Mega-Lite

Colossus has been fine for years now, there was a period it was almost unrideable though, I'll let you know tonight if it has yet again gotten smoother, Colossus is ageing in reverse it's odd.

So they are replacing the spinning mouse for a third time? And I was sure I wasn't going to have to return for years... Disappointed they didn't order one of those weird Zamperla Eurofighters while they were buying one of everything, that would have been worth the drive.

No sign of tigers running loose or 100 foot tall security guards, that's just not acceptable... Out of curiosity, can anyone explain the logic behind woodies with steel supports throughout? I'll assume it's to save money and because it requires less maintenance, if it is just for those 2 reasons then it's a shame because it doesn't as good.

It doesn't bother me at all, but Mark, all you seem to do these days is find fault in how I act, completely missing the context and adding nothing constructive. I'll do a research mission to back that up later if you'd like. It's a shame, I've been reading these forums for years and always thought Mark seems like a great bloke and I reckon he'd be great to discuss things with in this forum, what happened? There's a really nice compliment in there too.

Says the guy who only ever appears to put me down, this is a case in point... It's quite obvious I'm responding to sass, with more sass. If you can't see that, then, oh no, what a pity never mind. Or are you and Benin allowed to joke about but not others?

They spited the cool looking and unique (you lot won't understand that word) water coaster for this new beast? Surely with a Skyloop and a Zacspin (2 of the worst things ever), there was plenty of other crap to rip out? I'll let you lot know how the true Takabisha rides to gauge whether it's worth your time to ride the wrong one... Who am I kidding, you'll just go to PortAventura and say it's the worst park ever instead.

Bobbejaanland closed an hour earlier than advertised when I visited. The park was heaving and the car park was full. The woman working the ticket office laughed in my face and shrugged when I asked her why they were closing earlier than advertised. It's not an operations decision based on guest numbers, it's just a s**thole. As for Pleasure Beach, that's disappointing to hear, whilst I understand the logic if it's deemed too quiet, they really need to change their wording to avoid upset.

They seem to be having really bad luck to start this season. Despite the weather being fine, Wicker Man (completely understandable), Rita, Oblivion, 13 and Nemesis all went down for extended periods this Friday just gone when I visited. Couple that with Nemesis only having 1 train ready to start the season and 13 still only running 2 trains (I believe) and they had a bit of a nightmare. They did however extend their queue close by half hour and even after the call to close Wicker Man main gate was called at half 5, they still let people in if they asked nicely. I feel for them, but I totally agree with Mark that they should open things earlier than the current 11, in case things go pear shaped.

I didn't think much of Troy to be honest, strange to see you'd rank it the best. Wodan's great, it just falls into the "I can't really remember it" haze that comes with most of Europa Park. The large GCIs have dead spots, where you are waiting for things to start getting good again, the smaller ones (Wicker & Draak), don't waste time faffing about and just kick more ass.

I've got no problem admitting I was wrong and I'm very happy to report that I was most certainly wrong and too quick to cast judgement on Wicker Man. Never again will I doubt GCI, their track record is still perfect. Now while I still agree that Alton Towers could and should have done more with the UK's first modern wooden roller coaster, what we have ended up with is great. The Story: Wicker Man's story about the creepy cult of weirdos, worshipping the Wicker Man for years in the forest and bringing him sacrifices in return for one day him returning their favour and gifting them with freedom and safety, is simple, effective and quite unnerving, I like it. Theming & Effects: Those involved have done a great job with the theming. The Wicker Man himself, in person looks damn impressive. The sheer amount of fire, mist and smoke effects used (please keep these running for the life of the ride) is so overwhelming and surprising and really adds to the experience. Not only that but the buildings (preshow and station) inside and out are incredibly well done. As a package, as present, Wicker Man is probably the best themed roller coaster in the UK. Queueline: After a couple of switchbacks to begin with, the queue ends up becoming a nice swooping semi circle which provides great views of the coaster layout and really helps build excitement. This style of queue over the crap that is Smiler's queue anyday, much appreciated. Preshow: I really enjoyed this, it's creepy, gets you hyped for what's about to transpire and in all honesty is alot of fun to watch. The Coaster: This little GCI is great. Great laterals, a few pops of good airtime, 1 insane ejector moment, that perfect amount of out of control that all woodies need and a real sense of speed. Also to my surprise, it's alot longer than I was expecting, so you get a decent length ride out of it. If you're into ranking things, after 2 laps, I'd probably put Wicker Man above Wodan and Troy, just below Draak, which I feel is a stronger layout and the racing aspect adds so much fun to the experience. I really feel Wicker Man is going to do great things for Alton Towers and I really hope they can quickly improve the up time and maintain both the coaster and effects to the quality they were on opening.

Hex appreciation time! From my glorious trip through this fantastic attraction 2 days ago, I believe some subtle tweaks have taken place during the closed season. The interior queue is no longer as bright as it was just after the refurb, it's now much darker and holy crap does it give me the chills. The audio in the cinema portion is no longer distorted and sounds fantastic. Audio in the octagon is the loudest I've ever heard it and the volume of the lightning strikes made me jump, beautiful stuff. Hex is just so damn good and it never fails to put a smile on my face.

I got the chance to ride "refurbed" Duel a couple days ago and I'm not that impressed at the moment, I just hope it's not finished yet. Please remember I'm a die hard fan of Duel, so I'm going to be more critical than most. I'm not digging the new music in Gloomy Wood, the old theme was fantastic at creating atmosphere, the new one sounds like generic Halloween music. That new jombie coming through the crypt outside looks so cheaply done it made me laugh. Those who replaced the haunting previous indoor queueline music with more generic sounding rubbish need to be sacrificed to the Wicker Man. Those cheap terrible looking LCD portraits look so bad. The onride music has nothing on the old track and harms the experience in my eyes, not to mention it gets really boring after a minute or 2. Also why has the "are you afraid of spiders?" audio vanished? While some parts of the ride do look a bit better (the screaming faces being the only one I remember), other bits look terrible. There's green spunk on the lunatics face, the bats on a stick are now clearly just bats on a stick, way too UV crap at play and some scenes are now so bright you can the ceiling and the behind the scenes stuff. For now, not impressed, I just hope when I next return things have improved.

Day 3 After another wonderful night's sleep, we woke up to face our last day at PortAventura. I ate half my breakfast on the little balcony thing attached to our hotel room, because after 2 days of cold and rain, today was looking to be a nice one, awesome. Today was a lot busier than the previous 2 days, not sure if that's down to the Spanish only flocking when the weather is good (they'd never be able to visit parks in the UK) or because everyone avoided the weekend assuming it was busy, then all showed up today, making it busy, fail. We were awake early enough today to slither into the park during their opening, which meant we got funky Spanish music and some form of dancing water show on the lake. . If Shambhala rode as good as it looks, I'd probably have a new top 10 roller coaster, but alas, nah. We powered straight to China to beat the unwashed masses to Shambhala. Success! Also, what is PortAventura's obsession with switchback queuelines? We rode Shambhala and Khan, then made our way back to Baco, which was just as funny as we remembered. After a snacky lunch we headed back for one last slither on Stampida. The coaster broke down while we were at the airgates, but the fantastic engineering team had the wagons rolling again in next to no time. Sadly after 4 wins, our 5th lap was to be our undoing and we lost convincingly, good things can't last forever and all that. Even though today was considerably busier than the previous 2, the hosts on all the coasters were filling every seat and dispatching as soon as possible on most occasions. All coasters except Shambhala (they said capacity was reduced due to the weather?) were running 2 trains and queues were flying. We thoroughly enjoyed our last lap of Diablo, if you told me I'd be craving multiple laps of an Arrow mine train before this trip I'd have called you crazy, but Diablo is just such a good little ride. Now that the weather had improved we decided to try out the park's rapids, while not as good as some other Intamin rapids, they were very fun and I'd definitely recommend giving them a go when you're on park. After days of walking past a dopey looking dinosaur, we thought we might as well try out Dino Escape 4D. Things started off pretty well, with the indoor queueline being very well themed, unfortunately the simulator portion of the attraction was average at best. He looks so pleased that he tricked me into his sub par attraction! We waited just over an hour for 1 last lap on Shambhala to cap off the holiday, you can't say I didn't try my best to love it, it's just a shame I didn't. As previously mentioned (and not rubbed in your faces, so calm down Mark), PA seems to get a terrible rep from the enthusiast community, based on lots of factors, none of which I saw myself. Now whether this rep comes from past truths that have now been corrected or perhaps it's the edgy hip thing to slag off PA at every turn I don't know. I just know I had 3 enjoyable and relaxing days on park and that's all that matters to me. As a park, I really enjoyed PA and I'll be excited to return if such an opportunity ever comes up. However while the park itself is great, I'm not sure the same can be said for the ride line up. Stampida is great, Diablo is good fun, but the rest of the line up is pretty average and doesn't really do anything for me. I can't quite believe I walked away with nothing good to say about Shambhala and Khan but that's exactly what's happened, oh well. The departures area of the Easyjet terminal at Barcelona airport is disgusting, with the only food on offer being badly made ham and cheese sandwiches which cost £6! Couple that with actual p**s on the gate seats and it made for a rather awful experience. As if by magic though, an evening Easyjet flight was on time, Christ! Until next time, thanks for reading.

Day 2 It's been so long since I've had a truly relaxing park trip and coupled with the fact I think my Australasia trip may have given me chronic fatigue, I was so happy to be able to get a good nights sleep in, staying on site and sleeping late is the way forward guys. Today started with a trip to Ferrari Land, the new park/land located next to the current park but accessed through a different gate, which means if you aren't staying on site, you have to pay 16 Euros or something for entry. I've paid more for less so I wouldn't have a problem if I had to pay but I can totally see the argument against it being a separate entrance fee. As we were powering through the turnstiles, dodging the unwashed masses, a member of staff asked if we had time to answer a few questions. Well we are only 3 feet into the park and haven't experienced Ferrari Land yet, so no. I wish they were still there as we left though, because my thoughts on the park weren't fantastic, oh well I can just moan on here... Red Force We headed straight to Red Force, a coaster I've made fun of multiple times, did it deserve it? Sort of. There's no denying that much like myself it's an ugly bastard. The supports holding up the top hat are so messy and extend way too far back from the coaster for my liking. Then there's the track, I don't like that new style of Intamin track as is, but coupled with that set up it just looks so off. I won't mention the stupid logos stuck on at 3 strange angles, oh wait, I did. As for the coaster itself though, it's fine, that's pretty much the best way to review it. It's pretty much Stealth with a better ending and trains. The LIM launch we all moaned about is more than capable but it's nothing outstanding, then the rest is pretty much bog standard Intamin accelerator coaster. I'd rate it exactly how I rate Stealth, "meh, it's alright". The pop of air into the end brakes is by far the best bit of the ride and it even managed to injure my friend's balls during that part, so that's a bonus. After 2 laps of Red Force, we'd seen enough and I was happy to leave, but my friend insisted we tested out the other Ferrari Land attractions, in hindsight he probably deserves another shot to the balls by Red Force for this. Flying Dreams After no less than 3 insanely pretentious (like me?) preshows you board a flying theatre, in which you travel the World to watch Ferrari's p**sing about.. The thing hardly moves, the screen was blurry, you could see the warehouse roof, was s**t. Racing Legends After the same awful pretentious preshow, followed by 2 new ones, you sit in a simulator with 6 other Spanish people, then you jiggle infront of a screen, pretending you are racing on lots of different tracks of the World, meh. A quick review of Ferrari Land then, if you are into Ferrari stuff and you're willing to look past the lack of things to do, the fact Ferrari is Italian, the slightly cheap feel of some bits and the additional entrance cost, then I reckon you could have a pretty fun time. If you aren't really into Ferrari, the park is currently ride Red Force twice (to be sure), then go back into the main park and be left dry by Shambhala. After we left the living Ferrari advert, we popped back into the main park to redo the coasters before heading off for an evening at Tibidabo. To prove everyone wrong and because we were hungry, we decided to try out the pizza place next to Baco. Fantastically friendly staff, a lovely pizza, an interior I felt too poor to experience, a man playing Kpop on his phone and a very reasonable bill was what we were greeted with. Awful food you say, nah mate... We rode the train from Baco land to China, rode the lacklustre B&M collection, rode Diablo on route to the woodies, where we were as yet unbeaten in a race. Tibidabo - https://rcdb.com/5114.htm It began raining heavily as we left PA for Tibidabo, which made for a tense drive, would we be spited again? Luckily we weren't and thank God because this park is fantastic! This charming little park is located on top of the highest mountain in the region and provides breathtaking views of Barcelona. Muntanya Russa - https://rcdb.com/3596.htm This terrain based Vekoma is such a joy to ride and really reminded me of a smaller Lisebergbanan. A gorgeous first drop with outstanding views, followed by many twists and turns and a hilariously useless airtime hill. I really fell quite hard for this little coaster. Virtual Express - https://rcdb.com/1831.htm The park's Zamperla powered coaster was a bit crap. The best part of the ride was that we managed to ride it without wearing the VR, take that RCDB! After many laps of Muntanya, we attempted to travel from the "lower level" of the park to the "viewing platform" of the park, where some of the older weirder rides call home. After many failed attempts to call a lift, we settled on climbing the many stairs to reach the elusive viewing platform. It was certainly worth the effort however because some of the rides up here will stay with me forever for just how crazy they were. Avio (AKA Plane On A Stick) A plane on a stick, that's been operating since 1928, not much more I can say, it's so weird but I love it. L'Embruixabruixes A suspended 8 seater monorail that opened in 1915. This thing was incredible! One second you're outside, hoping it doesn't collapse and drop you off the mountain and next second you're travelling through projection mapped dark ride sections. It's so crazy and no word of a lie the ending will change you forever, I'm still haunted by it. Talaia (AKA Bucket On A Stick) So the amazing views of Barcelona from the viewing platform aren't enough for you? Well then, climb into an almost 100 year old bucket attached to an almost 100 year old stick, with nothing holding you in and nothing stopping it from swaying. Easily one of the coolest, yet scariest rides I've ridden in years, highly recommend. We ran from Bucket On A Stick, down the many stairs (I only almost died twice), to get one more lap of Muntanya. With the sun going down and the city lighting up, that first drop was bliss. Tibidabo is lovely. A beautiful little park with a solid coaster, fascinating history, killer views and mass amounts of character, I've no idea how many of the people who make the PA pilgrimage yearly visit this place but I really hope it's most. Thanks to the sat nav being crap we ended up arriving back at PA and our hotel at gone 11pm but that didn't bother us too much. The feeling of already being checked into a hotel, so you can just get back and crash is underrated. Thanks for reading.

I guess you missed the part where I told you the crowds picked up on the Monday, that's fine, that part of the report comes soon... But it wasn't running like crap at all...? Your whole, "if you didn't have a f**king awful time you haven't seen the true PA" agenda is quite obnoxious honestly. I tell you lot I had 3 great days at PA and you say, "that's a fluke, it's not the true experience, it's an awful place, you're wrong". I tell you lot I've had 2 bad experiences with Phantasialand and you say, "oh, that's just bad luck mate, you're being a d**k, go back and try it again, that place is to die for". The double standards are quite hilarious really.

Says the man with Shame-hala and OzIris in his top 10... The unwashed masses descended on my 3rd day and operations were good, certainly a lot better than Merlin in recent years. Every seat filled, fast dispatches and quick restarts from breakdowns, not sure what else you expect? I had a sit down meal in the pizza restaurant near Baco on my 2nd day, it was lovely, you are mistaken.

For the years I've put off visiting, I apologise. For the jokes I've made with no reasoning behind them, I apologise. For ever believing the rubbish the enthusiast community spits out about you, I apologise. PortAventura, I'm on my knees, I beg you, please forgive me. This weekend just gone, me and my friend made our first ever trip to PA, a trip that's been years in the making, that kept getting put off, in part due to lack of interest but also due to reading lots of negative things online, well those people were doing it wrong and here's why.... Day 1 Saturday morning started with an extremely early Easyjet flight from Gatwick to Barcelona, a flight which sadly went by without any significant comedy. We arrived in Barcelona and it was time to try out a new car hire company, for those keeping track at home our relationship with car hire companies is patchy at best. A charming cheap little purple car was our chariot for this trip and it was too cute for even a miserable bastard like me to insult. As we set off for Tibidabo (the first park of our trip) it was pouring it down with rain, but this isn't Asia, surely this won't matter? After driving for 20 minutes up the insanely tight mountain roads to the brave boy car park (you can park at the bottom and take a bus or be brave and drive up the mountain and park at the entrance), the car park attendant informs us, "park's closed but I'll let you in the car park". Without really thinking we took the parking ticket and proceeded to drive into the empty car park, as we left he told us to pay at the ticket office before leaving. For a few moments we sat in the car thinking to ourselves, is this seriously happening? Why is it becoming so hard these days, we seem to be getting spited everywhere at the moment. Right, fair enough, time to grow up, let's walk to the ticket office, pay for this parking ticket we didn't use and ask the staff are they going to be open tomorrow. However, the ticket offices (located outside the park) were closed and the entry gate to the park was bolted shut, I guess we aren't paying for anything. Thankfully we had a friendly bloke working the barriers, who upon seeing we were English deemed it easier to just let us go rather than try to talk it out, top bloke. To be fair, the rain was quite heavy... Right, OK, we will try to come back tomorrow but for now let's head to PortAventura. The one and a half hour drive to PA went by without much to report, apart from the tolls which were a nasty surprise. We were staying onsite in Hotel Caribe, which can be best described as a collection of many 4 star Butlin's chalets. The room was clean, the bed was comfy, the bathroom was great and the noise was minimal, no complaints at all here. Upon entering the hotel car park, security give the car a once over, which in my eyes is absolutely fine, I'll happily put up with having to open the boot for a friendly security guard if it means everyone is safe. This was my view from the hotel car park, ugly isn't it? After checking in at the hotel, you are given your room key, which also doubles as your park entrance pass, so there's no more faffing about after the initial wait, you don't even need to check out, too easy. A short walk from the hotel later and we were now standing in one of the most universally moaned about parks in this hobby, let's go test those claims shall we. What a lovely view. Not going to lie we spent the first hour in the park well and truly lost. During this time we got a nice tasting toastie (I swear I've read the food isn't good here, I guess that's wrong) from Camila Cabello, who now apparently works in the China area of PA, small World eh. After this we tried to go ride the mine train, but got lost again and somehow ended up at the park's 3 woodies. Stampida After reading online that Stampida is either rough or crap, I went in thinking the worst and prepared for a beating, a beating that never came. Stampida is great! This racing woodie is damn good fun, has great pops of air time (sometimes taking me by surprise and putting a huge grin on my face), tons of fun laterals and the racing and duelling is fantastic! Easily the best CCI I've ridden, yes better than Zeus and Megafobia and not miles behind the outstanding racing GCI (Draak) at Efteling. This coaster just has so much character to it and was the sleeper hit of the trip, I just love it. Tomahawk While obviously not as good as it's big brother, this baby woodie is very well done and it's interactions with Stampida are genius, fantastic stuff. Right next to Tomahawk is a singing vulture, it was about this time I decided I like this park. El Diablo After what felt like forever we finally found the entrance to the mine train! This was my first ever Arrow mine train coaster and I can't wait to hunt down more, this thing is brilliant. This coaster just has something for everyone, 3 lifts, a mince through a shed, a drop out of the station like Helix, a long ride time to rest your legs, hilarious transitions and some genuinely forceful moments, amazing. Dragon Khan What a bitter disappointment this old school B&M was. It's not easy for me to say this because I've idolised this coaster for years and there's no denying it looks outstanding but honestly, what a waste this thing is. A force less first drop, followed by inversion after inversion with no attempt to shake things up is just lazy in my opinion. Some air time moments or some fun twisty bits really would have shaken up the layout but instead, it's just inversion after inversion, which bores me. A boring coaster is 1 thing but DK adds insult to injury with the fact if you are sitting in the outside seats things get quite rattly and unpleasant. I'm sorry Khan, but nah, not for me. Yes that queue board says Shambhala has a 10 minute queue, I hope that hurts the Shambhala fanboys that read this. Khan gave me a headache so I slithered into Sesame to buy something sugary and while there rode the Vekoma Junior. Tami-Tami +1 Shambhala Now full of coke and donuts we headed to Shambhala, a coaster many rave about and some even call their number 1, I'm sorry for what's about to happen. Even with low expectations going in, I still managed to walk away disappointed. Shambhala is good but it certainly isn't great and there's no way it's a top 10 ride in my eyes. The first drop is completely void of any forces and it just sort of happens, then every air time hill tries but ultimately fails to do anything exciting and the trim brake trimming an already mincing ride is hilarious. Shambhala's speed hill is the only part of the coaster that gives any sort of good air and you're trimmed by the aforementioned trim brake as you enter it! We rode Shambhala at least twice a day, in different seats, in the sun, in the rain, in the wind, in the morning, in the evening, in the afternoon and always the same result. Trust me I really wanted to love it but it's honestly so lacklustre. As with Khan it does look beautiful though. This crushing disappointment sent me to the toilet with crushing bowel movements, unlike Phantasialand, PortAventura let you deal with that in peace. After another lap on Stampida, El Diablo and Shambala we ended our day with Furius Baco. Furius Baco Countless time I've read Baco is one of the worst coasters out there and that it's so rough it's going to break my spine, well did it? Of course it didn't... Firstly credit to the park, they got this open after a lengthy breakdown with just an hour till close, worst operations in the World? I think not. Furius Baco isn't good, but it isn't rough either, it's just hilarious. Something about monkeys happens, then you launch, everything starts bouncing, you're flying around too fast to even see what's happening, you do an inline, it bounces round some water into the brakes, the end. That evening after a very pleasant day on park, I thought to myself, how can my experience with PA be so much different than everyone elses? The park looks fantastic, operations are good, the staff are very friendly, Baco didn't kill me, Shambhala and Khan are bit crap, the hotel is nice, the food is good and Stampida is brilliant. What's going on guys? Join me next time for Tibidabo and more PA goodness.

Depends what you want Flipper... The best roller coaster type in the World with little to no theming but loads of interactions with other rides and itself. or What I've been informed is a "good" coaster with lots of immersive theming, a storyline, special effects and lots of hype attached. Each to his own and all that.

It would appear it's all the rage these days for new attractions to open late, this will be no different.

I won't judge an unfinished refurb through a badly shot POV, but I'm really not liking those cheap looking pound land style portraits (the Haunted House ones and to a lesser extent the Duel ones were brilliant and really unnerving) and as expected that new theme disappoints me and by the end of the POV I was bored of it. Here's hoping the ride itself looks nice when complete, please.

Tomb staff were crap but on the whole staff were fine and I felt very sorry for the poor ones left out in the cold outside the closed attractions. Chessington opening and the poor bastards freezing their tits off is worth praising. Tomb's shambles and crap staff were a joke.

The Tomb ones were just rude and unprofessional, no not your normal early season nerves but on power trips. One of them slagging off their team leader to another member of staff, infront of guests, was grim.

If you say so... Not sure how they relate at all though.

Visited the park in the silly weather yesterday and had quite a good trip out. Not enough praise is being thrown their way for opening and putting on a brave face despite the spitey weather, so I shall give them credit. Well done Chessington!

Rode this mess yesterday, f**king appalling... The girls behind me were openly mocking how pathetic it was, of course not as creatively as me. As for the staff, I'm almost impressed power can go that far to your head in 2 days but Christ they were disgusting.