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Gullivers weekend

Mysterious Sue

Strata Poster
We did it!
Goon achievement unlocked: All the Gullivers in one weekend (plus wheelgate, Southport and Billing). Thanks to everyone that came along and made it a brilliant weekend. Considering the tight schedule, it was pretty much faff free. And a big thanks to Lord Morton for letting us all crash at his mansion. Doubt they’ll read this, but a big thanks to Gullivers is also necessary for letting us in, showing us round and generally giving us the ‘star treatment’ (even if they did think we were there to carry out a risk assement)!

The original plan was to go up on the Friday night, stay in Warwick and grab the new Warwick and Birmingham creds on the Saturday morning before continuing up the country. As it turns out, neither cred opens till eleven, so we postponed our departure till Saturday morning. This meant a 5am wake up call for me. But soon I had a Neal, Ali, Mike and Rachel aboard and we were speeding up the M1 heading for THE NORTH! All weekend we were very lucky with the weather and the traffic. And the short moments of jams provided perfect conditions for Pokemon Go! It didn’t take long to realise that the whole car were Team Mystic - clearly, we are all fab! :D

After a lot of power ballards and some car shuffling (due to the Focus I hired having smaller than expected back seats), we pulled up at our first stop: Gullivers Warrington. We were a little early as I’d told everyone half hour early for the meet (mainly to allow time for me to run late). Here, we teamed up with an eager Dubai Dave, Mouse, Lord Morton and Neo. The staff asked us how many coasters we would like to ride and what they were called. We were a bit perplexed by this and, like terrible goons, couldn’t remember the names of all the creds! As it turns out, another coaster group once caused confusion by asking to ride the disco as well – whores – and they weren’t sure exactly how many coasters they had - bless! The lovely Louise escorted us into the park and let us queue through the exit of each ride and skip the queues. Fab! :D

I'd been to Gullivers Warrington before, although most of the creds here were new for me. Antelope was first up and we could hear the people in the main queue complaining ‘who are they? I though they didn’t have fast pass in this park?’. Haha, spite! I remembered Antelope well for the carousel horse theming and the odd splashdown with no water, but the layout is a bit meh. Neal and I got front row and quickly noticed that the side of the train needed a bit of tlc as it was coming away, exposing the screws. We tried to help by holding it back in place as we went round!

The park is lovely though. All three are perfect for families, quite green and really made me fancy a picnic. They are clean, friendly, the staff are fab and there are loads of interesting things for kids of all ages - in addition to rides, there are loads of interactive things like play areas, animatronic push button characters and cycle tryke things.

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Next up was Crazy Train, the same ride as at Gullivers MK and Adventure Island. It's actually quite fab and picks up a bit of speed here and there. That was followed by the rather tame Runaway Train (which is basically the flat corners from a wild mouse but slow and low down) and my second new cred of the trip, Wriggler (a big apple, one and done).

Walking through the park, some of the group were busy playing Pokemon. When it was discovered that the park was, in fact, full of scythers, I tried to join in too. Alas, I didn't catch one, but I think Mike got two. Spite! I didn't take many photos, so have one of an interesting pokestop in the park.

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After that, Louise took us back to the main gate and told us about her trip to PortAventura and how she really liked Shambala. Fab! So we said our thank yous and goodbyes. I also gave the parks we were visiting some choccies to say thanks (and to make us look nice in case we ever need to return!)

Southport was only an hour away so we decided to spend the evening mopping up the creds there. I've been three or four times now and it's always been bitterly cold with the wind whipping off the sea across the marshes. But today was midsummer and it was almost warm and sunny as we pulled up outside. I've parked in the street before, and the shopping centre, but this time I chose the £2 council parking instead. In the sunshine, the park actually looked quite nice and its improving with every visit. The first time I went it was just an uninspiring muddy field with so travelling creds plonked on it. Now there's green grass and poles with flowers on, more rides, a concrete path, ticket booths and it looks so much more like a park. Some of these things were pokestops and I caught a Ratatta. Southport still has that scummy feel to it but it's looking more like Pleasure Island every day.

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There was a little faff with tokens. Wildcat was being worked on and, in the end, we decided to only get tokens for the other creds and check back with the Wildcat later. Then Dave fancied the ghost train. Then we realised that we had to buy a card for a pound and load tokens onto it. But the card booths only sold £30 cards so we had to find a different ticket booth to buy our lower value cards. Then my card hadn't loaded properly. *sigh*. But soon we were queuing for the Runaway train, the 'cred in a lorry'. It's a bit of a sorry state of a cred really. I'd ridden it before when it was travelling in South West London - when there was a bubble machine to distract me. Here there was no such fun and they had added extra theming of old piles of cred rubbish. Gross.

Just then, the Wildcat reopened. So we went back to the burdenous ticket booth before running to grab the cred before it went down again. I secretly quite like these old Pinfari rides and it was as rickety as I remember lol.

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Then it was a new +1 for me, the Caterpillar. A nice shiny and new big apple :) We had hoped to get the 'new' Pinfari looper as well but sadly it spited and was still under construction.

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So instead we took a group photo in the old Caterpillar train that was just there as random theming. I proceeded to fall out of (or more into) the train which gave everyone a good laugh. Cretins!

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Ghost train times happened. It was better than expected but the sign that suggested there might be actors inside lied. Sad face. Other signs suggested playing Pokemon on the ride was fine though. In fact, one of these guys even looks like Ash! I caught a Pidgy in the station. Good times.

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It's only August and they had some Halloween stuff up already.

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Also, they were building a really **** maze made out of B&Q fencing

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After Southport, we drove to Lord Morton's place where he kindly let my car load crash for the night. I say crash, we all had a bed (or super soft sofa) to ourselves. Such luxury! He also has a fab house with tasteful goon touches and a pachinko machine! Amaze! We stopped on the way to buy beer and to purchase comedy presents for his lordship such as a pizza cutter, Ferrero Rocher and a cake in the shape of a pizza! Sadly, it turns out he doesn't eat sugar so he had to watch the rest of us eat his cake a bit later. Sorry hun x. Anyway, we ended up going to the pub for social times. Morton took us to a place on the river because A: it was a nice pub and B: it had lots of water Pokemon.

After a good catch up and a chin wag, it was time to head off to bed. I was being sociable mostly but did just manage to catch a psyduck, despite my phone battery conking out at the critical moment. #blessed

After a sleep on the most comfortable sofa in the world, it was up early for another cred-cramed day. The morning was a bit faff-filled and we ended up leaving later than planned but, thanks to my lateness buffering, we only ended up being half hour late overall lol. Gullivers Matlock Bath is a fab, fab park. It's probably my favorite of the three tbh because it has the most character. The others are probably more fresh and new but MB is built on a big hill with lots of trees and has this odd winding layout with rides kind of hidden all about the place. Its also in the middle of the Peak District and we had a gorgeous morning drive through green, sunny fields of sheep and even past a small music festival.

We gained a Delpiero and child that morning and bless, he was a sweetie and a little shy at first with all the scary adults around. We were given free reign by the park, just having to let them know when we were done. Fab. First up was the Log Coaster which was a very small thing - one and done.

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Then we headed down the big hill, playing with the interactive stuff on the way like the 'talking apple' and the monkey that tells a terrible joke about 'bannana stairs'. Wtf? Switchback was next. This was quite a good kiddy cred, helped by its elevated position on the hill. It also had a petrifying well in the queue. Because why not?

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Soon we were tracing our path back up the hill in search of shops, toilets and the exit. A short but sweet visit and the staff were fab again :) I caught 0 Pokemon here as I was busy chanelling my inner Ian and trying to make a plan and work out if there was enough time for Weelgate. In the end I decided that there was if I phoned the final Gullivers park and bumped it back by half an hour. Yay! Have some generic park photos.

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So an hour and a half later we all arrived at the Wheelgate car park and were looking longingly at the cred that was clearly visible. All that is, but Will’s car of him, Neal and Ali. Unknown to us, Will had unfortunately driven the wrong way down the motorway for half an hour. Apparently they noticed when they began to recognise the route to Alton Towers *sigh* and made a (rather worryingly quick) retreat. The rest if us meanwhile, waited under the trees and ate a cake and Ferrero Rocher picnic. Neo, Mike and I then also went to try and find a geocache down the road in a pub car park. But the cache was missing and I just came away with tree in my hair.

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Will and Co. turned up as we were returning and we all headed, rather hesitantly, to the entrance. We were concerned that, after all the faff, we wouldn't be allowed in as Wheelgate are notoriously strict with their ‘family only’ policy. But Tom took charge and we just came out with it: 'one child and eleven adults please'. There was an audible intake of breath as all the CFers watched the lady in the booth. But all she said was 'yep' like it was completely normal. Hurrah!

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Off we went to the exclusive High Hazel cred. Sloth, Will's cuddly mascot came out to play and got his first cred.

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Other than that, it was a quick ride and a return straight back out past the entrance booths, filing out one by one, just 14 quid lighter than when we started ten minutes earlier! I think we said goodbye to Mouse at this point while the rest of us headed for THE SOUTH.

It was a couple of hours to Gullivers Milton Keynes and Rachel found a fab 90s play list to while away the time while we had an uncharacteristically grown up conversation about life insurance! The M1 was graceous and we were soon arriving at Milton Keynes and gaining a Smithy and girlfriend (whose name I've forgotten, very sorry).

While waiting for Delpiero to arrive, the rest of us talked to the gate staff who, strangely, didn't have a clue why we were there. Apparently, head office hadn't passed on the memo. There was lots of phoning people and toing-and-froing into the back office and showing my phone to people about emails. In the end though, all was fine and the fab staff let us roam free for the last hour of the day :) Delpiero appeared and we all headed off into the final of the three Gullivers parks.

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First up was Twist and Joust - an actually fab small spinner themed to knights. It's clean and bright and I liked the theme which was novel for a spinner and worked well. There were even soom good forces on one of the final corners, especially when a small child was positioned opposite Dave Arnold with me and Delpiero in tow :) Then there was Runaway Train where the ride op mocked us at length for wanting to ride a kiddie cred. I was busy trying to hide from the infringing conifer branches which I'm allergic to. We also did the Python which I don't remember much about as we were being rather speedy.

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Finally, we entered the cheese cred in a shed: Crazy Mouse. I only knew that it was indoors - that was it. I didn't realise it had fab theming of giant furniture around the cred to make you feel like a small mouse. You get one lap in the light and then another in the dark with spotlights illuminating everything in UV paint. Fab. As it was the last ride of the day, the ride op let us go round again and then threw in an extra two circuits with all the lights completely off. Fab! A great way to end our final Gullivers visit :D We were glad to get back outside again though as the cred shed was hotter than the sun and the breeze was delicious. The naff dark ride was closed so we all wandered back to the entrance where a fab camp end of day show was going on involving singing mouse characters. We watched for a bit before saying our goodbyes to Smithy (it was so fab to finally meet you properly) and Delpiero and Child (who had come out of his shell a bit and officially shook everyone’s hand on leaving! It was so fab. I think that officially makes him a CFer now!) :D

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The rest of us continued on to the final park/cred of the trip, half hour away at Billing Aquadrome.

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This is the third time I’ve had the delight of visiting this concrete monstrosity of a park and I had my sights permenantly set on dinner to be honest. Haven’t you all got the damn thing by now?! As we arrived, there was a Land Rover festival going on and loads were driving about the place. I parked up in the nearby car park for Fayre and Square, rather than pay the ridiculous Billing fee.

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Then we all rendezvoused at the cred, apart from Will’s car again! Not sure where he went this time, but there was cred anxiety incase the park closed at 6pm, so everyone got on the cred and rang the shame bell for the final time.

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We killed some time waiting for Will’s car to show up, so messed about in the amusements and went for a long walk to find the toilets through this amazingly themed post-apocalyptic walkway. Maybe they have the rights to Day After Tommorrow or something?

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Anyway, the others finally arrived and did their tour of shame and we finally called it a wrap!! All the creds managed and no large amount of cred anxienty the whole weekend – I call that a success!

Just time then to retreat to the Fayre and Square for dinner. Dubai Dave left us then, but we had nine I think for dinner times. Yay! However, the place was totally rammed. We joined a qhuge for the bar, which didn’t move for ten minutes, before bailing and driving to the local Harvester instead. I don’t normally go a bundle on Harvesters and their limp, brown salads, but this one had been rebranded and the food was actually quite nice. I had battered mozzarella sticks, yum! There was also a Pokemon gym there and a few of us battled away for Team Mystic. I got my first Pokemon in a gym for like five seconds haha! I’m a bit behind because I was away for two weeks when it first came out.

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Neal told some terrible jokes and I had some much needed caffeine before placing Sloth in many silly places. Finally, it was time to say our goodbyes. I had a full Focus again on the way home and we spent it singing Disney songs at full volume as is tradition. Got home about midnight which is fairly early for a CF trip! I’m always sad when a trip is over and this was no exception. Loads of silly antics, terrible creds and great people :D Roll on Sweden….!!! I’ll just leave you with some highlights and injokes:

- Neal making Ali believe that Lord Morton really was a Lord
- Checking out Lord Morton’s cutlery
- Mike teaching Dubai how to play Pokemon
- ALL the Pokemon playing
- Me sliding in my socks on Lord Morton’s floor and falling on my arse
- ‘Release the headrest!’
- Sloth getting the creds
- Kakuna Ratatta, Kakuna Ratatta to the tune of Hakuna Matata
 

davidm

Strata Poster
Yay, special thanks to Sue for organising everything and the TR (even if the days got a bit confused there ; honestly I thought you at least sub-editted these things - Monday??).

and I had such a nice time that I didn't want it to end so I swept up Wicksteed and the burdenous Birmingham ones and WMSP before I went home :)
 

Smithy

Strata Poster
This is why I said we should just stick with "Girlfriend of Smithy", it's so much easier :D

Great job at getting everything done (including Billing, think we were behind you on the M1 for most of the way), was a laugh and can't believe we managed to get everything done.

I forgot to ask what the sloth was about, I've got both a sloth t-shirt and a jumper I considered wearing but figured it was a bit much, if only I'd known!

Was nice meeting more of you, hopefully next time it won't be as we rush around with cred anxiety.

And again, huge thanks to Sue for organising this all with Gullivers, and making us feel immediately welcome and part of the group.
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
Impressive stuff, getting around the country and to so many places in such a short amount of time! I would've loved to get the Warrington creds but had a prior arrangement for the 30th. I still intend to borrow a friend's kids at some point to enable me to get on the Antelope though! :D
 

Ian

From CoasterForce
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
So gutted I had to sack this off. It's not because I needed the creds, but I love challenges like this.
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
Had a great time with everyone on the Sunday. Got to meet a few new faces and got to see a load of fab people again.
Jesse really enjoyed himself, especially on Python, he's starting to like the taller creds now. I'll have to organise a Warrington trip next year I think.
Thanks for organising Sue, and sorry about the MK faff.
 

Will

Strata Poster
Apologies for the necro-posting, but how have I only just found this?!
By way of recompense, here is Sue with a sloth on her head. Sloth got 5 creds that day, but is still bitter about being left in the hotel room in Gothenburg.
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Despite just having read the report, I don't remember much of the day, aside from being a MASSIVE burden and accidentally setting my satnav for Alton Towers instead of Wheelgate and getting as far as Ashbourne before Neal realised my mistake. I was also very tired in the evening; Neo fell asleep before we reached the M1, but happily I did not.
 
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