MattyB

Park Count
Thorpe - Loads
Phantasialand x2
Towers x1
Legoland Windsor x1
Chessington x1
Efteling x1
Holiday Park (now Plopsaland Deutschland) x1
Walibi Belgium x1
Bellewaerde x1
Gardaland x1
Movieland Italy x1
Walibi Holland x1

Coasters
New coasters: 26
New parks: 4
Current cred count: 434

Top 5 new coasters
Kondaa, Walibi Belgium. Sitting just outside my Top 10 outright, this is absolutely bonkers in the best possible way. The only mark against it is the double down which starts off the final third of the ride, which just feels a bit unnatural to me.
Karacho, Tripsdrill. Gerstlauer with some of their finest work. It sits just outside my Top 10%, is a great deal of fun. If the MCBR was slightly less harsh, this would be a lot higher in my rankings.
Expedition GeForce, Holiday Plopsaland Deutschland. It's good. The middle third is a bit boring, but the first drop and finale are fab. It's very classic early 00s Intamin.
Raptor, Gardaland. Good, not great. But theming is fab.
MecaLodon, Walibi Belgium. The Gerstlauer family triple launch coaster is something which people have raved about. I like it, especially once it warms up, but I'm not as big on it as most. The ride type has buckets of potential though.

Disappointments
YoY, Walibi Holland. I liked Jersey Devil at Six Flags Great Adventure. I was disappointed by YoY, which didn't offer much even with the duelling. I also have aged and the leg arrangement was uncomfortable for me.
Gardaland. It was nice and I enjoyed my day there. But it did feel a bit meh at the same time.
Hals-uber-Kopf, Tripsdrill. Unlike Mark, I haven't been blown away by either of the Vekoma STCs. They're fine, I can see why people enjoy them, but they don't click for me.

Other Notable Things
Danse Macabre, Efteling. This thing is superb.
Movieland Italy. What a strange park. But I had an absolute blast of a time.
Amazonia, Bellewaerde. A fantastic rapids-esque ride from Intamin with lots of cool quirks.
Slaughterhouse, Walibi Holland. I returned to Walibi's Halloween event, and this alone experience is so raw and visceral and just genuinely fabulous.
Us vs You, Walibi Holland. An international scare maze which feels like it's slipped under the scare attraction's radar, because this is bloody great.

Hello. How was your year?

Here's mine-

Parks visited
Efteling X5
Animal Kingdom X3
Hollywood Studios X1
Southend Adventure Island X1
Chessington X1
Schwaben Park X1
Tripsdrill X1
Legoland Deutschland X1
Hong Kong Disneyland X2
Ocean Park HK X1
Himeji Central Park X1
Parque Espana Shima X1
Nagashima Spa Land X1
Fuji Q X1
Disneyland Tokyo X2
Tokyo Disney Sea X3
Thorpe Park X2
Wiener Prater X1
Fantasiana X1
Epic Universe X2

New Rollercoasters ridden - 62

I'd say my top ten new rollercoasters of 2025 are as follows-
Flying Dinosaur - The most intense flyer out there. It is absolutely fantastic.
Stardust Racers Green - I love this ride, the flowing elements and air time are excellent and the duelling with yellow is so good.
Stardust Racers Yellow - I mean come on, they are both so good and theres very little in between them in terms of quality.
Steel Dragon 2000 - Aside from the really frustrating loading, this is a really long ride that does deliver. The air time at the end is also excellent.
Pyrenees - An Inverter that sits under the radar, this is a very good rollercoaster, it just has a really odd ending.
Hals Uber Kopf - The vekoma STC is so good. Both it and Fienna Force are so class. I thought this was a surprisingly forceful rollercoaster and really enjoyed it.
Hollywood Dream - A surprisingly good hyper coaster. I only got the chance to ride this backwards but I thought it was excellent.
Harakugei - A very good RMC but I find the loading procedures really take away the fun from a lot of Japanese parks. This is still awesome but its tiresome waiting for it .
Diavlo - I don't really care that this is just a batman clone, it really is an excellent version of the ride. It looks a little rusty and run done and its amazing that the park have bothered to keep it running. Glad to have got on it.
Zokkon - An excellent Intamin straddle coaster. Full of unique elements and excellent pacing.

Landmark moments from 2025
Rollback on Mandrill Mayhem where we were stuck just before the Statue helix. Star of some B- tier tiktok vlogs. Loved it.
Evacuated from the break run on Stardust Green. Lots of fun watching Stardust Yellow continue to run. Also managing to get on it after the death in September.
Finally making it to Tokyo Disney and getting on all the major rides multiple times. Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Sinbad, Indianna Jones, Winnie the Pooh and Beauty and the Beasts felt like life changing rides in my theme park career
Reclaiming the 'ridden all B&M's in Europe' after getting to Legoland Deutschland
Saying goodbye to way too many attractions this year. Kingda Ka, Muppets 3D, Six Flags America, Tough to be a Bug, Scorpion Express, Blade. Also our last ever rides on Dinosaur before its closure in 2026.

So please share your 2025. We love content.

Booked a visit for over the Xmas period. Can't wait to get back there! Danse Macabre is an amazing attraction!

Visited Efteling just over a week ago, I absolutely love this park and was very pleased to get on Dance Macabre for the first time (twice!). I hadn’t looked at any videos, pictures or reviews of it so really didn’t know what to expect other than it’s a bit like a ‘show’.
It was incredible! Very immersive, surprising, mesmerising, and magical. I found the story quite loose but the charm made up for it! A wonderful transition from the old into the new.

Chesington's far worse as you can see the character the park used to have and when you compare to the modern day equivalent, it has lost so so much. The way IP has become an invasive species at Chessington, is far worse then so so so many parks.

Barely much left from those days. No chill ride on the waterboat from the farm. No CCR or Loggers Leap. Spent many a time on the crazy golf or in model world.

Good old nostalgia eh?

I know it's the red tinted glasses but I love looking back at the videos of Thorpe from the 80's and 90's. There's an innocence to the park that doesn't really exist anymore.

Really cool post I found on Reddit, where a users dad manufactured the original Vampire trains (read the comments for more info).  Some awesome pics!
 
[Bat] hand and fabrication of cars at Arrow

NEW "World Premiere" - FULL TOUR Disneyland Paris 2025
 
New entrance to Studios opened today.  Looks pretty decent!

Just a post about some Thorpe Park history some people may not know.  In the early 2000's, the park installed its first fast track system, which was very similar to the ones used at Disney.  You would put your park ticket in the machine and receive a printed fast track ticket.  The system was free to use, and ran for about 1-2 seasons until they decided to follow Universal and charge for the service The machines were ripped out but you can still see remnants of the system today.
 
Tidal Wave:
 
The steel structure with the red roof covering the F&B kiosk was the original covering for the fast track machines
 

 
Nemesis Inferno had an actual area for the machines included as part of the design. You can see this to the right of the queue line entrance, where the retail kiosk is now located.
 

 
 
The ones for Colossus was located where the F&B unit at the bottom of the hill (near Samurai) is now located. 
 
Loggers Leap also had machines installed, and these were located next to the entrance to the queue line.
 
Hope this was some fun bits of information from the parks history!
 

So I visited Efteling for the first time recently.  This park exceeded my expectations, and I was going to say its a Disney quality park.  However, considering Efteling is older than Disneyland, should I be saying "are the Disney parks Efteling quality?"
 
We spent 2 days at the park arriving around midday on the first.  We didn't realise there was a national holiday, so the park was quite busy, however queue times averaged around the 30min mark, with Danse Macabre having a 60min queue pretty much all day for both days.
 
Symbolica - Loved this ride, the level of theming was very high, and refreshing to see they didn't resort to using screens inside the attraction.  There is a bit where all 3 cars face a balcony, which would have been an ideal place to put some screens, however there was a lovely diorama with butterflies so props to Efteling.  Also great to see the park celebrating their mascot Pardoes by giving them their own attraction.   I also loved the fact that you can choose between 3 different alternate endings, however we only got to experience the one.  When we returned to do a re-ride at the end of the 2nd day the ride had closed for technical issues and didn't reopen.  
 
Vogel Rok - Awesome indoor coaster, decent amount of theming in the queue.  Quiet forceful in some places.
 
Joris en de Draak - loved these dual coasters, probably one of my favourites of the whole trip.  Loads of fun pops of airtime.  Loved the little details, such as the flag spinning at the end to signify the winner and the flags dropping in the station on the winning side.
 
Droomvlucht - loved this ride, the sets were impressively large.  Also was not expecting the spiral ending.  
 
Pagode - I've never been on this type of ride before, and we rode it as the sun was setting.  Beautiful views across the park.
 
Python - I was surprised at how well this rode and was quite forceful.  I think its great that Efteling decided to completely re-track and keep its first major thrill ride, where other parks would have removed it.
 
De Vliegende Hollander -  this ride was amazing, the level of theming in the queue and the station blew me away.  Reminded me of PoTC.  The bit of the ride that goes into complete darkness with the fog actually made me a bit claustrophobic, and the ships "jumping" out of the dark were a nice touch.  The coaster portion was decent, and we got lightly splashed at the end.  The area theming was amazing as well.
 
Baron 1898 - decent ride, amazing theming.  Probably the only "let down" ride of the trip (and I use that term loosely as it is a world class ride) as the only other dive coaster I have been to compare it to is Oblivion.  
 
Carnaval Festival - loved this, reminded me of Small World (although the tune is not as offensive as Small World haha) and Toyland Tours.  Love to see these old school attractions still running.
 
Fairytale Forest - we spent around 2 hours in this, and we missed a lot.  We underestimated how big this area is!  My standout for this first visit was the Indian Waterlillies.
 
Danse Macabre - this attraction was the standout attraction for me of the whole trip.  I don't think there's much more I can say about it other than its incredible.  We waited both days until it got dark to ride this as the darkness really added to the atmosphere.  I would say Efteling have knocked it out of the park with this ride, its so well done.  Probably the best POV I have seen online is the DLP Welcome one (link here: NEW RIDE Danse Macabre FULL ON RIDE - Efteling - World Premiere Dynamic Motion Stage).
 
Park Ops - this is an extremely well run park, each of the F&B units had at least 3 staff in them, and the park and toilets were spotless.  All of the attractions were running multiple trains/cars and the queues moved quickly.  On our 2nd day we guesstimated they had a gate figure of around 10-12,000 and the park just swallowed it up.  Each attraction appears to have been built with throughputs in mind, and considering the park doesn't run a fast track system they appear to do well with this.
 
I got asked by a member of staff on a coffee unit what I thought of the park, and when I gave my feedback (which was positive) they said "thank you".  I got the impression the staff were really proud to work there, and took ownership of it.
 
We ate at the pancake restaurant Polles Keuken (amazing pancakes, although I would recommend pre-booking as the walk up queue can get quite long). The thematic elements in the restaurant added to the whole experience.  We had lunch/early dinner at the Het Witte Paard restaurant.  This was was around 15 EURO for a decent hot meal and drink which is amazing VFM in my opinion.  In fact, the whole experience I felt was really good VFM, with park tickets costing 38 EURO and parking 12 EURO.  My only gripe is that the hot drinks were all one size (small) and were 5 EURO, but this wasn't a big deal.  We also ate at the Fabula Restaurant which was very good.  The indoor play structures looked a lot of fun for the kids.
 
We visited the Winter area that they had just finished setting up which was very well done.
 
Park merchandise was very good, and I spent a small fortune on gifts, something I rarely do at a theme park.  They also sell the various scents from the attractions which was a very unique thing to see.
 
Parkwide and attraction sound/music were on point and very memorable.  
 
Entry to the park was quick and efficient, and the park entrance building is amazing!  Construction on the new hotel looks like its progressing well, and I'm sure will be an awesome addition once it opens.
 
Attractions we missed:
 
Fata Morgana - closed for maintenance
Villa Volta - didn't get time to get round to it
Pirana - didn't get time to get round to it
Raveleijn - they were running one show a day and we set an alarm to ensure we would be there on time.  However we forgot we set the alarm and the alarm went off when we were in the middle of the queue for Baron.  
Stoomtrein - didn't get time to get round to it
Max & Moritz - didn't get time to get round to it
 
I'm sure we missed a whole lot more as the park is massive, but gives me a reason for a return trip!
 
All in all, an amazing park.  This park and Phantasialand are filled with magic, wonder and whimsy which I think is missing from a lot of theme parks now.
 
We stayed at the Center Parcs De Vossemeren onsite hotel which is around a 1 hour drive from the park.  We payed 40 EURO (each) a night for 3 nights which included access to the waterpark and breakfast!  We took a day out of our trip to chill at the Center Parcs which was awesome!
 
Can't wait to see what Efteling do next!
 
 
 
 
 

This weekend I went to Paulton’s fan day, the park certainly put on a lovely event. 
  Several tours/BTS were carried out throughout the day, from seeing Cobra’s ride workshop, Storm Chaser’s OP cabin/train workshop process, the new construction area and much more.    We had over an hour of ERS in Tornado Springs and Ghostly Manor (more on that soon) as well as a lovely buffet in Mel’s Diner and a Reveal/Q&A with park management.    The biggest news/reveal of course was the new Vikings area (Valgard), which will include a new coaster, flat ride, restaurant and also re-themed Cobra (soon to be Raven). Surprisingly, the new coaster will be a Gerstlauer eurofighter, but hopefully the park will carry it off well, I find the smaller ones the better rides usually.    Vague hints of a new water ride the following year were revealed, but not much else. Very exciting still. Magma will be a goner later this year. At least for Paultons. The lodges are several years away still.    They also did a Q&A and showed how they build Ghostly Manor, which given the areas footprint/show building is impressive they got that all in. They also did a silent disco, but I left at that point.    So, Ghostly Manor? My thoughts? It’s a lovely compact dark ride mixing screens and scenes nicely (they have 10 of them), plus the queue line is nicely done too. Whilst it doesn’t hit the same way as Alty Mans or Danse Macabre (which I did days earlier), it’s a decent addition to the park and great to see them finally obtaining a dark ride. Should suit the park nicely.    Interesting times ahead perhaps. 

Paultons Park are pooing all over the competition in the UK aren’t they.   Amazing.  The change in this place since I went as a child is astounding - it’s unrecognisable.
 
Magma going is a weird one - feels like it’s only been there for about 20 minutes 

Studios/Adventure world still has some way to go on the park front, but this actually looks great. 
 
Must admit I had a strange liking towards studio one, but excellent work on this section. Hopefully we will see similar with the rest of the park in due course. 

It'll look very weird though given you'll need to walk through a load of dead empty space to get to Frozen Land next year and beyond even Lion King being added.
 
Making the best of the initial bad designs with the new Studio 1 mind.

A massive upgrade there!
 
To be honest all the changes they’re making in the studios park look incredible.  Adventure World is going to be a very good park when ‘Adventure Way’ and the lake area open up. Lion King will add so much more as well.
 
They have also quietly planted a literal forest around the park. It looks like it’s going to become a proper Disney experience next year.
 
All very exciting - DLP will have 2 fantastic parks, with hopefully more changes coming to the main park soon (space mountain surely!)
 
Can’t wait for my visit later in the year - I kind of wish I could push it back by 6-12 months though!

NEW "World Premiere" - FULL TOUR Disneyland Paris 2025
 
New entrance to Studios opened today.  Looks pretty decent!

I did a Hyperia coaster climb this evening.
 
There was some chatter when it was made live about the cost being expensive (£120). It is, no beating around the bush. But it is worth it. My experience was about 3hrs all in, and included lots of time spent scaling the ride, time spent in the console and time spent around the turnaround outside the station, with lots of opportunities for photos, fabulous hosts and a great vibe. 
 
Find attached a variety of photos (of me). I'll write a proper TPM article later.

Just got back from first trip to Europa. 
 
Wow. Where to start. 
Stayed in hotel Colleseio which was impressive, and to be honest a strange experience in itself that such a lavish hotel was linked to a theme park. 
 
3 days on park and 1 day Rulantica. &nbsp
 
The aesthetics of the park are incredible, it’s impossible not to feel the passion and pride that the Mack family have for their park. Everywhere you look it’s packed with hidden gems and is fresh, vibrant and visually stunning. More so, even after 3 days I know there’s so much more to discover, and the rich theming throughout really does elevate this park. 
 
The ride selection is second to none. I went for the coasters, but fell in love with the dark rides! Pirates detail was impressive, but live all the little hidden gems throughout the park. In terms of the biggies. Voltron was my no1 followed by Wodan and Silver Star, but also really enjoyed blue fire, the last inversion really something. 
 
Heard people talking up the ops for years, and was always questioning why people went on about them so much. Well not any more! Absolute perfection and efficiency. So obvious that the park is all about guest experience, the no nonsense approach in the stations is so refreshing to see, and keeps the queues down to sub 20 even on popular rides on a fairly busy day! 
 
Overall can’t wait to get back, going to be hard to find a park to top the all round package that Europa provides, yes there’s parks with better coasters etc, but it’s the combo of the selection of rides, theming, cleanliness, food and beverage offerings and most of all OPERATIONS! 
 
If you havent been. Get out there!! 

Wow - that came out of the blue.
 
I love the waterside location, and it’s cool to see it could be different to anything they’ve done before.

An interesting choice of location however given how poorly the other parks have done in the area, not to mention Disney’s values and focus on inclusivity.
 
Still.  It’s very exiting to see Disney spending so much money on their parks again recently.
 
This could very well end up being the cheaper option to visit from the UK compared with a trip to Orlando (although you wouldn’t have all the neighbouring parks of course). And it would also open up a great Disney stopover for people flying to Europe from Asia and Australia. Good news for DLP and Universal GB.

So finally manged to get Hyperia today.  First ride was back row, and it was insane!  2nd ride was towards the back.  Also did some rides I haven't done in years.  Got 5 laps on Flying Fish, did Vortex & Zodiac ( which I immediatley regretted - getting older and lots of spinning do not go hand in hand), Quantum and Rush.  Tidal Wave was a godsend today.  Also did Swarm, SAW and Nemesis. We ate at Vibes which was very good, and price was reasonable.  I also took some travel sickness tablets with me today which made the difference!
 
More thoughts on Hyperia:
 
Was surprised how much you are out of the seat.
Didn't think it needed to be much longer, maybe a helix or additional bunny hop.  
Queue line leaves a lot to be desired, also think they need some sort of screening on the lift motor as its very loud.
 
Surprisingly quite busy.  Colossus broke down and was stuck on the lift when we arrived.  Assuming it moved to one train operation as the queue was 60mins for a lot of the day.  Stealth was out all day.

So finally manged to get Hyperia today.  First ride was back row, and it was insane!  2nd ride was towards the back.  Also did some rides I haven't done in years.  Got 5 laps on Flying Fish, did Vortex & Zodiac ( which I immediatley regretted - getting older and lots of spinning do not go hand in hand), Quantum and Rush.  Tidal Wave was a godsend today.  Also did Swarm, SAW and Nemesis. We ate at Vibes which was very good, and price was reasonable.  I also took some travel sickness tablets with me today which made the difference!
 
More thoughts on Hyperia:
 
Was surprised how much you are out of the seat.
Didn't think it needed to be much longer, maybe a helix or additional bunny hop.  
Queue line leaves a lot to be desired, also think they need some sort of screening on the lift motor as its very loud.
 
Surprisingly quite busy.  Colossus broke down and was stuck on the lift when we arrived.  Assuming it moved to one train operation as the queue was 60mins for a lot of the day.  Stealth was out all day.

So didn't manage to get Hyperia today 😔
 
Had a surprisingly smooth ride on SAW.  Nemesis is awesome and has aged like a fine wine.  Did Stealth and Swarm, had a Burger King and a pint, and then went home.
 
I do feel for the park, they have had issues with their last two installations (Derron and Hyperia).   

I would expect a lot of the Merlin staff are probably eyeing up a potential move over to Universal at some point.  Considering the redundancies the company is going through, I wouldn't be surprised.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz95n2837vgo
 
It's happening!