Coaster

It's a shame that they have to remove attractions to build anything new but they really are limited for space - as is proven by Mini Mega being located on top of an arcade!

Hate to say it but it doesn't fit in with the ride at all IMO, it's the wrong colour for a start!

I think they said the opening date would be released in February, so hopefully within the next week!

Must have missed that - where is it located in the park? Haha, no it's not a typo, I really enjoyed Time Machine and it didn't make me feel sick at all which is strange as Dragon's Claw did! Lots of staff were dancing yesterday, it was quite funny really - but it adds so much to the enjoyment of a park if the staff are friendly and happy.

I've seen their Twitter feed, it's great to see so much work going into revitalising the park and it should hopefully look great this year!

Had a fantastic first visit to Adventure Island today! Really impressed with the staff who went out of their way to make the experience as good as possible for the guests, and the selection of rides was great for a small seaside park. Just thought I'd post a link to my trip report for anyone who's interested. http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/11131-adventure-island-sun-21st-feb-2016-ptr/

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.

Grand National, Nickelodeon Streak, Ghost Train, Wild Mouse, Grand Prix, Valhalla, Steeplechase and Avalanche all run less cars/trains/boats than they used to and have low throughputs as a result of this - or in the case of National, it still runs four trains but the station system is so slow and doesn't allow dispatch before the other two trains are back and the lapbars released. PMBO would cope fine with two trains but unfortunately the throughput is killed by Speedy Pass and the dreadful way they load it. To add to this, in recent years BPB often runs rides on even lower capacity then their current-day maximum, and when combined with the awful Speedy Pass system destroying throughputs and stealing seats you have a park which once prided itself on good operations reduced to a shambolic farce, even on days with just a few thousand people on park. And a complete refusal to improve things from those in charge!

Slow operations have been a problem at BPB for a few years but it got a lot worse last year to the point where throughputs are now dreadful. Nice to hear that Valhalla is in a good state though!

Shame to hear about the closures, they're a few weeks into the season now so aside from wind problems, there shouldn't really be many issues with ride availability. I agree about BPB being a multi-day park, I don't get bored of it after visiting several days in a row. Did you do Valhalla out of interest?

We should set up a TPM orchestra and play ride themes!

Yeah, the point I'm getting at is that it was closed in October with a blue cover over part of the disc and it's seemingly in the same state now as it was then, which is a long time considering they have had the winter closure to sort it out. Of course non-visible work may have been going on, but it just seems a bit strange.

Was about time they themed it, it's bin a while. ...I'll get my coat.

Haha, count me in then!

Yep! Would the quiz/game be on theme parks or something else/general knowledge?

I eagerly await your attempt at a logo if you have the nerve to call people's designs terrible!

I much preferred the cycle on Rameses, the times I went on Ripsaw it didn't even do the spins!

Just a heads up, I'd recommend getting to the park early as they had issues with the new system in the ticket office last weekend which caused it to take people up to 60 - 90 minutes to get into the park! Hopefully it'll be ironed out by this weekend but just thought it was worth mentioning. Airbender has been closed since October, quite poor really.

Awesome!

Sent a PM, not been added yet though.

Danse Macabre, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes and Barking Mad.

I went on a Top Spin at a travelling fair once and they literally left it on for about half an hour - never felt so sick in my life!

Yeah the coasters at Thorpe have test seats, and Nemesis Inferno has modified seating on two of the rows (think it's rows 3 & 4 but don't quote me on that). Colossus is the worst due to the poor train/restraint design.

Thanks guys!

Grade 7, working towards 8. Agreed!