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Flamingo Land | Sik | Intamin 10 Inversion Coaster | 2022

cocoa said:
Surely there will be a large portion of guests who've been to thorpe before and will remember the back-to-back inline rolls and think somethings up.
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Certainly not. I live in Lancashire which is ever so slightly closer to Thorpe than FL and I hardly know any non-enthusiasts who have been to Thorpe due to how far away it is and Towers being closer, let alone both Thorpe and FL.
 
maybe its my australia/US brain kicking in, because it is really so not far between those places in my head haha. i'm pretty sure the gold coast parks up in queensland are farther away from me than the entire length of england :p
 
Countries with a larger land mass think much less of travelling longer than you'll spend there. Its a very different scale in the UK. You can travel just a few hours and encounter a delightful but baffling accent. Even the upcoming Disko at Drayton will be novel and special to many.
 
cocoa said:
maybe its my australia/US brain kicking in, because it is really so not far between those places in my head haha. i'm pretty sure the gold coast parks up in queensland are farther away from me than the entire length of england :p
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emoo said:
Countries with a larger land mass think much less of travelling longer than you'll spend there. Its a very different scale in the UK. You can travel just a few hours and encounter a delightful but baffling accent. Even the upcoming Disko at Drayton will be novel and special to many.
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Indeed. In 'big' countries like Murica and Oz it can be 100 miles to the next town and to get there you take one, single, straight, high speed road. Here in England-on-the-Wold, to get to a town 100 miles away you have to drive through, around, under and over half a dozen other towns and villages, all with their associated traffic problems, speed restrictions and diversions (not to mention potholes 🤬). Therefore Brits hardly ever need to travel more than 100 miles for anything (except us goons) so generally, we just don't. I'm sure I read somewhere once that there is no spot in the entire UK that is more than 100 miles from the nearest coast! So yeah, as far as the average Brit is concerned, Colossus and this thing may as well be on different continents.
 
The nice thing about the Gold Coast parks is they're such a short distance from eachother than it makes Thorpe, Chessie and Lego seem like a marathon!
 
I think everyone is giving the public a bit too much credit here.

There a quite a lot of guests who ask us about the ride, what will it be like, when will it be open etc. But almost none of them ever make the connection to Colossus.

The rare few who do recognise the layout actually know that this one is the updated version and are looking forward to riding it, they don't really speak very highly of Colossus though.

In contrast though, the number of people that refer to Cliffhanger as Ice Blast is amazing, and that still doesn't stop them riding it.
 
As @Howie said, we Brits don’t tend to travel too far within the country for day trips. From my perspective, as someone who lives in Gloucestershire (which for non-Brits is in the upper part of the South West; the next county north from us, Worcestershire, is considered part of the Midlands), the general rule seems to be that anywhere further north than Alton Towers, further south than the top part of Devon or further east than our side of London isn’t on the table for a day trip; as far as my parents and most other southwesterners are concerned, those places don’t exist unless you’re doing a multi-day trip or a longer trip to the general area.

Also, I’m convinced that very few down here have actually heard of Flamingo Land; for some perspective, I think that very few people I know would have heard of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, or at least assumed it was a park of the scale that it is, had I not been there for a weekend, and my family certainly wouldn’t have heard of Icon had I not told them about it. My mum knew about BPB, as she’d been there as part of a Blackpool hen do in 1997, but I think most of my family would have associated BPB with the likes of Weston Pier as opposed to the top-tier UK parks.

My parents thought that Flamingo Land was in Dorset when I told them about the new coaster; it turns out that they were confusing it with Monkey World, which is in Dorset (https://monkeyworld.org/), and had never heard of the Flamingo Land in Yorkshire.

I wasn’t even asking them if we could go during this conversation, but only telling them about the ride in passing (as I knew Yorkshire would be too far for a day trip), but as soon as I mentioned the ride was in Yorkshire, my parents gave a firm “we’re not going”, and my mum also shuddered in horror when I mentioned that it was a Colossus clone… not even the lap bars and reprofiled drop made it sound more appealing!
 
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HeartlineCoaster said:
I can't help but shudder at the thought of some of these stories of yours, the differences in perception of journey times and effort levels always fascinate me.
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What makes you say that, out of interest?

In fairness, from where I’m based, Flamingo Land is not an insignificant drive; the fastest route is presently 4h 2m according to Maps. For some idea; to get into Alton Towers (fastest route currently listed as 2h 25m) for opening time and spend a reasonable day there, we have to get up at 6am, and don’t usually end up arriving home until fairly late (7-8pm, perhaps?), so I certainly think Flamingo would be a tough park to day trip from down here.

My parents are willing to stay near places further away if they deem the park “worth the trip” (for instance, they’re more than happy to book into the Big Blue for 2 nights if I want to visit Pleasure Beach), but when I mentioned that kiddie coasters made up a significant proportion of Flamingo Land’s coaster selection, I think that made it a tough sell.

They are starting to get a little into the enthusiast mindset, though, as my dad’s first question whenever I mention a park we haven’t visited is “how many credits?”.
 
Matt N said:
my dad’s first question whenever I mention a park we haven’t visited is “how many credits?”
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That is rather awesome.

Matt N said:
What makes you say that, out of interest?
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Just the way it was described as an almost instinctual reaction to the word Yorkshire (which technically could only be a couple of hours away and closer than blackpool, it's big bunch of counties). I've experienced that from others quite a lot through both family and work. Sounds like your parents have established their limits based on experience rather than assumption though, which is perfectly understandable.
I guess this and the Holiday Park consideration discussion remind me of a time when things felt far away or difficult. And then, you know me, obsession kicks in.
 
sometimes I forget that this is a UK-centric forums. glad I started this discussion tho lol.

for what its worth, I do reckon people know blackpool pleasure beach, more than the rest...mainly because I have non-enthusiast friends here who actually have heard about it. I think blackpool has notoriety outside the world of theme parks. maybe they went on geordie shore or something? lol
 
cocoa said:
sometimes I forget that this is a UK-centric forums. glad I started this discussion tho lol.

for what its worth, I do reckon people know blackpool pleasure beach, more than the rest...mainly because I have non-enthusiast friends here who actually have heard about it. I think blackpool has notoriety outside the world of theme parks. maybe they went on geordie shore or something? lol
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Blackpool Pleasure Beach has Rich history. Don't have to be a coaster enthusiast to know where The Big Dipper, Grand National and The Big One are located. Pleasure Beach has been a staple piece of British tourism for 100 plus years which span many generations. Can have about 3 or 4 generations of your family talking about a memory of The Pleasure Beach.
The place is Iconic.
 
God have mercy said:
Blackpool Pleasure Beach has Rich history. Don't have to be a coaster enthusiast to know where The Big Dipper, Grand National and The Big One are located. Pleasure Beach has been a staple piece of British tourism for 100 plus years which span many generations. Can have about 3 or 4 generations of your family talking about a memory of The Pleasure Beach.
The place is Iconic.
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Living in the south BPB never entered our head when I was younger although we visited AT several times, probably due to their much more national advertising. I didn't even know BPB existed when I was a kid and I'd certainly never heard of any of the rides. For most people theme park visits are a very local thing (or Alton Towers).
 
Blackpool is also a very working class resort.
Many of my posh gardening customers in the Ribble Valley have never, ever, been to Blackpool in their lives, despite being only 30 miles away.
St Annes and Lytham, two or three miles south, fine, and Thornton Cleveleys, three miles north, perfectly acceptable.
But Blackpool? Never!
 
For what it’s worth, a lot of my family (other than me, my mum and my dad, who visited BPB in 2018 and 2019) have a surprisingly negative view of Blackpool, and I know few, if any, people down here who’ve been to the Pleasure Beach, and few who’ve even heard of it. Or if they have heard of it, not many assume it to be a park of the scale that it is.

A lot of my extended family seemed to shudder in horror when I first mentioned wanting to go to Blackpool, telling me about how it was a dreadful, tacky place filled with drunk people and crime, and I also get the impression that if they’d even heard of Pleasure Beach, they associated it more with places like Brean Theme Park and Weston Pier than places like Alton Towers and Thorpe Park. Having now been to Blackpool, I’ll admit that I don’t personally think this reputation is entirely justified from what I’ve seen of the town, but rightly or wrongly, I definitely think Blackpool has somewhat of a stigma surrounding it down here that makes it seem less appealing, at least among certain groups.

Also, Pleasure Beach is not a theme park that many people here in the South West tend to have visited or even really have in their conscious. Many, many people I know have visited Alton Towers and Thorpe Park, and the likes of Chessington, Legoland, Drayton Manor, Paultons and Oakwood also get a few nods as well, but Pleasure Beach doesn’t really seem to enter the conversation down here. Whenever I hear non-enthusiasts around here talk about UK theme parks, Alton Towers and Thorpe Park are mentioned a lot, Legoland gets mentioned a bit, Drayton Manor gets mentioned a fair amount, and places like Chessington, Paultons (or more specifically, “Peppa Pig World”) and Oakwood also occasionally get mentioned, but I never seem to hear Blackpool thrown into the ring.
 
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^ I live reasonably close to Blackpool.

It's had a bad reputation for years. Rightly so, if I'm totally honest.

Don't get me wrong, I like Blackpool. It has its own unique charm, and a lot of potential. Without being too political, the town has been bogged down by the wrong kind of tourism, varying waves of poverty and integral infrastructure has received less and less funding over the years. My friend lives round the corner from me and works in the CID. He is called to Blackpool more or less every week to cover for them because they don't have the numbers to deal with the amount of incidents they get. He always tells me that Blackpool has the crime rate of a big city.

Round here, people still frequent a handful of Blackpool's main attractions (BPB, Tower, Sandcastle etc) but tend to avoid the streets, particularly at night.
 
Blackpool, the true English Riviera! 😉

I'm from Brighton and I know of more people having been to Blackpool than even Alton Towers. People here love a bit of Blackpool! As for Flamingo Land - I used to live in York and I don't think I once ever mentioned it to someone without being asked what it was. That's half an hour down the road 😂

Honestly, I really don't think Blackpool is half as bad as people make out. If you wanna see what a rough seaside town really looks like - head to Clacton on Sea. My god. It's the seaside town that Every Day Is Like Sunday should have been about!
 
Fleetwood_Mack said:
Blackpool, the true English Riviera! 😉

I'm from Brighton and I know of more people having been to Blackpool than even Alton Towers. People here love a bit of Blackpool! As for Flamingo Land - I used to live in York and I don't think I once ever mentioned it to someone without being asked what it was. That's half an hour down the road 😂

Honestly, I really don't think Blackpool is half as bad as people make out. If you wanna see what a rough seaside town really looks like - head to Clacton on Sea. My god. It's the seaside town that Every Day Is Like Sunday should have been about!
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I do think generally speaking, most British seaside towns are pretty roughshod these days. It's piss poor that the government have more or less just forgotten about them over the best part of 2-3 decades. Mostly ghost towns now in comparison to yesteryear.

I reckon you can make an argument that Blackpool, in the right weather, whilst in season, and sticking mainly to the prom and town centre, is not the worst seaside town. That is until you dig a bit deeper, go beyond the main 'hub' and into the back streets and suburbs.

Honestly, there's a lot of absolutely vile areas. Like properly vile. So many buildings that are literally crumbling like the Bronx in the 70's. A lot of dirt and decay generally. There's some bloke who was recently in a video about his charity in Blackpool. Quite interesting.

I think the fact that Blackpool still has a lot of character and atmosphere supported by actual attractions and things to do can cloak the wider social issues.
But it's definitely still there, just speak to the locals (most of whom still love the place, but recognise the problems).

Apologies, this is completely off topic.

So yeah, Flamingoland... 😂
 
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