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Oakwood - 19/08/09

Inverse

Hyper Poster
We were bored. So the next day my girlfriend and I drove off with our tent to visit Oakwood, as we'd never been there before.

We camped at a campsite owned by my girlfriends Aunt and Uncle which is about 45mins away from Oakwood.], called Plas-Y-Wern. I'm sure we could have got closer, but it was free for us (£9 a night is still very cheap). :)

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(the view from our tent).

The next day, we went to Oakwood. It was very easy to find and was well signposted from the A40. We arrived at about 9:40 and parked at the very front of the car park and just needed to wait for the doors to open at 10. After 10, the short queue got into the park really quickly.

The entrance to Oakwood tries to encourage you to take the train into the park. This seemed ridiculous to us, the park is very small so we took a right and walked the footpath past Hydro into the park. As we arrived well before anyone on the train we had the entire park to ourselves for the briefest of moments so we charged for Megafobia and got ourselves on the front row (back was taken) of the first train of the day.

Megafobia
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Our first ride was on the front row and it was pretty good, a lady two rows behind us screamed the entire way around. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. We took a second ride straight afterwards, further back, and it was better than the front, the airtime was superb right down the first drop and it continued throughout the ride. We rode Megafobia 4 times, the last time on the back row, it the rain with slippery tracks and ity was amazing! I don't know if the run would have continued, but i can honestly say it got better and better every time we rode it.
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(Amazing)

Signs at the park entrance said that Speed would be opening late, but it was testing as we entered Oakwood so i didn't think it'd be long. And indeed as we left Megafobia and talk a walk to get our bearings a distant scream alerted us to it being open.

We found it a bit tricky to find our way to the Speed area and needed to resort to that map (shocking!). However we got there early enough that there was no queue worth mentioning and we got 2 quick rides.

Speed
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Saw is the only other eurofighter I had ridden, and I felt no difference with Speed's extra 15ft or Saw's extra 3 degrees. I enjoyed the airtime hill and felt some serious G-Force in the helix, enough to make my vision go funny. It was a pretty good ride, but it felt like it it was just placed there with no attempt at a theme. Overall i enjoyed the ride but it has no wow-factor. I believe Saw is better.

By this time, the park had filled up and queues for the more popular rides were around 40 minutes. I'm not a veteran of Oakwood, but this felt like it was as busy as it normally gets.

We queued 40min for the bobsleigh that i really wanted to do but wouldn't queue like that for it again. We hd to wait around 10 for a trip in the Pedalos which provided a great view of Megafobia and it's picturesque first drop by the lake... ruined only by my mug:
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Treetops coaster was quality, enhanced by it's surroundings it was fun for me and probably brilliant for kids. What wasn't quality is when we went credit whoring on the Clown Coaster only to be tortured by the ride op by being given 16 (yes, sixteen!) laps!! Oh my word... where's that thread on most embarrassing ride moment?

I'll be honest with you know, it was dark and rainy and we hadn't really slept a wink in the tent the night before and we didn't have anywhere to try off and get warm again... so we wussed out of wet rides, including Hydro, which since opening at 1pm had developed a mammoth queue. We were tempted to go, it did look thrilling and I one day hope to be in the situation where it wouldn't have been so stupid to get that soaked.

We got lunch, which was a crap burger with fairly good chips and a pepsi and beat away the Wasps and Seagulls to eat it ourselves.

After lunch we hunted down a few more rides on the coasters and called it a day at about 4:30. I had wanted to go on Plane Crazy, but I just forgot in my zombie state.

Overall Impression
Oakwood just need to try harder. This is the impression i got from my one trip. Even if i ignored the rubbish that was all over the Megafobia queue first thing in the morning, indicating that it was left over from yesterday, or possibly longer ago, i couldn't ignore a boarded up play house thing and closed stalls. I feel it's like what Furie was saying about Drayton a week or so back, it just needs a lick of paint to fix many of it's faults. And then employ some people to pick up rubbish and clear the bins.

The rides there are really good, especially for a park of it's stature. Megafobia is world class and seemed okay with no real theme, but Speed needed something more than a rock near the queue line. Hydro seemed themed well enough.

So I say well done to Oakwood, they have a selection of quality rides. Now lets try and improve the park in enhance the experience and make it somewhere people would like to spend the entire day or longer in.

To other people thinking of going to Oakwood, i would say they definatly need to go and experience Megafobia and take advantage of the other rides there too. The queues never seemed to get too long to put you off joining them (i don't think) and the entry price is reasonable, even if vertigo is £33 extra, ignore it. Think about taking a packed lunch, the trip back to the car is hardly long and the park food wasn't worth it's cost.

Ride Count:
Megafobia x 4 (front, back, two near back)
Speed x 3
Treetops Coaster
Clown Coaster (16 fecking laps)
Bobsleigh
Pedalos

Reading that ride count, doesn't seem we did a lot. I guess all the stops for tea and caffeine took major time out of our day.
 

Kebab

Giga Poster
I really need to visit Oakwood; It isn't actually that far from me, I've just never got round to travelling there. I'm a big fan of Megafobia, even if I haven't been on it, I do think it's as good as it gets in UK. I really need to ride it!

Is Speed rougher than Saw? I've heard it's a pretty rough coaster. :?
 

Ali

Mega Poster
Speed is smooth compared to Saw, the only rough part of Speed is when you are leaving the overbank and entering the loop. The drop, airtime hill and helix part are all glass smooth on Speed.
 

Kebab

Giga Poster
I've always found Saw really smooth minus the entrance to that nasty immelmann. I don't have a problem with roughness at all, but I do tend to compare it with certain coasters, so Speed must be rather promising :)
 

Enicomb

Mega Poster
Every time I go somewhere there's a trip report on here :)

Your experience sounds different to ours, though I'd have to agree it could really do with some paint, though the place was completely spotless (rubbish wise) when we went yesterday. It was also hammering it down for most of the day so there were no queues; which meant 39 rides; 19 of which on speed 6 without getting off. We also did Hydro twice, it's far better than Tidal Wave, but they really do check and triple check everything before you can ride so it takes a while to get going.

I'm glad I didn't go on the Clown Coaster though; 16 times! I'll bet that was embarrassing. I found it pretty embarrassing just going on the bob sleigh ride.
 

Dave

CF Legend
Problem with Oakwood at the moment is a change over of companies and owners, lot of confusion.
 

peep

CF Legend
16 laps on the clown coaster? That sounds quite horrible and very embarrassing.

Glad you had a good time though.
 

Inverse

Hyper Poster
^ haha, yup. I've learnt my lesson, don't be a credit whore. At least we weren't alone on the ride, that would have killed.
 

TarkaTrax

Mega Poster
I do wish they'd do something about Speed's surroundings. Megafobia isn't themed, but is very well landscaped and fits in with its surroundings perfectly. Hydro sticks out like a sore thumb, but it feels deliberate and industrial somehow. Speed is in, what, its 3rd or 4th season? And it still looks like a construction site, they even still had those temporary metal fences last time I went. It looks terrible, poor show Oakwood.

Fingers crossed for some ride investment next year, I still don't think there's quite enough to fill a day at the moment.
 
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