United Kredding - Part 51: When the walk to the park is better than the park itself

[Rob Coasters]

Great report @Rob Coasters; glad you enjoyed your day!

One thing I would say to you is that I wouldn’t worry about finding the likes of Zadra etc too intense, because intensity (and ride quality) is very subjective.

For instance, I’m less well travelled than you are (91 coasters vs your 133), yet Megafobia is only my #23 and a 7/10. It’s all very subjective (although I should point out that I personally rate coasters on fun factor and rerideability rather than out and out intensity).

I returned to Oakwood a couple days later and did discover that the funnies in the back row were nonexistent in cars 3 & 4, allowing me to constantly keep my hands up and not having to brace. The jolts in the back did initially make me reconsider its #1 spot but ultimately decided it was still worthy. Immediately after I did said middle rows which were smoother, solidified the #1 spot and significantly largened the gap between it and Olympia. They're my favourite seats on the ride now. Not having to hold the restraint and being able to keep my hands up high also massively helped with feeling the ride's airtime.

As for the whole 'not wanting to do the European champions immediately' thing, I may reconsider my view on that. When it comes to future trips, whatever happens will happen. Is my next trip going to involve Zadra? Maybe. Shambhala? Perhaps. The Allou Fun Park Wild Wind? Hmm. We'll just have to see.

Part 29: Coney Beach Porthcawl & Barry Island Pleasure Park

The Wales holiday was sadly over and our time here was up, but we didn't want to do a drive that just went home. We wanted to make several detours and essentially find as many reasons as possible to stay in a country that I officially now like more than silly old England.

Our first stop was Porthcawl, which housed Coney Beach. Not much else to say, let's get straight to it.

I've had my fair share of single helix coasters this year and it looks like it won't be stopping anytime soon. The operator of #134 Nessi was the third person on this trip to notice and compliment my Megafobia cap so that's a definite keeper. With that I got into the back seat for my first zen ride of the day.


Too tall for Go Spitor, so instead off to #135 Wacky Worm for my second zen ride of the day. I felt the wiggles at the top notably more than on other worms, this is what my life is now.


With the dirty work done it was time for funner stuff. I skipped Megaspin when it came to Winter Wonderland in 2015 and I finally got my chance to get on it today. Surprisingly it wasn't as bad as I expected, and I exclaimed my enjoyment for the ride to 'huh?'s and 'what?'s and 'how?'s from my group who stood by the sidelines.




I was recommended to do the afterburner but I didn't want to do that straight after Megaspin, so instead I decided to swap that for Sticky Wall. I love these rides, they're great fun although in hindsight I should've just done the afterburner.


Plus, I wasn't able to walk straight after that so the afterburner was now off the cards entirely. I was thinking to myself "I'm going to regret not doing this" and turns out I was right with that. But! If I did do it, I most likely would've missed out on Sticky Wall and then get sad over that. So it's quite the dilemma.


So we did the Ghost Train.


After an "are you sure?" to the Go Spitor operator, it was confirmed that no adults at all are allowed on it so with that we wandered out.

I mean... at least Brean has an afterburner so I guess I could get on that one.

21 miles later we're at Barry Island for the pleasure park.


Thankfully their brand new Speed 32 soft opened ahead of its official opening in the weekend so the flat anxiety was out the window but we need to do the coasters first.

Such as #136 Dragon Challenge for my third zen ride of the day. Not your average Wacky Worm. But it's really good, I legitimately had to hold onto the restraint on the drop otherwise I would've been sent absolutely flying. Love it.


Far better than whatever #137 Cyclone, the fourth zen ride of the day, tries to be. And a zen ride with good reason; it's an uneventful blabber around the course with uncomfortable valleys. Far from SBF's finest. I would've recommended it to my group if it weren't for the car crash simulator brake run that completely destroyed any reason to reride, a horrible jerk twice. Imagine Stealth but instead of 0-80 in 1.8 seconds it's 80-0 in 0.5 seconds. I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn't know it was going to be that bad.


With the dirty work done I stumbled across an unexpected Wacky Worm independent from the pleasure park on a marathon length walk to the nearest (open) toilets but sadly it was spiting. After an "are you sure?" on the return leg to the ticket booth guy, it was confirmed to be closed so with that we wandered off.

Duties done and broken taps, back in the pleasure park we go.
Aerospace was fantastic as expected but forwards rotation is far less intense than backwards, to the point where I would argue that it wasn't really intense at all, but I don't think that's what the ride tries to be. It's damn impressive though, and brilliant fun nonetheless.


However I wasn't ready for the top scan yet so instead went for Hellraiser for a fifth zen ride of the day and with good reason.
BIG MISTAKE.
Hellraiser is a frankly pathetically run Matterhorn that runs at what feels like 30% of its maximum potential speed for a minute and a half before slowing down. It rattled all the way through and not once did the cars swing over 45. When it slowed down I thought it was going to go backwards, then it played the 'thank you for riding' announcement and I was in shock as the operator lifted my bar. That ride did NOTHING and my group who aren't enthusiasts even them were highly surprised that that was it. Now I can't do the top scan because that rattle got to my head a bit.


I didn't want to end Wales on a low like that so Ghost Train in we go. I had exactly enough tokens remaining for all three of us to ride, but as one bailed last second, their tokens were used for me to go around again for my sixth and final zen ride of the day.


Then we left.

Both parks at the end of the day were great fun, however both of their flaws lie in the lack of toilets. Coney's are situated at the extreme far end of the park and Barry outright doesn't have any at all, and they do have the space to put one in without ridding off anything they have. While I do have regrets of not doing the afterburner or top scan at least it gives me good enough reason to go back.



Despite my six zen rides both parks had a reasonable amount of people in them, and they're both fairly priced, just phenomenal timings on my part really.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 30: 2 Freak Outs, 1 Day (Harold Hill Fair & Croydon Summer Beach Festival)

The Wales trip made me compare going to a park with several coasters versus going to several parks with a coaster. Option 1 is far more efficient, however the latter option often takes significant priority on the simple fact that "It's closer to me".

The two main targets were a) a summer 'beach event' in Croydon with a guaranteed coaster, and b) a funfair in Harold Hill that "might" have a coaster but the showman often travels with three. Croydon was considered but later decided against in favour of Harold Hill, as the Harold Hill fair was ending three days later while Croydon's one lasted through the middle of August, a month more.

Place name reminds me of a childhood favourite TV icon of mine, Harry Hill. Who remembers TV Burp & You've Been Framed?
Integrate him into coaster comparisons. "Speed versus Saw, who will win? There's only one way to find out... FIGHT!!!"

So off to Harry Hill we go. As my destination was Liverpool Street underground station, this was my first taste of the Metropolitan line and it was my favourite of the four tube lines I've done so far. Spacious trains!

So at Liverpool Street we now are. As my destination was now Harold Wood, this was also my first taste of the Elizabeth line and it was pretty good. Spacious trains!

It was a whole twenty minute walk from the wood to the hill. This one is pretty hard to mess up - go straight for almost that entire route then turn right when you're one minute away from the park.

As the fair came into view I scouted the skyline HARD. Freak out, miami, paratrooper, oh nice a Tagada, round up...

...no coaster. They might've brought one of their two smaller ones then. I head in, scour the entire area, and we've been spited of a coaster as there's none here.

The first and only ride I did here was Freak Out. I haven't done one of these in a while and was pleasantly surprised to find some excellent floater airtime on the crests of the swings.

That was good. No action shots here sadly. I watched it go shortly after and kind of just decided not to take any.


The paratrooper swung the cars to 90 degrees and ran obscenely fast, and I regrettably skipped it, making three fairs in a row which all had a flat I probably should've done. I think my plan was to just leave the fair though as a revision of today's itinerary added the Croydon beach back onto the cards, and I wanted to get there early as I didn't exactly have high hopes of the place. Still... I really need to stop skipping stuff for no reason.


Twenty minute walk back and another ride on Elizabeth later, I'm back in Liverpool Street for a two stop ride on the Metropolitan down to Farringdon.

From Farringdon it was the fourth half an hour long train ride of the day down to East Croydon, a place that I'd been dreading.


I got extremely lost looking for the trams as I'd accidentally taken a side exit instead of the main exit, but I made my way eventually. I went for the tram that ran its way down to Woodside station and from there it was a two minutes walk to the beach (which was a paddling pool in the middle of the grounds). For some reason the fair operated a system where:
-If you want to ride everything including the big thrill rides, you need an £11.99 wristband.
-If you want to ride everything but the big thrill rides, you need a £9.99 wristband.
-If you're just popping in without the intention of doing a single ride, you STILL need a £9.99 wristband. Not even a £2 entry or whatnot, WRISTBAND needed.

It's a strangely questionable system at best and not really one I support, but either way I got the big boy wristband and in I went.

Finally I got myself on a coaster, #138 Apple Coaster for I think my fourth ever completely full train on a ride of this type - out of twenty one. I say those are good numbers. Nothing particularly standout about this one except for the prominent smell of an overheating motor killing itself at the top of the lift. No action shots here sadly.


I soldiered over to the Go Spitor with the two opergators (why do they need two) telling me "no you can't, this is for kids". Mate, I've done two of these things with those exact trains this year. Reality is I just walked away because they looked like they both would've socked my face in had I even started to negotiate. Welcome to Croydon.

Highlight time now. X Flight wasn't a B&M wing but rather my second Freak Out of the day, and this was by a country mile the most intense pendulum I've ever done. It did full height at full spin, to the point where I started impulsively holding the restraint but managed to successfully fight that urge as the valleys made me start seeing stars combined with bouts of quick floater too.

That was great. No action shots here sadly. I've honestly just completely gone off the idea of standing around waiting for a ride to get moving.


Superstar action shot on the other hand through the fence after I left. New favourite photo of the year.


Ghost train had what looked like a half an hour queue. What you're not seeing is a hundred other people all wanting to be spooked hard. I'd like to leave this place now though, no time for that.


And so I did. Got the tram back to East Croydon where I changed at Farringdon for the 'quick way out' from London back into my home town.

One benefit of Croydon: trams. Everywhere in the world needs a tram system. I love it.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 31: FlamIIngo Park

I'd originally anticipated August to be "by far" my most park & cred-intensive month, ever, immediately surpassing the antics of July. Four weeks in, it doesn't seem to be going that way from the looks of it, and that's out of sheer laziness if I'm being brutally honest with things. The real reason rather than (okay, as well as) laziness is the whole 'prioritise quantity' thing where places with 1 coaster plummeted down the to do list. If you read the title, well you can see I appear to've changed my mind haven't I. I have to get to these places at one point in my life or another, so while I wait for grand nationals and kumalis (spoilers?) to happen I can get these boxes ticked in the meantime.

I'm returning to Hastings for one thing and one thing only. To unspite myself of that silly little Zamperla mouse ride.

I vaticinated this trip being a cakewalk as I've done this exact thing before three and a bit months back, but I guess I could give you a rundown of how to get there again.

Background music: Bowsers Inside Story OST - Have a Nice Talk

Step 1) Get the London Underground train down to London Bridge.
Step 2) Take the walk past the shard into the National Rail station.
Step 3) Take little note of a sign warning you about severe delays on one of the lines.
Step 4) Print your tickets.
Step 5) Look for the 11:24 train to Hastings, expected time is "ask staff" o'clock.
Step 6) Ask staff. They say "Dunno about South Eastern Railway mate you need to go downstairs and speak to those ones".
Step 7) Mooch around shops before going downstairs and asking staff again.
Step 8) Ask staff again. They say "there's a tree on the line mate. Delays for at least an hour but they could be longer".
Step 9) Have concern as the ticket we have is a timed one. Ask staff. "That's out the window now mate come any time you want cos of the delay". Right. Hours delay, let's have a dawdle round rainy London.
Step 10) See the HMS Belfast. Looks pretty good. Tower Bridge in the background, looks pretty cool. We saw it lift.
Step 11) See some buildings with mist. Looks pretty nice.
Step 12) See some other things. Looks pretty pretty.
Step 13) See a squirrel. Looks (okay, IS) pretty friendly.
Step 14) See the squirrel climb up half my leg, then up the entirety of a security guy's leg as he gives the squirrel some nuts. Happy squirrel, goodbye.
Step 15) See chimps. Looks pretty PogChimp, bro.
Step 16) Get a bit conscious of time and check trains again.
Step 17) Look at the timetable, our train is in two hours departing at 13.45 which is when we should have arrived.
Step 18) Sit and wait playing Extreme Road Trip 2 while the person I'm going with has alook around some other shops. In for the long haul.
Step 19) She asks some staff "right, we're going to Hastings, is there literally any faster route we can do" as the train is delayed even further. Staff says "yeah, train going to Brighton and you can change there for a train to Hastings. Comes and goes in three minutes, leg it".
Step 20) Cut to her screaming my name from across half the station, frantically demanding I pick everything up immediately and hastingsly bolt it with all of the leg power I have upwards & onwards to Platform 4.
Step 9+10) Crash onto the train right as the doors open. And... relax... wait not yet.
Step 22) Find out where the hell we go from here. Our change to Hastings would depart a cool twelve minutes after we arrive in Brighton so it's smooth sailing from here on out, at long last.

-Cut background music-

Wew.





And then we were here, again. The train ticket of the person I was with was acting up but thankfully staff were being forgiving and let her through, so we stumbled out to Flamingo Park. Seeing the previously spiteful coaster running with riders was a surreal sight to see, but I still jogged it with decent speed down seaside stones as I still took zero chances with this stacked up steel.

I drenched my sweaty self with a slushy that matched perfectly the colour combination of my clothes, and then we were here on #139 Pinball X. The car makes maybe one full rotation throughout the course, and I came off my first ride rather unimpressed.



Thankfully however we gave it more chances and on our two rerides I found the fun that this ride had to offer and placed it far higher in the rankings than what I was anticipating. It's another coaster that enthusiasts seem to blow out of proportion for no reason, and for the third or fourth time this year a ride "isn't as bad as people say". Did I do my first ride wanting to be underwhelmed because I expected it to be bad? Is this a sign that I should leave coaster discussion threads to go into them with more of an open mind? Though doing that resulted in some headaches from my party after they rode Speed...



We were both terrified on the Ghost Train with the op still there after all this time providing a final spook at the end


then had a blast on the Dodgems. This is the one I got...


The park's thrill flats were still broken (with their Wacky Worm amusingly listed as 'waiting for parts' as it resided fully operational in Canvey Island) so we made our way to do some tourism which involved the fun funicular railway, the minute miniature railway, and the breezy beach that was a bit too far away from the land for our likings, sadly not a railway.






And with that, it was the end of a fantastically weird & wonderful day.


We ended up discovering that I'd accidentally bought her train ticket for the day after our trip which is why it never worked, but staff were highly understanding of my incompetence and let her through. We were both so exhausted at this point that we would've died on the spot had those train guys been having a rough day. But thankfully they weren't, and that's all I could ever ask for.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 32: Flamingo Land

It was about time I crossed off this big boy. It's been on my radar for far too long now and with a potential top 10 (& another bottom 1) coaster sitting there waiting for me, I decided that there was no better time to visit than now. It was time to 'save' August from being almost entirely dry of creds, and it was time to do it in style. No Wacky Worms to be seen here, but I am going the furthest North I've ever been in my life.

I was thanking the heavens that the ways there & back (spoilers) could not have gone any better. Things were incredibly smooth and it was a beauty to behold. A train from King's Cross to York, and then the 840 Coastliner to Kirby Misperton Roundabout. My only gripe is that it could've and should've cost less than £80, combined across all the transport, to get here. Nationalise rail.

Transport tip: the last bus leaving Kirby Misperton Roundabout is at 6:14pm, and if you miss that the difficulty in getting back to York is going to skyrocket. I played it safe with getting the 5:14pm bus, and giving it ample time to arrive. It indeed arrived at 5:14, but best to play it safe.
The bus stop you use to get to the park is the exact same one you use getting back to the station.

On the bus I noticed this potentially extremely dangerous design flaw where this metal barrier wasn't between the pavement & the road with a 50something speed limit. I do really think this barrier should've been between the two, unless I'm missing something? It feels too glaringly obvious to be a 'whoopsie we didn't mean to do that' but again people refuse to build bike lanes then complain about cyclists being in the road.


In the park we go then. It was clear that Spitero was going to be closed all day, I heard some kids say it was going to be open the day after my visit. Bah. So off to the second lowest capacity ride in the park, #140 Mumbo Jumbo.

Arriving to the park for 11am, an hour after opening, meant that this ride had already garnered an hours queue. Eventually I was on though.


Unfortunately the trims had made the first drop highly unremarkable & uncomfortable, going down sharply while not gaining any speed for half of it is quite a strange feeling. The outerbank was there, and the hangtime filled dive loop was quite good.

My favourite part of the ride, however, ended up being the fantastic downwards barrel roll which was heaps of fun and a good way to end the ride. As it's so far unlike anything else I've ever done, it's something I desparately need another ride on to form a real opinion.


I was advised to hit #141 Kumali next, and I lucked out with getting the back row. I started to understand why this park has a bad reputation for their slow operations now, but another hour later I was on.


You'll start to notice a pattern with the photos; as I forgot to clear up my phone's storage on the way there the camera was acting awry with a good few seconds' delay between pressing the take photo button, and the photo being taken. So with 90% of photos here the train isn't where I want it to be. I like how this one came out though.


While there is some side to side headrocking I was entirely unbothered by it due to how aggressively padded the restraints are, to the point where I really didn't mind it at all. The vertical loop & first drop ended up being my favourite parts of the ride.


So when I got off the ride, I took the above photo. Again due to the camera delay the train was further along than I would've liked. After taking that photo my next target was to get a shot of the ride going through its Zero G Roll, so I had to beat the train by making a quick jog from the right side of the path to the left. Unfortunately, what I didn't notice was a completely full slushy directly behind me and as I went to the left side I accidentally kicked over the slushy, soaking one of my shoes. I was losing the race against the train and frantically pressed take photo as the train careened through the Zero G but my phone refused to take it in time. All of that was for this pathetic monstrosity of a photo.


So next was #142 Velocity as I walked straight past Kiddie Coaster Central to save those for the end of the day, going completely against my original gameplan for this park. I once again lucked out with seating, this time for the front.

Also - whoever designed the music playlist for this coaster's station needs a raise (and I need a link to it!).


It's fun, it's so much fun. Being the immature 20 year old I am I flapped my arms like an eagle flying over the straight hills, hopefully amusing onlookers and definitely amusing myself. It might be just three long corners but it's definitely a brilliantly enjoyable coaster.


When talking about this ride to others, they jokingly asked if the motorbikes were Harley Davidson to which I replied "No they're Vekoma", entirely flummoxing them before revealing it was the ride's manufacturer shortly after.


#143 Sik was the coaster I was anticipating on being a potential top tenner, and while it succeeded, it didn't do so with flying colours.

But pause, let me make an announcement: I LOVE SINGLE RIDER LINES!!!!!!!!!!!

The Intaminimalistic lap bar was a warm welcome from the restrictive OTSRs you always find in this country, and while there was a slight rattle in the back seat of my one ride it was still smoother than I ever expected it to be, for a coaster that was sat in pieces in three different countries for eight-ish years.


All of the elements hit hard and the mist tunnels were a great cool down from the boiling weather but I wasn't expecting the corkscrews to be my favourite part of the ride. Then the rolls hit.


I don't know if I've somehow had not enough to eat or drink at this point, but I was IMMEDIATELY seeing major stars on that gauntlet of four insane elements. I got a feeling in my head that I instantly recognised as "I'm gonna be Sik!" but forgivingly the ride was over before things got physically regurgitating. I managed to prevail and keep my hands up the whole ride though, and by no means does my reaction make the ride any less awesome. It's a sik ride, but one ride today was enough.


And so started a quick 30-40 minute break from the rides. All that was left were the four kiddie ones, and I concluded that even if Spitero opened I would've skipped it out of stomach related concerns.

Background music - Curb Your Enthusiasm theme

During my break a certain yellow pendulum ride decided to break down, so it started sending empty cycles. To my bewilderment amazement and utter general confusion, the ride wasn't even able to swing up to 90° even when it had riders. Watching the ride struggle through its test runs & standard cycles were a hilarious yet sad sight to behold, and it's antics continued as I entered the queue for #144 Zooom!. It had been sending constant empties for over an hour at this point now, the queue not evacuated and still full of people, my eyes glued to it determined to see what the hell they were going to do with it next. They weren't even raising the floor at this point, empty after empty after empty. Suddenly, floor raised, ops open & relock restraints. Another empty. Some cycles not spinning, some with spinning. Sometimes they raise the floor, sometimes they don't. Some time later they gave up, evacuated the queue, and left the ride alone for the rest of the day.

Five minutes later I was at the front of the queue for Zooom!. I was near the front of the line, and the coaster's loading procedure is "make a mad dash for your seat and hope you can get on". Unfortunately there was a roadblock between the cars and the queue - the fact that I had to put my bag to the side. When the floodgates opened I put my bag to the side and went to car 2. Sniped. Car 3. Sniped. Every other car had at least one person in the seat now, so I sheepishly ask a dad if he could scoot over for me to claustrophobically squash in. We quickly realise I won't be able to fit. This happens another time, until I look to the op in desperation. Wordlessly assessing my predicament he uses one index finger to indicate for me to come back, I get my bag and he opens the queue gate, and SOMEHOW some more kids decide to barge in front of me as what should've been my ride despatches. Knowing better now, when the gates open once again I move quicker and secure a seat. Achievement get.

The ride was fine. It wasn't as awfully uneventful as I was expecting.


-Cut background music-

#145 Runaway Mine Train provided some fun and decent laterals in the back (left) seat.


They had mysteriously managed to break Dino Spiter so that was down. Time was quickly running on so I only had time for one more ride. I tried my hand at the spinning coaster. Nope queue's too long. I'll miss my bus. And with the other single helix closed, looks like this day's ending on a low. So I walk around the zoo area for a bit, and by chance I check the spiter one last time... and I was in luck.

#146 Dino Roller comes to save the day. This one's far better than the other rides of this type as it doesn't trim in the station for the first two laps. Day's ending on a high after all!


And that was it. Flamingo Land was a decent success, and certainly is a place that I need to return to.


We'll meet again, Spitero.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 33: Flamingo Land Again

So far this year I've gained at least one new cred for every month of the year, but twenty three days through September I'd gained nothing for the month and I was beginning to cut things dangerously close. I was not having any sort of chain-breaking, and to see this through to the end of the year I needed to step my game up. With the previous September weekends taken up by other fundoings, I managed to find myself a free day and booked tickets to Flamingo Land once again, to mop up a notorious flying coaster & a not-much spinning coaster.

With my train departing Kings Cross on five hours of sleep, I fell asleep for most of my journey up to York as a result but was thankfully awake by the time my stop arrived. A quick 30 minute wait for the 840 Coastliner to Thornton-le-Dale later I was on my way to the Kirby Misperton Roundabout. Rain scheduled, a rainbow through the window, majority of the car park empty, nothing can go wrong, surely?
...surely?

I go into the queue for #147 Hero which is actually open this time, expecting it to give me hell to its outer limits. For it to send me into the unknown, for it to simulate being thrown into a washing machine with a ladder inside it that gets tossed off a 400ft cliff during an earthquake, for it to top Blizzard that's retained a twelve-year crown as my all-time worst coaster.


It's been a long, long time since I was this terrified of a coaster. I really don't get much "oh god what am I getting myself into" with rollercoasters any more (still plenty of that for flat rides though), and the last time it happened was eleven months ago boarding Odyssey, ironically another coaster that always gets some flack for being rough. So I'm scared of coasters when they might be bad. Got it.


Stepping up the ladder restraint I'd accepted my fate, and going up the lift was oddly calming. I let out a loud "OH NO" going down the drop, then we slam into the corner then rocketing into the roll...

...it is smooth. Where is the rattle? Oh, it's on the second roll, but it's not much more than a minor inconvenience and not enough for me to care. I was laughing hysterically throughout the entire layout. 'IT'S FUN! IT'S FUN!' repeats in my head, and we hit the brakes as happy as ever. The people next to me share their enjoyment and I give thumbs up to the operators who let us out.


I exclaim my surprising liking of the ride online, but I wasn't expecting people to agree with me almost in unison that it's a pretty majorly overhated ride that really isn't that bad. But while they "outright refuse" to call it 'good', it too wasn't the catastrophic disaster of steel they were expecting it to be. Anticipating a reride later in the day, I've got unfinished business first.

#148 Twistosaurus, the ride I skipped last visit due to its long queue, was kind of exactly what I expected it to be. On the first lap I got the helix facing downwards which provided some force which was nice, but those corners at the top are a bit on the strange side of things if you hit them at a weird angle.



Bonus B&M Hyper construction in the Dino Stone area.


Practically every ride in the park had a 5-10 minute wait, and with all obtainable creds gained I had free roam of the place now. I used this time to get a second opinion of Mumbo Jumbo, I still don't like the trimmed drop but everything else was fine. I'm not sure if I retain the opinion that the downwards barrel roll is the best part of the ride, but thing's still alright.


Second opinion of Kumali? Enjoyed it far more especially now I actually remember the Zero G Roll. Love the bottom of that first drop, those forces always catch me by surprise.

nothing can go wrong, surely?

Had to at some point, things were going a little too well. My stomach started acting up as I began to grow weary of what I could handle next, and my much-anticipated token lap of Sik was close to the window as I did not want to risk it. I love the ride. It's just a shame that I almost couldn't handle it last time, and it's a shame that I still don't know how to keep things down after all these years of coastering. Spoilers are that I never rode Sik this day at all as the feeling never officially receded no matter how much I tried to solve the problem, and six hours on park with near walk-on rides I only managed nine rides total across the entire day.

A needed break from the coasters brought me to suck up a queue for Flamingo F1. I hadn't realised that the steering wheel actually does control the car until halfway through the first turn, and a strange meme of a ride turned into an extremely fun experience as I went full serious mode controlling the car as hard as I could to not crash it into the center guide rail. Flamingo F1 ended up being the sleeper hit of the trip and is a must-do when a break from the coasters is needed.


After a long sit down I gave Velocity another go, and second-from-front was oddly better than front seat itself which was interesting. I wanted to do the back but got sniped, oops.


What my first ride on Velocity didn't bring is more stomach faff. My head was filled with "...are you kidding me?" as I got off with a a mild feeling, definitely from the seating position of the coaster, that was enough to temporarily put me off the rides. AGAIN. I begrudgingly sit back down fully against my will as I wait again, then shortly after getting tired of waiting I suck it all up and get back on Hero, fully acknowledging that the seating position is exactly the same.

...and it's fine. I get off absolutely fine. What. Edge seat this time, and while there's a little more rattle on the rolls it really still is not enough for me to care.


Tired of letting my body make decisions for me I decided "it's all or nothing", walked up to the entrance of Sik, rides closed mate it broke. Oops. Getting closer to the end of the day now I acknowledge the loss and get my last rides in. I started with Cliffhanger, a fantastic shot & drop tower with punchy launches and a brilliant drop.


My first lap of Mumbo Jumbo in the back seats ended up with a rattle through the course, unfortunately giving it the case it needs to knock it down a couple spots in the ranking, and I ended the day with Kumali (opinion unchanged, still great) before becoming conscious of the time and successfully legging it to the bus stop for the way home.








Well... honesty is key here.

It was a bit of an irritating day due to factors that I still don't know how to control despite my current best efforts. The idea of having to take sickness tablets may be a path I'll need to go down with a sigh, but if I struggle so badly with a silly park like this then again I don't know how I'll be able to deal with major parks that make Flamingo Land look like a tiny little kid's park. This could very well be me just overthinking the idea of unwellness into existence, but it's a thought I'm entirely unable to eradicate from my mind. I guess I can say that I'm still learning and finding ways to conquer large rides.

What I cannot figure out is how at the end of the day I did those final three rides consecutively with no wait between, and felt fine after, when those rides were the ones that started the mess in the first place at the beginning of the day. I truly have no idea what's happening there, and most likely I'm going to remain clueless from here on out.

Apologies for ending this trip report on a low but I'm a little stuck here with what's going on. I hope it's a resolvable issue, I'll definitely be having a chat with people who know better than me about what they're doing to stop it.

Next we're leaving the country, click here to travel to Ireland.

 

[Hixee]

I know it can be disheartening when you have a day like that, but I would definitely try not to write it all off yet (or at least, let those thoughts of having to write it all off get the better of you). You admitted at the start of the post that you'd barely slept, and whilst dozing the train helps it doesn't beat proper rest.

I learned a while ago that I need good rest, a steady pace and plenty of relaxing, to not get fatigued at parks. Some people have the motivation for it, but I don't anymore and enjoy myself far more taking a slower pace. I haven't done a mega park day in a long time now - it's either split the park over a few days or not need to rush round as I've done it before so there's only a smattering of things I actually need to ride. Sometimes both!

Rest properly, eat and drink properly, stay out of the sun (or rain) and I reckon you'll do fine. If you still need the sickness meds, then go sparingly and try to fight it with other controls first.

Just my thoughts on it - no doubt you've had similar thoughts yourself too.

 

[Rob Coasters]

I know it can be disheartening when you have a day like that, but I would definitely try not to write it all off yet (or at least, let those thoughts of having to write it all off get the better of you). You admitted at the start of the post that you'd barely slept, and whilst dozing the train helps it doesn't beat proper rest.

I learned a while ago that I need good rest, a steady pace and plenty of relaxing, to not get fatigued at parks. Some people have the motivation for it, but I don't anymore and enjoy myself far more taking a slower pace. I haven't done a mega park day in a long time now - it's either split the park over a few days or not need to rush round as I've done it before so there's only a smattering of things I actually need to ride. Sometimes both!

Rest properly, eat and drink properly, stay out of the sun (or rain) and I reckon you'll do fine. If you still need the sickness meds, then go sparingly and try to fight it with other controls first.

Just my thoughts on it - no doubt you've had similar thoughts yourself too.

Thank you for the input! The more I think about it it was absolutely over a lack of sleep. I used to be convinced that it was due to "the vibrations of the train" on long-distance trips but if I give that thought for more than one second I realise it makes zero sense and doesn't add up in the slightest. Admittedly it's also been a long while since I've done a park of that scale with practically zero lines, so I probably also let that get to me a bit, forgetting to pace myself properly especially on that little rest.

The more I think about it... lack of sleep has perfectly lined up with parks where I've had to tap out of rides I wanted to do. Great Yarmouth & Winter Wonderland being the prime examples, WW especially because last December was AWFUL in terms of my sleep schedule!

Thank you again for writing that, I'll make sure to keep all of this in mind for when my next trip rolls around!

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 34: Spooky Festive Fair

The discovery of a Chance Toboggan in Southampton led to important research in how to get there as fast as possible... the Tuesday in the week was decided as the easiest day to go to as Part 35 of this seemingly endless series happened yesterday (Saturday)... and Sunday was busy too with events, not coaster-related. Our two options of getting there were a) take the train down from Waterloo to Southampton Central then rigorously explain to the taxi driver where we wanted to go (somewhere on Bursledon Road, stop when you see rides) as bus services were unreliable due to roadworks, or take a 90 minute drive there and back. The latter was chosen. A ride in the car filled to the brim with deafening cred anxiety later, we were there as we watched a car get sent. No more cred anxiety!

#153 Toboggan is a fascinating little thing. An indoor vertical lift, legs stretched out inside the car, fully enclosed cars, possibly the world's longest continuous helix in terms of degree count. The helix is quite pleasant, then it all goes to hell immediately (have I used that phrase before?) on The Dip. A rough jolt into a car crash valley before a 180 turn and it's done again... I want to get straight back on.
Getting off, the op saw my coaster shirt and asked if I was an enthusiast. "This is my 153rd roller coaster mate, travelled 90 minutes for it"


Next up was green car, with my dad opting to hop on with me this time. His own words was that the vertical lift felt like we were ascending to another dimension, probably Hell. Helix was a pleasant roll down, BANG BANG BANG. Needless to say it wasn't for him, but thankfully was able to shrug it off a minute later and continue with the day.
Getting off, I had another quick talk with the op. "So is that #154 then?" "Nah mate, 153 different roller coasters, I've done a lot hahaha" "Ahhh I get ya, make sure you check out the runaway train then" "Wait what" "Yeah just behind that orbiter near the back" "Thanks mate that's where I'm going next, but I'll be back here soon"

We listened. #154 Runaway Train is definitely a weaker example of these usually-lateral-filled ovals. I've learned to avoid the front seat of these things after the death rattle that was at the front of Santa's one.

(I'm going to lose track of these things extremely quickly)

Haven't done a classic Orbiter in a while. These are still decently fun flat rides that have a good kick to them.


Transalvynia-Express is unfortunately one of the weaker transportable ghost trains I've done, while the props are decent and the foam machine has a hilarious ending, the siren sound effect is far too loud to the point where it was actually quite irritating; while I'm sure this is exactly what the point was I just feel that they crossed the line and really should turn that siren down. Foam machine was the best part, but the second best part was an image of a guy in a hockey mask with a white background that looked like a Spirit Halloween costume.


Screamer was also an excellent Matterhorn, infinitely better than Hellraiser which should be melted into scrap metal.


The Dodgems were good fun as all Dodgemses should be but unfortunately any crashes I received slammed my knee into the wheel, but at least I eventually found a position to brace for impacts.


And then Sky Flyer which ran slowly to the point where it felt more like an observation thing rather than a thrill thing, but I still enjoyed the views that I took in either way.


Two rides on Toboggan weren't enough, so I went round for three more. Orange Car & Purple Car were both conquered, completing the full set plus one last token lap on orange to round things off. Despite its rough jolts it isn't enough for me to dislike the ride, it fits squarely in the middle of my rankings.
And as we parted ways with the op, we had a shockingly well-done coffee before leaving for the road home.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Note: The only coaster here is a Zamperla spinner. If you haven't been to Tulleys Shocktober Fest and wish to remain spoiler-free, a link to skip to Part 36 is here.

Part 35: Tulleys Shocktober Fest

Our open-dated tickets to this highly-regarded 'scream park' event allowed us to enter on a sold-out date. This would be our fourth visit, with the first in 2018, and it would have been our fifth if the event wasn't cancelled in 2020 due to (can you finish the sentence?). This time bringing a good friend of mine with us who a) hadn't ridden a roller coaster in five years and b) hadn't done a scare maze, ever.

Upon entering the park I was given leader's role of our group, so "aimlessly" wandered towards #155 CarnEvil Coaster. Priced at the cheap sum of £7 a head, my group got on and my wallet got on £28 cheaper.


Unfortunately this is a Zamperla model and we had a very well balanced car, the perfect duo to create a scenario where our spin count was zero. Yes, zero. Yes, we unlocked. This allowed for a relatively tame experience though not devoid of heaps of laughter from my group, who I'm convinced now enjoy coasters more than I do. My friend fearing for his life in the scenario that the entire ride collapses in on itself, the endless joy and happiness from my parents who claimed it to be their new #1, me who enjoyed it for what it was. "It's a good ride but it's placing at #70something because the competition is just so tough." I don't think they're buying it anymore...

...after that we saw part of a live band. Something funny happened here where the singer was going on about zombies. He got to the lyrics "eat your wife", where he emphasised the fact that it was referring to biting off the flesh for consumption in order to survive, and that it means absolutely nothing else. Brilliant.


End of the photos now. Circus of Horrors followed, a hilarious show filled with talent (obviously, it's a circus). Actors with a sense of humour, ones with... high confidence levels, sword swallower, limbo guy, a curtain dancer, the son of Satan himself, an electrical mastermind and much more. It's a fascinating show, and makes you think.

The first actual scare maze though was Village Coven of 13, the witch haunt. Starting out with dark rooms with witches cornering me on several occasions, a mysterious smoke room where you experience being ridiculously short sighted, and the laser room. The laser room is perhaps the most iconic part of the maze with a tight walkway where you get jumped from the side. After that you run outside where you get cornered (again) before the heated room where it's a final sprint to the exit. All in all it's a great maze to start off with.

Adjacent to that is Horrorwood Hayride, the sitdown haunt where you ride in a trailer controlled by a tractor. This is a far more humour-based one as a result (though all of the haunts here should not be taken seriously; it's silly fun). Gags including a falling billboard, the nuns who break out into a dance when Beyonce comes on, the little girl who just couldn't make it onto the trailer, the people opposite me who filmed the ENTIRE THING, the person opposite me who was literally ON THEIR PHONE THE WHOLE TIME... but my favourite had to be the brother and sister who described themselves as "ham and tomatoes" because "we're INBRED!!" One person in my group was given a branch where the sister proceeded to get upset because she "is the only person who touches her brother's wood". It's fantastic.

After that belly-laugh bonanza it was time for my favourite maze, Wastelands Penitentiary. The prison-themed haunt that plays Damned from COD Zombies in the area is an intensive one with the most aggressive strobes I've ever experienced anywhere, accidental contact with hands out of sheer confusion, tight spaces, getting a face of clothes, this is one with everything and it retains its spot as my favourite ever scare maze. While that is (searching synonyms for words I'm using several times) fantabulous, however my favourite setting for a maze is the new-for-2022 Doom Town which has a monstrous variety in what you experience, and it's truly crazy how they managed to fit a full-scale city into this Crawley farm. It's actual insanity how good the maze is setwise, and has some good spooks in it too.

After those two were done I bumped into a lone roaming actor. I went full secondary school mode on him, telling him my experiences with Fortnite in its golden ages, discussing my aspirations to ride Taron, the highly uneventful Fulham v Everton game earlier this daay that felt like it dragged on for centuries, even teaching him how to play Angry Birds and beating 1-1 for him. Unfortunately all of this was met with silence and stares. As my words slowed down we made eye contact, his hammer in his hand, almost motionless in the tracks. Angry Birds won't get through to him, Kevin the Cube won't get through to him, football won't get through to him, Black Mamba won't get through to him. His eyes met mine once again, and that stare will be etched into my mind forever.

After climbing out of a clown's arse the final haunt of the night was Chop Shop, the terrifyingly iconic spooktacular chainsaw maze which was a great way to end off the night. And with the haunts closing our energy was well and truly out. We ran to one final maze, Electrick Clowns, but the gate was closed... maybe it was for the better as we were well and truly exhausted now. But I say this was another highly successful year, and despite the costs it's absolutely worth the money.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 36: Hyde Park Winter Wonderland

formatting update: rides that I have done before at least once will be underlined rather than emboldened

Back here already? London's wallet eater but endless ride collection. The prices sting, such as a £6.20 booking fee, however they have a new coaster in HöllenblitzTime Machine so needs must. The simple journey returned with an Underground trip to Hyde Park Corner before a sprint to make our timeslot which closed at 12.

At 12:03pm I got in and we were accepted, I imagine there's a load of leeway to accommodate for entry lines anyway, and first destination was #156 Time Machine the Coaster, which is a clone of last year's Heidi the Coaster but with some minor adjustments. Spinning is perma-unlocked, no funny fast lift, no funny onboard audio.


Despite this it's still an excellently fun ride, and I'm actually undecided on whether I like this or Heidi more though I may come to a decision later. I'll come back to this later in the day but we got other stuff to do.

Up next - Dr. Archibald: Master of Time was a dark ride I'd unfortunately missed back in 2019 but thank the heavens as it's returned for 2022, and with my renewed love for dark rides this can't just be skipped again. I knew nothing past "mad scientist" and "virtual reality" so I was in for a big surprise when I saw an intricately woven storyline and a detailed indoor queueline. The actual VR experience itself was quite fun, with the whole idea being travelling through space and time (of course) to different worlds such as fairy world and haunted house world and 'coming face to face with a derailed train' world... unfortunately a lot of it has escaped my memory but it was still great fun nonetheless.

The exit path took you through a funny little mushroom world complete with stepping on mushroom platforms over water and through a colourful but not spinning vortex tunnel before coming out through the exit. Ten seconds later I didn't see a step downwards and almost tumbled. Excellent.

Other more experienced enthusiasts tend to criticise this ride a bit, but with my only VR experiences being Derren and Beat Saber, it's safe to say that I think this is quite a good dark ride.


Hungry again after our morning Wenzel's, and after finally saying goodbye to my cappuccino cup, stop three was Pick n Mix. Unfortunately this is an obvious criminal in the whole "this place is horribly overpriced" thing with 100g of sweets costing £3.99. Between the two of us, the total came up to eighteen pounds which just shows how quickly things add up. A couple behind us saw the cost and said to themselves "should we put this back?" "Nah".

Instead of Olympia I opted for a token lap of Airborne, my now fifth ride on one of these things. Obviously the ride doesn't really scare me as much as it used to anymore, but it's still brilliant joy to be had and it's still one intimidating-as-hell beast.


Now it was time for Olympia, I mean München Looping. My favourite row being the front, but the ride on one train and it being at least a six train wait for the front, I elected for the seats behind which I walked onto instead.


Unfortunately the ride's gained quite a rattle after its little jaunts to the mainland... this isn't the Munich I know and love. I hit the brake run sad, and with that smashing disappointment out of the way I call for a short break from the rides as a direct result. Questioning whether to see it's possible to see if my ticket for a second ride can be swapped for something else, I get some lunch at The Mac Factory which had the best damn mac-and-cheese I've ever had in my life (£8.95), and the nearby craft beer stall where I got a Fruit Shoot (£2.70).

After a short sit down the choice was made to have a wander around the back end of the park into the kid's area where we strove right past everything, but little to the knowledge of the person I was going with I had a plan... there was a reason we were here. It's a Small World Adventure has been a ride I've been skipping for a while for no particular reason, even failing to acknowledge its existence on my funnies down to Brent Cross. But it was finally time.


Short, but amusing. +1 to the non-existent dark ride list. The £8 strawberries and bananas on a stick (with chocolate sauce) afterwards brought us back to reality though.

Powering onwards I had to ease back into the rides, so Aeronaut it was, the world's tallest starflyer on the fair circuit if I'm not mistaken. It was oddly relaxing for a Starflyer, and I would honestly consider the one by Mellors to be more intense as I took in the excellent views with my hands on my lap, and not superglued to the chains out of a fear that froze me.



The shock quality of ride on Fünfer Looping had me still knocked back a bit, so the decision was made to make Wilde Maus XXL the second-to-last ride before our departure. This is still an excellent ride and by far my favourite wild mouse coaster (and probably the best I will ever do); the hairpins had me gripping the side of the seat so I didn't fold my entire top half into the stranger next to me. Fantastic as always.


It was at this point where I realised... was 5_loopy bad because I rode it on a wheel seat? I remember enthusiasts always despise wheel seats. The ride's taken down my mood quite a bit, a lot more than it should have. I wasn't going to leave with a damaged reputation of my #3 that used to be #1 at the start of the year. Back in the queue we go, and it was time to suck up the front row queue, two trains now by the way...

and it was GREAT! The BHS looper I know and love is back, and running as great as it ever has been, glass smooth all the way through with punchy loops. I was immediately lit back up, and was ready to conquer the world again.


With my newfound energy, partially from a steaming toffee apple cider (£6), I took on my first Remix in four years, Aeronaut (yes, there are two different Aeronauts). I went full ragdoll mode on this and it was a fabulous time, making me question why I skipped these so often. They truly are great little thrill rides and I'm grateful that they pop up so often.


After dropping £18 on a game and winning nothing even though we were given extra throwing devices on our final go, it was time for a second lap on Time Machine the Coaster where I then decided that it outdid Heidi because it's permanently unlocked spinning, but I do miss that funny onboard audio and the funny fast lift. Call me a coaster maniac again.


Can two rides be redeemed today? My ride on Supreme Waltzer last year was nothing short of a complete and utter embarrassment, but I'm glad to say the spark has been reignited. This machine provided its thrills once again, and I had the time of my life with a dude who sat with me for the duration of the ride, we both went "AAAAAAAAA" as the spinning soldiered on at speed in both directions.


I could've gone on for even longer but I knew it was time to go as I know that I'm returning later in the year, and I didn't want to overdo it. Grabbing a pepperoni pizza (£13) which was delicious, we left. I can confirm that I still do enjoy this place, even if it is a daylight robbery in plain sight.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 37: Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Pasaje del Terror & South Pier

Bad experiences with Blackpool in the past resulted in an immediate "no" when I considered daytripping this place; it was decided that it had to be done on a weekend with family. Several failed attempts to get the trip done in the summer later, we finally pinned down a date: closing weekend, all or nothing. Let's get it done.

The journey up from Hertfordshire to 'pool, via car, began at 7am sharp before arriving at the place for 11. Thank the heavens that this was the 'take it slow day' of the weekend as my failure to get much sleep resulted in me being unable to handle many rides.

Either way, our first stop was #157 Grand National. Hearing nightmares about it being rough as all can be, but also positive attention from its smoothness, it was a truly polarising ride when discussed in coaster forums (such as here). I made it my mission to avoid a wheel seat as I'd rather enjoy the ride, and it really was quite good. It definitely takes best woodie in the country, but honestly it only barely outdid the man of wicker. Think I sat in the middle though.


I went round for round two, reciting my happy words for family as I convinced them to ride. After some lengthy talks on wheel seat science, we were soon in the queue for the front car where we came across some locals with a just-as-geeky son. We discussed Liseberg, the son's #1 in Helix, and how easy it is to get there. The description of how to get there made the park sound incredibly simple to get to, and has certainly appeared on our radar. My parents got the non-wheel seat as I sat behind them. Even in car 1 row 3 there were a couple jolts of course due to the wheel seat, but honestly? I really really enjoyed it, even more this time. The jolts added that extra level of peril that gets me making indescribable sounds of fun, and it's not too jolty to the point where I wished I'd rather sat somewhere else.

Wandering over to a certain orange woodie next we passed Wallace and Gromit Thrill-O-Matic and decided to give it a whirl. I will say that I absolutely loved the theme of this ride, W and G are such cheesy lads. Certainly a riveting ride for sure, but barely just misses out on my top 5 dark rides.


Wandering over to a certain orange woodie next we passed Ghost Train and decided to give it a whirl. I've heard positives and negatives about this ride, such as how the combination of old elements and new elements kind of makes the ride lose its identity. I didn't really care though, I just sat back and enjoyed the ride. The drop was good fun, I screamed loud probably much to the dismay of the ride ops, the downwards chain lift (???) was fascinating, and it went on FOREVER. The length of this thing seriously shocked me, it just kept on going.


Wandering over to a certain orange woodie next, oh wait it's time. #158 Nickelodeon Streak was a ride I rode in the non-wheel seat closest to the back as my parents sat further up front. I will admit I don't have much to say about this ride, and is definitely something I should've done more than once in order to secure a proper opinion, but I will say that it was pretty enjoyable either way.


While they stayed behind to do Blue Flyer and have a short break, I headed for the other side of the park. A quick token lap on Revolution proved to be just as intense as my first ride back in 2018, but the backwards loop made me pretty dizzy, a punishment for not sleeping enough the night before.


I wanted to rattle off the final creds in the park now, first being #159 Steeplechase (Green). I raced against red, yellow was closed, and in glorious Arrow fashion there was a sharp transition into the corners, causing me to have to brace for each one by slightly leaning into them. Hilarious.


Then it broke down immediately after my ride. By now I was becoming quite sleepy so we had a chill in the pizza buffet place for about an hour, where the reality of where I was had really kicked in. After all these delays... I'm finally here once again. Refilled we were ready to go again. I'd officially decided that the big one and the icon were going to be skips for today, but I'd make the most out of them tomorrow, no big deal.


I then raced my parents as I boarded #160 Steeplechase (Red) and had more-or-less the same experience, as fully predicted, though sorely lost by miles instead. Leaning into the corners helped greatly.


We continued forth and found ourselves at the entrance of Rugrats Lost River as we waited for the train. Bit of a soaker this one. Also starting to turn left with these shots... a water ride where the log isn't making a sklooesh. Creative.


...and after getting extremely lost we finally made our way to Pleasure Beach Express where I had a good little sit down to take in the views.









With the day coming to a close we decided our final ride to be River Caves, a relaxing end to the day and one of my parents' favourite rides here.


And with that day one at the pleasure beach was done, so we printed our photos and that was that of the park... but we weren't ready to return to the hotel yet.



Pasaje del Terror is a 10-12 minute walkthrough scare maze located directly outside of the park's entrance. I would say the scares gradually get more intense as it goes on, with the climax being at the very end. I think we were chased a good couple times, was definitely good fun. The characters are all unique with their own defining personality.

And now was the walk down to South Pier.

Crazy Closedster was down to high winds, and apparently hadn't run all week, but we hadn't officially written it off as a spite yet as there's always tomorrow. Instead I finally pinned down a HUSS Breakdance after searching for one for five years. It was fantastic, nothing top 5 material but still highly enjoyable, would absolutely ride again.


The pier also had Hell-Raiser, a Waltzer. Will the trend of rides named Hellraiser sucking continue?
No. Hell-Raiser was delightful, stupidly intense waltzer and perhaps one of the best I've done and it didn't even have an op spinning it (to my knowledge. My eyes were glued to the floor) It just never stopped spinning, catching every dip perfectly to get the fastest rotations possible with an intensive lightshow powering onto me with loud music booming from the speakers.


In other words, brilliant.

The day was finally rounded off with looking at a fountain show, millions of overhead lights, and some classic fish & chips. It's all going to be repeated tomorrow.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 38: Blackpool Pleasure Beach, South Pier & Blackpool Pleasure Beach



Refuelled with a cool eight hours' sleep and a delicious full English breakfast, it was now time to go full send. Family decided to take a rest day by the beach and they assured me to keep an eye out for Crazy Spiter in case it starts running with people. Powering into the park with nothing but water and mints to keep it all down, I found myself on the third train of the day for Big One second from back. Surrounded by ecstatic youngsters, I set off to the soundtrack of the ride, which locals are seeming to love.



That first drop. My Lord, that first drop is possibly one of the single best elements in the UK. Absolute car crash of a beginning but I love it in every single way possible. I shouted "HOYEAH" on it, and it was excellent.


...then kind of you just make your own fun for the rest of the ride, which I had no problem with doing thankfully. Waving out at the turnaround to the people below, chanting "Helix! Helix! Helix" on the helix (well, other people did, not me). Waving at the guy with a GoPro in his hand assuming he got the permissions to do so. It's a coaster at best, but what it really is is a test. A test to see how much you can enjoy yourself. Because if you just kind of look to see where you're going then you're gonna hate it. It's extraordinarily easy to just sit up, hands on lap and not react for the entire ride then rank it #38.


And this is where you might say to yourself: "it's a terrible ride if the raw hardware isn't enough to keep you going" and this is where I say coasters are meant to be enjoyed. Why actively decide to not enjoy the ride when you could be having fun instead? Sitting emotionless and judgmental isn't the way to go around coasters.


Besides all that, fantastic ride that shot up 20 spots in my ranking.

After this I got straight back in line for the very back seat, which had considerably more rattle obviously because I sat on top of a wheel. This obviously did give it the grounds to be moved down (and also justified the "sit down and do nothing with the ride" idea as you literally just can't that way) but another quick ride in the row directly in front secured the ride's newly-found high placement in my ranking,


After four rides of Big One it was Icon's time to shine. I massively remember my one ride in the front being what could simply be described as euphoric. But after four and a half years and three rides ranking above it, does it still hold up?

Errrr... maybe?

In what I know will be a very disappointing read for those looking at this post, I just don't have all that much to say about the ride. It wasn't the life-changing godsend it was on my first ride, but who's to say I was expecting the same thing to happen? To fully form an opinion on the ride now I need to break down the layout bit-by-bit for my individual opinion on every part since there's a lot of different things to it.


The launch isn't very good. I get that, but in all honesty I don't care. I've never understood why people dislike weak launches, I've been brought up with riding Stealth thousands of times which has the third strongest launch acceleration (on an operating ride) in the world. You would think that would set the expectation for future launch coasters, but it doesn't. I'm just happy we're getting fast, but that'll bring me to another point soon in the future. The hill to kick things off is great fun and good in both ends of the train, obviously front for reaching the crest and back for being pulled over the crest.


The 360 helix doesn't do too much but you can spend this time waving to the people in the middle just like on Big One. The weaves in between Steeplechase and the under-winter-maintenance Dipper are very hit-or-miss with them being excellent on some rides and just existing on others. The heartline roll is brilliant fun and extra fun if you reach out vertically as far as possible. Airtime into the tunnel, no mist, she's flipping off my camera. Second launch hits, "HOYEAH!".



Up next is the immelmann which is one of the best parts of the ride, before some quick twisty turning before the actual best part of the ride, a solid straight ejector hill. A lot more twisty turning follows, still very very fun, before the infamous "off axis hill" which gets a lot of hate from coaster enthusiasts, which I do not have a problem with at all.


The final waves before the brakes are where people say the ride seriously dies, but again it's a part where I had no real issue with. Not sure if it should've been replaced with an inversion. The second half is far better than the first, even if I do have a lot less to say about several parts in it. Too busy having fun there then I guess. All of my rides were littered with high-pitched "wee"s in the transitions and moments of the ride, so I was definitely in great amounts of joy for the entirety of the course on all of my six (spoilers) rides.


My first ride in the back was fantastic, but I needed more to form a proper opinion. After a second back row ride, it was fantastic again. Guy next to me says "best coaster in the UK" to himself. Personal disagree (Megafobia and München clear this; I didn't say anything in order to not rain on his parade). Still I needed more to form a proper opinion. I went for the front. I had a chat with a guy and we got talking in an entirely casual conversation about Thorpe for the first half of the ride. We were headed straight back into the queue, as I needed more to form a proper opinion. But then, outside the entrance, I got a text.

"Crazy Coaster is open."

Pause everything.

Beelined for the park exit, had a chat with staff on letting me re-enter in "20" minutes (they did), and bolted it to South Pier. Sure enough #161 Crazy Coaster, my third spinning coaster on a pier, was running! The spare tickets I'd bought yesterday allowed for us to go straight to the ride with no delays. On the mouse spectrum it fits right in the middle, nothing life-changing but far from terrible.


Location definitely gives it good points. My mum decided to hop on with me for a token lap, and it's safe to say she enjoyed it far more than I did! These types of rides are definitely around her level, and I think it's by far her favourite coaster type.


With that I left them to continue on with taking in the views from the pier and the coast as I headed back to the pleasure beach.

Two more rides on Icon later, the ride now officially retaining its spot as my favourite permanent English coaster, I was ready to give some other rides a bunch of token laps. Starting off with two rides on each side of Grand National in the back, which was still an excellent ride. Waiting for my second go I made very brief eye contact with a well-known theme park influencer who was in the train before me, but out of personal choice I elected not to say anything.


Token laps continued with a ride in the back seat of Avalanche and unfortunately this ended up being the worst ride of the weekend with a bad rattle throughout the course. A few days later I was discussing this ride type and came across someone who'd ridden five of these models and that Avalanche was the smoothest one they'd done before going on to say the model was a mistake. Doesn't paint a great picture for any future ones (or the Trace token lap) does it.




The final token lap was Revolution in what is apparently the best seat, car 1 row 2. And oh Lord was it the best seat. Shocking backwards ejector into again a ridiculously intense loop, I do hope this ride stays here as long as it can before the hardware croaks. And hello to the one waving in front!


To get home for a reasonable time we were leaving an hour before park close, so that gave time for a final lap on Big One and Icon. Big One was great again, but for Icon I splashed out on Enso.

Enso is good, definitely better than normal Icon, but not £15 upcharge good. It's a slight disappointment when you start facing forwards even if it's only for a couple seconds, and the two inversions were the best parts of the ride especially the immelmann. It got spinning really good in the final three waves before the brakes but ended after that. It's not the best ride experience in the UK. Don't get me wrong, doing Icon facing sideways and backwards and all that was enjoyed a lot by me. But I needed more to form a proper opinion...

...Nah.

With that I printed my photos, bought some stuff (and a Dodgem wheel), saw the Tower then headed home. Didn't bother with Infusion. Didn't want to, didn't need to, got the cred. Rather ride coasters I won't be riding 30 clones of in the near future if everything goes as planned.







What a brilliant weekend. But we're not done with the kredding for this year yet.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 39: The Honourable Final, 2022 Edition

The ending of the 2022 year is among us now, and what a roller coඞster of a year it has been. Northernmost the Yorkshire SLC, easternmost the M25 Wacky Worm, southernmost the Selsey worm, westernmost an Irish figure eight spinner. Having crossed off every looping coaster in the British Isles bar one now, the time to go international is no better than right this second. This was exactly the plan; rattle off everything good before leaving to go mainland. And now there's only one problem... where to? Waiting for any new for 2023 attraction to open at this point, but perhaps there's a park that isn't which is top priority for as soon as possible. Right now my answer is "just SOMEWHERE".
But does that mean we're reaching the end of this whole United Kredding business? No! Of course not, I still have targets to cross off. The Gulliver's parks are on the list provided that I can get to them.
I'm getting sidetracked. This is how my final +1 of the year went.

So thank God that Paultons has a Christmas event right? The route there was ALMOST the same as last year, but with extremely minor differences that I'll point out anyway. Instead of getting to Totton instead I alighted one stop early simply at Southampton Central, crossed to the other side, and waited for the X7(R) bus to Salisbury. One £8.20 return ticket later I was on for "that pub" near the park as they weren't doing direct routes there today. No worries, it's only a 15 minute walk anyway.

No time to waste, let's get the coastering done. I walk up to the park's third Zierer coaster at around 11am unfortunately to it closed for frost. Staff assured me that it'll reopen as things warm up through the day. Schaser was sleeping undergoing the same thing, Cyclonator too as it said Cyoulator. Wasn't bothered with the windmill towers that were open, and even that tractor thing was dead, so I decided to have a wander.



Stumbled across an animal exhibit









and I found that ancient watermill thing that the park's very proud of having. Unfortunately there was no river as it was cold. So I listened to the informational audio, "approx. 2 1/2 minutes" (they were not lying it really was) while looking at it.

Unfortunately there was no water.


Stumbled across an animal exhibit



and found myself back in Tornado Springs with nothing happening, so instead walked it to Lost Kingdom to see if anything was working. They'd sent test trains of Pterosaur but had no answer on an opening time so boomeranged back to the springs as I watched the ending of a Christmas show. Storm Chaser, Cyclonator and the new Force were all sending tests so it was looking positive. Schaser's queue opened but broke immediately before having its queue evacuated five minutes later. Despite maintenance's very best efforts Cyoulator became Cyounever as that one test run ended up being the only one it would send until I had to leave at 2:50pm to get back home for the football match. The Force wasn't ready to open yet. The tractor thing developed a huge line. The drop towers thing was open but wasn't interested.
Bah.
Checked the queue times website, Pterosaur open. Immediately back to Lost Kingdom I go.

Got into the queue and seems like it died again. Absolutely nothing happening. Velociraptor sending its first tests, won't be opening for a while then. The boulders thing was open but wasn't bothered. In hindsight probably should've done it to waste a bit more time.
Bah.
Checked the queue times website, the Force opened. Immediately back to Tornado Springs I go.

Finally! #162 Farmyard Flyer has been secured after a two-lap special in the back seat. As I had the time and ride availability I gave it two more goes, another in the front and a third in the middle, and turns out the positives in the helix are actually far better in the front due to the shaping.




Not open for business.


After that was a lap of Trekking Tractors as the queue had shortened significantly, pleasant little tracked ride.


and caught a seat on the Rio Grande train less than a minute before it departed, pleasant little train ride.



Pterosaur ptime now, that pull over the first drop in the back seat surprisingly ended up being my favourite part of the ride rather than the finale helix.


Stumbled across an animal exhibit


and it was coming up to 2pm, an hour before my planned departure, now so I had a bite to eat in the Route 83 restaurant, exactly as planned. It was some very very tasty theme park food, those curly chip things are top tier and the burger was great too.



At this point Storm Chaser had finally opened to the public, a couple minutes after I finished my eats, and helped myself to the back seat of the second train of the day. Don't think I really got any spinning but whatever, wasn't expecting any due to the cold, it was nice feeling the elements while at least facing different directions though. Surprisingly this coaster actively tried to remove my glasses, think I finally need to get that strap on.




And now it was time to leave the park to catch the 3:24 bus back to Southampton Central for a clean return to my home village to watch ten minutes of the match before leaving and just having a quiet rest instead. So that worked out didn't it.

Obviously not the greatest theme park trip but maintenance was making it clear that they tried hard all day to get their stuff open due to factors out of their control. I could easily call this a terrible trip but a key solution to spanners being thrown in your plans is to be able to just enjoy what is available. Shows, animals, smaller open rides, just general stuff. Interesting plants? Cool history? "Why this building is eco-friendly?" Don't mind if I do. And if you're occupied long enough... eventually your coaster-shaped reward arrives.

Year-end summary coming soon, would be nice to end things on a round 40 but that'll have to wait until, errr, dunno.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Welcome all to the 2022 Coastrophies (coaster trophies, not catastrophes) where I give different stuff I did this year an award! No time for faff, let's get straight into it. Plus, some extra nerd stats at the end.

Inspired by the NerdCubed Awards

#1 The Marvel Films Award
This award is given to the ride who had the biggest fall from grace. I used to have it ranked significantly higher at the beginning of the year, but an especially bad ride on it caused a large fall to where it is now. It used to be good back in the day, but unfortunately it's... not great anymore.
And the winner is...


Avalanche at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

#2 The League of Legends Player Award
This award is given to the ride where you start off a bit on the shelf, but it grows on you over time. You started off all "I'm not sure if I enjoy this as much as I think I do", but eventually something clicked. It's what your local computer science class work pal tells you: "trust me bro, it might start slow but it gets so good after a few hours". Disclaimer: I do not, and never have, and do not ever intend on, playing League of Legends.
And the winner is...


Steeplechase at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

#3 The Modern Pop Music On The Radio Award
This award is given to the ride which never stood a chance at being good. Bless them, they tried, probably not actually. I never saw myself enjoying this ride, I was never going to. There's just no chance this was ever going to be good.
And the winner is...


Cyclone at Barry Island Pleasure Park.

#4 The Criminal Turned Fitness Instructor Award
This award is given to the ride who had the biggest redemption arc. The opposite of the Marvel Films Award, I used to not hold this ride in very high regard but an especially fantastic ride on it caused it to shoot up the rankings. Its dark days are behind us now, and things are only looking up from here on out.
And the winner is...


Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

#5 The Tonnerre de Zeus Award
This award is given to the ride that I regret skipping. It may have been something people say was an incredible 'must do' experience that I just decided against for no real reason, or perhaps instead a ride shrouded in mystery that no one really talks about. Just like on my Asterix trip in 2014, I went home thinking thoughts of 'I should've done that'. I guess there's a reason to go back then!
And the joint winners are...



Beach Party at Coney Beach and Top Scan at Barry Island.

#6 The EnergyLandia Award
This award is given to the day where I did the most rides. Documented or undocumented in a forum post here, this was the day where I never stopped for a break and just kept on riding.
And the winner is...


Blackpool Pleasure Beach, South Pier & Back to Blackpool, with 17 rides total in one day.

#7 The Cannonball Express Award
This award is given to the ride I really enjoyed but haven't really seen anyone else talk about. Rarely discussed but I found it to be an absolute belter of a ride. Frankly I think I should start seeing its name a bit more within the general coaster community.
And the winner is...


Avenger at Finsbury Park Funfair.

#8 The Under 3's Go Free Award
This award is given to the ride for families which I enjoyed the most. A ride for all ages, can be enjoyed by all, and should be enjoyed by all.
And the winner is...


Dino Dash at Tayto Park.

#9 The Royal Blood Album 3 Track 4 Award
This award goes to the best ride I got a zen ride on. No one else with me, just me myself and I living in the moment.
And the winner is...


XXL at The Beach Brent Cross, something I never spoke about in here!

#10 The Damaging Beauty Award
This award goes to something I really should not like as much as I do. I just can't stay away, no matter how much it tries to kill me.
And the winner is...


Megafobia at Oakwood Theme Park.




Top 10 Coasters I Rode for the First Time in 2022:

#10 Mumbo Jumbo - Flamingo Land (Overall #34)
#9 Hero - Flamingo Land (Overall #32)
#8 Velocity - Flamingo Land (Overall #25)
#7 Kumali - Flamingo Land (Overall #21)
#6 Grand National (Right Lift) - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (Overall #19)
#5 Grand National (Left Lift) - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (Overall #18)
#4 Speed - Oakwood Theme Park (Overall #11)
#3 Sik - Flamingo Land (Overall #9)
#2 Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (Overall #2)
#1 Cú Chulainn - Tayto Park (Overall #1)

New Wacky Worms: 9
Worst Spite: Steeplechase (Yellow) - Blackpool Pleasure Beach
New countries: 2
Total spites: 5
Unspited coasters: 2 (Pinball X & Hero)

Guess that's it then for at least the next two weeks then, huh?

A few more than that actually. Click here to continue the saga as I travel to Belgium.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 40: West Midlands Safari Park

We're bringing coaches into this thread too now to a) flaunt extortionate train ticket prices and b) get to places that, well, don't have train accessibility. At the end of last year I was convinced to think "we're out of locations, it's mainland or bust from here on out". I was wrong. Turns out coaches operate within the country, that's what all those National Express things do then. Shocker. So I pondered "what parks in the UK with the most coasters have I not done?" and West Midlands Safari Park (3) became a contender. Birmingham seemed to be pretty well served by coaches from London that cost a fiver, and then a short distance train from there to Kidderminster that doesn't drain my bank account.

The difficult bit was then getting from Kidderminster rail station to the park itself. The first alarm bells in my head that this park wasn't going to be well-served by public transport was that the park asked for your car's registration plate without an option for "no car mate". So that's exactly what I put. Buses seemed to be faffing around with only deciding to stop outside the park at extremely specific times, with others going as close as a twenty minute walk away. Those bus times were terrible so eventually I simply settled to book a cab both ways.

Day of then.

I decided to catch my FlixBus at Finchley Road (closer to me than London Vic) for 9:30am, and arrived early enough to watch the 9:00am National Express coach to Birmingham load up. Soon enough though my Flix came, and as I got on the coach I received a notification that both my cabs to and from coasterland had been cancelled due to no drivers, and had issued me a full refund. I decided that sorting this out was a problem for future me, and fell asleep for the majority of the trip.

So Birmingham then, I've stepped foot in this place for five minutes and I never want to go back again. Miserable f**king no-fun-allowed-land. I took a very confusing walk from my stop at Summer Row Great Charles Street, something along the lines of that, to Snow Hill train station. Not much else to say.

On the train it was time to sort out the buses & cabs then. Cab company #1, Minicabit, bailed earlier today. Cab company #2, Uber, had no available cars. Cab company #3, Bolt, said "download my app or get out of my sight". I chose option two. Cab company #4, Central Taxis, their website crashed as I tapped 'confirm booking'. Misery ensued. After #4's failure I caved and went for the bus. With the scheduled arrival in the safari park bus stop for 1:46pm, and the last bus out at 3:30pm, plus/minus the ten minute walk from the stop to the rides, I had barely an hour here so I needed to act quick before GTFOing.

So at Kidderminster I made it to the Oxford Street Roundabout where I waited for the 125 bus

and at the bus stop it was a twenty second walk before the pavement ENDED.


It felt so weird walking on either grass or road, but eventually I walked through the park entrance... without showing my entry ticket. Turns out that you can just walk straight into the park, and you only have to pay up if you're in a car as you have to pass through the barriers. As a foot passenger you just kind of don't need to do that. This is most likely an oversight from the park though, seems like they got a little too overfocused on the whole cars thing.

The only animals I saw on the whole visit were a couple penguins as they were right at the park entrance.


Park then. Apparently Venom is the best thing here? I think so too, that's a good drop tower right there.


It was walk on so the ops changed our seats to give us better views of the park. Where else do you see that?

I'd momentarily forgotten the reason I was here though. My third Vekoma junior, #170 Rhino Rollercoaster, aggressively vibrated through the first drop in a funny kind of way. But just like with K3 I forgot everything that happened after.


#171 Monkey Mayhem, got an okay spin, normal Reverchon mouse


and #172 African Big Apple, normal Pinfari worm.


Dr. Umboto's Catacombs earned a spot in the top 5 worst dark rides I've done


and then I headed for two back-to-back rides on Venom before it was already time to leave. Their Huss Frisbee would've been an interesting novelty to ride as I hadn't done the model before but in all honesty the ride really didn't look like it achieved that much, but in fairness there are loads of those things scattered across the mainland anyway. Rapids looked fun but skipped due to time. The Polyp was spiting. It was time to leave.


Another strange walk through car territory led me to the bus stop where Maps told me there was a 125 coming at 3:30pm. At 3:22pm a 292 came, something that Maps had absolutely no clue about, that went to the Kidderminster bus station where it was a minutely further walk back to the train station passing over a river.


From there it was simple as bread sandwiches, got off at Snow Hill before the walk back to Summer Row where I sat for an hour as I waited for my bus which rounded off a very strange day of events that I'm not exactly rushing to repeat.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 41: Hewitts Farm Funfair & Southall Park Funfair

Crossing off one park a day is starting to feel a little too easy these days. Let's go for two more often?

Standard public transport business though. Another sprint for the train at London Bridge lands me on one destined for Knockholt, and an uneventful journey lands me exactly there.
Unfortunately an unpleasant walk takes me through roads without pavements, and soon enough after several near-death experiences with having to cross a roundabout without traffic lights I was at the fair. A £9.99 price for an unlimited rides wristband later...

#173 Gold Mine, janky little oval thing that cracked a smile on my face with the way it sillied & funnied its way through the course.


#174 Family Roller Coaster, another wacky worm, I like when the ops slowly reduce the trims as the laps continue but untrimmed all the way through is still the superior way to go about with these things.


Coasters done, a big reason for coming here was for Break Dance. It was great fun but honestly either this wasn't running at its full potential or I've slightly overestimated how good these rides were going to be after hyping them up for years. I sincerely hope that it's the former, but I'd still like to have more than two of these to my name to get a larger sample size. Don't get me wrong, still a good ride. But maybe dial up the speed a little?


Walked out after that, back down the same road, back on the same train, back to the same London station down to the Jubilee line towards Lizzy's carriages. Severe delays due to red signals on the way to Southall made this journey take about four times longer than it should have, but soon enough I made my way.

Starting fair two of the day with #175 Dragon.


Decided to give Vortex a go. First time I've found one of these rides despite them sweeping the UK fair circuit as of recently. Do they deserve their hype...?


They're alright, they're alright. While I think I prefer normal Freak Outs these mini Maelstroms provide a decently good enough thrill for their small size and even provided some air on the apexes of the swings. Satisfied, although I do with some of these pendulums had a little more stopping power as they take forever to come to a standstill.

Was hoping to get on a Booster today but unfortunately it was 6:30.


That was it for rides, would've liked to get back on the Superstar but was simply ready to go back to bed at this point. Star flyer was a skip.


However on the way home I was passing by a station that had a third fair, which wasn't going to open until two days later, but it was just a ten minute walk away so I took the dive to check out their lineup.

Unfortunately,


it was dark outside so couldn't see anything. So I turned around and actually went home. For Real This Time.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Not sure what pushed me to do this place of all things in all honesty.

Part 42: Ocean Beach Pleasure Park

Ready to set sail on a journey that would take me the furthest North I'd ever been in my life. A train from Kings Cross led me up to Newcastle, with seeing (and capturing) the Angel of the North with my own eyes being in the upper half of fun things done today.


From Newcastle station I headed straight to the Metro towards South Shields with my A+B+C ticket into some highly comfortable seats with the train's departure feeling oddly akin to a weak, very weak coaster launch. From South Shields was a terribly signposted walk to the coast, but in fairness it was just 'turn right out of the station then go straight' so not too difficult. I was distracted by the Lakeshore Railroad as I set my sights on the park, and had a go.


It's very pleasant.

Then walked into the park, and from here started a quickfire session of box-ticking.

#176 Crash Test.


#177 Speedy Coaster.


#178 Big Apple. No apple, big vibrations.


And with that done, it was time for fun. Zombie was my favourite new-to-me dark ride of 2023 so far (out of two, with the other being one of the worst I've ever done)


but then what really put a smile on my face was the Breakdance. Unlike the other two this pulled consistent, sustained positives and you could FEEL the power in those movements with the cycle going on forever too. My favourite part of it all was when the arm holding the cars span to high speed, and the G forces pulled the cars to face inwards towards each other. I felt those forces so much, and then the rocking afterwards as you 'break free' from that position feels great too. A top-tier flat ride for me that just misses out on my top 5 of all time, but still brilliant.


After that, Crazy Cottage was up next. Strange little thing with tight angled corridors that was quite out of the ordinary with the way you struggled up & down the stairs which were more-or-less at a 45 degree angle. The house had absolutely no scenes in it (seriously) but provided a nice view of the park at the top.


Then you made your way down and exited.

I also exited the park.

Wanting a short break from the rides I decided to walk down to the coast and admire nature for a bit.


Off in the distance were these which I was interested in looking at


but waved it off, then thought "wait, I've given myself loads of time here, if I want to see this I'll just go down and go".

Unfortunately,


there was a body of water in the way. A large one at that too, so I decided to go down the 1.3km wavy South Pier.



An unrivalled level of calmness at the end, with several people and... utter silence. Genuinely, a silent room felt louder. Peaceful, but I was ready to go back shortly after.






Back at the fair now, it's Top Star (at the back) time, about time I got back on one of these things. By far the longest ride I've ever had on one of these things, it spent forever spinning at the bottom and took a few good minutes for the main boom to actually start rotating; not a bad thing, that was quite fun. The six rotations caused my (estimated) inversion count to hover around 20. Rivals my record flat ride inversion count of "f**k knows how many" on a loop-o-plane.


The most rotations I'd ever done was three, and these long flat ride cycles are fantastic. I'd completely forgotten how exactly it felt to get a proper long ride on something, and it feels so great. Despite it all being the same movements, they hit harder and harder the longer you go. Unrivalled it's the best cycle I've ever had on a Superstar.

That was the last ride of the day. I tapped my card on the Dodgems to see if my fun card still had enough credits, and I was denied. And with the minimum top-up spend being £10 I cut my losses and wandered out, but not before seeing the funniest thing ever.


Okay, not that funny. But still humourous. I do have to give credit for this brilliant-looking pirate ship though.



Before my leaving I had one more ride on the railroad



and one final look at sandy water


before walking back to the metro. Still had lots of time to spare, so considered a round of golf, but eventually went "Nah".

I'd arrived at the central station an hour early for my train back to London only to find that my 16:59 departure had been cancelled completely due to vandalism on the train, so the 16:26 departure it is then. My arrival back in London that was scheduled for 19:40 gave me enough time to bomb it to a funfair in Wanstead Flats for an extra +2, and cemented that into the plans.

Then a trespasser on the tracks decided to delay my arrival by 40 minutes, which threw my plans out the window as I'd arrive to the fair essentially at closing time, so I regrettably pushed it to tomorrow. At least the train crew gave out free biscuits as a "we're sorry" and due to my... delays I was entitled to a 50% refund.

What was that about more creds tomorrow?

 

[Rob Coasters]

You can probably tell that my next mainland Europe trip can't come soon enough...

Part 43: Wanstead Flats Funfair

What was supposed to be a quick hour's stop yesterday ended up being delayed to today due to, unsurprisingly, time & train delays. Let's get right to it then. The revised plan is, to hit this fair first then maybe go down to Blackheath for two go gators provided I still have energy (spoiler: I didn't).

We took the elizabeth line down from Farringdon to Forest Gate, and unfortunately for me & everyone else the elizabeth line is proving to be quite frustrating with constant red signals providing significant delays to most of my trips that used this line. It's not great. From there it was a ten minute walk.

What I thought was going to be a +2 ended up being a +3, and would've been a +4 had it not been the last day of the fair as one of the coasters, a mine train thing similar to the one at Hewitts Farm the week before this, was already packed up halfway.

#179 Go Gator.


#180 Dragon. Surprising laterals.


#181 Bugs & Bees.


I quickly went for token laps on the funniest ride on this island, Toboggan, and requested two rides. It's still hilarious.


And my second Superstar in two days, shorter cycle this time around but still a perfectly enjoyable ride which caused someone opposite from me to throw up.


Rode the toboggan one more time, then reminded myself of how hecticly maniacal Dodgems can be. This is the hardest I'd laughed on any ride in a very long time, and the feeling of seeing people's "OH S**T!" reactions of me going straight for a T-bone before I smash into them, followed by both of us breaking down into hysterics, makes me wonder why I don't do these rides more often. Without a second thought I went back around to pay for another ride on them which was just as good.

I ended the trip with four more consecutive toboggan rides before I had to tear myself away from it. Love this thing, not sure why. Then we got cheesy chips and walked out.



Fun times.

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 43.5: Thorpe Park

Thorpe has opened a new dark ride, well, not really new. Ghost Train is a refurbishment of the former Derren Brown's Ghost Train which was a colossally expensive flop which opened to mixed reviews from the very start. A financially unsustainable disaster that had to be majorly updated after just one year of operation, its virtual reality graphics aged like milk with the horror aspects swinging & missing for most people. In its final two years it suffered badly, being branded as nothing but a waste of time that would surefire ruin your day. From 2022 its budget seemed to notably decrease, with its final days being an empty shell with broken projectors and faulty headsets.

In 2023 it was announced that the hardware was staying, but Derren was going along with the headsets. Derren Brown's Ghost Train became...
Ghost Train.
And I had a day off work on its opening day, so it only made sense to rock & roll for my first ever 'true' opening day for a theme park attraction.

A train from Waterloo to Staines later, and a group of teenagers almost getting hit by the 950 shuttle bus out of their own stupidity, I was finally at the park and opted to start my day with four front-row rides on Stealth. It's still great, still the best coaster in the park, but the launch hasn't been hitting as hard as it used to. I'm scared. Am I getting too used to it?


Ghost Train wasn't scheduled to open until 12, so headed to Saw, single rider queue cutting 45 minutes off its advertised 60 minute line. Unfortunately the ride I had on it was the least smooth ride I've had on it in three years, and for the first time in a long time I really felt the pothole at the bottom of the first drop.


It was 11:30am now, so time to queue for Ghost Train which had already amassed a very long queue.
12:00pm came.
12:00pm went.
And at 12:50ish-pm, it was announced that Ghost Train was delayed until 2pm, much like most real UK trains. We were given a priority pass with a number for our troubles, so I went to ride Inferno.


Inferno was a nice bench to sit down on, slightly concerned that it didn't really hit at all. Getting too used to it? Or the consequences of riding better coasters?

I got back to Ghost Train for 1:30pm, back in my same spot, but I realised that I didn't think I was in the priority pass queue but I didn't want to look as I'd lose my spot in the line. Two girls behind me asked "is this the priority pass queue?" to which I replied "absolutely no clue". Eventually someone braved the fact of leaving the queue to find clarity on the situation, and discovered that a Ghost Train member will be coming to sort everything out "in the next five minutes".
Soon enough everyone with a priority pass queue was ordered to come down near the entrance and compactly huddle around, heavily confused about the current situation. Like a McDonalds in the day of food delivery, it was far more complicated than it ever needed to be.
Then our numbers were called out in increments of ten, in order to form an orderly queue where it felt even more like a McDonalds where things proceeded to get really funny. The host had to get us all in order by number with the aforementioned "put us in the priority queue in increments of ten" system, then individually calling out every single number from 1 to however high they went with the priority pass tickets. The host occasionally forgot what number she was on ("44! 45! Did I do 43?") which was highly unexpectedly entertaining, and after a while my number was finally called and I was in the queue.

The queue came and went, and my final queuing time across the whole day came up to almost three hours.

Spoiler: MAJOR SPOILERS

The preshow starts with a hologram explaining the premise of the ride, and who the "believers" are (those who believe in life after death). It does a good job with introducing the ride, as is what all preshows do.
The reveal of the train is still as cool as ever. The aspect of the floating train may be gone, but they handled it very well.
The first train section is a little forgettable as it feels like it just repeats the preshow section without introducing much new. The train actors felt like they were "being silly" rather than acting like they were actually being possessed by the ghosts.
Big disappointment that the carriage windows aren't screens, and there's no indication that the train actually stops at Chapel Station despite the actors saying that it has. Its sign appearing through the window would've been cool.
The middle section is cool with a great shadow effect and another spooky grim reaper dude but can't remember much more than that.
The second train section is where it REALLY shines with flickering lights and the entire carriage having Latin text & drawings in fluorescent lighting that intermittently appears which got a few "woah"s from our group. The actors actually start to get quite spooky with nuns running possessed through the whole length of the carriage, before the end where an announcement calmly says "If you see something that doesn't look right, speak to a member of staff. See it, say it, sorted" which got a huge round of applause from the whole group which made to a perfect ending for my personal favourite part of the ride.
We left the carriage and knew that the ending "shop" had another scare in it, but unfortunately the scare fell flat on its face as it was just a train actor in blue Thorpe uniform shaking around which got absolutely no one. Then it ended.

It's a very 50/50 split between "really really good" and "could be improved". It's generally better than Derren's ever was but there's still plenty of room for improvement. The good thing with actor-led attractions is that since they're the main focus, it becomes far easier to make adjustments & improvements to the experience. With Derren's this was far more difficult as you were severely limited by the limitations of the headsets (and how complicated it must be to change them), but hopefully with this new attractions it should be a piece of cake to just tell the actors to do different things, which could do great in the first train section especially. This can also refresh the attraction and make it a lot more rerideable.

I'm just happy that the ride inside that giant building is finally good, and I see a positive future for it, I just again wish those carriage windows were screens.

And for the scare factor? Wasn't too spooked honestly. I don't think it's scary enough to warrant the "13+" recommendation at all, but it's still a fun experience. It's a great fusion of a serious story with Thorpe's silly character.

That done, it was time for other rides. I wanted to give Swarm another chance as I felt like I was giving the ride far too much hate, and at the end of the day it's a perfectly 5/10 thrill coaster. Not overrated, not overhated, just a good little sit down.


Then it was time for four more rides on Stealth to end out the day.

I'm happy with the new addition and can finally say I'm excited for the future of the ride. Time to gut & redo Walking Dead next?

 

[Rob Coasters]

Part 44: Crealy Theme Park & Funder Park

I can't stay away from the UK because it's so easy to impulse-book a trip the literal day before. With an international trip you have to "plan ahead" and whatnot. Blagh. I'll get used to it at some point. Revolution calls my name.

The "getting there" bit then was simple: a train from Paddington to Exeter St Davids, and hailed the first bus I saw to get to the city centre's bus station. From there, at the actual bus station was the 9 to Crealy.
"can I have a return to Crealy theme park please"
"Oh it's cheaper if you just get two singles"
"huh?"
"Yeah it's £5 for a return, and £2 for a single"
"...interesting, I'll have a single then please"
Why?

From the bus stop, five minute walk to the park.
#197 Twister, my [high number]th spinning mouse model, was really not good. I generally do enjoy these models, but something about this specific one just sent me the wrong way. This is definitely among my least favourite spinning coasters, sitting within breathing distance of ones that were designed for children. It maintains absolutely no speed for the first corners and spins about twice before slamming harshly into the brakes, having achieved next to nothing.
"It's good, isn't it?!" exclaims an excited operator.
"it's alright, yeah! really good!"
"Great to hear! Enjoy the rest of your day!"
"thanks, you too!"
Don't want to let their days down. I'm not like that.


#198 Maximus was the sleeper hit of the trip. This junior coaster was great fun for what it was and was just silly in a funny way. Good little family coaster.
Reminds me of this:

Log flume and dino jeeps had a queue.

#199 Shark Bay existed, casual new bottom 15 coaster. Not because it sucked, but because it was just a really really really small kiddie coaster. But had an enthusiastic operator, and halfway through it I was snapping my arms like a shark bite as a direct result.


Right next to it was Jungle Journey, which was a small walkthrough animal exhibit area.





And with that, I was gone. I should note that the signal in this area is pretty bad, I wasn't able to get on mobile data for the whole leg of this trip between the Crealy bus stops, but when I got on one that returned to Exeter city centre my woes were solved as I gained back my bars. Not as bad as Oakwood though. At least you can text.


Back at the city centre I was having trouble finding a bus stop that serviced a bus that would go back to St Davids station, so I walked 22 minutes to the station instead where I got a ride down to Dawlish Warren and conveniently a one minute walk from the station, if even, was Funder Park.


Where #200 Wacky Worm was, a new milestone. Also my 25th worm, this one had no trims anywhere in the layout (first one which does this) which meant back row must've been an experience but I got middle and couldn't be arsed to reride.




Sunny weather, no funderstorms, I wandered out.

But we're not done yet, I wanted to try out the Go Karts but more specifically the Bullet Karts which were £8.95 a pop.
Yep, they definitely went really fast and I indeed span out a few times but they were a blast. These things are super fun when you can go fast on them.


Then a little wander around the area








before going home and crashing at a friend's house. Mission complete. Where are the good (and I mean GOOD good) rides then?