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I guess so yeah. But in the same way there's a possibility I could go on to win an Olympic Gold medal in the 100m.

This is actually being constructed by the same company as who did the Crystal maze experience if anyone here has done that!

A bruise like no other™.

Here's a few thoughts from my first visit to Pleasure Beach in 2019, this is based on visits over a few days. The new pre-opening show is a good idea to keep people entertained whilst waiting for the gates to open. Areas of the park look and feel dismal at the moment. The entire FY4 from the back of Alice in Wonderland’s warehouse, empty Mouse site and the monstrosity that is the newly reopened arcade feels like you’re walking through an abandoned theme park that closed 20 years ago. It’s very sad considering the area looked mostly fine up until 2018 and with Icon tidying up south park considerably, they’ve now let north park get worse than south park ever was. It leaves a horrendous first impression on guests entering the park that way, too. The place was fairly busy over Easter, with moderate crowds (and then very busy on the Saturday). Ride availability seemed pretty good (aside from Sunday morning) with Icon and Valhalla being the only rides having significant downtime, even then it wasn't too bad. Extension to 6pm on Monday was nice. Sunday morning was poor with The Big One, Big Dipper and Revolution on (very) late opening whilst Infusion also broke down. Icon also took 25 minutes to transfer a third train on? We managed a ride-count of 17 on Saturday with the park open 10am - 10pm, however this was with us making sure to do the low capacity rides first. For first-time visitors trying to get on Nickelodeon Streak or Avalanche in the middle of the day it would have been miserable. The fireworks were great but I wasn’t keen on the music choices… they’re missing a trick by not using Icon’s score for at least part of the display. The new location was much better from a viewpoint perspective as they weren’t blocked by Icon’s station, but I still disagree with closing rides over an hour early on a “late night riding” event to put on some fireworks. Operations were very mixed. Big Dipper and Grand National were running very well, or in the case of Nash, as well as the system will allow it to. On Saturday we queued 20 minutes for Dipper from outside the queue entrance, and 25 for National from well past the entrance to the steps. Very impressed! Valhalla’s queue shifted very fast on Saturday, but was extremely slow every other day despite having the same number of boats on… weird. Continuing from the end of last year, The Big One’s operations remain dreadful. Dispatch times were very slow, largely caused by Speedy Pass but also the lack of management watching the operations. There were instances when they took 10 minutes to load a full Speedy Pass train, and out of every 10 trains I’d say that 7/8 of them stacked for a considerable amount of time. For a ride that lasts over 2 minutes, that’s just not acceptable. The staff were holding the queue outside the station which I assume was to prevent it from getting too hot, which I thought was a good idea. On Monday however, a quieter day, they were running one of the trains with only two carriages open until late afternoon. With the queue being held outside the station in the morning (meaning it’s more visible on the ramp) and then not in the afternoon, it definitely felt as if this was being done to increase Speedy Pass sales. With crowds on this level it would have previously taken 10 minutes to wait, as by lunch time it’d have shifted the queue to the final two switchbacks. It took us 40 minutes purely down to slow operations, it’s just a complete and utter mess. Pleasure Beach have really taken their eye off the rest of the park since Icon opened and The Big One has suffered hugely, operations have got to rock bottom and Speedy Pass continues to make queueing in the main queue a misery. It isn’t the ride staff’s fault; they try their best. It’s poor management and upselling of a fast pass system which the park knows will have an adverse effect on the operations of their signature ride. On a positive note, PMBO was absolutely flying on Friday and Saturday, reaffirming why I love it so much and still regard it as my absolute favourite coaster by quite some distance. Amazing. Valhalla continues to be an absolute mess. Here’s a brief status report of effects from 3 rides over Easter. - Water curtain over skull entrance worked for 1/3 rides - Trommels not working - Projection audio (Odin voice) on lift 1 slightly louder but still not audible - Projection looks like it needs a new filter/replacing (wire hanging down, picture not clear) - Green popup face not working - Waterfall corridor not working - Blackout doors after backwards drop not closing meaning light leaks in and exposes the workings - Lots of torn and/or missing blackout curtains throughout entire ride exposing maintenance areas - Ice room half-frozen, no ceiling misters - Water vortex soaking the boat - Light on waterfall following vortex switching off too early so effect is missed - Water geysers on either side of the track after water vortex not working - Light leaking into this area as fire exit left open - Maintenance lights left on - Chandelier not swinging - Crow animatronics not fully functioning - No ring of fire - Fireballs in first room following final drop not working (room in pitch darkness) - Only one small explosion in final room - Ride soundtrack loop cutting out and jumping River Caves has also had CCTV put in thoughtlessly over elements of theming as well as awfully implemented emergency lighting. Dark rides are supposed to provide seamless experiences with the back-end hardware hidden away, so it’s a disgrace that Pleasure Beach are so careless and clumsy with implementing these things. They did the same with new CCTV cameras in Valhalla last year. Lots of effects broken in Ghost Train. Alice and W&G were in decent condition overall. Overall, I had an enjoyable time at Pleasure Beach. Some areas had a nice atmosphere on Saturday, with the live music and busy crowds. With that said, the park has lost its buzz for me and the overall impression I got was that it feels like it’s missing something. The vibrance, the classic PB feel, it’s all gone. The park still houses some of my favourite coasters, but on reflection I don’t rate Icon very highly at all. The ride has lost its “new factor” and I’m already growing tired of it. It just feels too sluggish and there are so many places where you *nearly* get force or airtime, but it doesn’t quite have the speed to deliver. A shame. Two of the best assets at the park are still missing for me… Wild Mouse, and Valhalla. I include the latter because with the ride experience offered at the moment, it may as well just be a log flume in the dark. Steeplechase was very good as always. It was nice to be back on some of my favourite rides and seeing people, but I’m not in any rush to return to the park. My enthusiasm for the place is gone.

I got to try out Gamefx a few days ago and I had a decent time in there. There was clearly a lot to do, though I do wish there were more Nintendo consoles as I would have to wait for a free NES or N64 whilst there were plenty of PS1s, PS2s, XBOXs available, that appeared to be more of a balance issue (that last comment is biased as Nintendo is my go-to company). But it was fun getting to play some retro games that I hadn't played before such as Mario Kart 64 or Simpsons Hit and Run and I think overall it was a nice event to have at the park to enhance the day. However, I really want to bring up something about VR in general. I had never played a fully interactive VR game before so I decided to get a token and try out Job Simulator, and I must say, it was probably the most fun I've had in a video game for a long time. Literally 10 minutes on Job simulator was so much more enjoyable than the whole of DBGT! And I think it came down to the fact that it felt real due to the high amount of interaction. I was completely unaware that I probably looked liked a complete idiot whilst playing (sorry if all this is starting to dive into other topic areas). Now I've only done 2 "fully dedicated" VR theme park attractions which were DBGT and Galactica, and neither of them felt real at all and many people also seem to find underwhelming (hence why Galactica no longer has VR). This is where I must say that from my point of view VR just doesn't really work unless you properly interact with it. Also, after my last ride on DBGT (which was fully functional aside from a few glitches), I literally have no desire to ride it again. Yes I have ridden it many times now which probably has a huge impact, but that VR game made me realise just how poor the attraction is.

Was one of the best parts of the meet too, if I do say so myself...