mechanical engineer

shift leader

electrical engineer

security officer

production technician

THORPE PARK Resort

Typical day includes cleaning the queue lines before and after hours, having to check restraints, cleaning up sick, dealing with ride closures, having to give directions around park, giving excellent customer service at all times.
Since having this job I've realised how unrecognised ride staff are at theme parks and the amount of things you have to deal with on a daily basis that go unnoticed by guests or abused is really sad. You have to be prepared to get a lot of abuse from angry guests about numerous of things but never take it personally because they'll have a go at the first person they see, its nothing to do with you!
My management are really lovely and took care of any issues whether they were ride based or staff based very well considering, the only downside to management is the constant asking for staff to do extra hours however this is isn't their fault as when you are understaffed, any extra help is really appreciated especially when you have to get all breaks done and only have one break cover.
The co-workers in my area are some of the best people ever and I've made some fantastic friends from working here!! Everyone around the park seems to get along including different departments mainly because you all bond over the job and everyone understands exactly what you go through day to day.
Hardest part of the job would be dealing with guests, most guests can be nice however it only takes one to ruin your day and put you in a bad mood. People will complain about everything, ride closures that cant be helped are quite frequent however angry parents who's child is too small for the ride is one of the worst even though its for health and safety reasons! Bag rooms can also be a bad part of the job however if you're in there with a good person time flies and it makes it a lot nicer. Cleaning up sick isn't as bad as it sounds as you get the special equipment so don't worry about that too much!
Other than that, its a great job and I love it more than anything, definitely will be returning for another season, the benefits of it are great and bringing joy to people does make you feel good about yourself and what you're doing. It also really helps with confidence so if that is something you struggle with I definitely recommend a job like this.

The title might be a bit harsh initially, but that's the way it ends up!

You start with a positive attitude going into the job. Management are friendly, and everything seems alright,

You get settled, you start to like your colleagues, and that's when things start to go down hill. 

As you can imagine, Merlin aren't exactly short on staff... this means you're really just a number on a list, not a human being, and you end up not being treated like one!

I want to exclaim that I understand that all managers are told how to deal with and respond to situations by Merlin as you'd expect, so this is not digging at anyone specifically. 

Put simply, you are not trusted! 

Not by Merlin or senior management. You are scrutinized for every little thing you do! Slip up and make a mistake once, and expect a formal investigation! 

There really is no margin for human error at all. 

The management certainly have their 'favourites', which makes career progression nigh impossible! 

Don't get me wrong, the job itself was enjoyable, and my colleagues were fantastic, we all really worked well together, but that's about as far is it went!

Is the job good for a school-leaver... maybe, although honestly, it has no bearing on a quality work-place in which you are generally valued as a person. DO NOT go away thinking that this is how a company should treat you. 

And for someone who's worked elsewhere,  keep looking. It's not worth the bother. Easy money... YES! Easy work life... NOPE! 

The constant worry 'have I done something wrong', the constant scrutiny paired with staff searches by security, formal investigations for petit errors, favouritism between management, no practical room for progression, terrible and I mean TERRIBLE food for staff, little to no decent staff incentives (apart from winning sweets  and free food) and the requirement to do work that you didn't even apply for and wasn't mentioned in your initial application... it's really REALLY not worth it!

Please avoid Merlin! Work somewhere you are appreciated. Somewhere you are valued. Not for a massive corporation that doesn't really care for its staff, but cares for the profits they help drive in! 

Having now left, I’ll miss some of the people I was working with, as well as glimpsing behind the scenes. It was a friendly team and we were all just trying to get through the silly, overcrowded, chaotic days together, through heatwaves and pouring rain…

Most shifts were pretty repetitive: working on the same rides, doing the same actions over and over for up to 11-12 hours a day on the longest shifts. On the rare occasion you’d be trained to host or operate a different ride, it was interesting learning about the technicalities and getting involved - but obviously the novelty wore off pretty quickly and after that it was back to tedium. 

We were encouraged to be ‘guest obsessed’, helping people out as much as possible, but normally either weren’t equipped or weren’t allowed to answer questions honestly. Problems with Fastracks, and other complaints, were common, as were unreasonable queue times that we sometimes couldn’t deal with efficiently because ride capacity would be reduced - even at peak times. This made it difficult to appease guests since, a lot of their time, their complaints were valid but we still couldn’t do much about them. The ‘guest obsession’ thing was all performative. 

Our direct managers tried to make things work, but they were stretched thin and, most days, so were we. Not enough staff, limited training, too many guests, oversubscribed services (Ride Access Pass is the bane of any ride host’s existence) and not enough attractions to absorb and distribute queue times. 

Merlin claim to be on a mission to ‘Catch the Mouse’ and rival Disney’s market share (?) or visitor numbers (?) or something (??) worldwide, but, based on the quality of the guest experience at the park and how disorganised everything is behind the scenes, this is delusional. Working here, you might meet some likeable people and bear witness to some absolute nonsense (funny), but apart from that I wouldn’t recommend it.  Shifts are mostly long, boring and don’t pay well. 

YMMV tho, some of my colleagues actually seemed keen to return next year, despite having similar grievances 

This job was the UTTER worse, and I actually ended up walking out and quitting, because it was that dreadful!
The whole management team is run by 18 year olds.. I have no idea how or why, and the hours absolutely suck and are a lie.
It's a zero hour contract, and they would publish your work timetable, if you said you couldn't do certain days, they will set for you to work on other days that you can do to "make up for the hours" which is BS because it's a zero hour contract... there's no hours that need to be "made up".
Once I was working an 11 hour shift - and by the way they give you 2x 30 min breaks on these, which I would say is decent, but it takes you at least 15 minutes to walk to the staff room, so really you get no break because of the trek to the staff area. Anyway, on this 11 hour shift, it said on the work schedule that I finish at 9pm, I didn't drive at the time, so my dad would come and pick me up at 9pm which is when I'm supposed to finish. Long story short, they said I couldn't leave because there was too much to do and I wouldn't be able to leave until 11:30 or later. 
My dad was furious and came inside and spoke to the 18 year old manager, we said how Im on a zero hour contract and not obligated to stay any longer. But they said if I leave (AT THE TIME I WAS SCHEDULED TO) that I would get a disciplinary warning or whatever, and have the chance of losing my job. Therefore I walked out and said I quit.
NEVER WORK THERE!!!

There is never a normal day at Thorpe Park. It varies throughout, having to deal with unruly staff, allocations (ensuring staff get to their rides at appropriate times and delivering excellent customer service), dealing with paper work and difficult guests.

I have learnt how to discipline both myself and staff around me. But more importantly I have learnt to have fun in the work place whilst being efficient in every task I am given.

Being involved with the management team, I have to deal with over one hundred people and ensure that all are performing to their optimum. I do this through gaining respect and motivating all around me with a smile and praising them when appropriate.

Everyone around me are here to get a job done whilst making the most of their time there. The season ends on the 5th of November so everyone wants to make their mark on the year by making every minute matter through delivering second to none customer service.

The hardest part is having to discipline the staff when they are being unruly. I try to make everyone enjoy their time at work and having to scold people is not something I enjoy doing but I understand that it has to be done to be consistent and to keep everyone in check.

The best part of the job is meeting an incredibly huge amount of people and making life long friends. There are over one thousand staff and plenty of socials which make it a fulfilling job.

- Working weekends is very fast-paced as there are lots of customers. You're always kept on your toes and quickly assigned a new task the moment you feel like you don't have something to do.
- I've learned how to prep food in a kitchen which is a valuable skill for a catering career.
- Management is solid. Very friendly and know what they're doing. Although quite unorganized; you have to go chasing around for them when you're unsure how to help a customer with their issue.
- The hardest part is the cleanup afterwards. Once the unit closes for the day, the cleanup will take a very long time. If you're over 18, you will be asked to stay until the entire place is cleared up and prepped for the next day, regardless of your agreed shift. Breaks for employees aged 18+ are not fixed and are often disregarded as the majority of workers are aged 16/17 and legally require the breaks first.
- The most enjoyable part of the job is meeting new people who share common interests, learning new skills, and greeting guests at the front of the house – AVOID working in the kitchen or washing up at the back of the house (this is a tedious process and you'll be asked to continue doing it once the unit closes anyway with everyone else).

Get to work, have a briefing, which is good as it allows us the be prepared for anything that might of happened when I wasn't there e.g; a new product went on sale. This is good so when we start working we know about everything that is going on, if we get asked by a customer. Through out the day I take on the responsibility of mainly working behind the till, when it gets less busy I go and focus on the tasks my team leader has set me, whether it be cleaning something or re stocking the sweets. drinks, crisps or merchandise. If I work on the early shift, I have to open up a shop which takes on a huge responsibility of making sure the open up tasks are done, this includes floating in the money into the tills, move stock into stock room, making sure there are no faults on any of the machines and lots more. Close down includes similar responsibilities, making sure the place is clean and ready for the next day when we leave it. Co-workers are very nice and I believe I fit in well into my team, everyone there is around my age group for very easy to get along with. Management there is very good, I have a good relationship with my manager and respect him a lot. The hardest part of the day is when you are on your own and you have a massive que of people waiting to be served, this would happen in any busy place though. The most enjoyable part of the day is speaking to other people about their day.

I worked within the retail department and a typical day at work would be go into work at 9am and have a short briefing checking that everyone is in then everyone would collect the floats for the assigned job. Once in my assigned shop we would clumber through stock loads of stuff in the stockroom then complete daily paperwork that consisted of fridge and freezer checks, and making sure floats were put into the tills. The day mainly consisted of being stuck on till and getting rid of the delivery in the stockroom also going out on the barrow sellling stuff in ALL WEATHER. 
I learned how to work a till and say "have a nice day" everytime i served a customer! 
Management wasn't too bad but where most of the managers are young they can be quite crude and try get involved in your business outside of work.
Co-workers were the best thing about working here and the only thing that kept me going throughout the job and most of them ended up leaving. 
Hardest part of the job was working other peoples shifts when you have plans and going out in all weather to work on barrow, and also working in the ice cream van was the worst at 40 degrees on your own selling up  to 1000 ice creams a day. 
Most enjoyable part was talking to customers.

A typical day at work would be assigned to games you either dislike or like you have no choice about that. Displaying stock if you start at 8/9 before the park opens. If you start at 12/1, you get assigned to a game or you either help by giving other people breaks by taking over their game. When we get assigned to the games we check what our target is for that game to make sure we earn that or even more to make bonus for yourself. I learnt unless you have been working there for a long time or have a good relationship with management you get stuck on the good games, but if you've just started out you get stuck on the not so popular games. When you start working with your Co-Workers it is fun, getting to know new people and making friends with new people. Working at the games is fun as you meet customers who can be friendly and nice to talk to when at work. Hardest part of the job can be going on a game you dislike a lot, and sometimes disliking your management because of the choice's they make. At one point my manager forgot to give me a break throughout the whole day and I started work at 8 in the morning and when I complained about it to one of my leaders they had said it is not their fault as they were managing a game. I don't think it was professional at all.

A typical day at work included meeting thousands of guests every day and here there you met grumpy ones so we had to show a tolerating and caring attitude to make sure their visit at the park was worth it.
I learned how to work well under pressure and still maintain high quality customer service. The customer is always right and therefore I always try to work around that fact and try to make sure they are happy.
The management was good and maintained a high standards of discipline however there was bit of prevailing favoritism towards certain employees but that's not my business, so I just did my job as I was supposed to.
My co-workers were all really happy people enjoyable to work with because Thorpe Park employ people with a positive and enthusiastic attitude to work.
The hardest part of the job was probably working 14 hour shifts for a few days in row during fright nights and still having to maintain a enthusiastic approach to work during all working hours.
What I most enjoyed was meeting and talking to new people every time, working with a lot of people, making new friends every time and just being part of the Thorpe culture was something I was proud of.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Mechanical engineer 3 salaries reported	£48,483 per year
Shift leader 9 salaries reported	£13.05 per hour
Electrical engineer 2 salaries reported	£48,959 per year
Security officer 1 salary reported	£13.00 per hour
Production technician 2 salaries reported	£13.87 per hour

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