Christmas for the teachers to do their “Christmas shopping” but as all the shops were closed due to the little issue of the “rona” virus, the school cancelled and rescheduled it. Which meant, for us it was a perfect time to have a Merlin Annual Pass day and we went to Thorpe Park.
We arrived around 11am and hit the park straight away. The security to get in was very thorough, you get your bag fully searched and have to walk through airport style scanners to walk through. You have to put anything from your pockets into a tray before walking through – be warned, I forgot to take my apple watch off and that set the alarm off!!
Once in, all the staff we encountered seem genuinely happy and I could hear reminders in the queue lines for people to adhere to the social distancing markers and on the whole they were, just needed reminding every now and then!!
We stopped for a little bite to eat, carried on and then went and checked in to the shark cabin. It was a quick and easy check in, only took about five minutes and you were given a little bag with your tea, coffee, milk etc. to take with you. I hadn’t managed to book dinner, but the staff in the hotel reception were happy enough to do that for us. We headed to our room and relaxed for a bit and then went back into the park for one more hour.
All in all Charlie managed 5 X on the rocky express. We then did 1 X Timber Tug Boat, 2 X The Flying Fish, 2 X Quantum (that was the longest queue at 10 minutes) and 4 X Mr Monkeys Banana Boat. All in all, I think that was quite a successful day.
We had dinner sitting outside the Infinity Bar and Grill and again, the staff were great. My only little complaint was that they weren’t offering hot drinks, so when it still gets chilly in the evening, you can’t get something to warm you up. But that’s not the end of the world and the staff were very apologetic about it.
Breakfast the next morning! You have to go and pick it up from a collection point near to the cabins and it’s continental style. I actually enjoyed it, just don’t like pineapple. The only thing that Charlie ate was the croissant, so I gave him mine and I had his bircher muesli. The only thing I would suggest is that if you’re staying whilst they’re still doing this and have kids, maybe take some fruit they like with you or some breakfast biscuits so at least you know they’ll eat something. You do get a voucher to the value of £3.50 per person to use in the park, so you can always pick something up with that.
