Matt 236

Hi and welcome to this third part of my exciting weekend in Blackpool. Here's how the story continues after our wet immersive ride on Valhalla.


It's heading towards the end of the day and twilight has arrived [no the ride sadly].




The park looks really beautiful at sunset, and despite being the tail end of the day it just makes the park come to life, it looks just as beautiful as Thorpe does at this time of day.
By now it was time for some final evening/ twilight rides. Another round on the Grand National was first which provided an even more amazing experience this time, as our train was literally flying through the circuit giving lots of airtime and excitement, helped by the fact we won the race too. We had another go on Big Dipper was very good again, but not quite on Grand National's reign. Another go on Wallace and Gromit was taken, I'm just a very big fan before our final final ride during our trip. But which Big attraction did this turn out to be?








For a brief moment, I would just like to mention just how beautiful the park looks at night, it's amazing and quite possibly the best park I've seen at night.
Anyway back on topic, I'm sure you've guessed the final ride of the day [or should that now be night?] and that's The Big One. The ride at night was both very good and very bad this time. Very good in the remarkable night time views you see below, the racing around the track at night and the first drop being even more intimidating at night. The drawbacks of course were the ride still lacks force in most parts and the ride was also surprisingly rough too as it was rather violent and jerky TBH [who said you need shoulder restraints for a rough ride?].



And the day was over. Blackpool is a really good park despite the place getting a lot of slack as they seem to try and put a lot of effort in to the place despite the amount of empty and SBNO ride spots. Apart from the slightly grumpy cleaner lady at the end, It was an absolutely fantastic day and I get to return here again one day. For the 4-5 hour drive up here, the journey was just about worth it. Another thing here is just how many firsts and records I have achieved during this trip including my first wild mouse, first racing Steel & Woodie, Tallest coaster in the uk [and tallest one I've done yet] plus doing my first SLC.
Moving on, our trip at the Pleasure Beach may be finished but our trip and time away certainly isn't. Whilst having some chips, cheese & Gravy up the promenade whilst looking at the beautiful illuminations which just look amazing along with the occasional dressed up and lit tram which was a magical experience, we headed to the South Pier. While most headed for the Waltzer, I headed for the Log Flume with Toofpik which cost a fairly reasonable £3. The ride was alright, just a standard general compact two drop log flume you see at many fairs and small parks. Good for another ride credit, although it does make The Flume look like Chipas.
We then headed to Central Pier where there were more fairground rides around, but none of us could be bothered to do any more and just had a cheeky drink at the bar at the back of the pier. When finished, we set off back down the pier to head to one of the best themed and looking amusement arcades on the whole promenade, Coral Island.

Full of many amusements and video game machines, I was quite excited of visiting this place at first, plus not to mention what makes this place look better than most other arcades is it includes a couple of rides including a Pirate monorail and ghost train ride. Walking you do feel quite excited and with rides and arcades over here it's almost like going in the indoor bit of Fantasy Island or the Trocadera [in it's hey day when it was open]. Sadly the Ghost Train was closed when we arrived meaning we first headed for the Pirate Monorail which for £1 was quite a bargain.

And so began the ride. It's not a bad little attraction, which goes around most of the floor space of the building giving some ok views of the surrounding area, plus there's also a brief random inside section which is separated from the rest of the arcade which includes some pirate theming elements and random audio music too. There's also guns to shoot random targets along the ceiling too although sadly the scores were turned off at the time we were riding.
It's a very lucky we were actually able to ride this in the end as the lady operating this was a bit funny as she said this was a kids ride and weren't able to go on it without children. Luckilly Peaj managed to talk with the op and we were all finally to get on the ride. The events with staff didn't get much better as the time progressed as security guards pushed us on from a couple of video machines for no reason which gave me quite a bitter taste in my mouth. They're supposed to be bringing in customers, not scaring them away! decent arcade, unpleasant staff.
After walking back to our hotel where dominoes pizza, TPM twister and general meet chat and banter occurred it was time for bed as we headed off in preparation for the second and final day that awaited us in the morning.
But what towering events await us? When will the trip excitement unravel like a circus and who's waltzing off in a magical world only Merlin could control? Wait and see in Part 4.

Welcome back to part 2 of my exciting trip report at Blackpool.

Lego Spongebob welcomes you to this next big instalment of the blog [Wow! are we at Legoland now?]

Speaking on Big, I think it's finally time I give this giant a ride then! It's a massive beast that dominates the whole park, so it should an amazing ride then ;]?


And it's time to review, Vertical Reality!
In 1994, the big one was a massive tall beast that was major large scale ride and investment along with being the tallest coaster in the world and being only second to Nemesis in greatness. 20 years later though and much of the greatness has dried up. Whilst the big one is far from being an absolute awful ride, it's also a long way from being an amazing one too.
The ride starts rather well, with a brief pre-lift section and then the long lift which offers some great views of the pleasure beach and surrounding area as the world beneath gradually disappears. Once reaching the top, the ride goes down the drop suddenly swerving right and the ride speeding up as it's drops to the bottom, which is a thrilling and intimidating experience with the gust of speed, smallish restraints and massive drop. Since the ride has started so well it will continue with this greatness during the remainder of the experience.
The answer to that unfortunately is no! After the first drop, the ride loses much excitement and force as the ride climbs it's first hill, which unlike most hyper rides it doesn't fly over it but instead gradually reaches it whilst losing speed along the way until it's almost crawling when it reaches the top. The rest of the ride doesn't really fulfil much either as there isn't much force or too much thrill for the rest of the ride which is quite disappointing, also there isn't a great deal of airtime on this ride which considering I was sitting towards the back and these types of rides should feed upon it was also disappointing too.
It does well in taking you up a great height with an intense first drop along with giving good sights of the park and area, but apart from that it doesn't quite fulfil the greatness in the giant dinosaur it first appears. That being said I shouldn't really complain too much as it is the uk's tallest and perhaps largest roller coaster [ultimate is of course the longest] and that we've actually got a large ride on this scale on our island, considering how little space we have and so many of our parks are heavily restricted on what they can actually build [especially Legoland, Chessington & pretty much almost every park]. I think it will be a long time before we see another massive ride on this scale [if ever].

From one Arrow to another Arrow, it's time to ride the one and only Steeplechase, because no other rides of this type no longer exist in the world apparently,







So what are my thoughts on this ride rarity? whilst it looks rather average and generic off ride, it's actually a great roller coaster ride, it doesn't have any gimmick, it doesn't have any unique elements, nor does it need any of these as it's such a great all round ride, with it's fun racing element, scenic views and interaction with other surrounding rides and it's loose and open restraints as only a seat belt holds you in, a fun and slightly scary experience.
From one horse race to another, it was time to experience the Grand National, our fifth and final wooden roller coaster on the trip, one that was highly appraised by many park and coaster fans alike. But would this be the ride to top my coaster list at Blackpool or even take the crown away from Megafobia as best woodie?


Can't believe I didn't take more pictures of the ride, I guess the rush around riding at the park and the fact most of the ride can only be seen outside the park are the main reasons I didn't. Anyway, what did I think of the ride?
Grand National was amazing, it was such a fantastic great fun ride with it's racing coaster element, multiple drops and hills which give quite a lot of airtime [ more than Big One ever will] along with a great paced layout makes this a great fun thrilling ride. But the big question, has it become my favourite my favourite all top time woodie? The answer to that is yes, however only to the ones in the park. It's such an incredible ride and there's not really a bad thing I can say about this ride [apart from the loud station brakes maybe] as it doesn't fail to deliver greatness during it's ride experience. Megafobia still holds on to no.1 woodie [for now] as that ride is just so intense. We need more woodies here in the uk [Merlin take note].

Before we move to our next ride, I KNOW A GUY THAT WILL GET ON YOUR NERVES! GET ON YOUR NERVES! GET ON YOUR NERVES!

Time for another ride which will also be another first for me, my first bobsled coaster and NO! We are not at Europa before you ask!



So, what did I think of Avalanche then? I thought it was a really good ride actually, gains a lot of speed in it's circuit and flies through those helixes which is just an incredible experience with the train coasting down the tube rather than the usual track setting on many other coasters. Just wish the ride was longer really as it ended just as I was really getting in to it [love Mack rides]. Hope to try the other few mack bobsleds one day!

I had really been through quite a roller coaster revolution on my trip to Blackpool and the final new coaster had to be the appropriately named, Revolution.


And that was all the Blackpool coasters completed. Despite looking like a mediocre one trick pony, this ride is actually pretty good. You're thrusted forwards first of all in to the loop the first time which is quite good, but then the backwards launch is a feeling like nothing else, the feeling of being pushed in to your restraint during the loop is such a strange and slightly scary experience as you feel like you're going to fall out!

Moving on from the coasters now and it's time to take a trip in to wonderland, I've a golden ticket


And what a wondrous ride this turned out to be. Whilst in no way is this a ground breaking or top notch, it's fun little dark ride, full of charm, humour along with being a generally pleasant attraction to experience. Incidently, this ride is a sort of knock off from the original Alice In Wonderland ride at the California Disneyland with it's cheshire cats style vehicles,indoor-out door dark ride sections and storyline which opened seven years before this one [why am I referencing so many other parks on this TR, especially Disney]?

From one extreme to another and now it's time to enter Valhalla. Wait a moment, the waterfall isn't running, I hope it isn't closed.



That Looks more like it! The ride was closed during most of the day and didn't actually open until quite late in the afternoon, we must've meant it had quite a few problems as it broke down several times after that as well. We decided to join the extremely long queue for the ride which cost us around 90 minutes of time [we could've used for other rides]. But was it worth the extra long wait?
The answer here actually is Yes, but just about. Valhalla is a very long and very wet water/dark attraction which features an array of drops, effects and a drenching. Some of the thing included on this ride are just incredible! going in to a long hot room with heat and fire one minute, then entering a freezing cold one with ice,misters and the like the next is absolutely incredible, is this is before I get on to the backwards drop, immense sound track and other elements too.
Valhalla is an absolutely amazing ride and experience, it's so breath taking when you see it all and everything inside unfolds and well worth the time. The ride makes almost every other water ride in the country look like a travelling Zamperla log ride [even Loggers] and is something that wouldn't really look out of place at a park like Efteling, Phantasialand or even Europa. Absolute masterpiece. Hex however is still my number one dark ride for the story and towers alone, but Valhalla comes in at a very close second.
Moving from a breath taking experience which despite being ringing wet, I still couldn't get over, we headed off to get some final rides at the park whilst it was gradually getting dark before closing. But the question is, which rides did we finally ride, or even re-ride during the twilight hours and which Big addition would be chosen as the finale and first proper night ride of the trip? Only time will tell, but you'll just have to wait until Part 3 submerges.

It's been my intentions over the last few years to try and visit to try and visit a new theme park or attraction each year, which started with Alton Towers in 2012 and Harry Potter Studio Tour, Madame Tussauds, The Dungeons along with a return to Oakwood [after 15 years] in 2013. At first I wasn't expecting to receive any new park credits for 2014 with Paultons Park called off and Euro disney put on hold.
This year it was my intentions to visit a park that was of the following, 1/ was a major place with top class rides, 2/ was outside the Merlin circle 3/ a place outside of the uk. On this trip, I was able to achieve two of these, by finally visiting Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a park I have been wanting to visit for some time and home to a large collection of prominent rides to the uk/world theme park industry [though some are hit and miss in places] where I would gain a whole new list of ride credits [and first].


Upon entering the park, you are greeted by a number of different things, one is the sheer prominence of rides that appear in front of you towering in the back ground, particularly the Big One which pretty much dominates the whole park, the second is the amount of former rides laying dormant at the park. The monorail and ark are two of these, both of which I saw before even getting properly through the gates which isn't the greatest thing to see.

The first ride/new cred of the day was the infamous Wild Mouse. First opinions of the ride describe it as a small compact and doesn't look too exciting, however this ride has some tricks up it's sleeves!
Despite first appearances, the ride is surprisingly good, very fun and quite scary at a few occasions too, with its sharp tight turns, bumpy rattle through the track and it's sharp and sudden drops, an experience with just seat belts and no restraints is quite intense. A great classic that shouldn't be overlooked despite first appearances, plus my second ever woodie!

From one classic to another [most of Blackpool's rides are classics], it was time for the one and only Ghost Train.

A few minutes later and my spooky distraction was over. I quite enjoyed this ride and it's got got quite a few interesting elements to the ride including the roller coaster like drops, moments of the ride going outside and the spinning tunnel with train lights [which seem common to some ghost trains]. Whilst it's not on the leagues for rides such as Hex & Duel, which may be a bit of an unfair comparison to begin with, this ride wins it over for novelty and ride length and is an example of what a traditional Ghost Train ride should incorporate. It's certainly better than Castille Del Terror at Tivoli and Spooky 4D, both of which probably aren't as old as this which already states it's point.

From one dark ride to another, our next attraction was Impossible, which comprised a set of indoor attractions all joined up together, starting with a mirror maze, a series of strange objects and illusions and a small haunted swing style ride where the room spins around. This wasn't the best of attractions as it mostly felt like a cluster of attractions just stuck together to make one big ride. The Mirror maze was alright, but the swing ride was so dull it was laughable. I'm sure 30 years ago [long before Hex] the swing element would've actually looked pretty but now, it's so bad it's good!

After a random mediocre experience, it was time for some white knuckle fuel on Ice Blast, which is now the only non coaster thrill ride in the park with Bling gone. The ride starts with the seats raising up slightly and then lowering gradually where riders are instructed to secure all loose valuables [like there's chance now], before the capsule is thrusted upwards, then downwards and then up again, until height is lost and the pod gradually lowers back to the ground.
The ride is ok, the launch is pretty fun and thrilling as you are pushed in to your restraint flying up followed by some small hits of air time and the then the end. Not a bad drop tower, however it certainly doesn't beat Detty but is much better than Bounce!

After launching back to earth, it was time to take on another woodie who is the grand daddy of them all at 91, it's time to take on the Big Dipper.



The Big Dipper is such a fun coaster to ride, as it leaps from hill after hill during it's circuit, offering a reasonable supply of air time, whilst it's not as good as Megafobia back in Oakwood, one must remember for a ride of this age it still provides an excellent experience which is great fun with lots of thrills along the way. Another great woodie.
By now on the trip it was time to take on a ride that I and many had been strongly anticipating during our trip, one that would offer an immense ride experience and tick quite a few boxes for firsts. This ride was known as [drum roll].

Infusion








Well first things first, it sure looks rather pretty for an SLC. This is the first one I've actually ridden. Having heard of many of these ride's being rather rough and uncomfortable [including this one], I set my expectations for this ride rather low. But would my opinions be just as rough once I had finally ridden it?
The answer to this in most ways is NO! Whilst the ride was in no way perfect or in anyway a patch to a B&M invert, this ride was surprisingly good and did beat my expectations. The first half for me was quite fun actually, it rolled through twist, turns and inversions whilst over a large lake of water and fountains. It wasn't really rough at all infact I could almost call it smooth.
The second unfortunately wasn't as the ride did seem to get noticeably rougher, as I bashed my head in to the restraint outside of choice several times, making the ride a little painful towards the end. Not a bad ride really and I enjoyed most it. The end is certainly rougher than Colossus but maybe not as much as Saw.

Following on from my hit and miss SLC, it was time for ride on the Grand Prix, which is sort of Blackpool's equivalent of Autopia, although this ride existed before any of them were built as I'm aware!



Not a bad little ride, but not remarkable either. The ride pretty much takes a journey down a spiralling descent passing nearby rides such as Avalanche & Revolution among others, gradually turning around ascending back up the spiral to the station where the ride finally finishes.

Time for another cracking ride, me thinks!


Technically Blackpool's newest contraption, unless you count it as a retheme from when it was the Gold Mine [something I never got to try unfortunately].
Despite getting very mixed reviews [some loving it and others hating it], I'm going to definitely say I love this ride. I've always been quite a fan of Wallace & Gromit [especially growing] and used to watch the movies on VHS on a fairly regular basis [wow do I sound old] and would enjoy seeing all the action whether it be the penguin train chase or Gromit flying in the red plane.
For me, the ride has captured the world of Wallace & Gromit very well, which is full of funny gags, rich detail in theming and settings along with high quality scenes and animation throughout the whole ride, also including plenty of audio dialogue and of course the catchy theme tune as well. In terms of overall quality, this ride does kick all of Merlins other existing uk dark rides to the curb [at least in their current forms], with Hex being the only exception.
It may lack the originality of many other rides out there, but it's a great fun family attraction and whilst the ride mostly consists of prominent scenes from the four shorts and film, I think it's paced very well and fits together perfectly. The ride is such high quality that I would say it's almost at the league of some of disney's dark rides [something I cannot properly clarify currently] and the only slip up on the whole dark ride is the scene where the penguin is falling in which the movement mechanism came be seen!
Currently my 3rd favourite dark ride at the moment of writing. You'll find out what my top 2 favourite are shortly.

Leaving Wensleydale behind us, we set off to Nick Land and decided to take a ride on the big orange track thing in the distance known as Nicklodeon Streak [formerly Roller Coaster].



It was quite a fun and enjoyable ride with quite a few bits of airtime and force. I wouldn't say it was as good as Dipper and Mouse but it still a great ride, I'd put it on top of Infusion anyway. Also this ride running just one train [with the state of the 2nd not looking ready for adding]. Apparently this ride is almost always on just one train [unlike the others], at least the queue wasn't too long and it was more pleasant than waiting for one train Colossus.
I think it's time to jump on another coaster now. I'll say Blue Fire!

oops, I meant Blue Flyer, just remembered I'm in Blackpool not Europa [one can dream]. This is not a bad little, quite a fun little woodie for kids to do, certainly not my favourite by far and perhaps my least favourite coaster, but then it's aimed more for kids and young families. Still it's another credit and woodie to add to the collection.
By now, all these woodies and other rides made us a bit hungry so we decided to grab some lunch at the park, where we decided to head over to the conveniently named Coaster bar, positioned on one of the pathways between Dipper and Avalanche.

I went in for the Chicken Fajita in the end which was ok [sadly the picture didn't turn out as well as hoped] , not the most amazing thing but it edible, good enough and not bad value for money, plus the wedges were pretty decent [beats Oakwood's offering by a country mile though].
Whilst eating, we were all amused by a selection of songs playing from a slightly quiet and muffled speaker here. But these weren't ordinary songs though as these were intact all songs from Disney movies [snow white, Pochahontis, Enchanted etc.] which was certainly something I didn't expect especially in Blackpool. This made me rather happy whilst eating my food, having always a rather big fan of Disney [one day Disney].
And that concludes part 1 of my exciting trip and weekend away in Blackpool, but Which big ride had a very big queue which became a big surprise? Which ride had a big trick and which big disney character sort of has their own big take at Blackpool? Stay tuned for some big updates in part 2!

It's been my intentions over the last few years to try and visit to try and visit a new theme park or attraction each year, which started with Alton Towers in 2012 and Harry Potter Studio Tour, Madame Tussauds, The Dungeons along with a return to Oakwood [after 15 years] in 2013. At first I wasn't expecting to receive any new park credits for 2014 with Paultons Park called off and Euro disney put on hold.
This year it was my intentions to visit a park that was of the following, 1/ was a major place with top class rides, 2/ was outside the Merlin circle 3/ a place outside of the uk. On this trip, I was able to achieve two of these, by finally visiting Blackpool Pleasure Beach, a park I have been wanting to visit for some time and home to a large collection of prominent rides to the uk/world theme park industry [though some are hit and miss in places] where I would gain a whole new list of ride credits [and first].


Upon entering the park, you are greeted by a number of different things, one is the sheer prominence of rides that appear in front of you towering in the back ground, particularly the Big One which pretty much dominates the whole park, the second is the amount of former rides laying dormant at the park. The monorail and ark are two of these, both of which I saw before even getting properly through the gates which isn't the greatest thing to see.

The first ride/new cred of the day was the infamous Wild Mouse. First opinions of the ride describe it as a small compact and doesn't look too exciting, however this ride has some tricks up it's sleeves!
Despite first appearances, the ride is surprisingly good, very fun and quite scary at a few occasions too, with its sharp tight turns, bumpy rattle through the track and it's sharp and sudden drops, an experience with just seat belts and no restraints is quite intense. A great classic that shouldn't be overlooked despite first appearances, plus my second ever woodie!

From one classic to another [most of Blackpool's rides are classics], it was time for the one and only Ghost Train.

A few minutes later and my spooky distraction was over. I quite enjoyed this ride and it's got got quite a few interesting elements to the ride including the roller coaster like drops, moments of the ride going outside and the spinning tunnel with train lights [which seem common to some ghost trains]. Whilst it's not on the leagues for rides such as Hex & Duel, which may be a bit of an unfair comparison to begin with, this ride wins it over for novelty and ride length and is an example of what a traditional Ghost Train ride should incorporate. It's certainly better than Castille Del Terror at Tivoli and Spooky 4D, both of which probably aren't as old as this which already states it's point.

From one dark ride to another, our next attraction was Impossible, which comprised a set of indoor attractions all joined up together, starting with a mirror maze, a series of strange objects and illusions and a small haunted swing style ride where the room spins around. This wasn't the best of attractions as it mostly felt like a cluster of attractions just stuck together to make one big ride. The Mirror maze was alright, but the swing ride was so dull it was laughable. I'm sure 30 years ago [long before Hex] the swing element would've actually looked pretty but now, it's so bad it's good!

After a random mediocre experience, it was time for some white knuckle fuel on Ice Blast, which is now the only non coaster thrill ride in the park with Bling gone. The ride starts with the seats raising up slightly and then lowering gradually where riders are instructed to secure all loose valuables [like there's chance now], before the capsule is thrusted upwards, then downwards and then up again, until height is lost and the pod gradually lowers back to the ground.
The ride is ok, the launch is pretty fun and thrilling as you are pushed in to your restraint flying up followed by some small hits of air time and the then the end. Not a bad drop tower, however it certainly doesn't beat Detty but is much better than Bounce!

After launching back to earth, it was time to take on another woodie who is the grand daddy of them all at 91, it's time to take on the Big Dipper.



The Big Dipper is such a fun coaster to ride, as it leaps from hill after hill during it's circuit, offering a reasonable supply of air time, whilst it's not as good as Megafobia back in Oakwood, one must remember for a ride of this age it still provides an excellent experience which is great fun with lots of thrills along the way. Another great woodie.
By now on the trip it was time to take on a ride that I and many had been strongly anticipating during our trip, one that would offer an immense ride experience and tick quite a few boxes for firsts. This ride was known as [drum roll].

Infusion








Well first things first, it sure looks rather pretty for an SLC. This is the first one I've actually ridden. Having heard of many of these ride's being rather rough and uncomfortable [including this one], I set my expectations for this ride rather low. But would my opinions be just as rough once I had finally ridden it?
The answer to this in most ways is NO! Whilst the ride was in no way perfect or in anyway a patch to a B&M invert, this ride was surprisingly good and did beat my expectations. The first half for me was quite fun actually, it rolled through twist, turns and inversions whilst over a large lake of water and fountains. It wasn't really rough at all infact I could almost call it smooth.
The second unfortunately wasn't as the ride did seem to get noticeably rougher, as I bashed my head in to the restraint outside of choice several times, making the ride a little painful towards the end. Not a bad ride really and I enjoyed most it. The end is certainly rougher than Colossus but maybe not as much as Saw.

Following on from my hit and miss SLC, it was time for ride on the Grand Prix, which is sort of Blackpool's equivalent of Autopia, although this ride existed before any of them were built as I'm aware!



Not a bad little ride, but not remarkable either. The ride pretty much takes a journey down a spiralling descent passing nearby rides such as Avalanche & Revolution among others, gradually turning around ascending back up the spiral to the station where the ride finally finishes.

Time for another cracking ride, me thinks!


Technically Blackpool's newest contraption, unless you count it as a retheme from when it was the Gold Mine [something I never got to try unfortunately].
Despite getting very mixed reviews [some loving it and others hating it], I'm going to definitely say I love this ride. I've always been quite a fan of Wallace & Gromit [especially growing] and used to watch the movies on VHS on a fairly regular basis [wow do I sound old] and would enjoy seeing all the action whether it be the penguin train chase or Gromit flying in the red plane.
For me, the ride has captured the world of Wallace & Gromit very well, which is full of funny gags, rich detail in theming and settings along with high quality scenes and animation throughout the whole ride, also including plenty of audio dialogue and of course the catchy theme tune as well. In terms of overall quality, this ride does kick all of Merlins other existing uk dark rides to the curb [at least in their current forms], with Hex being the only exception.
It may lack the originality of many other rides out there, but it's a great fun family attraction and whilst the ride mostly consists of prominent scenes from the four shorts and film, I think it's paced very well and fits together perfectly. The ride is such high quality that I would say it's almost at the league of some of disney's dark rides [something I cannot properly clarify currently] and the only slip up on the whole dark ride is the scene where the penguin is falling in which the movement mechanism came be seen!
Currently my 3rd favourite dark ride at the moment of writing. You'll find out what my top 2 favourite are shortly.

Leaving Wensleydale behind us, we set off to Nick Land and decided to take a ride on the big orange track thing in the distance known as Nicklodeon Streak [formerly Roller Coaster].



It was quite a fun and enjoyable ride with quite a few bits of airtime and force. I wouldn't say it was as good as Dipper and Mouse but it still a great ride, I'd put it on top of Infusion anyway. Also this ride running just one train [with the state of the 2nd not looking ready for adding]. Apparently this ride is almost always on just one train [unlike the others], at least the queue wasn't too long and it was more pleasant than waiting for one train Colossus.
I think it's time to jump on another coaster now. I'll say Blue Fire!

oops, I meant Blue Flyer, just remembered I'm in Blackpool not Europa [one can dream]. This is not a bad little, quite a fun little woodie for kids to do, certainly not my favourite by far and perhaps my least favourite coaster, but then it's aimed more for kids and young families. Still it's another credit and woodie to add to the collection.
By now, all these woodies and other rides made us a bit hungry so we decided to grab some lunch at the park, where we decided to head over to the conveniently named Coaster bar, positioned on one of the pathways between Dipper and Avalanche.

I went in for the Chicken Fajita in the end which was ok [sadly the picture didn't turn out as well as hoped] , not the most amazing thing but it edible, good enough and not bad value for money, plus the wedges were pretty decent [beats Oakwood's offering by a country mile though].
Whilst eating, we were all amused by a selection of songs playing from a slightly quiet and muffled speaker here. But these weren't ordinary songs though as these were intact all songs from Disney movies [snow white, Pochahontis, Enchanted etc.] which was certainly something I didn't expect especially in Blackpool. This made me rather happy whilst eating my food, having always a rather big fan of Disney [one day Disney].
And that concludes part 1 of my exciting trip and weekend away in Blackpool, but Which big ride had a very big queue which became a big surprise? Which ride had a big trick and which big disney character sort of has their own big take at Blackpool? Stay tuned for some big updates in part 2!

Another park that’s changed a bit since my previous visit, what with Plopsa getting their hands on it recently, Holiday Park would serve as our penultimate park purely because it was easier to head down to Europa Park afterwards. We turned up to find it rather empty and a sign stating that the Spinning Barrels and Holly’s Autofahrt would both be spiting us. Was only when I returned I realised what had actually happened with the Barrel ride, grim.

We dossed around in the Museum for a bit looking at the old stuff before the park opened and we headed for our first destination.





Expedition GeForce is over-rated. It’s that simple really. And like most Intamin’s has a good first drop but everything else is just so meh. What doesn’t help is that the lapbars are really uncomfortable on the thighs, so of course what happens on every airtime hill? It digs into the leg. What does the ride have a lot of? Airtime hills. Sigh.
It just isn’t the best thing ever, if it ever was in the first place.





After that disappointment we headed over to the new for 2014 Sky Scream, a weird Premier contraption indeed. The exterior which is now finished looks fantastic, unfortunately inside the building the only piece of theming was a spider, which had moved in rather than actually been placed deliberately. Oh well.
The restraints have a real burden to them as well, in the shin guards of WHY? Being a flat block of foam doesn’t particularly work well for shins, what with the curvature of the human body being as it is, so it’s another set of restraints that just did into you. 2 for 2 in the bad design choices.
The ride itself is actually quite good fun I felt. Quite intense and a fair amount of hangtime throughout, but the shin-guards prevent it from being really enjoyable, and they became more noticeable the second time around. A shame really, and I hope they get around the theming the inside, cos it’s utter crap currently.







Time for a rethemed ride next, and the first Plopsa themed ride in Wickie Splash, the Log Flume which was good fun, managing to do 3 reversing log flumes in 3 days was very weird though it must be said. We wandered past a random show on the way to the next ride Tabuluga Boat Ride, which was one of those slow boat rides with random scenes and no music in the boat. We put that down to the random unplugged component underneath the seat.












We faffed about for a bit wondering what to do next, and ended up on the Carousel before hitting up Donnerfluss the Rapids of reasonable wetness.






We had some food and decided as there weren’t many other rides we really wanted to do (due to a distinct lack of filler rides really at the park) we would watch the other shows. Starting off with the delightfully European Gooseparade, which is exactly what you imagine it to be, before the Festival der Tiere animal based stunt show. It was reasonably cute and involved a giant rabbit.




Finally we watched the Talking Dead Show, a jet ski show randomly themed to zombies due to the addition of Sky Scream. It was rather entertaining, with lots of interactive bits and stunts and general silliness abound, including a Wrecking Ball moment right above the crowd. Shame the finale explosion was a bit poor, especially for a German show.


We decided to ride the two coasters again, both being still rather meh before hitting up the House of Anubis Free Fall Tower, which clearly has the best queueline ever because you get to watch episodes of the show. It was a smaller version of Apocalypse (3 sides) and alright rather than spectactular.







It was then time to head for Europa. Holiday Park was a bit disappointing really, whilst what Plopsa have added so far looks really good (Sky Scream interior aside), it just seems to lack a lot of things to generally do. Lots of dead space around certain points in the park and a lot of crap rides to boot doesn’t really add up to much, given that the two major coasters are both disappointing (but at least for those who like GeForce, it is back on two trains).
Plopsa have a lot of work to do with the park I think.

After a drive, we started seeing the signs that make many enthusiasts very happy.



We parked up at the Bell Rock Hotel, ready to chill and get some dinner in the bar, but as we checked in the staff member said to us that because the park was open until 9pm, we could have some free entry for the final hour of operation. Of course the answer to this a resounding yes, so we dumped our bags in the room and headed to the Spirit of St Louis bar for a delicious Black Angus Burger before heading into the park.





Choices were of course at a minimum, what with only an hour to play around with, so we headed to Blue Fire because it’s amazing. Whilst Helix has of course overtaken it because of being bigger and better, Blue Fire is still a fantastic ride, smooth as glass with the odd bit of airtime and intensity throughout it. It still resides in that top 10 of mine as a result.



Up next was Wodan, which was its usual relentless self so late on in the day. I don’t rate it as highly as many others seem to do though, possibly because of experiences like the Beast at night being something that can very rarely be topped in the wooden coaster stakes. It’s still very good mind.





We had some proper night-time Blue Fire before we headed to the Colosseo for the Imperio Show, which was ok I guess. I dunno, it just didn’t click with me for some reason, all a bit too random and lacking much in the way of a progressive story for such a show. Why was the scantily glad lady dancing in a champagne glass? I’ll never know.





It was then time for bed, as the next day was going to be a long one.

Welcome to the theatre. Please take your seats, the show is about to begin!


This will definitely be the Big One.

Orchestra ready!

Water effects ready!

It's time to...

Immerse your senses in the biggest spectacular of all time!

The 4D experience with a Blackpool Tower Post Show!

It's a small world from up here. Only the most realistic effects are used within this show.

Quick the bad guys have arrived! (sorry I didn't have time to finish this set off)

Vikings are bad guys with a hatred for pirates.

A fight scene so early on you ask? The ending won't be that good so it's okay.

Take to your horses

And ride away like brave cowards.

Watch out for the flying dog though!

NOT SHAUN

Dora has finished exploring though and finally saves the day!

And all is calm in Lancashire Town Play once more.

Too quiet for Wallace and Gromit...

Streak away!

And no, this isn't a family friendly play.

Because we have the biggest big one

Impossible speed effects being used

But don't worry, we have lights

Waltzer

Pleasure!

Sorry about the lack of intervals. The show loses speed if it takes a break.

Like it's just trying to fill time

The interval would be boring anyway. Would definitely try and kill you.
Time for the sparkling dazzling all glitzing finale!

Tadah.

Here comes the staff bus to take all the alcoholics who wrote this beautiful production home.

BYE!

Come back next year or we'll come get you...

To break up the flow of Benin Germany trip reports ( ), I've written a little something about my trip to Liseberg. Anyone who follows me on twitter or Facebook, probably knows what's coming. Alas, this will be a more detailed account of my trip.
So I'm just going to start with, great park. It features a good selection of flat rides, a well paced fun rapids ride and a very peculiar log flume. There's not many parks which have four very re-rideable roller coasters and Liseberg arguably has three that you can ride over and over again. Well what about the fourth? Well this is where my report begins, Kanonen, an Intamin launch coaster that I know many on here don't like. In theory I shouldn't either. It demonstrates everything I don't like about the majority of Intamin rides such as those horrible restraints, lowish throughput, an attempt at a ride that should never got off the ground. And yet after the first ride I thought it was fine. The more I rode it the more I really liked it. I can't put my finger on why either. The launch for example feels like there's a trim at the end as the train loses speed very quickly. The top hat isn't anything to write home about. I like the vertical loop which has a lot of hang time as the train pretty much struggles to get round it. The stengel turn contorts the train horrifically and ironically, the ground hugging turn kills any momentum the ride previously had. And the inline which is fitted into a tight corner, barely making it before slamming into the breaks. It shouldn't be enjoyable, in fact most don't like it I'm rather fond of its unassumingness.



So to put into perspective, this is nowhere near a top ten ride. That's okay though, as it's never going to pretend to be one, it never had an ambition to be fighting it out with Katun and Nemesis. No this is a take it or leave it launch ride. I'll take it but I know most will ignore and never return.
With that little bit of awkward out the way, lets now go onto the big guns, Balder a big player in the Mitch Hawker poll and the 2nd most popular (queue wise) ride at Liseberg. I want to put it out there that ironically, whilst being quite tolerant of rough rides, when it comes to woodies I expect a bit of the old shaky. These are rides that feel more organic then constructed, the wood flexing and creaking as a train rushes through its circuit, I expect a bit of activity, I'm fond of being thrown about a bit. Balder is not that ride. Balder is more concerned with treating you nicely, chucking you into forceful ejector hill at every hill but never pushing it too far. I think that's more a failing then a positive actually. Every hill chucks you into the same thrilling sensation and when it does 7/8 of the same type of hill it does get a bit predictable.

With that being said, it is a top tier ride. There isn't another woodie that I've previously been on that delivers such constant air time as this. Even the stunning Tonnerre de Zeus does lose a bit of momentum 3/4's of the way through. Here Balder delivers a thrilling and fast ride from first drop to break run. The little humps in particular are the rides highlight. One of the better woodies in Europe certainly but as relentless and out of control as Wodan? Not a chance.
[interestingly, my partner Chris, said Balder was boring and was so predictable that he found it hard to enjoy]
Onto a more classic attraction and a ride whose name I can't say without adding more ananana, it's Lisebergbanan, a classic if I ever did see one. This if you like is Schwarzkopfs crowning glory, a testament to the awesomeness of their rides, a people eating machine that is much loved by all that visit the theme park. One I thing I'm a big fan of is how it utilises the natural hillside to create a pacey, well designed attraction. Whilst never truly leaving its ground hugging nature, it uses the energy of the train in neat ways and never needs an extra kick like a second lift hill or launch area to get the train going again. We could use more rides like this in the modern era, too many parks concern themselves with gimmicks or tag lines and forget that getting through people should matter more then anything else. A fond favourite and very good in the dark.

And now, finally; Helix.

Instead of going through a full analysis of why Helix is so awesome, I'm just going to cover a few basis. I don't want to give too much away here for those who haven't been yet.
1. The drop out of the station into the corkscrew is a sublime way to start the ride.
2. The two air time hills are absolutely fabulous. By the end of my two days, the tops of my legs were aching from the sheer amount of air time.
3. The turn after the first air time hill is incredible. Think Nemesis's first helix and then add a lap bar, it's an incredible moment.
4. The middle half of the ride is sublime, seriously sublime. I cannot think of a ride out there that is as well paced and relentless as this. A perfect combination of layout, ride train and intensity.
5. The second launch into the largest inversion on the ride is brilliant. Look out over the park on your ride and just enjoy.\
6. The second air time hill. So good, it deserves a second mention. Utterly deceptive and yet awesome.
7. A fast moving queue line is always a good thing. If the queue is out the door, it's only an hour long. Worth the wait and then some.

So the real question when it comes to it is.. is it better then Blue Fire? I'm going to be controversial and say no. Blue Fire is far more fun and likeable then Helix but don't let that be a criticism. It's like saying do you want a million pounds or a million and one pounds. Both rides are so sublime and top of the field that it becomes irrelevant. And unfortunately in this age of lists and top tens, one has to be slightly better then the other. When it comes to the criticisms of Helix being it's throughput is slightly lower or its theming isn't quite as consistent as Blue Fire, thats just picking at straws. What we are seeing with these two rides is a demonstration of Mack's perfection. Intamin hasn't a hope of catching them now, even if their new lap bar is any good, it's too late for them to catch up with the diversity and perfection of the Mack model. All I ask is that the UK gets one soon, don't let this concept get away from us. Because if we got one, I'd have no doubt that Nemesis would be toppled from the top of the roost..

Day 3 – Walygator Parc
So the final day led us to Walygator, more known for its financial issues and random 2nd hand B&M than for being any good, and we were heading there for their first operational day of the season!

However, the day certainly started poorly as the tickets you pre-book online through the website CANNOT be picked up on park.
You have two options, pick it up at random shops dotted about the country (none near where we were though), or delivered to home. But NOT at the park? Not wanting to waste time having already turned up attempting to find some random place in Metz ended up paying for tickets on the day as well as in advance. Needless to say I was very unimpressed by this situation, not helped by the fact that they have turnstiles they don’t use and a generally bad entrance procedure (let’s have the park gates open into the ticket booth queues!)



Eventually in, we headed straight to Monster, the B&M Invert. We waited for people to turn up to reach the minimum amount of riders and after about 20 minutes into our already limited day we were finally on the front row (first ride of the season though).
I didn’t really like Raptor at Cedar Point, so I wasn’t particularly excited for this one. However it was quite decent, with a good bit of force about itself. It’s certainly not at the top of the Invert pile but it’s not at the bottom either. The RCT plonked nature of it does demean itself somewhat though, especially as the ride just exists off in the distance with no interaction with the rest of the park at all.





We hopped on the Disney themed Chenille (the 3rd Wacky Worm of the trip) before heading towards Anaconda, their (Morgan apparently) Wooden coaster, which had just this year had some retracking done by GCI. As we were in the queue, we noticed that the PLC on the brakes was behaving rather erratically, with the trains stopping at excessively random and unknown times; nevertheless we were on the back row of the half loaded train (we discovered the entire park was in this queue because of the front rows being sand-bagged).



Rides can be awful for many reasons, violent, juddery, rough, but the sole worst reason for a ride to be considered awful to me is for it to be boring. This is what Anaconda is, incredibly dull, forceless and slow. It bounced along the track at a lull, struggling to climb over every hill and not doing anything remotely interesting with the layout. So imagine how surprised we were that the brakes decided to become the most interesting part of the ride and partially fail, causing us to stop half-way down the station, and me breaking out into a fit of hysterical laughter at just how pathetic the situation was.



Eventually the engineer sorted it by opening and closing the gates to reset the rather confused ride system, and we got another go around. It was still dull, even with me laughing my head off.
We were hungry, so giant waffles were had because they were out of pancakes. Fail. We went to see the new Dive Show, with a slight (read – minimal) Wild West theme, and pre-show entertainment by clowns who did EPIC balloon animals and a FBI agent. Confusing times.
Either way, the show was a pretty standard High Dive affair really. The guy who did it whilst on fire was good though, but these shows aren’t THAT interesting enough unless they have a story going on behind it. At least it was better than ITV’s SPLASH!

We wandered into their recently rethemed Space area with the new Air Race which wasn’t open yet (mainly as it had actually arrived EARLIER than planned), however it does look very awesome, and even has a viewing platform which was also unfortunately closed. The 4th and final coaster of the trip was Waly Coaster, a Vekoma ‘Hurricane’, or ‘Loop and 2 Screws’. Again 1st day syndrome hit us, as the ride op sent the train out having missed an open restraint on his side twice on an empty seat, which resulted in an E-Stop (personally, I would’ve either ignored it or pushed it down as it went out). We were sat in the station once again waiting for an engineer.
Unsurprisingly, the ride was not worth the wait, short but smooth, but didn’t really do anything interesting, feeling like a lesser version of their old Bayerncurve Corkscrews really. Meh.










We walked past the abandoned Haunted House towards the Rapids. These have an ingenious design of which the boats are too big to fit inside the station, so have to be manually pulled in by the staff to park up in a group of 4 for loading. Holy bad ride designs!
Again, the ride itself was a mixed bag, with some good bits but an excessively boring ending. Methinks half the park would be better demolishing half their rides and starting over from scratch; which is what they’re doing with their Huss Topple Tower in fact, poor boring things that they are.






After some faff and decision making we elected to go on Waly Boat, which had been slightly revamped for the season. The Tow Boat ride system is incredibly popular in Europe, and I’ve been on a few, but none as slow as this one. It was 25 minutes long and half of that was slowly floating towards the next nice looking but rather uninteresting after seeing it for 5 minutes scenes. It was just completely unnecessary for it to be so damn slow.









Cave of nothing

Once our insomnia had been cured, we had a few minutes to kill before the Dancing with Waly show, so promptly rode the Mistrel Chairswings next door, which completed the collection of dull and slowly run rides. The show itself was rather decent, with pop songs through the ages being played and kids allowed to interact completely with the WalyGator family, rather than sit down and watch. I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing a dancing giant alligator doing Gangam Style too.





And that was really it. We had to head up to Calais for our ferry back to the UK since the hire car couldn’t really be taken all the way home, but I wasn’t particularly fussed about leaving early as we’d done the major rides and I don’t think the park had anything much else to offer. It has SOME potential, but for the most part it’s really tatty and the rides there are just DULL, which is probably worse than the rides just being rough and awful. I had no desperation to ride anything again, and I even gave Baco the honour of a second ride.
However the new area theme and the brand image both look very good, especially the new branding which is very solid (and the plushies are just so adorable). There is plenty of potential in the park but it’s a long way to go to reach the likes of Nigloland, and hopefully the new management (only their second year of new ownership it must be said, so it looks slightly long term) will learn from the park’s past mistakes and look elsewhere to see how to improve things, such as a station building for Monster, and some actual good rides to support it.


The journey back up to Calais was at least, uneventful, and being a foot passenger on the ferry means you get first dibs on seating. Overall it was a good trip, if a bit mental for all the wrong reasons on the first day, and it was certainly worth it for Nigloland and Alpina Blitz.

Our start to the day did not go well. On our way to Tripsdrill, there was bountiful traffic on our motorway exit, which delayed us by an hour, arriving at the park just after 10 when the thrill rides opened instead of the 9am arrival time hoped for.


As a result, the first ride of the day was Karacho, Smiler’s German lapbar wearing cousin who’s actually still not finished at all (and won’t be fully completed till at least next year). So this was to be an interesting one anyway, as people are always seemingly up in arms over Smiler not having lapbars, would they have ‘saved’ the ride from being rough?
I think the answer is no. The lapbars aren’t particularly comfy in the first place, and of course don’t limit the upper body movement, which would be fine if you weren’t riding a Gerstlauer full of tight transitions and inversions.
As for Karacho, there was something about it that just didn’t click. I’m not sure to be quite honest what was wrong with it, but something was off about it. Perhaps it was the odd judder here or there, but the layout should be fine. Perhaps it was the unfinished nature of it that put me off. Either way, I was neither enamoured nor hateful towards the ride, perhaps after Smiler’s intensity levels a lack of it resulted in bland indifference towards it. A shame really, as it has the potential to be fantastic, but I would say Smiler will probably be done as the bigger success of the two in the future.






Second on the list was Mammut, the Wooden coaster where the man roller-bladed on for some reason and the queue had loads of English paper clippings about it (including the Metro). Since I rode it last they’ve finished the cool pre-lift tunnel and added dispatch music. The tunnel was fairly similar to Blue Fire’s, only with a sawmill theme. It’s still a fun enough coaster; if a little bit slow around most of it compared to the sheer relentlessness of a GCI. Wonder if the price difference between the two speaks the volumes of why no-one else seems to have purchased one.



The coaster trio finished with G’sengte Sau, which felt awfully familiar after visiting Klotten the other day. It’s probably the best themed Gerst Bobsled about it must be said, with the castle near misses adding a lot to the overall experience, and it’s still the fun layout you come to know and enjoy.





Water ride time was next, with Badewannen-Fahrt zum Jungbrunnen and Waschzuber-Rafting both on the menu as the Log Flume and Rapids respectively. Badewannen is the infamous nude models dark ride section, and it also had a surprising (to me) backwards drop in it. It was alright. The Rapids were pretty dull after doing River Quest though, but I do love the random theme it was given.






After a quick random veggie burger (language barrier issues), a Zierer Tivoli known as Rasender Tausendfüßler completed our cred count. It was just like every other Tivoli, but with some awesome landscaping, so it was ok in the end.


One of Tripsdrill’s major selling points is the random attractions they have spawned to continue with their theme of normal life. Whilst the likes of Mammut, G’Sengte Sau and the Rapids push this point quite well, it’s in the ‘old’ part of the park where every ride fulfils this theming quality. The rides are immensely well themed as well, so we began our adventure on the Spinning Soup Pots. It was like an Onion Boat Ride but on a track and more spinning, it was weird.



Continuing the weird ride trend were Flying Wash Baskets, a strange Enterprise style ride. The final piece of the spinning ride puzzle were the Spinning Wine Barrels, which were the same as the Soup Pots but on a longer track. They were also a lot more spinny to boot.





We then found a random Model Walkthrough, which was typically creepy due to the designs of the models found within. This was followed by the epic slide that lives within the Old Mill, the park’s oldest attraction. Next was Doppelter Donnerbalken, the tilting drop tower, which was only running one side unfortunately but it was still the epic crap yourself moment that isn’t really repeated much.








We entered the Goat Farm, where you could both feed and groom the goats, as per usual, when food was around, they went crazy, which is always entertaining. After I spotted it I really wanted to go on the StockCar Race, Tripsdrill’s answer to Autopia with a racing element to it. It was definitely weird as my car was seemingly really quick; I managed to go past the people who went off in front of us. Would be great fun in a group. Finally the Maypole Tower was ridden, which was another weird flat ride akin to those kiddie drop towers Lego love so much.









After that, we were pretty much bored of the park, so we left.

Around an hour later, we had arrived at park number 2 of the day, Schawben Park. In yet another weird location next door to a village in the middle of nowhere.

The first thing you spot is of course the recently new Force 1 from Zierer. It does tower above the car park and indeed the rest of the park due to its location at the tippy top of the hill, which can only be considered a good thing for a family coaster. I definitely prefer those that don’t try and treat the younger riders with contempt and patronisation (I.e. Wacky Worms), and Force 1 really doesn’t disappoint actually, providing an intense (I greyed out) and fun ride with just a spot of airtime here and there. I hope these new-fangled Zierers are becoming a lot more common, because they’re fab.






Walking down the hill we arrived at the next two creds; starting with Crazy Worm, a random contraption that was at least not a Wacky Worm. Second up was the Schwarzkopf Himalayabahn, complete with smoking ride ops and minimal safety standards. Love Germany. Neither ride are particularly worth discussing any further.






Next door to the creds was a real shining star at the park, Bobkart. For those who have been to Oakwood and done the Bobsleigh there, imagine that but with an electrical circuit attached. This allows a more faster and forceful ride as a result if you go flat out on it, it was brilliant.


We wandered past another Goat Farm which promptly produced some of the funniest antics of the entire trip. For we realised upon entering that a goat had managed to make it into the containment zone between the park and the yard. Some random girls were trying (and failing) to get the goat out so we helped by purchasing a tub of carrots for a Euro to lure him. This didn’t work of course, as all the other goats (and there were many) realised that there were carrots around and charged in, causing mass confusion and hysteria about. Eventually we did get the goat in the yard but then some stupid people left the gate open again and he once again made a break for it, assisted by another goat headbutting him.



We decided to leave it as it wasn’t worth the time and we had a show to watch, but as we left a mum and her small child went in with another tub of carrots. The goats surrounded and attacked, promptly causing the little child to fall over and become engulfed in a swarm of goats, with the mum holding the tub of carrots in one hand trying to pull her child back up with the other. Absolutely hilarious.

We headed into the Chimp Show which was as expected, a bit dodgy for the sake of ‘entertainment’. At least the trainers showed some love and attention to all the animals involved and weren’t too forceful when the chimps got scared. But still I can’t imagine it would sit well with the Blackfish bridage.


It was then time for the manual rides again, with another Nautic Jet which got me surprisingly wet down the back and a Zip Wire, which wasn’t as good as the one in Schloss Beck. We also randomly did the new for 2014 Boat Carousel, because I’m a goon.







It was re-ride time, and there were only two things we really wanted to do again, so another turn on the Bobkart at full speed was required before three goes on Force 1, which was certainly more than enough, so we headed for the hills.



Overall, it was a weird day at two weird parks. Tripsdrill I feel is better in a big group, though it’s not helped by the rides being a bit below par, especially Karacho which was a bit of a disappointment it must be said. Schwaben on the other hand wasn’t as run-down as I was anticipating it to be, and the random zoo enclosures weren’t that bad either. It’s a family park first and foremost so there’s not a lot there, but Force 1 is actually really fab.
Maybe Tripsdrill is just a marmite park; I just cannot put my finger on it why it doesn’t get along with me. Because it probably should as it’s weird and European. It will forever be a mystery.

Another day, another park, but this park was more of a stop-over to break up the monotony of driving all the way to Stuttgart. The original plan was to actually hit up the Nurburgring, however once Ring Racer was confirmed as spited, Klotten was chosen as the park of cred run.

Whilst it is in the middle of nowhere, it cannot be argued that the location on the mountainside with valleys all around is pretty amazing.


The first port of call was Heisse Fahrt, the Gerstlauer Bobsled. I’ve always found these quite fun, rather than the boredom of constant turns on a Wild Mouse, and this one itself seemed very forceful and full of bountiful airtime too. Whilst the unfinished castle is a bit of a blot on the landscaping aspect of the ride, the rest of it does fit into the park rather well.






Slightly interacting with the coaster and lying in the unfinished castle is Zum Rittersturz, a very peculiar ride indeed. Certainly takes the arguments of “is it a cred or not” to new heights, but what is very surprising about it is the random dark ride section that takes place prior to the rotating elevator lift (which provides a question of, why design it to need an elevator lift that needs to rotate?). Was also rather wet which was not particularly welcomed.





We then wandered around the park’s Zoo; it was alright, with most of the enclosures sitting on the hillside.


















Another quick go on Heisse Fahrt was had after some food before we had a quick mess about on some swings before continuing our journey along to Stuttgart.



Plenty of potential lies within the park. Hopefully they can finish that castle and then push on with a few bigger rides, be they flats or another coaster. They have some space, not much, but defo enough for two decent sized coasters.

The second day at Phantasialand started similarly to the first, parking in the China car park and straight off to Black Mamba. A front row ride was in order since it was unlikely another chance would raise its head, front rows are very useful wake-up calls.



Over to Wuze Town, and as Fear was having the morning off, Winjas Force was ridden, followed by another go on Tittle Tattle Tree. We then rode lots of the new Wuze Town stuff that has been added over the years, starting with the Monorail, Wurmling Express, which could do with a bit of a touch-up already with its rather dilapidated owls. Wakabato, the pointless not so Splash Battle was next, with dodgy guns, broken targets and unreachable boats meant that the point of them was missed. A quick run around the Hedge Maze led us back to Wuze Town by which point Winjas Fear had opened so we rode that. Tittle Tattle Tree followed again and we managed to sit in a side we hadn’t done before, hooray!










We walked past a Balloon Show on our way to Chiapas. Still fab and welcomed in the nicer weather we had that day.


It was show time, starting with the Eis Show, which was the typical Ice-Skating show until they decided to SET THE ICE ON FIRE! Love Germany and their obsession over it.
JUMP was next, and it was basically Stomp but with MORE Trampolining, it was ok but not really a theme park show in my opinion.



We then headed off to Mystery Castle, only to be bitterly disappointed by the cut down ride cycle, as it launched straight to the top with no faffy bit prior to it. Upset by this, Tikal was ridden again to fulfil the drop tower fix.




Back in Mexico, it would feel wrong if we didn’t ride Talocan and Chiapas again, especially since Chiapas has the wonderfully useful single rider queue.


We were back in the plaza to watch the street shows again (mainly as one of the three they run wasn’t on the day before) and have some snack time, which presented itself via wonderful Kinder Ice Cream. Extremely tasty and nom. The shows were all once again very good and all enjoyable. After the third show we went on Maus au Chocolat again.



Rode Black Mamba once more before a quick run on the Carousel for a sit-down and rest before we discussed what our last ride on the park should be. It was agreed that Winjas Fear would win the coveted role before we would watch Drakkarium and marvel at the dove that tried to kill itself during the finale by trying to fly into the nearby building.









Two days at Phantasialand is certainly enough if you time your trip just right. It wasn’t actually that busy over the two days, even the Saturday wasn’t horrendously bad, although we did have some show based times as well as getting all the Dragon character photos. As I said before, fantastic park and well worth staying for beyond the coasters.

Day 7 – Phantastic Part 1
My last visit to Phantasialand was 6 years ago, which in some cases doesn’t tend to mean a whole lot has changed. However, here, pretty much every single area had something different about it, be it from an addition of some flat rides in Wuze Town, to replacing some tatty old Flumes, or in several cases, the rides simply don’t exist anymore. Lots of change, but would I still like the park?
We parked in the China car park (due to limited space, there are several car parks, one for each area), purchased our two day ticket for the awful price of €75 (a day ticket is €45) and entered the park.


Phantasialand have one of those weird staggered ride openings, with the park opening at 9, some rides opening at 9:30, then more at 10 before the remainder (water rides) open at 11. So the first ride of the day was some B&M goodness in Black Mamba.
Totally forgotten one of the best things in Phantasialand are the queues (unless it’s Winjas’). Mamba’s goes on such an adventure with some decent ride based interaction, and the station is so well themed and beautiful. The ride itself starts fantastically but ends poorly, always has done to me, because I just don’t think the helixes are powerful enough to finish up the ride in a constant fashion. I partly think that they could’ve chucked in the final inversion at the end (a la Nemesis, the clear inspiration for the ride), rather than just turn after turn. Prevents it from being a real top tier B&M, but it’s still a fantastic ride.




We headed over towards Wuze Town to wait until it opened, whilst I marvelled at the (new to me) entrance area. We were greeted by a dragon which proceeded to do silly things and even drop the rope to open the area. Great piece of interaction.



So off we went to the Winjas coasters. Starting with Force and then Fear, I do enjoy these two a lot, with Fear clearly being the better of the two coasters. The interaction when both are running properly (which they weren’t unfortunately) is brilliant, and the trick track sections can be very surprising for first time riders. The queue has changed nowadays so not only can you take your bag with you, but also the queue splits on the stairs down into the station. Of course this does mean a massive waste of queue space nowadays, but oh well.




After both were done, we quickly did the Tittle Tattle Tree, because it’s secretly fab.





Next door is Temple of the Night Hawk, a Vekoma MK-200 which has had its entrance moved since my last visit, and it involves a steep hill. The ride itself is long, arduous and boring when there are no effects working on it, coupled with 3 slow lift hills. Give me Vogel Rok anyday.

We then headed back towards the entrance and Maus au Chocolat, the immensely themed and fantastic Midway Mania rip-off. The theming right from the door is top standard, like most of Phantasialand’s stuff, but it just keeps getting better and better. I’ve never known a ride queue to make me so damn hungry just by queuing for it, probably helped by the wafts of chocolate scented through.
Hadn’t done a Midway Mania ride till now, and I do like the concept quite well, especially when it’s as heavily detailed as this. A big bonus is the theming between scenes, which from POVs appears to be the biggest flaw of MM. Overall it’s a really good dark ride, and probably the best dark ride we did over the course of the holiday.






A giant waffle happened.

Now it was time for Chiapas, to which I was quite hyped up for. Chiapas looks to be the perfect modern variant on the Log Flume situation, and whilst the issues with the ride system were plentiful (year long delay for opening, because Intamin), would it provide an excellent experience?
The answer is yes.
Although the boats are pretty claustrophobic and small (combined with the lapbar), the ride system itself is intelligent and insanely fast at sorting things out. The drops are all good fun and provide a suitable level of wetness and of course the best part of the entire ride is the Backwards Disco scene. IMAScore’s music perfectly fits the adventure vibe the park were going for as well, especially as the music constantly changes note and style throughout the ride, and the catchy tune gets into EVERYONE’S head. Would love to see Towers look into this as a viable replacement for their Flume, it’s that good.









It was then time for Talocan, which is still one of the more intense Top Spins around. Still fortunate to always get the front side of it as well, so no rubbish wall for me, always go for the water and the fire effects of awesome. It’s a shame really that the modern ones don’t seem to have taken off for Huss, perhaps because every park in the world already owned one of the originals? There might be a park in the UK that could do with one of these mind.



It was show time, and we started with Seiben, which was a pretty awesome magic show with weird gothic plot and stuff. Magic is always in the showmanship I feel, and the guy was very showy with the work, and some of the tricks were pretty much “HOW?!” aside from the time when he knocked on the fake mirror in two places and they made two distinct sounds. Still fab.


We then had lunch whilst watching the Chinese Acrobats, to which we’d kinda had our fill of already in the trip. Ah well, we learnt that Currywurst is actually fab, a far more interesting thing indeed.
As the weather was reasonably rubbish, it made perfect sense to go on River Quest. Probably the most unique Rapids ride in that it just features special sections rather than anything resembling actual Rapids. It’s quite similar to Bagatelle’s rapids in a way, in that on an overall scale they are brilliant rapids rides, but on a water ride scale they’re both very good. Terrifyingly wet to boot as well, mainly due to the old cheese wedge boat design, allowing water to appear from pretty much wherever the hell it wants to.



Drying out times required, a task which fell to Mystery Castle, one of the best drop towers around as well as one of the best themed queuelines. The bonus addition of random actors is also quite a cool thing, especially when they’re making full use of the fact that the ride was a walk-on. The ride is still great fun too, with the long climb and descent mid-way through the cycle being the real highlight of it all. Shame that there’s not too many of these ride types around as a result to be quite honest.



The final dark ride was Feng Ju Palace, a Vekoma Madhouse that’s not very good. Whilst it removes the whole language barrier issue, the plot is very boring, the pre-show takes forever and the effects in the ride section aren’t very good. Big old meh.


The final cred of the day was Colorado Adventure, a Vekoma Mine Train of many lifts and many sheds. It’s still good fun mind, though it’s weird that the first shed is very much in pieces due to the Silver Mine removal, so half of it is now in the light. The mountain drop by Black Mamba is excellent as well, probably only beaten by Paris’ BTM in the Mine Train stakes.





Within Colorado’s final helix these days lies Tikal, a double bill of kiddie spinny drop towers which are always a good laugh. These ones also had an epic detail in their theming, as they are themed to water pumps and every time the ride drops, a water pipe is activated. Love details like that.


We headed back to the Entrance Plaza, catching one of their mini street shows along the way, before it was time for Hotel Tartuff, a Fun House. It was amazing, the theming was generally fantastic throughout, lots of random stuff going on, random live actor and topped off with a giant slide (though it lost points for needing to take shoes off). So, so fab.









Wellenflug, the Chairswings were next with their epic fountain related times before we watched another street show which was brilliant. Some random dog kept barking at one of the actors and they kept losing it as a result, I like shows that allow for a bit of added actions as opposed to always being the same.






Some re-rides were called for, so we Chiapas as we’d just finally dried off from River Quest before heading back to Black Mamba. Whilst we were in the station boarding the ride however, someone decided that it was time for rain of the heaviest variety. Resulting in a very painful ride and a very busy exit pathway as a result. We eventually broke out to make it back to the Berlin earlier, watched the storm develop for a bit, before joining lots of people in Maus au Chocolat. By the time we’d exited the rain had fortunately let up.







The day ended with Drakkarium, their major end of day show by the main entrance. It’s very weird it must be said, with several of the dragon characters turning up in massively epic designed floats/chariots with supporting costumed characters. Then it has random stunt people doing generic stuff. I cannot help but feel this is a really big missed opportunity overall, though I doubt it was helped by the rains descending upon us once more and forcing the show to finish early, so we took our leave and made a break for it ourselves.










Phantasialand is fantastic. It has the theming; it has a solid ride line-up and it’s generally just fab. I’d really forgotten how good the park was originally, and the changes they’ve made over the past few years have been completely for the better. Hopefully they’ll keep pushing forwards with redevelopments (so excited for the Mystery area one) and replacing the older rides in addition to that expansion they’re aiming for.
A top tier European park.

Me and Toofpikk thought we'd head down to Paramount Park last Friday. It STILL isn't ready, clearly didn't get ultimate planning fastrack, only standard. So we went on a random adventure through a £2 tunnel to some place. We had no idea where though.

They had delicious milkshakes but that didn't help.

This place was obsessed with pink and yellow.

Like this Fireball thing.

Look at the pink and yellow!

We just couldn't think what theme park was obsessed with pink and yellow.

They had an Elvis. Must be America

And a BIG wheel. But that doesn't mean anything, loads of places have these.

See. Pink and yellow.

Back here again. Not sure where this was but we found it 9 times.

Ohhhh. We were at Rage Southend On Sea. No that's not right.

WHY IS THIS PLACE SO BADLY ADVERTISED

All day we were confused. No idea where we were.

Thorpe Park have dodgems. Maybe I was at Thorpe Park.

No Thorpe Park doesn't have the only Archelon in the UK! But I don''t know which park does

Railway. Useful that.

Vortex. It would be so easy to brand this ride with the park it's at!

This is a Gerstlauer. It says so on the seats.

Why would I take a selfie with a bunny when I can't even check in on Facebook as I've no idea where I am!

It's okay though, we found our answer.

We were at a 5 star loo all day I feel so privileged!

Bye bye 5 star loo! Was a great day out.

Movie Park Germany was the park of the day, having been a stone’s throw from it the day before, so it was a bit weird to drive to it for a second day in a row.

Upon arrival I grew frustrated by the park not opening up the turnstiles prior to the official opening, mostly due to the lack of space available to the large crowd building up outside and the low number of actual turnstiles available. Does annoy me greatly when they could instead let people into the park, get some early sales from a cold and miserable rainy day and reduce the crowd issues.
Oh well, first port of call was a shop to pay an Express Pass. For €25 you could buy an unlimited one for all but two of the rides in the park (Jet Ski ride and the 4D Cinema), a ridiculous value that either the Germans don’t buy into because they don’t like the concept or they sell barely any of. Either way, judging by the early crowds, this was to be quite an intelligent investment.


So to the rides and the first on the list was Van Helsing’s Factory, the indoor Gerst Bobsled which I had heard many good things about. We entered through the side door of the massive shed and quickly onto the ride, the station and ride cars are both nicely themed, and I do wish I had actually seen the queue line proper.
The ride starts with some faff before the first lift hill, still quite well themed before the ride begins proper. The usual stuff really from this ride type, with swooping drops and turns, and naturally the wild mouse style turns in the dark (with no brakes) made an appearance before the second tyre lift hill. Some dodgy animatronics later we’re launched up into the rest of the ride, which I have no real recollection or knowledge of as it was all dark. Eventually you hit the brakes after defeating the evil vampire.
This ride is good, very good. It’s fun, enjoyable and quite well themed throughout, with some decent effects to boot. Solid coaster to their line-up.



Unfortunately, the horizon for coasters didn’t particularly look great, so we had a quick go on the Jet Ski Patrol because of the wish to delay the inevitable. It was time for MP Express, a Vekoma SLC.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t very good. But the worst was still yet to come.





The next coaster wasn’t open yet, so we decided to go on High Fall, an Intamin Stand-Up Gyro Drop Tower. Oh boy was that a mistake. Combining the tilting motion with the drop and the brakes and all of a sudden the entire ride is screaming in pain and agony. The most entertainment the ride presented was the subtle change in noise as the ride hit the brakes. Again, awful.

Then it was time for Bandit, my second RCCA Wooden in the space of a month, and this was a clone of Coney Island’s Cyclone. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Turns out, everything.
Bandit is by a far, far margin the single worst ride I have experienced. It’s that simple. Worse than Coaster Express, worse than Baco, worse than a Volare, worse than a Screaming Squirrel. It was violent on a constant basis, shook around at every corner, juddered about and for good measure did the odd slam into the side. It was at this moment exactly that the Express Pass value came into being, as I didn’t have to queue up for the worst coaster experience of my life. I wish I had been able to burn it down; it would certainly be worth the arsony racket.


Another go on Van Helsing was needed to experience what a good coaster was, before we headed over to Nickelodeon Land to grab the kiddie creds. Starting with Backyardigans – Mission to Mars, a Vekoma Junior, Ghost Chasers, a Wild Mouse and the infamous in German Top Trumps Jimmy Neutron’s Atomic Flyer. They were all as to be expected, though Atomic Flyer was easily the best coaster of the three.







Next up was Ice Age Adventure, an indoor dark-water ride combo. It followed the plot (loosely) of the first film, with some typical dodgy animatronics and theming throughout. The interesting part came with the drop, which essentially made it a cred. Was pleasantly surprised by it.

Time for a random crappy flat ride in Splat-o-Sphere. Had never done an Aileron before, probably won’t ever again since it was pretty dull. We saw a couple of shows around this time which were all pretty standard theme park affair (at least, with those who care about shows, not UK park level). Then it was time for the Van Helsing Show.

Impressive set aside, the show fell quite flat. Lots of dialogue, weird plot and a really bad werewolf costume mixed in with some rather poorly done fight scenes made it quite a disappointment. Points for trying/effort, but not much else positive.


As we were walking past it would have been rude to not ride Van Helsing – The Cred again before heading back to the main entrance where (strangely) two big rides sit.
First up, was new for this year The Lost Temple, to which I was very excited about, and it was probably my most anticipated ride of the entire trip. And whilst it is not a flawless dark ride, it is still entertaining, and above all well themed.
I think the major flaw with it is the actual ride system. It lacks throughput and if you’re sat in the very front (like myself) then you lose quite a lot of what is actually going on around you. That being said, the theming within the queueline and pre-shows are brilliant, and it has an actual lift rather than a fake Sub Terra style one (indeed, the ride does share some similarities with Sub Terra in some aspects). Good addition to the park and hopefully more a sign of things to come from them.









Next door was Alien Encounter, a quite randomly themed water ride with extended dark ride (and backwards) sections. It was quite cool it must be said, with an awesome Pepper’s Ghost effect, but it is also very dated at the same time.


We caught the parade (which was generic) before having a go on Time Riders, featuring John Cleese speaking German. It had an obscene amount of pre-shows that ended in a random tiny simulator. I remarked at some point that it reminded me of the Batman simulator at Madrid, turns out it WAS one once upon a time. It found itself in a similar position to the Batman ride in Madrid, so crap it was actually funny. Though it felt so wrong hearing Mr Cleese speaking German.





We rode Van Helsing again before seeing the Crazy Cops Stunt Show, which was alright and typical of your basic stunt show. The guys did well in the very wet conditions mind. Least there wasn’t any audience participation faff this time.

Van Helsing was ridden again before some food and show times again. Afterwards we did Van Helsing again (a pattern emerged very early on in the day it must be said, not helped by the central location of said cred).
We had a look towards Lost Temple again but unfortunately it was shut (it’s been having LOTS of problems this year), so Jimmy Neutron was ridden again (for some reason, I’m still not sure why) before we did the Fairy World Spin Teacups, which were generic as well. Van Helsing was ridden again before we rode the Crazy Surfer Disko Coaster (which had a lot of bounce to it) and the Santa Monica Pier Carousel, which was actually a Chairswing. The hope was to finish the day on Van Helsing but unfortunately they had seemingly closed it early. Sad face.





We stopped off at the Happiness Station for epic ice cream before heading home.

Movie Park is ok, just full of utter, utter crap for the most part. The layout doesn’t help it much, since half the park is pretty much dedicated to Nickelodeon (Ice Age and Mystery River aside), two major attractions at the entrance is also a weird design choice. The major issue is that only one of the coasters is actually good, with the two big draws being crap, some future choices would be served well into getting some good adult rides, as the park is pretty well served for families/kids. Removing Bandit, High Fall and MP Express would be an excellent start and getting some heavily themed coasters that are good could help put the park on the map a little bit more.

Ah Heide, the weird red-headed step-child of the Merlin machine from my last visit, with its strange mixture of music and atmosphere seemingly stolen from other parks. It lured me back with the prospect of completing the European B&M collection (of course, until Garda and Efteling’s ones open next year), and an attempt to ride Colossos again to see if I can actually like it.

First thing was first though, and that was to collect our German MAPs. The reasons for this were for the free entry to Gardaland and the complimentary Q-Bot at both Heide and Legoland Germany. Considering how busy Heide was looking prior to opening, this was a good choice.



Passes and Q-Bot acquired, we moved straight over to Flug von Damenon. Unlike Swarm, this has a sensible queue-line, the splits just before the batching point, has enough space in the station for 2 trains worth of people AND most importantly has a rotating bag holder at each row. How this logic never made it to Thorpe I’ll never know, because it runs a lot more efficiently.
However, the ride itself is unfortunately lacklustre, and I’m still not sure if I place it above or below Swarm. The layout is quite good, and with a bit more speed might not have the sort of dead spots that you see in Swarm’s over-sized flat turnaround and the finale. But it is quite slow and lumbering, and even worse, has an awful, awful bounce already. The bounce is what ruins the ride really, it’s so strange that a brand new ride can have that so early in its life. Perhaps the design of the ride and the layout being quite tight (Raptor and Swarm are both drawn out) means that there are higher levels of force acting upon the train, and because of the vibration that naturally happens anyway on these train styles, it just becomes more noticeable under heavier force.
Either way, a bitter disappointment, and Raptor is still quite easily the best Wing-Rider I’ve experienced.










One positive for Flug is the single rider queue, which when combined with a reasonably epic batcher man, went quickly. After the second ride it was time to ride Krake with the finished boat section. I still liked it a lot from my first rides, especially as it amazed the Germans from the visual perspective. It still does that, and it delivers a fair whack of airtime after the inversion nowadays. They’ve also added a dedicated front row queue to it, which is a slight improvement, but a real improvement would have been to batch it all in, especially given how Q-Bots enter the station building in an awkward fashion.





We had some Crepes whilst we waited for our next booking, Colossos. I distinctly remember being completely non-plussed about this ride on my previous visit, soul-less rubbish I called it. After my recent enjoyment of Balder I thought however that this viewpoint could well change, and to see if it was accurate the back row was chosen.
My viewpoint on Colossos has not changed. The first drop is wonderful, but everything else just seems poor. Just found it extremely difficult to actually enjoy the hills, the corners are duller than Balder’s and that long helix is really rattly. It just simply doesn’t do anything for me and I doubt it ever will.





Grottenblitz was next, one of my least favourite Mack Powered coasters, before we broke for lunch at Pizza Pasta. I forget how much it was, but the pizza slices are quite simply ridiculous. I spent some time afterwards taking photos from the terrace outside.








Straight after lunch was time for Desert Race, the slightly better version of Rita (again, damning with faint praise), before it was time to see the Madagascar Circus Show.






Unlike Chessie’s version, this one is indoors, and as a result you need to acquire a ticket for the next showing. A good idea really, as it prevents mass crowds building up and then having to close off the building and disappointing guests. Also unlike Chessie’s version, this one is actually good, as it more appears to be a circus show that just so happens to have a Madagascar related storyline to tie it all together. It also had fire.
It was time to whore out the Q-Bot some more (although Heide have a rubbish tier system of either having select rides depending on your choice, but a decent idea in limiting the amount of times you can use it on each ride, so we had 2 goes on every major coaster but Flug). So we rode Krake, Flug and Schweizer Bobbahn, which wasn’t very good, before riding Desert Race again.






There was a long gap for Colossos so we used it riding the two water rides in the middle of the park. They were a well deserved rest in amongst the constant cred riding it must be said. Colossos was still a disappointment.





The random Pirate Show was next, which was extremely weird and random. Didn’t really get it so we ran away early for our Krake time slot before two last goes on Flug to finish off the day.


Heide is such a weird park, I don’t really know if I like it or not. The rides don’t really do that much for me (Krake being the best, Scream was closed all day) and the park is a weird mish-mash of half-arsed theming attempts and some completely closed off areas. They have started to get an unique identity to themselves with the addition of several IMAScore music dotted around the park to remove old Tussauds themes, but there’s still a lot of flaws around the park. Their ents budget has also seemingly been slashed to bits as one arena stood empty.

Here we are, the park home to Ultimate things like Raptor Attack, Angry Birds and some random stuff.

Here we see the Ultimate wheel that they have. It's so good that even on busy days they only load half the carriages.

Much like the annoying Drayton, LWV opens its gates at 10 but the main rides at 10:30. However, you can't even go down towards them from 10 so this happens. And with Ultimate things behind the man a queue of stampeding people formed!

So we went on the wheel which was opened and then RAN (for people who know me that is an ultimate thing!)

We ran, we saw, nothing Ultimate happening here. So did Raptor Attack which is Ultimate!

So we went mining.

This tunnel really is as small as it looks!

And this beam really is low! Ultimate theming here.

Raptor Attack is a generic coaster you find at fun fairs, however in the dark with a really well down internal queue and animatronic raptors throughout the ride it is pretty Ultimate!

Speaking of which...

They have a ladybird Zierer Tivoli!

And yes in the background is indeed a Reverchon spinner!

Ultimate green spin it was.

While we're talking about green...

The green Falls of Terror water slides!

With a blue sign

Like this man.

And parts of the sky! The sky is blue! Ultimate British weather!

This wall is blue too.

YAY ABAP AT LWV! YAY

All the space guys say hi

To the generic guys

Not a fan of oversized birds though. Ultimately they aren't real

Through the rings we go back to the real world

I will. If it's Ultimate that is.

Important sign there ensuring you have Ultimate fun. Oh and a meh wood sculpture.

This guy is a legend. He made a bird fly! Ultimate lad.

He approves.

Mr Ferret wasn't too sure though. His day clearly hadn't been Ultimate.

Urgh camera was facing the wrong way guys. Sorry let's get back to Ultimate things.

Like the insane Whirlwind.

And Ultimately awesome skate karts!

Weeee!

Ultimate failing going on here!

These are pretty good.

Do like their green though.

At least that way the rides are camouflaged.

See! You can't see the rides! Ultimate camouflaging skills!

Just watch out for the train.

They are living on the edge without train gates so remember to look both ways for an Ultimate day out.

Here are a few things that I find Ultimately sickening.







This is my type of thing!

Speedy tractor.

Just know it's going to be fast with a sign like that!

Camouflaged cherry picker. It's difficult to see I know but I'm Ultimate and can see it.

Real animals

This was my lunch the following day. After all, it was national hamburger day.

Not even going to ask. It's that Ultimate.

Something through the trees. Didn't look Ultimate enough though.

Few more Ultimate things.

Blur of Ultimateness.

No blur.

OOOOOO. Not bad.

Ultimate lad up there on the lift hill. Not sure what ride this was. Still wasn't Ultimate enough for us.

Yes Ultimate things

So with the Carousel done we'd been on everything bar one ride. They call it "The Ultimate." Don't know why.

It had a long queue.

Only one working train.

Boring signs.

Not running is boring.

Stupidly placed chains.

Safety features like air gates.

Lift hills everywhere which take an age to complete.

Stupid thing.

Just a shame it's so darn good! Ultimate is amazing! Relentlessly awesome! It has some gimmick too, not sure what but it doesn't need it! Best ride on park.

Well after this bad boy!

The first day proper of the trip led us to Hansa Park, a place which I really enjoyed on my previous visit 3 years ago. Unfortunately, not much has really changed to the park overall since my last visit aside from the entrance area being tarted up. But when you have one of the best Eurofighters around (potential damning with faint praise comments here), that sits in my top 10, of course a revisit was in order.


Upon arrival a group of enthusiasts were spotted, evidenced by their gooniforms and badges. I didn’t even realise Hansa Park was big enough to have a full on fansite, but they do.

Into the park and in a similar fashion to my visit 3 years ago, the first rides were once again Nessie and Rasender Roland. Both rides are starting to feel out of place in comparison to the more recent ride additions within the park, as they lack a real theme (Nessie has slightly more of one granted). However their interaction with each other is actually well done; and Nessie is still quite forceful and full of airtime. The ride on Roland involved Nessie going around the loop right above our heads, which was equally terrifying and brilliant.





After riding those, it was time to join the queue for the main attraction at the park, Fluch von Novgorod. Those who know me know my love for this ride is pretty big, with a wonderful theme, it tells a story and the ride itself is very good fun. My main worry with it this time around was how bad it might have aged over the past 3 years, as most other Gerstlauer Eurofighters are well known for becoming rough as hell after a year or two in operation. Fortunately for Fluch, it hasn’t aged badly at all, with maybe one moment of roughness included in the layout. The launch and all indoor sections are still fab too. It’s just a shame that Gerstlauer’s other efforts seem to have had lots of problems and roughness issues over the years, as this is probably the best version of the ride type around.
Depressingly however, the exit slide was not in operation. Booooooo.






A quick second go on Fluch was had (hooray for no-one using the mid-queue single rider) before we went off into the rest of the park. Starting off with the apparent cred but not a cred El Paso Express. I didn’t do this last time around, and this weird contraption is very, very weird. It has constant back and forth motion within the track layout, and uses that mix of gravity and powered coaster. Weird but enjoyable. We also walked through the random Path of the Mayans interactive attraction, where you solve puzzles in order to progress past water features.



As we walked to our next destination, we saw the Hansa Park Goons getting a tour of Karnan. At the time of our visit it was only dirt and a giant pit, so nothing too interesting to see, so we continued to Die Glocke. Again we missed out on this last time due to the horrid throughput it has (6 people per ride), but as it was still early went for it this time. It was good fun, very spinny and had FIRE. Next door was the still well themed El Dorado Storm Surge alike, minimal wetness ensued which was relatively welcomed in the hot weather.






It was snack time!


After the delicious snacks, we headed towards the (FREE) High Ropes Course of terror! It was pretty amazing tbh, with two options for each section, each more confusing and terrifying than the last. The height factor combined with some of the rather unsturdy aspects of it led to some issues, however I made it all the way around like a boss. Huzzah!



Needing a rest after that, Schlange von Midgard was chosen as the next ride. As it was unfinished 3 years ago, I was intrigued to see what was new about it; it had some cool effects added into the lift hill, but not much else could really be done about it. I’m still confused as to why some batching rows weren’t added in the first place though, and the dragon thing wasn’t working either. Still a fun kids coaster though.




Torre del Mar was next, because a Starflyer next to a construction site is ALWAYS a good idea. Then we went on Fluch again because it’s fab before breaking for some Steak-on-a-Stick, which was extremely nom.



A random Variety Show was next, which included Trampolining people, dancing, and a man who flew a remote controlled plane around the auditorium, he was the fabbest of them all. Afterwards there was some investigation into where Karnan is going, and the weirdness of the layout needs to be confirmed, considering it’s seemingly going to go all the way down past half the park.






Space Scooter was next, which were some Dodgems with lasers to shoot at random targets around the arena. It wasn’t fun because my gun seemingly didn’t work and people actually got annoyed with you if you bumped them. Extremely rubbish, but at least it exited into a play area.

We left quickly to see the Parade go past before collecting some Crepes for some quick boost of energy, enjoyed the Magical Flower Boat Ride before another go on Fluch to finish off the day.






I like Hansa, and the stuff they’ve been doing with the entrance refurb does make it have a fantastic entrance area. Hopefully they’ll continue refurbing the park whilst developing it with the likes of Karnan because a lot of it does look slightly worn and run-down in comparison to the actual themed areas (I.e. Nessie vs Wild West area). I’ll certainly have the park back in my sights in 2016 when Karnan is finished.

I’m already regretting this decision for a massive 2 week holiday featuring 12 parks, mainly because this is gonna be a long as hell TR, and I don’t want to spend ALL my time at work typing it up either. But, the show must go on, so here we go, Germany.
A pleasant flight in with Germanwings (budget Lufthansa) led us to Hamburg and our Volkswagen Polo for the fortnight, and we drove off to the hotel. Quickly it was discovered that roadworks would be the bane of the holiday, as the Sat-Nav’s path to the hotel was blocked by some, causing circles to be completed. Eventually we arrived to the hotel, and promptly left it to go into Hamburg proper, and more specifically, the SommarDOM.



I was excited to go to a German funfair, especially excited that you didn’t have to purchase tickets but paid with cash upon entry to each ride, a rather novel idea when you think about it.
We did a lap of the massive area, tending to watch rides rather than actually ride them, two week’s worth of Euros couldn’t be spent all on madly run Breakdances and the like. However we did ride Rock & Roller Coaster, which was one of them Wildcat type rides, without anything interesting cred wise (Wilde Maus XXL and a Wacky Worm, yawn), we elected to play the Fun House game instead.









I can’t exactly remember how many were done. I think 4/5 odd, each reasonably different from each other, and including the Winter Wonderland visitor of Alpen Hotel. There was also a fab City themed one which had a water room and plenty of other random effects. The final one was topped off with a classic German death-slide too, which was amazing death-like as I kept getting stuck in it.






As someone who doesn’t really care for fairs too much, this place was still amazing and pretty much even puts the likes of Winter Wonderland to shame. Didn’t stay too long but I can imagine at night it would look absolutely incredible. Defo worth a visit if you’re into fairs because of the mental settings the flats are run on (the Shaker was vom-worthy just via watching it).

Helix, Liseberg and Mack’s 2014 project has been at the forefront of many an enthusiast’s mind during the past year or so. With Blue Fire being reasonably rated by the community, hopes were high for Helix when it was announced. Two launches, multiple inversions, a terrain based layout and the odd airtime hill meant that this ride was ticking all the right boxes for enthusiasts around the world.
The real proof though, was in the pudding of actually riding it. And this is a more detailed review on the attraction, so spoilers beware.

Helix lives at the top of Liseberg’s hill, sharing a building with Atmosfear, the Intamin Gyro Drop, and a few other bits and pieces. Indeed, it feels more that Helix is budging in on the pre-existing attractions in the building, as the Helix ‘side’ as it were is rather small and under-stated. Perhaps it was designed this way, but it is a slight shame that for all the rest of the ride’s majesty the entrance is literally a door in a wall.
However, from entering the queue, such understatement is forgotten. The queue-line itself is reminiscent of Westminster’s Jubilee Line area, with Escher references and the odd Goon-Window for goons to pry into the mechanical workings of the ride. It’s also a great example of how to do a concrete themed queueline, with lighting and rockwork complementing the style of the ride, as opposed to a theme.



There is also a Helix game app available on Apple and Android devices, which is actually a live competition amongst those in the queue. It’s a random set of mini-games with a loose theme to the ride itself, but great fun to play and watch others. Certainly an ingenious way to pass the time in the constantly moving queue.


Like Blue Fire and Alpina Blitz, the seats are incredibly comfortable; however the stapling from the ride ops is unfortunate to say the least. A considered warning for those planning to go in the future.
The understated dispatch of changing lights as the ride drops down with some considerable airtime in the back before the slow corkscrew to ease us into the ride before we turn a corner and into the first launch. Whilst not the most powerful or fastest launch ever, it fulfils the need of the ride’s mass market ability, and is still an incredibly fun launch anyway, as it whips you into the first zero-g of the ride.
A quick turn and airtime hill lead us back down to the base of the hill, and into the Snorwegian Loop, which was blatantly better than Speed Monster’s, mainly due to the speed at which it was taken here. Diving under Lisbergbanen’s lift-hill, we rise back up into a fantastic airtime hill. I’d adored Alpina Blitz’s ones, and Helix certainly topped them off for the level of quality, they’re even better when instantly followed by a zero-g. The final part of the first half of the ride involves a sharp overbanked turn into a diving helix, which ended up being my favourite part of the ride it must be said, because it again combines a sharp bit of airtime and transitioning in a way that Intamin can only dream about (unless lap-bars are involved).





The second launch which provides an extra boost of speed if nothing else into the inverted top hat, which featured some hangtime towards the front of the train. The best airtime hill of the ride follows, as the drop out of it seems to go on forever, before we turn out into the most terrain bit of the ride, the rising s-bends. Which are again fun for an element of a pure design to just enforce the train to lose speed. The typical Mack finish of the inline is just as good as Blue Fire’s, even without the near miss theming.





And that’s it. Although my first ride was in the middle, I still found that Helix fulfilled the hype for me. It does lots of things, and whilst it may not do any of these things in an overtly ridiculous fashion (say like, how Intamin do great first drops but everything else is poor comparatively), everything is done well. The pacing is pretty seemless, even with the second launch as the train still has a fair amount of speed going into it. And the use of interaction with the terrain (as little as there might be in the final form) and other rides (Upswingett and Lisebergbanen) allow it to gain extra brownie points.
Some people think it needs on-ride music, but I disagree, as I find on-ride music on anything but indoor coasters tend to get lost with the wind and general being outside times, however awesome the ride’s music is. The only true negative of the ride is that the merch is crap. I loved it from my first ride, and a front and back row ride afterwards pretty much confirmed it was top 10 for me.
At night, it’s a different beast as well. The lighting package with head and sidelights produces a different experience both on and off-ride. It makes the ride look even more beautiful.





Mack and Liseberg have truly struck gold with Helix. And I hope that more parks start to pick up this attraction (Towers can replace Rita with one going into the valley).

Two months later, with the dust settled on my trip I already look back with great fondness. I've talked about the theme parks but what about the culture of California. How different is it to the humid and tourist trap that is Florida. Many UK enthusiasts don't venture past the state with all the oranges for obvious reasons.
First thing is people in California are thinner then the East side. Disney World is full of ECV's, California has very few. Florida theme parking is one big bubble of tourists, California is far more about making your own way around without the aid of specially put on buses and taxis. The first thing that struck me about San Francisco is the hills and the beautiful scenery of the downtown area. It looks fantastic from afar, with the golden gate bridge a particular highlight (although Chris said it doesn't look any better the the Humber bridge; spoilsport). As is the culture we had a lot of Starbucks on the trip. It doesn't help that on every block lies a Starbucks or a Chipotle or a Starbucks.

San Francisco is also incredibly hilly, we took a walk around the outer ring and some of the hills are murderous. We wandered over to the Castro, the gay area of San Fran and where history was made. Anyone interested should read up on Harvey Milk, the first gay politician elected into office and subsequently murdered a few months later. The area has an ease about it and is an excellent place to watch an Austrian drag act win Eurovision.


On day three, our adventures took us over to the Golden Gate Bridge, an iconic American landmark. It is a beautiful sight to behold and even though we accidentally drove over it, I had a real appreciation for its significance.

Our destination was actually the Walt Disney Museum, an essential place to visit for any Disney park or film fan. Fantastic place where you see the history of a man who changed the world we live in. From his early days creating Oswold and Mickey to designing the worlds first true theme park. This was a man ahead of his time in more ways then one. Essential viewing.



And then next was Pier 39, home for a bunch of sealions who make a lot of noise and have a lot of fights. Quite smelly too. But this was where we had an American sized lunch which was impossible to finish. We gave it our best shot.

And after four days of Touring this wonderful place, it was time to pack our bags and head to Magic Mountain and onto Los Angeles. Tune in next time. If you want too.

Oddly placed sign in the trees

Odd water slide effect at the entrance.

"You calling my park odd?" Yes.

The Lynx didn't want to argue

That's a Fishing Cat. Odd that it wasn't fishing.

Odd chimp (because there's one of them ) looks at Appocalypse.

This seems more humpty bumpty

Compared to this. This is just weird.

But a good weird.

How odd.

BEST ENTRANCE EVER!!!

AND QUEUE!

This is odd.

But so much fun!

Rainy Shockwave

With odd straight bits.

Designed with a ruler.

Seats were a bit bumpty.

Odd dip before the lift hill.

Poor dinosaur. Clearly wan't a good enough oddity for the main park so got stuck on the train route.


What a strange looking cloud. How odd, it rained in England.

Slowest turn from lift to drop on any water ride. Wouldn't be Drayton if it didn't have an odd feature.

Free Radio dodgems were very odd! Especially as it took them longer to check all the cars were empty than load the ride. Odd procedures.

Urgh. Not odd, not humpty bumpty, just rubbish. Will be getting my vote for best UK ride

Something normal

Phew. Oddness best IP on a ride ever! It's literally the sign, that's it!

Odd, quirky, but great fun

YAY MORE THOMAS!

Percy loved this idea!

It means we'll get duelling bubble people

Back to the oddities. The bats are just weird.

Oddly placed lights.

The odd stand up with no floor wasn't working. So quite normal really.

So let's have some more humpty bumpty goodness!

No Merlin, this isn't a colour you seem to know of. It's green.


Lot's of green!

It has a splash zone, that doesn't get you wet. Really odd.

And just in case you'd forgotten where we were. The oddity makes it good fun, the weather made it interesting, if you made it to the end of this then the word odd will probably annoy you from now on. How odd.

For the first in about 10 or 11 years, I visited a non-Merlin theme park. It's been a long time coming, and anywhere was a start. And that start was to be Drayton Manor.
After such a beautiful week, Saturday decided to take a turn for the worst, and give us rain, thunder, lightning (though with a couple of breaks of sunshine during the day!). Adam picked me up and we arrived at Drayton around 9ish. Even though we were early, we could tell it was gonna be quiet day, and thank goodness, after some of the horror stories I'd heard about the park's operations.

We arrived to some sun, though we could tell dark times were ahead.
Half 9 came and the park opened. One of the first things which confuse me about the park is opening the park at 9:30, but not the rides until 10:30. There's not really enough to do for a whole hour, other than the small zoo, which we headed to straight away.

Tigers are a'coming.

A chimpanzee looks to Apocalypse in the distance.
Rides were testing so we headed over to G Force (which apparently had been closed for a couple of days) and we were pretty much first in the queue. 10:30 came and it opened; yay. This was my first coaster with inversions that had lap bars, and I'd heard some pretty poor things about it, but kept an open mind. And yeah, I thought it was quite fun. My first ride didn't give me any problems with the restraints, and it was a fun, fast-paced ride. I did get a bit of air time as well, which is nice. It's an odd ride (especially with the "humpety bumpety" lift) and seems to do all the best bits at the beginning, giving a week end, but hey-ho, it's a fun enough ride.

My G Force face.
Next up was the big, new thing - Air Race. I wasn't quite sure how it'd ride, what with the continual spinning and moving and stuff, but it was actually really good. The rocking start is very good, and then it just keeps spinning, round and round and round. It doesn't get boring, and there's some nice moments where you're left hanging upside down for quite a while. Near the end of the ride, we started spinning in the opposite direction. Would be nice if it did it sooner, just to mix it up a little, but hey ho. On a ride later on in the day, we counted that we went upside 18 times (sorry Smiler! ).

Air Race does have a nice entrance feature though.

Air Race's queue line is a nice cattlepen - like many of Drayton's queue - and has a TV playing annoying things.
Shockwave followed. Have to say, the station and theming in the queue line is quite nice actually. The seats and restraints on this thing though is very, erm, eurgh. Yeah, I'll go with eurgh. They're not comfortable and they just don't feel right. The ride itself has two highlights - a random little dip before going onto the lift, and the zero-g roll (which is actually incredible). The rest is uncomfortable, rattly or boring. There vertical loop was bleurgh, the double corkscrew is verging on painful and then the random straight bits are unimaginative (though, at least they don't try to castrate you). Now I see why so few stand ups have been built...

Found in Shockwave's queueline - made me chuckle...
Next up was Splash Canyon, the park's rapids. It was barely 11 o'clock, but we were already soaking wet, so water rides wouldn't make much difference. Fun little ride, not that wet really, though the indoor section did take me off guard.
Another water ride followed, and this time it was in the famous Stormforce 10. I'd heard a lot of good things about this, so I was excited. Have to say, the queue - which we once again walked through - is nicely themed and works really well. Onto the ride itself. The first drop is nice, and the way it's done was unexpected by me. Then wandering through the random waterfall is cool. The second drop, the backwards one, was a shock. We were sat at the very back, which meant we got the full force of water. For a split second, I thought I was on Tidal Wave I was that wet. Brilliant water ride. Not-so brilliant for when the weather is already chucking it down. Final drop is quite nice too. So yeah, a great water ride all in all, but I'll try to avoid the back next time...
A quick spin on Malestrom (nothing really to say about this, just a nice filler really) and drying off in one of the heater things (which was so worth it given how wet we were...), it was time to venture indoors for Pirate Adventure. It's an indoor boat ride which is basically a knock off of Pirates of the Caribbean. Have to say it's alright, though it seemed like a lot of the animatronics were broke. The ending was super anti-climatic too, which was a shame. For the record, this was probably our longest queue of the day at an amazingly long 15 minutes. Goes to show how quiet it was I guess. A go on the dodgems, sponsored by Free Radio, followed, and they were pretty decent.
Food followed in the Safari Pizza & Pasta:

Very nice indoors restaurant located by the zoo. Indoors there's loads of animal animatronics which move and stuff and it was quite a nice atmosphere in there. (By the way, unlike Merlin's Pizza / Pasta, this isn't all you can eat in case you're wondering. We just had a nice pizza and wedges meal).
We headed over to Ben 10: Ultimate Mission, the world's first Vekoma Junior Boomerang. It looked surprisingly tall and quick for a junior coaster, and I have to admit, it was one coaster I was really looking forward to. Again, there was next to no queue, which was great. The majority of the queue is indoors, and is very well themed, with aliens, loads of 'high tech' stuff, noises, lights, etc., and a false corridor which tricked Adam and I. Very, very good.

Aliens.
First ride gifted us with front row. Being lifted up backwards was a nice sensation, though the stop is very harsh and judders you around a bit. Then you're dropped down and you pick up a lot of speed very quickly, meander around a bit, then up a random wiggle. You hear the laser fire and do backward to the station. It's a short ride of course, but it's great. It has a bit of everything and left both of us happy. No doubt kids love the ride as well. It's certainly Drayton's most complete ride and is fun for everyone. What's even more impressive is how it takes up so little room. Given the lack of queue, we went straight back round to do it again, which is a testament to the ride's quality.

Look at that joy.
Afterwards, we ventured to what I'll nickname 'dark ride row'. We started off with The Haunting, a Vekoma madhouse. Much like Hex, it has two pre-shows before the ride. The first pre-show is very nicely done, with some TVs giving you an introduction, and one or two nice effects used. The second pre-show isn't as good I found, going on for a bit too long, and that you couldn't always hear what was being said. The actual madhouse itself is good, with a nice ending I thought. So all in all it is a nice ride, but it also showed by just how good Hex is as well. Haunting is great in its own right, but Hex is in a different league.
Next door was Golden Nugget - Wild West Shoot Out. As the name suggests, it's a gun-based ride where you shoot things for points. Other than the name and logo, there's no reference to the Golden Nugget cereal. It's a very cheap ride clearly, and to be honest, is quite laughable. It's nice that some things happen when you hit the target though. But still, not a great ride. We ended dark ride row with Drunken Barrels, the tilting teacups. They were good fun, and the plate actually tipped, but our cup was way too stiff to spin.
It was now time for the last major ride (in my opinion), Apocalypse. Decided to go in at the deep end and do stand up first (though, unfortunately, the floorless seating wasn't available today). The seats are okay - more comfortable than Shockwave's at least! - and the tilt is a great twist; did get me a little bit. However, the drop itself is okay at best. Just doesn't really get me as much as I'd hoped. Though the suddenness of the drop is a nice touch. Sit down followed straight away, and I think I prefer that seating arrangement due to the added comfort. One thing which disappointed me with this (and a lot of Drayton in general actually) was the lack of audio, apart from the occasional siren. No atmosphere, very little tension and it just felt like the ride could have been so much more intimidating with some sort of background noise.
We decided to get some other rides done, including Flying Dutchman - yet another odd Drayton ride - and Buffalo Coaster. Buffalo is quite possibly the weirdest coaster I've done, with an odd layout, monorail-like speeds, yet the occasional okay bit. It goes on forever as well. I feels like it's time should be nearly up, and the space and surrounding area would be great for a family coaster (hi there Mack!). Oh, one laughable thing about Buffalo - on our ride, the train overshot the station, meaning the people in the front row couldn't get out, and had to have another go (I feel for the poor souls).
I would do a list of all the things which are more useful than Buffalo, but I think I'd be here for too long...

Buffalo with Apocalypse in the background. The Buffalo should look a lot more sad though.
We then went to the other side of the park to venture round Thomas Land. Looks nice, and I know that my younger self would have exploded with excitement to be there. Only ride we did round here was Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster. For a ride set in Thomas Land, it was actually alright, and the ending on it was a specific highlight. Great ride for the younger market.

We saw Percy whilst queueing fro Troublesome Trucks.

NEW FOR 2015. Funnily enough, when you're in the park, you don't really recognise the construction going on. When you're outside the park, by the entrance, you see the site, but have no idea what it's for.
With basically everything done, it was time for rerides aplenty. Air Race, G Force and Shockwave were all done again, as was Ben 10. After a while, a storm came over, bringing more rain, thunder and lightning, bringing most rides to a close (as an interesting fact, Apocalypse was hit by lightning this past week ). One of the few rides which remained open was Polperro Express Train; a short train ride which goes round part of the park. It gave some nice views of Shockwave, Stormforce 10, G Force and the rapids, and it was a nice break from the rain.
Some rides slowly began reopening, so we were able to get a few more rides in (including on the Golden Nugget ride since it was indoors, and just so we could laugh at it's awfulness some more). We ended up riding Ben 10 five times during the day, which I think shows how it is indeed a good ride for the park. The day ended off with a ride on G Force, and it was the only one where I had an uncomfortable experience. However, I still stand by my views that it is a fun ride; just a shame the restraints can cause it to be otherwise.
Drayton Manor is a nice park all in all, and given it's a small park, it's done well for itself. But there's a few rides which are very cheap and laughable which need sorting out, I imagine on a busy day it's a bad place to be in (queue board times to some description would be nice for example), and there's some things lacking (audio on all rides for example). I don't want to end on a negative note, as I enjoyed the place and had a fabulous day out, and if you take it for what it is, it is good. I definitely would recommend people trying it out (especially if you have a voucher of some description), there are some good rides there which make it worth going there once.
Visiting has given me the extra incentive to try out other parks as well. It's not that I haven't wanted to, but it's more that I've been a been a bit blasé about it all. However, after yesterday's experience, I now have an urge to try parks new and different (and who knows, might even crack Europe next year!)
I'll leave with perhaps the best photo of the day; our last ride on Ben 10:

Yesterday we decided to take an important English man to a place of Lego. Mr Lego William Shakespeare. I'll hand him over to you for this report

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. And this hand is suspicious, but I'm not guilty.

Welcome to the very merry land of Lego. Let's not read that rubbish book though, lets read a few of my plays.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow.

Certainly a big walking shadow!

Look mum it's Darth Vader!

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? He's right next to you! It's like they've never seen the play.

OMG it's a train! Like a real train!

Though shall not ask.

Or pass.

My hair's bad in this one

How'd I get up here?

I'm full of words. You don't want to eat me.

If food be the food of food, eat on!

Oh hi there

I'm safe here... right? Don't want me dying for a second time!

His colour choice is amazing.

Do you think he's seen me? Hope not

RUN! (Look at that blur... so much speed!)

They'll never find me here.

Or here.

Definitely won't expect me here!

I settled in to my hotel room and got it ready for my new girl.

The course of true love never did run smooth. Especially not in Legoland.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

At the end of June I spent a week in Salou. This of course meant that some trips to PortAventura would be happening! As well as a trip to Barcelona and the somewhat little known park of Tibidabo.
First off, Salou is a lively large town situated right on the coast of the Costa Dorada, we stayed in a hotel in Salou and couldn’t fault anything about the place. Right in the centre & 5-10 mins walk to the beach. Loved it. One thing I particularly enjoyed about the stay was on the evening of the 23rd of June, the longest day of the year celebrations took place, aka Summer Solstice aka St. John’s Eve… and a bank holiday follows the day after. Fireworks are on sale at pop up shop shipping containers in the street and they’re going off until the early hours… Fabulous atmosphere all evening!
PortAventura
We did 2 days at PortAventura, using the Plana bus (every 10 mins from Salou, €2 pp), cheap & very efficient taking you straight to PortAventura in around 10-15 minutes. A land train also operates but takes around 20-30 minutes.
The entrance area of the park is fantastic and you immediately have a view of the fountains in the lake with Baco rushing round and Shambhala & Hurakan Condor in the distance. Seeing as the park has staggered ride openings we opted to start at the back of the park at Dragon Khan. Khan opens at 10:00 with the park along with the rapids, Tutuki Splash, Furius Baco, and select other smaller attractions. If this was a UK park it wouldn’t be an acceptable way of operating. But when you consider that the park is open until 8PM, 9PM, 11PM, midnight or 2AM - 4AM, you still have ample time to get everything done more than once without express. I’ll probably mention this again later on…
Mediterrania is the area you first enter. This pic was taken from the opposite side on the bridge between Mediterrania and Far West. You enter not far from where Baco's train is in this pic. One of my favourite things was how picturesque PA is.

Queue jumping was something that we encountered at various times in our visit. The spanish seem to not care at all if someone jumps over the fence or in front of them. Anyway, except for that, I really liked the general atmosphere around the park, lots of foliage, lakes, extremely well kept garden areas and all queues are at least partially covered from sunlight. The (many) small & large shows dotted around the park also provide nice breaks from the rides for a few minutes here and there.
One of the smaller shows...

I would recommend purchasing express if you want to get *loads* done as a group. Naturally, most people head to Baco first and it had already racked up 1hr of queue when we passed it. Got to Khan and waited 2 trains and were on. Hurrah!
Dragon Khan
It's 148ft tall, yet with Shambhala overhead it really doesn't feel that way from the ground.

Dragon Khan was operating 2 trains for the entirety of the 2 days we spent at the park. The area that the ride shares with Shambhala is impressive, I’m not usually one to care much for theming but it’s all done to a high standard, the large ‘Shambhala’ area entrance signs and singular theme items as you enter the area are nice.
Khan starts off with the classic B&M pre-lift turn, followed by what seems to be a gentle climb to the top due to Shambhala’s domineering steepness from above. Once at the top of the lift, I found the first half of the ride to be taken at quite some speed even early in the morning at 10:30AM, the zero-G being the highlight of this half for me. The second half was ‘good’ but not amazing, I have read on other forums that the ride has new computer settings this year, and the MCBR now trims EVERY TRAIN to this pace, all day, every day:

(Not my video)
I very much enjoyed Dragon Khan, it isn’t anything which is personally going to go in a top 10, but it was a solid ride. It is quite a ‘generic’ / ‘american’ style layout (+1 loop), I suppose you could say. But the reason things become generic, popular, and cloned a lot is because they are good, no? Colossus still remains my favourite multi-looper, but that’s because I have much love for it’s inlines and non-stop paced ride given.
Shambhala opens at 11:00, as does the flume. All other rides (Stampida, Hurakan Condor, El Diablo, Tomahawk, etc) open at 12:00. Templo del Fuego opens at 13:00. Again, this didn’t really bother us, if you plan and make sure you hit up attractions just as they open, you should have a good amount of rides done by mid afternoon. By the time you’ve done the rides open from 10, the 11 ones are open, then the 12… and it goes on. From a logistical side I can understand why they do this.
*Hearts in eyes Emoji*

Next was a wander round 1/2 the park, taking in the early atmosphere through Mexico & Far West and up to the rapids for a ride, followed by the Flume. We took the first couple of hours easy knowing that queues would die down once everything opens at 12. (we queued 40mins for the rapids), refreshing and got quite wet, surprisingly as some people were coming off quite dry! We took a look in some shops, and for some reason the park has an obsession for selling Betty Boop merch? Lol.
The Silver River Flume at PA is built to have fantastic interaction with El Diablo, much waving occurs between boats and El Diablo. A very fun flume overall of nice length and a quickly moving queue thanks to the turntable station.
Spinning flat ride thing called Serpiente Emplumada. Like Drayton Manor Sombrero's across between a Polyp...

El Diablo, aka Tren de la Mina. It’s Lifthills and coathanger turns. It’s still an enjoyable ride and I prefer the Arrow Dynamics mine trains to the powered Mack ones. The queue on 3 trains moves fast once the express queue dies down. It’s interaction with the flume was a highlight, we had the back row and the drop out of the station provides a wonderful surprise pop of airtime, though when the pre-lift of a ride is one of the best bits it says a lot about the remainder of the layout!! Between lift 1, lift 2, and lift 3 the ride just does a lot of meandering around, until after lift 3 where you get the ‘big swooping drop’ and final dive through the smashed hut over the queue. Cool, but the many other Arrow 3-lift mine trains dotted around the world look to be better.
Not bad but a bit odd!

Shambhala. There is absolutely nothing I can criticise about this ride in B&M terms, it’s an all round crowd pleaser. My first B&M hyper coaster, it domineers over the entire park with a drop of 256ft. The ride ran 2 trains for the entire day on my first day of visiting, and had a queue of approximately 40 mins - 1hr 20 mins all day. On my second day of visiting it ran 2 trains from 11:00 til 12:00 when the 3rd train was added due to Furius Baco breaking down and Shambhala gaining a 2 hour queue. When running three trains, the single rider queue is nearly always empty. They manage it THAT well that when batching, not one seat goes unfilled. I even got a front row ride from the single rider queue one time!! In the station they have an LED screen which counts down how long they have to dispatch the train. On 3 trains they have 60 seconds from air gates opening to when it needs to be dispatched to prevent stacking. The screen then shows (what must be) the capacity number as a figure like 16:24 (was certainly not the time..!) for 1624PPH, very funky / nerdy & not bad considering it can get 1680PPH! They were running it very well on 3 trains.

Onto the ride itself, when leaving the station, if you’re on a happy train you may get some cheering and drumming of the restraints! ha ha. The lift is speedy and if Khan is also climbing it’s lift some waving / interaction below will certainly occur! At the top of the lift the train sends you down the first drop so gracefully, put your hands up and just float down… it’s amazing! In the back seat you get the best airtime over all of the hills, anticipate the hills and you’ll get the best floaty feeling. The ampersand turnaround is a unique touch and looks cool from a distance, below is the view of the park from my hotel!

Floaty drop airtime for everyone!!

The mini ‘speed hill’ after the ampersand provides some slightly stronger airtime but it’s still not gonna leave you with feeling *omg ejected*. My preference is very strong thigh-pressure ejector airtime, but the B&M style is still an enjoyable feeling. If you’re in an outside seat, reach out to your side and get a refreshing spray through the splashdown, then get prepared for more airtime! The ride just does not let up and has 'floatiness' by the bucketload even in the final hills before the MCBR. (MCBR only has 1 hill after it).
Overall, 9/10, most certainly a top 10 ride, it isn’t ‘OMG wow intense’ like I usually like, but it’s very fun and the most re-rideable coaster I have ever ridden. The train design is brilliant. Top ride!
Hurakan Condor

This was my 3rd Intamin drop tower. Apocalypse floorless was my favourite drop ever, until I rode Hurakan Condor! I rode it only 2 times due to lack of express pass and even a long single rider queue. Got standup both times (cue “yaaaass”). The height alone is quite terrifying (not too much off 300ft?) so when you get tilted forwards at around 20-30ft from the top, your heart rate races and you might just swear once or twice. Take advantage of the amazing view then put your hands out and prepare to drop… The falling feeling is fantastic and beats Apocalypse. My favourite flat ride on the park. 10/10.
Stampida. One ride. Blue side. 4 trains running, 2 each side. A CCI wooden coaster which has been rehabilitated / improved by KumbaK with 'new' trains. Take the word ‘improved’ lightly here. The trains look like park benches and they also feel like them. The lap bar is hydraulic and will tighten as you go round the circuit with every jolt that you go over, I couldn’t brace myself against it because you have to take your bag on the ride with you and I didn’t want that to go flying so had to hold onto the bag… The ride could be good… But it’s flawed with track which feels like it’s washboarding so incredibly badly and trains & layout which prevent airtime because the lap bar isn’t moulded in the best of ways. Nonetheless, fun interaction times can be had when the trains separate and duel, the same with Tomahawk which shares the Stampida structure. I need to ride it again really to get a more clarified opinion.
Tomahawk. Pretty much a kiddie wooden coaster with dinky trains. It seats one adult per row or one adult and a child. Runs 2 (old) trains and has new in 2007 KumbaK control and braking systems just like Stampida. I should imagine this is an incredibly thrilling attraction for kids as it’s actually quite violent around some corners! It’s also smoother than Stampida and has interaction with Stampida. Alright..!
Furius Baco.
Before reading this review, bear in mind that my favourite rides are Saw: The Ride, Speed (Oakwood), Mondial Capriolo, KMG Tango, Colossus, Slammer, Stealth and Rita. They are all rides which I enjoy because they are somewhat on the extreme end of the scale… In one aspect or another.
First of all, check that speed... I'd love to know just how fast it actually goes thru that inline..!
>>>>>>> https://vine.co/v/MtZq1MwKOj5 <<<<<<<
From every aspect offride, Baco looks to be an relentless, furious (ha ha ha) ride which throws the riders around it’s speedy course like it can’t get back to the brake run quick enough. And that’s exactly what it does. And I love it.

I had 4 rides in total on it, 3 on outside seats and 1 inside seat. The pre-show is weird. The theme is weird. Once at the pre-show, you do some shuffling back and forth as the catch car prepares to engage whilst the naughty monkey comes along and causes havoc. The launch feels INCREDIBLE, especially in the front row. Going at such a speed and having so much of yourself out in the open really enhances the feeling of acceleration. The launch ends with a hill down into the first pit which can deliver some intense airtime. Dropping down into the first pit, slammed around a corner at 80+mph before switching direction briefly and then switching direction again, you take a leap over the launch and a left turn to approach the inline twist. The feeling of speed is again, greater enhanced as you head for the inline twist. This is SO CLOSE to the ground you feel you could almost touch it, the feeling of speed is astounding and the way you don’t go through it as a heartline creates a rather cool twisty feeling...
Final turn out of the inline and over the lake, with the final bump onto the brake run and I was totally wowed. Incredible ride. Baco gives you the wow factor in a way that most crazy Intamin creations do… I’m told that Mack mega coasters also have fantastic inline twists so can’t wait to try one out! Back to Baco - Now, there’s no other way of putting it, the ride is ROUGH. But if you can cope with intensity on the scale of Saw, Rita, to some extent Stealth, then you may enjoy Baco.
The head banging could be reduced if they didn't have these 'elephant ear' type things on top of the restraints. Though I believe they are there after the incident with a restraint last year... Reminds me of Vekoma SLC restraints. Shame as Intamin's modern bars like on Baco are otherwise very good imo because you are pinned at the thighs.

Overall, Baco is a ride which isn’t shy of pushing the limit and provides an intense experience which doesn’t ‘play it safe’ in the comfort department in order to limit intensity. I feel like the ride could probably make it round the circuit with a launch of around ~60mph seeing as it keeps so much speed for the entire circuit, but I’m glad Intamin pushed the boundaries when they built Baco! 9/10.
One final thing. I can't not give this a mention. A bird opposite Tomahawk (yes the kiddie coaster) which sings Sex Bomb & an array of ~4-5 other songs all day long. (Not my video)

So that’s it for PortAventura… Fantastic park which has a special collection of rides all in areas which have a great feeling of character. It was my first international park and I look forward to visiting the likes of Europa Park, Liseberg and all the other amazing locations on offer to us in Europe over the coming years… Can’t wait to return to PA in the future though! I had an amazing time!
One final, signature PA pic!

Trip report coming up from Tibidabo, Barcelona soon..!

After my weekend at Towers I thought I'd explain why Nemesis is my favourite.

Even before this point you can hear it roaring around its twisted layout which can be quite intimidating. It is the roar of a monster! An untamed alien that wants to escape!

The British weather was brilliant to help set the scene! But you can stand directly under element of Nemesis with no netting ruining your photos.

Unlike Smiler

Without the netting these photos would have been half decent!


Nemesis is full of force! It's relentless!

This is one drop. All be it forceful but not anything significant. The only bonus about Oblivion is the long ride time you get due to the stacking.

Nemesis may be a mix of a few colours but it looks good for the ride theme.

Due to height, the black sections on this look stupid.

Nemesis has never been rethemed.

This has (although I do really like Duel).

Some say it's rough, no just intense.

This was rough.

It has a cooler station.
This makes you look at blue lit concrete.

It's not trimmed.

Th13teen is.

It's never caught on fire.

The Skyride has.

It's fun all the time!

The Flume isn't.

And it's 100% photogenic!
Okay so maybe I've been a bit harsh on the other rides, but for me Nemesis is best! Some of you probably think I'm a sheep and just follow the herd of people who love it. No. My first experience of Nemesis was when I'd just hit 1.4. Never been to Alton Towers before hand and we went on the Monorail to the entrance. With our AP we went to Forbidden Valley for ERT and I heard the roar! No idea what it was until I saw it. And there it was, Nemesis! I remember my first ride and after many years it's still never disappointed! Sure it's not the fastest, or the biggest, but for me it holds a special place in my heart and has never let me down. I appreciate everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that is mine