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Pleasurewood Hills and Great Yarmouth 5th July

DelPiero

Strata Poster
After a nice relaxing week at Center Parcs, I decided that Pleasurewood Hills needed to be visited, as it's only 90 mins from Thetford.
We stayed the night at the Travelodge round the corner and got to the nice quiet park for opening.

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There were a couple of characters at the entrance greeting everyone, SonofTom was not particularly impressed.

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Wipeout had a minor queue and hadn't run yet so we wandered down to Snake in the Grass/Rattlesnake, whatever it's actually called.

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As it was extremely quiet, I plumped for a couple of rides on the back row before hopping off to look after the kids while the wife had a couple of laps. I liked the lift hill through the tunnel and the first drop was better than average. I also like the swooping through the trees/grass. Just a shame that the seats are rock hard, 2 rides was enough. - 5/10

SonofTom got excited by the Balloon ride so we gave that a whirl.

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Then I found some fab theming

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Reeled in by this masterpiece I got in line for Wipeout.

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Having learnt my lesson from other rides on boomerangs I went for a mid train ride, 4th car I believe. I was pleasantly surprised, there was a minor jolt through the first part of the cobra, but very minor, and no other roughness through the rest of the layout. Apart from the latch onto the chain, which was a bit nasty.
The reverse was pretty good considering, braced throughout but only the minor cobra jolt was the only downpoint. The forces were also pretty good, but not overbearing to instigate the normal headache. - 6/10

Rather chuffed that i'd finally had a decent ride on a boomerang we moved on to the kiddy rides.

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The Veteran Car ride makes no sense. There are Fish and Octopus during the drive round, very strange.

It was drizzling at this point so the wife and kids took shelter in the Tea Rooms while I wandered over to Hobs Pit

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Only to find it closed until 12:00. It was 11:30 so made my way to Marble Madness

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Only to find it closed until 12:00 as was only open for VIPs in the morning.

So I snagged the boy and we rode the carousel instead!

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It was nearing 12 and a couple of people were starting to queue for Hobs Pit, so I got in line while the wife took the kids to the playground area. Hung about for 10 mins and they opened up, and stood in the queue line waiting to be taken through by the evil miner.

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I liked it, went with a couple of young girls who are always good value as they get scared by anything, but was a tad disappointed with the amount of actors. Not going to ruin it for anyone else as these are always better once seen first hand.

Next up was the new for 2014 coaster Marble Madness, which had finally opened to the public.

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It was pretty boring, very standard and an orange paint job and minion cars doesn't change what it is. I found nothing which made me want a re ride, even the mother and daughter behind me screeching wasn't enough to enjoy it. +1. - 5/10

SonofTom was having fun in the playground and DaughterofTom was being fed, surely now was the time for the fab Fabbri.

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Best ride at the park, can totally understand why Scarlet sat on this nearly all day. Lovely airtime all the way down the drop, just a shame you have to leave your seat when they bring the cage down. So, so Pleasurable.

Decided to knock off the final cred, Enigma.

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This is a **** **** coaster.

It looks great, trains are nice, but the pain....... nasty shoving into the sides of the car on every turn and the worst brakes ever. Never before have I hit the seat in front with my head or thought that my body would snap it two, but this did.

So **** ****. - 2/10

Determined to not let that piece of crap be the main point of reference from the trip I went back on Jolly Roger for a couple more drops, which were amazing.

Then we went on the boat ride, Tales of the Coast.

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Nice concept but really needs some tlc, some of the speakers don't work, same with some lighting, and the cardboard cutouts are a bit naff, but it was a nice comfortable trip along the river and into a dark ride. Pleasant.

We also took a trip on the train which was rather uneventful.

At this point we had had enough of PWH, the kids were tired and there were other creds up the road. The park is nice enough, but on a quiet day it's easy to run out of things to do. There's a decent quantity and diverse rides, but lacks a good coaster, the fact that I believe the boomerang is the best coaster in the park says it all. The Fabbri is brilliant though and Hobs Pit has potential, but the park reminds me of Paultons, just without Peppa Pig World or a good cred.

Moving on, a quick 25 min drive into Great Yarmouth brought us to the Pleasure Beach. With the boy asleep and the girl needing yet another feed I was told to go have fun and report back when done.

First up was the Big Apple.

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This was the cleanest Apple i'd seen, other than that +1

150th coaster time

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I loved this! Yeah, it has a load of boring turnarounds and isn't overly fast but some of the drops and hills gave some really nice and (in the back row) forceful airtime. Throughout the turnarounds i was grinning abou the lovely ejector I'd just experienced. By no means is it a world class coaster but good fun and can' believe it's taken so long to ride it. - 7/10

Next up was the spinner Family Star

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One of the worst spinners I've been on, short and boring, trimmed to hell as well. - 3/10

As I was in the area, it would have been rude to skip Joyland, so walked 1.2 miles up the parade to pick up the little ones.

Vampire Time

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Very spooky, scared the bajeezus out of me. +1 - 4/10

Final cred of the day was Tyrolean TubTwist

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Very unique, if not the most thrilling it is certainly the most disorientating ride I've been on in a long time. Was very wobbly getting off, but not in a pukey way. - 5/10 for spinnyness

GY is really just a cred run, apart from Roller Coaster which i'm sure i'll re ride when i'm back in the area.
All in all it was a good day.
 

Twister Zone

Roller Poster
Enigma was rough but I still quite liked it. Great pics DelPiero. I just got back from there myself, enjoyed the hell out of the old Rollercoaster. :)
 
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