Slamming Coastercore
Mega Poster
Well... *sigh* it had to be done eventually.
Unless Lightwater Valley decides to reopen The Ultimate, to me Oakwood Theme Park is arguably the last park in the UK I needed to visit with intriguing coasters. I like a Eurofighter and a 'decent' woodie so a trip to Oakwood has been on the cards for a while. That being said, tales of woe pour out of this place at a faster rate than Matt N likes a new post, so I wasn't in a major rush to visit. (Never change Matt, your likes are welcome here). Nevertheless, a trip to the west of England was required this Saturday just gone; and with time to kill plus Oakwood only being a tantalizing 2 hour drive each way from where I was staying, my excuses for putting it off any longer had run dry.
As we neared the date, weather reports of absolute downpour added to the dread of what I expected to be an already lackluster experience, and the drive over only seemed to confirm this. So you can imagine my delight when only 10 minutes from the park the rainclouds stopped and whilst the skies were grey, it was dry. This was my first little pang of optimism. Forecast rain usually means crowd numbers will be low and if we could have a quiet park on a Saturday in school holidays whilst also staying dry... we could get really lucky here. The second pang was upon seeing the skyline; Speed and Drenched towering over the Welsh countryside. I won't lie, I did have a little happy outburst upon seeing a skyline of this 'new-to-me' park as it looked so much better than I had initially anticipated. By this point I had a smile firmly plastered on my face, and memories of all the dire TR's/reviews I had read all seemed to have washed away. We parked up and headed towards the entrance, a sight spring in my step.
The entrance was playing nice theme park-y (that is the technical term, right?) music and we were greeted by a friendly member of staff asking us to sanitize our hands. Enforced cleanliness, attempts at atmosphere and good customer service, this doesn't seem like the Oakwood I've heard so much about. The toilets in the entrance building and the little train (I assumed designed to take you into/around the park) were both unavailable. Not to worry, I thought, the next toilets weren't far and I can live without the train (blissfully ignorant optimism continues).
Despite two trivial 'spites', the entrance had been a source of hope for better things to come. As we left to head into the main park though, the music began to quieten, stealing the atmosphere away with it. The slightly cracked and uneven path on the way there did little to maintain the hopes I had for this place and with Speed being the only ride we had even heard or seen operating; the reality of where we had journeyed to had begun settling in.
Right. I'm in the park. What can I see?
Drenched! That looks pretty tall and imposing... no water running. It's shut.
Ooh the first cred, Creepy Crawler! Ahh it's not that big, but oh well plus o... the train is stuck on the lift hill and empty.
Hmmm...
Look, there is the top of a drop/shot tower over there! I love tower rid... no movement.
What else is there... an empty sky coaster, a seemingly randomly placed and neglected mini-golf course.
Oh...
Not a coaster, but a bobsled-style ride going down a hill. That looks fun. *proceeds to watch the next person going down making it go as slow as possible and crawling down the hill*
Fuuuuuuuu**...
What a s**t first impression. There was minimal effort to create any of that theme park magic here. Instantly I felt like this was going to be one of those days where I'll be out of things to do in no time and the extortionate £36.50 ticket price seemed thoroughly underserved. Bye-bye optimism.
We left the desolate front of the park in search of life and decided that heading to one of the main reasons for the visit might be a good way to improve things. The only logical solution. Big coasters.
Starting off with a ride on Speed: No Limits was probably the be the easiest way to go. It's the best coaster there and whilst I felt it was the weakest of the UK Eurofighters, both the drop and airtime hill managed to provide some satisfactory ejection (not that the restraints massively aided this). The lift hill was fairly intimidating and felt very exposed on the Welsh hillside. I liked that. They were also running two trains and the queue was pretty short... ngl I'm getting a bit bored here. It's a 6/10, perfectly fine. Give me Rage over this any day.
Off to Megaphobia next and as good as it looks off-ride I wasn't expecting much. One train ops and six-minute dispatches made for a rather agonizing 30-minute wait, where we had the pleasure of chatting to one of the local 'goons'.
(No. I'm not going to wait for 6 minutes next to this smelly river for a shot of the train going around)
He was a nice enough lad and I don't want this to come across as too harsh or mean, but many of the things he said would make even the most accomodating of enthusiasts cringe. Armed with a tripod and camera, instantly you assume that he's a vlogger, but there was no channel to plug, saying it was more for promotional footage for the park. We accepted this, although we never actually saw him do any filming. Very quickly he displayed his feelings that Oakwood's reputation was unfair and you could tell he really loved the park... visiting once every two weeks (good lord). Eventually, we made our way onto discussing other parks at which point he said that he'd only visited one park that wasn't Oakwood (all beginning to make sense now). He had a two-day trip to Alton Towers, where he stayed in a hotel overnight and got some fast track... he said he spent a grand on the trip.
Really!? £1000. For two days at Alton.
No wonder he loves Oakwood if that's what he thinks parks outside of Wales cost and he's only visited the one. After that, the facade of being an enthusiast-in-the-know wore off pretty quickly. We still tried to keep the references to better-known parks/coasters in the world, but visible confusion crossed his face when other parks or manufacturers were mentioned and when we tried to suggest trips that he could do on a much tighter budget, there was a very insincere "I might just do that" in response. Nearing the station he showed a lot of excitement saying that they were running the gold train, which was "the fastest one". Once in the station failed attempts at acting familiar with the Oakwood staff didn't help to support his claims of someone that filmed for Oakwood either. Lastly, he whooped and cheered the whole way around the ride layout on Mega... there was nothing to cheer about. Please get this man on an RMC. I want to see his mind get blown and change his perception of what a coaster can be. I feel sad that no one has shown him what else is out there and that he hasn't had the desire to explore more. If he's content with that park though, then fair play to him. Godspeed to you Oakwood fanboy, may better coasters/parks/budgeting come your way.
Anyway, onto our 'Mega' experience. The Row 2 ride we had was rough and forceless. I've been doing a lot of driving recently and even though there were reports of good airtime on the last row; my back is in a pretty sore state and I had no desire to make it any worse. One ride will do for me.
After this, there isn't too much else to say.
We did manage to get on Creepy Crawler in the end, which had some of the most unnecessary OTSR's I've experienced on any ride. In the queue line there was a cattle-pen with what I assumed to be a massive pumpkin, although it didn't look like one. In the pumpkin itself was just an extension lead with nothing plugged in (wow. immersive.).
My favorite ride there was Waterfall, their (because I can't be arsed to look up the ride type) 'slide and skim' attraction. Descending a steep drop on a little tray, hurtling towards a large trough of water gave me the only proper adrenaline rush all day. Good fun that, despite my bum getting soaked on the second go.
We polished off the rest of the creds, got a reride on Speed, then we were pretty much done.
(A nice view of Speed from the queue line of the kiddy cred)
Realistically the park could have been done in two hours. All the aforementioned negatives just meant by the end there was no desire to be here any longer. We left with the exact experience I'd been warned of. Even Drenched's water being turned on couldn't convince me to hang about. Despite everything though I'm glad I've done it and to be honest, I did enjoy the element of amusement in just how bad it was... plus now I don't have to wonder what Wales' two biggest creds are like.
They would have to build something world-class to get me to revisit; but considering the lack of care (rust on every ride and visible debris outside the park from every queue line), atmosphere and the ridiculous price tag, I highly doubt that will ever happen. (Please Oakwood, don't give me a reason to come back).
Addendum:
Calling this place a theme park is a joke. I've seen better theming in my local service station.
Unless Lightwater Valley decides to reopen The Ultimate, to me Oakwood Theme Park is arguably the last park in the UK I needed to visit with intriguing coasters. I like a Eurofighter and a 'decent' woodie so a trip to Oakwood has been on the cards for a while. That being said, tales of woe pour out of this place at a faster rate than Matt N likes a new post, so I wasn't in a major rush to visit. (Never change Matt, your likes are welcome here). Nevertheless, a trip to the west of England was required this Saturday just gone; and with time to kill plus Oakwood only being a tantalizing 2 hour drive each way from where I was staying, my excuses for putting it off any longer had run dry.
As we neared the date, weather reports of absolute downpour added to the dread of what I expected to be an already lackluster experience, and the drive over only seemed to confirm this. So you can imagine my delight when only 10 minutes from the park the rainclouds stopped and whilst the skies were grey, it was dry. This was my first little pang of optimism. Forecast rain usually means crowd numbers will be low and if we could have a quiet park on a Saturday in school holidays whilst also staying dry... we could get really lucky here. The second pang was upon seeing the skyline; Speed and Drenched towering over the Welsh countryside. I won't lie, I did have a little happy outburst upon seeing a skyline of this 'new-to-me' park as it looked so much better than I had initially anticipated. By this point I had a smile firmly plastered on my face, and memories of all the dire TR's/reviews I had read all seemed to have washed away. We parked up and headed towards the entrance, a sight spring in my step.
The entrance was playing nice theme park-y (that is the technical term, right?) music and we were greeted by a friendly member of staff asking us to sanitize our hands. Enforced cleanliness, attempts at atmosphere and good customer service, this doesn't seem like the Oakwood I've heard so much about. The toilets in the entrance building and the little train (I assumed designed to take you into/around the park) were both unavailable. Not to worry, I thought, the next toilets weren't far and I can live without the train (blissfully ignorant optimism continues).
Despite two trivial 'spites', the entrance had been a source of hope for better things to come. As we left to head into the main park though, the music began to quieten, stealing the atmosphere away with it. The slightly cracked and uneven path on the way there did little to maintain the hopes I had for this place and with Speed being the only ride we had even heard or seen operating; the reality of where we had journeyed to had begun settling in.
Right. I'm in the park. What can I see?
Drenched! That looks pretty tall and imposing... no water running. It's shut.
Ooh the first cred, Creepy Crawler! Ahh it's not that big, but oh well plus o... the train is stuck on the lift hill and empty.
Hmmm...
Look, there is the top of a drop/shot tower over there! I love tower rid... no movement.
What else is there... an empty sky coaster, a seemingly randomly placed and neglected mini-golf course.
Oh...
Not a coaster, but a bobsled-style ride going down a hill. That looks fun. *proceeds to watch the next person going down making it go as slow as possible and crawling down the hill*
Fuuuuuuuu**...
What a s**t first impression. There was minimal effort to create any of that theme park magic here. Instantly I felt like this was going to be one of those days where I'll be out of things to do in no time and the extortionate £36.50 ticket price seemed thoroughly underserved. Bye-bye optimism.
We left the desolate front of the park in search of life and decided that heading to one of the main reasons for the visit might be a good way to improve things. The only logical solution. Big coasters.
Starting off with a ride on Speed: No Limits was probably the be the easiest way to go. It's the best coaster there and whilst I felt it was the weakest of the UK Eurofighters, both the drop and airtime hill managed to provide some satisfactory ejection (not that the restraints massively aided this). The lift hill was fairly intimidating and felt very exposed on the Welsh hillside. I liked that. They were also running two trains and the queue was pretty short... ngl I'm getting a bit bored here. It's a 6/10, perfectly fine. Give me Rage over this any day.
Off to Megaphobia next and as good as it looks off-ride I wasn't expecting much. One train ops and six-minute dispatches made for a rather agonizing 30-minute wait, where we had the pleasure of chatting to one of the local 'goons'.
(No. I'm not going to wait for 6 minutes next to this smelly river for a shot of the train going around)
He was a nice enough lad and I don't want this to come across as too harsh or mean, but many of the things he said would make even the most accomodating of enthusiasts cringe. Armed with a tripod and camera, instantly you assume that he's a vlogger, but there was no channel to plug, saying it was more for promotional footage for the park. We accepted this, although we never actually saw him do any filming. Very quickly he displayed his feelings that Oakwood's reputation was unfair and you could tell he really loved the park... visiting once every two weeks (good lord). Eventually, we made our way onto discussing other parks at which point he said that he'd only visited one park that wasn't Oakwood (all beginning to make sense now). He had a two-day trip to Alton Towers, where he stayed in a hotel overnight and got some fast track... he said he spent a grand on the trip.
Really!? £1000. For two days at Alton.
No wonder he loves Oakwood if that's what he thinks parks outside of Wales cost and he's only visited the one. After that, the facade of being an enthusiast-in-the-know wore off pretty quickly. We still tried to keep the references to better-known parks/coasters in the world, but visible confusion crossed his face when other parks or manufacturers were mentioned and when we tried to suggest trips that he could do on a much tighter budget, there was a very insincere "I might just do that" in response. Nearing the station he showed a lot of excitement saying that they were running the gold train, which was "the fastest one". Once in the station failed attempts at acting familiar with the Oakwood staff didn't help to support his claims of someone that filmed for Oakwood either. Lastly, he whooped and cheered the whole way around the ride layout on Mega... there was nothing to cheer about. Please get this man on an RMC. I want to see his mind get blown and change his perception of what a coaster can be. I feel sad that no one has shown him what else is out there and that he hasn't had the desire to explore more. If he's content with that park though, then fair play to him. Godspeed to you Oakwood fanboy, may better coasters/parks/budgeting come your way.
Anyway, onto our 'Mega' experience. The Row 2 ride we had was rough and forceless. I've been doing a lot of driving recently and even though there were reports of good airtime on the last row; my back is in a pretty sore state and I had no desire to make it any worse. One ride will do for me.
After this, there isn't too much else to say.
We did manage to get on Creepy Crawler in the end, which had some of the most unnecessary OTSR's I've experienced on any ride. In the queue line there was a cattle-pen with what I assumed to be a massive pumpkin, although it didn't look like one. In the pumpkin itself was just an extension lead with nothing plugged in (wow. immersive.).
My favorite ride there was Waterfall, their (because I can't be arsed to look up the ride type) 'slide and skim' attraction. Descending a steep drop on a little tray, hurtling towards a large trough of water gave me the only proper adrenaline rush all day. Good fun that, despite my bum getting soaked on the second go.
We polished off the rest of the creds, got a reride on Speed, then we were pretty much done.
(A nice view of Speed from the queue line of the kiddy cred)
Realistically the park could have been done in two hours. All the aforementioned negatives just meant by the end there was no desire to be here any longer. We left with the exact experience I'd been warned of. Even Drenched's water being turned on couldn't convince me to hang about. Despite everything though I'm glad I've done it and to be honest, I did enjoy the element of amusement in just how bad it was... plus now I don't have to wonder what Wales' two biggest creds are like.
They would have to build something world-class to get me to revisit; but considering the lack of care (rust on every ride and visible debris outside the park from every queue line), atmosphere and the ridiculous price tag, I highly doubt that will ever happen. (Please Oakwood, don't give me a reason to come back).
Addendum:
Calling this place a theme park is a joke. I've seen better theming in my local service station.
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The topic title actually came from talking to goons the previous week at BPB and when giving the justification for visiting Oakwood that was the line I uttered, needless to say it was met with some laughter and I thought that it would make for an amusing TR title.
