How Busy Was Thorpe Park on Friday, 2 October 2026?
Thorpe Park was moderately busy on Friday, 2 October 2026. Across the day the average wait across all rides was 19 minutes, with the longest queue reaching 73 minutes for Hyperia around 10:00. 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 73 minutes (around 10:00).
- Average across all rides: 19 minutes.
- Quietest hour: 21:00 UK time.
| Ride | 10:00 | 11:00 | 12:00 | 13:00 | 14:00 | 15:00 | 16:00 | 17:00 | 18:00 | 19:00 | 20:00 | 21:00 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hyperia | 73 | 71 | 69 | 71 | 70 | 69 | 62 | 59 | 51 | 70 | 70 | 70 | 67 |
| SAW - The Ride | – | 53 | 49 | 55 | 52 | 40 | 41 | 31 | 29 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 37 |
| Nemesis Inferno | 40 | 50 | 48 | 47 | 47 | 44 | 44 | 36 | 32 | 32 | 16 | 5 | 37 |
| The Swarm | 19 | 70 | 49 | 47 | 51 | 36 | 40 | 34 | 25 | 19 | 23 | 15 | 36 |
| Stealth | 37 | 43 | 38 | 43 | 38 | 31 | 35 | 30 | 21 | 23 | 17 | 20 | 31 |
| Colossus | 33 | 42 | 36 | 39 | 33 | 28 | 27 | 14 | 13 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 25 |
| Rush | 21 | 32 | 30 | 32 | 41 | 30 | 26 | 26 | 25 | 13 | 8 | 10 | 25 |
| The Walking Dead©: The Ride | 18 | 28 | 35 | 30 | 37 | 33 | 26 | 22 | 26 | 10 | 8 | 5 | 23 |
| Samurai | 19 | 29 | 25 | 26 | 28 | 28 | 29 | 20 | 17 | 20 | 14 | 15 | 23 |
| Ghost Train | – | – | – | – | – | 30 | 32 | 27 | 22 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Detonator | 13 | 17 | 17 | 13 | 20 | 11 | 16 | 9 | 14 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 12 |
| Storm Surge | 9 | 7 | 9 | 8 | 19 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 9 |
| Depth Charge | 5 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 9 |
| Quantum | 5 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 11 | 13 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Flying Fish | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | – | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| Tidal Wave | 5 | 5 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Dobble Tea Party | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Mr Monkey's Banana Ride | 5 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Big Easy Bumpers | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| High Striker | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | – | – | – | – | – | – | 5 |
| Ready Player One 4D Experience | Age Rating 12A | – | – | 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, 2 October 2026
Friday 2 October was a moderately busy day at Thorpe Park. Across every ride we recorded, the average standby wait came out at 19 minutes, which is close to the 20-minute average across every day in our archive.
That is a typical Friday by our records, which average 21 minutes.
Queues followed the usual pattern: they built through the morning, peaked across the middle of the day (averaging 24 minutes between 12:00 and 15:00), then eased off through the afternoon. The quietest hour across the park was 21:00. The single longest queue we recorded was Hyperia at 73 minutes, around 10:00.
The rides holding the longest queues were Hyperia, SAW - The Ride and Nemesis Inferno — Hyperia averaged 67 minutes across the whole day and touched 73 at its worst. At the other end, ten rides averaged 10 minutes or less — Storm Surge, Depth Charge, Quantum and Flying Fish were close to walk-on for most of the day. The spread between the busiest and quietest ride was 62 minutes, which is wide enough that where you chose to walk mattered more than when you arrived.
This is the level at which planning starts to pay. Rope-dropping the two rides with the longest queues, eating before 12:00, and saving re-rides for the final hour would each have been worth roughly one extra ride over the day. 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.
Based on readings taken every 2 minutes across 12 hours of operation, from 10:00 to 21:00, covering 21 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.
