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It was an annoyingly cloudy day (typical after all the sunshine we'd had previously) when Jen, Simon, Alice, Rach, Adam, Soren and I set off for the big kids play ground that is Thorpe Park. With new rides, wet rides and dunkin' donuts to look forward to, we set off extremely excited!
Alice had a genius idea of taking Haribo Gumee Bears, I packed everything but a much needed towel and dry clothes, Rach had at least 10 apples, Soren provided rather plush wheels (and a camouflaged spider), Jen read up on the rides and informed us about an impending apocalypse, Adam (after we were all jealous of Alice) provided us with more Haribo and some amalgamation of mints/Werthers Originals and Simon introduced us to his walkie talkies. No one seemed to impressed/ bothered about the walkie talkies so it was left to me, Alice and Simon to exchange pleasantries, which really meant Rach, Adam and Soren told me what abuse to give, whilst Alice and Simon happily nattered away about the definition of an ambulance!? Jen and I did have a catch up about the final episode of The Walking Dead mind, this also become a theme throughout the day!
We eventually gave up with the radios after we were passing Heathrow and were rudely interrupted by some random bloke on Ground Control (well, so we assumed). There was also a slight issue with a beeping noise the talkies made...it's the same noise as the alarm for an incoming missile! Soren being the driver wasn't too happy about this as apparently his car can't really make the same evasive manoeuvres as a helicopter!
Eventually we arrived! I got the map out and we decided to straight away check out the new ride Swarm! Hmm, sadly it already had a mahoosive queue so we bombed it over to (my personal favourite) Colossus...where we had at least an hour's wait! Oops! We managed to keep ourselves suitably entertained though...Jen and I started a debate on how best to get rid of the queue...being inspired by many great zombie films we couldn't decide between:
Everyone seemed to love Colossus and it was well worth the wait!
Nemesis decided to break down whilst we were in the queue which is fine but the repetitive music was driving us nuts. I wasn't very happy on Nemesis when the bars locked and then opened again! I asked the poor guy to check at least three times if it was OK. Soren decided to be a girl's worst nightmare and film everything...I think Rach and Alice had the camera in their faces all the way round Nemesis! Jen wasn't very happy about sitting on the outside and Simon got the fat seat with two seat belts! Adam seemed the only composed one.
Swarm was awesome! Again bit of a long wait but this time the music was at least a bit better and creepy! Alice was enjoying staring (blatantly) at people and I was impressed with the fact I had to stand three steps higher than Adam to be marginally taller than him. There was a height limit on Swarm and I'm pretty sure Simon wasn't too far under it and Alice was just over the minimum! She refused to pose next to the measuring stick for pictures though. I'm pretty sure I heard Super Jen scream on Swarm but it definitely quickly turned to laughter as she loved it.
We went on Rumba Rapids twice...not one of my best ideas since on the second time round it was me that got drenched under the waterfall. Simon kept jumping in to the middle of the raft so he wouldn't get wet! Soren was told off for at least the second time for having his camcorder out! They wouldn't even start the Tea Cups until he put it away, although I was actually really grateful as it was pointing directly at me and I have learnt the hard way to NEVER go on the Tea Cups with Simon and Soren again. It might as well have been the Waltzers it was going so fast!
On the Log Flume the guys all went together (awwww) but all the way round the woman was telling Soren to put his camcorder away over the tannoy! The photo at the end was great...it was him holding the camcorder, filming going down the drop! Poor Alice got soaked at the front where we had convinced her she really wouldn't get wet, hehe.
Not content with our first soakings on the rapids/flume, Simon, Adam, Jen and I ran (literally) to get on Tidal Wave before it closed. Jen was very nice and let me have the poncho someone had left (she was the only clever one who bought a waterproof jacket with her) so Simon and Il braved it at the front with Jen and Adam behind us. It wasn't as bad as we thought...soooooo the nice lady let us go round again. This time Jen grabbed a rather chic poncho too and we sat in a row in the middle....we all got absolutely drenched!!!! I now understand wind chill! We figured since we were now completely soaked, we may as well go on the last water ride...it wasn't really that impressive (a giant water slide where you sit in a dingy thing) but with a pool of water in it that covered your feet (canvas trainers = bad idea) and Soren, Rach and Alice all looking rather menacingly at water cannons you can spray people on the ride with...it was enough for me to decide it was my last ride of the day.
Soren, Adam, Jen and Simon all decided they wanted to get on one more ride, so they all ran over to Saw whilst I tried to dry myself in the heating booths (to no avail), I was joined by Rach and Alice, so there we all sheltered whilst waiting for the others.
After that we all snarfed down dunkin' donuts and congratulated ourselves on a rather awesome day.
- Lynds - JenPhotos by Jen.