PARK OPEN: 11am - 6pm
RIDES CLOSED: None!
Adventure Island is a park I have had on my "must visit" list for several years, so despite having planned a weekend trip to Blackpool, we decided to scrap the visit to BPB after the poor events from the first two weekends in favour of trying a new park.
Overall, I was very impressed with Adventure Island. It's a smallish, colourful seaside park which is split into two sections (with the middle of the park being "Adventure Inside" - an inside section with a few rides and other things).
Whilst the rides aren't by any means the best on offer in the UK, they are great for a small seaside park and the selection of flat rides is brilliant.
The best thing about Adventure Island is that they care about their customers! The staff were absolutely fantastic - interacting with the guests, counting down before dispatching the rides and generally being really happy! A simple thing such as encouraging staff to be happy goes a long way in making the day out good for people, and the sense of fun and wanting the customer to have a good time is something that a lot of parks are missing at the moment, so well done to AI for getting this right.
I would also like to point out how efficient they were at running the rides, and they were pushing throughputs - even with no queues at all, they were running around checking the belts and sending the rides quickly which was great to see.
The park as a whole looked well kept however there are a few areas which could do with a bit of paint, but it's worth remembering that it is a seaside amusement park rather than a theme park, and it was actually quite well presented on the whole. I did find it a bit odd that three coasters are painted the same track colour though!
For the benefit of others who haven't visited Adventure Island, and because it was my first visit, I'll review a few of the rides.
Time Machine is insane - on first appearance, it looks like quite a tame flat ride, but the force it exerts on your body for a sustained period of time as well as the change in direction makes for a fantastic ride experience, and for that reason it is now my favourite flat ride!
Rage is a decent enough coaster which makes use of limited space very well, with some forceful moments (bottom of the first drop, corners) as well as some brilliant hang-time on the loop. With that said, I do prefer Speed at Oakwood due to the fact that it's much more intense, and Rage lacked an airtime hill.
Mighty Mini Mega (weird name) is nothing spectacular but for the tiny amount of space it takes up, it's not half bad! Also, it's built on top of an arcade which is interesting.
Green Scream and Barnstormer are fairly similar family coasters, but they were both good fun and efficiently operated.
Dragon's Claw is, in my opinion, vile. Generally I can cope with uncomfortable rides, but the way that this turned you upside-down whilst spinning put an enormous amount of pressure on your shoulders and the blood rushed to my head. I just wasn't a fan of it.
Over The Hill is a strange ghost train style dark ride with a long train rather than several small ones, and it's actually quite good! It's not scary but it is well themed with several different effects, and the lighting used in the ride was fantastic and hid the warehouse roof really well, so very impressed overall. The "trick" ending was a good concept, however it could be executed better IMO. Also, two trains were running which was good!
RIDECOUNT:
Rage x9
Time Machine x5
Mini Mega x5
Over The Hill x4
Barnstormer x4
Tidal Wave x3 (Two on the green tunnel slide, one on the blue open slide).
Green Scream x3
Crooked House x3
American Whip x2 (This was fantastic, like the old junior whip in Beaver Creek at BPB!)
Kiddie Koasta x1
Scorpion x1
Skateboarder x1
Ramba Zamba x1 (Zamperla Disko that rode poorly, but at least it was open! )
Pharaoh's Fury x1
Dragon's Claw x1
The Dragon x1
Ferris Wheel x1
Vortex x1
Archelon x1
Sky Drop x1
Fireball x1
Serpent Slide x1
Helter Skelter x1
TOTAL: 52
Highlights:
- Nice seaside park with a good selection of flat rides and a good headline coaster.
- Best staff at any park in the UK, can't fault them at all!
- Good atmosphere even on a quiet day.
- Park looked great during the last hour when it was lit up.
- 6pm close!
- Fantastic ride availability, there was only one breakdown which was Time Machine for 5 minutes!
Lowlights:
- Queues closed 5 minutes early.
- Due to the park being quiet, we were forced to sit near the front of every coaster (bar Rage), which was a shame as I prefer most coasters in the back row.
- Extra charge for Dodgems (we didn't pay as it was a £5 upgrade on the wristband). I just don't agree with this, whilst I can understand Go Karts being upcharge, all standard rides should be included in the wristband price IMO and I don't know of any other park that charges extra for Dodgems.
- Gutted I missed out on Devil's Creek Gold Mine (haven't visited before this year).
Photos!
Rage;
Time Machine was lit up really well (this was taken during its lengthy 5 minute closure!)
Exterior of Over The Hill;
Finally, a construction update from the new dark ride replacing Devil's Creek (which I believe is opening in the summer);
Thanks for reading.