Your Planned Trips and Reports

With the money grabbing but fun Warwick Castle behind us, we drove to Alton Towers, the next morning. We had stayed in a Premier Inn at Solihull, so the drive wasn't too far.We arrived around half ten to a fairly quiet car park...We were greeted with a very long queue for the monorail, which didn't really make sense as the car park seemed a bit quiet. It turned out the Monorail had broken down.After a 10-15 minute walk, we arrived at the fantastic entrance.Once inside, Ben started planning I love this tree. The Towers. A magnificent building.Our party split up to ride different things. As I was on my own at this point, I managed two goes in a row on Thirteen via the sin…

After a slow start to the 2016 season, March arrived and it was time for another week in Blackpool! Once again we had a fantastic time at the park making good use of our season passes, overall we managed 8 days which is great. The weather was rotten at times - I wasn't fussed by this in itself, but I will get to it in more detail further down the trip report. Blackpool Pleasure Beach still houses my favourite rides in the form of Valhalla, The Big One, Wild Mouse, Grand National and the Big Dipper alongside brilliant selection of coasters, dark rides and flats. The wooden coasters were all on good form most days, offering plenty of airtime and bumpiness! I w…

Hi everyoneJust wondering who would like to have a mini meet on the 31st October as the atmosphere is better and it would be fun? Just wondering as I need people to go with

Hi everyone.Basically a very quick post to extend an invitation to a meet that members over various forums have each year. Every year we abuse the London Merlin attractions and then have a meal in the evening somewhere. You do not have to attend each attraction, but it's tradition that the group stays together and is usually the best meet of the year.It is being organised via Facebook. HERE.If you can't view that, then add me on Facebook, and I'll invite you.You're more than welcome to book a room at a Travelodge for the evening, a few of us already are. This is to be confirmed as to where- a couple of locations are going around at the moment such as Leatherhead and T5. A…

Yeah, you read it right, get your 2010 Ride Guide League off to a flyer with a 3 park visit!Cost should be around £300 total, including entry, accomodation, transport and food!AeRoMoBiLe (4 places)PeterSamJohn (peep)PossibleJackPost in topic to confirm or to put your name on the possible list. If you have a car, then we can start a second batch of 4

PARK OPEN: 10am - 10pm RIDES CLOSED: Drenched, Bounce, Tink's Flying School We visited Oakwood for the After Dark event this year, which included fireworks and a colour party. Over the years I've had mixed visits at Oakwood; some are brilliant, whereas others are not-so good. The day started badly with Megafobia not opening on time, however we did manage to get a ride on Bobsleigh before the queue built up, and a few goes on Speed which was running two cars. This is an improvement on previous years, where it has only been running one despite a large queue; it ran two cars all day which was great to see! The park is much nicer kept tha…

Discuss the Annual Pass Holders event here.

Wednesday 30th July PARK OPEN: 10am - 10pm RIDES CLOSED: Drenched, Bounce, Pirate Ship, Clown Coaster, Train BREAKDOWNS: Megafobia (about 30 mins), Skull Rock (twice, 10 mins each time), Vertigo (about an hour). Before visiting, I phoned up the park asking if there were any ride closures, and was told that the pirate ship was closed but that everything else is open. On arrival, we saw that Bounce was also closed, which was a disappointment. Naturally we went to Megafobia first after entering the park, which was running a one train service with an hour's worth of queue (which took 1hr 15mins), with the fast pass queue going down the exit. Once in the station we realised …

PARK OPEN: 10:30am - 5pm (The park opens at 9:30am, but no rides until 10:30) RIDES CLOSED: Pirate Ship, Polperro Express, Tram Express (Pirate Adventure also closed indefinitely throughout this year). After seeing a half price ticket offer on the website, a last minute decision was made to visit Drayton Manor! I had visited once before, which was back in 2013 during the fireworks event. The day didn't get off to the best of starts; we arrived at around 10am (rides open 10:30am) and stood in a queue waiting for G Force to open. Just before opening time, a member of staff came out to tell us that it wouldn't be opening on time. Following this we went and queu…

Is there a better way to spend a glorious bank holiday Sunday than going on a roadtrip and mopping up creds? Wait don't answer that... Yesterday me and my credit hunting buddy (freshly returned) went on an over 600 mile round trip to knock off the parks in the South West. Our day began with an over 5 hour drive to Flambards, which is the most southerly park in the UK. Nothing memorable to report about the drive, other than that we found a statue of a wicker man dropping to his knees at the entrance to an obscure services, he must of heard the news that Wicker Man is running slow at the moment, I hope he feels better soon. After wh…

Yes I really struggled this time with an appropriate title for the trip topic. I did my best but hey ho. Well, for my birthday, a trip to PortAventura was planned. Shambhala was a big part of this decision, but also ever since I was 16 I wanted to ride Dragon Khan. It was up there with Kraken and Nemesis as a ride that I wanted to do at all costs. So with hence our trip was planned. Getting to the park is a breeze and luckily our room had a fantastic view, overlooking the park. Seeing Shambhala and Khan together, along with Stampida, El Diablo and a hint of Furius Baco was enough to please me for the time being. So along came day one in the park. People are in upr…

What do you do when it's your best friend's Birthday and you are both coaster nerds? Mop up some more of the Euro creds! We plumped for the trip that was the cheapest and easiest this time round, save the fun stuff for later in the year! Day 1 An extremely early start sent us flying towards the channel tunnel (chunnel) at half 4 in the morning, can't moan too much though, we were pretty much the only car on the road! Surprisingly for us the whole channel tunnel bit went very smoothly and we were soon on French soil. Parc Saint Paul https://rcdb.com/5024.htm After parking my incredibly low car (low by …

It's been a long seven years since I last visited the Pleasure Beach. Back when I was a 17 year old I hurt my back viciously on the Big One, got thrilled within an inch of my life on a rainy Grand National, spun on Spin Doctor, Dazzled by Bling and thrown into another galaxy on Space Invader. But how had the park changed since 2005? Compared to my 2005 trip, the weather was beautiful. Sure it was dark and gloomy compared to the sunny South but it wasn't raining which really helped the atmosphere. One thing though, the park was very busy but thanks to the huge amounts of rides, shows and attractions queues were kept on the lowish side. So where to start? Oh yeah The …

Just wondering if anyone off TPM will be attending the evening?For those of you that don't know, it's a rescheduled event from the original Th13teen preview weekend. The evening includes:-Presentation and talk with the great John Wardley-Behind the scenes tour of Th13teen (Hopefully Rita/Hex aswell )-Free exclusive merchandise-Free evening buffet meal

Hi there I visited Chessington for the first time last weekend. Though you might be interested in a first time visitors view. I live in the north of England, and bought Merlin annual passes for the family for the first time this year. We decided to visit the southern parks at Chessington, Legoland and Thorpe Park over the Easter long weekend, staying in a travelodge locally. Well, what a massive disppointment it was. From what I can tell the rides must be falling to pieces, given how little they actually seem to work. Four rides were planned to be closed for the whole day (Black Buccanneer, Griffins Galleon, Rameses Revenge and Rattlesnake) - although there was no n…

So, it's thanksgiving over here in the USA next week and I'm having a couple of days off forced upon me! I was planning to head to Los Angeles to do some shopping, but more importantly it looks like I'll have time to visit this rollercoaster mecca. I've had a read through a few of the reviews on here and also on TripAdvisor and it seems to be a mixed bag really. I'm not expecting an awful lot from it in all honesty I've read that it's dirty, the staff are rude and it's packed full of nobheads. My plan is to purchase the fast pass things which appear to be valid all day for all of the rides! I'll give you a report and try and get some pictures from my visit, but…

You always know a year is going to be good when you start off with a new B&M, 30 miles up the road from where you live. To continue the momentum, a trip to Paris and Parc Asterix was planned quite swiftly to experience OzSiris, a brand new custom made B&M inverter. The first day of the trip was seeing all the Parisian sights. Our first adventure was to the Louvre. We didn't go in due to it being far later (and more expensive then we thought) so we instead walked up the Arc de triumphe. I'll be frank when I say things are big in Paris. The Arc de Triumphe, Notre Dame and the Eifel Tower can be seen from all around and for me personally, I really admire the effort a…

Hansa-ParkToday was the first day of the season at this fairly small park, which has recently started getting a name for itself following installations of "story" based rollercoasters and other themed attractions. It's actually been around for decades and was briefly a Legoland park - although no traces of this remain.We arrived a little before 9am, paid our admission and entered through the small, but picturesque Hanseatic style entrance building. A band were greeting guests and characters posing for photographs. Flower arrangements were laid out in front of us and arranged to show todays date "15.4.11". A fairly open entrance plaza area was well themed with buildings ar…

Hey,here is my Photo and Video Post from the Disneyland Paris March, 17th 2009. :(2x Rock´n´Rollercoaster 75 min wait time1x Space Mountain mission 100 min wait time1x Tower of Terror 70 min wait time (Fast pass)And my Rock´n´Rollercoaster On/offride Video, have fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZMILtGUkqcSteven^^

Went to Flamingo Land last Wednesday, was absolutely fantastic...We were staying in Scarborough, about 20-30 minutes from the park, we arrived at roughly about 10:45. First off I got a Q Buster ticket as a informant told me that it would be very busy, all the staff we met were polite and very helpful, so thank you for that FL!The zoo was good as well as the rides, we say some Meerkat babies So cute! The chimps were locked inside, their outdoor window was smashed, never under estimate these apes! Thats about it, it was a fun but pretty uneventful day!Ride Count:Velocity - 1 (Thrilling but painful)Dodgems - 1Corkscrew - 1 (ouch)Flip Flop - 2 (So much fun!)Mumbo Jumbo - 2 …

Discuss this free, all rides event here

Well that’s my biggest (and best) trip of the year over. I know Alton received some criticism for their choice of lighting in certain areas, but the whole atmosphere was just incredible. Day 1 I arrived at the park just after 4.00 and headed straight for Forbidden Valley. I did Nemesis several times and then made my way over to Air. I don’t normally bother with Air, but the park was quiet, so thought it’d be a shame not to have a ride. The queue for the front row was only around 15 minutes. It was starting to get dark by now, so I took the Skyride over to Dark Forest for a ride on Th13teen in the dark - fantastic as always! The queue for Rita was prett…

This Saturday, I visited Warwick Castle for the first time. The trip was my first ever to Warwick Castle, as well as a first for the three others I was with. Being the final weekend of the Castle's Halloween event, 'The Haunted Castle', it was open till 9 (for the first time as well, apparently), so we arrived just before 12. The site of the Castle just after the entrance, with added smoke! The Castle is certainly an impressive site. Looks very impressive whatever the weather as well (come rain, shine or lit up - experienced all three in one day!) First up for us was the 'Flight of the Eagles' show. Bog standard show with a couple of eagles and an owl; wa…

While the memories are still fresh in my mind and my spine is still feeling the many miles driven, I'll hook you guys up with another trip report, you're welcome. The Friday just gone my friend and I hit the roads in order to go to Butlins Skegness to visit our friend who works there, oh and to collect creds. We set off at 6pm on a Friday and knew it was going to be a crap drive but nothing could prepare us for what happened. Good time was made for about half the trip and I got to experience my first ever Smash Burger in Milton Keynes, the food was amazing, as was the view from the viewing window of many rude boys hitting speed humps at 90mph, I re…

Since it's announcement, Star Trek: Operation Enterprise, the brand new Mack shuttle launch coaster at Movie Park Germany has been hot on my radar and we decided to tie in some other new creds and a special event at Phantasialand at the same time. Day 1 Read Mark's recent post in the rant thread to some up how our day started, Gatwick you heartless bastards. Arrived at Amsterdam airport at about 10:30 and went to the hire car people. As you may know by now we don't get on with the hire car industry. This time we chanced our luck with Hertz, as of yet they haven't screwed us over with after rental changes but I will keep you posted. We o…