Thorpe Park is banning visitors from putting their hands in the air while riding its rollercoasters following complaints about body odour.
The new rule will apply at the theme park in Chertsey, Surrey, from Wednesday and signs will tell visitors to keep their arms down and ‘Say no to BO’.
With temperatures expected to reach 84F (29C), managers expect an excess of perspiration as visitors queue to go on rides.
Wardens on the rides will also remind people to consider their fellow passengers and anyone ignoring the warnings will be escorted off. Those who continue to do so will be asked to leave the park.
Mike Vallis, a director at Thorpe Park, said: “We’ve found that when the temperature tops 77F (25C) the level of unpleasant smells can become unacceptable and we do receive complaints.
“Our rides are really scary and people tend to sweat more than normal due to the fear and anticipation they experience while queueing up so it can get really pongy. Therefore, we felt a ban in temperatures of 25C plus would be the best way to ensure our guests have the most enjoyable experience and aren’t exposed to any unsavoury armpits.”
Telegraph (Thanks Ferkle)
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omg thats the stupidest thing i ever heard…. would have been better if thorpe park installed deoderant spray points by the ride cameras! haha! x
haha thats hilarious surely your going far too fast to smell the person next to you haha x
Good grief, how completely & utterly ridiculous!
LC x
Somebody needs lessons on how to use photoshop.
Hardly convincing.
This is an absolutley absurd thing to do. What is this world coming to where you can\’t stick your bloody hands up and a ride… next you won\’t be able to take your shoes off on Nemisis at Alton Towers! Whats worse is the fact that people are actually complaining about this. Can you imagine these people getting off the ride with the most disgusted face on then going over to the ride operator to say \”That ride smelt pretty bad. Can you ban people from raising their arms please?\” But whats worse is that thorpe park deemed it necessary to actually do so!!! Absolutely rediculous!
lol is it wrong that I find this rather funny?! But also rather stupid, I can see a few complaints coming their way!
haha is this for real, are they gonna drag people of the ride when its moving, as no one really puts there hands up until the ride starts anyways lol
@Chris It is actually real – I saw the signs a few days ago.
I read an article about this a while back, and I thought it was the silliest thing I’d ever heard. I don’t ever recall smelling ANYTHING on a roller coaster, let alone someone’s armpits. If you’re sitting there on a coaster and sniffing away, I think the experience is somewhat lost on you…Maybe they should offer complimentary deoderant at the front gates
I think they’re attacking this from the wrong perspective… instead of “saying no to BO” why not “say yes to complementary bubblebath on the logflume”??
Aren’t most rollercoasters outside in open air? I wouldn’t have thought that raising your arms outside would cause much problem.
What if you raise your arms in other parts of the open air park?
It’s ALL open air….. Are they just going to limit which areas of the open air park you can raise your arms in? Have “No Arm raising” areas, and areas where you are free to raise arms as often and in the most flaily way that you fancy?
That’s just crazy talk.
Hmmmm do you think they may ban people screaming too, just in case they are sick ? That’s smells far worse ! And a pain to get out your hair . (Well the chunks are)
I think Thorpe Park regularly release stupid news stories in the summer – which nicely merges newspaper silly season with the park’s peak season – to generate free publicity. And it always works. Well done for becoming a PR distribution channel for them.
If only they enstated this in the US. But you’d literally have to kick the smelly people out, then again theme parks would go out of business if they did that.
yeah, really…the only thing i think i’d ever smell on a roller coaster is the pee in my pants! :0
this is ridiculous but hilarious, i love the way the woman is sniffing her armpit just to be sure. lol
Thats the most ridiculous thing I’ve read all day.
Why don’t they just sell rip off Deodrant with all of their rip off food. They’d rake it in, people would smell better, and we could all still throw our arms in the air = Everyone happy!
Why do I always have to think of these things?!
LOL – Also ban parping in cinemas, with the introductory ‘Please turn all mobile phones off, and refrain from burping after drinking our overpriced coke, oh and pop a cork in it’. These are natural bodily functions, and sweat tends to accompany adrenaline.
I think they should enforce this ban on trams and trains instead. I’ve been on the tram so many times and ended up with someone’s smelly armpit in my face the whole ride. Why can’t people just carry around a mini can of deodorant with them? D:
Finally!!!! We want BO everywhere!
Yeah, quite dumb .. I”d say to prevend them from becoming too smelly … let the air blow them dry !!! Imagine what happens in there, under your arms, when you don’t put them up ….. fungus and stuff will love it there .. and as it is not sealed location the smell will escape from there quite easily … And then they are like those little farts that are being sort of squeezed out .. to keep em as small as possible .. those stink the most .. or the soundless ones … It’s ones that go out with a big bang that don’t smell at all … (scared the hell out of surrouding life forms but hey …). We need to strap those arms down, or even better, give them one of those white suits …… or an austronat suit ..
It’s the fat kids that sweat more. They should have weight restrictions as opposed to height restrictions ! Then we’ll see whether it smells or not… We need to cut down on obesity as a nation!
On a serious note though, that’s ridiculous !
alternitively they could hand out cans of sure! lol