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The C. View

A blog by JoshC. in General

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About this blog

Detailed, sometimes rambling, entries about rides and attractions..

Entries in this blog

Linnanmäki Trip Report

Finland had never exactly been on my radar; it was more somewhere that I thought "it'd be nice to go there one day", as opposed to a "I'll go there in a few years". Then, Taiga happened, and all of a sudden, my interest popped up dramatically. And so Linnanmäki happened this weekend. I looked at trying to combine the trip with other Finnish parks (like Power Park and Särkänniemi), but given how widespread they are, Finland being the 8th most expensive European country, and time being limited, I
JoshC.

JoshC.

5

JoshC.'s Review of the Thorpe Season - 2015

Yeah, I'm doing this thing again. It's my 5th season doing a 'season review', and it's interesting seeing not only how the park has changed, but also how my general views of the park have changed, in that time. Here's some links to 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014's reviews if you're interested. This entry will be a lot less photo-heavy than the rest, mostly because I've taken less pictures this season, so I'll try and keep the writing to a minimum too. With the boring points out of the way, "prepare f
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

JoshC.'s Review of the Thorpe Season - 2014

2014 is almost over, which can only mean one thing...it's time for my review of Thorpe's season! In a way, it kind of feels silly to do a 'season' review on behalf, since I've "only" made 8 visits this year (by far my smallest Thorpe tally in memory!), so there's a few gaps here and there, and my views may not be fully representative of the season. However, I hope this review will end up giving a nice roundup of the season, and my views on what's gone down. If anyone wants to see my reviews of p
JoshC.

JoshC.

3

JoshC.'s Review of the Season - 2013

Here it is - the 2013 Review of the Thorpe Park season! I'll be sticking to a similar formulaic approach as the 2011 (sorry about the pictures being broken here; I'll be sorting it out asap!) and the 2012 Season Reviews I've done. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve the style / format of it all, let me know! Sorry about the length of this; it's hard to a balance between a detailed review and keeping it short. Also, for anyone wondering, I won't be doing any for other parks, simply du
JoshC.

JoshC.

5
Hersheypark Trip Report

JoshC. goes to America - Hersheypark

I finally did it: I finally went to America for some creds. Before my trip at the start of June, I'd only done European parks, so it was hugely exciting. Before getting to it, here's a setting the scene sorta dealy. This trip had been a long time in the works. Early plans can be traced back to March 2021, which was going to be a Cedar Point + others trip. But that fell through. Still wanting to go out to the States for some creds, I looked at other possible ideas. I could do Orlando /

Is the concept of a 'Vanilla Coaster' dying?

In the past two decades or so, roller coaster manufacturing has seen many technological advances. Back in the 1980s, the idea of having a roller coaster where the trains were underneath the track or having a launched roller coaster was about as technologically superior as the industry has reached. The first 'suspended' coaster, 'The Bat' at Kings Island in America, opening in 1981, only to close two years later due to being highly temperamental, whilst the first launched coaster, 'King Kobra'
JoshC.

JoshC.

3

Ich bin ein Doughnut: Little Big City and Strawberries

Last weekend, I visited Berlin and Leipzig for a quick cred run and culture trip. I had originally planned to go to Finland and hit up Linnanmaki this month, but since Taiga opens next month, we opted for something a little different.. After arriving in Berlin Friday morning, the first port of call was Little Big City. Owned by Merlin, LBC is one of their newer midway brands, and is basically a miniature village which goes through the history of Berlin. This one opened up about 2 years ago, a
JoshC.

JoshC.

1

Ich bin ein Doughnut: Freizeitpark Plohn

For the first time in like 2 years, I've actually finished a trip report *dies of shock*   Plohn jumped into my attention because of their new Mack Big Dipper, Dynamite, bursting onto the scene. We thought visiting in mid-May would be safe enough for the 'Spring opening', but sadly we were 6 days too early. Major spite. Nonetheless, it looks good and I'm sure it'll be a hit for the park. Onto the rest of the park:   El Toro A GCI woodie that opened in 2009, El Toro was a
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

Ich bin ein Doughnut: Belantis

After a day spent doing some random stuff in Berlin, the weekend was the main reason for the trip: the two random small parks just outside Leipzig. The first one was Belantis; a medium-sized park owned by Parque Reunidos (who also own the likes of Movie Park Germany, Bobbejaanaland, Mirabilandia,...). It was sadly an extremely wet day, with showers pretty much non-stop from about 8 in the morning. Fortunately, it meant the park was dead, and the park didn't close anything major in the weather. S
JoshC.

JoshC.

1

How do you Solve a Problem like Fastrack?

This is a blog entry that relates to the hot topic of Fastrack and Fastrack sales. So why's it in here, and not in that topic? The aim here is to illustrate how Fastrack sales affect the main queue of a ride, and demonstrate what many bring up - those who pay for the premium service (Fastrack) negatively affect the service of those who do not pay for such a service (those who use the main queue). Unfortunately, this will be quite mathematically thought out, will ramble on a bit, and uses many
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

Halloween Scream Nights - Twisted Attractions

Last year, a new, independent, scare company burst onto the scene - Twisted Attractions. Opening up in Birmingham in a disused nightclub, 'The Morgue: Live' caught the attention of many people, and got amazing reviews from the scare industry. Fastforward to May this year, and Twisted Attractions had moved to an old warehouse, bigger than the nightclub, with 'The Facility'. The reviews of The Morgue caught my attention, and upon hearing about The Facility, I really wanted to go try it out, bu
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

Halloween Horror Fest - Movie Park Germany

Last week, I visited Movie Park for their Halloween event: the 21st anniversary of their Horror Fest.  The park has 8 mazes, 4 scare zones and a variety of other things to bolster the number of attractions up to 19, with the park claiming the event to be the biggest Halloween event in Europe. We visited the park on Thursday, hoping it would be quiet: the park is open 10am-10pm for Horror Fest, with most Halloween attractions opening at 6pm and closing at 9.30pm. So it was a LOT to do. So, withou
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

Halloween Fright Nights - Walibi Holland

It's only taken me 4 months to get around the posting this..   Walibi Holland's Halloween Fright Nights is well respected in the scare industry. They pump serious amounts of money into their attractions, and have TONNES of actors to boot. They go all out. And that's one of the many reason it had been on my to-do list for so long, and why I eventually went last year.   Now I actually wrote a trip report in Word a while back trying to cover the whole event. That report ended up
JoshC.

JoshC.

3

FreBelGerAnd - Plopsa

After another refreshing night at our hotel, we trekked on over to Plopsaland de Panne for Day 2.  I'll keep this brief as I've babbled on about this loads before...   We arrived at the park to be greeted by loads of school kids swarming about, so we headed straight for Heidi - The Ride, the park's coaster which was meant to be open last year but had loads of noise issues.  It's a lot of fun.  It holds its speed for most of the ride, features nice pops of airtime and the odd intense.  
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

FreBelGerAnd - Parc Bagatelle

So Adam has once again beaten me to starting up the massive Trip Report, but hey, you know what they say, first the worst, second the best...   Once again, we went for a nice 8 day long road trip, hitting up some new parks and some old parks with new stuff.  Day 1 was the wonderful French park Parc Bagatelle...   Bagatelle is about an hour away from Calais (which is where we were conveniently staying after arriving by ferry at 2am), and a reasonably straightforward drive.  Th
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

FreBelGerAnd - Movie Park Germany

So I'm skipping Phantasialand because everyone knows I think it's the best and I'm behind on writing TRs and stuff.  So yeah, do excuse the delay and what will be rushed TRs, which will largely just be reviews of rides in no particular order of riding them...   Movie Park was a park I had reasonably low expectations about.  There wasn't many raved about, and any reviews of the park I had read always mentioned long queues, that their Fastrack was a saviour and people always having a sou
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

FreBelGerAnd - Efteling

Only taken me 3 and a half months to finish this TR...   We spent 2 and a half days at Efteling this year, and there was bucketloads of stuff going on during that time.  We stayed at the newly opened Loonsche Land Hotel, experienced Symbolica on it's opening day (along with all the pomp and faff to accompany it), and had a 14 hour day on park thanks to their summer festival event starting.  So I could probably pad this part of the trip into 2 or 3 blogs itself (and I kind of have alrea
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

Can a Coaster in the UK be the 'Next Nemesis'?

Regularly with new projects in the UK, and even some internationally, are compared to Nemesis; Alton Towers' map-defining roller coaster. It's natural really when you consider that Nemesis is pretty much in every enthusiasts' top 10 coasters / rides, and usually near the top as well, and that it's been ranked even as a top 10 roller coaster in the world at one point/ So, with new projects, there's always talk of 'Will it be better than Nemesis?', 'Will it do a Nemesis?' and so forth. But what
JoshC.

JoshC.

4

Breaking Free from the Merlin Machine - Drayton Manor

For the first in about 10 or 11 years, I visited a non-Merlin theme park. It's been a long time coming, and anywhere was a start. And that start was to be Drayton Manor. After such a beautiful week, Saturday decided to take a turn for the worst, and give us rain, thunder, lightning (though with a couple of breaks of sunshine during the day!). Adam picked me up and we arrived at Drayton around 9ish. Even though we were early, we could tell it was gonna be quiet day, and thank goodness, aft
JoshC.

JoshC.

1

BelGerAnd2 - Holland

Walibi Holland was the only new-for-me park of the trip, and there were two obvious draws for visiting:  the new Mack coaster Lost Gravity, and Goliath, the Intamin mega coaster.  We seemed to get lucky with our visit, as the park was very quiet, and we didn't queue over 15 minutes for anything if memory serves me correctly.  Overall impressions of the park are quite mixed for me; there's some great attractions around the park (and of higher quality to Walibi Belgium's offerings), but there's st
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

BelGerAnd2 - Germany

I've wanted to complete my BelGerAnd2 "trip report" for a while, mostly for sake of completion, but I've really struggled to figure out what to say about Phantasialand.  It's easy to sing the praises for the park, and most of those praises would see me reiterate myself.  So let's get those out of the way...   Maus au Chocolat and Chiapas are the perfect examples of how to a shooting dark ride and water ride respectively.  Black Mamba is a great coaster that really turns into a beast in
JoshC.

JoshC.

1

BelGerAnd2 - Belgium

This past week, I hit up a few European parks in search of some new creds, and to go back to some places I enjoyed last year.  Just thought I'd throw in a few thoughts from my visits...   Plopsaland de Panne Went here last year, and had a lot of fun.  With Heidi originally planned to open July 1st, we decided to return for some wooden coaster goodness.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be as Heidi Spiti is too loud at the moment, and sound barriers are still being constructed.  
JoshC.

JoshC.

0

BelGerAnd Days 6-7 - Efteling

Better late than never ey? I've condensed down this entry so that it's easier for me to write / more people read it / I actually decide to write it... With Baron already ridden, and 2 full days (10-8) at Efteling left, we knew we'd be able to take our time with the park, and were in no rush to do anything straight away. We covered the whole park easily within those two days, and had plenty of time to reride our favourites too. So, to cut to the chase, I adored Efteling. I wasn't expecting to lo
JoshC.

JoshC.

2

BelGerAnd Day 8 - Bobbejaanland

The last day of BelGerAnd is here! And unfortunately it's not ending with a bang, but rather a slur of 'b's and 'a's in one word - Bobbejaanland. For those curious, it's pronounced Bob-e-yan-land (we didn't fully know this until about half way through the day). Being close to the park meant that after our free breakfast, we arrived with plenty of time for the 10am opening. We got there at about 9:45 and let through the main gates, where we were immediately bombarded by a costumed character a
JoshC.

JoshC.

1

BelGerAnd Day 5 - Hello Netherlands

*Once again, a long time between entries into this trip - sorry to anyone who is still reading this! Reports will probably be shorter from now on so I can finish this thing before Christmas...* After a nice sleep in Dusseldorf, we said out goodbyes to Germany and ventured into The Netherlands. Out first stop was Toverland, which, despite being a relatively small park, was one I was looking forward to a lot. The 10-6 opening time would surely give plenty of time to give everything a couple of ri
JoshC.

JoshC.

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