Oakie Kokie IV 30th August 2014 - Trip Reports

[furie]

Looks like I'm first back then with everyone else enjoying the completely unburdenous journey through Wales.

Thoughts, photos, etc. here then please. I may be working on a video, so I'll detail later.

One thing I need to get out though.

Nadroj/Conner: after our conversation waiting by the tube slides, imagine my wonder when I went to get food. I asked "do you take cards?" to which the creature from the black lagoon answered "we take cash." So I tried again, "do you take cards?" Reply of "we also take cash!" Okay - "You take cards though?" "Yes... And Cash!"

I then ordered five meals and was told "food is off!" which will result in a rant of Stone Cold sized proportions...

 

[furie]

Can't believe I'm posting a video before anyone has posted a trip report!!!

 

[nealbie]

Not available on mobile =(

 

[Mike]

I had an excellent weekend and thought it was a fantastic CF-Live with the largest turnout that I can remember for ages.

Thank you everyone that made it an excellent weekend.

 

[furie]

Not available on mobile =(

Not my fault that:

a) YouTube can't allow licensed music on mobile devices.
b) Licensed music makes the video
c) YOU DON'T HAVE A COMPUTER LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!



I shall report with "boosts" and "burdens"

Boosts:
Accidentally ending up in the same lodge as Ian, Darren B, Ben, Stone Cold, NSFW Jordan, ATTACK HAMMER, Smithy and GF-of_Smithy

Getting chucked out of the lodge reception for heckling Smithy :lol:

Being the first to arrive at the park - even before the Staff it appears.

Not riding Speed

Tea trays, tea tray, tea trays I was gutted I wasn't as nervous as I expected. I've overcome a lot of fears, and fear of the scariest ride in the world seems to be one of them. Then I hit the water, my feet lifted, I felt myself going in and the fear returned... Scary as ****

Not actually ditching into the water on the tea trays and recovering somehow.

JayJay on the tea trays

The judging team (by people too scared to go on the tea trays) - you somewhat redeemed yourselves... Just.

Bounce being completely disappointing as always.

Laughing at the people not clever enough to realise what a burden the restaurant was going to be, so wandering off to get nasty burgers and back before people had moved a single place in the queue.

The fantastic restaurant staff. Amazingly: ignoring the table number and wandering around going "is this yours?", bringing out single plates of food, then returning to bring cutlery, then returning to bring sauces. It takes special skill to be so inefficient. One also looked like the creature from the black lagoon - it was fab

A mediocre ride on Megafobia still being better than a ride on most coasters in country

Spooky 3D - it's so turd

The great Pirate Ship still great and still swaying sideways to make you feel violently ill.

Embarrassing Katie singing happy birthday.

Great company all day, seeing people I love to spend time with and haven't seen for too long, the laughs, the silliness and some rides and stuff too.

Burdens:
Sue - obvs

Conner failing to run down Stone Cold - try harder in future.

Entrance faff. In fact, just the constant lack of staff making for poor operations everywhere in the park.

Sue.

Awful, awful food all day. Even the expensive restaurant was atrocious. I may laugh, but it was pitiful. I think an hour and twenty minutes from entry to food that wasn't nice arriving for Jay Jay.

The food places then all closing at six when we'd planned to eat something "not a nasty burger" and only the nasty burger place remaining open serving food until 10:00 p.m. :roll:

Broken fridge and £2.30 bottles of warm drink.

Poor operations (like Sue, worth mentioning twice).

The burden the fast track put onto things and the people stupid enough to pay for it were (obviously when you think about it) complete imbeciles when it came to getting onto the rides and constantly delayed the operations further. Have an IQ test before selling fast tracks - only those above 100 can buy them - then you won't sell any and everyone will be happy

Missing another ride on Megafobia due to spending an hour trying to find food in the park (that really pissed us all off to be honest). They closed the 'Fobia queue early due to the fireworks behind it. So no night rides for us.

We had a great time with CF, but that was the only reason to be honest. As a family visitor to a park; I look for availability of attractions, food and drink. If operations are bad in one area, then hopefully you don't lose too much time in another so you don't spend your day waiting on things that are badly run. Everything was badly run, which just meant we couldn't do attractions and food/drink. With an extra four/five hours in the park, it was just impossible.

At about 8:00, I'd had enough walking to the ends of the park trying to find a meal. I was tired, hungry, thirsty and just wanted to up and leave. I was even willing to pay over the odds for a bad meal at the restaurant, but it wasn't to be.

As I left, I was very disappointed. I've always been a supporter of Oakwood. Underneath it's still there, but it was completely hidden by the onerous operations, onerous decisions (maybe down to lack of staff) for how to run, onerous lack of staff, onerous lack of information and onerous onerousness.

I've no desire to return. No desire to recommend the park to anyone else. It was a chore of a day, bolstered by the fact I love a couple of the rides, had some great company and that it wasn't Flamingoland...

 

[Darren B]

Day 1

I have like 1 photo so it'll be a trip report minus any decent pictures.

The trip started on Friday morning at 08:30; Ian arrived at mine in his Peugeot 106 golf buggy and we set off to Dudley Zoo. En Route we smashed a Toby's all you can eat breakfast and arrived at Dudley Zoo for 10:30. Ben was waiting for us outside but he already had the cred so we went in without him. The advertised entry fee was £12.70 which is excessive as we just wanted the cred and had no interest in the zoo; Ian tried his best to wrangle us in cheaper but they were having none of it, and even made us pay an extra £2 to ride the cred. So, 5 minutes later we had gained a cred but had been rinsed £15 ($25) for it. Robbing bastards!

£15 for this...

We quickly left the vile **** hole that is Dudley and headed onto Treasure Island in Stourport, it only took us 30 minutes to get there and myself and Ben hopped out the car and grabbed the cred, Ian already had it so waited in the car to avoid paying for parking. £1.80 spent, +1 gained. That's more like it.

Back in the car it was time to head into Wales. We had a long drive to our next destination so no surprise it was a drive of sex talk, farting and chain smoking. Ben has likely gone from being fit and healthy to having lung cancer now me and Ian have finished with him! Poor bastard.

We arrived at Coney Beach around 2:30 and made our way onto the first coaster, the Nessi cred. Once we'd obtained Nessi we headed over to the Go-Gator; it was shut. I wasn't expecting to get it anyway as it had the old trains designed for 5 year olds. Before we left though I thought I'd at least ask, I went over to a ride-op from a different ride and asked to ride the Go-Gator, he refused, but I wasn't happy with that so I resorted to begging! Finally he gave in and allowed me and Ian to ride as long as we could fit safely into the cars. It was a massive squeeze but I managed it and we got our lap on the Go-Gator! 10 minutes down we had gained +2 for a mere £3, the day was getting better.

After our eventful +4 it was time to head towards Oakwood for the Live. We arrived at Pembroke Dock around 4:30pm and grabbed an Indian for dinner, it was AMAZING! sadly I have no photos. We spent the rest of the evening getting pissed on Gin and Southern comfort with Family_Furie, Richard, NHS and Right Wing Dan. A really fun end to an eventful day.

 

[Darren B]

Day 2

The day started off with a McDonalds breakfast, the way every day should start, followed by a 30 minute drive to Oakwood.

Once at Oakwood we said our hellos to the goons and welcomed Rachel (+1), the latest member to make her Live debut. She was fab, friendly and very easy to get along with as was her other half, Frank. Hopefully they'll both come along to more Lives in the future.

Once the hellos were over and done with it was time to enter the park. Well, that was the plan. It took us over 30 minutes to enter the park due to the inefficiency of the staff, something that would be a staple of the day.

Once we'd finally made it into the park we headed over to Speed, the Gerstlauer Eurofighter. It was running 1 of it's 3 trains, on a Saturday, in August. Who makes these decisions? Luckily we were the only guests that had made it to that section of the park so we walked on. I'd hate to think what the queues were like later in the day. After Speed came the Treetops coaster, +1 for some, something to do for the rest.

We amused ourselves with the waterfall ride after that, I didn't bother as I'd done it before and there's a CF YouTube video to prove it, it really wasn't worth the risk of getting wet. Gutted for Ian, Jay Jay and anyone else that ended up in the water.

Following Waterfall came Bounce, the worlds worst shot tower. I've had more intense rides on the lift inside Marks & Spencer's so I sat this out and smoked a few cigarettes. Once everyone had hopped off Bounce we headed over to Megafobia. I really enjoyed it a couple of years ago so was pretty excited to ride. Once we arrived in the queue we realised they were only running one train, on a Saturday, In August. Morons. An hour later and we finally made it into the station to find out that the first car (the best seats) were closed off for fast track customers. I find this disgusting! If you've spent £20+ to enter the park you're more than entitled to sit where you want on the rides, even if you have to wait a little longer for certain seats. That wasn't even an option.
Anyway, onto the ride itself; it was crap. Rough, boring, lacking airtime and any sort of fun. Really disappointing being as I got some really good rides on this a couple of years ago.

Afternoon supper was called after MEHgafobia and we all headed over to the main restaurant. The queue was huge (no doubt due to the inefficient staff) so myself, Ian, Rachel and Frank headed over to the chicken diner which had next to no customers, result. The food (4 chicken fillets and Chips) was actually pretty good and sadly the highlight of the day.

After supper we met up with some of the goons and waited for the rest eating at the main restaurant. After smoking a cigarette I decided to try and grab the spiteful Clown Coaster. Joined by Jake, Ben and the Demon we minced/waddled over to the coaster and to our surprise were allowed to ride. YAY! It was also my 400th so Ian shook me off;

Once the group was back together we headed into the Neverland area and grabbed the final cred (a powered dragon coaster) and the log flume which was reasonably well themed for a British log flume.

We spent the rest of the afternoon picking up the last few rides and attractions that we were missing; the pile of ship, bobsled, 3D dark ride and others I can't remember, probably because they were all ****. Drenched didn't open all day. They've also spited the Hayley Williams Memorial Bench which tells me that Drenched will be leaving the park sooner rather than later.

Once 6 o'clock had arrived, myself, Ben, Ian and Demon had decided that we'd had just about enough of the **** operations and choose to say our goodbyes and leave the park and get a head start on the upcoming 3 hour drive to Bounce Below. We were joined by another 10+ goons who all had the same idea and we all agreed to meet in Cardigan (it's a a Welsh town) and grab some supper. Supper was incredible! The portions were massive and me and Connor braved the mixed grill, it comes on 2 plates;

Day 2 was concluded when we arrived at our hotel around 11:30pm ready for the day ahead; Underground trampolines and the last cred of the trip.

 

[furie]

Sorry, but Ice Blast is actually worse than Bounce - making it the worst in the world. Bounce is a close second...

 

[peep]

Shame the operations were sucky. I was actually reading the parks Facebook page a couple of weeks ago and it was full of people complaining and vowing that they're now never going to return. Management clearly need to sort their lives out.

Sounds like it was a fantastic group of people though.

Darren, that mixed grill looks ridiculous.

 

[Jake]

The operations are so bad that even the GP are moaning about ONE TRAIN. Have a look on tripadvisor! It looks like they are having major problems ATM.

I can't believe how easy it was to get the Circus Clown cred after all that worrying.

Seeing as most were leaving early, and the park was gross, I ended up driving home and spiting my B&B (hadn't paid or booked online), but it was a good day as it was really fab seeing everybody again.

Unfortunately the park itself has become quite a dump, and I'd rather have taken a Perilous Plunge from Hydro than stay till 22:00. £4 for a bar of orange flavoured cooking chocolate! £2.35 for a fanta! £7 for a salmonella rollover! Don't even get me started on the new restaurant... Oak something? Eugh.

Camelot really need to sort their lives out - how can somewhere in the middle of Liverpool, Manchester and Preston not have any mobile phone signal?

 

[Ben]

I can't get over how bad Oakwood was. Don't get me wrong, the day was fab and everyone was fab and I got six creds this weekend, but, the operations were inexcusable.

The queue to get in was a sign of bad things to come, and then the hour and a half it took people to get food, £2.35 for a bottle of Coke and one train operations on everything just made it worse. The staff weren't rude as much as they were just quite incompetent.

MEHgafobia is so overrated. It might beat Nemesis as the most overrated coaster in the UK. I would have tried it again but I wasn't queuing an hour again because they ran it on one train!

I liked Waterfall, we got the Clown Coaster and Speed wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. That's about it for compliments.

And the general cleanliness of the place was awful. Thank God Joey wasn't there, if he'd seen those toilets!

Whatever, Oakwood was actually the worst part of the weekend and Friday, Sunday and the nights were fab. Thanks to FAB Darren Bloomfield for organising hotels and driving this lady of leisure around and Ian for organising the park stuff <3

Just please don't let Oakwood get another cred to run on one train <//3

 

[Ian]

I was really looking forward to this Live. I've really enjoyed previous visits. I was pleased to see the park invest in new stuff. Most of all, CFers old and new were attending making it one of the largest turnouts in a while.

Thanks to Vadge for being my Trusted Sexy Assistant collecting the group rate money. The queue to get the tickets was atrocious. They didn't open up the ticket booths until 10:20ish. When we reached the front, a member of staff pushed another group in front of us. I bitched yet they (the staff) didn't care. Seeing as the management team ignored my emails and phone calls, it wasn't a surprise.

Eventually we got in and headed to Speed. One train and one staff operation. That's why I wanted to get it done. Thankfully there was no queue and we were on, off and brain damaged within 20mins.

Treetops Coaster followed. Due to its high capacity, we were on, off and had our bottoms vibrated within 10mins.

Oakwood's saving grace is Waterfall and it didn't disappoint. The queue moved quickly despite having the lowest capacity of any ride in the world ever. We were on, off and satisfied/wet within 15mins. I fell in. Although the tray made it to the end, I seemed to submerge a few metres to the end. Wet arse. At least I faired better than JayJay! The Strictly Come Dancing scoring by Vadge, Owain and Jordan was fab. We should judge stuff like this more often. Waterfall is brilliant fun to ride and watch. Every park should have one.

Whilst the group did Bounce, I wandered to the car to change into dry clothes. Park management passed me (and Jake). I smiled at them, they spotted my CF t-shirt and there me a filthy look.

With the best timing in the world, Jake and I met the group at Megafobia. I dished our sweets to help the hour long queue thanks to the one train operation. I also bored people I haven't bored before about my job. As Goonfield said above, the front two seats were taped off for those rich enough to pay £20 for the fast passes. I have no beef with people who use fast passes but to tape off the best rows to spite other guests is abysmal. Maybe it's Oakwood's plans to have turd operations so people buy the passes? Anyway, we were on, off and underwhelmed within 60mins.

Lunch followed. The fab canteen has been replaced with a restaurant that also suffers from dire operations. I'm glad I opted for other grub, although they didn't take card. It's 2014. All places should take card...and be contactless too! The food was ok. It was also a good opportunity to get to know Rachael and Frank. Lovely people and it was amusing watching Frank look confused whilst me, Rachael and Darren spoke in fluent goon.

The meet up after lush was scatty due to the dire restaurant service. Eventually we all met up and did the log flume. I was excited about this. There's a drop through the eye of a skull! The drop was good and I was mildly impressed with the low budget theming inside. I got wet.

We did the new cred next. Half decent theming on the station. The ride on here was the most efficient all day. She kindly sent us around on one lap so we could get the plus one on our coaster count.

With the Neverland area done, and a little time spent chatting to Smithy and his girlfriend Katie, we moved over to the final cred of the day - The Clown Coaster.

The ride op ignored the rules and allowed those over the height limit to ride. Great from a goon point of view, bad from a management point of view when the rules are not enforced.

The death slide brought us back to the correct level of CF mentality and provided the best laughs of the day. Nearly all of us had a go and we judged each slide with scores, cheers and laughter. It was a chance to move away from the serious stuff, ignore the horrendous operations of the other rides, restaurants and ticket booths and basically piss about.

Bobsled always has a vile queue but time passed by with the usual banter, trip planing and sweets. We were on, off and getting told off for going too fast with 50mins. One of the best rides in the park.

The "forgotten rides" were ticked off. The water slides had an hour long queue and the Pile of Ship was walk on. I didn't both with either of them, opting to chain smoke and talk to people instead.

Our day ended with a ride on Spooky 3D which was 3Dy and rather spooky. It made me jump.

We played a quick game of "Guess What's in Caffeine Demon's Bumbag" before saying our goodbyes, passing by the depressing and dilapidated remnants of Brea Rabbit and SBNO Drenched on the way out.

All in all, I think Oakwood has gone massively downhill. Perhaps it's because I've travelled to loads of parks since visiting Oakwood frequently in the middle/latter part of last decade. Virtually every other park has tighter efficiency and high customer satisfaction at the forefront of their minds. I would send the park an email with some constructive critism but it would go unread.

On the way out, I nearly purchased some tat but whilst queuing at the till, I decided against it and put the tat back. I'm not going to give Oakwood any more money than they deserve. It's like being at a restaurant, only tip if you're satisfied with the service. I wasn't, so I wasn't going to leave a few extra quid on the table.

Predictably, the saving grace were those who turned up. I spent time with everybody and enjoyed seeing people having fun and being critical (read: bitching). That's what's it all about. That's what we have in common, that's what we do and that why we keep doing it. Being able to do this with those I've not met before or not spent much time with at a theme park recently was rewarding. The regulars also bring that warm sense of familiarity.

My sincere thanks to everybody who travelled to the end of the world (even those who live in Wales!) to attend this Live. I'm sorry it wasn't the fabbest day in the world but it's difficult to perform a play when the stage is rotten and falling apart. I saw everybody smile throughout the day so overall I walked away a happy man.

 

[Rachel]

Going to get this report done whilst everything is fresh in my memory and whilst I still have the time before I get swamped at work. No pictures im afraid so sorry if this is a bit of an essay.

Following a tiring 6 hour drive on the Friday we woke nice and early on the Saturday and had a crap Little [strike]Thief[/strike] Chef breakfast before making our way to the park. Obviously we couldn't be late to our first live so we arrived nice and early and were two of the first people there. After a while more cars started to gather across the car park, I recognised a few people from the site so we made our way over and introduced ourselves to Ian. Awkward first meeting over and done with! Darren then come over and welcomed us to the group whilst we waited for others to arrive.

My first impression of the park was a 30 minute wait whilst Ian queued to get our group entry sorted. This was to become a common theme to the day - waiting due to the terrible operations of the park. Eventually we were in and headed to our first port of call which was Speed. One train operations on a Eurofighter - really? This was my 3rd Eurofighter after Saw and Rage and I didn't think it was too bad. Im just about the right height that I can lean into the restraints and not experience any of the head banging or shoulder crushing that others complain about. Nothing special but a decent +1 with a good airtime hill.

Next was the Treetops Coaster which was just a standard family coaster and a new cred. After this we all went to the water slide. After some umming and arring I decided to give it a go. I was surprised at just how nervous I was at the top. I wasn't particularly in the mood to get wet so early in the day and it would be just my luck that I would fall in on my first live. I followed the advice of others and leaned forward and luckily managed to make it to the end in one piece. It was fun watching the others come down and holding our breaths to see if anyone would fall in.

After this was Bounce, a forgetable shot tower with a forceless launch and drop. Not much to say about that.

Next was the ride I was most looking forward to riding, Megafobia. Again there was ridiculous one train operations but I didn't feel the queueline dragged on too long. We rode near to the back and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Easily the best woodie in the UK (which admittedly isnt' hard) it threw you around without being painful, had some good airtime and maintained a good speed.

Lunch was next so we headed over to the resturant but after seeing the queue Frank and I decided to head over to the fast food chicken place. It was good enough for theme park food and not too expensive either.

After lunch we shamefully headed over to the kiddie creds to gain some +1s.It was a laugh seeing a kiddie train full of CFers and being told by one of the ride ops to go and enjoy the big coasters now (or something along those lines). Did the log flume and got wetter than expected and then headed to the hour long queue for the bobsled. It was rubbish. It didn't pick up any speed and I barely had to brake.

The giant slide in the shed was also good fun. I'll be honest when I got to the top it was a lot steeper than I realised and if it had been just me and Frank I would have probably chickened out - couldn't do this in front of a bunch of people i'd just met though . Managed to slide down to the mats and get a good score from the judges .

Next some of us went to go on the water slides but the queue was saying an hour so we decided to wait it out. The queue was definitely not an hour which was slightly annoying but nevermind. There was some waiting around whilst people went on various smaller rides and then it was time to head to the last group ride of the day, Spooky 3D. It was terrible. Moving on.

Some people were heading off so we said our goodbyes and decided to get one last ride on Megafobia. Darren had suggested it was better at the front and the only way it seemed you could sit there was to buy a fastpass so we sucked it up and got them. Got to the exit to find that they were in fact now letting people in the normal queue sit at the front. The ride op said we had to wait a couple of turns before we could get on and by this time a whole train full of people had filled up the fast pass queue so they ended up putting us all on one train. It was a joke. We ended up 2nd row, but if id been anywhere but in the first car I would of kicked up a fuss. Being sold one thing and then getting another. Anyway personally I preferred it at the back as I think the airtime is better, but it was still enjoyable at the front.

If I had to sum up Oakwood in 3(ish) words - Wasps, Waiting and W**k operations.

However it was really great to finally get along to my first live. Me and Frank both had a really great day and enjoyed meeting and chatting to everyone. Special shout outs to Ian and Darren who made us feel especially welcome. Hopefully we'll be at another live soon and will get a chance to chat a bit more to other members and get to know everyone a bit better.
Again sorry for the essay! Thanks for reading .

 

[Ian]

The giant slide in the shed was also good fun. I'll be honest when I got to the top it was a lot steeper than I realised and if it had been just me and Frank I would have probably chickened out - couldn't do this in front of a bunch of people i'd just met though . Managed to slide down to the mats and get a good score from the judges .

Ahh yes, good ol' CF peer pressure :wink: I've always said people need to throw themselves into Lives and be prepared to make a tit of themselves, that's what's people remember you. You and Frank did just that!

If I had to sum up Oakwood in 3(ish) words - Wasps, Waiting and W**k operations.

Yes! The **** wasps! They deserve a mention. More burdenous than Sue at a wedding.

I'm really glad you both had a good time...and apologies for spelling your name incorrectly in my post above. Can't promise I'll remember to spell it correctly next time!

 

[Smithy]

What should have been a 4 hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive in **** weather in a car that decided to throw up an engine fault just as I crossed the Severn Bridge. So again apologies for the grumpy nod a lot of you got on Friday evening but I really just needed to get to my room and crash. Besides I didn't fancy sticking around with the receptionist who looked close to breaking point.

First impressions going into the park was that it seemed alright, wasn't fussed about Drenched being down. Headed straight into the Neverland area, rode the camp crocodile coaster and ended up getting 5 circuits because nobody else was queueing. When leaving decided to give there Neverland walkthrough a go, it's literally just a garage with a bed in it. Walked down to Megafobia cursing the lack of any sort of mobile signal to get hold of Ian, and in queueing for Megafobia saw a group of CF'ers boarding. An hour later, after seeing many fast passers jumping onto the front row and being abused by the various wasps being swatted in my direction, we got on in the middle of the train. I've never been big on woodies as my experiences consist of Blackpool, Port Aventura and Terra Mitica. Megafobia is easily the second best woodie (Tomahawk, fyi) I've been on, but it was just a bit too sore for me to enjoy, a bit rickety. Having asked Ian and Darren later on they both agreed it was running awful so maybe I just got it at a bad time. Katie liked it so it can't have been that bad.

Decided to get some food, after ages wandering round eventually found the cash point, but refused to pay £1.95 to take out my own money and found a cafe inside the neverland area that did toasties, teacakes and baguettes. Service with a smile? She didn't even speak. At all. Just handed us the food. Was ridiculous. Found some of the group so went and waited for them to finish on the log flume, stood around learning from Furie about how best to kill wasps (drown them, if you were wondering) and then sat out the crocodile coaster as it was lacking in re-rideability.

Darren decided not to be a cred-tease and shared with the rest of the group that he got the clown coaster credit so we headed down there, suicidal child leaning out trying to high-five Jordan in the queue and nearly taking his hand off was the highlight of that ride. Ride-op told us to enjoy riding the bigger coasters. Down to the drop slide, I've had a genuine fear of these things since a child and I chickened out of doing it several times. Didn't even give it much thought until I was at the top, reckon if you lot weren't there I'd have bottled it, almost wish I had given the landing. Again, ride-op on here wasn't a sour-faced trout, although it's bad that I need to point out which ops were actually doing a decent job.

Alpine coaster was probably my favourite ride, I'd love to whore it for an hour or two and see how far I could push it. Great little ride. Then the water tube things, four seperate queues, we ended up in what turned out to be the longest one with a few more CF'ers, also held up by various fast passers and queue jumpers. To be fair, ride op on here dealt with fast passes efficiently, and also kicked a lad no older than 12 off the ride for queue jumping, and when asked by someone why he was on his own encouraged them to complain at reception about the staffing levels because they're not his decision. Suggests even the staff aren't happy with current staffing levels. The ride was good though, surprisingly so.

Group photo (UNACCEPTABLE CHEESE), and then Spooky 3D rounded off the CF part of the day. Stood listening to a few people but Darren especially gloat about how much I missed out on the Sweden trip, then headed off to find some food when the group split up. Refused to spend nearly £8 on a burger meal and then realised we didn't have the cash either; Speed it was. You'll never believe this.

IT WAS RUNNING TWO TRAINS.

I have no idea why, but as we were boarding the lass operating it was bragging to another op at how short she'd got the queue, how quick her operations were, and that when she goes the queue will be back round the gate again. Which has me wondering if the one train operations are a decision as suggested above to push the sale of fast passes. Speed itself was surprisingly great, really enjoyed it, smooth throughout, no headbanging and enjoyable. Can't split both it and Rage in terms of what I prefer, probably just Speed edging it for that airtime hill. Both a million miles ahead of Saw though. Then got treetops done, ludicrously dangerous ride in terms of how close the trees get to the train, ino you'd have to be a cretin to put your arms out like that but a lot of cretins visit theme parks.

Finally got on the tea tray ride, watched some guy wipe out in front of us, I nearly dropped it but managed to save it and Katie nailed it so thankfully no issues there. Stopped on the way out to watch the diving show (which was advertised but no time given) which was alright, seemed a bit of a hashed together job but drew a crowd. At that point we were done, was tempted to stay until 10 for Megafobia and Speed in the dark (though reading others reports it's a good job we didn't), but we were starving and were pretty much done and left around half seven.

Alright park, not enough rides, woeful operations, mixture of pleasant and rude staff. Won't be rushing back to visit any time soon nor indeed suggesting others make a concerted effort to visit.

Whilst you lot were busy bouncing below I went to Tenby. It was **** beautiful, absolutely gorgeous place where I could gladly spend a lot of time.

Anyway, sorry to Jordan, Conor, Nic, Jordan, Jake, Ben and most others I didn't really talk to, it's a bit daunting walking into such a big group and I'm not the best with small talk as it is. Still had a good time and as others have said and myself and Katie agree with it made what would have been a pretty poor day enjoyable. Katie was still bragging about her superior nickname all the way back to the hotel Nic.

 

[jayjay]

In terms of CF-Lives, one of the best I've been to! In terms of park visits, one of the worst I've been to!

After saying hello to all the people I've not seen in ages, I continued to be thankful that CF is fun to be with while waiting for Ian and Nic in the queue of death to get tickets. I've been to Oakwood only once before, 7 or so years ago. You know you're in for a shattering of nice memories when the ticket queues work that badly, and the first two most visible attractions (the train and [strike]Hydro[/strike] Drenched) are both shut.

The first ride was Speed... on one train operation. But thankfully, I'm okay with Eurofighters and enjoyed the ride. Treetops was up next, and was about as fun as family coasters tend to be. I have actually skipped backwards here to write this sentence where I talk about Bounce, because I completely forgot about it. Bounce is a shot and drop tower, and should be really exciting. It is not... in any way.

We followed that up with Waterfall, most terrifying ride in the world. In my naivety, I decided that because I fell in on my previous visit to Oakwood, nothing could possibly go wrong. Actually, in all the photos of me coming off the slide, I look really in control and stable. This control did not last the whole run. I dragged my soggy self out of the ride, got with three 10s from the judges and even got to keep one as a souvenir :--D .

Next, Megafobia, again on one-train-operation. Previously, Megafobia was my #3 in the country. Maybe it's because I've ridden better stuff since, but I was really disappointed that it was far rougher than last time. I wish some park in the UK would take the plunge and invest in a woodie, but that's probably too much for me to hope.

I decided to get something from the restaurant for lunch. That was a mistake. I think the entire restaurant was running on three (maybe four?) members of staff... Oh what fun :| My carbonara was bland. Richard's cheese was unacceptable and he took it back.

After all of this doom and gloom, I will commend the park for their budget kids area, Neverland. The log flume has a sense of accomplishment trying to stretch the budget to cover half-decent theming, and ditto to the Camp-Dragon Coaster.

We followed this with the bobsled. While we endured the queue that goes on forever, some woman pushed all the way through the queue, despite a valiant attempt from my dad to stop this. It transpired later that she had been carrying a bottle of Tia Maria and her husband had a bottle of wine in the park, which explained why she seemed entirely hammered. Bobsleds were okay. The death slide was done and hilarity ensued when the judges got their scorecards out again.

Water slides were a faff. I went into the one queue for the ride that seemingly every fast-tracker wanted. Couple that with a single (albeit very competant) ride-op running 4 slides and suddenly the queue was very long. Much rage...

After doing Spooky 3D (standard crap-ghost-train), most people left and I joined the remaining group to reride Megafobia. I'm glad I did, because it had certainly warmed up and was riding quite well. Still, it's dropped at least to the bottom of my UK top 10.

All in all, I enjoyed the day. But I could enjoy a day practically anywhere with CoasterForce, so that doesn't say much. Oakwood seems like it's in a downward spiral where they can't pay for the staff, so it has bad management and people won't come back, leading to lower profits and not enough money to pay for staff. I can't decide whether I want it to succeed or fail because if it was at its 2007 standard, it really is a good day out. As it is, I'm going to need something big to bring me back.

Thanks to Ian for organising, thanks for everyone else for making CF lives what they always are, and hopefully I'll see everyone again in October.

 

[caffeine_demon]

The giant slide in the shed was also good fun. I'll be honest when I got to the top it was a lot steeper than I realised and if it had been just me and Frank I would have probably chickened out - couldn't do this in front of a bunch of people i'd just met though . Managed to slide down to the mats and get a good score from the judges .

Yeah - I'd already attempted a couple of those slides and chickened out - first at pleasurewood hills when I was about 11, second at the milky way this year, the ledge at the top was rather thin and I just wimped out with my poor sense of balance!! I could see this one had plenty of space to shuffle forwards in and knew I'd be ok! Rather heavy landing - think I may have sustained a bit of a big toe injury on it and almost considered backing out of bounce below on the sunday!

Waterfall was ace, and one of the few rides which was operating quite efficiently! was buzzing for a good hour afterwards!

Shame to see how far they've gone downhill - my first visit in about 2006 or 7 with the ECC and had a good weekend there, this was my second and one train operation on both fobia and speed was awful, not to mention the half hour wait to get in, having only opened the ticket office about 10 minutes after the park should have opened! Glad I went to the chicken place for lunch too instead of waiting about an hour in the expensive restaurant!

 

[Darren B]

Day 3

Day 3 started off by waking up in Beddgelert, a small village located within the Snowdonian mountains. The hotel was lovely from the outside, as was the whole village. The hotel, however, was a little run down inside but clean at least. Richard complained that his room didn't have a bathroom, ours had a bathroom AND exclusive outside smoking (fire door leading to the roof) <3

We all had a cooked breakfast apart from Caffeine_Demon who thought you had to pay extra (it was complimentary), SPITE.

After the best cooked breakfast I've ever had (sorry Dan) we set off to Bounce Below. My expectations for Bounce Below were simple; underground trampolines that would be great fun but get slightly boring after a while. My expectations were correct, It was worth the £15 and I'm glad to have experienced it. Kudos to Conor for finding it.

After Bounce Below we headed off to Barmouth to get the last cred of the trip. It was the last coaster in Wales I needed so it was nice to tick it off. It was, of course, a big apple. We grabbed afternoon supper before returning to England and opted for Fish & Chips as we were beside the sea, it was damn good. We said our goodbyes after supper and headed back to England.

Massive thanks to Ian for organising the Live as always. Thanks to Conor for finding Bounce Below, and thankyou to everyone for making it a fantastic 3 days! I managed to spend time and talk to most of you during the 3 days and for those of you I didn't, I send you my apologies; I certainly didn't avoid anyone on purpose. The only few I think I missed out on talking to were JayJay's parents and sister, which was a shame as his sister is a cracking looking girl; but sadly not my type, I only go for girls with low self esteem or Daddy issues, she didn't appear to have either.

And finally; A special mention to Rachel & Frankie who turned up to their first Live, it was a pleasure. And to Smithy & Sexy Girlfriend of Smithy (Is that what we're calling Katie now?) or is that just what Vadge is calling her? Regardless, it was great to meet you both properly

Until next time.

 

[caffeine_demon]

Day 3

We all had a cooked breakfast apart from Caffeine_Demon who thought you had to pay extra (it was complimentary), SPITE.

I know - I asked the girl who showed me my room if breakfast was included, and she just said it was a continental breakfast, and then there was a sign on the table in my room - not only did it say the cooked breakfast was £8.95, but it had to be ordered by 9pm the night before! so when the chef asked if I was waiting for a cooked breakfast I just said no... Grrrrr! the bacon looked lovely too! :cry:

Bounce below was just insanely bouncy! I loved the slides and really wanted to do a couple more - But didn't want to do THAT CLIMB again!

 

[Ben]

I'll be gutted if they spite the Hayley Williams Memorial Cred <//3