How Busy Was Thorpe Park on Friday, 17 July 2026?
Thorpe Park was busy on Friday, 17 July 2026. Across the day the average wait across all rides was 30 minutes, with the longest queue reaching 149 minutes for Hyperia around 13:00. The full hour-by-hour breakdown for every ride is below.
Average wait in minutes per ride per hour (UK time), recorded on the day from the park's live wait-time system.
- Longest wait of the day: Hyperia at 149 minutes (around 13:00).
- Average across all rides: 30 minutes.
- Quietest hour: 17:00 UK time.
| Ride | 09:00 | 10:00 | 11:00 | 12:00 | 13:00 | 14:00 | 15:00 | 16:00 | 17:00 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperia | – | 121 | 120 | 123 | 149 | 131 | 124 | 113 | 108 | 124 |
| SAW - The Ride | – | 45 | 70 | 78 | 66 | 60 | 54 | 43 | 28 | 56 |
| The Swarm | – | 44 | 76 | 73 | 70 | 64 | 49 | 38 | 23 | 55 |
| Colossus | – | – | – | 39 | 67 | 63 | 54 | 37 | 31 | 49 |
| Storm Surge | – | 18 | 52 | 64 | 52 | 61 | 56 | 50 | 40 | 49 |
| Nemesis Inferno | – | 34 | 69 | 64 | 54 | 49 | 43 | 30 | 14 | 45 |
| Tidal Wave | – | 10 | 39 | 50 | 58 | 74 | 46 | 38 | 21 | 42 |
| Stealth | – | 26 | 72 | 59 | 51 | 39 | 35 | 25 | 16 | 40 |
| The Walking Dead©: The Ride | – | 11 | 41 | 60 | 40 | 46 | 32 | 32 | 11 | 34 |
| Rush | – | 10 | 44 | 38 | 35 | 35 | 33 | 21 | 18 | 29 |
| Samurai | – | 11 | 34 | 36 | 30 | 35 | 28 | 23 | 15 | 27 |
| Ghost Train | – | – | – | 38 | 36 | 30 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 27 |
| Detonator | – | 6 | 30 | 33 | 20 | 30 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 19 |
| Depth Charge | 5 | 7 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 22 | 16 | 15 | 15 | 17 |
| Flying Fish | – | 5 | 18 | 18 | 16 | 16 | 14 | 6 | 5 | 12 |
| Big Easy Bumpers | – | 5 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 11 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 8 |
| Mr Monkey's Banana Ride | – | 6 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 7 |
| High Striker | – | 5 | 7 | 5 | 7 | 13 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Dobble Tea Party | – | 5 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| Quantum | – | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Vortex | – | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 5 | 5 |
| Ready Player One 4D Experience | Age Rating 12A | – | – | – | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Cells show the average standby wait during that hour. Blue = 20 min or under, orange = 21–60 min, navy = over 60 min.
What happened on Friday, 17 July 2026
Friday 17 July was a busy day at Thorpe Park. Across every ride we recorded, the average standby wait came out at 30 minutes, about 51% above the 20-minute average across every day we have recorded.
That makes it a busier-than-usual Friday — other Fridays in the archive average 21 minutes. Against July as a whole, which averages 27 minutes, it was one of the heavier days of the month.
Queues followed the usual pattern: they built through the morning, peaked across the middle of the day (averaging 39 minutes between 12:00 and 15:00), then eased off through the afternoon. The quietest hour across the park was 17:00. The single longest queue we recorded was Hyperia at 149 minutes, around 13:00.
The rides holding the longest queues were Hyperia, SAW - The Ride and The Swarm — Hyperia averaged 124 minutes across the whole day and touched 149 at its worst. Six rides averaged 45 minutes or more, which is the point at which a day starts to feel like queueing rather than riding. At the other end, seven rides averaged 10 minutes or less — Big Easy Bumpers, Mr Monkey's Banana Ride, High Striker and Dobble Tea Party were close to walk-on for most of the day. The spread between the busiest and quietest ride was 119 minutes, which is wide enough that where you chose to walk mattered more than when you arrived.
At this level the day needs a plan. The first and last hours are worth several times the middle of the day, the lunchtime peak is best spent on the higher-throughput rides, and this is the point at which a single targeted Fastrack on the worst-moving queue starts to make financial sense. You can compare this with other dates in the full archive, work out which days of the year behave like this using the queue calendar, and read the underlying tactics in our guide to beating the queues and our analysis of whether Fastrack is worth it.
Based on readings taken every 2 minutes across 8 hours of operation, from 10:00 to 17:00, covering 22 rides. Figures are the wait times posted by the park, averaged per hour; a dash in the table means the ride reported no wait for that hour, usually because it was closed.