Coaster

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.

Does anyone else think it's silly to put a VR overlay on Temple if this is its last year of operation? Like, why reduce the throughput and force it to be closed for a significant amount of the season if it's going the year after rather than just letting it run as is before closing it?

Purely out of interest, did Toverland have different music before the IMAScore stuff? I know Troy had a different soundtrack, but the entire park has IMAScore music that seems to fit in perfectly, but isn't that just a recent thing? Did the park have different music before or was everything silent?

They should refund at guest services if you can't use it. Can't sell a product and then not let people use it.

Wait, so they're selling a product you can't use? Contact the ASA.

What?! That's shocking!

Absolutely love Toverland. I had a return visit on Wednesday and wow, it really is one of the nicest theme parks I've ever visited. Troy is incredible, there's a fair amount of unique attractions, not one bad ride and the entire park just has such a lovely feel that resonates well with me. A combination of the charming music, stunning landscaping/theming and quality of every single attraction and area... I can't quite put a finger on it, but there's something really special about the place.

What's going on?

Saw this in person today, looks impressive though maybe not as tall as I expected. Wasn't a huge fan of Walibi, didn't really rate any of the coasters or "get" the atmosphere they were going for. Quite a few rides closed, and a few closed at 4 (planned not tech issue - park was on a 5pm close).

I'm certain I've ridden Inferno in the rain before? Not recently but I remember it being fairly normal a few years back.

Bob is amazing. Very happy to have had the chance to ride it today, it's such a unique (and terrifying!) coaster and by far the best "bobsleigh" style ride I've ever ridden. A shame it's being removed really, the replacement doesn't look very inspiring either.

I'm sure it'll make a splashback soon. Oh wait...

I know it's only small in the grand scheme of things, but the new Chiapas tower looks hideous IMO. The previous one fit perfectly into the style of the area, if you look at the overall area-shot with the new roof in it stands out like a sore thumb because it's essentially a warehouse-style material used where everything else blends so perfectly. A shame. As for turning Nighthawk into a VR attraction, why?! It had a decent throughput before and just needed some effects.

Yuck. That ride had a decent throughput, just needed a few effects.

I really like the way Paultons are marketing this, very refreshing to see clues given away in a fun, but not irritating or self-indulgent way. Fingers crossed the park can scale up the marketing successfully when the time's right and get this project in the limelight.

I can't blame people for taking hotdogs in flasks when Thorpe now charge obscene prices for them. £12 for a hotdog and chips now. In the same venue that used to sell an entire (amazing) BBQ meal for about £7.50. And they had music. A hotdog on its own was £7.00 and people wonder why they're considered a rip off. On the whole my issues with Merlin aren't the frequency of the investments, but the overall quality that goes into the parks in terms of customer experience. Also, many of the investments that have been made were (IMO) not where the priorities should have been in terms of ensuring the parks offer a well rounded day out for visitors. Wicker Man is an exception and it has clearly done very well for Alton, which is fantastic.

Yeah Swarm's station looked horrendous. No ambient audio either, just the poor announcement that was recently added. Actually I'd say that the whole Swarm area was a bit of a mess in all honesty.

Could anyone perhaps shed some light on why they were letting the same two people re-ride Stealth from the exit again and again filling empty seats? It seemed to be running as a single rider queue but only for the same two people, nobody else was using it and I didn't think they would use what is essentially the staff gate to allow riders on. If they are genuinely using it as a single rider queue then brilliant, but it seems odd to me that it was only being used repeatedly by two people, and not very functional in terms of the location - you would essentially have to walk up the exit and hang around in the offload/baggage reclaim area, as there was nowhere specific set up to queue. I'm all for re-rides but at this point the ride had a 20/30 minute queue, so it wasn't a case of allowing anyone who asked back through to fill otherwise empty trains.

Today was very good. All the coasters were running multiple trains, the park was quiet and whilst there were some breakdowns/rides closed, for a preview day it seemed very well organised and everything that was open ran like clockwork. Also it was great that Stealth opened! I mean sure, I still don't like a lot of what Thorpe is doing, but it's fantastic that they were able to have every coaster open and running more than one train on the first day of being open to guests, and that they limited numbers rather than over-filling the park. Much better than opening to 10,000 people when you're nowhere near ready. I'm really not a fan of some of the cosmetic changes, the dome looks soulless now compared to how it looked before, the removal of Tidal's bridge is a shame as is Colossus' concrete (though I appreciate the reasons for this). Only real annoyance from an operations perspective was that Derren Brown's Ghost Train had closed with the shop shutters down by 4:40.

It looks like the events are the main features of the park with how they're shown much bigger than the ride names, the Fright Nights one is fine though IMO (since it is, or was at least, a big event). The map also makes the park look much smaller than previous ones have done.

Two good pieces of news from Oakwood; 1. The park will open a Zamperla Disk-O (named Dizzy Disk) for 2019, which I believe is replacing the Clown Coaster. 2. Bounce has been re-added onto the park's website and park map, with the following text; https://www.oakwoodthemepark.co.uk/at-the-park/thrill-rides/ The park map also shows the ride as "returning in 2019". Excellent news! ?

The sights, sounds, smells and atmosphere of rides like The Dragon in Legoland's early years made a huge impression on me at a young age, and probably went a long way towards forming my fascination for parks, roller coasters and themed attractions. I can't imagine that Haunted House Monster Party would have had the same effect on me, personally. Even if the interior is brilliant, the illusion and thematic element is lost long before you enter that building.

Excellent news.

Back to the Future is the best film ever and Queen are awesome so I approve. Probably won't go though unless it's discounted for passholders (which I'm not expecting it to be, as it's an extra).

That's strange, as it's showing as open on the event page for Annual Pass day. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2019-pre-season-day-at-thorpe-park-resort-tickets-56342094722 It probably isn't a huge issue for a coaster to be down for Annual Pass day provided that it's ready when the main season kicks in. However, it's poor to false advertise that the ride can be enjoyed on Annual Pass day if that isn't the case. It's all well and good saying it's a free event, an extra that they don't have to do, but if you look further down they're actively promoting the hotel, so essentially people could be booking hotel rooms and planning to visit on the basis that it'll be open when that might not be correct. I think it's probably a bit silly to list any rides as being available on there, considering the unpredictability of season starts in recent years and the fact that they couldn't guarantee any ride being available at the time of making the booking page public.