Canadian Caper
As you'll have read in Part 1, my Canadian Caper involved a fairly crazy 2 days visiting 4 Theme Parks across the Canadian-US border in September, thanks to some ludicrously cheap flights from British Airways. And as Day 1 was fully taken up by the huge Canada's Wonderland with its 16 coasters, that left 3 Parks to cover on the 2nd day. With over 200km of driving to cover and a border crossing, the odds of me actually completing the planned itinerary weren't great - bu
So after a really nice calm 40 minute drive from the airport we finally made it to a place to be fair I thought I'd never ever visit in my life! Six Flags Discovery kingdom is a surprisingly small and compact park like it is definitely the same size if not slightly smaller then Thorpe park so, finding everything wasn't too much of a hassle.
Medusa is the first thing you see when entering the park with a car park that is just burdenously far away but we arrived and we were really excite
As its been a long time and I have some time over Christmas I thought I'd finally do this one, only got back like 4 months ago...
This to me is a homing beacon. See this and boom, happiness!
We had a lovely view of Hollywood Studios fireworks too. And as that's basically the only thing there, woo first park done.
SeaWorld is a gorgeous park
I love just walking around it
Woosh
A wanna be Manta
I still love Kraken. Love the way
Well its only taken me about 4 months but I have finally decided to write this as I literally have nothing else to do this Christmas holiday So It was a very early morning and we set off to Heathrow, mid way through the journey from Cardiff we picked up Dean Cox from a lay by just off the M4. After a miserably dull journey, we parked the car and got the shuttle to the airport!!
It finally started dawning on me that I was going to California, a place I have wanted to visit for
Thank you for reading part 1 of my trip report. Here's part 2 of my annual review if you have not died of boredom where we will look into the wonders of the international parks.
Europa Park
Visiting what is arguably the best European park (or even the world) is one thing, but doing it in a medium sized group that is TPM made things that extra bit more exciting.
Situated within a small and charming German town makes for one beautiful location making it one of
The Closed season is here, Christmas music and decorations are around everywhere and the sight of new year isn't far away.
This means one thing, time to review 2016. This year will be a two part edition, with part one focusing on the UK and part two on the wonders abroad.
The Merlin Machine/
Given the circumstances of 2015, it was fairly imminent this wasn't going to be the best year for them. With Park-wide budget cuts, ride closures and controversial decisions, th
Italy
With the exception of Gardaland, Italy is a relative unknown in the rollercoaster world. Despite the country containing two of the best rollercoasters in Europe, its relative distance from the UK and distance between parks always means Italy is a difficult nut to crack. Baring in mind, I last did a theme park road trip there in 2011 and the developments that have occurred in the last five years, there is now, no reason not to visit this fantastic country.
We started
Canadian Caper
Sometimes in life, an opportunity presents itself that you just can't pass up, despite the fact it might be a bit mad... and in my case, this year it was an email from British Airways offering me a return flight to Toronto, Friday - Wednesday in September, for just £356. I had a few days holiday left, hadn't set foot in Canada before, and knew there were some tasty coasters operating in this part of the world... so why not?
It didn't take too long to come u
Several weeks into the UK theme park closed season and the urge to visit somewhere has kicked in. Rather than pay over the odds for a zoo with a Poundland grotto or illuminated bricks, I decided to return somewhere special to my heart.
Lurking in the distance lies, a magicical place.
Disneyland Paris, is that magical place.
A place of dreams and wonders
It's certainly clear that 2016 isn't the most ideal time to be visiting with the yearly closu
So, hey frens and fellow geeks.
2016 has been a pretty good year for me in terms of Theme Parks, so I thought I'd like to do a sarcastic recap of some of my major trips this season! Bulgaria:
So even though you'd think this third world(ish) country would have nothing in terms of roller coasters..
In my cheap and tacky summer travels, I came across the best coaster I'd ever ridden, the best coaster in the world, a true beauty..
Why have that when you can have this..
Is
Hope you all grabbed some popcorn or something during this brief intermission. Anyways, here's the second half...
#7 - Cabin in the Woods (2013-2016)
Years experienced: 2013-2016
To be honest, Cabin has gotten progressively worse each season for me. I'm sure that's partly down to getting used to it all, as newbies in the maze really are blown away by the idea. However, the original version in 2013 was by far the best. The idea of the maze was that you would enter a roo
The dreaded closed season. A time when the ride games return, the silly season occurs with people making the same jokes about Colossus being repainted or Rumba being rethemed. Just be glad the Intamin aquatrax joke hasn't reared its ugly head. I like to think of closed season as a time of opportunity, a start of planning trips for 2017 and I thought I'd just put together a few blogs to maybe, inspire.
Denmark.
A road trip around Denmark is surprisingly easy. Start your trip in C
Fright Nights might be over, and it might be closed season, but I'm doing a belated 15 Years of Fear Celebration! I've been fortunate enough to visit every Fright Nights, and do all but one Fright Nights maze-style attraction, so I'm going to do a quick worst-to-best ranking (16 to 1) of all those mazes.
Naturally, mazes change year-on-year, and even one run through can be dramatically different to another on the same night, so I'm being nice and judging these off my best runthroughs. A
Hi one and all, I am just a lurker here really so you probably haven't seen me around before.
I've recently returned from a trip I took to Phantasialand and have alot to share.
It doesn't take much to make an impression to me, and I feel like the impression Phantasialand makes is incomparable.
I hope, that it pretty quickly displays why it's my favourite park in the world.
I'm not one for just concrete and thrills. The immersion this place delivers is un
Welcome, to the Haunted Reviews, Mwoarhaha
2016 has provided me with a vast number of park trips and adventures. A trend which has continued happily for the Halloween season.
Due to excessive number of events done and trying not to bore you with maze review after maze review, I thought I would try and compact my trips into just one report. Where I intend to focus mainly on the best bits (and sometimes the worst).
Xtreme Scream Park/
So to start the blog off, here's a joke
The Conservative Party
Anyway its sadly nearly Halloween, meaning the parks close for off season!
So I guess its back to rocking back and forward in my room til march..
So I've reviewed a few events over Halloween, so I'm going to do some awards to recap my Halloween Season! http://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/812-alton-towers-scarefest-2016-review/ http://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/808-screamland-margate-2016-review/ http://
Six Flags Great Adventure - October:
This was a park I had on my mind since 2011 (when I became an enthusiast), since then I had always wanted to go to this park because of Kingda Ka (obviously). After my parents then made some ludicrous promise based on my GCSEs, which I then achieved, it was confirmed that I was going to go to this park. Believe it or not, I actually made it to Kingda Ka.
So lets start from the beginning...
When driving to the park, there were tree
I tried my best to think of an exciting title but I really lack in creativity so it's simply 'Shocktoberfest Review'.
This year, I was lucky enough to visit Tulleys Farm's scare event Shocktoberfest. I had heard nothing but great reviews from the event, and after wanting to go since 2014, Cian and I managed to save enough cash for a ticket. Despite the horrible Friday evening traffic on the M25, we managed to get there in fairly good time, and once we were there, we managed to get all 8 att
This Blog Will Contain Spoilers And Sarcasm you've been warned!
So back in 2015 Scarefest really got a kick up the arse!
Scarefest has created some of the best scare attractions in the industry, but back in 2013/2014 the quality of the mazes where really plummeting..
Thankfully last year was one of the best years in Scarefests history, so I was itching to get back!
So after a grueling 4 hour drive, a fun M1 Traffifc jam, and a posh meal at Mcdonalds, I was there!
FYI I c
This year it was decided we'd upgrade our trips in October and visit a foreign scare event. Europa was chosen having won the Scar award for the best international event the past 2 years.
Tth
But it wasn't just for their scare event, it was also for the entire park!
There are pumpkins everywhere, it feels like a different park
Pumpkin cake
Halloween special parade
Special musical for the season based on Ghost Castle. Rides ha
On Sunday the 9th of October 2016, me and a few other forum members (and a few other non-forum members) set out on a venture to Thorpe Park Resort. However, this was not just any ordinary day at Thorpe Park; Fright Nights had kicked just two days prior to this visit, and we were all extremely excited to get into the six attractions that the park had to offer. Before the mazes opened to the public for the evening, we had the pleasure of experiencing a behind the scenes tour of Saw Alive and Cabin
This Blog Contains Minor Spoilers*
Screamland is a upcoming giant in the scare industry, and last year received rave reviews from scare veterans and the GP alike.
I personally have never been to Margate, so my whole night was a complete 'new experience' to me..Yup
Especially the completely rundown city of Margate, and some "interesting" graffiti on some of the walls..
Anyway the event was a grueling Hour and a half drive, so was it worth it?
In short, yes..
SPOILER WARNING
So after trying Containment again this year, it feels appropriate in some ways to do a review to mirror my review from last year, and see whether the improvements I wanted to see happened or not.
For a quick run down, here's some of the things I said could be improved, and some comments...
1) The preshow.
Last year, I felt the preshow either needed to be moved inside or just be given totally be an actor. This year, it's given totally by
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