Matt N

Hi guys. Some on here have been theme park enthusiasts for a very long time, and over a period of multiple years, you’re bound to learn a thing or two. Whether you’ve learned what you most enjoy or whether you’ve learned how to get the best out of a park or ride, years of visiting parks is bound to have taught you things and shaped your perspectives in some way. I know it certainly has for me! With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what have you learned in your years as a theme park enthusiast? What have your years of park visiting experience taught you, and what new perspectives have you gained from years of coaster riding and park visiting? I’ll get the ball rolling with some of the things I’ve learned over my years of theme park visiting… Personally, I can currently think of two, off the top of my head: The first thing I can think of is that you can’t always judge a coaster based on only one ride. In my early years of theme park enthusiasm, I often only rode things once and didn’t get what people said about needing multiple rerides to fully appreciate something. I used to think that if I truly loved a coaster, I knew it from the very first ride. The second I first got off The Swarm in July 2014, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I first got off Mako in August 2016, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I got off Icon in August 2018, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was right up there with Mako (despite it now only being my #11, it felt like one of the times Mako came closest to being dethroned when I first got off in 2018). But in recent years, I’ve grown increasingly sceptical of my previous theory that you can fully get the measure of a revered coaster based on only one ride. The key formative moment that taught me this was when I went to Florida last year and rode both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi, amongst others, for the first time. Both rides were brilliant on the first run… but I wasn’t instantly sold on them being absolutely top tier for me. In both cases, though, the second ride really was the charm; both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi were catapulted into that top tier after I took a reride, and it was the second ride that showed me just how great they both were. To some extent, I also experienced this with Hyperia at Thorpe Park recently; I absolutely loved it the first time, but it took the second ride to make me conclusively think that it was absolutely top tier. Now I will say that this mainly applies to hyped up, revered coasters for me; I still feel I can get the true measure of a kiddie coaster, Reverchon spinning wild mouse or Zamperla Volare from one ride without feeling the need to reride. If I actively don’t rate something, it’s unlikely that a second ride will change that. But in those cases where I love something, but I’m not sure if I think it’s truly top tier, I’ve learned that it sometimes takes a second ride to truly determine the full measure of it. Sometimes, of course, my initial opinion won’t change that much or it might possibly even decrease, but in some other glorious cases, everything falls into place with that reride, and the second ride shows me how truly top tier a coaster is when the first ride didn’t quite. The other thing I’ve learned is that intensity isn’t everything, and it’s fun and rerideability that’s truly important to me. In my very early years of riding big coasters, I used to be mildly dismissive of things that weren’t intense. In my early years of big coaster riding at Alton Towers, for example, my mentality was “1.4m height restriction or bust” once I was tall enough to ride the big 1.4m coasters. But over the years, I’ve grown to realise that there can be a point at which intensity is too much, and that the most enjoyable coaster experiences for me are the ones that are just plain fun and really rerideable. Intensity can definitely contribute to a fun and highly enjoyable ride for me, and being fun, thrilling and rerideable are definitely key components of a coaster that ranks highly for me, but I have definitely learned that the coasters that blow your head off with intensity are often not the ones I enjoy the most, and there are some coasters that aren’t particularly intense that I rate very highly. Hagrid’s at Universal is not an overly intense coaster, but it’s just such utterly joyous fun that I enjoyed it immensely and couldn’t not place it in my top 10! Wicker Man at Alton Towers is not an overly intense coaster, but the fun airtime and pacing makes me laugh so much that it can’t not be in my top 10 and 10/10 tier! Rides like these do not necessarily blow your head off with intensity, but are ridiculously good fun, and it’s rides like these that taught me that I truly care most about that combination of fun, thrills and rerideability rather than out-and-out intensity. Those are just some of the lessons I’ve learned over my years of theme park enthusiasm; if I think of any more, I’ll post them! But I’d be interested to know; what lessons have you learned in your years of coaster riding and theme park visiting? What perspectives have your years of experience unearthed?

Funnily enough, my dad was saying to me when we were at Thorpe on 18th August “Let’s take bets on how long those actors last… I’m saying they’ll be gone by the end of summer”… it would seem he was quite possibly right! However, is it a possibility that they’re just being re-allocated for Oktoberfest and Fright Nights?

In an intriguing move, it seems as though Rumba Rapids will be closing from 9th September, with no reopening date specified, according to the Ride Availability page. Could this be simple cost-saving, or could it be something more?

I wasn't a massive fan of it in initial pictures, but I understand the need for it and I have to say that it doesn't look as bad in person. I'm still not madly keen on it, as it does seem to make the queue seem even more like you're penned in than you already did before, but it's not as bad as I expected in person and I think it's good that the park is trying to retrospectively shade some of its queues.

The new site looks awesome; good work, all!

I have some throughput timings and insights from my visit to Thorpe Park on Sunday. The readings I was able to get were as follows: Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains) - 764pph (2 trains, average of 4, 18th August 2024) Hyperia (Theoretical: 1,050pph on 2 trains) - 765pph (2 trains, average of 9, 18th August 2024) Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 932pph (2 trains, average of 8, 18th August 2024) Note: This reading was skewed downwards by one particularly slow dispatch; prior to that, the average was over 1,000pph. Saw The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars) - 853pph (unknown number of cars, average of 10, 18th August 2024) The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains) - 882pph (2 trains, average of 5, 18th August 2024) In terms of some more general insights: Saw and Colossus were operating about as well as I’ve ever seen them operate. Saw in particular seemed to be operated excellently! Hyperia was operated very well, with little to no stacking; a train was frequently starting to head up the lift hill as the train in front hit the brake run! However, its throughput is definitely inhibited by how slowly the train moves along the final brake run; due to this, there is unfortunately quite a bit of idle time in the station between trains. If they were able to sort this out and make the train return to the station more quickly, I think they would get much closer to that 1,050pph theoretical figure. Operations on Nemesis Inferno were pretty good; it quite frequently wasn’t stacking! I did notice quite a few empty seats on my train, though; maybe they could be slightly more forthcoming in encouraging different groups to sit together? The Swarm was a bit of a weak link, unfortunately. There seemed to be very little urgency to the operations on there; I honestly think the 882pph reading I got was quite a generous assessment of the situation. Dispatch times of multiple minutes were not uncommon. It’s a shame, as when operated well, Swarm can be a real throughput powerhouse! I do wonder if the return of the baggage hold on here would help; people dealing with baggage on the platform does seem to delay the opening of the airgates and the swift movement of people onto the ride somewhat.

Now I've ridden Hyperia, I'm changing my answer to an emphatic yes! No other UK coaster provides sustained weightlessness quite like that, and some of those elements are something to behold; the first drop, the non-inverting Immelmann and the outerbank into the inversion are three absolutely world-class elements, and as a sequence, that successive trio of elements is absolute perfection! Yes, it's not the longest coaster in the world, but the length didn't bother me one bit. The negative g-forces and speed are so, so good on there, and the fact that every element hits and hits hard makes Hyperia an absolutely sublime coaster for me! It's easily my favourite UK coaster, and it sits in my overall top 5! We're lucky to have such a phenomenal ride in this country!

Following my visit to Thorpe Park yesterday, the first new addition of 2024 has graced my top 10! Since I last posted an updated list in this thread, I’ve also rejigged the order of my rankings a bit, so the order is slightly different to what it was before. With this in mind, my current top 10, with a coaster count of 123, is as follows (new addition in italics, altered placements underlined) : Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: Even 8 years after my first ride, this coaster still reigns supreme for me, and my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced that! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10 Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: It may not quite be #1, but my goodness was it close, and VelociCoaster would certainly be a worthy contender for the top spot! There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are quite a few sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a firm favourite of mine! 10/10 Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I did rank this below Mako of the two B&M Hypers I've ridden due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako's strongest moments, in my view, and while smooth in its own right, it isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako. I also felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10 Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! There are also some absolutely top-drawer moments of ejector airtime elsewhere in the layout, and the ride is smooth and rerideable! In terms of why I moved it up when I haven’t reridden it, this is because in retrospect, I think I was overly harsh on Iron Gwazi at the time, fixating on its very tiniest imperfections to try and quantify the slight disappointment of it not quite living up to my wildly high expectations on the very first go. This is going to sound odd, but Iron Gwazi is a coaster where the more I sit back and think about it, the more I actually love it. Thinking back, it grew on me considerably the second and third times I did it once the weight of expectation was off its shoulders, and it is genuinely a top tier ride that is more than deserving of a top 5 placement for me! 10/10 Hyperia - Thorpe Park: What a sublime ride! I was excited for Hyperia, and it did not disappoint! I love a good hyper, and Hyperia is a phenomenal one! For starters, the ride is primarily designed around weightlessness, and it delivers this excellently; you seem to spend half of the ride pinned out of the seat in some capacity! The first three big elements on the ride are an obscenely perfect sequence. The first drop is absolutely unhinged and so, so good, delivering excellent sustained ejector, the non-inverting Immelmann is sublime and offers both brilliant speed rushing up into it and top-drawer sustained ejector coming out of it, and that outerbanked turn into the inversion is wild and pins you right of your seat with top-tier sustained sideways ejector! The zero-g stall is not quite up there with the other elements, but it is still excellent, with sustained hangtime, and the final two elements after the trim were surprisingly excellent, with both the outerbanked turn and the final airtime hill delivering! Overall, then, Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster, in my view, and it definitely lived up to the hype for me. It’s so good to have a coaster this brilliant 2 hours from home, that I can most probably ride at least once annually! 10/10 Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10 Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10 SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa: I had remembered liking this ride back in 2016, but my reride in 2023 was even better than I’d previously remembered! I love a B&M Dive Coaster, and this was a fantastic one! The sustained airtime over both drops was absolutely phenomenal, and the sheer size of them produced a brilliant sensation of speed throughout the ride! You typically think of Dive Coasters for their initial vertical drop, but interestingly, I actually thought that the second vertical drop on SheiKra delivered just as much as the first if not more! Overall, SheiKra was phenomenal, and a really pleasant surprise; I often said that I preferred Oblivion, but I’d now say that I comfortably prefer SheiKra, as I do feel that the added height and length really add something to it! 10/10 Wicker Man - Alton Towers: Wicker Man is a fantastic GCI coaster that I absolutely love! It may not look like much on paper, but I find it to be an enormously fun and rerideable coaster that never fails to put a huge smile on my face! I find it to be a really fast-paced coaster with some really fun twists and turns and some surprising pops of airtime, with some particular favourite elements of mine being the initial s-bend drop, where you gain brilliant speed incredibly quickly, and the big drop out of the high u-turn and following airtime hill, with both elements providing some excellent airtime that really whips you out of the seat! Overall, I find Wicker Man a hugely fun and rerideable wooden coaster with awesome airtime, twists and pacing, and I think it’s a ride that is definitely far more than the sum of its parts, personally! I decided to bump it up a few spots after my most recent visit in 2024, where it was running so well on the 2 rides I had; the airtime was kicking, the ride was blisteringly fast-paced, and it just made me laugh and smile so much! Somewhat similarly to Hagrid’s, Wicker Man just takes the raw fun factor to a whole new level for me! 10/10 Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando: I had pretty low expectations for Ice Breaker, as its reviews are generally middling to negative, but I have to say that it massively exceeded expectations for me; it was a phenomenal little ride that I absolutely loved! I should say that the much-maligned “comfort collars” have been removed, so I experienced the ride without them, but I found it to be fantastic, with a fun and punchy swing launch, a backwards spike with some brilliant floater airtime, some surprisingly excellent pops of ejector airtime in places, some fun twists and turns, and a smooth and fun ride experience throughout! The trains are a little tight to get into and out of, but I found the restraints unobtrusive when I was sat down enjoying the ride, so I didn’t find them to be an issue overall. All in all, I thought Ice Breaker was a fantastic ride that hugely exceeded my expectations; it may not have quite been my favourite coaster I rode in Florida, but I dare say that coaster-wise, it was possibly the sleeper hit of my 2023 trip in terms of how much it exceeded my expectations! I expected very little, but I ended up absolutely loving the ride, personally! 10/10 The unfortunate casualty of the most recent addition to my top 10 has been Icon, which has now dropped out. I do love Icon to bits, and it’s still just about a 10/10 tier ride for me (it’s now the lowest ranking ride in this tier), but it’s the ride that’s tended to bear the brunt of the collateral damage of new additions to my top 10 in recent years. I do love the airtime, the fun factor and the way it all flows and meshes together wonderfully and encapsulates a lot of different elements, but one thing that’s become more evident as I’ve ridden more coasters is that it lacks any particular standout “wow” elements compared to things I rank more highly. For a ride to really stand out for me these days, it has to either take the fun factor to an entirely new level (e.g. Hagrid’s, Wicker Man) or it needs a couple of real standout elements, and compared to other rides in the 10/10 tier, I don’t think Icon delivers on either of those things quite as well, so I have found it sliding down the rankings in recent years. There could be a bit of recency bias at play here, as it’s easily the 10/10 tier ride I last rode the longest ago (my last ride was in 2019), but those are my current thoughts. For those interested, my wider top 30 is currently as follows (I’ve also done a bit of rejigging here…): Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10) Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10) Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10) Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10) SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10) Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10) Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10) Stealth - Thorpe Park (9/10) Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10) Nemesis Reborn - Alton Towers (9/10) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10) Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - Universal Studios Florida (9/10) Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10) Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10) The Swarm - Thorpe Park (8/10) Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10) Rock’n’Rollercoaster - Disney’s Hollywood Studios (8/10) Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10) Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10) Thirteen - Alton Towers (8/10) Rita - Alton Towers (8/10) Eurosat CanCan Coaster - Europa Park (7/10)

Earlier in the day, I promised to write a longer review of Hyperia when I got home. Well, here it is! While it's not exactly the aspect of the project I was most interested in, I'll start by giving a few cursory thoughts on the theming and the area... The Area One aspect of Hyperia that has been heavily criticised is the theming and the area. I have to say that I did not personally get the hate for this; the front-of-house areas look fine to me. It's nothing breathtaking, but I think it's functional and looks perfectly fine. I quite like the black and gold aesthetic, I quite like the station, I quite like the plaza, the queue landscaping is nice enough, and the queue is by no means terrible (although not anything overly inspiring either). In terms of some aspects I would critique, however: The queue could maybe have had a more interesting and less contained layout. I would have loved it if the queue had wound around the ride Wicker Man-style and offered various different vantage points. The ride area itself is quite unsightly at present, particularly the area around the splashdown. The lake with all of the weeds in it looks quite ugly, in my view, and I don't think the actual splashdown area is particularly pretty either. The rust-coloured splashdown track in particular does not look good at all. However, you don't notice this too much on the ride, and the ride area will probably grow to look better with time. Speaking of the splash effect, the whole splashdown is an idea that had such promise, but has turned out to be a complete damp squib. It seems to have completely died only a couple of months into operation, but I did see it working on my visit 2 months ago, if I'm remembering correctly, and I think it's a completely redundant effect even when it works. That sort of effect is designed primarily for visual appeal for non-riders, so when it's hidden behind a 7ft fence and no one can see it properly, it completely loses its purpose. If I'm being pedantic, I'm not a huge fan of how the maintenance shed looks and I would have preferred for it to parallel the style of the station. That is an extremely pedantic point, however; it's not really a big deal. Overall, though, I wasn't too displeased with the area and theming. It's not some spectacular theming extravaganza by any stretch, but I think it overall looks nice, clean, stylish and perfectly functional. I think the style works well for the sort of ride Hyperia is, and I was never expecting heavy theming from a hyper coaster. Let's now move onto the far more interesting aspect of the project; the ride itself... The Ride Now Hyperia has been a ride that I've been excited for for absolutely ages. I watched its build process with great anticipation, and I had high expectations for the ride. But the question is; did it live up to those expectations? Well, dear reader, my answer is; yes, it definitely did! I had 3 rides today, one in row 8 and two in the back row, and Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster experience, in my view! The negative g-forces are absolutely absurd; the ride advertises 14.8 seconds of negative g-force, and let me tell you, I can fully believe that figure! They've designed this ride for weightlessness and I think it delivers; you seem to spend most of the ride duration pinned out of your seat in some capacity! The speed is also absurd; it's easy to forget just how fast Hyperia is, but let me tell you that you're quickly reminded of just how fast 81mph is when you're actually on the ride! The sense of speed in parts of Hyperia's layout is ridiculous! For me, an element-by-element walkthrough of Hyperia goes something like this: The first outerbanked turn out of the station before the lift hill is utterly pointless; I don't know why this couldn't have just been a regular turn. The outerbanked version seemingly serves no purpose other than to be mildly awkward and uncomfortable. The lift hill is very fast. I liked the views from the top! The first drop is absolutely unhinged, and probably my favourite part of the ride! I'm a fan of a big first drop, and Hyperia's is truly wild; the ejector airtime is absolutely sublime and surprisingly sustained, and the 180 degree twist adds a really interesting additional sensation! It's definitely right up there as one of my favourite first drops I've ever done, alongside those of Mako and Iron Gwazi! The Immelmann is also absolutely sublime! I love the sheer sense of speed you get going up into it, and the sustained ejector airtime you get coming out of it is absolutely top-dollar! You're pinned out of your seat for a good couple of seconds, and the airtime is absolutely sensational! The Immelmann is another element that's right up there as one of my favourite elements on the ride! The outerbank into an inversion was a very hyped up element of Hyperia, and I have to say that it did not disappoint; it's absolutely insane! The sustained sideways ejector here is absolutely wild; you are pinned sideways out of your seat for what feels like seconds and seconds, and the negative g-forces are fairly strong in terms of force here as well! I'm not entirely convinced that I prefer sideways airtime to good old straight airtime, personally, but this element is absolutely brilliant nonetheless! The zero-g stall is an excellent element, but definitely weaker than the other three big ones for me. With that being said, you still get some very fun hangtime, and it is probably the most convincing example of a zero-g stall I've yet done (the other two stalls I've done are VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi). I dare say I still find the zero-g stall a slightly overhyped element type based on my experiences of them, but this one did convince me of the merits of the zero-g stall a little more than VelociCoaster's or Iron Gwazi's did; it is a very good element with some excellently fun hangtime! The stall is fun, but not quite up there as a standout moment of Hyperia for me. With that being said, it has very tough competition in this regard; if this element were not on a ride as stacked with brilliant elements as Hyperia, it would probably stand out more! The splashdown trim is quite noticeable. I didn't find it uncomfortable enough to significantly detract from the ride, but the braking force is strong enough that it does seem to contort your face a tad... The outerbanked turn after the splashdown was a surprisingly excellent element for me! It seemed to start with you getting some really decent sideways floater that then transitioned into a surprisingly strong pop of ejector, and I found that really interesting and fun in terms of how it rode! The airtime hill into the brakes is an excellent way to finish with a bang; that hill provides a lovely pop of good, clean, surprisingly strong ejector airtime! On this coaster, every single element hits and hits hard; there is a strong selection of standout "wow" moments on Hyperia. The first drop, the Immelmann and the outerbank into an inversion are all absolutely world-class elements, and that whole first sequence is just perfection! The other elements also hit well and provide good thrills and weightlessness, and I don't think there's one bit of Hyperia that doesn't deliver. Well, other than maybe the trim, and that weird turn before the lift hill... As per usual with Mack Rides, the trains with overhead lap bars are immensely comfortable. I think Hyperia's are perhaps the most comfortable example of this train style I've experienced. In terms of smoothness; there is a rattle. It's noticeable. But it wasn't strong enough that it massively bothered me. It was more that I could feel a bit of a shaking sensation rather than that the rattle was actively hurting me or massively detracting from the experience. It's no worse than the mild rattle of, say, Stealth. The ride was overall very comfortable and enjoyable for me, and there were no severe jolts or anything (roughness-wise, I tend to find myself more sensitive to sudden jolts than rattling). In terms of some comparisons; Hyperia is comfortably my favourite coaster at Thorpe Park (it was previously Stealth), comfortably my favourite UK coaster (it was previously Wicker Man) and also comfortably my favourite Mack ride (it was previously Icon). In terms of my overall rankings; out of 123 ridden coasters, I've conservatively settled on the #5 spot, behind Mako, VelociCoaster, Silver Star and Iron Gwazi (in that order). If I were to offer up some pedantic hair-splitting critiques that explain why it's not my #1, and why it's not higher than #5: The rattle. Hyperia's rattle didn't overly bother me at all, but the coasters above Hyperia have a more perfect blissfully smooth feel to the point where it's almost an active positive attribute in itself. The trim. I didn't find it overly uncomfortable, but it is quite noticeable, more so than on Mako and Silver Star, and as I said, it does sort of contort your face a bit from the braking force, which isn't the case on Mako or Silver Star. The fact that the ride lacks straight airtime hills. As sublime as Hyperia's sideways and inverted airtime elements are and as plentiful as the sustained weightlessness is, nothing quite beats a good old straight airtime hill for me, and Hyperia does have somewhat of a shortage of traditional straight airtime moments. I know those are very pedantic points, and pretty much entirely based on personal preference, but when you're talking about the top 5 and determining exact placements, I think I can afford to get pedantic! When the coasters in question are this good, it gets competitive at the top, and I have little choice other than to split hairs! One legitimate critique I will offer of the ride itself is with regard to the capacity. It's not the highest for a brand new major ride, at 700-800pph, but I think a key reason for that has nothing to do with the park's operations and may have something to do with the brake run. They were operating brilliantly, and stacking was very rare, but the train seems to take a very, very long time to return to the station and moves along the brake run track very, very slowly. This results in more idle time in the station, and if they were able to speed up the train's movement through the brake run, it might improve the capacity. Hopefully this is something the park can look into in the future. But overall, I absolutely loved Hyperia! It's my favourite coaster at Thorpe Park, my favourite coaster in the UK and sits in my top 5! The weightlessness is sublime, the sense of speed is absurd, the elements are absolutely top-drawer, and all in all, it's just an absolutely sublime coaster! What a brilliant investment for Thorpe Park and the UK theme park industry! On a side note, here are a few photos I took of the ride:

18th August 2024: Thorpe Park Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the day of my return to Thorpe Park to finally ride Hyperia! I was going to Thorpe today seeking sweet, sweet redemption… I’d already been unsuccessful on a previous attempt to ride Hyperia back in June, with me having to agonisingly watch it test before it reopened 2 days later… that tasted particularly bitter, and to rub salt in the wound, I then watched tons of other people, including my sister who isn’t overly into coasters, go on it and tell me how brilliant it was. Today, I was finally going to find out whether I agreed! That was not the only exciting aspect of the day, however… the other exciting aspect is that after two successful visits to Alton Towers that he absolutely loved, my grandad decided to join me and my dad at Thorpe Park today! After he loved Alton Towers, me and dad thought that Thorpe Park would be the next logical step for him, and I was excited to show him the sights and sounds of the UK’s most thrilling theme park for the first time! That’s enough of a prologue, though; let’s get into the meat of our day at Thorpe Park! We left our home in Gloucestershire at around 7:40am this morning and after a relatively smooth drive barring some reduced speed limits and roadworks on the M4, we arrived at Thorpe Park 2 hours later, making good time for entry into the park a little after 10am following a brief wait for security: On the subject of security, we actually had a rather interesting near miss with Thorpe Park security today… As we were queueing for security, my dad was telling my grandad that he would need to take his watch and such off for the metal detector. Thinking that my grandad would be irritated by this, we were both taken by surprise when he said “I’m more worried about the f***ing knife in my pocket!”. Before anyone gets any ideas, I should clarify that this was a small penknife that my grandad uses for gardening and had simply forgotten to take out of his pocket, but it still gave my dad fear that Thorpe Park security staff would get the wrong idea if my grandad tried to go in with it, and he sternly directed my grandad to the sign clearly stating “No Knives”! It didn’t seem to cause any issues (we were relieved, but I’m not sure whether the lack of drama is a good thing or not in the grand scheme of things…), but me and my dad were nonetheless concerned about how this could have been received by the security staff… I think we were very lucky! After thankfully entering the park drama-free, we pondered going to Hyperia first, but as it had by far the longest queue and we wanted to give my grandad a proper first timer’s taste of what Thorpe Park had to offer, we decided to go for a different big coaster first… Colossus While some signs said it was closed, Colossus was in fact open on a 0 minute advertised queue, so me and my grandad decided to give it a go (my dad sat this one out, as he’s too tall for the restraints). As promised, the ride was indeed walk-on, so me and grandad waltzed onto row 7 very promptly; you can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I’m not the biggest fan of Colossus, but I have to say that today’s ride in row 7 was not bad at all as Colossus goes, and maybe in contention for being the best ride I’ve ever had on it! It was a bit rough in places, but nothing overly terrible by any stretch, and the first half was pretty decent! The tight restraints definitely take away from the ride, and I’m still not convinced I overly enjoy the numerous consecutive heartline rolls in the second half, but in the grand scheme of Colossus rides, I could not complain too much! My grandad was a big fan of the ride; he described Colossus as “right up there with Smiler as one of the most insane coasters [he’d] ever ridden” and remarked that it “was the first time [he’d] ever felt like [he] was going to fall out of the restraint”!: After Colossus, we decided to head to another big coaster nearby… Saw: The Ride Saw was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on there. This queue was marginally understated, taking more like 15-20 minutes, but it still wasn’t overly long. So, how was the ride? Well, we were seated on the front row, and I’m afraid to say that it wasn’t an overly good Saw ride; there were a number of notable jolts, including a particularly head-splitting one on the first drop, and there was a general strong roughness throughout. Unfortunately, I’m sad to say that my grandad did not enjoy this one, or at very least, it did not seem to agree with him; he came off it feeling “sick as a dog” and didn’t seem to enjoy the roughness and jerkiness of it. To be honest, I sadly think it was a bit of a day ruiner for him, as I’m not sure he ever completely recovered from it: After Saw, we finally decided to give into temptation and ride the big new draw after seeing that its queue time had dropped… Hyperia Hyperia was on an advertised 65 minute queue time, and my dad didn’t think that it even looked that long, so we decided to give it a ride. Despite my dad’s thinking that it didn’t look 65, the queue time board was true to its word and we ended up waiting 65 minutes. Even still, I can’t complain too much about a 65 minute queue for a brand new ride in the summer holidays; I’ve waited far worse! So, how was Hyperia after all the anticipation? Well, I was seated in row 8, and it was a phenomenal ride, with obscene speed and very nice airtime and hangtime… but I wasn’t immediately certain on whether it was absolutely top tier. I’m going to remain shtum on Hyperia at this stage in the report, however, as previous experience with hyped-up, revered rides has taught me that 1 ride is not necessarily enough to reliably get the measure of a hyped ride’s true greatness. When I went to Florida last year, for example, both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi grew on me considerably after a second ride, so I wondered if the same would be true of Hyperia… let’s just say that the story does not end there! In terms of my dad and grandad’s thoughts, my dad said that it was “undeniably excellent, but not as good as VelociCoaster” (my dad’s favourite ride), remarking that “it was absolutely mental”, and that “the first drop was mental”, but that he was “unsure on [his] feelings on this getting airtime by pushing you out of your seat sideways lark”. I didn’t get much of an opinion from my grandad other than relief that it was smoother than Saw (although I did think I heard a distinct “f***ing hell” fall out of his mouth as we hit the brake run… interpret that however you wish!): After Hyperia, we decided to sit down on a bench and calmly eat lunch for a bit before heading to our next big coaster… The Swarm The Swarm was on an advertised 35 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride. This queue time ended up being understated, as we ultimately ended up waiting around 50 minutes. On a side note, the operations seemed notably slower than usual on here, with 2+ minute dispatches and stacking being frequent. But how was the ride? Well, we were seated in row 3, and it was really decent! I do really like Swarm, and today was no exception; I love the sense of speed (particularly on the first drop as you start it’s a smooth ride, and I also think that there are some very nice inversions on there! The vest restraints are a minor detractor for me, but not a huge one; I overall thoroughly enjoyed my ride! My grandad seemed a bit non-plussed by the experience, describing it as “a bit uneventful”: After The Swarm, we headed over to our next big coaster… Nemesis Inferno Nemesis Inferno was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so me and my dad decided to take a ride on there. By this point, my grandad had clearly had enough of the rides and decided to sit Nemesis Inferno out. The 35 minute queue was marginally overstated, instead taking 30 minutes, and we took our seats on the back row. So, how was the ride? Well, I thoroughly enjoyed today’s ride on Nemesis Inferno; it was smooth, was forceful without being excessively forceful, and packed some awesome inversions and a brilliant sense of speed throughout! I do really enjoy Nemesis Inferno, and I don’t think the Nemesis comparison does it any favours; it’s a cracking coaster in its own right! My dad said that the ride was “good”, but that “it definitely wasn’t as smooth as the new Nemesis at Alton Towers” for him (I disagreed with him on this, but to be fair, I was seated in a middle seat while dad was sat in an outer seat): After Nemesis Inferno, we met back up with my grandad to head over to Stealth and see whether he’d ride it, but it pretty much closed the second we got there. As my grandad wasn’t even sure if he wanted to ride it anyway and seemed like he’d had enough, we decided to leave the ride be for today. I would have liked to get a ride on there, as I do love Stealth, but I wasn’t too distraught not to seeing as I had 4 rides on my June visit; I can’t exactly say I haven’t already had a decent fill of Stealth this year: After we abandoned Stealth, my grandad had no intentions of riding anything else and we’d covered all of the other big coasters, so my dad let me loose to go and reride Hyperia using the single rider queue. I had not one, but two additional rides on Hyperia using this, and both gave me a notable advantage over the main queue. The first ride saw me dodge a 65 minute advertised queue and only wait 35 minutes, while the second ride saw me dodge a 90 minute advertised queue and only wait 30 minutes. I can never complain about that! By complete fluke, I also got assigned to the back row on both rides, so I managed to take two rides in the back right seat, which is supposedly “the best seat on the ride” according to one of the designers!: Now, I think it’s about time I talked in a little more detail about Hyperia than I did earlier. The million dollar question is; did Hyperia repeat the phenomenon of VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi, where “the second ride was the charm”, so to speak? Well, the answer is yes! Oh my god, yes! I loved Hyperia the first time and thought it was phenomenal, but it was the rerides that made me see the height of its true greatness and declare with certainty that for me, this is definitely a top tier ride! Where to begin with it… in terms of some key highlights: That first drop is absolutely unhinged, and so, so good! I love a big first drop, and this is a sublime one; the ejector airtime is absolutely absurd (you get absolutely ripped out of the seat!), the 180 degree twist adds an intriguing additional sensation, and the sense of speed you are hit with at the bottom is nuts! Hyperia definitely sits alongside Mako and Iron Gwazi as having one of my favourite first drops I’ve ever done! That outerbanked turn into the inversion is insane. I’ve never experienced an element quite like it; while I’m not necessarily convinced that sideways airtime beats good old straight airtime for me, the sustained sideways ejector was absolutely absurd! The Immelmann is just wonderful! The speed you get going up into it is brilliant, and you get an absolutely sublime pop of sustained ejector airtime coming out of it! This was a definite highlight of the ride for me! This is a fast ride, and you can definitely feel it! The sense of speed is absolutely absurd; Hyperia reminds you just how fast 81mph is! I’ll do a longer and more detailed review later in the relevant thread that has a couple of critiques as well, but overall, Hyperia is just absolutely sublime, in my view! It’s a stunning investment for Thorpe Park and the UK theme park industry, and it certainly lived up to the years of hype for me! In terms of comparisons and specific ranking spots; I’ve thought it over following my 3 rides, and I will say the following: It is easily my favourite ride at Thorpe Park It is easily my favourite UK coaster In terms of overall rankings out of the 123 coasters I’ve ridden, I have conservatively opted for the #5 spot, with the ride currently being beaten only by Mako, VelociCoaster, Silver Star and Iron Gwazi in my rankings. It’s definitely a top 5 worthy candidate, folks! Overall, then; I absolutely loved Hyperia, and it definitely lived up to the hype for me! To return to our Thorpe Park day; by the time I’d had 2 Hyperia rides, it was around 3:45pm. My grandad was clearly flagging and had had enough and my dad seemed like he didn’t to wait around any longer, so we left the park for the day. So, that brings my day at Thorpe Park today to a close! Overall, then, I had a great day; I was thrilled to finally get on Hyperia for the first time, and it did not disappoint! That was my main aim for the day, and with 3 rides on it, I comfortably accomplished this aim! I also enjoyed getting on some of Thorpe’s other great rides; these always put me in a good mood, and while Hyperia is now the crown jewel, some of Thorpe’s other coasters are no slouches either! Thorpe has always had an excellent coaster selection for me, and Hyperia has just taken it to the next level! I was disheartened, however, by the fact that my grandad didn’t seem to have an especially enjoyable day, and didn’t warm to Thorpe Park like he did to Alton Towers. I think I may have made a mortal error by directing us to Saw so early on in the day, as it was that ride that seemed to put him off for the rest of the day. He absolutely loved our first ride on Colossus, and declared that one of his favourites! Me and my dad also had a theory that his sickness feeling may not have been helped by the fact that he decided to forego wearing his glasses for the whole day instead of taking them on and off all day, so he was walking around the park with blurred vision all day. Nonetheless, he just didn’t warm to Thorpe Park at all. He apparently said to my dad that “it seems busy compared to Alton Towers… and I don’t like busy”, and whatever the reason, he just seemed to go off the park and the rides quickly and not warm to them at all. I was sad that he didn’t like it, but he’s never going to like everything and I’m glad that he came and tried it out. I don’t sense he’ll be in a rush to return to Thorpe with us, however! But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the day and was glad to both accomplish my aim of getting on Hyperia and hear my grandad’s first time thoughts on Thorpe Park! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! My next trip report will be coming on 5th September, when I visit Drayton Manor to take my first ever ride on Gold Rush and ride the last of the new for 2024 UK coasters! I can’t wait to try that ride out!

I’ll do a longer review later, but… WOW! Hyperia is quite something! I’ve had 2 rides so far, and am currently waiting for a 3rd in the single rider queue… I haven’t decided on exact ranking spots yet, but my gut take is currently; easily my top ride in Thorpe Park and definitely my favourite UK coaster! What a phenomenal addition to this park and the UK theme park industry!

I’ve just realised that I forgot to post a couple of timings from my time in East Anglia; I have timings and operational insights from Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach and Pleasurewood Hills! I’m afraid I don’t have many timings due to many of the queues being too short to get any meaningful timings, but the timings and insights I do have are as follows… Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach Roller Coaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 3 trains) - 315pph (1 train, average of 2, 11th August 2024) Family Star (Theoretical: 600pph on unknown number of cars) - 404pph (5 cars, average of 2, 11th August 2024) In terms of general insights, operations seemed pretty good for a park of Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach’s calibre! Family Star was whacking out cars in little over 30 seconds (I’ve seen far worse than that on similar rides elsewhere), and even though only the one train was running, checks on the Roller Coaster were very prompt; they didn’t even seemingly need to check our restraints, so we pretty much just sat down and went! I do think the ride would benefit from a second train, however; with the separate offload area, there was actually time being wasted while people got off the ride and the onload area was empty. All in all, though, I thought GYPB had pretty good ops for a park of its calibre; queues were certainly short, anyhow! Pleasurewood Hills Cannonball Express (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 5 trains) - 159pph (1 train, average of 4, 12th August 2024) In terms of general insights; the queues were too short to gauge a reliable picture of Pleasurewood’s ops, but I thought they were perfectly good, for the most part; I didn’t think they seemed excessively slow by any stretch. Similarly to the Roller Coaster at GYPB, I think Cannonball is hampered considerably by only having one train in operation, with that separate offload area actually slowing things down. Cannonball Express was the only ride I saw build up any kind of considerable queue while I was at Pleasurewood Hills; it took us 15-20 minutes to pass through a short queue of only a few people, and it looked much longer by the time we got off.

Haha; that would be bang on! It’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only one who didn't like that ride… Yes, the weather was absolutely roasting! Oddly, though, it was almost like we were in some kind of parallel climate while we were in the East of England; despite the wall-to-wall sun while we were away, the weather was middling at home before we set off to East Anglia, and when I was back home in the South West on Wednesday, it was cold and raining!

12th August 2024: Pleasurewood Hills We had our second park day today, visiting the final new park of the trip; Pleasurewood Hills in Lowestoft, Suffolk! I was interested to get into this park and try out attractions such as Cannonball Express, the unique Schwarzkopf, and Wipeout, my first ever Vekoma Boomerang, amongst others! With our hotel being less than a mile down the road from Pleasurewood Hills, we left at a bit after 9:30am, and after stopping at the nearby Tesco superstore to get some meal deals for lunch, we ended up arriving on Pleasurewood Hills property at around 10am. After quite a few minutes of faff trying to sort out Pleasurewood Hills’ new parking charge app, we ended up entering the park at around 10:15am: After entering the park, we decided to initially head to a coaster… Cannonball Express I’d been advised to knock out Cannonball Express early, so we decided to head there first. This turned out to be prudent advice! We joined a very short-looking queue of only a few people, but due to a rather low throughput of only around 160pph, this ended up taking about 15-20 minutes, and by the time we got off, the queue was almost stretching out of the allocated queue line. I think we dodged a bullet joining that queue as early as we did! But how was the ride? Well, I was interested to ride Cannonball Express, as I’d heard some very good things about it. I was also interested to ride because it was my first non-looping Schwarzkopf coaster, and while I didn’t really rate either of the other two Schwarzkopfs I’ve ridden, I wondered whether I’d like one of their non-looping coasters more. I was seated in the front row, and I’m afraid to say that the answer was not really. Cannonball Express is a rough old beast, isn’t it? Most of the ride seemed to consist of getting bashed around from side to side, and some of the turns and brakes, particularly the brake at the end, were just horribly harsh for me. The layout had some fun turns and helixes, and kind of reminded me of the Pinfari RC40 layout if it had better restraints, but I didn’t think it was anything especially groundbreaking even putting aside the roughness. I think my parents summed it up quite nicely; my mum turned to me and my dad and said “They didn’t build smooth things in the 80s, did they?”, and my dad said to me “I hope you’re not going to call that glass smooth in the trip report”… Overall, then, I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t a huge fan of Cannonball Express, and it reinforced my controversial view that I personally find Schwarzkopf coasters to be wildly overrated, for lack of a better term. I apologise if I sound insensitive to an iconic and unique Schwarzkopf, but I have to be completely honest about these things: After Cannonball Express, I decided to go on the attraction directly next to it… Jolly Roger Jolly Roger was on a practically walk-on queue, so I decided to give it a go. I didn’t wait long at all, and I was on the next cycle, which I can never complain about! So, how was the ride? Well, I’m a fan of a good drop tower, and Jolly Roger was an excellent one! The drop was so fast and punchy, and there was cracking airtime all the way down! I’m a big fan of these Fabbri towers, with Detonator and Venom also sitting highly in my estimations, and I have to say that overall, it’s right up there with them in contention for the title of my favourite UK drop tower. Jolly Roger was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed my lap on there: After Jolly Roger, we steadily ambled over to the other side of the park, and on our way over, we took a detour to ride… Rootin’ Tootin’ Target Trail Rootin’ Tootin’ Target Trail was along our route to the other side of Pleasurewood Hills, so we decided to give it a whirl on our way by. The queue was short here, at only around 5 minutes, so we got onto the ride promptly. So, how was it? Well, I have to say that I thought it was quite good fun; for what it was, I thought it was a perfectly fun little dark ride! There was some nice theming in there, and despite me not being very good at interactive dark rides in general, I found the shooting system easy to use and very self-explanatory! One marginally disappointing aspect, however, is that you didn’t seem to be able to view your score at any point. There was no way of viewing it during the ride, and we couldn’t find how to view our score at the end after getting off, so for the competitive among us (which my dad certainly is!), you’re unable to get the payoff of finding out what you scored at the end. Nonetheless, this didn’t really matter ultimately, and it was still a fun dark ride: After getting off Rootin’ Tootin’ Target Trail, we headed over to the next coaster… Wipeout Wipeout was practically walk on, so me and my mum decided to give it a go. I was interested to try Wipeout, as somehow, I’d made it 121 coasters into the hobby without ever encountering a traditional Vekoma Boomerang. So “the tallest and fastest coaster in East Anglia” was an interesting introduction to this ubiquitous ride model! But how was my first ever Boomerang? Well, I’m afraid to say that while an impressive ride for the space it takes up, I wasn’t really a fan of Wipeout, and my mum seemed to agree. It was just very rough for me, with the backwards portion being particularly awkward and uncomfortable, and I came off with a banging headache and shoulders. Shuttle coasters aren’t an absolute favourite ride style of mine to begin with, and when you combine that with the roughness, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t really rate Wipeout: After Wipeout, we decided to head around to the final coaster of the day… Egg-Spress Egg-Spress was walk-on, so we waltzed onto the ride swiftly and took our seats on the very back row. So, how was the ride? Well, my dad said to me before we dispatched “With what we all thought of Cannonball and what you and mum said about Wipeout, I think this could well end up being the best coaster here”. And you know, I honestly think my dad was right! As family coasters go, I have a little soft spot for these Zierer Tivoli coasters, and as per usual for the ride type, Egg-Spress was quite good fun, with some fun helixes and some surprising whip towards the back of the train! There were also some nice near misses with the trees! However, I must admit that it definitely seemed a little rougher than usual for one of these coasters, and with me and my dad crammed in a car together, it did get a bit fierce at times! Nonetheless, Egg-Spress was still a pleasant enough coaster for what it was, and probably the most enjoyable of the day for me: After Egg-Spress, my parents sat down briefly while I went for another lap on there while it was still walk on. As with the first, it was fun enough, but I slid around a lot more, as I was sat on my own! After my second ride on Egg-Spress, me and my parents headed over to do something slightly different… Sea Lion Splash It was coming up to the 12pm showing of Sea Lion Splash, so we decided to head down to the theatre for a watch. By this point in the day, the sun was really beating down, so it got quite hot while we were sat watching the show! In terms of the show itself; I thought it was quite good fun, with lots of informative information about sea lions and seals, and the sea lions looked happy on stage. However, I must confess that while the sea lions were never forced to participate and looked happy, I felt that the ethics of them doing tricks with balls and such in this day and age was questionable. I’m aware that animals performing for entertainment is a contentious topic, so I’ll leave it there: After watching Sea Lion Splash, we went to find some shade and eat our packed lunch. Despite it only being around 12:30pm at this point, we quickly realised that we’d sort of run out of things to do at Pleasurewood, so I closed out my time there by taking two final back-to-back rides on Jolly Roger. Once again, both were excellent; the airtime and speed were sublime, the forces were wonderful, and it was overall a top-drawer drop tower! It was without question the highlight of the park for me: After my back-to-back rides on Jolly Roger, we left Pleasurewood Hills for the day, content with our time in the park despite it only being around 1pm: With us having exited the park at 1pm and spent less time in there than we’d expected, we found ourselves at somewhat of a loose end for the afternoon, so we decided to head into the town of Lowestoft itself. We firstly visited Ness Point, the easternmost point of the UK. It was cool to come here, stand in the easternmost part of the country and see the sea views, but I must admit that I’m surprised it wasn’t more of an “attraction” so to speak; it was very hidden, in the back of an industrial estate, with nothing of note around it: After our brief visit to Ness Point, we decided to head down to Lowestoft South Beach and have a stroll along the seafront of Lowestoft, getting an ice cream while we were there. I tried the Honeycomb Caramel Swirl flavour of Kelly’s ice cream today after having the Salted Caramel flavour in Great Yarmouth yesterday, and it was very tasty: After that, we got back in the car and headed back to the hotel, thus ending our day. So, that wraps up my day at Pleasurewood Hills, as well as the detour we took to Lowestoft afterwards! I had an enjoyable day; I enjoyed seeing Pleasurewood Hills and what it had to offer for the first time, and I enjoyed getting on some new rides! My highlight was definitely Jolly Roger; I love a good drop tower, and Jolly Roger was an excellent one! In terms of Pleasurewood Hills itself; it’s an odd one to review, and I’d say I was slightly underwhelmed overall, if I’m being honest. My expectations were calibrated to something along the lines of an East Coast equivalent of Oakwood Theme Park in Wales, and after visiting, it kind of matched that expectation in some ways, exceeded it in some and fell short in others. In all fairness, it’s not a badly kept park in places; parts of it look really nice and colourful and clean, and they’re clearly making an ongoing effort to spruce parts of it up. Areas such as the bit by the log flume, the sea lion show and the shooting dark ride look quite nice, my first impression upon entering was quite positive, and some of the other rides like the safari and the horse ride looked quite new and well maintained. There seems to be a bit more of this effort than there is at Oakwood, and if it continues, I can see the whole park beginning to look really nice in the years to come. However, what I would say is that other significant parts of Pleasurewood Hills, possibly more so than any other park I’ve ever visited including Oakwood, looked quite decrepit and frankly abandoned. I could see notable areas with old, decaying husks of rides stood crumbling away, there was a massive castle theatre that looked completely abandoned, there was some amphitheatre that looked completely abandoned and overgrown, the bird show theatre looked shuttered and like it hadn’t operated in some time, and there were also quite a few shops and food outlets closed. The feeling of decrepitude in portions is very similar to the last time I went to Oakwood, but even Oakwood didn’t seem to have quite so many blatantly abandoned areas. Hopefully the ongoing efforts in aesthetics from the Looping Group will see this rectified in time, and I’m sure it will, but right now, the abandoned areas don’t give off the greatest impression. The other critique I would raise is that for our demographic, we didn’t think there was a huge amount to do at Pleasurewood, and there was nothing there that would really make us want to make specific effort to return, if I’m being honest. One significant strong area of Oakwood, for comparison, is its roller coaster hardware, and for me, both Megafobia and Speed are leaps and bounds ahead of any individual coaster at Pleasurewood Hills and comfortably beat Cannonball Express and Wipeout as a duo of headline coasters. Jolly Roger was an excellent drop tower for me, as someone who likes a good drop tower, but I’m quite a big coaster person in terms of what draws me to parks. And coasters-wise, I think Pleasurewood lacked a real headline draw that would make me want to specifically return there, if I’m being finicky. Nothing there held a candle to Megafobia or even Speed, in my view. With that being said, I would say that we may not have been the ideal demographic to visit; it seemed like the sort of park that you might get more out of if you were visiting with young children, so do bear that in mind. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my time at Pleasurewood Hills and I’m glad I came to see it, but if I’m being honest, it’s not a park I think I’d make specific effort to return to any time soon in the absence of new major investment, particularly given how far away from the park I live. I may not have given it a fair chance, I may have been overly finicky, and I apologise if it comes across that way, but that’s how I honestly felt. Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report, and the reports from this wider trip! I think we’re just going to be heading straight home tomorrow, so the chances of me writing a report are pretty slim, but if we do stop anywhere interesting on the way home, I’ll write about it! Chances are, though, that my next trip report will be coming on Sunday, when I head back to Thorpe Park for my first ever ride on Hyperia! I can’t wait to get on that coaster; I’ve heard insanely good things about it!

11th August 2024: Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach/Joyland Children’s Fun Park Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; today, me, my mum and my dad set off for our trip to East Anglia! I’ve never been to any of the parks in the region, and to be honest, me and my mum had never actually visited East Anglia full stop (unless Watford and Stansted Airport count, being part of what the ONS technically considers “the East of England”…). My dad had been to Great Yarmouth once back in the 1980s, when he still lived in Kent, but even for him, the area was relatively new. I was interested to get to some of the more major UK parks I hadn’t been to, and possibly the most significant place in the UK for theme parks I hadn’t been to, and I was excited to see what some of East Anglia’s finest parks had to offer! We weren’t originally sure if we were going to visit a park today, as our original plan was to saunter steadily down to the area, see how the drive went, and maybe do Joyland, the smaller of the two Great Yarmouth parks, if the drive wasn’t too bad. However, we changed tack at the last minute and decided to try and tackle both of the parks in Great Yarmouth today, as my mum and dad were daunted by the thought of the long drive home and felt that we may not necessarily be keen to do anything on Tuesday with the drive ahead of us afterwards. With this in mind, we set off early from our home in Gloucestershire, leaving at around 8am, and after a perfectly clean run (it was an absolutely idyllic drive in terms of traffic, and surprisingly, no one needed to stop for the toilet either!), we arrived in Great Yarmouth 4.5 hours later, at around 12:30pm, and parked up. After a brief stroll down the seafront from the car park, we headed to our first theme park of the day; Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach: After getting our Fun Cards and heading in, we decided to go to the park’s principal draw first… Roller Coaster Roller Coaster was the principal draw of Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach for us and had a relatively short-looking queue, so we decided to give it a go. Even with a one-train service, the queue only took around 15 minutes; I can’t really complain about that! On a side note, I have to say that I found the boarding and sending process on Roller Coaster interesting; I’ve never seen a coaster pushed out of the station before, and they didn’t even need to check our lap bars! But how was the ride? Well, it was my first brakeman-operated coaster, so I was interested to see how it rode. I was seated in the very back row, and I have to say, I found it rather enjoyable! Yes, it’s nothing particularly mind-blowing on the world stage or by modern standards, but it’s a decades-old heritage woodie. For what it is, I thought it was a really pleasant, fun coaster! It’s definitely not a particularly intense ride and does peter out a bit in places, but it was smooth for a woodie of its age, it was a really long ride, it had some surprising airtime in places (which was accentuated by the loose lap bar design), and on the whole, I just found it a very pleasant and charming coaster! I felt that the whole thing just had a certain charm about it that made me smile and made the ride a very pleasant ride to just exist on, and sit back and enjoy the sensations of a wooden roller coaster on, if you get my drift. Overall, then, I thought the Roller Coaster was a really nice, enjoyable coaster, and I certainly found my lap on there pleasant: After our ride on Roller Coaster, me and my mum went to ride the next coaster the park had to offer… Family Star Family Star was on a short queue, so me and my mum decided to take a ride. I very much know the drill with these spinning wild mouse coasters, and I’m not a fan of them at all having ridden 7 of the ubiquitous Reverchon models, but I was mildly interested to try Family Star, as I’ve never done one of the Fabbri models before and I was interested to see how it compared. So, how was the ride? Well, I’m afraid to say that I possibly found Family Star worse than its Reverchon siblings, which is quite impressive! It span from the get go rather than being unlocked halfway through, which I found interesting, but I found it more uncomfortable than the Reverchons for two reasons. Firstly, there was a really awkward seat divider that I kept getting smacked against around the corners, and secondly, it had some of the most awful sharp braking I’ve ever encountered, rivalling the now defunct Sand Serpent at Busch Gardens Tampa! To give credit where credit is due, however, I thought the operations were really decent on here for a park of this calibre. They had 5 cars on, and they were getting them sent out in not much over 30 seconds, which I think is pretty good for a park of Great Yarmouth’s calibre! In terms of the ride, though, I’m afraid to say that I wasn’t a fan at all. My mum wasn’t either; she turned to me during the ride and said “Matthew, how on Earth do you find this even vaguely enjoyable?”: After Family Star, me and my dad decided to go for a dark ride detour… Haunted Hotel Haunted Hotel had a nigh-on non-existent queue, so me and my dad decided to give it a go. After two coasters, we thought it might be fun to try something different, and I’d heard good things about Haunted Hotel. But how was the ride? Well, I thought it was reasonably decent for a seaside ghost train in a park of this calibre! It wasn’t particularly scary in terms of jumpscares, but I didn’t mind that, not being a huge fan of horror, and I thought that some of the sets and effects were quite decent for one of these seaside ghost trains! Overall, then, I thought Haunted Hotel was quite an enjoyable ghost train: After Haunted Hotel, we met back up with my mum and found a shady corner to eat our packed lunch in before I headed off to go and try a flat ride… Sky Drop I am a fan of a good drop tower, so I decided to give Sky Drop a spin. The queue was walk-on, and I waltzed straight into my seat on there; you can never complain about a walk-on ride! But how was the ride? Well, it didn’t exactly give Venom, Detonator or the late Apocalypse a run for their money in terms of UK drop towers, but for more of a family thrill drop tower, I thought Sky Drop was great fun! It packed reasonable force in its drops and launches, and it also had a really long cycle, and offered great views across Great Yarmouth! As a drop tower fan, I definitely came off it with a smile on my face, and for a more family thrill drop tower, I thought it absolutely hit the nail on the head! It had really good forces and a long cycle, and was just great fun for a family drop tower; I’d definitely take it over the SBF models like Croc Drop and Magma, personally: After Sky Drop, I decided to head to another coaster that was on a walk-on queue… Whirlwind I was sceptical about whether Whirlwind would be too much of a kiddie coaster for my liking, as I don’t generally ride kiddie coasters, but it didn’t look too bad in person. It was also walk-on and had no one in line, so I thought I may as well give it a whirl! So, how was it? Well, I’ve surprisingly never done one of these figure-8 SBF spinning coasters before, despite how common they are, and I thought it was it was, really. It wasn’t anything spectacular, but I didn’t find it particularly offensive either; it was just a profoundly average small coaster that didn’t have any significant detractors, but didn’t have a huge amount going for it either. On a side note, though, they give you a really long cycle on this; my mum counted that I got 6 laps on this coaster, which is obscene: After Whirlwind, I met back up with my parents, and me and my mum went to do something that I never thought I’d do… Big Apple Coaster Prior to our arrival at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, I did not think I would do this coaster. As I explained above, I don’t generally do kiddie coasters. However, my mother kindly offered to do it with me, and perhaps surprisingly, I dare say she possibly encouraged me to do it; when I said that I’d ruled this coaster out as it was a kiddie coaster, my mum’s words were “Who the f*** cares if you want to ride a kiddie coaster? I’ll go on it with you… besides, the website describes it as “family” and not “kiddie”!”. The ride was also walk-on, with space left on the train, so I thought “oh, what the hell!” and decided to finally lose my wacky worm virginity! I long thought that this day would never come, and I told myself for years that it would never come after an embarrassing experience on Octonauts at Alton Towers put me off doing kiddie coasters, but I must admit that being sat in that caterpillar train and rattling through that fibreglass apple for the first time, 117 coasters into the hobby, did feel like somewhat of a (marginally tragic) watershed moment! Anyway, that’s besides the point; how was my first ever wacky worm? Well, I thought it was perfectly OK, as kiddie coasters go! Similarly to Whirlwind above, it was nothing spectacular, but nothing particularly offensive either; it was profoundly average for a kiddie coaster. The trains were extremely tight, however; I, despite not exactly being astoundingly tall at 5’10”, felt very crammed in, and even my mother at only 5’3” had to sit sideways to get her legs behind the seat… you can definitely tell it’s designed for children, let’s put it that way! On a side note, I did find this particular wacky worm to have some fun historical value, as it used to reside at Alton Towers, a park very near and dear to me; mum and dad both looked at it and instantly said that they remembered it from Alton!: After riding Big Apple, we met back up with my dad and decided to leave Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach at that point and take a walk down the seafront of Great Yarmouth. We had only been in the park for around 1.5 hours, but we felt quite satisfied with what we’d done in that time and didn’t feel like we needed any longer in the park: After around 20 minutes, our little stroll along the seafront eventually took us to our second park of the day; Joyland Children’s Fun Park. I was interested to try some of the unique rides on offer here, such as Tyrolean Tubtwist and the iconic Snails: We entered Joyland and got some tokens, and unlike in Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, my parents had no intention of riding anything in Joyland, so I went on everything in there entirely alone (this tidbit of information may be relevant later…). After getting my tokens, I decided to head to the ride that was nearest to the token machine, and the one that’s known as the park’s real icon… Snails The Snails were on a short queue and were near to the token machine, so I decided I might as well give them a go first. I was interested to try the Snails, as it’s the park’s main iconic attraction, it’s really unique, and I was told that I had to give them a go if I went to Great Yarmouth. So, how did I find the Snails? Well, I have to say that I thought they were really quite cute and charming; the little dips were good fun, and the whole thing just oozed vintage charm! However, I must admit that I found the experience quite embarrassing. I felt like a bit of an idiot riding the snail on my own as I went past the path and people were looking at me, and being sat there while the ride host personally took my picture with a camera at the end did not help matters… that’s my problem, though, and if looking purely at my own personal enjoyment of the Snails, I thought it was a really cute and charming attraction, and I was really glad to take a spin on this Joyland icon: After the Snails, I decided to head to my first coaster at Joyland… Spook Express Spook Express was on a short queue, so I decided to give it a go. Similarly to on the Snails, I felt excruciatingly awkward while the ride host stood there with a camera and told me to “do a big smile!” while they personally took my picture, and it did not help matters that I was the only adult on a train full of small children… if you’ve ever seen Elf, I felt a bit like Will Ferrell in that scene where he’s awkwardly sat in a classroom with all the tiny elves! Putting that aside, however, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was quite decent for a kiddie coaster! It was smooth, the helixes were surprisingly fast, the darkness added a fun element, and all in all, I thought it was quite an enjoyable kiddie coaster as kiddie coasters go, and probably a level above either of the two small coasters I did over at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach: After Spook Express, I decided to tick off my final ride in Joyland… Tyrolean Tubtwist Tyrolean Tubtwist was on a walk-on queue, so I decided to take a ride on it. I was quite excited to give Tyrolean Tubtwist a go; it’s such a unique coaster, being the only Virginia Reel coaster left in the world, and I’ve often heard it recommended as a charming hidden gem. But how did I find the ride? Well, I’ll start with a positive spin; it’s certainly different. It’s extremely unique, quite unlike anything else I’ve ever ridden and I’m glad I managed to do this piece of history once. I’m delaying talking about the ride itself, because I don’t want to hurt the feelings of the many people who love it, think it’s a hidden gem and have nostalgia for it… but if I’m being honest, uniqueness is where the positives end for me, because I’m so sorry to say that I absolutely hated this coaster. I thought it was absolutely vile, and it’s right down there as one of my least favourite coasters I’ve ever ridden. In fact, I think it may honestly be my least favourite coaster, usurping the likes of Infusion and Hero. I appreciate that that’s a very controversial opinion, and certainly not one I expected to hold, but I’d genuinely struggle to think of a coaster I enjoyed less, so hear me out for a second. For starters, the ride is pretty rough around the corners, but that’s not the main thing that did it for me. It was a definite detractor, but I could have put up with that to some extent; the roughness in isolation was not what made me hate it so much. The main thing that did it for me was that it was so, so spinny; far, far too spinny for my personal liking. I do not have a terribly high tolerance for spinning (I can take a bit, but not loads), and Tyrolean Tubtwist is by far the most sickeningly spinny coaster I have ever ridden, usurping any of the spinning wild mice I’ve ridden by a good margin. When I got off, my head was spinning like mad and I genuinely couldn’t walk in a straight line, and my mum almost had to marshal me down the exit stairs so I didn’t fall down them. I felt really quite sick for quite a bit afterwards, and that ride was right up there along with Air Race at Drayton Manor as being one of the only rides where I’ve ever felt like I might be physically sick upon getting off. I know I probably sound like a right baby, I’m sorry if I sound dramatic, and I’m sorry if I seem disrespectful of this piece of history that a lot of people love, but I will always be honest about these things, and as disappointed as I was about it, no coaster has ever made me feel as vile as Tyrolean Tubtwist did, when you combine the sickening degree of spinning with the fact that the ride was also quite rough. I did, however, wonder if me riding alone made some difference to the level of spin; I know weighting does often make a difference on these spinning coasters. (I realise I did not take a photo of Tyrolean Tubtwist… sorry about that!) After my ride on Tyrolean Tubtwist, I needed a minute to recover and my parents thought I looked I did, so we took a sedate, steady stroll back to the car, having completed all the parks I was hoping to do. After I’d recovered a little, we did get an ice cream along our journey; I had a salted caramel ice cream, and it was delicious! Eventually, we got back to the car and bade Great Yarmouth goodbye, heading to our hotel 10 minutes down the road in Lowestoft. We may have finished with both parks in less than 3 hours, including the walks, but I felt satisfied with my afternoon in Great Yarmouth: So, that just about wraps up my day in Great Yarmouth visiting Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach and Joyland Children’s Fun Park for the first time! I had a really enjoyable day overall; I always enjoy going to new parks and getting some new credits, and it was really interesting to see the parks of Great Yarmouth for the first time! In terms of a key highlight; my favourite ride of the day was definitely the Roller Coaster. I thought it was a really pleasant, fun coaster, and I enjoyed getting on my first ever brakeman-operated coaster! In terms of the individual parks; I had a fun time and enjoyed visiting them. I think both do really well for that they are and hit their target audience nicely. However, I thought Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, aside from the Roller Coaster, felt more like Brean Theme Park than Blackpool Pleasure Beach in terms of vibe; there is some fun stuff there, but most of it is quite generic travelling rides that I could find in any small UK park or funfair, including parks far more local to me like Brean and Barry Island. It was good fun, I enjoyed my time there, and I think they do a good job at the park for what it is, but given I live 250 miles, and a 4.5 hour drive on a very good run, away, I think it lacks sufficient draws for me to want to specifically revisit in the absence of new major investment. I’m sorry if this makes me sound finicky, but given how far from Great Yarmouth I live, I felt it was a point I should raise. Joyland down the promenade oozes charm, packs an impressive amount into the small space it has to work with, and has some really unique attractions. It’s a very cute park, and I’m glad I went to try these attractions out! However, I’ll be honest and say that riding these made me remember why I don’t normally do kiddie coasters, as I did feel a bit embarrassed. That’s entirely my problem, though, and I think the park works really well for a seaside children’s park in Great Yarmouth; it’s very charming! With all that being said, I did enjoy my first ever trip to the parks of Great Yarmouth. I’m glad I came, I was satisfied with the day and there is some fun stuff here. I apologise for ending the report on such a picky and likely snobby-sounding note; I didn’t mean to make it sound as though I didn’t enjoy my day, as I did really enjoy my day and I enjoyed experiencing the parks for the first time! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Look out for another report tomorrow, when I make my first ever trip to Pleasurewood Hills in Lowestoft! It’ll be an interesting day; I’m excited to ride things like Cannonball Express and Jolly Roger, and I’ll also be interested to lose my virginity on another common coaster type in the good old Vekoma Boomerang, with Wipeout being my first ever ride on this ubiquitous coaster model!