Thorpe Shark Cabins — Attraction in Borough of Runnymede

I booked a 2 day package with overnight stay in the Shark Cabins for three adults commencing 11 September. The total price was £199.00 which included 2 day pass, 2 day parking, overnight accommodation and breakfast. I thought that was excellent value.

We arrived just after 11:30 on the first day so left our luggage in the car and went straight onto the park. As the kids were back at school, the park wasn’t busy so with the exception of Hyperia, queue times for the rides ranged from 5-10 minutes. The Hyperia averaged around 30-40 minutes but not excessive.

After a day on the park, we checking into the hotel at 5:00pm just as the park was closing. There was no queues at Reception and the whole checking process took no more than 5 minutes. The reception staff were helpful and friendly. We got wrist bands so we could walk around after hours, a parking pass for the barriers upon exit and Fast Track Passes, valid for 1 hour between 10-11am the following day. I told her we’d be leaving the park later to eat so she gave me a second car park pass. Leaving and returning to the park after hours was simple, just walked up to the security gate and showed our wrist bands.

The shark cabins are quite compact, but they don’t hide this fact, but we found them comfortable enough for an overnight stay, just as a place to sleep and shower. The room was clean and warm and the beds were comfortable with fresh clean bedding. There was a TV and tea and coffee facilities in the room and the Reception team were extremely friendly and gave us extra supples of milk, sugar, teabags coffee and hot chocolate. There was a small wet room type shower, basin and toilet, again very compact but adequate. The Dome remained open all night with extra toilet facilities just in case you were conscious about using the toilet in such a confined space.

Just one thing to point out, the rooms are directly under Heathrow Airports departure corridor so the larger planes are quite low and loud overhead but they stop departures between midnight and 6:00am. If you like planes, you’ll love it, if you’re a light sleeper, pack earbuds.

Breakfast was served in the Vibes Bar, but again as the kids are back at school it wasn’t busy so we didn’t have to book a breakfast slot, so just walked in around 9:00am and found a table. The food was ok and catered for most. I had a full english to set me up for the day. The restaurant was clean and tables were cleared quickly.

We used our Fast Track passes for the first hour, but as the park was generally quiet there wasn’t really any need, but I imagine this would be totally different in the middle of July when the park is rammed. Hyperia was closed for the first hour which was disappointing but it reopened later with average queue times of around 40 minutes.

We spent two full days on the park and went on all the major rides at least 2-3 times each with minimal queue times, although this will differ at busy times. Food and drinks on the park are expensive but predictable as they have a captive audience and is no different from Blackpool Pleasure Beach or Alton Towers.

We all had a fantastic time and will be returning next year, again in early September to catch the last of the weather without all the queues.

I though the two day trip was excellent value for money, however I feel hotel residents should receive Fast Track Passes valid for the entire day, instead of just...

Stayed here for 2 nights in July 2022 after previous visit in 2021.

I'll talk about the cabins and the stay in the resort separately;

Cabins themselves are actually quite good; small but fine for 2 people, any more might be a bit of a squeeze.

Good points - excellent aircon, comfortable bed, good shower and decent price, kettle for hot drink, good sized TV.

Bad points - no window (other than the door) could feel a bit claustrophobic, ventilation system does pull through some smells from other rooms - our cabin smelled a fair bit like weed after night one from some other guests enjoying a smoke elsewhere in the area. Shower/wet room does leak out under the door if no towel put down, also top tip - remove the toilet roll before showering!

Staying on the Resort:

Having previously stayed, we were very disappointed to find the Infinity Bar had changed to "Vibes" and changed the menu. Previously, there was a decent menu to order from and the price was pretty good for the London area.

However, all this has changed - there is now ONLY a buffet with a very limited choice. Food is clearly cooked in large batches and left to sit under lukewarm lights so is on the point of being cold. This is for £20 per person - food quality is awful and this is your only option for eating within the resort after close. The staff are indifferent to the fact that the food is awful and cold.

If you are travelling with someone with an allergy, again, avoid Vibes. The free-for-all nature means you can't be sure that you aren't picking up any cross-contamination - again, staff indifferent to the fact you'd get sick or very unwell if you did risk it.

If you are thinking of eating later in the park, BEWARE - all food outlets claim to stay open to closing time, but they don't. KFC refused to serve any food past 18:45 on a 19:00 park close day, Pizza/Pasta was closed by 17:00.

The best option is to order a takeaway to deliver to the front entrance as at least you'll get what you want and at a decent price. But again, there isn't much room inside your cabin to eat and only a few picnic tables outside to use - these are in the open so if it's raining, you're out of luck.

Breakfast is a buffet affair, but it's decent and the food pretty good.

Also, beware of "Private Functions". The cabins are located right next to the function suite and offer little sound proofing. While we stayed, Stormzy was having his birthday party, meaning VERY loud music until midnight.

Reception won't tell you about this.

When asking, the response was basically "tough" - they value the business of private events over normal paying punters.

They offered a single fast track as "compensation" but that's fairly pointless if you are leaving the next day, and if you stay there you are already getting an hour free fast pass anyway.

Would we stay again? Yes, but 100% avoid trying to eat here - just order in and hope the weather is nice enough to sit outside (or you'll be...

The fire alarm went off at 2.30am. It was so loud it scared the life out of us, we had all struggled to get back to sleep before it went off the second time at 4am so we barely had any sleep that night. At reception I was told that it was due to the rooms getting too hot, so there should be warnings up. The reception said they would extend everyone’s fast pass for an extra hour but we already had these so wouldn’t benefit us at all. I was told this would be investigated with the manager and I would be contacted for suitable compensation. This was around 8am, at this time I also explained I wanted to take my belongings back to my car but not check out yet and was told this was ok. After breakfast around 9.15am my son wanted to go back to our room to use the toilet. When we went back to our room the cleaner was in there stripping all the bedding. We had not checked out yet and had left the sign on the door showing sleeping so they should have not been in our room. I tried to explain this to the cleaner but he couldn’t understand me, when I went to reception they checked and confirmed that as we hadn’t checked out yet no one should have been in there. Reception confirmed this would also be investigated and my details were taken for someone to get back to me. We left the park early on the 2nd day as everyone was tired and my husband was concerned about the drive on the motorway with such a lack of sleep. The whole experience in the shark hotel ruined our short break for us. The management never did bother to contact me so I wrote an email to complain. They responded with vouchers to use if I returned, I then escalated it with the Guest experience management team saying why should I spend more money to come back to get a lot less value than that in some vouchers for lunch but they basically said they wouldn’t be offering anything else.

I am disgusted that I wasn’t given a partial refund for the poor accommodation and service but even worse that they just didn’t care about customer satisfaction, they just happily take your money regardless of the quality you receive.

The male public toilets in the dome were disgusting as well there was no locks on the door and no toilet roll.

On top of all this in the evening we stayed we went to the grill and bar for our dinner, the menu choice is quite limited anyway but when I went up to order children’s ham, egg and chips I was told they no longer served this but hadn’t got round to taking it off the menu. After some persuasion we managed to get my son to change it to a prawn cocktail then after 10 minutes someone came over to say they had run out of that as well. When you have fussy eaters it is made even worse to offer them something you don’t have.

I would go into the park for the day but I would never recommend anyone to waste their money staying there, you would get much better value staying at a hotel near...