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
The most important* awards are here! It’s been one hell of a year for me, and as a result rather than review things on a whole (it would take a very, very long time to go through each park) I’d prefer to just give out awards to the best and worst rides and parks I’ve experienced this year. So let’s get cracking:
Best Park – Efteling (Honourable Mentions – Phantasialand, Europa Park)
I fell completely in love with Efteling this year, everything that I want parks to do oozes from the place. It s
So Christmas is almost here as 2014 gradually comes to an end in what has been one of the most mixed years for everything [in what could easily be material for a new soap opera]. However here I will only be mentioning the theme park side of things [after all it's a theme park forum).
Unfortunately compared to a number of active members here such as Benin, my theme park collection trip is on a much smaller scale, as someone quoted to me talking about how comparing Thorpe park to Universal &
Earlier this year I sarcastically explained why Nemesis is king of coasters. This time round I'm going to explain (in a serious-ish way) why Spiderman is my favourite dark ride of all time. (As always these are my opinions, if you do comment at the bottom explaining why you disagree I will hunt you down and get revenge oh and there might be some spoilers on the ride experience, you've been warned)
Islands of Adventure, the park that made Disney have an E-ticket attraction ready to be deployed
So another year passes and it only seems right to look back on 12 months of fun, thrills and excitement, in a way that only Mark9 can. So where do we start?
January 2014 - Disneyland Paris
Ok, sure, this trip only featured one new ride (Peter Pans Flight fact fans) but it also marked the occasion where I somehow managed 42 hours of consciousness, the trip where I took a nap during cinemagique and where Jamie fell asleep eating food in Hyperion. Yes there was fatigue and short tempers but it wa
This is the final instalment in a 4-part series about my travels around Asia earlier this year, and some of the decidedly different Parks I encountered whilst I was there:
SuốI Tiên, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Đầm Sen, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Siam Park City, Bangkok, Thailand
Dream World, Bangkok, Thailand
Of all the Theme Parks I visited during my Asia Adventure, the one most traditionally "themed" was undoubtedly Thailand's Dream World.
It's been a while as I've been preoccupied with a number of other things and a small write-up on BPB was at the very back of my mind, but it's finally time for a super in-depth* review or BPB. (This turned out longer than I thought because I'm bad so I have converted it into a poor blog TR, read at your peril).
Before I start I better just throw out there that I was going on rides with my cousin, who is 9, and a huge wimp- we had to convince him Valhalla was just a little water ride in a wareh
This is the third in a 4-part series about my travels around Asia earlier this year, and some of the decidedly different Parks I encountered whilst I was there:
SuốI Tiên, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Đầm Sen, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Siam Park City, Bangkok, Thailand
Dream World, Bangkok, Thailand
Having left the colourful Đầm Sen behind in Vietnam, and spent a few days in Cambodia enjoying the magnificent temples at Angkor Wat, I crossed the border i
Some people went to Thorpe. Some to Towers to watch some fireworks. Some to Blackpool to ride some things at a time rowdy youths should be in bed but are instead in Blackpool riding things (interpret that how you wish).
Last year my season ended at the last night of FN (we'll ignore Florida as that never closes) and it has been that way for many seasons. This year I decided to do something different, Kempton Park Fireworks!
A lot of other people did too.
Just a sea of heads.
But it had
Wow, what a fantastic week! We spent 8 consecutive days in Blackpool Pleasure Beach, arriving at just after 10am and staying until park close every day. This equates to a total of 76 hours spent in the park! In fact, the only break we had from the park was one morning to visit the Tower and watch the Circus.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach was nearly faultless all week, it was being run the best I have ever seen it with all coasters on maximum capacity every day (aside from Nash on two one day an
This is the second in a 4-part series about my travels around Asia earlier this year, and some of the decidedly different Parks I encountered whilst I was there:
SuốI Tiên, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Đầm Sen, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Siam Park City, Bangkok, Thailand
Dream World, Bangkok, Thailand
My second Asian Park after the wonderful SuốI Tiên was also located Ho Chi Minh City: Đầm Sen.
Part 2: Đầm Sen
Đầm Sen
Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be travelling around Asia for a couple of months (a mini gap-yah, if you like), and took some small detours from the standard tourist path to visit some Parks. This is the first in a 4-part blog series about my Asia Adventure, which will cover the following Parks:
SuốI Tiên, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Đầm Sen, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Siam Park City, Bangkok, Thailand
Dream World, Bangkok, Thailand
Hopefully th
It's been a long 14 years since my first trip to Phantasialand and despite my love affair with the park when I visited in 2006, It hadn't been a park on my radar to revisit. All it took though was a read of Benin's August trip report, some willing volunteers with the cash and just like that, it was off to Germany. For those that have never been, getting to the park is as easy as pie and incredibly cheap. I heartedly recommend it, despite having to fly on Easyjet at 7:05 in the morning as the tra
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
Hi and welcome to Part 4, the final instalment of Creaky Northern Adventure. After a pleasurable day at the pleasure beach, a night of exploring two of Blackpool's [best] piers and a not so bright Coral Island, the trip was set to continue on the 2nd day which would conclude the trip. The big question, where would be heading to next?
With so much to do at Blackpool, you'd struggle so much to find any exciting attractions and ones that stand out from the others, after all it's not there's any
Hi and welcome to this third part of my exciting weekend in Blackpool. Here's how the story continues after our wet immersive ride on Valhalla.
It's heading towards the end of the day and twilight has arrived [no the ride sadly].
The park looks really beautiful at sunset, and despite being the tail end of the day it just makes the park come to life, it looks just as beautiful as Thorpe does at this time of day.
By now it was time for some final evening/ twilight rides. Another rou
Day 13 – Return of the Macks Part 1
A bright and early morning led us down to a nice breakfast before the 8:30 ERT on Blue Fire.
Afterwards we decided to hang around and wait for Arthur to open, however when we did get to the entrance it was having issues and was playing the closed game. As a result we went back to Austria and did Alpenexpress and the Wildwasserbahn for the Cave of fantastic smells before a quick whirl on the Chairswings
Heading back and Arthur was o
Welcome back to part 2 of my exciting trip report at Blackpool.
Lego Spongebob welcomes you to this next big instalment of the blog [Wow! are we at Legoland now?]
Speaking on Big, I think it's finally time I give this giant a ride then! It's a massive beast that dominates the whole park, so it should an amazing ride then ;]?
And it's time to review, Vertical Reality!
In 1994, the big one was a massive tall beast that was major large scale ride and investment along with being the tall
It's been my intentions over the last few years to try and visit to try and visit a new theme park or attraction each year, which started with Alton Towers in 2012 and Harry Potter Studio Tour, Madame Tussauds, The Dungeons along with a return to Oakwood [after 15 years] in 2013. At first I wasn't expecting to receive any new park credits for 2014 with Paultons Park called off and Euro disney put on hold.
This year it was my intentions to visit a park that was of the following, 1/ was a major p
Another park that’s changed a bit since my previous visit, what with Plopsa getting their hands on it recently, Holiday Park would serve as our penultimate park purely because it was easier to head down to Europa Park afterwards. We turned up to find it rather empty and a sign stating that the Spinning Barrels and Holly’s Autofahrt would both be spiting us. Was only when I returned I realised what had actually happened with the Barrel ride, grim.
We dossed around in the Museum for a bit looki
Welcome to the theatre. Please take your seats, the show is about to begin!
This will definitely be the Big One.
Orchestra ready!
Water effects ready!
It's time to...
Immerse your senses in the biggest spectacular of all time!
The 4D experience with a Blackpool Tower Post Show!
It's a small world from up here. Only the most realistic effects are used within this show.
Quick the bad guys have arrived! (sorry I didn't have time to finish this set off)
Vikings are bad g
To break up the flow of Benin Germany trip reports ( ), I've written a little something about my trip to Liseberg. Anyone who follows me on twitter or Facebook, probably knows what's coming. Alas, this will be a more detailed account of my trip.
So I'm just going to start with, great park. It features a good selection of flat rides, a well paced fun rapids ride and a very peculiar log flume. There's not many parks which have four very re-rideable roller coasters and Liseberg arguably has thre
