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Matt N

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  1. Matt N
    24th March 2024: Alton Towers Day 2
    We had our second day in the park today! After a weaker first day, we went to Alton Towers today hoping to get on slightly more, including some of the stuff we didn’t do yesterday.
     
    As we’d stayed in a local hotel the night before, we left there at around 9:30am and got to Alton Towers before 10am, meaning that we arrived in the park itself at around 10:10am:


    Upon arrival in the park, we noticed that a certain ride we’d bailed on yesterday was on a far shorter queue, so me and my grandad headed to…
    Rita
    Rita was on a 25 minute advertised queue time, so my grandad and I decided to give it a go. The ride was still on 1 train, but the queue was vastly shorter than it was yesterday, and it ultimately took around 35-40 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated on the back row, and it was great fun! I always love the launches on these hydraulic launch coasters, and the ride had a brilliant sense of speed and some absolutely brilliant pops of ejector airtime! There was a slight rattle, but nothing that overly detracted from enjoyment, and overall, my ride on Rita was great! My grandad enjoyed it too; he simply turned to me at the end, laughed, and said “insane machine!”:


    After Rita, we met back up with my parents and went to ride another ride we hadn’t done yesterday, which was on a relatively short queue…
    Oblivion
    Oblivion was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so me, my dad and my grandad decided to give it a go. The queue moved quickly due to brilliant operations resulting in a throughput of over 1,100pph, and we ultimately only waited 20-25 minutes. It’s always a bonus when the queue time is overstated! But how was the ride? Well, I’ve always loved Oblivion, and today’s ride was particularly awesome! I had a rather loose restraint, so I absolutely flew out of my seat going down the drop before getting that unbelievable hit of speed in the tunnel! I did, however, get whacked in the face by a rogue splash of water exiting the tunnel, which was slightly painful… overall, though, Oblivion was absolutely fantastic, and certainly reinforced its place as one of my favourite Alton Towers rides:


    After Oblivion, we met back up with my mum and headed out of X-Sector to…
    Nemesis Reborn
    Nemesis Reborn was on an advertised 50 minute queue, so all four of us decided to reride it. We started queueing significantly further into the queue than we did yesterday, but despite this, we queued for the advertised 50 minutes, only 10 minutes less than yesterday. The queue moved notably slower than yesterday due to weaker operations; stacking was routine, and dispatch intervals were frequently over 2 minutes. But enough about the queue; how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 4, and the ride was absolutely excellent, and every bit as good as yesterday! The pacing was fast, the intensity was good without being excessive, the ride was smooth, and I must say that the recent rerides have given me a newfound appreciation for some of the more unique aspects of its layout design! Overall, then, Nemesis Reborn was absolutely excellent, and I’m thoroughly glad that such a great ride has been given a new lease of life:


    After riding Nemesis Reborn, we decided to head to the other coaster in Forbidden Valley…
    Galactica
    Galactica was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride. I initially thought that this queue looked longer than 30 minutes, but it actually turned out to be pretty accurate, with us waiting around 35 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 3, and I’m afraid to say I wasn’t the biggest fan. Granted, the ride is smooth, and it has some interesting manoeuvres, but I just find the riding position rather uncomfortable. I’ve gone off flying coasters in general in recent years. Overall, while Galactica has some interesting elements, it’s not really my thing. It’s definitely the weakest of Alton Towers’ Big 7 for me:


    After Galactica, we headed out of Forbidden Valley to take a reride on…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on an advertised 65 minute queue time, so as we wanted to have a reride on it, we decided to join the queue. The queue was much shorter than it was yesterday, but the advertised queue time was still somewhat understated, as it took us 80-85 minutes to get on the ride overall. That’s a vast improvement on 2.5 hours, though, so I can’t really complain! But how was the ride? Well, I was a little nervous to see how the day ride seemed after the brilliance of last night’s night ride, but I have to say that it still held its own phenomenally! I was seated in row 11, and the ride was absolutely phenomenal! There was airtime for days, the pacing was relentless, there were loads of wonderful twists and turns, the ride was smooth, and overall, the ride was just absolutely sublime! Overall then, Wicker Man was absolutely phenomenal, and the two rides over the last two days have easily been two of my best ever rides on it; it’s most definitely reinforced its status as my favourite Alton Towers ride:




    After our ride on Wicker Man, it was around 3:30pm, so we decided to head home after that in order to get back home at a sensible time.
     
    So that brought the day, and our March 2024 Alton Towers trip, to an end. While I’d be lying if I said that it was my best Alton Towers trip ever when you consider yesterday, there were still numerous highly enjoyable moments, and today was definitely an improvement on yesterday! I really enjoyed getting on Nemesis Reborn, and I have to say that I absolutely love what they've done with the retrack project and area! I also had two absolutely sublime rides on Wicker Man this trip, with the night ride in particular being one that will always stick with me, and overall, it was just nice to get back to Alton Towers after a long closed season and get back on some of the rides! It is undeniably a park that holds a very special place in my heart, and it always will be. No weaker day will ever change that.
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you've enjoyed these reports! I'm not sure exactly when my next theme park trip will be, but if not before, my next trip report will probably be from Oakwood Theme Park at some point in May!
  2. Matt N
    23rd March 2024: Alton Towers Day 1
    Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; the start of my personal UK theme park season with a trip to Alton Towers! We were keen to come to the park this weekend for the Alton After Dark event and a first ride on Nemesis Reborn, and after thoroughly enjoying his first visit to the park last year, my grandad joined me and my parents for a return to the park. He was incredibly excited for his first ever ride on Nemesis after it was closed on his first visit!
     
    Under the pretence of us wanting to stay in the park until 8pm, we left our home in Gloucestershire slightly later than usual, at around 9:15am. Due to congestion on the M5 and an accident on the M6, the journey took a little over 3 hours, with us arriving at Alton Towers at around 12:20pm. Unbeknownst to us, this ended up being rather symbolic of the day ahead… this should become more apparent as the report progresses!
     
    Upon arrival, we took the monorail into the park and pretty much walked straight on, so with a brief stoppage on the ride, we got through Alton’s gates at around 12:45pm:


    After getting into the park, we decided to make a beeline for one of the key draws of our visit…
    Nemesis Reborn
    Nemesis Reborn was on an advertised 110 minute queue time. It was one of the key draws of our visit, and realistically, we knew the queue would probably be long, so we decided to just get in it. This ultimately proved to be a good decision, as the queue only took around 60 minutes, which was in part due to absolutely phenomenal operations. Dispatches were incredibly speedy, and a throughput of around 1,300pph was being attained on 2 trains, which is as high as I’ve ever seen on Nemesis! But how was the ride? Did Nemesis Reborn live up to the hype after a 2 year retrack? Well, I have to say that it was great to get back on Nemesis; not riding it for 2 years did make me realise what an excellent coaster it is! I rode in row 7, and it was one of the best rides I’ve had on it, with awesome speed, just the right amount of intensity and a pretty much glass smooth ride experience! My grandad, who was taking his first ride, absolutely loved it, saying that “you can’t not love that” and that “it was somehow even more insane than Smiler”! He even told me to specifically mention that “the outside loop was so insane, it made snot spread all over my nose”! I also have to say that I really like what they’ve done with the area; it’s looking absolutely brilliant, and my parents were also very impressed! I’ll do a more detailed review of Nemesis Reborn at some stage, but all in all, our verdict was very positive:



    After Nemesis Reborn, the rest of the rides were either closed or on very long queues, so we decided to head for the shortest coaster queue…
    Runaway Mine Train
    Runaway Mine Train was on an advertised 60 minute queue time. As the other coasters were all either closed or on queues of over 100 minutes, we figured that it was the least worst option and decided to give it a go. This queue was ultimately slightly longer than advertised, taking around 65-70 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 17, and it was good fun! Runaway Mine Train is a definite guilty pleasure of mine; that tunnel helix is surprisingly intense for a family roller coaster, and the ride definitely feels faster than 22mph! My grandad also really enjoyed it, saying that it was faster than he’d remembered, with the tunnel helix gaining particular plaudits from him! So overall, Runaway Mine Train was a good, fun ride that we all enjoyed:


    After our ride on the Runaway Mine Train, we headed to the snack stand near Wicker Man so that my parents and grandad could get some coffees. However, we were told that the stand had “run out of hot drinks” (my mum’s face upon hearing this was a picture…), so we headed to a different stand to get coffees before heading over to Rita.
     
    At that point, Rita’s 100 minute advertised queue time was the shortest of that of any of the open coasters we hadn’t ridden, so we initially decided to get into the queue. However, the ride was running 1 train and attaining a throughput of slightly under 400pph. This meant that the main queue pretty much wasn’t moving, with it moving more quickly from people leaving it than from the actual ride throughput. Therefore, we decided to bail after 15 minutes of minimal movement, as more rides were opening with shorter advertised queues:


    After bailing on Rita, we decided to head for a ride that had just reopened on a shorter advertised queue time…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man had just reopened on an advertised 70 minute queue time, so as all four of us really like Wicker Man, we decided to get in the queue. We had our suspicions that the queue may be a little longer than 70 minutes based on where it stretched to, but we hadn’t bargained for the actual length. It moved quite a bit slower than usual, likely in large part due to a combination of reduced capacity (only 2 trains out of 3 were running) and far more Fastrack and RAP than usual, and with a brief 5-10 minute weather delay, the queue ultimately took 145 minutes. No, that is not a typo… it took us nearly 2.5 hours to get to the airgates, and by the time we got off the ride and were stood in the shop, it was a full 2.5 hours later than when we had joined the queue (we joined at 4:30pm, and we were off the ride and in the shop at 7pm). That is quite possibly the longest queue I’ve ever waited in for a UK coaster, and up there with the likes of Gringotts at Universal in opening year as one of the longest I’ve ever waited in. To be fair, the weather delay added a small amount of time on, but even without that, the queue would still have taken well over 2 hours. But enough about the queue; how was the ride? Well, the longer-than-expected queue actually worked in our favour somewhat for the ride experience itself. By the time we got on the ride, it was pretty much dark, so we had an unexpected night ride with all the themed lighting on! I’d been hoping for a night ride on Wicker Man before our trip, but I had not expected to get one when I joined the queue at 4:30pm, so that was a definite bonus! Perhaps controversially, Wicker Man has long been my favourite Alton Towers ride, and people have always said about how brilliant it is at night. And my god, it did not disappoint! I was seated in row 5, and it was absolutely sublime! The pacing was phenomenal, with the ride absolutely flying through the course, there were loads of excellent airtime moments, and overall, it was just a phenomenal amount of fun! I should also add that it was absolutely belting it down with rain during our ride, which added an… interesting dimension to the experience! Overall, that night ride on Wicker Man was absolutely phenomenal; all four of us were shocked and in complete hysterics at the end, and that ride, for me at least, is an experience I will never forget! I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it was the best ride I’ve ever had on Wicker Man and quite possibly the best ride I’ve ever had on a UK coaster; it almost made the 2.5 hour queue feel worthwhile! And it was in row 5; I can only imagine how insane it would have been on the back:




    After our absolutely sublime night ride on Wicker Man, it was 7pm. As we’d changed our minds about staying until 8pm earlier in the day and booked a restaurant reservation at our hotel, we decided to leave the park to head back there at that point:

    So, that wrapped up our first day at Alton Towers out of this 2-day trip! I’m not going to beat around the bush here; it was a pretty weak day overall. I’m sorry to be negative, but I’ve had a lot of theme park visits over the years, including countless trips to Alton Towers alone, and it’s definitely the weakest day I’ve ever spent at Alton Towers. In fact, it’s probably down there with Thorpe Park July 2018 as one of the weakest days I’ve ever spent in a theme park full stop. A combination of long queues, sporadic ride availability, and cold and windy weather did definitely test our enthusiasm at times.
     
    However, this wasn’t Alton Towers’ fault. The problems were largely caused by excessive wind speeds and poor weather; they can’t change the weather, and to be fair, it was pretty windy and cold today. And they were kind enough to give us all a free return visit for our troubles, so we are thinking of returning for an additional day trip later in the year.
     
    Also, the day was not without its positives at all. For one, I really enjoyed getting on Nemesis Reborn; I’m a big fan of what they’ve done with the theming and area, the ride itself was running excellently, and it seemed like my parents and grandad were also fans! Secondly, that night ride on Wicker Man was simply sublime; as much as the queue was very long, I’m so glad we got to do that! It was possibly the best ride I’ve ever had on Wicker Man, or any UK coaster for that matter, and it left us all in awe and in complete hysterics!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I apologise for a slightly more negative report today, and I admit that I may have been overly harsh at points, but I do feel that I need to be honest with you all, and that means not pretending that things were brilliant when they weren’t. Keep your eyes peeled for another trip report tomorrow, as we’ve got a second day in the park tomorrow!
  3. Matt N

    Chessington 17th September 2023

    By Matt N,


    Chessington
    17th September 2023: Chessington
    Hi guys. Today was the second of my two London theme park visits this week, and a rather interesting one for me; it was my first visit to Chessington in almost a whole decade! To put things into some perspective, I was a fresh primary school leaver last time I went to Chessington in July 2014, so an awful lot has changed since then; I couldn’t wait to get inside and see some of the new things that hadn’t been built last time I was at the park, most notably Mandrill Mayhem and the World of Jumanji!
     
    I was able to visit the park today due to my mum and nan taking a trip to the nearby Hampton Court Palace, so the three of us left Gloucestershire at about 7:30am. The journey is supposed to take around 2h 15m from where I am, but it ended up taking a touch over 3 hours, in large part due to a bad bout of traffic on the M25 where it took about 30 minutes to drive a mile up our exit. As such, I arrived in the park at around 10:40am after my mum and nan dropped me off:


    Now before I get into my park day, I should mention that I did use the Virtual Queue system for Mandrill Mayhem, as I would like to share my experience and offer a corresponding piece of advice. Despite there being a Single Rider Queue for Mandrill Mayhem, the consensus was very divided with regard to whether those using it still needed to book a timeslot in the Virtual Queue or not, so I booked a timeslot just in case. When the Virtual Queue opened at 9:45am, I was still in the car on the way to Chessington, so I got in early despite not being at the park and booked a slot for around 10:45am while I was still in the car. I had a 30 minute window within which to redeem the slot, so as I figured that I would probably be able to make it to the ride entrance by 11:15am unless something went drastically wrong, I booked the slot and wasn’t too worried about making it in time. However, when I got to the park at around 10:40am or so, the app informed me that my timeslot had been moved forward by around 20 minutes, so I only had 10 minutes to make it to the ride and redeem it. This certainly made the panic set in, and I had to hotfoot it over to the ride at a fair pace! So if I were to give you one piece of advice, I would say; do not do what I did unless you are pretty sure that you can make it to the park a good bit before your entry window begins, as your slot may move forward and you may get caught out if not!
     
    With that being said, I did make it in time, and I was ultimately told by the entrance host that I did not need a Virtual Queue timeslot to use the Single Rider Queue. As such, I made my way straight into the Single Rider Queue to start my day on…
    Mandrill Mayhem
    Mandrill Mayhem was the main draw I had come to Chessington to experience, so as I did not need a Virtual Queue timeslot, I hopped straight into the Single Rider Queue to give it a go. As is often the case with Single Rider Queues, this was very fruitful, as there was only one person in front of me and I was batched into the ride and ready to go within minutes! I was very interested to experience Mandrill Mayhem, as the ride seemed like easily one of the most unique B&M coasters out there, and I’d always felt that it seemed like a very eclectic combination of ride types. I think Sarah from Coaster Studios put it quite well when she described it as being “like B&M picked a load of different ride types out of a hat”! But how was the ride? Did this unique blend of coaster types work well? Well if I’m being completely honest, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t overly rate the ride. I was seated in the front row outer left seat, and I have to say that I was definitely a bit disappointed with my first go on it after hearing some fairly positive reviews. It starts off quite well, with the initial swing launch sequence being fairly fun and providing some good speed and a surprisingly potent launch in terms of punch. The initial turn to the left provided some mild airtime, which was good fun, although the Junior Scorpion Tail wasn’t really up to much in the front. After the initial moments, though, I wasn’t greatly enamoured by it. My first critique is that if I’m being honest, the layout kind of feels a bit… bland, for lack of a better term. The inversion is OK, but perhaps taken a little bit too slowly for my personal taste, as someone who doesn’t massively love slow, hangy inversions. The various turns felt less dynamic and fast-paced than they looked off-ride and didn’t provide as much fun as I’d hoped, and the execution of them with the huge winged trains felt a little bit awkward (which I’ll touch upon in my second critique). I also wasn’t a fan of the main helix at all; the sideways hang was very awkward and uncomfortable for me. My second main critique of the ride is that for a brand new coaster, it is definitely not the smoothest. My first ride packed a fair old rattle, and in some of the more “dynamic” parts of the layout, such as the backwards dive out of the station and the s-bend before the big helix, the train seemed to almost shudder up and down in a very awkward fashion. The rattle was definitely noticeable and did detract from the ride for me, and I did step off with a little bit of a headache. Overall, then, Mandrill isn’t a terrible coaster by any means, but it wasn’t one I overly rated either. Based on the first ride, I was somewhat disappointed by it, and it definitely wasn’t one of my favourites. I apologise if I come across overly harsh or nitpicky, but that’s how I genuinely felt:


    After my first ride on Mandrill Mayhem, I looked at the app and considered my options. Nearby Dragon’s Fury was advertising a 100 minute queue, so that was swiftly vetoed, but another major coaster was on a much shorter wait…
    Vampire
    Vampire was on an advertised 5 minute queue, so I decided to head over and have a ride on it. When I arrived in the area, the queue looked a fair bit longer than 5 minutes, but as Rattlesnake was closed, Dragon’s Fury was on 100 minutes and I’d just ridden Mandrill Mayhem, I figured that I might as well give the queue a chance anyway. The queue initially moved faster from people leaving it than from the actual ride throughput, which did not bode well, and it ultimately took 60 minutes. The queue likely wasn’t helped by what may be the slowest operations I’ve ever seen in a Merlin park. The throughput average I clocked was somewhere in the ballpark of 400pph, with dispatch intervals clocking in at over 4 minutes in some of the longest cases. When I got to the station, I figured that this was likely due to the fact that the ride was seemingly lacking staff; there was only one operator on our side of the queue, who was handling both batching and restraint checking simultaneously, with another handling the seats on the left and what appeared to be the RAP queue. The staff were checking restraints at a fairly rapid pace and trying their best, but I do feel that the ride could have done with more staff on this occasion. But enough about the operations; how was the ride? Well, I hadn’t remembered particularly liking Vampire on my last visit to Chessington in 2014, but I was seated in row 5, and I have to say that it was a fair amount better than I’d remembered; some of the twists and turns through the trees were great fun, and the ride has some really surprising moments of intensity and thrill for a family coaster! My critiques from 2014 do still stand to a degree, though; the ride does have somewhat odd pacing, with a few moments where it’s quite slow, and while it was notably less rough than I’d previously remembered, it is showing its age a tad, with a couple of moments of slight headbanging and a couple of bits where the train kind of shunts forward awkwardly. Overall, though, Vampire was definitely a more fun coaster than I’d remembered from my last visit; I certainly found my lap on there pleasurable:



    After my ride on Vampire, another coaster was on a shorter queue than earlier, so I headed over to…
    Dragon’s Fury
    Dragon’s Fury was on a 40 minute advertised queue time, but the queue was only stretching back to the queue line shop and looked relatively innocuous, so I decided to give it a go. The queue ultimately took around 40-45 minutes, so broadly similar to what was advertised; it’s always great when that happens! So, how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered Dragon’s Fury being my favourite coaster at Chessington on my last visit, but I hadn’t remembered an awful lot beyond that, so I was interested to get back on. It wasn’t as enjoyable as I’d remembered, though; it probably isn’t helped by spinning coasters not being my favourite ride style in general these days, but the ride also seemed to have quite a few pretty rough and uncomfortable bits where it really threw you around, similar to Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers (albeit perhaps not quite as uncomfortable as Spinball). I do have to say that it has a strong layout, though, with some surprising intensity and even the odd surprising pop of airtime, and I definitely prefer it to Spinball. Overall, Dragon’s Fury wasn’t my favourite; even though I do concede that its layout is strong, I’m not the biggest fan of spinning coasters these days, and the ride also had a fair few uncomfortably rough moments for me:



    After my ride on Dragon’s Fury, I headed for another ride on Mandrill Mayhem using the Single Rider Queue. I was seated in the row 3 inner right seat this time, and while the Junior Scorpion Tail did feel a little more potent this time and was good fun, my opinion was broadly unchanged from my first ride:


    After my reride on Mandrill Mayhem, the heavens opened, so I quickly made a beeline for an indoor attraction to ride while the rain came down…
    Tomb Blaster
    Tomb Blaster was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so I decided to have a ride on it. I initially feared the worst, as the queue was coming down the stairs near to the entrance, but the extension queue going around the whole plaza was thankfully shut off, so the queue took about the advertised 30 minutes; when a queue is exactly as advertised, I can’t really complain! But how was the ride? Well, I’d been on Tomb Blaster before, as it was one of only a select few rides I could ride with a plastercast on my visit in 2013, but I hadn’t really remembered an awful lot about it. And to be honest, I thought it was pretty good! I liked the storyline with the ancient priest, and there were some neat animatronics and surprisingly grand-scale physical set pieces! The interactivity also worked quite well, and I overall felt that the ride was definitely superior to something like Duel in its last year. On a side note; if anyone is interested to know my score, I got 2,850! Overall, then, I rather enjoyed Tomb Blaster; it was definitely a fun way to stay dry:

    After my ride on Tomb Blaster, I headed to another attraction nearby…
    Croc Drop
    Croc Drop was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue ended up being even less than advertised for me; as a single rider, I was ushered forward by the operator when a seat was going spare, so my queue only took 5-10 minutes. It’s great when that happens; it’s one of the definite bonuses of visiting parks alone! So, how was the ride? Well, I’m a fan of a good drop tower, and I thought that Croc Drop was good fun! It’s certainly on the far gentler end of the spectrum, but that’s to be expected from a family drop tower, and similarly to Magma at Paultons Park, the ride had some surprisingly fun moments of airtime! Overall, then, I found Croc Drop an enjoyable ride; I definitely had a fun time on there:


    After my ride on Croc Drop, I sat down and ate my lunch for a bit before heading over to Mandrill Mayhem for a third ride using the Single Rider Queue. I was seated in the row 5 outer right seat this time, and even though the Junior Scorpion Tail was at its most potent yet and very fun in this ride, my overall thoughts remained pretty much unchanged from my first ride:


    After that, Vampire was showing as a 30 minute queue, so I headed over intending to reride. However, it was approaching 3pm, and my mum rang me not very long after I joined to say that she would be in the drop off zone in 15 minutes. As the advertised queue time swiftly jumped up to 60 minutes and the queue didn’t appear to be moving anywhere very quickly, I ultimately bailed and left the queue:


    After I bailed on Vampire due to the increasing queue length, my mum and nan were approaching, so I decided to call it a day there and exit the park:


    So, that just about wraps up my day at Chessington! I had a nice day; I was glad to get on Mandrill Mayhem, and I was just generally glad to get back to the park after 9 years! I do maintain that it’s not one of my favourite UK parks, though; I’d probably say it’s the weakest of the Merlin four for me, as while it’s got some fun rides and some nice theming, there aren’t any rides there that I absolutely love, even for the family demographic, and the park does also appear to suffer from some notable capacity issues that can make queues quite long. For large parts of the day, Vampire and Dragon’s Fury both had queues of comfortably over an hour even though the park did not appear to be crazily busy, and I’d probably say that it has some of the weakest operations I’ve seen relative to the crowds it gets. Nonetheless, I had a fun day, and I certainly enjoyed my time at Chessington; I’m very glad I came back!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I’m not sure when my next report will be or where it will be from, as this was almost definitely my final theme park visit of 2023. I’ve had a phenomenal season, and this was a nice way to end it!
  4. Matt N

    Thorpe Park 15th September 2023

    By Matt N,


    Thorpe Park
    15th September 2023: Thorpe Park
    Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; it was the day of my dad’s trip to Wentworth, and thus my now annual solo trip to Thorpe Park! I know I’ve been to Thorpe Park many times, but I always look forward to my solo trip there, so I was excited for today!
     
    My dad and I left Gloucestershire at around 7:25am this morning, and even with a stop for petrol and a stop at Reading services, we made it to Thorpe Park by around 9:30am. After making brilliant time, I was then dropped off by my dad, so I bade him goodbye before making my way into the park ready to wait for the 10am opening time:




    When opening time came, I decided to deviate from my normal strategy of starting with the Stealth/Inferno end of the park and take a gamble on a different strategy. As such, I started on…
    Colossus
    Colossus was on a near walk on queue, so I decided to have a go on it before a queue built up (it’s a low capacity ride that often generates long queues later on). This queue took merely 1 or 2 trains, so I was on the ride in very little time. I was interested to see how Colossus felt having done Sik, its modernised clone at Flamingo Land, last month. But how was the ride? Well, it did feel notably inferior to Sik, but with that being said, that ride was probably the best I have ever had on Colossus by some margin! Don’t get me wrong, Colossus still isn’t a favourite of mine due to the uncomfortable restraints, a sequence of repeated heartline rolls I don’t overly like (and this sequence was definitely less enjoyable than on Sik for me), and some roughness, but the roughness was nowhere near as overbearing as it normally is; I was sat in row 13, and it was a bit rough in places, but it did not provide nearly the same degree of pounding as it normally does, and today’s ride definitely shot Colossus up a fair few spots in my rankings:



    After my ride on Colossus, I had a ride on its neighbour…
    Saw: The Ride
    Saw was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. My original plan was to use my secret weapon, the Single Rider Queue, to bypass this and take a gamble at reducing my queue time, but this was closed, so I had to get into the main queue. By the time I’d gone into the SRQ (which had an open entrance and 2 other people waiting in it), been ushered out by the operator and gotten into the main queue, the advertised queue time had gone up to 20 minutes, but this was slightly overstated, as I only waited for 15 minutes or so. The queue is besides the point, though; how was the ride? Well, as with Colossus above, that was possibly the best ride I’ve ever had on Saw! I was seated in the back middle seat, and the ride was a bit rough in places, but certainly not as headache-inducing as it has been in the past. There was also some absolutely brilliant airtime, and overall, I came off Saw pretty headache-free this morning! While I would still like it if the ride were smoother, my ride this morning was certainly not nearly as rough as Saw has been in the past:


    After my ride on Saw, I headed east to ride my next coaster…
    Nemesis Inferno
    Nemesis Inferno was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue time estimate ended up being broadly accurate, with my wait being around 10-15 minutes; it’s always great when that happens! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought that it was thoroughly great; I rode in row 5, and I thought that the ride was fast and intense without being excessively intense, and it was also perfectly smooth, with not a modicum of headbanging anywhere! When a ride is fast, smooth, and just the right level of intense, what more can you ask for? Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my ride on Nemesis Inferno; I’ve always found it a thoroughly decent coaster, and today was no exception:



    After my ride on Nemesis Inferno, I headed to another coaster situated nearby…
    Stealth
    Stealth was on an advertised 15 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on it. The queue time was accurate or possibly a little underestimated, taking only 10-15 minutes to get to the station. Operations were absolutely excellent on here, with a number of consecutive dispatch intervals as quick as 75-80 seconds being attained! As the queue was overstated and I was doing quite well on the ride count front given that I had only been riding for just over an hour, I decided to wait for a little additional time and ride in the front row of Stealth for the first time since my only prior front row experience in 2020, where I got it by chance in batching. So, how was my first front row Stealth ride in 3 years and only my second ever? Well, I have to say that the front row firmly lived up to my memories; it was absolutely fantastic, and it reinforced my prior view that front row is easily the place to be on Stealth! The sense of speed on that launch is absolutely ridiculous in the front, with the combination of the unshielded wind in your face and the view of that track being devoured at a phenomenal rate making the ride feel every single bit of its 80mph top speed, and perhaps surprisingly, I’d also argue that the airtime is stronger in the front, with the airtime being sustained for the entire way over the top hat rather than only dropping out of it like it is in the back and the braked airtime hill being notably more potent in the front. As an added bonus, it also seems slightly smoother in the front! Overall, I absolutely loved my experience of front row Stealth; it was absolutely fantastic:



    After Stealth, I went for a ride on the final big coaster I hadn’t yet ridden…
    The Swarm
    The Swarm was on an advertised 15 minute queue time, so I decided to have a ride on it. This queue ended up being slightly underestimated, with the queue ultimately taking around 20 minutes. I must say that operations were absolutely brilliant on here; there were numerous cycles where there was mere seconds of stacking, and dispatch intervals as quick as 90 seconds were being attained for numerous dispatches in a row! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back right inner seat, and it was a fairly decent ride; there was a very good sense of speed and some great inversions, and it was relatively smooth as well! However, it's not an absolute favourite for me anymore like it used to be. I'm generally finding myself a little less keen on some of the ride's more brain-draining moments of sustained positive g's, most notably the helicopter helix, with time, but my main bone of contention with The Swarm these days is its vest restraints. I'm not a fan of them at all; the rigid vest and the way they tighten throughout the ride do make these restraints detract noticeably from the overall experience. Nonetheless, my ride on Swarm was relatively decent, with all things considered; I'll be intrigued to see how Mandrill Mayhem compares in 2 days' time:



    As I had already managed to have one ride on each of Thorpe Park's big 5 thrill coasters by before 12pm, I decided to stray away from the coasters for a little bit to go and ride...
    Detonator
    Detonator was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue time proved relatively accurate or slightly understated, as the queue took 5-10 minutes and a couple of cycles overall. But how was the ride? Well, I'm a big fan of a drop tower, and Detonator is a very good one, in my view; that drop is so punchy, and you get a fair degree of airtime for such a small tower! Overall, Detonator is a brilliant drop tower that I absolutely love, and today's ride was no exception; these Fabbri towers are a real guilty pleasure of mine:


    After my ride on Detonator, I decided to sit down for 15-20 minutes to have a drink and eat lunch, timing the throughput of Colossus as I ate. After my sit down, I headed to another flat ride in the immediate vicinity of Colossus...
    Rush
    Rush was nearby and on a 10 minute queue, so I decided to have a go on it. This queue time was pretty accurate, with the queue taking 10-15 minutes overall. So, how was the ride? Well, despite not generally being a huge fan of flat rides, I'm a big fan of an S&S Screamin' Swing, and Rush was fantastic; there was an excellent sense of speed and nice acceleration in the troughs, there was nice sustained floater at the peaks, and the ride was thrilling without being overly nauseating! I was also intrigued to see how Rush stacked up after having ridden Serengeti Flyer, the giant Screamin' Swing at Busch Gardens Tampa, earlier this year, and while Rush was not quite as impressive as its giant sibling over in Florida, it still offered a fantastically enjoyable experience in its own right, in my view. Overall, I loved Rush; I thought it was a fantastic flat ride, and I thoroughly enjoyed its airtime and speed:

    After my ride on Rush, I headed over to Stealth for two back-to-back rides, as the ride was on an advertised 5 minute queue time which turned out to be pretty much walk-on. When my favourite coaster at Thorpe is on a queue that short, who would I be to resist a ride or two? I took a ride in the front, as well as a ride in the back, and both were absolutely fantastic, although as I inferred earlier, the front row does usurp the back row on Stealth, in my view:



    After my two rides on Stealth, I headed over to The Swarm for a reride on a 10 minute queue. This time, I was seated on the row 5 outer right seat, and similarly to earlier, it was a pretty decent ride. It was perhaps a little less smooth, but in fairness, it was notably smoother than I'd previously remembered the ride's outer seats being:




    After my Swarm reride, I headed for a reride on Rush on a 5 minute queue. As with earlier, it was a fantastic flat ride with great airtime and speed:

    After my reride on Rush, I headed to do an attraction I'd never done before for the first time...
    Vortex
    Vortex was on an advertised 5 minute queue time and looked to be pretty much walk-on, so I decided to give it a whirl. Despite having visited Thorpe Park numerous times before, I had somehow never ridden Vortex before today, so I thought I'd finally give it a try. Despite controversially having not been a huge fan of the two other gyroswing-type rides I've done (Cyclonator at Paultons and Maelstrom at Drayton), I was interested to try Vortex, as I'd never ridden a KMG Afterburner before and I know these are slightly different to a regular gyroswing. So how did I find the experience? Well, I'm afraid to say that I still wasn't a massive fan. In my view, it suffers from exactly the same flaw as the other two gyroswings I've ridden in that the spinning makes it a little bit much and ruins it. There was some fair weightlessness and speed in places, but it wasn't as potent as on a ride like Rush, and when the ride properly got going, this seemed to disappear in favour of intense spinning, and as someone who has quite a weak stomach for spinning flat rides, I didn't personally find that overly enjoyable. Overall, Vortex is similar to other gyroswings in that I can see why people like it, but it's not really for me:


    After Vortex, I decided to head and try out another flat ride that I hadn't done in a long time...
    Samurai
    Samurai was on a 10 minute advertised queue time, so I decided to give it a go. The queue looked to be a cycle or two long, but as I was a single rider, the host ushered me onto the cycle that was about to go pretty much as soon as I joined, as there was a spare seat; it's always great when that happens! But how was the ride? Well unlike Vortex, I had done Samurai before; it was one of only two rides that I did during a school trip to Thorpe Park in July 2018, with the other being Rush. At the time, I thought it was pretty decent and not too nauseating, and when I first rode it, I even considered that I might have preferred it to Rush out of the two flats I did that day. With this in mind, I was intrigued to see how it stacked up after over 5 years. I'm very sorry to say, however, that my recollections could not have disagreed more with the experience I had today... because I'm afraid that I personally found Samurai absolutely vile. Today's experience moved it down considerably in my estimations and has it in close competition with Air Race at Drayton Manor for the title of the most sickeningly vile flat ride I've ever done. It was horribly jerky, it did that horrible slow flipping like Air Race does (where I swear I can physically feel stuff moving around inside my stomach), it had horribly long periods of inverted hangtime, and overall, I'm sorry to say that I didn't like it at all. Overall, I did not enjoy Samurai, and I'm afraid that it did not live up to my relatively positive 2018 memories of it; I'm not sure if something has changed with the ride or if I've simply grown more fragile over the last 5 years, but for whatever reason, I just didn't like it at all today, I'm afraid:

    After getting off Samurai, I felt a little worse for wear and needed a sit down, so I sat down in Angry Birds Land for 15-20 minutes or so to eat a snack out of my bag and have a drink, timing the throughput of Nemesis Inferno as I sat. After my sit down, I headed for a reride on Detonator with a 5 minute queue time, which was just as awesome as it had been earlier; that punchy drop never gets old!:

    After my ride on Detonator, I headed back over to Stealth for two more back-to-back rerides on a 10 minute queue; I had a ride in row 9 and another on the front, and both were absolutely fantastic, with a phenomenal sense of speed and great airtime:


    After my two rerides on Stealth, I headed for another reride on The Swarm on a 10 minute queue time. I was seated in the row 3 inner left seat this time, and as with earlier, it was a thoroughly decent ride:



    After my ride on The Swarm, I headed over to Nemesis Inferno for a reride on a 10 minute queue. I was seated on the back row, and as with earlier, it was a great coaster, with excellent speed and some good inversions:


    After my reride on Nemesis Inferno, I headed over to Saw for a reride on a 10 minute queue. I was seated in the back edge seat this time, and similarly to earlier, the ride was very much on the smoother and more enjoyable end of the spectrum as Saw goes; the ride had some excellent airtime, and I exited relatively headache-free!:


    After my ride on Saw, I headed back towards the rest of the coasters, but the attendant of Rush saying "there's no queue here; you can get straight onto the ride!" was too much to resist, so I had a walk-on reride on Rush. Once again, it was fantastic, with great speed and airtime:
    After my ride on Rush, I had a brief sit down with a bottle of water and a Magnum before heading back over to Stealth, where I had two further back-to-back rides on a 5 minute queue. I had one ride in row 9 and one ride in row 8, and both were just as fantastic as ever; Stealth is such a fantastic coaster, in my view:


    After my two rides on Stealth, I headed over to Detonator for another reride on a 5 minute queue. It was a fantastic drop tower once again; that punchy drop and awesome airtime just keep on giving:

    After my ride on Detonator, I had my three final back-to-back rides on Stealth for the day on a 5 minute queue. I had one ride in the front, one ride in row 5 and one ride in row 7, and all three were absolutely fantastic! On a side note; I clearly wasn't the only person hammering Stealth today, as the ride operator gave a shoutout to a couple who were having their 20th consecutive ride on it on one of my last rides:

    After my final rides on Stealth, I had three back-to-back rides on Nemesis Inferno on a 5 minute queue which turned out to be walk-on. I had a ride on the back row, a ride in row 5 and a ride in row 6, and as with the earlier two rides, all three rides were great, with great speed, intensity and inversions! It was great to be able to make the most of an inverted coaster like this, what with the current absence of Nemesis at Alton Towers:

    After my three rides on Nemesis Inferno, I closed out the day with a final ride on Detonator. As with the earlier 3 rides, the drop was fantastically punchy and there was great airtime to be had! I also had quite a unique experience in that I was the only member of the public on the ride, so numerous ride hosts joined me on it:

    After my final ride on Detonator, it was only four minutes away from the 6pm close time and my dad was waiting in the drop-off zone in the car park, so I bade Thorpe Park goodbye for the day and headed home:


    So, that wraps up my solo day at Thorpe Park! I had an absolutely phenomenal day; I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's my favourite day I have ever spent at Thorpe Park and quite possibly one of my favourite theme park days ever! I managed a total of 30 rides during the 8 hours I spent on park; if you lost track, these are the rides I managed:
    Colossus x1 Saw: The Ride x2 Nemesis Inferno x5 Stealth x10 The Swarm x3 Detonator x4 Rush x3 Vortex x1 Samurai x1 I was chuffed to bits with having done 30 rides; that is joint with my June 2022 day at Drayton Manor for the most rides I've ever done in one theme park day, and my 10 rides on Stealth are the most I have ever ridden one attraction during a theme park day! As an added bonus, the weather was lovely, the rides themselves were absolutely great and I had some brilliant runs on them, and overall, it was one of those wonderful days where the stars aligned and everything seemed to go just right! If I'm being sentimental, it's theme park days like today that remind me why I love theme parks and roller coasters as much as I do. My day at Thorpe today has left me with some absolutely wonderful memories to cherish, and I have to say that in some of the moments lapping rides like Stealth and Nemesis Inferno, I felt truly in my element and like there was nowhere I'd rather be.
     
    In terms of Thorpe itself; I have to admit that today made me realise that as much as enthusiasts seemingly love to hate it, I personally absolutely love Thorpe Park! The coasters are great, there's some great theming and surprising greenery in places, and there's just something about the place that I really like! In terms of a specific highlight ride-wise from today; Stealth was absolutely fantastic. Today's rides definitely raised it a fair amount in my estimations, and I now view it as my comfortable favourite ride at Thorpe Park, one of my favourite coasters in the UK and in my high top 20 overall. Nemesis Inferno was also awesome, Detonator was fantastic, Rush was fantastic, Swarm was decent, Saw was OK, and even Colossus was not nearly as bad as normal!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! My next trip report will be coming on Sunday, when I make a solo trip to Chessington for my first visit in 9 years! I can't wait to see what Mandrill Mayhem is like, and I'm generally very interested to see what Chessington is like after nearly a decade of not visiting. Today will certainly be a tough act for it to follow, but if my day at Chessington is even half as brilliant as today was, then I'll be very happy!
  5. Matt N

    Brean Theme Park 9th September 2023

    By Matt N,


    Brean Theme Park
    9th September 2023: Brean Theme Park
    Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; I went for my first ever visit to Brean Theme Park, near Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset! Now I know that that might not sound too exciting to many of you, but I was glad to finally tick it off seeing as it’s actually my closest semi-major theme park! Oddly given that I’ve lived in the South West of England my whole life and amassed a coaster count of over 100, I had never been to Brean Theme Park (or any theme park in my local South West region, for that matter) before today. I’d walked past the outside of it during a camping trip to Brean when I was no older than about 8, but I’d never been inside and seen what delights it had to offer. With that in mind, I was excited to tick off my closest non-kiddie +3 and finally see what my closest theme park is like!
     
    I was originally planning to do this as a solo trip via train and bus, but my mum decided she didn’t like the idea of me going to Brean alone and kindly offered to drive me there, and my nan decided that she fancied joining us. The 3 of us set off from Gloucestershire at a bit before 10am, and with the drive taking just over an hour, we arrived in Brean in very good time for the 11am opening time:

    After parking up, we headed into the park and got Fun Cards. As I was riding the coasters, I put 14 credits on mine, and my mum and nan put credits on theirs to play a game of Congo Adventure Golf while I rode the coasters. After paying, I split off from my mum and nan and headed into the main theme park itself:

    Upon entering the park, I was initially unsure whether any of the coasters were even open, as they looked very empty and showed little sign of being operational. However, I did find one coaster that was open upon closer inspection, so I headed over to it…
    Astro Storm
    Astro Storm was open and had a very short-looking queue consisting of around 6 people, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue ended up taking around 10-15 minutes all in, which I wasn’t too displeased with, in all honesty. Interestingly, though, I noticed that the operators were very casually walking across the track and between the unload and load stations in a way that you definitely wouldn’t see at a park like Alton Towers, and it’s also the first coaster where I’ve ever had the operator push me out of the station! That’s not a criticism, but just something interesting I noticed. But enough about that; how was the ride? Well, I was interested to ride it given that it was a former resident of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, and I have to say that it wasn’t too bad at all for a ride at a park of this calibre! Sure, it’s not going to blow any minds on the world stage, and I’d argue that the claim that it’s “Europe’s best indoor coaster” is a bit debatable, but the ride was quite good fun for what it is, with some fun twists and turns! I was also quite pleasantly surprised by the theming; there were some nice effects, although there were quite a few air cannons that did make me jump! Overall, Astro Storm was a perfectly fine enclosed coaster with some surprising theming:



    After getting off Astro Storm, I headed over to the next coaster…
    Bulldog Coaster
    Bulldog Coaster was open and on a very short queue consisting of only 2 other people, so I decided to have a go on it. The wait was very short, only taking the time that it took for the train to negotiate the remainder of the circuit and unload the riders in it; I can’t complain about that! So, how was the ride? Well, it was the second Pinfari coaster I’ve ridden, and the first looping Pinfari Zyklon I’ve ridden, and similar to the first Pinfari coaster I rode, Creepy Crawler at Oakwood, I wasn’t a huge fan. The restraint was very uncomfortable, and although the signature loop was admittedly quite forceful, the layout was pretty rough in numerous places, with a fair amount of bracing required. It’s admittedly an impressive headliner for a park like Brean, but I’m afraid to say that I wasn’t a fan:



    After getting off Bulldog Coaster, I made my way to the final credit I needed…
    Magic Mouse
    Magic Mouse was open and had a relatively short-looking queue consisting of around 10-15 people, so I decided to take a ride on it. This queue, similarly to that of Astro Storm, took around 10-15 minutes, which I can’t really complain about. I did notice that they were only loading one group per car regardless of the group size, though, and it was similar on Astro Storm; I rode in a car on my own on both rides, even though I could quite easily have been batched in alongside other groups that came before me in both cases. It wasn’t really a problem today, but it was just something I noticed. That’s besides the point, though; how was the ride? Well, Magic Mouse was my 7th Reverchon spinning wild mouse coaster, so I’m quite well versed in how these coasters ride by this point, and I’m not a fan of them at all, as I’m not a fan of the wild mouse ride style in general. This was one of the smoother ones I’ve done, though, and with me being in a car on my own, it span a lot; I was a little bit light-headed getting off! Overall, Magic Mouse was pretty much par-for-the-course for these Reverchon spinning coasters; I don’t really rate them at all, I’m afraid:



    After getting off Magic Mouse, it was around 12pm, so as my Fun Card credits had run out and I’d ridden all 3 of the coasters I wanted to ride, I met back up with my mum and nan, who’d finished their game of Congo Adventure Golf. They both tied with each other, but said that they’d very much enjoyed their game!
     
    After meeting back up, we exited the park:

    Before heading back home, we took a stroll along a very foggy Brean Beach. This must easily be the foggiest I’ve ever seen a beach; you couldn’t even see the sea!:




    After our brief beachside stroll, we headed back to the car and headed home, stopping in Sedgemoor services for a spot of lunch on the way back.
     
    So, that concludes our day (or, more accurately, morning) at Brean Theme Park in Somerset! I know this probably hasn’t been the most exciting report, and I apologise for that, but I was very glad to finally visit my closest theme park and grab the +3 that it had to offer, and if nothing else, it made for a fun morning on a hot day like today! None of the coasters are anything particularly earth-shattering in the grand scheme of things, but I didn’t go in expecting top 10/20 candidates or anything, and for a park of the calibre that it is, I think Brean is a perfectly fine place. Now I’ve been, it’s not somewhere I’d rush back to, but I’m glad that I finally went and ticked off my closest theme park, and I had a nice morning there.
     
    Thanks for reading! Despite this probably not being the most interesting report, I hope you still enjoyed it! It won’t be long at all until you next see a trip report from me, as I’m headed to two theme parks next week; I’ll be taking my annual visit to Thorpe Park on Friday 15th September, swiftly followed by my first visit to Chessington in nearly a decade on Sunday 17th September!
  6. Matt N
    Disclaimer: This is a very long post with a fair amount of statistical talk. I'll try my best to simplify some of it a bit and explain a few things, but if you don't like statistics, this post may not be for you!
    Hi guys. Over the course of my many years being a Brit following the UK enthusiast scene, I've noticed that that there is a common feeling among British enthusiasts of the country being a poor relation to other countries in Europe in terms of roller coasters and theme parks. Many British enthusiasts make out that parks in Britain are being left behind by parks on the continent in the roller coaster stakes, and overall, the topic of the British coaster scene lagging behind that of other countries in Europe has been well-discussed at this point, along with many other variations on the wider point of "British parks and coasters are rubbish compared to those in mainland Europe". With this in mind, I thought that I'd put this common theory to the test and perform a statistical analysis of European countries' roller coaster selections, and attempt to answer the question of "Which European country is best for roller coasters?". I thought that it would be interesting to see which European country comes out on top in the coaster stakes when applying various statistical measures and asking various questions. As inferred above, I also thought it would be interesting to see whether that common British feeling that our coasters are lagging behind those of other mainland European countries is 100% justified, or whether it's simply a case of the grass seeming greener where we're not.
     
    I hear you asking "Hold on a second, Matt. Haven't you analysed European coaster selections before?". Well, my answer to that would be that I have indeed analysed European coaster selections before, but my previous analysis focused on parks rather than countries, so with me focusing on whole countries this time as opposed to individual parks, the analysis will be different and will produce very different results.
     
    So without further ado, let's get started on the analysis! Firstly, let me explain some of my methods...
     
    Methodology
    To perform this analysis, the dataset I used was Captain Coaster's World Roller Coaster Ranking for August 2023 (https://captaincoaster.com/en/ranking/?filters[continent]=&filters[country]=&filters[materialType]=&filters[seatingType]=&filters[model]=&filters[manufacturer]=&filters[openingDate]=&page=1), with the Country filter being used to discern the top-ranking coasters in each country. Captain Coaster is a site run by members of the French enthusiast group CoastersWorld.fr, but it has a very wide user base encompassing plenty of users of many different nationalities, so as far as sources on roller coaster opinions go, I figured that Captain Coaster was a pretty good, unbiased one to use with a large amount of available data. For each country, I used the top 20 extant roller coasters from the list (so the first page of the country's Captain Coaster ranking if no defunct coasters made the all-time top 20), as I figured that in most cases, 20 would be enough to get a broader understanding of a country's roller coaster selection beyond its headliners without necessarily delving deeply into the entire coaster selection to the point of reaching rides that people don't really care about. By an extant roller coaster, I'm referring to anything that has not been confirmed as permanently defunct or has some kind of potential operational future ahead of it. So for instance, I included Nemesis in the UK's top 20, as it is returning next year, but I did not include Wild Mouse, The Ultimate or Raptor Attack, as those coasters have either been demolished or left the UK permanently. There were also a few cases where travelling coasters were present, and I did not count those; for instance, Olympia Looping is listed in the lists of both Germany and Austria, but I did not include it in either country's ranking as it is a travelling ride with no permanent base. Where there were not 20 scoreable roller coasters available, but I felt that there was a sufficient amount to play with for one or both of the questions I asked, I simply included the whole selection. Two countries with scoreable roller coasters were excluded on the basis of them not even having enough to form a top 3, and those are Ireland with 1 scoreable coaster and Switzerland with 2. For each coaster, I used the score given by Captain Coaster to determine its ranking. The score is out of 100 and is given to one decimal place. While Captain Coaster has never officially revealed exactly what determines a coaster's score, I ascertain that it is determined by some combination of its ratings and rankings versus those of other rides. It should also be noted that a coaster has to have at least a certain degree of ridership to get a score in the first place, so none of the scores here are influenced by the opinions of a vast minority of riders. Coasters that the site classifies as "kiddie" are also excluded from receiving a score. For clarity, the 14 countries I investigated (and the coasters within them, along with their scores) are as follows:
    Austria (16)
    Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Megablitz - Wiener Prater (65.1/100) Fridolin's verruckter Zauberexpress - Fantasiana (59.3/100) Big Bang - Freizeitpark Familienland (55.1/100) Gotterblitz - Familypark (53.8/100) Insider - Wiener Prater (49.1/100) Boomerang - Wiener Prater (46.4/100) Hochshaubahn - Wiener Prater (40.9/100) Super 8er Bahn - Wiener Prater (36.7/100) Maskerade - Wiener Prater (29.6/100) Dizzy Mouse - Wiener Prater (18.4/100) Roller Ball - Wiener Prater (16.0/100) Wilde Maus - Wiener Prater (8.9/100) Volare - Wiener Prater (3.2/100) Belgium (20)
    Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) Anubis The Ride - Plopsaland de Panne (80.3/100) Heidi The Ride - Plopsaland de Panne (78.6/100) Pulsar - Walibi Belgium (76.1/100) Wakala - Bellewaerde (69.7/100) Psyke Underground - Walibi Belgium (68.6/100) Tiki-Waka - Walibi Belgium (66.4/100) Vicky The Ride - Plopsa Coo (61.0/100) Huracan - Bellewaerde (61.0/100) Typhoon - Bobbejaanland (54.0/100) Revolution - Bobbejaanland (53.6/100) Calamity Mine - Bobbejaanland (51.1/100) Loup Garou - Walibi Belgium (49.8/100) Schtroumpfeur - Plopsa Coo (47.0/100) Naga Bay - Bobbejaanland (43.1/100) SuperSplash - Plopsaland de Panne (37.7/100) Bob Express - Bobbejaanland (36.8/100) Oki Doki - Bobbejaanland (33.8/100) Denmark (20)
    Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) Rutschebanen - Tivoli Gardens (84.3/100) Daemonen - Tivoli Gardens (78.5/100) Lynet - Farup Sommerland (78.2/100) Mine Train Ulven - Bakken (73.1/100) Orkanen - Farup Sommerland (71.2/100) DrageKongen - Djurs Sommerland (69.4/100) Polar X-plorer - Legoland Billund (66.6/100) Falken - Farup Sommerland (63.9/100) Tornado - Bakken (63.1/100) Thor's Hammer - Djurs Sommerland (54.9/100) Saven - Farup Sommerland (53.6/100) Skatteoen - Djurs Sommerland (53.5/100) Han-Katten - BonBon Land (51.6/100) Rutschebanen - Bakken (51.4/100) Vild-Svinet - BonBon Land (51.1/100) Flying Eagle - Legoland Billund (33.9/100) Maelkevejen - Tivoli Gardens (33.1/100) Finland (18)
    Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) Tornado - Sarkanniemi (78.6/100) Vuoristorata - Linnanmaki (76.4/100) Pitts Special - PowerPark (70.0/100) Hype - Sarkanniemi (66.4/100) Salama - Linnanmaki (59.5/100) Kirnu - Linnanmaki (45.8/100) Ukko - Linnanmaki (43.3/100) MotoGee - Sarkanniemi (42.6/100) Linnunrata eXtra - Linnanmaki (35.0/100) Joyride - PowerPark (27.3/100) Cobra - PowerPark (26.0/100) Pikajuna - Linnanmaki (12.9/100) Neo's Twister - PowerPark (12.2/100) Tulireki - Linnanmaki (8.5/100) Trombi - Sarkanniemi (3.0/100) France (20)
    Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) Alpina Blitz - Nigloland (90.2/100) Mystic - Walibi Rhone-Alpes (88.4/100) Yukon Quad - Le Pal (85.4/100) Wood Express - Parc Saint Paul (83.7/100) Big Thunder Mountain - Disneyland Park Paris (81.4/100) Tonnerre 2 Zeus - Parc Asterix (80.2/100) Timber - Walibi Rhone-Alpes (79.8/100) Pegase Express - Parc Asterix (78.1/100) Namazu - Vulcania (75.4/100) Vertika - La Recre des 3 Cures (74.2/100) Orochi - Parc du Bocasse (74.1/100) Objectif Mars - Futuroscope (71.7/100) Twist - Le Pal (71.6/100) Crush's Coaster - Walt Disney Studios Park (69.1/100) Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain - Disneyland Park Paris (68.8/100) Timber Drop - Fraispertuis City (68.6/100) Avengers Assemble: Flight Force - Walt Disney Studios Park (67.5/100) Germany (20)
    Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) FLY - Phantasialand (96.8/100) Black Mamba - Phantasialand (91.9/100) Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (91.6/100) Colossos - Heide Park (91.2/100) Dynamite - Freizeitpark Plohn (89.3/100) Silver Star - Europa Park (89.3/100) Karacho - Tripsdrill (88.3/100) Blue Fire - Europa Park (88.3/100) Hals-uber-Kopf - Tripsdrill (88.2/100) Flucht von Novgorod - Hansa Park (88.1/100) El Toro - Freizeitpark Plohn (87.8/100) Flug der Damonen - Heide Park (87.1/100) Star Trek Operation Enterprise - Movie Park Germany (85.4/100) Krake - Heide Park (79.1/100) Desert Race - Heide Park (78.8/100) Winjas Fear - Phantasialand (78.2/100) Sky Scream - Phantasialand (77.6/100) Italy (20)
    iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) Storm - Etnaland (86.6/100) Raptor - Gardaland (85.4/100) Shock - MagicLand (84.6/100) Inferno - Cinecitta World (80.1/100) Freestyle - Cavallino Matto (78.5/100) Altair - Cinecitta World (75.6/100) Vertigo - Zoomarine (69.1/100) Diabolik - Movieland Park (58.1/100) Divertical - Mirabilandia (55.9/100) Eurofighter - Zoosafari Fasanolandia (54.2/100) Fuga de Atlantide - Gardaland (52.4/100) Mammut - Gardaland (51.7/100) Fun Bob - Haunold Baranci (51.5/100) Eldorado - Etnaland (50.2/100) Gioco Delle Onde - Osteria Ai Pioppi (46.9/100) Desmo Race (Right) - Mirabilandia (46.7/100) Desmo Race (Left) - Mirabilandia (46.3/100) Netherlands (20)
    Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) Troy - Toverland (91.0/100) Lost Gravity - Walibi Holland (86.8/100) Gold Rush - Attractiepark Slagharen (86.3/100) Baron 1898 - Efteling (85.4/100) Joris en de Draak (Vuur) - Efteling (83.2/100) Joris en de Draak (Water) - Efteling (82.5/100) Dwervelwind - Toverland (74.9/100) Vliegende Hollander - Efteling (74.9/100) Formule X - Drievliet Family Park (72.0/100) Xpress Platform 13 - Walibi Holland (61.4/100) Dragon Fly - Duinrell (59.4/100) Vogel Rok - Efteling (58.9/100) Tweestryd (Duurzaam Landbouw) - Wildlands Adventure Zoo Emmen (58.7/100) Python (2018) - Efteling (57.5/100) Falcon - Duinrell (56.5/100) Tweestryd (Eerlijk Mijnbouw) - Wildlands Adventure Zoo Emmen (55.4/100) Booster Bike - Toverland (52.5/100) Norway (6)
    Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) SuperSplash - TusenFryd (35.8/100) Western-Expressen - TusenFryd (20.1/100) Loopen - TusenFryd (12.2/100) Poland (20)
    Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) Abyssus - Energylandia (90.4/100) Werewolf - Majaland Kownaty (84.8/100) Formula - Energylandia (82.7/100) Dragon Roller Coaster - Energylandia (70.1/100) Speed - Energylandia (61.8/100) Light Explorers - Energylandia (46.9/100) Boomerang - Energylandia (46.6/100) Roller Coaster Mayan - Energylandia (36.6/100) Frida - Energylandia (31.2/100) Rollercoaster Wikingow - Majaland Kownaty (30.8/100) Energus Roller Coaster - Energylandia (30.1/100) Devil's Loop - Legendia (29.7/100) Toboggan Run - Gorski Park Rownica (20.4/100) Dream Hunters Society - Legendia (13.7/100) Scary Toys Factory - Legendia (5.2/100) Toboggan Run - Gora Zar (3.8/100) Viking Roller Coaster - Energylandia (0.4/100) Spain (20)
    Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) Red Force - Ferrari Land (91.0/100) Stunt Fall - Parque Warner Madrid (86.0/100) Shadows of Arkham - Parque Warner Madrid (84.7/100) Dragon Khan - PortAventura Park (83.8/100) Muntanya Russa - Tibidabo (75.1/100) Tarantula - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (73.6/100) Abismo - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (73.6/100) Furius Baco - PortAventura Park (72.8/100) TNT Tren de la Mina - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (59.1/100) Correcaminos Bip Bip - Parque Warner Madrid (54.7/100) Tornado - Parque de Atracciones de Madrid (54.6/100) Stampida (Red) - PortAventura Park (51.1/100) Stampida (Blue) - PortAventura Park (49.8/100) Montana Suiza - Parque de Atracciones Monte Igueldo (48.1/100) Inferno - Terra Mitica (47.0/100) Tomahawk - PortAventura Park (39.9/100) Diablo Tren de la Mina - PortAventura Park (37.2/100) Sweden (18)
    Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) Valkyria - Liseberg (88.2/100) Monster - Grona Lund (87.6/100) Lisebergbanan - Liseberg (82.0/100) Twister - Grona Lund (79.4/100) Jetline - Grona Lund (75.7/100) Vilda Musen - Grona Lund (63.8/100) Insane - Grona Lund (50.1/100) Kvasten - Grona Lund (48.8/100) Tranan - Skara Sommarland (48.0/100) Luna - Liseberg (41.3/100) Delfinexpressen - Kolmarden (22.9/100) Gruvbanan - Skara Sommarland (22.8/100) Godistaget - Kolmarden (21.3/100) Spinner - Skara Sommarland (19.1/100) Rabalder - Liseberg (15.8/100) Turkey (7)
    Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) Typhoon Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (60.7/100) Family Coaster - Korsan Adasi (53.2/100) Maceraperest - Isfanbul (52.4/100) Family Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (46.1/100) United Kingdom (20)
    Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) The Smiler - Alton Towers (87.7/100) The Swarm - Thorpe Park (87.2/100) Galactica - Alton Towers (83.7/100) Wicker Man - Alton Towers (82.7/100) Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (80.9/100) Sik - Flamingo Land (80.0/100) Oblivion - Alton Towers (79.8/100) Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (79.6/100) Dragon's Fury - Chessington (74.1/100) Saw The Ride - Thorpe Park (74.0/100) Thirteen - Alton Towers (72.8/100) Rita - Alton Towers (72.2/100) Storm Chaser - Paultons Park (68.8/100) Rage - Adventure Island (65.4/100) Speed No Limits - Oakwood Theme Park (63.8/100) Mandrill Mayhem - Chessington (62.7/100) Big One - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (62.6/100) Now I've gotten that out of the way, let's head into the main analysis...
    Main Analysis
    Just as a recap, our question here is "Which European country is best for roller coasters?"!
     
    There are a number of ways in which you could answer this question, as "best" is an open-ended metric that can be assessed from many different viewpoints, but I chose two different angles to approach the question from; the overall quality of a country's top 20 (or entire scoreable selection where this was not applicable), and the quality of a country's top end (I.e. its main headlining draws). Let's start with the overall top 20 quality...
    Overall Top 20 Quality (Which country's coaster lineup is the most consistently strong?)
    My first question asks which country's lineup is the most consistently strong. To determine this, I looked at the overall top 20 (or entire selection where this is not applicable) to gauge an idea of which countries have the most consistently strong coaster selections.
     
    The first statistical measure I used to determine this is the mean coaster score per country. The mean is a calculated average where all of a country's scores are added together and divided by the number of scores; the formula is as follows:
    Mean Score per Country = Overall Sum of all Scores/Number of Scores
     
    When this formula was applied to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Mean Coaster Score out of 100 (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 88.5 20 2 France 79.6 20 3 United Kingdom 77.7 20 4 Netherlands 74.1 20 5 Spain 68.5 20 6 Turkey 68.0 7 7 Italy 67.6 20 8 Denmark 65.4 20 9 Belgium 62.7 20 10 Sweden 58.7 18 11 Poland 50.0 20 12 Finland 48.9 18 13 Norway 48.4 6 14 Austria 43.1 16 Using the mean, our top 3 most consistently strong countries are Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
     
    However, one key flaw of the mean is that it can be heavily influenced by extreme values on the high or low end of the spectrum, and this becomes more apparent as the dataset becomes smaller.
     
    As such, I used another statistical measure to determine the answer; the median coaster score per country. The median is the middle value within an ordered dataset, so in a dataset with 20 numbers as many countries in this dataset are, the median value will be the midpoint between the 10th and 11th values.
     
    When the median was applied to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Median Coaster Score out of 100 (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 88.3 20 2 United Kingdom 79.7 20 3 France 79.0 20 4 Netherlands 74.9 20 5 Spain 73.2 20 6 Denmark 65.3 20 7 Italy 63.6 20 8 Belgium 61.0 20 9 Turkey 60.7 7 10 Sweden 57.0 18 11 Norway 49.1 6 12 Austria 47.8 16 13 Finland 44.6 18 14 Poland 41.6 20 Using the median, our top 3 most consistently strong countries are Germany, the United Kingdom and France, with the same countries coming out on top but the UK and France having swapped places.
     
    While the median is not overly influenced by extreme values on the top and bottom ends of a dataset as the mean can sometimes be, it arguably goes too far in the opposite direction in that it doesn't consider what's happening on the top or bottom at all; it is purely the middle value, and it will stay the same whether the top or bottom value is 5 above/below it or 50 above/below it.
     
    Seeing as both the mean and the median are arguably imperfect measures in their own different ways, I used a final statistical measure that I invented myself... The Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient. As the mean can be overly influenced by extremely high and low values and the median completely ignores what's going on outside of the midpoint of the dataset, I decided to try and create a coefficient that combined the best of the mean and median and cancelled out the flaws of both methods. The formula for this coefficient is as follows:
    Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient = ((Highest Value + Upper Quartile)+(Lowest Value + Lower Quartile))/2
    It considers the top and bottom values, similarly to the mean, but also considers the upper and lower quartiles (the values that are higher than 75% and 25% of the dataset, respectively), so considers the more centralised focus of the median too.
     
    When I applied the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient to all the countries used, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 177.1 20 2 France 161.9 20 3 United Kingdom 156.8 20 4 Netherlands 148.3 20 5 Italy 139.2 20 6 Turkey 138.9 7 7 Spain 135.4 20 8 Denmark 130.2 20 9 Belgium 129.5 20 10 Sweden 114 18 11 Poland 105.4 20 12 Finland 101.8 18 13 Norway 96.0 6 14 Austria 81.0 16 Using the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient, our top 3 countries were Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
     
    Finally, here is a boxplot showing the distribution of all 14 countries' top 20(ish) lists, created using Python's MatPlotLib library:

    That should be clear enough to see which country is which, but if you have trouble, the countries are listed in alphabetical order from A to Z.
     
    So if we're working based on consistent strength across a wider cross-section of a country's coaster selection, I think it's fair to say that Germany is our comfortable winner, with some combination of France and the United Kingdom taking 2nd and 3rd place.
     
    However, this is not the only metric by which you can assess which European country is "best" for roller coasters. And indeed, one flaw of this metric is that to some extent, it is a bit biased towards countries with more roller coasters; the top 20 of a country with over 100 scoreable coasters will likely be very different to the top 20 of a country with 25 scoreable coasters. I would personally argue that although I accept and agree with the "quantity isn't everything" point, I do think it should still be a factor when deciding which country wins out over another, so to some extent, I would argue that having a lower quantity of scoreable coasters could make the country "worse" for roller coasters overall. Nonetheless, the flaws of this metric should still be taken into account, and I will approach the question from another angle for some balance.
     
    Let's now move onto the other way in which I'm going to try and answer the question...
    Top 3/Top End Quality (Which country has the strongest top end/strongest headline draws?)
    Ultimately, I know that it's the headline draws that encourage enthusiasts to visit a country, so I feel that another important metric to assess these countries by is how strong their headline draws are. To do this, I applied various statistical measures to the countries' top 3 most highly scoring coasters, as well as the general top end of the lineup.
     
    The first statistical measure I used was the mean coaster score of the top 3. As explained above, the mean is a calculated average, and when applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Mean Top 3 Coaster Score (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Poland 98.2 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 2 Germany 97.7 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 3 Sweden 96.7 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 4 Spain 95.7 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 5 Belgium 94.8 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 6 Netherlands 94.7 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 7 France 94.3 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 8 Italy 92.6 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 9 United Kingdom 92.1 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 10 Denmark 92.0 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 11 Finland 90.9 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 12 Turkey 88.0 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 13 Norway 74.1 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 69.1 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the mean, our top countries for top 3 strength are Poland, Germany and Sweden.
     
    However, as I did above, I will also use the median top 3 score. The median value of a dataset is the middle value, so in this instance, the median value is the 2nd highest-scoring coaster in a given country.
     
    When the median was applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Median Top 3 Coaster Score (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Belgium 98.5 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 2 Poland 98.1 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 3 Germany 98.0 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 4 Sweden 97.8 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 5 Spain 97.2 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 6 Italy 95.4 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 7 Denmark 94.2 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 8 Turkey 93.9 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 9 Finland 93.4 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 10 Netherlands 93.3 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 11 France 93.2 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 12 United Kingdom 91.1 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 13 Norway 79.1 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 69.7 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the median, our top countries for top 3 strength are Belgium, Poland and Germany.
     
    I'm also going to apply the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient to the top 3 of each country. As said above, this is a formula I invented that tries to integrate elements of both the mean and the median and cancel out their respective flaws, and when applied to the top 3s of each country, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient for Top 3 (to 1dp) Top 3 Coasters 1 Poland 196.4 Zadra - Energylandia (99.7/100) Hyperion - Energylandia (98.1/100) Lech Coaster - Legendia (96.7/100) 2 Germany 195.3 Taron - Phantasialand (98.2/100) Expedition GeForce - Holiday Park (98.0/100) Schwur des Karnan - Hansa Park (96.9/100) 3 Sweden 193.2 Wildfire - Kolmarden (98.5/100) Helix - Liseberg (97.8/100) Balder - Liseberg (93.9/100) 4 Spain 191.0 Batman Gotham City Escape - Parque Warner Madrid (97.7/100) Shambhala - PortAventura Park (97.2/100) Superman la Atraccion de Acero - Parque Warner Madrid (92.2/100) 5 Netherlands 189.8 Untamed - Walibi Holland (98.9/100) Goliath - Walibi Holland (93.3/100) Fenix - Toverland (92.0/100) 6 France 189.0 Toutatis - Parc Asterix (98.5/100) OzIris - Parc Asterix (93.2/100) Monster - Walygator Grand Est (91.3/100) 7 Belgium 188.8 Ride to Happiness - Plopsaland de Panne (99.4/100) Kondaa - Walibi Belgium (98.5/100) Fury - Bobbejaanland (86.6/100) 8 Italy 184.5 iSpeed - Mirabilandia (95.7/100) Katun - Mirabilandia (95.4/100) Oblivion The Black Hole - Gardaland (86.7/100) 9 United Kingdom 184.5 Nemesis - Alton Towers (95.4/100) Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (91.1/100) Stealth - Thorpe Park (89.8/100) 10 Denmark 183.4 Fonix - Farup Sommerland (96.0/100) Piraten - Djurs Sommerland (94.2/100) Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland (85.7/100) 11 Finland 181.3 Taiga - Linnanmaki (99.5/100) Junker - PowerPark (93.4/100) Thunderbird - PowerPark (79.9/100) 12 Turkey 174.5 Hyper Coaster - Land of Legends Theme Park (94.0/100) Red Fire - Korsan Adasi (93.9/100) Nefeskesen - Isfanbul (76.0/100) 13 Norway 147.0 Speed Monster - TusenFryd (80.9/100) Storm The Dragon Legend - TusenFryd (79.1/100) Thundercoaster - TusenFryd (62.4/100) 14 Austria 138.1 Gesengte Sau - Wiener Prater (71.3/100) Wild Train - Fantasiana (69.7/100) Rattenmuhle - Familypark (66.3/100) Using the Matt N Consistent Strength Coefficient on the countries' top 3s, the top-ranking countries are Poland, Germany and Sweden.
     
    I tried one final statistical measure on the top ends... and I say "top ends" because I widened the scope slightly beyond simply the top 3s to invent another coefficient, the Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient! This measure is a calculated average of the highest value and the upper quartile, and I invented this to apply to this dataset because I felt that examining a country's top 3 alone was perhaps too limiting to gauge a perspective on its wider headliners, as some countries arguably have more than 3 headliners. The formula for the Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient is as follows:
    Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient = (Highest Score + Upper Quartile)/2
     
    When this formula was applied to all the countries, the ranking was as follows:
    Ranking Country Matt N Top End Strength Coefficient (to 1dp) Number of Coasters Used 1 Germany 94.9 20 2 Netherlands 92.7 20 3 Sweden 92.4 18 4 France 92.3 20 5 Poland 91.5 20 6 Spain 91.4 20 7 Italy 90.3 20 8 United Kingdom 89.9 20 9 Turkey 89.5 7 10 Belgium 88.1 20 11 Finland 87.2 18 12 Denmark 87.1 16 13 Norway 77.9 6 14 Austria 66.0 16 So when looking at "top ends" rather than solely top 3s, the top-ranking countries are Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
     
    Finally, let me insert a boxplot showing the distribution of each country's top 3, which was once again created using Python's MatPlotLib library:

    As I said about the boxplot further up; this should be clear enough to see which country is which, but if it isn't, the countries are listed in alphabetical order from A to Z.
     
    Now we've done our analysis, I think it's about time we drew some conclusions from it...
    Conclusions
    So now we've done the analysis, we can begin to draw some conclusions to answer our original question of "Which European country is best for roller coasters?". And I actually think that there are some very interesting conclusions to be drawn from this particular analysis, personally!
     
    In terms of a country to nominate for that top spot of being the creme de la creme of European roller coaster countries; based on the data I have, it's hard to argue against Germany, in my view. In terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, it consistently ranked on top across all 3 measures, and its headline draws also consistently ranked towards the very top of the continent. As far as I can see, Germany is the only country that consistently ranked in the top 3 or higher through both consistent strength across a broad cross-section and the strength of the headliners alone, and I'd say that that gives it a very robust claim to the top spot, personally. It's the only country that consistently ranks highly on both fronts.
     
    Most other countries rank highly in either one or the other, but not both. For instance, Poland has stellar headline draws, but there's not much consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup once you probe beyond those few headline draws. On the opposite side of the coin, the UK stacks up very favourably in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, but its headliners are comparatively lacking compared to those of other European countries.
     
    Finally, let's go back to my original motivation for doing this analysis and ask ourselves; do the results of this analysis suggest that the UK's coaster scene is lagging behind that of mainland Europe, as is so often stated by UK enthusiasts? Well, I think it's a very mixed bag. In terms of consistent strength across a broader cross-section of the lineup, the first angle I approached this question from, the UK actually compared very, very favourably, scoring in the top 3 for all 3 measures of consistent strength. If you want a broad, plentiful selection of decent coasters, my data actually suggests that the UK is one of the strongest countries in Europe in this regard; you could certainly do a lot, lot worse than the UK in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, anyhow! On the other hand, the UK does not compare so favourably in terms of its headline draws, with the country consistently scoring in the bottom 50% of European countries on the merit of its headline coasters alone. And I think that a large part of it scoring as highly as it did in many of the metrics was Stealth being a fairly solid 3rd place coaster; only Norway and Austria had lower-scoring second place coasters than Icon, and even Nemesis, which is often revered as the crown jewel of the UK, was only the 11th highest scorer of the 14 first place coasters, with only Turkey, Norway and Austria having lower-scoring top coasters. All coasters in the top 3s of Poland and Germany scored higher than Nemesis, and a number of other countries had 2 of their top 3 coasters being more highly scoring than Nemesis. So in essence, the UK's performance against other European countries in the coaster stakes is very mixed; the country stacks up very favourably in terms of having a broad selection of consistently decent coasters, but the UK's headliners are definitely on the weaker side compared to those of other European countries.
     
    So in conclusion, my data suggests that Germany is the winning country for European coasters overall, with it being the only country to score consistently highly in terms of both its headliners and the consistent strength across a broader cross-section of its lineup. I should stress that that is not the answer to the question, though; it is simply an answer that my chosen methods drew from a certain dataset. You may hold a completely different opinion, and a different analysis with a different dataset may yield completely different results.
     
    If you're interested to read more, here are the Google Sheets for both the top 20s and the top 3s:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6VBT_p4nsYIIqbFMR1pqvA22Z8BarTrS98GNMt_P_Y/edit?usp=sharing
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w2U6LkVl_nQ2WJybb3V2icnCYm4Mdw7TD2iH0_JxFus/edit?usp=sharing
     
    I hope you've enjoyed my deep statistical dive into the coaster selections of European countries; I know I certainly enjoyed carrying out the analysis! I'd be really interested to know your thoughts, good or bad! And don't hold back in that regard, either; if you think my analysis is a load of rubbish, do tell me! If you'd like me to explore this dataset more or ask any further questions about it, I'd also be very open to suggestions!
    TL;DR: When I analysed the coaster selections of 14 different European countries to work out which European country is the best for roller coasters, my analysis revealed that Germany came out on top, as it was the only country to score consistently highly in terms of both consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup and its headline coasters alone. I was also interested to see whether the common feeling from Brits that the UK's coaster scene lags behind that of mainland Europe was justified. My analysis found that the UK's performance was a mixed bag, with the country comparing very, very favourably to other European nations in terms of consistent strength across a broad cross-section of the lineup, but not comparing so favourably in terms of the headline coasters; the country consistently scored in the bottom 50% of European nations on the merit of its headline coasters alone.
  7. Matt N

    Flamingo Land 7th August 2023

    By Matt N,


    Flamingo Land
    7th August 2023 (Flamingo Land)
    Hi guys. Today, I visited a new theme park that I’d never previously visited before; I visited Flamingo Land in North Yorkshire for the first time! This visit was a present from my parents for my 20th birthday last week, and I was interested to see what the park had to offer; prior to today, Flamingo Land was probably the most major UK park I was yet to visit, and Sik was probably the most revered UK coaster I was yet to ride!
     
    We’d actually made the 4.5 hour journey to North Yorkshire yesterday afternoon, so as we’d stayed in a local hotel only around 5 miles away the night before, we set off for the park at around 9:20am to get in just after the 9:30am park opening time:


    After getting into the park, we headed to the back of the park to ride our first coaster…
    Mumbo Jumbo
    Mumbo Jumbo was a coaster that I’d been advised to tackle first due to low capacity, so me and my mum decided to give it a go (my dad steered clear as he thought that the tight-looking turns might not do his back much good). There was pretty much no one in front of us waiting for the 10am ride opening time, which was definitely a good thing given that we saw a sign while negotiating the queue indicating that two switchbacks into the queue took an estimated 60 minutes to navigate, which definitely shocked my mum a bit… but how was the ride? Well, I’d never ridden an S&S El Loco before (or an S&S coaster, for that matter), so I was interested to try Mumbo Jumbo, but I’m afraid to say that neither of us were huge fans of it. I’ll admit that it’s a novel ride with the repeated slow hangtime, and a beyond vertical drop is always good fun, but I really wasn’t a fan of the shoulder bars on there. When the shoulder bars were combined with the repeated slow hangtime and tight wild mouse-style turns, I didn’t find it a terribly enjoyable experience, I’m afraid, and my mum seemed to echo my thoughts:




    After Mumbo Jumbo, we decided to try the coaster directly next to it…
    Kumali
    Kumali had a relatively short-looking queue, so we decided to give it a go while we were nearby. This queue was short, and only took about 10 minutes or so; I couldn’t complain too much about that! But how was the ride? Well, I had pretty low expectations given that my least favourite coaster was Infusion, a fellow SLC at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but it was actually OK! I was seated in row 9, and it was a bit rough in places, which did detract to an extent, but it was not nearly as bad as Infusion, and the ride had some pretty decent inversions and was well-paced and reasonably intense without being excessively so! Overall, I still wouldn’t have said that Kumali was one of my absolute favourite coasters, but it was a perfectly all right ride that was only somewhat rough, unlike the very rough Infusion, and had some decent elements, so I couldn’t really complain too much:


    After Kumali, we headed towards Metropolis to ride a unique and highly notorious ride…
    Hero
    Hero didn’t look to have an overly long queue, so me and my mum decided to give it a go (this was another one my dad steered clear of). When we entered the queue, it became apparent that this not overly long queue could be longer than we’d previously thought, as I’d logged a throughput of 167pph, and it ultimately took 35 minutes. But how was the ride? Did Hero live up to its notorious reputation? Well, I have to say… yes, it did. It’s certainly a novel ride, but it wasn’t one I was keen on at all. The car and position are very weird; I’m not a huge lover of flying coasters at the best of times, and this car was extremely uncomfortable with the stepladder and how unrestrained you were, and it was very, very rough throughout for me, throwing you around a lot. I’m sorry to be negative, but I didn’t like Hero at all, and I’m very tempted to say that it’s usurped Infusion as my least favourite coaster:


    After getting off Hero, we got some ice cream before heading to our next coaster…
    Velocity
    Velocity was another coaster we were interested to do, so we decided to give it a go. Like numerous coasters at this park, I hadn’t really done anything quite like Velocity before; my closest comparison would have been Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal (which I loved!), and even that is a very chalk-and-cheese comparison given that Hagrid’s has a normal seat and is on a vastly grander scale. The queue here took around 30 minutes, which I didn’t think was too bad at all, personally! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought that it had a fun layout, with a few nice pops of airtime, a punchy launch and some nice fast-paced turns! However, I did find the actual motorbike position a bit odd and uncomfortable compared to a ride like Hagrid’s, what with how it has you riding so that all your weight is placed on your chest, and that was a big detractor for me. Overall, I thought that Velocity had a fun layout, but I wouldn’t have said that it was one of my favourite coasters due to the discomfort of the riding position being a fair detractor for me:

    After getting off Velocity, we headed around to the final big coaster that we hadn’t done yet, as well as our most anticipated…
    Sik
    Sik was on an advertised 30 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on it. The advertised queue time ended up being pretty accurate, so we couldn’t complain too much! But how was the ride? Was Sik… sick, as its name suggests? Well, I was personally intrigued to see how Sik rode, as I’ve never liked Colossus, but I’ve always felt that my biggest issues with that ride were the trains and the roughness, which were both issues that Sik looked to have solved. I have to say that I thought it was great; it was a thoroughly decent coaster, in my view, and the comfort of the overhead lap bars make a big difference! I also really liked the altered first drop, with the steep turn to the left being a definite enhancement compared to the original Colossus’ drop, in my view! The first half was much the same as Colossus elements-wise, and I’ve always felt that this is a pretty good first half; it works really well here. I’m still not 100% sure on the second half with the successive heartline rolls, as they are definitely a bit dizzying, but I’ll concede that the overhead lap bars do make them more comfortable than they are on Colossus. Overall, then, I thought Sik was a really decent coaster, with the lap bars and altered profiling being a definite game changer; it definitely lived up to my expectations, and I definitely enjoyed it! It’s not a top 10 coaster for me or anything, or one of my absolute favourite UK coasters, but that style of ride doesn’t tend to rank phenomenally highly for me anyway and I’ve never liked Colossus, so I wasn’t really expecting that to begin with. On its own merit, I thought Sik was a very good coaster that I definitely enjoyed overall, and my dad, who’d never ridden Colossus before due to being too tall for the restraints, thought pretty highly of the ride:



    After our ride on Sik, we got some lunch in the Muddy Duck Cafe before heading to look around the zoo for a bit. We initially decided to head onto…
    Zoo Monorail
    The Zoo Monorail was nearby and looked to have a short queue, so we decided to give it a go to get a panoramic view of the zoo and its animals. We hadn’t been in the queue very long, and had only narrowly missed the first and second monorail trains that went after we joined the queue, but we’d noticed that the first train had come to a stop not very far after the station, and the operator later noticed, abruptly stopped the second train, and told us that “the battery’s gone flat”. As such, we left the queue; I think we made the right choice given that everyone else left shortly afterwards, with even the operator swiftly abandoning the scene:



    After our ill-fated attempt at riding the Zoo Monorail, we headed around the zoo on foot for about an hour, looking at animals such as lemurs, the park’s namesake flamingos, kangaroos, wallabies, penguins, black rhinos, zebras, camels and giraffes, amongst numerous others. The animals seemed a bit inactive and not too keen to come out, likely due to the current British summer we’re having, but it was nice to walk around the zoo nonetheless. It looked like quite a nice zoo, and it was fairly big; have a few pictures I took:










    After leaving the zoo, we initially headed to try and do Twistosaurus, as I had thought that this and Zooom! might be two nice bonus family coaster +1s that didn’t look like embarrassing bonafide kiddie coasters (Runaway Mine Train, Dino Roller and Go Gator were all conclusively ruled out beforehand on this basis). We did get in the queue briefly, but it was quite long, the throughput didn’t look overly high, and my parents were put off after seeing a particularly spinny car containing a very perturbed-looking woman going around for a second lap… I ultimately decided that I wasn’t that bothered about doing Twistosaurus or Zooom!, so we decided to leave that queue:



    After we bailed on Twistosaurus, my parents decided that they didn’t fancy riding anything else, so they headed around the zoo while I headed for some rerides.
     
    I started off with a reride on Kumali. I was seated in row 9 once again (I’d initially gone to sit in row 7, but row 9 was empty, the operator later noticed this and moved me up, and the lady I had been batched next to said “let’s go to the back; it’s faster!”), and it was similar to how it had been earlier, with possibly a touch of additional speed from having warmed up:


    I then headed for a reride on Sik using the single rider queue, which was very useful as I pretty much walked straight on there! I was seated in row 2 this time, and as with earlier, it was a thoroughly decent coaster that I really enjoyed, although I think I preferred it towards the back of the train:



    After my reride on Sik, I went for a reride on Velocity. I was seated in row 2 this time, and it was similar to earlier, although I think I found it a touch more uncomfortable:


    After my reride on Velocity, I headed to try out a ride I hadn’t done yet…
    Pterodactyl
    Pterodactyl appeared to have a relatively short queue, so I decided to give it a go. I was interested to try Pterodactyl, as even though I’m not generally huge on flat rides, I’d never ridden a Star Flyer-style ride before. As with a number of rides at Flamingo Land, the “relatively short queue” was longer than expected, ultimately taking around 40 minutes, and I ended up not getting on Pterodactyl. I nearly did, as I was initially batched into a cycle that went as usual, but the operator realised they’d overbatched without considering exit riders and abruptly ushered me back into the queue. The cycle that I was then batched into looked promising, as I fastened my restraint and the operator went into their booth as normal to send it with no sign that anything was wrong, but they abruptly came back out and said “Ride’s broken, get off!”, so I was ultimately unable to ride Pterodactyl:


    After my ill-fated attempt to ride Pterodactyl, I went for one final single rider queue reride on Sik. I was seated in row 7 this time, and it was once again a very good ride:


    After my final Sik reride, I headed back towards the Muddy Duck Farm to meet back up with my parents. It was about 5pm by this point, so we decided to bid Flamingo Land goodbye and head back to our hotel:

    So, that just about covers my first ever visit to Flamingo Land in Yorkshire! I had a nice day; I was really pleased to get 9 rides in, I got on many of the things I’d hoped to get on, including all 5 big thrill coasters, and overall, I really enjoyed visiting somewhere different! There really is no feeling quite like going to a new park for the first time, and I had a really nice day discovering all that Flamingo Land has to offer!
     
    In terms of the park itself; sure, it’s not the greatest theme park I’ve ever been to, but I don’t think the park deserves some of the hate it gets, personally, and I certainly had an enjoyable day. The operations are slow (some of the slowest I’ve ever personally encountered), and the park is not the most cohesively themed in numerous areas (although I thought that some others were reasonably nicely themed), but overall, I think it’s a nice enough park that I certainly had a nice day at, and I do think that there is something to be said for the breadth of the park’s offering and the relative strength of its coaster selection for a park of its calibre. Sik is a very decent headliner, and while I wouldn’t have said that I rated any of the other coasters overly highly (I’d probably say that only Kumali makes my top 50% out of the other 4), they are certainly novel experiences that add good variety to the lineup and help to flesh it out. There are also quite a few other rides that I didn't do; for instance, Cliff Hanger was unfortunately closed today, but had I done it, I imagine that that would have been a really decent headline flat ride for me (I love a good drop tower!). The zoo was also nice and surprisingly expansive, and overall, I had a nice day at Flamingo Land! You can talk about the operations and such, but given what I got on, I don’t think I can really complain; the longest queue I waited in all day was 40 minutes, and I managed 9 rides in 7 hours, which I was pleased with!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! My next report will probably be from Thorpe Park at some point in early September!
  8. Matt N

    Matt N's Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (Trip Summary)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    Trip Summary
    All right, then! Now I’m back in the UK after a 7.5 hour flight from Orlando to London Heathrow, I think it’s about time I posted the trip summary I promised at the end of the last report!
     
    To cut to the chase; this was an absolutely fantastic trip! I loved getting back to Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens after 7 years, and I loved getting on some of the brilliant new rides that have been installed since my last trip! As well as that, Volcano Bay was also a real positive surprise (I’ll touch on that more later), and I thoroughly enjoyed myself there!
     
    I’ll start by ranking all of the parks I went to in this trip, and I’ll say a little bit about each:
    Islands of Adventure - This is still easily one of my favourite parks ever, and I dare say that it now has possibly the most well-rounded selection of top-class major rides I’ve ever seen. I always felt that the coaster selection at IOA was one of its relatively weaker links in the past, but the additions of Hagrid’s and VelociCoaster have strengthened its credentials as a coaster park considerably, in my view, with both of these rides providing absolutely top-class experiences. The park also has some truly top-class dark rides and water rides, with Spider-Man being my favourite dark ride and Jurassic Park River Adventure being my favourite water ride out of the non-coaster offering! The theming is also wonderful throughout the park, in my opinion, and overall, I think it’s a truly stunning theme park! I’ve always loved how Islands of Adventure is a bit of a “jack of all trades”, and masters quite a number of different areas of the theme park experience, and I feel that the additions since my last visit have only strengthened that, personally! I will say, though, that if I’m being phenomenally picky, I think it can sometimes feel like the park has quite a hectic atmosphere with not much room to relax, and that is one thing that I feel the other Universal park does better. Overall, though, I absolutely love IOA; the combination of amazing rides and amazing theming make it easily one of my favourite parks ever! Universal Studios Florida - I may prefer Islands of Adventure, but it’s a close race between the two for me, and this is still definitely one of my favourite parks! The ride selection isn’t quite as varied as Islands of Adventure’s, and I don’t think that any of the individual rides quite match the best IOA has to offer for me, but there are still some absolutely fantastic headliners, with Revenge of the Mummy, Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts and Transformers being real headline draws of the park for me! There are some other really solid rides at the park too, and I also think that the overall theming is better than I’d remembered. Diagon Alley is the big standout thematically, but the rest of the park is also wonderfully detailed and has loads to look at! As I inferred above, the park also has a somewhat more relaxed atmosphere than IOA, in my view, with it often feeling slightly less crowded and there being more areas to slow down and take a breather. My whole family apart from me actually preferred USF of the two parks due to the more relaxing atmosphere and the fact that they felt that the theming was “way better”, as well as the fact that USF’s rides were more “grandparent-friendly” on the whole than IOA’s. Overall, while I may prefer Islands of Adventure overall, Universal Studios Florida still has a lot going for it, in my view, and it’s also one of my all-time favourite parks! Busch Gardens Tampa - I had a great day here! The coaster selection is second to none, there are some decent non-coaster rides, with the flat ride department in particular really shining, and the park is nicer in terms of landscaping than I’d remembered, being very green! It’s not the most heavily themed park I’ve ever been to, but I also feel that Busch does decently in terms of theming in numerous places, with the Egyptian section containing Cobra’s Curse and Montu being a favourite of mine. If I’m being picky, however, I personally found the park to have a somewhat confusing layout. Something I noticed a fair amount during my day is that attractions would look very close as the crow flies, but you’d try to find them and struggle, with them turning out to be absolutely miles away in path terms, which would see you passing numerous other totally different attractions on the way. The park also lacks indoor attractions despite being faced with the ever unpredictable Florida climate, and while stormy weather wasn’t a problem on our visit, some indoor entertainment might have been nice as a respite from the humidity. Overall, though, I had a great day at Busch Gardens, and it’s a fair amount nicer than I’d previously remembered! SeaWorld Orlando - Despite this park being last, I actually find it to be a really nice park that I seem to like more than most, and I had a great day here! The coaster selection is getting to be really excellent, queues are often short, and the park generally has a really nice, relaxed atmosphere; what’s not to like? While not particularly heavily themed, the park also has nice theming in areas and generally looks nice. However, I think the reason it’s not as high as the other 3 for me is because the park fundamentally doesn’t have that much to do rides-wise. In particular, it has very little to do rides-wise aside from the coasters; the only major non-coaster I can think of is Infinity Falls (which I was unable to ride due to unreliability and lightning). Similarly to Busch Gardens, I do feel that an indoor attraction of some description wouldn’t go amiss here, both to provide some entertainment in the event of a thunderstorm and provide a respite from the Florida humidity. This wasn’t a massive problem for me overall, though, as I’m pretty content just riding coasters all day! Overall, SeaWorld is a great park, and I really enjoyed my visit! Let me move onto some of my personal highlights of the trip in terms of new stuff… there were so many, but I’ll try to name just a few!
    New Highlights
    VelociCoaster - My favourite new attraction of the trip was VelociCoaster, a stunning Intamin LSM Launch Coaster! This sensational ride has a stonker of a layout with some really impactful elements, including a euphoric second launch, a top hat with some sublime ejector airtime, and a final heartline roll that really whips you out of the seat and leaves you blown away upon hitting the brake run! There are also loads of other great elements including some great inversions and excellent pops of ejector airtime, the ride maintains a great sense of speed throughout, and all of this is also packaged within a wonderfully comfortable and rerideable coaster, with absolutely superb restraints! Overall, I loved VelociCoaster; I had high expectations, and it did not disappoint for me! Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Hagrid’s may not have many standout moments of extreme thrill, but what it does have is a truly spell-binding sense of pure fun throughout! Despite having high expectations, the whole thing was a huge amount more fun than I’d expected, with the launches being great fun and surprisingly punchy, the low-to-the-ground twists and turns being surprisingly thrilling, and the whole thing just being magically fun overall! This coaster always left me with a huge smile on my face, and overall, it was a definite highlight among the trip’s new experiences for me! Iron Gwazi - I may not have rated it quite as highly as many do, but my first RMC coaster was still a definite highlight of the trip for me! The ride had some absolutely ludicrous ejector airtime, it was absolutely relentless throughout, and the layout had some truly spectacular elements; that first drop in particular was absolutely absurd! I did find it a tad much for me in terms of violence and being thrown around towards the snappier end portions of the layout, which is why it wasn’t my favourite coaster of the trip, but it was still an absolutely phenomenal ride overall! Universal’s Volcano Bay - This isn’t a theme park, but a new attraction I did manage to experience and was absolutely floored with was Universal’s Volcano Bay! The consensus towards this waterpark is somewhat mixed, with the chief complaint being the TapuTapu system and associated problems. However, I thought it was brilliant, and it definitely exceeded my expectations! In general, TapuTapu worked really well for me, and Volcano Bay is a really great waterpark with some brilliant attractions; some particular favourites of mine include the Krakatau Aqua Coaster, Honu, Taniwha Tubes and the enormously fun TeAwa: The Fearless River! Overall, Volcano Bay was brilliant for me and my family; I’d firmly recommend a visit! Those are just some of the highlights; that isn’t necessarily an exhaustive list by any means! Now I’ll move on to my main positive surprises of the trip…
    Biggest Positive Surprises
    Universal’s Volcano Bay - I’ve already spoken at length about Volcano Bay in the above section, so I won’t dedicate too much to it here, but it was a big surprise for me and the rest of my family, so I thought I’d mention it here! Skull Island: Reign of Kong - I had never ridden this dark ride at Islands of Adventure before; it was the big new thing at IOA when we last went in 2016, but we didn’t manage to get onto it. I went into this ride with low expectations, as reviews are generally quite negative, but I have to say that this ride was a massive pleasant surprise; it’s an absolutely fantastic dark ride, in my opinion, and a real asset to Universal’s dark ride lineup! The 3D is excellent, with some awesome action sequences and a brilliant 360 degree screen, there is some excellent physical scenery (including a stunning Kong animatronic that's absolutely huge!), and overall, I just thought it was a brilliant attraction! Kong far exceeded my expectations, for sure! Ice Breaker - I had pretty low expectations for this coaster, as its reviews are generally middling to negative, but I ended up absolutely loving it! The swing launch was my first ever swing launch, and I found it brilliantly fun and punchy! The backwards spike provided some brilliantly fun floater airtime, the ejector airtime got surprisingly strong towards the end of the swing launch, the top hat provided some more brilliant (and surprisingly sustained) airtime, and the rest of the layout consisted of some more surprisingly brilliant pops of airtime and some really fun twists and turns! Overall, I thought that Ice Breaker was a phenomenal ride that was just so much fun, and it hugely exceeded my expectations for sure! Let me move onto a slightly less positive category... my biggest disappointment.
    Biggest Disappointment
    You may be wondering why I have named this category "biggest disappointment" rather than "biggest disappointments". Well, that is because I only experienced one new attraction that I would call a true disappointment for me. Yes, I was slightly less enamoured with 1 or 2 big hitters than most, but they were still excellent, and I think it would be terribly harsh of me to consider them "disappointments" because they were still incredibly, phenomenally great.
     
    For me, I'm afraid to say that the main damp squib of the trip, by a considerable distance, was the new-for-2023 Pipeline: The Surf Coaster. I had heard some very positive initial reviews, so I went in with high hopes that it could be a top 10/20 contender and a ride that I really enjoyed. However, it just didn't do it for me. In short, the ride has everything on paper (fun layout, punchy launch, surprising airtime, an interesting new idea in the form of the jumping seats... it has so much going for it!), but it's ruined for me by the fact that it just isn't very comfortable, in my view. The "jumping" airtime is an interesting idea, but it just hurts in numerous different places for me, and in general, I think standing up on a roller coaster is an inherently uncomfortable riding position that Pipeline hasn't really improved, in my view. I went into Pipeline really wanting to like it, but it just didn't do it for me, I'm sorry to say.
     
    Finally, let me display some stats:
    Unique coasters ridden: 18 Unique parks visited: 4 (Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios Florida, SeaWorld Orlando, Busch Gardens Tampa) New coasters ridden: 8 New parks visited: 0 Total rides: 45 Total coaster rides: 29 Total park visits: 10 (4x Islands of Adventure, 4x Universal Studios Florida, 1x SeaWorld Orlando, 1x Busch Gardens Tampa) Favourite coaster ridden: Mako (overall #1/99) Favourite new coaster ridden: VelociCoaster (overall #2/99) Favourite non-coaster ridden: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man Favourite new non-coaster ridden: Skull Island: Reign of Kong Most surprising coaster: Ice Breaker Most surprising non-coaster: Skull Island: Reign of Kong Biggest disappointment: Pipeline: The Surf Coaster So, that summarises my June 2023 Florida trip! Thank you so much for following this series of trip reports; I really hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed this trip! I'm unsure when my next trip report will be, but I should be back at you with another trip report before too long (September at the latest, as I've got a locked-in park visit booked for that month...)!
  9. Matt N
    24th June 2023 (Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios Florida)
    Today was the last day of our trip and the day of our flight home, so we decided to head to Universal Orlando for one last visit. If I’m being honest, today’s report will probably be short and quite dull, as we only spent around 4 hours in the parks themselves and it was one of those days where few things seemed to go right. Let me start from the very beginning.
     
    As we didn’t have to check out of our house until 10am and my family didn’t want to spend ages at Universal before heading to the airport, we left our house at slightly before 10am to arrive at Universal Orlando at around 11:15am:



    After going through security at CityWalk, we split up, with me and my dad heading to Islands of Adventure and the rest of our group heading to Universal Studios Florida. We got into the park at just after 11:30am:


    Our initial aim was to try and get on VelociCoaster, as we’d noticed that it was on only a 60 minute queue on the app when arriving. However, we were just a touch too late, as the ride was delayed and cycling empty trains. As such, we instead decided to look at a different headline coaster…
    Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
    Even though Hagrid’s was on an advertised 110 minute queue time according to the app, we decided to scope it out anyway, as we’d noticed that its queue time was often substantially overstated during our trip. The advertised queue time fell as we got closer to the ride, hitting just 80 minutes by the time we got there. The queue looked a little longer than it had been on our previous rides, but as our longest queue previously had been around 40-45 minutes (breakdown aside), we decided to stay in the queue and ride. We got the pre-show again, which is always quite fun, but when we were in the cave section of the queue (around 40 minutes in), the ride encountered a “short delay”. We were initially optimistic given that these “short delays” elsewhere in the trip had traditionally been resolved in 10 minutes or less, so we waited it out, but this delay later turned into an “extended delay”, and when the emergency exit doors were opened by the staff, we bailed and left the queue after almost 70 minutes of total queueing. This was ultimately for the best given that many fellow guests near us in the queue seemingly left not long after and the ride did not reopen all afternoon:

    After our failed attempt to ride Hagrid’s, we headed back over to VelociCoaster, which had reopened and had an advertised 45 minute queue time according to the app. This had gone up to 50 minutes by the time we arrived in the plaza, and in the time we were walking towards it, the queue time was increasing exponentially, going up to 60 minutes and then straight to 75 minutes. With the queue time ever increasing and us needing to meet the others in Universal Studios Florida for food in less than an hour, it was decided that joining this queue was not a good idea. We were later vindicated according to the app, as the queue time did nothing but increase further and eventually peaked at 135 minutes:



    After this, we realised that quite a few other attractions in Islands of Adventure were either delayed or had rather long queues, and we needed to meet the rest of our group over in Universal Studios Florida anyway, so we declared our visit to Islands of Adventure a bust and headed over to Universal Studios Florida.
     
    We then met up with the rest of our group, who had ridden ET Adventure and watched the Animal Actors show. They described ET Adventure as being “very retro” with “some of the worst animatronics you’ve ever seen”, while the Animal Actors show seemed to go down quite well.
     
    We all sat down to eat lunch together before heading to ride…
    Men in Black: Alien Attack
    Men in Black was on an advertised 35 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. The queue ended up taking around 30 minutes overall, so slightly less than advertised; it’s always great when that happens! Interestingly, my grandad even came on with us, making MIB only his second ride of the trip (with the first being Jurassic Park River Adventure on our inaugural visit to Islands of Adventure). But how was the ride? Well, it was just as fun as it had been the other day, with some great theming and an interesting touch in the way of spinning, and I got a surprisingly high score of 30,000! My grandad, however, did not enjoy the ride, saying that the spinning was a bit too much for him thrill-wise:

    After we got off of Men in Black, all outdoor attractions had gone down due to weather, so no outdoor attractions were open and the indoor attractions mostly had elevated queue times.
     
    I was informed by my mum that was allowed to go off on my own and ride Revenge of the Mummy on the condition that the single rider queue was open and not too long. Alas, it wasn’t to be as the single rider queue was closed and the main queue time had risen a fair amount since I set off:

    After my failed attempt to ride Revenge of the Mummy, I met back up with my family, who had decided that all of the open queues were too long and that even though we weren’t due to leave for the airport until 4pm and it wasn’t much after 3pm, their preference was to look through some shops and leave the park an hour earlier than planned. As such, we left Universal Orlando for the last time to make our way to Orlando International Airport:

    So, that concludes our day at Universal Orlando and the trip! It was good to go to Universal for one last time, but I’d be lying if I said that today was a highlight of the trip, and I was slightly sad that the trip had to end on a somewhat flatter note. I guess it wasn’t the worst day overall, as I did at least go on Men in Black and beat my earlier score, and weather, long queues and ride breakdowns can’t be helped. However, I was disappointed that I couldn’t have one last go on VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s, and what seemed like a litany of bad luck did, rightly or wrongly, leave me feeling a tad flat. I apologise, as I know that none of what happened was the park’s fault, but I can’t lie about how I felt. Still, at least I got plenty of Universal visits earlier on in the trip, and at least I managed to ride Men in Black today!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! I’m sorry that it was a shorter and slightly more negative one… I know that that isn’t always the best to read, particularly seeing as I’m probably being a tad unfair on Universal here; none of what happened was their fault. When I’m back in the UK and over the jet lag, I’ll write a trip summary talking in a bit more depth about some of the specific things I experienced!
  10. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (22nd June 2023: Busch Gardens Tampa)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    22nd June 2023 (Busch Gardens Tampa)
    Today was a hotly anticipated day for me; today was our trip to Busch Gardens Tampa! I was really excited to get on Iron Gwazi, my first ever RMC, as well as to get on a couple of other new rides and get back on some of the other rides at the park!
     
    Me, my mum and my dad set off for the park today (my grandparents and sister did not accompany us today, as my grandparents don’t like intense rides and my sister wasn’t fancying Busch) at just gone 8:30am, and the drive took just over an hour (despite Busch being quite a bit further than Universal, the drive time was broadly similar, which speaks volumes about the amount of traffic on the I-4 going east!), so we arrived at Busch Gardens at around 9:45am and took the tram to the entrance ready for opening time. After the tram ride, we went through the turnstiles just in time for park opening:

    The day got off to a slightly disappointing start, as we’d looked at the weather forecast and it was showing as a 50% chance of thunder pretty much all day. We also ascertained that Montu, Tigris and Falcon’s Fury were all going to be closed for the day. Ride downtime and weather can’t be helped, but I’ll admit that I did grow slightly nervous based on the base we were starting from.
     
    Thankfully, however, things were much better than expected. Let me get back to our day at Busch Gardens.
     
    When we got through the park entrance, there was a rather ominous-looking grey cloud lurking over the area, so even though my original plan had been to leave it for later so that I could hit a milestone on it, I decided to start on a big anticipated ride so that I didn’t miss it altogether…
    Iron Gwazi
    Iron Gwazi was on a 35 minute advertised queue time, so me and my dad decided to have a go on it. The queue ended up being slightly less than advertised, taking around 25-30 minutes. I won’t lie, I was slightly nervous to ride Iron Gwazi. I wasn’t nervous because I was in any way scared of it, but I was nervous because it, and RMCs in general, is/are so hyped up; I was expecting something absolutely top-class based on the reviews. But after all the hype, how was the ride? Did my first ever RMC coaster live up to expectations? Well, I was seated in row 9, and it was absolutely sensational… but similar to my first ride on VelociCoaster last week, I perhaps didn’t love it quite as much as I’d hoped. Make no mistake, though, it was brilliant, and definitely a great ride. In terms of positives, there are a great many. There was some absolutely ludicrous ejector airtime in places (possibly some of the strongest I’ve ever experienced), the thing was so incredibly fast throughout (it felt unstoppable), and overall, it was definitely an absolutely fantastic coaster! However, one thing that meant that it wasn’t my absolute, undeniable top coaster like it is for most is that while not rough by any stretch, it was certainly quite a fierce coaster in numerous places. I noticed that the ride transitioned very quickly and sharply in numerous areas, and it was sometimes a little bit… much in that regard for me. The ending in particular did a lot of this quick transitioning, and while the ejector air was undeniably ludicrous, it almost hurt a tad at times. With that being said, that was the most minor of niggles rather than a total deal breaker, and overall, Iron Gwazi was a truly fantastic coaster that I loved, albeit not quite as much as most seem to. My dad was a little bit underwhelmed with the ride, stating that while it was “really good”, he found it “overhyped” and said that it “definitely wasn’t as good as VelociCoaster” for him. With regard to the common Iron Gwazi vs VelociCoaster debate, I’d be inclined to agree with my dad and say that VelociCoaster reigns supreme out of the two for me:


    After Iron Gwazi, we met back up with my mum and headed onwards, taking a look in the kangaroo exhibit as we walked by.
     
    With Tigris being closed, my initial roadmap for hitting 100 coasters at Busch Gardens had hit a considerable roadblock, but I did have a backup plan… in spite of me not normally riding children’s coasters, my mum had kindly offered to ride on the park’s kiddie coaster, Air Grover, with me, to ensure that I still hit 100 coasters at the park. So, to keep my race to triple figures on track while also ensuring that Air Grover itself was not my 100th coaster (I’m not sure I could quite bring myself to ride a kiddie coaster as my 100th…), we decided to continue along the path left past Iron Gwazi (well, sort of… as I would encounter a lot throughout the day, Busch Gardens is quite an unwieldy park to navigate, with a complicated layout) and ride Air Grover as we walked by.
     
    Or so we thought… because when we got there, the ride appeared to be in a state of complete inactivity. It was closed and cordoned off, and even though the park app later stated that it was open and on a 5 minute queue, it still appeared to be out for the count just like Tigris when we returned there with this information (on a somewhat related note, I should point out that the queue times and operational statuses shown on the app were often quite misleading and did not parallel the situation at the ride itself). As such, my mission for 100 conclusively failed at that moment, and I left the park, and will ultimately be leaving Florida, on a tantalising 99 coasters… I guess my 100th will have to wait until September, when I go to Chessington and ride Mandrill Mayhem for the first time. Ah well; what can you do?:

    After the blow of realising that I would not be riding my 100th coaster today as I had hoped, we decided to continue onwards, and my dad and I decided to ride a big coaster that had been a previous favourite for him in particular…
    SheiKra
    SheiKra was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. The queue times board was true to its word, as me and my dad quickly waltzed onto the back row. But how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered SheiKra being a brilliant ride last time I did it, and I have to say that it was quite possibly even better than I’d remembered; perhaps controversially, I absolutely love a good B&M Dive Coaster, and SheiKra was an absolutely phenomenal one! Both vertical drops packed absolutely sublime sustained airtime, the sense of speed was amazing, and overall, me and my dad absolutely loved it! My dad, who had previously held up SheiKra as his favourite coaster, was particularly enamoured with the ride, turning to me and saying that he preferred it to Iron Gwazi. In that moment, I dare say that part of me was almost inclined to agree with him (although I later concluded that I did probably prefer Iron Gwazi). Overall, though, SheiKra was a phenomenal ride that firmly exceeded my previous memories of it:



    After SheiKra, we decided to head on around the park, stopping to look in the orangutan exhibit in the way:

    Our original plan of action was to head to Pantopia, as Falcon’s Fury (the main indicator of the area from afar) looked very close by and the two remaining coasters I was missing from this park (I just forgot to ride them on my first visit, for some bizarre reason!) were located in this area. However, Pantopia was a lot further away in path terms than we’d anticipated, and we ultimately ended up stumbling along a completely different major draw. With this in mind, we decided to ride…
    Kumba
    We’d come across Kumba on our travels and it was on only a 5 minute advertised queue time, so my dad and I thought that we may as well take a ride on it whilst it was nearby. Even though the ride was seemingly only running one train, we pretty much walked on to the ride, and we were seated in row 4 in no time! So, how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered it being a relatively decent B&M looper 7 years ago, and my previous impression was reaffirmed; it was a thoroughly decent ride, and quite possibly my favourite B&M sit down/floorless coaster of the 3 I’ve ridden during the trip (well, I liked it considerably more than Hulk and maybe a little more than Kraken, anyhow; it’s very close between Kumba and Kraken for me). There was brilliant pacing and speed, with the ride holding its speed throughout and having some brilliant inversions, and remarkably given it’s easily the oldest of the B&M loopers I’ve ridden this trip, it was also extremely smooth, with no notable rattle or vibration present and only some very mild head banging in one place. I have no idea how Hulk, whose current track is technically only 7 years old, has a noticeable vibration and quite a few moments of headbanging when Kumba, which is 30 years old and has never been retracked, is as smooth as it is. I’ll admit that I did find one or two sections of high g slightly unpleasant; one area between the loop and the dive loop packed a particularly sustained grey out. With that being said, the ride overall was decent, and even though B&M loopers aren’t exactly a favourite ride style of mine these days, it was a good, solid B&M coaster that I enjoyed my lap on:


    After Kumba, we made our way around to Pantopia, where my mum and I went to ride one of two non-kiddie coasters that I had missed on my previous visit…
    Sand Serpent
    Sand Serpent had a fairly short-looking queue, so as it was a coaster that we hadn’t done on our previous visit and is closing permanently on 9th July, my mum and I decided to give it a ride. The queue ultimately took around 10-15 minutes, and we were on relatively quickly. But how was the ride? Well, I’m not a fan of wild mouse coasters at the best of times, so I had pretty low expectations, but the ride was somehow even worse than I was expecting, and is quite possibly my least favourite of the wild mouse genre and one of my least favourite coasters ever. I hate to give a negative review, but this was absolutely dire. The hairpin turns were easily on the rougher end of the spectrum for a wild mouse coaster anyway, but the icing on the cake for me was the horrifically abrupt braking; all of the brake runs threw us forward pretty painfully like no other wild mouse I’ve ever done. Overall, I get that Sand Serpent does well and is popular in its niche of a family coaster, but it’s not a ride that I enjoyed at all and my mum seemed to agree; I’m sorry to say that I won’t miss it when it’s gone in a few weeks’ time, and I hope that its replacement is more enjoyable:

    After Sand Serpent, we decided to head to the other coaster that we’d previously missed in Pantopia…
    Scorpion
    Scorpion looked to have a short wait, and as with Sand Serpent, we’d missed it on our last visit, so we decided to give it a go. I was interested to try a Schwarzkopf looping coaster without the shoulder bars that Olympia Looping has, as I felt that those were a big detractor from the ride and were one of the most significant reasons why I didn’t overly enjoy it. So, how was the ride? Well, I’m afraid to say that I still didn’t particularly enjoy Scorpion, albeit for different reasons to why I didn’t enjoy Olympia Looping. I’ll admit that the restraints were a lot more comfortable, and the layout was a bit less uncomfortably intense than Olympia Looping, but I still felt a bit weird going through that circular Schwarzkopf loop, and the ride was pretty rough, which surprised me given Schwarzkopf’s general reputation for smoothness (and how smooth Olympia Looping admittedly was). It jolted horribly around every corner, and the slam into the final brake run was especially harsh. I apologise, as I know I’m probably being overly harsh given it’s a classic 43 year old Schwarzkopf looper, but I didn’t especially enjoy it and my mum didn’t either:


    After Scorpion, we headed on out of Pantopia in the direction we hadn’t travelled in yet, stopping to view the Asian elephant enclosure as we walked by:



    After viewing the elephants, I headed on to ride a new-for-2023 flat ride that I was keen to have a go on…
    Serengeti Flyer
    Serengeti Flyer was on only a 5 minute advertised queue time, so I decided to give it a try. This queue time was if anything overstated, as I walked straight onto the ride. So, how was it? Well, despite not normally being big on flat rides, I love Rush back at Thorpe Park, a similar S&S Screamin’ Swing, and my first ride on Serengeti Flyer was similarly awesome to that, with some absolutely brilliant speed and weightlessness! Overall, I loved Serengeti Flyer; it was a great flat ride! Upon getting off, I was informed by my parents that I had in fact ridden the “milder” version of the ride, with the “wilder” version commencing at 1:15pm according to a nearby sign; prior to riding, I’d honestly never have guessed that that was the mild version, as I liked it just as much as Rush:

    After Serengeti Flyer, we headed around to the cheetah section of the park, where I split off from my parents (who decided to look at the animals for a bit) and initially pondered a ride on Cheetah Hunt. However, I decided against this, as the queue was billed at 95 minutes on the entrance and looked massive when I briefly ventured into the queue. My parents later informed me that the ride broke down and shut for the day not long after I split off from them, so I think I made the right choice:


    After I vetoed Cheetah Hunt, I decided to scope out another previously ridden coaster…
    Cobra’s Curse
    In spite of the queue time for Cobra’s Curse being billed at 75 minutes on the app, the entrance advertised it at just 15 minutes, so I decided to take a ride. When I last visited Busch Gardens Tampa in 2016, Cobra’s Curse was the big new thing for the year, so we waited quite some time for it and there was a palpable buzz around it. I waited far less time for it this time around, with the queue starting all the way in the pre-show room (the pre-show was not on this time, I should add) and ultimately taking around 20-25 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered it being a fun, albeit slightly underwhelming, coaster in 2016, and my impression was similar today, although I perhaps liked it somewhat less. The final spinning section was fun and just the right level of spin for my liking, and the controlled spinning at the start is certainly clever and novel, but if I’m being picky, I wasn’t huge on the first two sections, with the backwards section in particular feeling like it’s there for the sake of it rather than doing anything overly purposeful, in my view. I should also add that while the ride was by no means rough, it has picked up a noticeable degree of vibration that wasn’t there in 2016. Overall, though, Cobra’s Curse was a perfectly fine, albeit unremarkable, family spinning coaster, and I should add that it has excellent theming and a truly stunning queue:

    After Cobra’s Curse, I briefly met back up with my parents to reapply suncream and eat some ice cream before heading for a reride on Serengeti Flyer on a 20 minute queue, which had now transitioned to the “wilder” mode of operation. I have to say that I did notice a difference; the ride swung noticeably higher, and the airtime and speed were absolutely sublime:

    After Serengeti Flyer, I headed back over to Iron Gwazi for a reride, which was advertised at a 15 minute queue. I ride in row 6, and while I did perhaps appreciate it a little more than I had earlier, my opinion of it didn’t radically change unlike with my reride on VelociCoaster; my overall feeling towards it was much the same as it had been in the morning, and while it was an absolutely phenomenal ride, the minor flaws keeping it from being an absolute #1 for me were still very much there, and perhaps exacerbated with the ride having warmed up:

    After my reride on Iron Gwazi, I met back up with my parents before taking a 3rd ride on Iron Gwazi. The queue was advertised at 100 minutes by this point, but as I’d just gotten off and not waited very long for it at all, I was confused by this and decided to scope the situation out. My hunch that this was overstated was proven correct, as the queue wasn’t much longer and I waited only 30-35 minutes. For my 3rd ride, I was seated in row 9 and my opinion was very similar to before; a phenomenal ride, but almost a little much for me in areas, and definitely one that is quite fierce.
     
    After my 3rd ride on Iron Gwazi, it was heading towards 4pm, so I met back up with my parents and we left the park:

    So, that just about concludes our day at Busch Gardens Tampa! Even though there were some bad omens at the beginning, and I ultimately didn’t ride my 100th coaster as I’d hoped to, I had a great day! Iron Gwazi, although I didn’t love it quite as much as I’d hoped, was phenomenal, with some ludicrous ejector airtime, and I’m so glad to have finally ridden an RMC coaster! I was also really glad to get on other great attractions like SheiKra, Serengeti Flyer and Kumba, and overall, it was just nice to get back to the park after 7 years! It is a nicer park than I’d remembered, with generally short queues, nice theming and greenery, and some epic coaster hardware. I did find the park slightly difficult to navigate at times, and my parents were not pleased with the park app, but these are minor niggles, and overall, we had a really nice day at a great park!
     
     Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report! The plan has changed a tad, as we’re no longer doing anything tomorrow, but there will be one final Universal Orlando trip report coming on Saturday before we fly home!
  11. Matt N
    21st June 2023 (Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios Florida)
    After an empty day yesterday, we headed back to Universal Orlando today! I was excited to head back to the park and hopefully try to get back on some favourite attractions I’d ridden earlier in the trip, and it was also my nan’s first time at Universal Studios Florida of the trip!
     
    We left a little later today due to heavy rain, with us leaving at just gone 8:30am, so we did not arrive at Universal until after 10am:


    Upon arrival, we split up. My sister, mum and nan started in Universal Studios, while me and my dad started in Islands of Adventure:


    When we entered the park, we noticed that a certain headline ride was on an advertised queue time that wasn’t too bad (relatively speaking)…
    Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
    Hagrid’s was on only a 70 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to give it a go. This queue was hugely overstated, as we were on the ride within around 30 minutes despite a queue that looked slightly longer than it did the other day; it’s always great when that happens! One interesting difference with today’s ride is that we saw the pre-show. This was a fun little touch, with Hagrid and Arthur Weasley giving us a little background along with the added bonus of a few blasts of air and water squirters! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row sidecar, and it was just as phenomenal and fun as it was the other day, with fun launches, fun low-to-the-ground turns and so much going on! However, I concede that I did prefer my initial back row bike seat ride last week, and my dad, who’d ridden up front last time, said that he preferred the front. Nonetheless, it was absolutely phenomenal, and definitely a firm favourite for both of us:


    After Hagrid’s, we headed over to another big headliner of the other day…
    Jurassic World VelociCoaster
    VelociCoaster was on an advertised 45 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on it. The queue appeared slightly shorter than it was the other day, so without the technical stoppage that we also had the other day, the queue initially only took 25-30 minutes or so. However, my dad and I decided to wait for the front, as the queue didn’t look that long, so we ultimately took about 35 minutes. Even with the extra wait for the front, however, our wait was still 10 minutes less than advertised, so you can’t complain! But how was the ride? Well… wow! That front row ride on VelociCoaster definitely seemed better than the row 9 ride I had last week; the front row ride was truly mind-blowing, with even the first half feeling more thrilling than it did last week and providing bits of airtime I definitely didn’t remember last time! The second launch was absolutely obscene on the front row; I’ve never done anything quite like that! The top hat was perhaps slightly weaker on the front row than the back, but you still got a sensational bit of ejector airtime there! The second half delivered just as much as it did last week if not more so, and the ride overall just seemed to resonate with me more than it did last week, for whatever reason. Overall, then, VelociCoaster was absolutely sublime, and has definitely gone up somewhat in my estimations compared to last week, even though it was already a phenomenal ride I absolutely loved to begin with:



    After VelociCoaster, the rest of our group informed us that they were taking the Hogwarts Express over from Universal Studios to meet us, so we walked over to Skull Island: Reign of Kong to meet them there. My mum, nan and sister had ridden Jimmy Fallon and the Mummy, with my nan thoroughly enjoying both. After sitting down for a bit around there, we decided to hop back over to the other park with them via a certain magical route…
    Hogwarts Express
    The Hogwarts Express over to Universal Studios was on only a 10 minute advertised queue, so we decided to take a ride. The advertised queue time was very accurate, with us getting on within about 10-15 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, as with the other day, it was a fun way to park hop, with some simple, but effective immersive mechanisms creating an excellent experience:


    After getting off the Hogwarts Express, we took a brief stroll around Diagon Alley, taking in some of the sights for a bit:


    After that, everyone apart from my dad decided to head onto the area’s headline attraction…
    Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
    Gringotts was on an advertised 35 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. This queue appeared to be somewhat understated, as the outdoor extension queue around the back was open, and we did ultimately end up queueing 45-50 minutes for the ride. That is still a far cry from when we rode Gringotts in August of its opening year, however; seeing those back extensions again today brought back memories of waiting for over 3 hours through every single one of them! So, how was the ride? Well, I have to say that as with our ride on Saturday, it was excellent, with stunning sets, brilliant 3D and a better coaster element than I’d previously remembered! My nan also thoroughly enjoyed it, having not ridden the ride since the aforementioned time we waited over 3 hours for it in its opening year:



    After Gringotts, we headed out of Diagon Alley to meet my dad again and have a brief sit down before I headed to ride a favourite of mine within Universal Studios…
    Revenge of the Mummy
    Revenge of the Mummy was on an advertised 35 minute queue time, so I decided to give it a ride using the Single Rider Queue, as I did the other day. The queue was not deserted like it was the other day, but I still got on in only 10 minutes; the Single Rider Queue moved quickly! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 2, and it was just as great as it had been previously, with some excellent bits of airtime, some fun turns, and an overall fun experience provided:

    After I got off Revenge of the Mummy and met back up with the rest of my family, it was getting towards 3pm and my family were keen to wind down, so we looked through a shop or two before leaving the park:
     
    Our exit was actually very opportune, because a dark cloud was looming ominously on the horizon, and as soon as we made it back to CityWalk and the covered walkways, the heavens opened to unleash the mother of all thunderstorms, with lightning, wind fast enough to blow things over and all!
     
    So, that covers our day at Universal Orlando Resort! I had an amazing day; I was so glad to get back on Hagrid’s and VelociCoaster for rerides, and VelociCoaster in particular has definitely gone up in my estimations since my first ride! I also really enjoyed going on the two rides at Universal Studios Florida, and overall, I just really enjoyed going back to two of my favourite ever parks and hopping between them!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Tomorrow’s report is one that I sense is hotly anticipated for a number of readers, as I’m headed to Busch Gardens Tampa to ride Iron Gwazi and other brilliant attractions!
  12. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (19th June 2023: Universal’s Volcano Bay)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    19th June 2023 (Universal’s Volcano Bay)
    Today, we decided to break up the theme parking with another waterpark visit; we returned to Universal’s Volcano Bay! Today was an interesting one, because until very little time before our arrival, we had no idea that the Juneteenth federal holiday fell during our trip, and as that day was today, we thought that a waterpark might be a better, more relaxing place to go than any of the theme parks. Federal holidays notwithstanding, we also really enjoyed our first visit to Volcano Bay last week, and there were some bits that we didn’t get to see, so we were keen to redo it at some point in our trip!
     
    As with last week’s report, I apologise for the fact that the intrinsic nature of Volcano Bay (a waterpark) means that there are no photos from today.
     
    Due to Volcano Bay suiting an earlier visit based on our experience last week, we left the house at just before 8am to arrive at Universal’s parking structures at around 9:15am. As with last week, we took a bus over to Volcano Bay itself, entered the park and got given our TapuTapus before finding sun loungers and getting changed.
     
    After getting everything sorted, me, my dad and my sister went over to Krakatau Aqua Coaster to book timeslots, as this virtual queue seemingly does nothing but get bigger as the day goes on. Similarly to last week, the virtual queue was already on 130 minutes, so we tapped in using our TapuTapus and were once again unable to join any other virtual queues for the first two hours of our visit. However, this didn’t stop us from riding attractions with no virtual queue, so we headed to a slide we didn’t do last week that was listed as “Ride Now”…
    Puihi
    The green Puihi slide on the Maku Puihi raft slide tower was showing as “Ride Now”, so as we hadn’t done it last week, we decided to have a go on it. I was interested to ride Puihi, as while I enjoyed Maku last week, it definitely looked like the less intense of the two slides, with Puihi having some interesting looking tricks up its sleeves. But how was the slide? Well, I have to say that it was great fun, and I do feel that I preferred it to Maku the other day; I liked the funnel-type features, and I thought that it generally seemed a bit faster!
     
    After Puihi, we had a reride on a favourite from the other day…
    Taniwha Tubes (Blue)
    The blue side of Taniwha Tubes was showing as “Ride Now”, so we decided to take a ride on it. Even though the slide was listed as “Ride Now”, there was a fair standby queue, so we did wait for a fair few minutes in the physical queue line. So, how was the slide? Well, as with the other day, it was excellent; it may not have any fancy tricks up its sleeves, but it doesn’t need them, with the twists, turns and speed providing more than enough fun in themselves, in my view!
     
    After this, we took a walk through the volcano and took a brief dip in the wave pool before heading back to our sun loungers for a bit. We then headed over to a non-slide favourite from the other day…
    TeAwa: The Fearless River
    TeAwa: The Fearless River was an attraction we all enjoyed the other day, so we decided to take a ride on it. Once again, we found it great fun, with a nice, speedy current providing a good thrill, and the mid-course waves providing an interesting touch! It’s also a very moreish attraction; whenever you reach the end of the circuit, you think “go on, let’s go one more time!”. As such, we ended up having 3 consecutive laps around the river!
     
    After our circuits around TeAwa, we headed for another quick dip in the wave pool and another quick sit on our loungers before our previously booked slot arrived…
    Krakatau Aqua Coaster
    Our timeslot on Krakatau Aqua Coaster had arrived, so we headed over there and gave it a ride. The virtual queue was shorter than it had been the other day, so we got on the ride very quickly. But how was the slide? Well, it was excellent, just as it had been the other day; if anything, it was even better, with the launches feeling more pronounced, the airtime being more discernible, and the slide overall feeling faster and more fun!
     
    After our ride on Krakatau Aqua Coaster, we met back up with the rest of our group and headed for a dip in the Reef Pool (a pool that goes up to 6ft in depth and looks over the Ko’okiri Body Plunge). There were some fun water features that could be activated by the TapuTapu, and it was interesting to look at the Ko’okiri Body Plunge riders as they shot by! After that, we took a group lap on…
    Kopiko Wai
    No one other than my mum and nan had yet done the gentler of the park’s two lazy river-style attractions, so we decided to take a spin on it. It was nice and relaxing, although I should add that my lap entailed many failed attempts at getting into a rubber ring; I tried to jump backwards into it so that my legs could stick out four times, but every time ended with the ring flipping over and me ending up flat on my face in the water, much to the amusement of my family! I eventually gave up and just floated along with no ring… when you combine that with getting in and out of rafts on the various slides and desperately trying not to hit anyone in the Fearless River, I think my dad may have been right when he said that “nothing about waterparks is vaguely dignified”…
     
    After our circuit around Kopiko Wai, we headed for two further laps of TeAwa: The Fearless River before me, my dad and my sister booked into a 30 minute virtual queue for Honu. When we sat down on our sun loungers for a bit, 30 minutes quickly flew by, and before too long, we were heading to…
    Honu
    Our time slots had arrived on Honu, so we headed over to take a ride on there. The standby queue for this was far shorter than it had been the other day, so we were on the slide itself in no time! So, how was the slide? Well, as with the other day, it was excellent, with the two walls being great fun and the slide packing awesome speed!
     
    After Honu, we headed back to our sun loungers to meet my mum and nan. As it was almost 2pm, and getting towards the time of day where the sand and paths were getting uncomfortably hot to walk on in bare feet, we decided to head home.
     
    So, that concludes our day at Volcano Bay! I’m sorry that the report probably wasn’t very interesting today, as I know it’s not a theme park, but I have to say that today was an excellent day at Volcano Bay; I dare say that I enjoyed it more than our first day, and my family seemed to agree! Volcano Bay has been great fun, and I easily like it as much as the other Florida water parks I’ve been to over the years, if not more so!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed today’s report! I’m not actually sure what we’re doing tomorrow, but if we do visit a park, I’ll be sure to write about it!
  13. Matt N
    17th June 2023 (Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios Florida)
    After a little detour away from Universal yesterday, my parents and I headed back to the Universal Orlando Resort today! It had been 5 days since we went to Islands of Adventure and 4 days since we went to Universal Studios Florida, so we were excited to get back to the two parks and reride some of our favourites, as well as go on a few attractions that we didn’t try the other day! Our original plan was to just visit Islands of Adventure, but we ultimately ended up park hopping, as I’ll explain later!
     
    Unlike the last few visits, we decided to try an afternoon/evening visit. As such, we did not leave our villa until gone 2pm, and as the drive was a little quicker at just under an hour, we arrived at Universal at around 3:15pm:



    After going through security and negotiating CityWalk, we entered the park at around 3:45pm due to repeated issues with our tickets scanning. One thing I have forgotten to mention so far is that our Universal tickets were initially printed with a small black spot obscuring part of the barcode, so their ability to be scanned has been somewhat inconsistent so far. Today, they did not scan, so the barcode numbers were inputted manually and we were sent to Guest Services to get our tickets reprinted. By the time we got our tickets reprinted and we entered Islands of Adventure, it was almost 4pm:


    Once we got into the park, we decided to start on a previous favourite that we hadn’t done yet…
    The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man
    Spider-Man was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so we decided to have a go on it. We were initially sceptical that the queue was only 25 minutes, as the queue was spilling out of the ride building, but the queue times board was if anything overstated, as we were on within 15-20 minutes; the queue moved quickly! But how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered absolutely loving Spider-Man back in 2016, and I’m happy to say that the ride lived up to my memories of it and then some; this is an absolutely phenomenal dark ride! Most enthusiasts seem to have a vendetta against anything vaguely screen-based, but perhaps controversially, I would easily take this over any wholly physical prop-based dark ride I’ve ever done; of the dark rides I’ve done, I think this may well be my favourite anywhere! I think that the screens are excellent and really well integrated with the physical set pieces, there are some truly incredible effects on there (that levitation and free fall still get me every time, and there are some more understated, yet incredible physical effects matching the events on-screen that I’d never noticed before), and all in all, I think it’s such a thrilling, dynamic and spectacular dark ride! Overall, I absolutely loved Spider-Man; it was a phenomenal dark ride that was possibly even better than I’d remembered, and even though I loved TransFormers the other day, I would say that I easily preferred Spider-Man of the two:

    After Spider-Man, we headed towards Hogsmeade, but we did take a detour on the way to ride another dark ride…
    Skull Island: Reign of Kong
    Kong was on an advertised 25 minute queue time, so as we’d thoroughly enjoyed it the other day, we decided to take a ride. The queue looked shorter than it did the other day, but it didn’t move quite as quickly, so the queue times board stayed true to its word and we were on within 20-25 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, as with our ride the other day, we all thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was an absolutely fantastic ride; we all noticed new details we didn’t notice the other day, and the physical scenery and action sequences on the screens were still just as awesome as they were before! Having now ridden Fast & Furious: Supercharged (a similar ride system) as well, I would say that I prefer Kong by a fair distance; the 3D definitely adds something to it for me, and the whole thing just feels a fair amount more impressive and overall more exciting than F&F, in my view:


    After Kong, we headed into Hogsmeade to ride the main Harry Potter ride in Islands of Adventure that we hadn’t yet done…
    Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
    Forbidden Journey was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so we decided to have a go on it. By the time we headed to the area, the advertised queue time had dropped to 15 minutes, and this was initially looking pretty accurate, as we walked far further through the stunningly themed Hogwarts queue line than I ever have in the past before we met the back of the queue. However, the ride did go down for quite a few minutes, so our rapid entry was stymied and we ultimately waited around 25 minutes. With that being said, that is still considerably shorter than the 1 hour+ queues through Professor Sprout’s greenhouse that I remember from previous visits, so I can’t really complain! But how was the ride? Well, I’ll admit that I’m in two minds about Forbidden Journey. On the one hand, I think the effects, physical scenery and screen integration are all pretty impressive, albeit perhaps not quite as impressive as on something like Spider-Man earlier on for me; from an immersion standpoint, it does really well. However, I’m not a fan of the ride system; it does lots of jerky motions, and it does definitely make you feel a bit nauseous. It’s definitely one of the most intense dark rides at Universal in terms of ride system forces, in my view, and I didn’t personally find the motions the most pleasant to experience. Overall, Forbidden Journey is a great ride from an immersion standpoint, and the queue line is truly spectacular (it and Gringotts have possibly my two favourite queue lines anywhere in the world), but I do find the motions of the ride system somewhat unpleasant, so I probably like it a fair bit less than most:

    After Forbidden Journey, I pondered a ride on VelociCoaster or Hagrid’s, but the queues for both were absolutely huge (somewhere in the region of 2 hours), likely due to both having reopened not that long ago from stormy weather earlier in the day. As such, we instead decided to hop over to Universal Studios Florida via…
    Hogwarts Express
    The Hogwarts Express to Universal Studios Florida was on an advertised 35 minute queue, and a key attraction on our hit list at Universal Studios had reasonably attractive-looking queue times, so we decided to hop on the train over to the other park. The 35 minute queue time was most certainly overstated, as we were on the train within around 15 minutes; it’s always great when that happens! But how was the ride? Well, I have to say that while the ride is not massively complex, I find it to be incredibly effective, and really quite a magical, feel-good way to park hop! I’d say it might well be my favourite theme park transportation ride; I love watching the film on the way over, and while the immersive mechanisms are simple compared to, say, a full-blown dark ride, I think they create a very compelling immersive product! Overall, I really enjoyed our journey on the Hogwarts Express; I think it’s a great way to hop between parks, personally:

    Once we were in the other park, we quickly headed into Diagon Alley to ride the other major Potter ride we hadn’t ridden yet…
    Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts
    Gringotts was on only a 35 minute advertised queue time, and we had been unable to ride it on our first visit to Universal Studios due to downtime, so we decided to have a go on it. The queue time board stayed relatively true to its word, as it took us around 30-35 minutes to get on the ride itself, including the time we spent in the pre-show and fake lift. With memories of having waited 3 hours for this ride in its opening year lingering in the back of my mind, I was very happy with this wait time; I believe it’s the first time where I’ve ever entered straight into the bank lobby itself without queueing through the extended queue line out the back! So, how was the ride? Well, I have to say that it was a fantastic dark ride, and perhaps controversially, it’s quite easily my preferred ride out of the two Harry Potter dark rides. Even though the ride is quite heavily screen-based, there are some surprisingly impressive physical sets in the ride, and the screens and action scenes themselves were absolutely excellent, with the coaster sections themselves, although brief, also being better than I’d remembered! With that being said, I would still say that Spider-Man is my favourite dark ride, and I would also say that I prefer Revenge of the Mummy out of the two enclosed coasters in Universal Studios. Overall, though, Gringotts was a fantastic indoor coaster that I’m glad to have gotten back on:



    After Gringotts, I headed alone to ride a favourite of mine from the other day…
    Revenge of the Mummy
    Revenge of the Mummy was on an advertised 25 minute queue time, and I really enjoyed it the other day, so I fancied a ride on it. However, as I was riding alone, I used a secret weapon… the Single Rider Queue! I’ve always found the Single Rider Queue very useful on The Smiler back at Alton Towers, so I was interested to see how they stacked up at Universal. I was sceptical given I’d heard that rides like VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s often have Single Rider Queues longer than the main queue, but I have to say that Single Rider worked very well indeed here; the queue was empty, with me walking past switchbacks full of people in the main queue, and I got batched into row 4 the second the operator saw me! So, how was the ride? Well, as with the other day, it was great fun, with a great coaster layout, excellent theming and some absolutely immense fire effects:

    After Revenge of the Mummy, I waited for my parents (due to the walk-on Single Rider Queue, I was on and off the ride before they’d even made it back from Diagon Alley!), and as it was 7:15pm by this point, we exited the park together:


    So, that concludes our evening at Universal Orlando! We had a great evening, and even though we only spent around 3.5 hours in the parks, I got on 6 rides (5 if you exclude the Hogwarts Express), which I’d consider a pretty successful tally, personally! I loved getting back on some old favourites for the first time in 7 years, I was also really glad to get back on some favourites from earlier in the trip, and I also loved park hopping for the first time this trip!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! We’re having a rest day tomorrow, as it’s Father’s Day, but I’ll be back on Monday with what will probably be another Universal Orlando report of some description!
  14. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (16th June 2023: SeaWorld Orlando)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    16th June 2023 (SeaWorld Orlando)
    We went for our first day at a non-Universal park; we went to SeaWorld Orlando! I was excited to go back to this park to ride Mako, my current number 1 coaster, as well as take a ride on new rides like Ice Breaker, Pipeline and Infinity Falls!
     
    As per usual with our park days, we left our house at just gone 8am, and with a stop for petrol (or should I say gas seeing as we’re in America?) on the way there, we arrived at around 9:15am. When we arrived, I have to say that I was very impressed by SeaWorld’s coaster skyline; it’s really getting quite imposing now, and my dad even said “Wow, it looks like Blackpool with all the track everywhere!”:



    After getting out of our car, we headed through the gates pretty promptly and were in the park by about 9:25am. After getting into the park, I decided to head to a certain brand new ride…
    Pipeline: The Surf Coaster
    Pipeline was showing as 45 minutes on the app, so as it’s a brand new ride that opened less than a month ago, my mum suggested that we take the win and get in the queue. By the time we got over to the plaza, this had fallen to 30 minutes, so me, my mum and my sister decided to get in line. The throughput of the ride was quite slow, it must be said (I logged dispatch times of 3-4 minutes), but we were on within 20-25 minutes, so I can’t really complain! But how was the ride? Have B&M finally solved the afflictions of the much-maligned standup coaster? If I’m being completely honest, I’m not convinced. I was very excited after hearing many rosy initial reviews, and I was 100% ready to love Pipeline based on how much everyone has been raving about it, but I’m sorry to say that I was sorely underwhelmed. I rode in row 12, the very back row, and my thoughts are as follows. On paper, the ride has everything going for it; the “jumping” seats are an intriguing idea, the launch is fun, it’s smooth and the layout is pretty decent, with a few surprisingly strong airtime moments. However, the whole thing is ruined by the fact that the restraints and whole standing position are inherently uncomfortable. Personally, I found it tough to enjoy the sensations of the layout because when the seat “jumped”, I felt pain in multiple different places; the vest restraints really pinched my collar bones when you rose up into the airtime, landing back on the floor after the airtime really hurt my feet and knees from the positive g impact, and the seat being forced up was also somewhat painful on the… private area for me (although I accept that that is probably a bigger issue for males). It’s all well and good having a good layout with fun airtime moments, but where the airtime on most coasters is great fun and I look forward to it, I just found the airtime on Pipeline a bit uncomfortable due to the general riding position causing me discomfort, and that discomfort was a bit of a deal breaker for me; it knocks the ride down a fair peg in my rankings. I’m sorry if this is controversial, and I’m sorry to be negative, but I feel a duty to be honest in these reviews, and that is how I honestly felt. I was ready to really like Pipeline, but it was a disappointment for me, I’m afraid:



    After Pipeline, I pondered heading over to Ice Breaker to give it a go, but the ride appeared to be closed, as it was sending empty trains around the track. As such, I instead decided to head just around the corner to a hotly anticipated previous favourite…
    Mako
    Mako was only on an advertised 5 minute wait and just around the corner from where we were standing, so my dad, my sister and I thought we’d have a go on it. As it turned out, 5 minutes was, if anything, overstated, as the ride was walk on and we instantly waltzed into the back row air gates. But how was the ride? After 7 years of hailing it as my all-time number 1, and riding all of the other coasters I’ve ridden since, did Mako still stand up? Was it still my number 1? Well, I’m happy to say; yes, it absolutely is. I was right all along. 7 years have passed since I last rode Mako, and I’ve been on a lot more coasters since I last rode Mako, including another B&M Hyper in Silver Star. However, I still have to say that no other coaster has thrilled me, offered me the fun factor and made me truly happy quite like this wonderful coaster does. For starters, I have still never felt such biblical sustained airtime as the hills on this provide; that first drop whips you out of the seat for what feels like forever, and that first airtime hill has such strong sustained air and just goes on and on and on! You do feel the trim, but it doesn’t take away from the airtime, with a wonderful jolt of airtime still delivered on that hill, and the hill that curves to the side was better than I’d remembered, with an interesting sensation of getting airtime and being twisted to the side being provided. The speed hill is absolutely sublime, with another phenomenal moment of sustained airtime being provided there, and the ending is also better than I’d remembered, with the last airtime hill still giving some solid air and the banked turns being really good fun. The ride is also still phenomenally smooth and rerideable, packs a truly exceptional sense of speed, and overall, Mako is still easily my favourite coaster I’ve ever ridden:




    After our first ride on Mako, the ride was still very quiet, so my sister and I ran straight back round for another go! We were in the back row again, and it was still absolutely sublime!
     
    After our 2 rides on Mako, we decided to go elsewhere, so I split off and decided to ride…
    Ice Breaker
    Ice Breaker was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so I decided to give it a go. This queue time actually turned out to be overstated, as I only waited through a couple of trains’ worth of queue and was on within about 5-10 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I was interested to ride it. It had gotten generally middling to negative reviews previously, but the ride has recently had the dreaded comfort collars removed, which were many people’s main issue with the ride, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I went in with quite low expectations, but I rode in row 8, and I have to say that I absolutely loved Ice Breaker; it firmly exceeded expectations, and I thought it was an absolutely fantastic coaster! The swing launch was great fun; the launches were punchy, the backwards spike provided some very nice floater air, and the ejector airtime got surprisingly strong towards the end! The top hat itself was awesome, with a great moment of ejector air coming out of it, and the rest of the ride was excellent, with great pacing, a couple more surprising jolts of ejector air, and some really fun turns; what’s not to like? One thing I did notice is that the train was a tad tight to get into and out of, but the restraints weren’t problematic once I was sat down and on the ride, so that didn’t really take away from it for me. Overall, I adored Ice Breaker; I thought it was a phenomenal little ride, and while it’s not quite Mako, it’s a very, very firm second favourite in the park for me, with it comfortably exceeding my expectations:


    After Ice Breaker, I met back up with my family, and as we wandered into Sesame Street, my nan accompanied me in doing a little box-ticking…
    Super Grover’s Box Car Derby
    Super Grover’s Box Car Derby was walk-on, so we decided to give it a go. For clarity, I don’t normally do children’s roller coasters due to the embarrassment it gives me, but I’d been convinced that this one didn’t look too shameful (in all honesty, it is a relatively big kiddie cred), and I mainly did it for… tactical coaster counting reasons that will hopefully become apparent later in the trip. Thankfully, there was no embarrassment involved at all here; the host batched me and my nan without batting an eyelid, and we weren’t even the only lone adult group on the train! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row, and it was a perfectly fine kiddie coaster. It had some moments of mild speed, albeit was surprisingly a little jolty in areas, but you just have to take these coasters for what they are, really, and overall, Super Grover’s Box Car Derby was fine for a kiddie coaster. My nan actually really enjoyed it, saying it was “quite quick”:

    After Super Grover’s Box Car Derby, we met back up with the rest of our group, and we all went to watch…
    Orca Encounter
    My family wanted to see Orca Encounter, so we decided to give it a watch. We arrived at the arena around 45 minutes before the show started, so we were in the arena for just over an hour overall, and I have to say that in spite of reading about how much the orca shows at SeaWorld have changed since I last went, the show overall felt surprisingly similar to how it was 7 years ago; it still consists of orcas jumping in the air and flicking the first few rows in the audience with water using their tail to motivational song (which may even have been the same song as 7 years ago, come to think of it). With that being said, the show did have an increased onus on natural behaviours, and the trainers talked about their training methods and how the orcas at SeaWorld are cared for. They were also keen to stress that the orcas were never forced to perform, and whatever you think about the principle of keeping orcas in captivity, they did paint a picture that inferred that they were making the best of a tricky situation with the orcas. I won’t go into it any more, as I’m aware that it’s a very emotive and controversial topic, but that was just my perception:

    After Orca Encounter, my mum, my sister and I took a reride on Mako in the front row. I’d never done Mako in the front row before, but unlike Silver Star, where I was almost 100% convinced that I preferred the back, I actually think that I preferred Mako in the front, with the sense of speed seeming even better and the airtime seeming even stronger. The trim hill in particular provided an interesting pop of what almost felt like sudden ejector in the front; it really surprised me! It’s absolutely sublime in every row, and the difference is ultimately very small, but if I had to pick, I’d probably narrowly pick the front over the back:

    After Mako, I split off from the rest of my family to do a few additional rides while they looked around some of the animal exhibits. I started with a ride on a short queue that I hadn’t yet done…
    Kraken
    Kraken was on only a 5 minute advertised queue time, so I decided to give it a try. As with many queues at SeaWorld, this was if anything overstated, as I waltzed straight into the airgates. So, how was the ride? Well, I’d remembered Kraken being a pretty decent ride 7 years ago, and I have to say that today’s ride lived up to that memory; I was sat in the back row, and I overall enjoyed it! I was seated in the back row, and there was good speed and thrill through the inversions, and while there was a mild rattle, there was no notable headbanging either; what’s not to like? Overall, then, Kraken, while not my favourite in the park, was a decent B&M that I enjoyed my lap on:


    After Kraken, I decided to head over to the final B&M I hadn’t yet done…
    Manta
    Manta was on a 25 minute advertised queue time, so as it was the only big coaster I hadn’t yet done, I decided to give it a try. I was interested to go back on it, as while I didn’t remember overly enjoying it in 2016, I was interested to see if my tastes had developed. The queue was pretty accurate, taking around 20-25 minutes with 2 trains/1 station in operation. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 4, and I’m sorry to say that I still didn’t particularly enjoy it. The flying coaster as a general ride style is becoming less my kind of thing, as I find the prone position and the restraints that accompany it rather uncomfortable, and for a reason I can’t pinpoint, Manta somehow felt even less comfortable than Galactica. I also don’t enjoy the pretzel loop element on there; while Galactica’s fly to lie element is a bit uncomfortable but bearable, I find Manta’s pretzel loop really gets to me by the end of it with the sheer degree of forces rushing to your head, albeit it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d remembered back in 2016 (although I was sat in the very back in 2016, whereas I was sat further forward in 2023). Overall, while it looks pretty and I can understand why people like it, I’m not massively fond of Manta, unfortunately. In fact, I dare say I’d go out on a limb and call it my least favourite B&M coaster:


    I then headed back to Mako, which had developed more of a queue by this point. I had two further back-to-back rides; one in the back row and one in row 2. Both of these were still absolutely breathtaking; Mako is truly immense, and still easily my favourite coaster even all these years on:


    After Mako, I pondered another ride on Ice Breaker, as I’d absolutely loved it earlier in the day. Sadly, however, it wasn’t to be, as lightning in the immediate area saw all outdoor attractions cease operation not long after I joined the queue:

    Due to this, I headed to meet back up with my family, and we exited the park, as it was around 3pm and the clouds were only getting blacker on the horizon:

    So, that rounds off our day at SeaWorld Orlando! I had an absolutely brilliant day; if you lost count, I managed 10 rides in total, including 5 rides on my all-time number 1 Mako, and I managed to get on both of the new coasters I was hoping to ride! While I was unable to take my desired 2nd ride on Ice Breaker, and my family and I couldn’t ride Infinity Falls together like we were hoping to, I was pretty pleased with my ride count, with all things considered!
     
    I must also say that while I still rate it a little lower than Universal, the park has gone up in my estimations since my last visit! The coaster lineup is getting to be truly excellent, the queues are generally short, and the place has a generally nice, relaxed atmosphere; when you can ride great coasters with short queues in a park with a nice atmosphere, what’s not to like? Mako is a stunning headliner, Ice Breaker is an absolutely fantastic second place coaster, Kraken is a good, solid ride to bring up the rear of the park’s top 3, and while Pipeline and Manta aren’t my favourites, two more coasters in the lineup is never a bad thing and these two undeniably offer variety. SeaWorld may be a marine life park, but for me, the coaster lineup is easily on par with, if not superior to, that of many sole theme parks; it’s getting to be truly excellent, in my view, and the park overall is brilliant!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed today’s report! Tomorrow, we’re headed back to Universal Orlando for an afternoon/evening at one of the theme parks; I’m thinking it’ll probably be Islands of Adventure, but the jury’s still out on which park we’re going to!
  15. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (13th June 2023: Universal Studios Florida)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    13th June 2023 (Universal Studios Florida)
    Today, we did the other park at Universal Orlando that we didn’t do yesterday; Universal Studios Florida! My grandparents didn’t join us today, but those of us who did go were excited to get back into the park and ride a combination of previous classics like Revenge of the Mummy and new attractions like Fast & Furious: Supercharged!
     
    As with yesterday, we left our villa at just gone 8am and arrived at Universal Orlando at around 9:15am:


    After walking through CityWalk and entering Universal Studios Florida, we got into the park itself at around 9:30am:


    After entering the park, we noticed that a certain major coaster was on only a 10 minute queue, so my sister and I headed over to ride…
    Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit
    Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit was on only a 10 minute advertised queue time, which seemed almost unheard of based on our previous experiences at Universal, so my sister and I decided to give it a go. As promised, the queue was very short indeed, and we were on the ride within 10-15 minutes or so. I was interested to get back on Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, as I’d always remembered enjoying it to varying degrees on previous visits. It provided the first time I ever remember experiencing airtime on a coaster when I first rode it back in 2014, so the novelty of the airtime, height and lap bars made me think it was the best thing since sliced bread. I liked it a bit less in 2016, but it was still a ride I thoroughly enjoyed and was pretty fond of compared to most. But how have 7 years of additional coaster experiences treated it? Well, I’m afraid to say that riding more coasters has massively lowered it in my estimations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got a relatively decent layout, with 1 or 2 nice bits of airtime, but there was less airtime than I’d remembered, and it was a lot rougher and more uncomfortable than I’d remembered. The ride jolted and bashed us about considerably throughout, and I almost felt like I was getting punched in the stomach entering and exiting the various brake runs. Overall, I’m sorry to say that Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit was a bit of a disappointment for me; it’s got a fair layout, but it was a bit too rough and uncomfortable for me (and my sister seemed to agree), and even as someone who’s done under 100 coasters, it just feels somewhat outclassed in the height/airtime/lap bars genre by numerous other rides I’ve done including Mako, Silver Star, and VelociCoaster. I know that sounds a bit petty and negative, so I apologise for that, but that’s how I felt:


    After Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, we met back up with my parents and noticed that a new ride we hadn’t done was on a short queue, so we headed towards…
    Race through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon
    Race through New York had only a 5 minute advertised queue, so we decided to have a go on it. The queue ultimately ended up taking a lot longer than advertised, with us instead waiting around 30 minutes. Most of that was in the living room-type bit after the actual queue, though, so I guess it might not technically count as part of the wait. We were intrigued to ride Race through New York, as it was a new ride that we’d never done before. But how was it? Well, I’d heard starkly negative reviews for this attraction before coming, and I must say that I don’t think it quite deserves the level of vitriol often directed towards it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the greatest ride ever built, and it’s pretty far down the list of draws within Universal Orlando for me, but I thought it was a perfectly fine simulator in isolation. Admittedly, there could have been a bit more going on in terms of smellpods, effects and such, but for what it was, I thought it was all right. It was nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it was perfectly fine for what it was, in my view:

    After Race through New York, we headed just down the street to what is a slightly more noteworthy draw of the park (in my view)…
    Revenge of the Mummy
    Revenge of the Mummy was on a 25 minute advertised queue, so we decided to take a ride. We were initially concerned about the queue taking far longer than 25 minutes, as it nearly filled the queue line and looked far longer than we’d ever queued for Revenge of the Mummy before, but it in fact took only 15 minutes; as with many rides at Universal, the queue was constantly moving at a rate of knots, and the operations were absolutely top-notch! Based on yesterday and today, I honestly reckon Universal Orlando is right up there with Europa Park for operational efficiency and queue moving speed, of the parks I’ve done! But how was Revenge of the Mummy? Well, I’d remembered it being a decent ride 7 years ago, but if anything, it was even better than I’d remembered; this thing is absolutely awesome! There are 2 really decent pops of airtime, the ride carries great speed throughout, it has some really fun twists and turns, and overall, the coaster itself was great fun! Not to mention that the dark ride experience with the theming and special effects was absolutely top-notch; it’s a wonderful overall experience, and the fire in particular is absolutely immense, with Revenge of the Mummy’s use of fire easily being my favourite of any attraction I’ve ever seen use fire! Overall, I thought Revenge of the Mummy was a fantastic ride; it’s not quite as good as the new IOA duo from the previous day, but it’s definitely solidly entered the 9/10 tier for me:

    After Revenge of the Mummy, we initially headed towards Diagon Alley to ride Gringotts. However, the ride was showing as “Delayed”, as was Fast & Furious: Supercharged, so we instead headed to ride…
    Transformers: The Ride
    Transformers was showing as having a 25 minute queue, so we decided to have a go on it. The queue ended up taking closer to 45-50 minutes, so it was somewhat understated. But how was the ride? Well, I have to say that I thought it was absolutely awesome! The ride was fast-paced, dynamic and full of action, with excellent 3D and loads of brilliant effects, and there was some nice physical scenery too! These Oceaneering 4D dark rides are almost invariably top-notch, from my experience, and I’m looking forward to getting back on Spider-Man later in our trip to compare it to Transformers. Overall, I thought Transformers was an absolutely fantastic dark ride, personally:


    After Transformers, we sat down briefly for a snack and some respite from the sun. I initially considered riding The Simpsons Ride alone, but I discovered that there was no Single Rider Queue and the standby line was 60 minutes, so I decided against it for the time being. However, we noticed that a ride we’d been pursuing earlier was back open on a relatively short queue time…
    Fast & Furious: Supercharged
    Fast & Furious was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so me and my dad made a beeline over there. By the time we got there, it was already up to 50 minutes, but as we’d gone all the way over there, we decided to go for it anyway. We ultimately ended up waiting about 45 minutes, so the posted wait time was pretty accurate. But how was the ride? Well, I was interested to see how it compared to Kong, a similar ride system which had massively exceeded expectations and been a firm favourite for all of us yesterday, and I have to say that it was notably inferior to Kong, in my view. I thought that the ride being in 2D took something away from it compared to Kong, and it just didn’t feel quite as substantial and impressive for me. I did feel that while the movement alongside the big screen itself was clever and surprisingly convincing, and the physical theming was decent in the places where it was present, the fact that the ride only really had the one big screen meant that it wasn’t quite as impressive for me, and I must admit that I felt a bit overwhelmed by the barrage of noisy air cannons at times. With that being said, I had similar thoughts on F&F to my thoughts on Fallon in that while it’s far from the greatest ride ever built, I thought Fast & Furious was all right in isolation, and not quite deserving of the sheer degree of vitriol it often receives. Overall, then, Fast & Furious was OK, albeit not anything spectacular; on a side note, I should also add that I honestly got wetter on F&F than I have on some water rides, with a surprising amount of unexpected water sprays being present:



    After Fast & Furious, we met back up with my mum and sister and decided to go for a walk around Diagon Alley. Gringotts was still closed, but we just decided to walk around the area and take in the sights for a bit.
     
    After that, we decided to go for something a little less simulator-based…
    Men in Black: Alien Attack
    Men in Black was on only a 20 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to give it a try. As promised, the queue was not overly long, and we quite quickly reached the pre-show. One interesting thing to note is that unlike other dark rides at Universal, loose articles were not allowed on this one, which I was a bit confused by before getting on. But how was the ride? Well, I was interested to ride it, as I didn’t really remember an awful lot about it from previous trips, and I have to say that I thought it was brilliant! There was great physical scenery, with loads of awesome little details present, the interactivity worked really well, and the spinning added a fun (albeit slightly nauseating) touch! Overall, Men in Black was a great ride; I’d say that it’s easily my favourite interactive dark ride I’ve done:

    After Men in Black, I headed alone to ride a previous guilty pleasure of mine…
    The Simpsons Ride
    The Simpsons Ride was on an advertised 25 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride. I went alone onto this one, as none of the rest of my family liked the ride previously, and the queue was slightly overstated, taking 15-20 minutes in reality. But how was the ride? Well, I am a Simpsons fan, and the gags and script delivered as they always did, but I must admit that the ride system itself was less fun than I’d remembered, with some very disorientating motions and some pretty jerky moments; it was probably the most intense simulator of the day in terms of the nausea of the ride motions, and I did come off it feeling a tad worse for wear. Overall, then, while the ride film and gags in the queue were as fun as ever, the inherent intensity of the ride system did make The Simpsons Ride somewhat less enjoyable than it used to be for me:

    After The Simpsons Ride, it was 3:15pm and my family were feeling pretty tired, so we decided to head home for the day:


    So, that wraps up our day at Universal Studios Florida! It was a great day; I really enjoyed getting back on some old favourites as well as some new attractions, and it was overall really nice to get back to a really great park! I’ve heard quite a bit of negativity surrounding Universal Studios Florida as of late, but I have to say that I absolutely loved the park and still thought that it was brilliant! I have to say that the theming of the park was far better than I’d remembered, with loads of little details and things to look at, and it’s a very nice park to just exist in, in my view, with a nice, relaxed atmosphere. My family agreed, and had possibly more favourable views on it than I did; they seemed to prefer it to Islands of Adventure as an overall park. 
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed today’s report! Tomorrow, we’re headed for our first ever visit to Universal’s Volcano Bay!
  16. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (14th June 2023: Universal’s Volcano Bay)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    14th June 2023 (Universal’s Volcano Bay)
    We went for something slightly different today… unlike the last two days, we went to a waterpark! And it wasn’t just any waterpark, it was one that none of us had ever visited before… Universal’s Volcano Bay! The last time we drove down the Universal end of the I-4 in 2016, this park was under construction, so we were interested to see what the park was like now it was open.
     
    Before I get started, I should apologise in advance for the fact that there are no photographs in today’s report. As Volcano Bay is a waterpark, the experience is not terribly conducive to whipping out a smartphone and taking pictures, so I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on only my writing today.
     
    We set off for the park at around 8am and got to Universal’s parking structures at around 9:15am, as per usual. Unlike with the other two parks, though, we did not set off over the travelators and into CityWalk. Due to Volcano Bay being separate from the other two parks, we had to take a shuttle bus over to the entrance. There was no wait for this at all, and it only took a few minutes, so it was very convenient and got us to the park in good time.
     
    We then arrived at the park and got given our TapuTapu wearables, which we would get very well acquainted with over the course of the day. After getting changed and renting a locker, we headed to the main wave pool to reserve a set of chairs to store our things on before my dad and I headed over to Krakatau Aqua Coaster to reserve slots, as we’d heard that the ride was prone to getting very long virtual queues. When we arrived, the virtual queue was already on 125 minutes, but we decided to reserve it anyway in case it got any longer. This later proved to be a very wise decision, as the virtual queue did nothing but get longer during the time we were in the park, eventually peaking at almost 5 hours. This reservation did mean that we were unable to reserve any additional queue spaces for another 2 hours, but thankfully, there were a fair few slides showing as “Ride Now”, so we headed to…
    Taniwha Tubes
    Both sides of Taniwha Tubes were showing as “Ride Now”, so me and my dad decided to try the blue slides. The virtual queue worked well here, as it meant that we only had a couple of boats’ wait at the top of the slide tower. But how was the slide? Well, I thought it was great fun! The tube gained surprising speed in places, and although there were no additional bells and whistles like some of these tube and raft slides often have, there were some really fun twists and turns and it was overall a very fun slide!
     
    After Taniwha Tubes, my dad and I wandered back over to the main wave pool so that my sister could join us on some slides. My mum and grandparents were not keen on doing slides, but my sister was keen to join us on some, so when she was with us, we headed over to another “Ride Now” attraction…
    Maku
    Maku was showing as “Ride Now”, so we decided to give it a try. As with Taniwha Tubes, the virtual queue worked well here, meaning that the slide had a reasonably short standby line when we arrived. So, how was the slide? Well, I thought that this was a fun slide; even though I think it was probably less intense than the green slide on the same tower whose name currently escapes me, it was good fun, and I liked the open helixes that went around water jets!
     
    After Maku, we headed onto another “Ride Now” slide…
    Punga Racers
    Punga Racers was showing as “Ride Now”, so we gave it a go. One interesting thing to note here is that any kind of cotton clothing or non-swimwear was not allowed, so I had to remove my goggles and my sister had to remove the cotton t-shirt she was wearing over her swimwear. I was unsure why this was the case when it wasn’t the case on any of the other slides, but I guess it could be down to these generating friction with the channel, what with it being a body slide.
     
    After Punga Racers, we headed back onto the blue side of Taniwha Tubes, which were still on “Ride Now”, so that my sister could have a go on the ride. Once again, it was great fun.
     
    After our Taniwha Tubes reride, we went back to the main wave pool to meet back up with my mum before the four of us headed into…
    TeAwa: The Fearless River
    We were interested to try TeAwa: The Fearless River, as it was billed as great fun in other reviews and we were intrigued to try out a slightly more thrilling lazy river. We ended up taking 2 circuits in total, and I have to say that I thought this was great fun! The current was nice and fast, and I really enjoyed the additional touch of waves coming along to spice things up every now and then. It wasn’t overly intense given you needed a life jacket, although having spent many hours on Center Parcs Longleat Forest’s often “rough and ready” Wild Water Rapids as a child, anything else probably seems pretty tame by comparison!
     
    After our circuits on TeAwa: The Fearless River, we met back up with my grandparents and headed for a quick dunk in the main wave pool. While the waves did not quite match “The Wave” in Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon for pure spectacle, they were still really good fun, and were much easier to have a leisurely relax in.
     
    After the wave pool, we sat down and relaxed in our sun loungers for a few minutes before me and my dad headed over to our slot for…
    Krakatau Aqua Coaster
    After a 125 minute virtual wait, me and my dad’s slots on Krakatau Aqua Coaster were finally beckoning, so we headed over and gave it a go. As per usual, there was a short physical wait, and we were on the ride quickly. So, how was it? Well, I thought that the ride was excellent, with some good pops of airtime and much punchier launches than I’d experienced on Typhoon Lagoon’s Crush’n’Gusher, an earlier iteration of the same ride style. The ride was also very long, with many fun twists and turns!
     
    After Krakatau Aqua Coaster, we headed back to the main wave pool to collect my sister so that we could re-ride Taniwha Tubes. We did the green side this time, and I have to say that it felt faster than the blue slide had earlier, with the outdoor sections also providing an interesting touch!
     
    We then went to reserve slots on Honu. The ride had a 10 minute virtual queue, so we reserved a slot and went to ride another attraction that was showing as “Ride Now” while we waited…
    Ika Moana
    Ika Moana was showing as “Ride Now”, so seeing as it was on the same tower as Honu, we decided to take a ride on it. The standby queue for this ride took a little longer, as our slot for Honu vibrated while we were waiting. So, how was the slide? Well, it was good fun, with some fun twists and turns and nice outdoor sections!
     
    After our ride on Ika Moana, Honu was showing as “Ride Anytime”, as our slot had opened up quite a few minutes ago by the time we came off. As such, we went to ride…
    Honu
    Honu was ready for us to ride, so we entered the queue and started to ascend the tower. As with Ika Moana, there was a lengthier standby queue for this ride, with us waiting a good few minutes to get on. But how was the slide? Well, I thought it was excellent, with the two walls providing great exhilaration and the initial drop providing some interesting airtime!
     
    After our ride on Honu, we headed back to the main wave pool to meet up with my mum and grandparents. By this point, it was well past 2pm, the floors and the sand were getting uncomfortably hot to walk on in bare feet (our final walk from Honu on the concrete paths in Florida heat felt as though it was physically burning our feet, and the sand was little better), and the wave pool had just been evacuated due to a “waterfall incident” (?), so we decided to head home.
     
    So, that just about wraps up our day at Universal’s Volcano Bay! I had a great day; I had 8 rides on the slides and a go on TeAwa: The Fearless River, and it was just nice to visit a brand new waterpark! Personally, I’d say that Volcano Bay was every bit as enjoyable as any of the other Florida waterparks I’ve visited (for reference, I’ve been to both Walt Disney World water parks and Aquatica Orlando); the rides were really good, there’s a wide range of different things to do (there were a number of things that we didn’t cover today), and the theming was also lovely, with the central volcano itself being particularly impressive!
     
    The park was also an interesting one for me because it was my first ever experience of wholesale virtual queueing in a theme/water park setting, and I have to say that it worked a lot better than expected! It wasn’t perfect (I don’t think the queue times for Krakatau Aqua Coaster would have been nearly as high had it been a physical queue, for instance, and one or two slides did still have a not insignificant standby wait when our time slot arrived), but overall, I did enjoy not having to physically queue as much, and I thought that my overall experience of virtual queueing with TapuTapu was pretty positive! With that being said, I still don’t think that wholesale virtual queueing is something that you could just take, slap into any old theme park and expect to work well. I think the reason for it working reasonably well in Volcano Bay was because the park had quite a number of non-ride activities to keep you occupied while waiting, as well as a number of slides with no wait, and I think the waterpark in general lends itself to the sort of copious non-ride entertainment that virtual queues require better than the theme park does.
     
    Overall, though, I had a brilliant day at Volcano Bay, and my family really enjoyed it as well! There is a chance that we may be returning to the park next week, so there may well be a second report from Volcano Bay!
     
    Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed today’s report, although I apologise for it probably being less interesting (after all, you’re on here to read about theme parks, not water parks, and I was unable to take any pictures). We’re not doing anything tomorrow other than going for a meal in Disney Springs for my nan’s birthday, so I won’t write a report tomorrow, but the next report on Friday will be from SeaWorld Orlando, where I hope to take my first ever rides on new rides like Ice Breaker and Pipeline and see if Mako, my current number 1 coaster (yes, it’s still on top, even post VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s!), still stacks up!
  17. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (12th June 2023: Islands of Adventure)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    12th June 2023 (Islands of Adventure)
    Today was a very exciting day; our first theme park day of the trip! As we had booked 14-day Universal Orlando tickets, we decided to start with one of those parks, and our choice was Islands of Adventure! We were really excited to get on both VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s, so we thought we may as well start in IOA!
     
    We left our villa in Haines City at about 8am, and the drive took about 1h 15m, so we arrived at about 9:15am. I must say that it was nice to be entering back into Universal Orlando after 7 years:


    After entering Universal, we had to collect our tickets and get our fingerprints scanned at Islands of Adventure to get the tickets activated for the 2 weeks, so we didn’t end up entering the park until about 10am:


    After entering the park, we looked at the queue times and noticed that a certain much anticipated ride was only on a 45 minute queue…
    VelociCoaster
    VelociCoaster was on only an advertised 45 minute wait, so we decided to take a ride. It was only me, my parents and my sister who did this; my grandparents decided to sit this one out, as they’re not so big on intense rides. The ride did go down briefly while we were in the queue, so it took a little longer than 45 minutes (probably 55 minutes to an hour). But seeing as VelociCoaster was one of my most anticipated rides of the trip, how was it? Well, I was seated in row 9, and it was an absolutely phenomenal ride! The second launch, top hat and mosasaurus roll were all sublimely brilliant, there were a couple of other very nice pops of airtime, it carried an excellent sense of speed throughout, and it was comfortable and extremely fun! The theming was also excellent, particularly in the queue; I was a big fan of the raptor animatronics in particular! If I’m being completely honest, however, it perhaps wasn’t quite as phenomenal as I’d hoped, and it didn’t quite live up to some of the obscene hyperbole it receives for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was an excellent, excellent coaster with some absolutely phenomenal elements, and easily 10/10 tier for me (one of my top coasters). I also feel it would be somewhat harsh to say that I was underwhelmed, because as I say, it was a truly brilliant ride. However, I was led to believe that it would be some absolutely life-changing ride that would comfortably obliterate everything else I’d ever ridden and be my instant, undeniable number 1, and it wasn’t quite that for me. Overall, VelociCoaster was an absolutely phenomenal ride with some brilliant elements, and my initial feeling towards it could well be down to my overly high expectations rather than the ride itself, but it did fall ever so slightly short of the sky-high hype for me. I apologise if that’s triggering or controversial, and I know I’m probably being unfair on it, but I would never be dishonest in a review, and those were my true, honest thoughts:





    After VelociCoaster, we met back up with my grandparents and headed for the other ride in Jurassic Park, which we could all ride together…
    Jurassic Park River Adventure
    Jurassic Park River Adventure was on only a 20 minute queue, so as it was a quiet(ish) ride that everyone could go on, we decided to give it a try. The queue ended up being slightly underestimated, only taking around 15 minutes; always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was brilliant, and my family seemed to agree! The ride had some great animatronics and theming, the drop was exhilarating, the wetness level was perfect (refreshing on a hot day, but not unbearably wet), and overall, it was just a really fun, feel-good ride; it’s easily one of my top water rides:

    After Jurassic Park River Adventure, we decided to head to another ride that was new for all of us…
    Skull Island: Reign of Kong
    Skull Island: Reign of Kong was on an advertised 35 minute queue, so we decided to have a go on it. We were interested to ride Kong, as it was the big new thing at Islands of Adventure on our last visit in 2016, yet we were never able to ride it. It was only me, my parents and my nan who rode this one; my grandad had “hit his zenith” on Jurassic Park River Adventure, and my sister was unsure on the ride. The queue took 20-25 minutes rather than the advertised 35, which is always a bonus, and it was also one of the fastest moving queues I have ever stood in; it was basically a path of people gradually walking forwards, as it hardly ever stopped moving! The queue was also stunningly themed, with one particularly phenomenal animatronic of a tribal lady! But how was the ride? Well, I was going in with quite low expectations after reading many ambivalent to negative reviews, but I have to say that it massively exceeded expectations for me; I thought that it was absolutely brilliant! The 3D was excellent, with it being very good quality, and there were some really good action scenes with paired effects on the screens and in the motion base. There were also 1 or 2 very convincing freefall effects during the ride film, and some surprisingly nice physical set pieces around the screens! Furthermore, the Kong animatronic in the final scene was incredible; it was absolutely huge! Overall, I thought Kong was a brilliant ride, and a really pleasant surprise, and it was a big hit with my family too; my nan in particular really enjoyed it:



    After Kong, we walked into Toon Lagoon, and me and my dad pondered a ride on Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. However, the ride broke down just as we were walking into the area, so that idea was quickly stymied. We instead decided to sit down for 15-30 minutes or so to reapply sun cream, go to the toilet and have a bite to eat. After this, we headed into Marvel Super Hero Island and pondered a ride on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, which was on an advertised 40 minute queue. However, the queue turned out to be extending outside of the building, so it was deemed that the queue was too long. As such, me and my sister headed to a different Marvel ride that had a much shorter queue…
    Doctor Doom’s FearFall
    Doctor Doom’s FearFall was on an advertised 5 minute queue, so me and my sister decided to quickly hop into the queue; no one else joined us here, as no one else overly likes intense drop towers. As promised, the queue was very short, with us taking only 5-10 minutes to get on and off the ride. So, how was the ride? Well, it was good fun; the launch was reasonably punchy, there was a nice pop of airtime at the top, and I have to say that the ride was a little more fun than I’d remembered! From memory, it was certainly punchier than Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s Ice Blast, but I do still prefer a good drop tower to a shot tower, personally. Overall, Doctor Doom’s FearFall was good fun, providing a nice shot tower experience to vary things up:

    After Doctor Doom’s FearFall, we had a look at another ride in Marvel Super Hero Island, which had a shorter queue than earlier in the day…
    Incredible Hulk Coaster
    The Incredible Hulk Coaster was on an advertised 45 minute queue, so my dad, my sister and I decided to take a ride on it, with my mum and my grandparents sitting out of this one. As it turned out, 45 minutes was a vast overestimate, with the queue taking just 15 minutes in reality; you can’t complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 4, and it was a good ride; the launch and initial zero-g roll never fail to deliver, and the ride packs good speed throughout! However, I’m not sure that it’s one of my absolute favourites; the ride, while not unbearably rough by any means, was a little bit of a headbasher in places, and I do wonder if it’s a touch too intense in terms of sustained positive g’s in places for my liking; there was one particularly uncomfortable segment from the cobra roll to the end of the loop where I greyed out for an extended period, which I didn’t find the most pleasant, personally. Nonetheless, these are niggles rather than dealbreakers, and the ride was pretty good overall:


    After Hulk, we spent 15 minutes or so trying to find my mum and grandparents, who had gone elsewhere while we were riding. After we all met back up, we headed to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter to ride on another much-anticipated new coaster…
    Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
    Hagrid’s was on a 70 minute advertised queue time, which seemed short relative to some of the queue times we had seen for it, so we decided to take this opportunity to ride it. Only my parents, my sister and I rode this, as my grandparents felt that 70 minutes was too long of a queue for them. Similarly to Kong, however, the queue hardly stopped moving, and it initially took only 40-45 minutes to get on. However, just as I was sat in the row 4 bike seat ready to go, the ride broke down, so we were evacuated and sent to wait in the exit corridor, where we waited for 10 minutes or so before being let back on. Even with the breakdown, however, we only waited for around 55 minutes, which was 15 minutes less than advertised. So, how was the ride? Well, I scored the back row bike seat, and I thought it was stunning; I was really quite floored by it! I had heard very good things about Hagrid’s, so I had high expectations, but in many ways, I was still pretty blown away and surprised by it; I thought that it was absolutely phenomenal! I had heard plaudits levelled towards the theme and experience aspects, and I do have to firmly reiterate those, but I must say that I was extremely surprised by just how fun and thrilling the coaster itself was! For a “family” coaster that only goes 50mph, the launches are really quite snappy, and it feels incredibly fast in areas! Overall, though, my main takeaway from the ride is that is simply phenomenally, enormously fun, and it just makes you laugh and puts a huge smile on your face throughout the experience in a way that very few rides can match! I’m also going to make a potentially controversial statement; I think I preferred it to VelociCoaster. While VelociCoaster does have some real standout moments of thrill in a way that Hagrid’s perhaps doesn’t, Hagrid’s is just so incredibly fun throughout that it made me laugh hysterically and smile hitting the brake run in a way that VelociCoaster couldn’t quite match. Overall, then, I thought Hagrid’s was absolutely phenomenal, and my family firmly agreed (including with the verdict that it usurped VelociCoaster; even though my dad and sister in particular were quick to declare VelociCoaster their favourite coaster unlike me, we were all in unanimous agreement that Hagrid’s was top dog out of the duo):



    After coming off Hagrid’s, we pondered a ride on Forbidden Journey, but the queue was 25 minutes, which my family thought was too long at that point in the day. It was around 3:30pm by this point, and my grandparents in particular were reaching their limit, so we decided to leave the park and go home:

    So, that concluded our day at Islands of Adventure! I had a brilliant day; both VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s were absolutely phenomenal rides that easily became two of my top coasters (my review of VelociCoaster makes it sound like I liked the ride far less than I actually did; I still absolutely loved it and thought it was a phenomenal ride, it just didn’t quite live up to the sky-high hype for me), Kong was surprisingly great, and I enjoyed getting back on some previous classics like Hulk and Jurassic Park! Islands of Adventure is still easily one of my top parks ever, if not my top park ever; I loved it back in 2016, and the additions of VelociCoaster and Hagrid’s have only strengthened it further, in my view! The ride selection is just amazing, and so well-rounded (by my reckoning, they have at least one top-class ride in most categories), and the theming and atmosphere are spectacular too!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, I think we’re probably going to head to Universal Studios Florida, so stay tuned for a report from there!
  18. Matt N

    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023 (10th June 2023: Travel)

    By Matt N,


    Matt N’s Frolic in Florida 10th-24th June 2023
    10th June 2023 (Travel)
    Hi guys. Today was a very exciting day; the start of my 2023 Florida trip! This trip is my first time heading to Florida in 4 years, and my first time heading to the parks we’re visiting this time (Universal Orlando, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens) in 7 years, as well as the first time my grandparents have joined my family and I in Florida since 2014. There are so many new rides I’m excited to get on; VelociCoaster, Iron Gwazi, Hagrid’s, Pipeline… the list goes on! We’re here until 24th June, so today’s report represents the first in a series of trip reports posted over 14 days. I apologise in advance, as today’s report will likely be a bit dull; today’s report only covers the travel aspect of our trip. Nonetheless, I’ll start the day off from the very beginning!
     
    The start of the trip was actually a lot more relaxed than usual. Normally, our Florida trips begin with either an early morning dash to the airport at 4am or a stay at an airport hotel, but due to the combination of our flight being later than usual (3:40pm) and us going from London Heathrow (a little under 2 hours’ drive from us) rather than the usual choices of London Gatwick or Manchester (easily 3 hours’ drive from us on a bad run), we were able to leave Gloucestershire at a more reasonable time of around 9:45am. The drive was fine; there was no traffic, so even with a brief stop at Reading services, we managed to get to London Heathrow’s long stay parking by about 12pm, getting to Terminal 3 itself (the terminal from which our flight departed) by around 12:30pm after the bus ride from the car park:


    I’d never been to Heathrow before, and I have to say that it’s one of the most fascinating airports I’ve ever been to! I’ve never been to an airport where you can park so close to the runway before, and seeing all of the planes queueing up in the sky to land is quite a sight! I also have to say that check in and security were an awful lot quieter than I’d ever remembered in the past; security in particular was very efficient and took no time at all to go through!
     
    After that, we sat in the departure lounge and ate some lunch before heading to our gate and boarding the plane. Our flight was with Virgin Atlantic, and I have to say that it was really good; we’ve always liked Virgin, and today was no exception! While we flew, I did quite a few different things; I watched a few episodes of Ghosts and Young Sheldon, I did a theme park dot-to-dot drawing out of a book that I got given for Christmas (the drawing was of Parc Asterix!), and I spent some time trying to progress on Need for Speed: Most Wanted, which I recently re-downloaded on my iPad after having not played since I was about 14. Sadly, being a learner driver of 1 year has made me no better at it! Another cool thing I should mention about our flight is that we travelled on an Airbus A350-1000, which my dad helped to design!
     
    Initially, it looked like our flight was going pretty well in terms of scheduling. The captain’s announced flight time was around 8.5 hours, which was a fair amount shorter than expected, and we were supposed to land at 7:15pm local time. However… things went awry towards the end of the flight. As we got nearer to Orlando, we were informed that there was an unpredicted thunderstorm in the area, meaning that we were unable to land safely. As such, the plane circled above a patch of ocean just off the east coast of Florida for over an hour while we waited for the storm to clear. The repeated circling formed this interesting paperclip-shaped path on the flight map:

    The prospect of us being diverted to Tampa was heavily discussed, which would have really put a spanner in the works… thankfully, the storm eventually subsided and we landed, albeit with a fair amount of turbulence, in Orlando about an hour later than expected. The storm also meant that we were held on the runway for the best part of an hour after landing, so we spent about 10.5 hours on the plane in total and didn’t get off until gone 9pm local time.
     
    We then went through immigration and baggage reclaim, which were quicker than usual in fairness, and then we finally exited Orlando International Airport to get our rental car. I must say, seeing the grand foyer of Orlando International Airport was nice after the longer-than-expected flight:


    After collecting our rental car, we drove for around 50 minutes to our villa in Haines City, arriving there at around 11:30pm local time.
     
    After that, we unpacked and settled down for the night.
     
    So, that was the first day of our June 2023 Florida trip! I’m sorry that this report was so boring; the next one I write will be far more interesting, because it will be from an actual theme park! Given that they are the parks we have 14-day tickets for, I’d expect it to be one of the two Universal Orlando theme parks. Due to us all feeling pretty tired after our late arrival into Orlando, as well as us still needing to handle things like grocery shopping, I’m not necessarily expecting us to do a theme park tomorrow; if we do go to a park tomorrow, I’ll write about it, but I think our first park visit is more likely to be on Monday.
     
    Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this report; the next one will come either tomorrow or on Monday and will probably be from one of the two Universal Orlando theme parks!
  19. Matt N
    26th March 2023: Alton Towers Day 2
    We had our second day in the park today! And it was an interesting one, with some new stuff experienced today that we hadn’t done yesterday!
     
    We started out somewhat earlier than we did yesterday, arriving at Alton Towers at around 9:30am for entry into the park at around 9:45am:


    For our first ride, we headed off down Haunted Hollow to a certain new ride that none of us had ever done before…
    The Curse at Alton Manor
    The Curse at Alton Manor was closed for most of the day yesterday, so I was hoping to get it in today. Thankfully, the ride was open, and it was also pretty much walk on! As such, I didn’t really see much of the queue, although I did get a brief look at the new indoor queue, which I thought was quite neat! So, how was the ride? Well, I’ll keep it spoiler-free for now… in part because I don’t think my review containing spoilers would go into an awful lot more detail at this stage! I thought it seemed like nicely done ride, but I did perhaps find it a little overwhelming on my first ride; it is a lot to take in, and being a bit of a weakling with horror stuff, I spent most of the ride either on edge or jumping out of my skin! It was all a bit of a blur for me! My mum went round the ride terrified, as evidenced by our on-ride photo (she was always frightened of The Haunted House and Duel, so this wasn’t too surprising), but my dad said he was “underwhelmed”, saying that “it’s nice, and better than Duel, but the marketing over-egged it”. I’ll watch a POV later and see if I can do a more in-depth review with some spoilers, but that’s about as much as I’ll say for the time being:



    After The Curse at Alton Manor, we headed onto our first coaster of the day…
    Galactica
    Galactica was on an advertised 0 minute wait, and it was a ride that my grandad hadn’t ridden yet, so we decided to take a ride. The queue time board was pretty true to its word, with us waiting very little before entering the station! But how was the ride? Well, we were seated in row 3, and I must admit that I found it a bit uncomfortable. Galactica isn’t a favourite of mine, and today’s ride did seem like one of the more uncomfortable I’ve had on it; I’m a bit sceptical about whether flying coasters are really my sort of thing. As for my grandad, he said that the experience was “different” and that he found the ride “less intense than some of the others”:




    After Galactica, we were initially going to go on the Runaway Mine Train, but the queue was spilling well out of the entrance, we decided to steer clear and go on a different ride…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on an advertised 50 minute queue, so we decided to have a go on it. The queue time was ultimately somewhat overstated; we waited around 35 minutes to the pre-show, and we were even on the ride within 40-45 minutes, which is always a bonus! So, how was it? Well, I was seated in row 6, and it was phenomenal; the airtime was stunning, the speed was incredible, and it was overall an incredibly fun ride! My grandad seemed to really enjoy it too, as he had yesterday; he even bought himself a Wicker Man hoodie from the shop straight after our ride, which must surely be a good sign:



    After Wicker Man, we noticed that a certain non-coaster staple had opened for the first time this trip…
    Congo River Rapids
    Congo River Rapids had just opened while we had been on Wicker Man, so we decided to have a ride on it. The queue was fairly short; we were on within just a few minutes, which is always good! So, how was the ride? Well, it was decent; I got a somewhat wet back, there were a few fair waves, and my grandad seemed to enjoy himself! The ride was also spiced up somewhat this time by a jazzy new soundtrack, complete with an Australian announcer making various enthusiastic remarks during the ride; this was a fun touch, but I must digress that the irony was palpable when the announcer encouraged us to “face these waterfalls head on!” just before the waterfall section, even though there were no waterfalls running:


    After Congo River Rapids, we decided to try the other ride in the area…
    Runaway Mine Train
    Runaway Mine Train’s queue looked visibly shorter than it had done earlier, so we decided to give it a go. The queue ultimately took around 25-30 minutes, which I wouldn’t say was too bad at all, personally! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 10, and I thought it was great fun; it is a guilty pleasure of mine! My grandad thoroughly enjoyed it too; his first words to me upon getting off were “That tunnel bend was absolutely mental!”:

    After our ride on the Runaway Mine Train, we sat in the Mutiny Bay Courtyard and ate our packed lunch for a bit before asking my grandad what ride he fancied doing next. To our surprise, he said “I’ve done all the others, so I want to try The Smiler!”. As such, we headed over to…
    The Smiler
    As my grandad wanted to give Smiler a go before we left, we obliged his wishes and joined the queue. Unusually for The Smiler, the queue was only advertised at 30 minutes, and while it wasn’t quite this short in reality, it only took around 40-45 minutes, which is honestly quite a short queue for The Smiler! So, how was the ride? Well, we were seated in the back row, and I personally found it a fair bit less pleasurable than yesterday’s ride; it was rougher and also seemed notably more nauseating for me. My grandad initially seemed a bit overwhelmed by the experience when we hit the brake run, but later remarked that he did thoroughly enjoy the ride, saying that he found it “absolutely mental”! He also remarked that going upside down was nowhere near as bad as he’d feared it might be, saying that he dealt with inverting far better than he’s dealt with spinning things in the past. However, he did say that he was glad that Smiler had been his final ride, declaring that “doing that first might have terrorised [him]!”:


    After The Smiler, we headed to one final coaster that was on a very short queue…
    Oblivion
    Oblivion was on a mere 10 minute advertised queue time, so I, for one, couldn’t resist one final ride! My dad and my grandad joined me, and the advertised queue time seemed pretty accurate; we were on in no time! But how was the ride? Well, we were seated in the back row, and it was absolutely sublime; I had a loose restraint, so I got some impeccable airtime, and the sense of speed in the hole seemed particularly amazing today! My dad and grandad also seemed to enjoy it, and overall, it was a brilliant way to close our Alton Towers trip, in my view:

    By this point, it was heading towards 3pm, so we decided to head home. As it was quiet, we took my grandad on the Monorail to head back to the car park, which was certainly a welcome sit down after all the walking and standing during the day!
     
    After we rode the Monorail, we got in the car to head back home and our trip to Alton Towers ended.
     
    On the whole, this was a brilliant trip, in my view! Yes, it started off slightly rocky yesterday with the rain and the long Thirteen queue, but today was brilliant, yesterday afternoon was an improvement on the morning, and I overall thoroughly enjoyed seeing my grandad’s first reactions to Alton Towers and theme parks in general! He said that his weekend had been “fabulous”, and while he admitted that Alton Towers probably wouldn’t be somewhere he’d want to revisit too frequently and that he hadn’t become a “convert” like me, he didn’t rule out potentially visiting a theme park again in the future and said that he'd thoroughly enjoyed his weekend. His favourite ride of the trip was Wicker Man, but he also leant an honourable mention to The Smiler, which he deemed "absolutely mental"!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you've enjoyed this trip report! I'm not sure when I'll next be writing one or where it will be from, but I hope to be writing another one soon!
  20. Matt N
    25th March 2023: Alton Towers Day 1
    Hi guys. Today was an exciting day; it was my first visit to Alton Towers of the season! But this visit was particularly exciting for a different reason… my parents and I brought my grandad along with us for what was not just his first ever visit to Alton Towers, but his first ever visit to a theme park full stop! Yes, he’d never set foot into a theme park or ridden a roller coaster prior to this morning, but after seeing Oblivion on the TV, he expressed great keenness to visit, so my parents and I took him as a 70th birthday present!
     
    We set off from Gloucestershire at about 7:15am this morning, and we arrived in Alton Towers at about 10am, making good time for entry into the park at about 10:20am:

    When we entered the park, we decided to make a beeline for Oblivion, as that was my grandad’s key bucket list ride. “I need to do Oblivion first in case it’s the only one I do!” he said! However, when we got over there, it was closed, so we had to change tack:


    Instead, we took a look at the queue times, and went to a different ride that was displaying a short queue time…
    Rita
    Rita was only displaying a 10 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. My dad felt that as Rita “is short and doesn’t really do much aside from being fast”, it was a good one to start my grandad off on. When we joined the queue, the advertised time quickly went up to 45 minutes, but we decided to persist regardless, and it ultimately took about 55 minutes. Interestingly, my grandad was absolutely perplexed about why people were screaming on the ride; he asked “what on earth are they all screaming for?”. So, how was the ride? Well, I was sat in row 4, and I thought it was awesome; the ride was relatively smooth, and it had awesome airtime and speed! As for my grandad, he seemed to enjoy the ride, and said that it felt a lot faster and more exhilarating than it looked from off-ride; he did, however, quickly retract his previous criticism of the screamers:


    After Rita, we decided to have a go on the other roller coaster in the area…
    Thirteen
    Thirteen had just opened and was on an advertised 45 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on it. This initially seemed like a sound move; with rumblings circulating that the ride was still unable to operate in the rain, we wanted to do Thirteen quickly so that we could get it in while it was dry. This decision later proved to be a grave error… as in spite of the queue not looking exceptionally long compared to previous visits (albeit far from short), we waited for 105 minutes in total, and the heavens well and truly opened while we were waiting. On the plus side, the rumours that the ride was still unable to operate in the rain were untrue, as I saw it running in a rather heavy downpour with my own two eyes! So, how was the ride? Well, I got the front row, and it was great fun; there were some fun twists and turns, the odd pop of airtime, and an indoor section that never fails to deliver! As for my grandad, he simply turned to me at the end and said “Well, I wasn’t expecting that… I almost wet myself!”. On a positive note, he also got off and said to me “These roller coasters are rather addictive things, aren’t they? When you get off one, you just want to go straight on another one!”; he was really starting to enjoy the rides by this point:

    After we got off Thirteen, the rain became truly biblical, so we camped under a tree to try and escape the rain. After a few minutes had passed, we decided to take shelter indoors for a longer period of time, so we had a go on…
    Hex
    Hex was located nearby, so we decided to take cover on there for a few minutes. It appeared as though everyone else in that area had the same idea, as the queue quickly spilled out of the building and we later ascertained that it was advertised at 30 minutes. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever queued through the entire building and seen the queue line videos on Hex! Nonetheless, it ultimately only took about 15 minutes, and we were in the first pre-show quite quickly. So, how was the ride? Well, I have to say that it was excellent; it was my first ride on there since 2020, and it felt like everything was working and in absolutely top notch condition, and I noticed things I’ve never noticed in that ride before! Overall, it was brilliant, and I think my grandad found it interesting too:


    After that, we decided to head for another roller coaster…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on a 50 minute advertised queue, so we decided to give it a go. This was another one that my grandad was particularly keen to ride; he said he wanted to ride the ride after having completed the Wicker Man jigsaw puzzle that we gave him a couple of years ago (which I ascertain was quite difficult; he complained about every piece being the same shade of black/brown!)! The queue time was somewhat understated, ultimately taking 70-75 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was sat in row 3, and I thought it was as brilliant as always, with an awesome sense of speed and loads of brilliant airtime! My grandad was particularly impressed with Wicker Man as well, stating that it was “the best ride yet” and “definitely better than Rita”:




    After Wicker Man, we noticed that a certain bucket list ride for my grandad was finally open, so we made a beeline for it…
    Oblivion
    When we had just stepped off of Wicker Man, my dad noticed that Oblivion was open and on an advertised 15 minute queue, so seeing as it was the main ride my grandad wanted to ride, we headed over there. We were greeted with a surprise when we got there, as the queue had risen substantially to 50 minutes rather than 15, but we joined it nonetheless seeing as it was my grandad’s most anticipated ride and me and my dad both really enjoy it too. The queue ultimately didn’t take 50 minutes, instead taking 35-40 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I do absolutely love Oblivion, and for me, it was as excellent as it always is, with a phenomenal sense of speed in the tunnel and some sublime airtime while plummeting down the drop! My grandad was blown away by the experience; he called it “barmy” and “utterly insane”, and looked in disbelief at how exhilarating Oblivion was; it was certainly the ride photo he looked the least unfazed in, anyhow!:



    After Oblivion, it was getting close to the 5pm ride close, but I managed to sneak in one final ride…
    The Smiler
    The Smiler was on an advertised 40 minute queue, but as my grandad didn’t quite seem up for The Smiler, my parents stayed off it with him and I went on it via the Single Rider Queue. This queue often produces very good results as far as waiting time reduction goes; today wasn’t quite as good as some occasions, as I waited 20 minutes, but that was still a significant reduction on the advertised queue time of 40 minutes! So, how was the ride? Well, I’m not normally the biggest fan of The Smiler, but I have to say that that was the most enjoyable ride I’ve had on The Smiler in quite some time! I was seated in the front row, and it was actually really quite good; the inversions were fun and floaty, the ride wasn’t quite as intense and nauseating as it sometimes is, it was reasonably smooth for the most part (even the ending wasn’t that bad today)… I can’t really complain too much! It’s still not my favourite coaster by any means, but overall, The Smiler was a pleasant surprise today, and a very good way to end the day! On a side note, the operations were outstanding; the average dispatch interval was barely over a minute, and the staff were really hammering the trains out:

    After The Smiler, we headed out of the park and back to our hotel in the local area.
     
    So, that sums up the first day of our Alton Towers weekend! While I’d be lying if I said that it was my greatest ever day at the park in terms of ride count, and the weather at points of the day did detract somewhat, I still had a great day, and I loved introducing my grandad to the park (and theme parks full stop) for the first time! I asked him what his thoughts to his first day were as we left, and he said that it was “awesome” and “even better than [he’d] ever hoped that it could be”; I was very gratified by that response! His favourite ride overall was “easily” Wicker Man (he called it “superb”), but he seemed to enjoy everything we did to some extent, which I was glad about!
     
    Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this report, and I’ll be back at you tomorrow with the report from our second day on park, which will cover some of the things we didn’t do today (hopefully including a ride on The Curse at Alton Manor, which none of us have done before…)!
  21. Matt N
    7th August 2022: Alton Towers Day 1
    Hi guys. Today was the first day of my latest 2 day Alton Towers trip, which is always an exciting day, particularly when your break entails a stay in the Alton Towers Hotel! I know it’s only been two months since my last trip to Alton Towers, but I got offered a theme park trip of my choice for my birthday this year by my parents, and as I had a nice time at Alton in June, I thought “why not go back there?”!
     
    We left home at about 7:15am this morning and got to the park in good time, arriving through the hotel entrance shortly after the 10am opening time. I’ve got to say, that hotel entrance has become a real secret weapon on my last two Alton Towers trips; it saves a huge amount of time getting into the park, which is always a bonus:


    After entering the park, we headed to our first ride…
    Galactica
    Galactica was on an advertised 0 minute queue, so we decided to take a ride on it. As promised, the queue was very short indeed, which is always a bonus. The operations were also very good, with a throughput of comfortably over 1,000pph being attained on 3 trains and 2 stations; terrific work! So, how was the ride? Well, Galactica isn’t a favourite of mine, as I find the flying position a bit uncomfortable, but I’ve got to say that today’s ride was one of the more fun I’ve had on it in recent times; I was seated in row 4, and it was really smooth, with some fun sensations! All in all, that ride on Galactica was about as good as I could have asked for given that the ride isn’t really one of my favourites:


    After Galactica, we tried the other Forbidden Valley B&M…
    Nemesis
    Nemesis was on an advertised 25 minute queue, and as such, we decided to give it a ride. Ultimately, the queue ended up being more like 45-50 minutes once we joined; it was only stretching up to below the first corkscrew, but dispatches were infrequent, and me and my dad later ascertained that this was because the ride was on 1 train and attaining around 500-600pph. The park decided to add the 2nd train whilst we were in the queue, which added another 10 minutes or so onto our queue time but ultimately sped up the pace of the queue after that. Interestingly, we encountered a rather angry staff member at the Fastrack merge point, who later got moved elsewhere due to them getting overly animated at guests’ behaviour. I’ve never seen that at Towers before… anyway, how was the actual ride? Well, it was good! I was seated in row 5, and it was fairly smooth, well paced and forceful; what’s not to like? As much as I may not hold Nemesis on the same god-like pedestal that most enthusiasts do, today’s ride was very good indeed; it certainly packed a very good punch:


    After Nemesis, we decided to head for a slightly longer stroll to ride…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on an advertised 50 minute queue, so we decided to have a ride on it. This queue time was very accurate, which is always a plus, and it appeared that the bulb in the pre-show had been fixed since my last visit, meaning that its tricks were obscured from guest view once again; good work, Alton! But how was the ride? Well, it was phenomenal; I was seated in row 8, and it was relentlessly fast, packed with airtime, smooth and overall very fun! That definitely cemented its place as my personal favourite ride on park, my UK #2 and my overall #5; I always feel like I shouldn’t enjoy Wicker Man nearly as much as I do, but it never fails to have me laughing and feeling blown away when I hit the brake run! As blasphemous as this probably sounds, I genuinely get almost as much enjoyment from riding it as I did from riding Wodan at Europa Park back in April! Even though it’s not nearly as impressively specced as Wodan on paper, it’s just so much fun and so rerideable, and even though Wodan does come out on top for me, the gap between the two remains far smaller than I ever expect; there’s really not a whole lot in it for me! Perhaps I just really like GCIs in general?:




    After Wicker Man, it was getting on for 1pm, so we decided to sit down in the courtyard for a spot of packed lunch before heading to our next ride…
    Thirteen
    Thirteen was on an advertised 50 minute queue, so we decided to get in the queue and have a ride. This queue didn’t end up being anywhere near 50 minutes, and operations were good; always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 2, and it was good fun, with some fun twists and turns in the outdoor section and a cracking indoor section that’s always a laugh; it was lovely and smooth, as well! However, having ridden it both towards the back and towards the front in recent months, I must say that I definitely prefer Thirteen towards the back. That cracking pop of ejector airtime over the first drop is missing in the front, and the outdoor section generally feels a bit more fun in the back. Nevertheless, Thirteen is always a really good, fun ride that puts a smile on my face, and it’s definitely one that’s grown on me over time:

    After Thirteen, we initially considered Rita, but it had a 75 minute queue, so we went elsewhere…
    The Smiler
    In spite of a 60 minute advertised queue, I decided to give Smiler a go. Now you may be wondering “why on earth did you do Smiler when you’re not a huge fan of it and it had the longest queue on park?”. Well, dear reader, that is where a secret weapon of mine came into play; the single rider queue! I made use of this for the first time on my last visit to Alton Towers, and it is truly a game changer; it reduces my wait time substantially every time I use it, and today was no different! In spite of a 60 minute advertised queue time, I got on the ride within 5-10 minutes, which I thought was brilliant! So, how was the ride? Well, Smiler isn’t really a favourite of mine, as I find it a bit too rough and intense for my personal liking, and today’s ride was pretty par for the course in this regard. However, it admittedly didn’t seem quite as rough as it did on my last ride; always a bonus, particularly given that I was seated on the back row! I do always feel bad for Smiler, though; it’s a coaster I really want to like, as I think there’s some good bits in there (the layout is admittedly creative, and those two airtime hills are absolutely amazing!), but it never really does it for me due to a combination of it not being the most comfortable ride and the back-to-back inversions almost creating a repetitive motion-type sickness feeling for me akin to that caused by a particularly intense spinning flat ride (I’m not a huge flat ride lover myself). I apologise for this, as I know that most enthusiasts love Smiler, but I cannot lie about my own opinions and experiences:


    After The Smiler, I met back up with my parents, and we moved on to the other coaster in X-Sector…
    Oblivion
    Oblivion was on a mere 15 minute advertised queue time, so we certainly couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a ride! This short advertised queue time certainly held true; it didn’t take us long to get on at all, which was aided by some very good operations. A throughput of over 1,000pph was being attained when I was in the queue, which is phenomenal, in my opinion; well done, team Oblivion! But how was the ride? Well, I’ve got to say that as ever, the other X-Sector coaster is far more up my street; it was particularly excellent today, with an absolutely sublime pop of sustained airtime over the drop and a phenomenal sense of speed in the tunnel. Even though it isn’t the fastest coaster I’ve ridden (that accolade goes to Stealth at 80mph), Oblivion always feels like it could conceivably be the fastest coaster I’ve ridden; that tunnel feels unbelievably fast! Overall, Oblivion was absolutely excellent, and definitely warranted its top 10 placement for me today; it may only have one key element, but it does it so well that it always leaves me grinning:


    After our ride on Oblivion, we fancied something slightly less thrilling…
    Congo River Rapids
    Congo River Rapids was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go as a slightly more relaxing ride to break up the coaster rides. The queue initially looked long when we joined, but it moved quickly, so the advertised queue time was actually pretty accurate. The good thing about rapids rides is that they are almost invariably queue munchers; CRR was dispatching a boat roughly every 15 seconds or so, making for a throughput of about 1,800pph if you assume full boats of 8. They also seemed pretty good at filling boats today, so this throughput figure likely wasn’t too far off despite rapids rides’ tendency to often dispatch with boats that are far from full. So, how was the ride? Well, it was all right for a nice sit down; as a way to relax, I can’t really complain about it! However, I do feel that the ride is considerably less exciting than it once was due to the removal of the waterfalls and many of the wave machines; I don’t really have an issue with it not being a huge soaker given our climate, but the opportunities to get even a slight spray on the ride are slim to none these days, and my parents and I both felt somewhat short changed upon getting off. I appreciate that this is out of the park’s hands, so I’m probably being overly harsh, but the ride is definitely less of a priority on our agenda than it once was due to these changes. Still, it was perfectly all right for a relaxing ride in between coasters, and it was nice to get back on it after quite a bit of time without a ride:


    After our ride on Congo River Rapids, we had a reride on Wicker Man, with a tempting 40 minute queue. I was seated in row 8, and it was just as sublime as our earlier ride, if not more so; it had warmed up superbly from earlier in the day:



    After this, my parents left the park and left me to my own devices. I went on to ride…
    Spinball Whizzer
    Spinball Whizzer was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on it. The queue did end up longer than 25 minutes, taking more like 45-50 minutes, but this can’t really be helped; what can you do? So, how was the ride? Well, Spinball isn’t a ride I overly rate, and today wasn’t really an exception to that rule, I’m afraid; spinning rides aren’t my favourite anyway, as I have quite a low tolerance for spin, and Spinball is quite a jerky ride, so definitely isn’t the most comfortable of experiences. Still, that’s more down to my personal preference than anything overly wrong with Spinball; it solidly fills a family thrill coaster hole in Alton’s lineup, and even if it isn’t my personal favourite, I’m glad I got to ride it:



    After getting off Spinball Whizzer, I had a reride on Oblivion. The airtime wasn’t quite as strong this time due to me getting a pretty thorough stapling into the restraint, but the ride was still excellent nonetheless:

    After my reride on Oblivion, I closed out the day with another ride on Wicker Man. I was seated in row 3 this time, and despite being very near the front, the ride was still relentless and brilliantly thrilling and fun like it had been earlier; Wicker Man is a ride that always clicks for me regardless of where I’m sat:

    After that, I left the park and headed back to the Alton Towers Hotel:


    So, that was the first day of our trip to Alton Towers! The park was undeniably busy today, but I still got on 11 rides, which I was really chuffed with! I was also chuffed as always with how some of my favourites were riding; Wicker Man was as phenomenal as ever, and still easily my favourite on park, Oblivion seemed particularly awesome today, Thirteen was great fun, Nemesis was good… it was an excellent day all round!
     
    Thanks for reading! I’ll post the 2nd part tomorrow once I’ve had my 2nd day in the park!
  22. Matt N
    20th June 2022 (Alton Towers Day 2)
    We had Day 2 in the park today! We got up fairly early and as we were staying in the Alton Towers Hotel, we had somewhat of a head-start (or I did, anyway; my mum and Nan joined me later); even though Early Ride Time is no longer offered, the park opens its gates early to allow you to get to your first ride and queue for it before opening time, and staying in the hotel will naturally allow you to get here ahead of the regular day guests, which is always a bonus:


    As such, I decided to take advantage of this and head into the park at about 9:25am and head to an area that often gets long queues later on; Dark Forest. I started on…
    Rita
    Rita often gets a long queue later on, so I decided to give it a go early on. I watched the ride test for a bit, and I was one of very few people waiting in the area. As such, when the ride opened at around 10:05am, I discovered that I would be on the very first ride of the day, which is an achievement I’ve never had before! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and the ride was more pleasurable than yesterday’s, with less rattle and some phenomenal airtime, as well as a launch that’s punchy as ever and absolutely supercharged pacing! Perhaps controversially, I do like Rita, and it was a great way to start the day:


    After Rita, I decided to tackle the other coaster in the area…
    Thirteen
    Like Rita, Thirteen was on a walk-on queue, so I decided I may as well give it a go while I was in the area. I wasn’t 100% sure of this, so wouldn’t like to claim that I was, but it looked as though I may have made the first ride of the day on Thirteen as well; the train in front of me was empty, and the station looked deserted when I arrived! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated directly on the back, and it was excellent; I once again experienced multiple moments of cracking airtime during the outdoor section, the twisty sections were great fun, the ride was blissfully smooth, and the indoor section was a good laugh as always! I‘ve got to say, I think Thirteen is definitely a back row coaster, based on my memories of the front:

    After Thirteen, my mum and Nan entered the park, and we attempted to ride Thirteen together. We got as far as the station, and I was even batched into the front row… but the ride broke down. We stood in the station for about 15 minutes or so, hoping that the issue would be resolved quickly, but they eventually closed the queue line.
     
    With that in mind, we left the queue. I initially went off to ride Oblivion, on an advertised 0 minute queue. However, the queue looked much longer than 0 minutes by the time I arrived in X-Sector, so I instead decided to rejoin my mum and Nan so we could all ride…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on an advertised 55 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. Interestingly, the queue only took 35 minutes as opposed to the advertised 55, which is always a bonus! Although this could have been in part due to a rather interesting quirk with the pre-show, where both the doors remained open. As such, no one watched it; we were just filtered straight through the room, and the show just started running to no audience while everyone was piling into the station! My mum and Nan were very happy that we didn’t have to watch it, and I have to admit that as much as I do like Wicker Man's pre-show, not watching it did shave off some time getting on the ride and make the experience less uncomfortable. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 8, and it was phenomenal; relentlessly fast and full of airtime just as it had been yesterday! We all thoroughly enjoyed it:


    After Wicker Man, I headed over to X-Sector to ride…
    The Smiler
    I hadn’t done The Smiler yet today, so I decided to give it a go. The advertised queue was 70 minutes, and it was spilling well into the pit, but I once again used my secret weapon... the single rider queue! But the question is; how much shorter would my queue be today? Well, today was where single rider really came into its own... that queue was walk on, and I waltzed straight into row 2! I actually felt a bit naughty using the single rider queue today, as it basically felt like I was using Fastrack without paying for it... even though single riding via the SRQ is technically allowed, it felt a bit wrong to walk onto the ride when the main queue was 70 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I'm afraid it was similarly rough to yesterday's; definitely not the most enjoyable:



    After Smiler, I couldn't leave X-Sector without having a go on...
    Oblivion
    Oblivion was on a 25 minute advertised queue, so I decided to give it a go. I did wonder upon joining whether the queue might be longer than 25 minutes, as it was stretching all the way to the tunnel underneath the station where the Lord of Darkness talks about the psychological effects of Oblivion (the longest queue I've seen for it in a while). However... it only ended up taking 10-15 minutes, and this was due to some of the best operations I have ever seen on the ride; they were throwing shuttles out at a rate of knots, my measured throughput average for Oblivion exceeded 1,000 riders per hour for the first ever time, and on 5 shuttles, we were only stacking at the end for a few seconds at most (for some idea, seasoned visitors to Alton Towers will know that you typically stack for a long time on Oblivion). Phenomenal work! So, how was the ride? Well, I was on the front row, and I actually enjoyed it slightly more than yesterday's ride! The sustained airtime was once again phenomenal, but the sense of speed, while phenomenal everywhere, seemed slightly enhanced on the front, for some reason:

    After my ride on Oblivion, I met back up with my mum and nan, and me and mum rerode Wicker Man on an advertised 35 minute queue. Interestingly, we watched the pre-show this time; clearly the pre-show skipping on our first ride was just a one-time issue! The queue still only took 25-30 minutes, though, so that wasn't an issue by any stretch. As for the ride, I was seated in row 8 once again, and the ride was phenomenal once again:


    We then had some lunch before I wandered over to Forbidden Valley to ride...
    Nemesis
    Nemesis was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. This queue ended up being pretty accurate, possibly slightly understated, taking 20-25 minutes; always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6 on an inner seat, and it was good, although slightly jolty in places. This wasn't a dealbreaker by any means, and I've ridden far rougher coasters, but it did detract ever so slightly from the ride for me:


    After Nemesis, I took a ride on the other Forbidden Valley B&M...
    Galactica
    Galactica was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. The queue was overstated, only taking 15 minutes in the end; always a bonus! The operations on Galactica were top notch this afternoon; the ride was running 3 trains and both stations, yet we didn't stack on the brake run at all. My throughput average for Galactica was 1,221pph, which was the highest I measured all trip; terrific work! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row, and as I said yesterday, it's not my favourite coaster; it's OK, but I do find the flying position inherently uncomfortable, and I'm also not a fan of the fly to lie, where it dumps you on your back for a sustained period. With that being said, however, the ride did feel a bit faster on the back, and bits of the layout itself are really quite good fun; it's just that I don't particularly enjoy that flying position at all:


    After Galactica, it was getting on for 2:30pm, and my mum and nan were wanting to head home. As such, we headed out the hotel entrance and closed out our day there.
     
    So in conclusion, we had a brilliant Alton Towers trip! It was great to get back to the park for my first 2022 visit, and I had many great rides! In particular, Wicker Man delivered as well as it ever did, with some of my best ever rides on it being had this trip, Oblivion was awesome, and Thirteen has gone up a fair amount in my estimations; it was unexpectedly brilliant this trip!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you've enjoyed my reports!
     
  23. Matt N
    Matt N's Ode To Europa Park: A Review from my First Ever Visit
    For those of you that don't know, I recently returned from my first ever visit to Europa Park in Germany. I wrote a trip report series which can be viewed in earlier entries in this blog.
     
    Now I know that I did a brief summary of my thoughts on Europa Park at the end of my recent trip report series. However... now I've been back for a couple of days, I'm finding myself wanting to say a lot more than I said in that summary. It feels like I hardly scratched the surface of what I wanted to say about Europa in the closing summary of this trip report series. I apologise if this comes across a tad random or soppy, but I wanted to talk about Europa in more depth and talk about what I thought of it and why I fell in love with it, as both a way to inform the Europa regulars on here that having now been, I get it, as well as to reassure anyone who hasn't visited and is possibly a little sceptical as to whether Europa will be for them.
     
    So; Europa Park. Where do I begin?
     
    To say that I've wanted to visit Europa for a while would be an understatement; ever since I livestreamed the GTAs back in 2014, when I was only 11 years old, and saw Europa Park get awarded the award for "World's Best Theme Park", I thought to myself "I need to go there". And then I read TowersStreet/EuropaStreet, where all the members absolutely waxed lyrical about Europa even back in 2015 or whenever I started lurking around there, my excitement intensified, and Europa Park became the first big bucket list place I felt like I needed to visit. I'll be honest, I did not know a huge amount about the park at this point, but I knew that everyone loved it, which was all the incentive I needed.
     
    I would always say to my parents about Europa Park, and their response was always "we'll take you when you're 18". Seeing as I was probably no older than 12/13 at the time, this seemed a very long way off. And when I finally turned 18 in July 2021, COVID had happened, meaning that the much mooted 18th birthday trip to Europa Park was unable to happen. I did get a nice trip to Legoland Windsor and Paultons Park, though, so every cloud has a silver lining, I guess!
     
    So it's safe to say that my first trip was a very long time coming. However, my parents did stick to their word, and finally ended up booking our trip for April 2022. The excitement began.
     
    However, I'll digress that after the trip was booked, my skepticism and trepidation began to grow. I'd often heard Europa compared to Disney (I like the Disney parks, don't get me wrong, but I never really fell in love with them), and I'd heard a number of reviewers say that EP was "mediocre" and "massively overhyped", particularly through the lens of thrills (I am personally quite thrill-centred when reviewing theme parks, although they're admittedly not the be all and end all for me). So I had very high expectations, but also a degree of trepidation. I was thinking "Will it really be as good as they all say? Will I even like it that much?".
     
    So, did EP live up to its insane hype, and were my years of wanting to visit worth it? Most definitely. I had phenomenally high expectations and hopes, and somehow, there was not one single thing about Europa Park that disappointed me. It truly is absolutely exceptional, in my opinion, and there are numerous reasons why.
    Ride Selection
    Let's start with one of the principle elements of any theme park; the rides! Europa Park's ride selection delivered and then some, in my view. Of all the theme parks I've been to, I honestly think Europa Park has the most well-rounded ride selection. By my reckoning, it has at least one really excellent ride in each category of coasters, dark rides and water rides, with a plethora of others accompanying it, and that's without even getting onto the array of other wonderfully random attractions; Europa has you covered whatever your taste in rides is and however high your appetite for thrills is!
     
    Yes, the park isn't the most thrilling theme park on earth, with drop towers, huge RMCs and nuts launch coasters rammed around every corner, but I think the thrill coasters that EP has are plenty satisfying enough to quench any coaster lover's thirst for thrills; I'm reasonably thrill-centred, and they were certainly more than enough to leave me feeling fulfilled! I know that none of Europa's thrill coasters are especially intense per se, but what they are is extremely fun and rerideable. And as someone who values fun and rerideability in a coaster more than out-and-out intensity, that suited me down to the ground! Silver Star, my favourite coaster at EP, is truly euphoric and absolutely breathtaking, in my view; an epically fun and intensely rerideable coaster with phenomenal airtime, and it shot straight into my #2 spot! Wodan, a close second for me, is also truly exceptional; it's absolutely demented, packed with airtime, and is so much fun, in my opinion! And Blue Fire is also a really excellent ride; with how I've been referring to it as "a distant third among Europa's big 3", you'd be forgiven for thinking that I didn't think much to it, but that couldn't be further from the truth. BF is great fun, in my opinion, with some lovely hangtime, a punchy launch, and a smooth ride experience, and that last inversion is absolutely amazing! When a ride like Blue Fire is being relegated to "distant third" status, I know that a park's thrill credentials are delivering for me, and I was slightly stunned at how one park can have two coasters as phenomenal as Silver Star and Wodan (both in my top 3!)!
     
    Even pushing aside Europa's big 3 thrill coasters; many of Europa's plethora of sideline coasters are really great fun, and will put a smile on your face whether you're a young child, a teenager or a grandparent! And the park also has some really big hits, with truly universal appeal, in terms of dark rides and water rides as well; Piraten in Batavia is a truly spectacular dark ride (my favourite outside of Florida, and I like it a fair bit more than the original POTC at Magic Kingdom), and Voletarium is also a really solid, well-done dark ride as well. And I thought Fjord-Rafting was a really strong water ride too (I'd probably say it's my favourite water ride outside of Florida). Not to mention that for every big-ticket ride, there are about 5 smaller ones; in my opinion, one of the wonders of Europa Park is how many smaller sideline attractions there are. And in many cases, I don't think relegating them to "sideline attraction" status does them justice at all, because EP still weave a lot of magic and care into them; many of the smaller dark rides, for instance, are really quite fun in their own right, and even though some admittedly aren't as strong as others, in my view, something about stumbling across that type of attraction is really quite wonderful, and their presence makes EP's lineup so expansive, and you're never, ever short of things to do! I spent 3 full days at Europa, and there are still plenty of attractions I didn't experience and plenty of nooks and crannies I didn't even set foot in; it's truly massive!
    Theming
    Let's now talk about Europa's theming. I was unsure how well themed Europa would be, as they don't have the same types of budgets as the big duo of Disney & Universal, so I have to admit that I was stunned at how beautiful Europa is. Some of the vistas are absolutely stunning, and the general standard of theming and presentation at Europa is absolutely impeccable, in my opinion! Every crevice of Europa Park is packed with charm and detail; even many of the sideline attractions have stunningly detailed queue lines and great theming! For my money, Europa's general standard of theming is easily on par with the big 2; while they never hit quite the same highs as Disney & Universal in terms of raw scale and detail of themed vistas, I'd argue that the park is very consistent, and is easily on par with, if not more strongly themed than, a surprising proportion of Disney & Universal stuff. I also found that the themes really resonated with me; perhaps controversially, I've always liked the world style of theming, and I really enjoyed World Showcase at Epcot. When I left Epcot in April 2019, my thought was "World Showcase was great! If you removed Future World from the equation, gave each country a bit more depth and added considerably more rides, I think you'd have a truly epic park!". And as I was walking around Europa Park, I realised; 3 years ago, I was essentially describing Europa when describing the Epcot of my dreams. Theming-wise, I think the park is easily on par with World Showcase, and when you have countries with far greater depth and the amazing ride selection that Europa has, then I think 2019 Matt N was right; it did make a truly epic park!
    Atmosphere/Warmth
    Another thing that makes Europa great in my opinion is the atmosphere. I'm not someone who likes busy places, so with Europa being a 6 million a year theme park, I was unsure if I'd find it too crowded for me, but I found Europa to have a consistently relaxing and wonderfully pleasant atmosphere throughout, which made the park absolutely wonderful to be in, in my opinion; I never once felt uncomfortable within Europa Park! Adding onto this point, I found the whole place to have a wonderfully warm feeling about it throughout that I can't quite place my finger on; it almost reminded me in many ways of somewhere like Paultons Park, and I found it very heartwarming! I don't know quite what causes it, but the place feels very warm, special and magical throughout; "magic" is a cliched term within theme parkery by now, but I genuinely felt a very true sense of magic within Europa, and even setting foot in the place put a huge smile on my face; it's just so nice to be in!
    Efficiency/Operations
    I somehow haven't even mentioned the efficiency yet. My word; they don't mess around, do they? On the whole, Europa is a phenomenally well oiled machine, and that's perhaps most evident when you set foot into their coaster stations. It feels like you hardly have time to blink between sitting down and the train being dispatched; the hosts are literally running up and down the platforms, in some cases, and queues move phenomenally fast as a result. I attempted dispatch timing, and my results ended up being very unreliable, as you're never stood still long enough to get a good reading! With very limited levels of Fastrack compared to the average theme park also being added into the equation, queues that look massive do not take long at all; me and my mum rode Silver Star one day when the queue was bursting out of the Mercedes-Benz Hall and through the outdoor switchbacks, and we guesstimated that this queue would ordinarily be in the ballpark of an hour. It only took 15 minutes. Talk about efficient!
     
    Before I ramble too much (as I'm conscious that I've already rambled quite a bit), I'll just conclude by saying that the key thing I love about Europa is that it is a true chameleon of a theme park. More so than anywhere else I've ever visited, it is well and truly shape-shifting; it can be whatever you want it to be at a given point in time. You want to endlessly reride coasters? You can do that! You want to discover dark rides and go on a world-class journey of immersion? You can do that! You want to just relax and take in pleasant, well-themed surroundings? You can do that! You want to eat & drink from various different outlets? You can do that! Europa Park just says "yes" to absolutely everything and delivers upon whatever your demand is extraordinarily well; you can spend a day focusing on just about anything at Europa Park, and every day will be equally fulfilling! Most theme parks I've been to seem to hone in on either thrills or immersion, but Europa Park is a wonderful cocktail of both, and I truly love that. I find it absolutely amazing how I can go from repeat riding 2 coasters in my top 3 to experiencing wonderfully themed dark rides to just strolling along taking in pleasant, well-themed surroundings all in the same park; that is no mean feat, but Europa somehow pulls it off!
     
    So the big question is; after all the hype and obscenely high ratings, is Europa my favourite theme park I've ever visited? I can answer that rather decisively; yes. Of what I've visited, Europa Park is my favourite theme park in the world. Don't get me wrong, Islands of Adventure in Orlando, my previous favourite, is an absolutely phenomenal theme park, with an amazing ride lineup and exceptional theming making for a truly impeccable theme park experience that never stops giving and always feels well and truly magical, but Europa just nails every single aspect of theme parking, and is just so expansive and wonderful and consistently high quality in thrills, theming and everything else in between that it's absolutely unrivalled within the sphere of theme parks I've been to, in my opinion. I may have only visited once, but I got it and I felt the magic right from the off; it is a truly stunning theme park, and one I've truly fallen in love with. I can't wait for my next visit!
  24. Matt N
    29th April 2022: Europa Park Day 3
    Today was the final day of Europa Park awesomeness! We started a bit earlier today, opting to head in for ERT, and my mum had actually looked at the map and jotted down a plan of action for today, so we certainly had no shortage of things to do!
     
    My mum and I headed on into Europa at slightly after 8:30am this morning, with my dad joining us a touch later. As with both of the previous days, we used the hotel entrance, accessed via El Andaluz:

    The first ride in our plan of action was…
    Alpenexpress
    Alpenexpress was first on our action plan, and it had a walk-on queue, so we decided to give it a go. So, how was it? Well, we were seated in row 7, and it was a really good, fun powered coaster, just like it was on Wednesday. One thing I forgot to mention about this that I found really interesting is that they do not do physical restraint checks; they must clearly have a lot of trust in their ride system. That’s not an issue by any means, but I certainly found it interesting:


    After that, my dad wasn’t quite ready yet, so we had another ride on Alpenexpress while waiting for him to arrive. We were seated in row 10, and it was again great fun!
     
    After that, my dad arrived, and we headed over to Holland to ride…
    Piraten in Batavia
    Piraten in Batavia was on a walk-on queue, so we decided to give it a go. After enjoying it yesterday, we were keen to do it again during ERT this morning. So, how was it? Well, it was still an excellent dark ride; I was noticing all kinds of details I didn’t notice the first time, and as an overall package, I’ll concede that it’s absolutely spectacular, with so many different types of effects and theming blended together seamlessly. I don’t think it’s quite my favourite dark ride I’ve ever done (many of the Universal Orlando ones are still something else entirely), but it’s certainly in the upper echelons of the dark rides I’ve ridden. If I ranked dark rides, it would certainly be top 10 material, and I have no qualms about saying that of what I’ve done (Europa, the UK and Florida), it is easily my favourite dark ride outside the state of Florida. A really rather magical ride that I’ve been thoroughly impressed with both times I’ve ridden:

    We actually broke down on Piraten in Batavia, however. As such, we were stuck in the ending scene for around 15-20 minutes. I’ll admit that it was very interesting being stuck on the boat within the restaurant scene; the restaurant was totally empty, which made it rather eerie!
     
    After getting off Piraten in Batavia, our plan next saw us heading to…
    Blue Fire
    Blue Fire was on a mere 5 minute queue, so me and my dad decided to give it a go (mum declined, as she didn’t like it on Tuesday). As it turned out, 5 minutes was a slight overstatement, as me and my dad literally had a one train wait; always a bonus! So, how was Blue Fire? Well, we were seated in row 6, and it was really good fun, with some nice hangtime, a smooth ride, and that last inversion still being rather brilliant! However, I did notice that while the ride overall is very smooth, there are 1 or 2 slightly weird transitions on Blue Fire that did hurt my head a touch; hardly a deal breaker, but definitely something I noticed and something that detracted ever so slightly for me. Nonetheless, Blue Fire was a fun ride that I really enjoyed:

    After Blue Fire, we tackled the other roller coaster in Iceland…
    Wodan Timbur Coaster
    Wodan was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. It ultimately ended up feeling like it may have been a little longer than 30 minutes, but I wasn’t 100% sure. So, how was the ride? Well, we scored our first back row Wodan ride of the trip (the only one of the big 3 I hadn’t scored back row on), and it was phenomenal! However, I don’t think sitting directly on the back made an awful lot of difference on Wodan compared to something like Wicker Man, where it elevates the ride by a surprising amount; the back felt very similar to the other rides I had. Still, it was exceptional, and we all loved it:

    After Wodan, we ambled steadily over to a new ride we hadn’t done yet…
    Fluch der Kassandra
    Fluch der Kassandra was on our hit list for today, and it was on a mere 5 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. One thing I immediately noticed as soon as we entered the ride is that unlike the other 2 Madhouses I’ve done (Hex and Haunted House Monster Party), the ride had no pre-show whatsoever; you were batched straight onto the ride. I think I was able to grasp the basic gist of the story, however. So, how was the ride? Well, it was perfectly OK, but I’d definitely say it was the weakest of the 3 Madhouses I’ve done, personally. Rightly or wrongly, I did feel that the lack of any pre-show took a little something away for me, and the ride itself didn’t seem quite as fun as the other 2 Madhouses I’ve done. It also seemed a bit more sickly than the other 2, which I found interesting. However, it was still a fun ride, and I did like certain little touches in there; for instance, the little “surprises” in the seating later on in the ride definitely caught me off guard and were a very nice touch:

    After Fluch der Kassandra, we headed a short distance to another re-ride from the previous 2 days…
    Silver Star
    Silver Star was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. From the outside, the queue looked quite long, so we were thought it would take longer than 20 minutes. However, with Silver Star being the throughput machine that it is, the ride well and truly proved us wrong, with the queue ending up at 20 minutes or possibly even slightly less! The throughput on Silver Star  really is something to behold; most of Europa’s throughputs are pretty high, but Silver Star’s seems to be on a whole different level! Me and my mum were discussing it in the queue, and I think that that 15-20 minute queue had enough people in it that it would probably be close to an hour on a ride at any of the major UK parks; truly a testament to both B&M’s efficient design and Europa’s efficient operations! So, how was the ride? Well, we were seated in row 4, and it was excellent as always, however I was pretty stapled in, so I didn’t get quite as much airtime as on previous rides. Still, it was a phenomenal ride that I absolutely loved!
    (I apologise, as I realise I took no picture of Silver Star on this ride…)
     
    After our ride on Silver Star, we fancied a change in tempo to something a touch more relaxing…
    Euro Tower
    Euro Tower was on a mere 5 minute wait, so we decided to give it a go. I was keen to get on this, as I was hoping to get some good aerial photographs of the park, particularly of some of the bits that are somewhat harder to photograph from ground level (for instance, Silver Star… I wanted to have some better photos of the ride than repeated photos of the entrance). So, how was it? Well, I thought it was a really nice, relaxing ride, and it offered some excellent viewpoints; here are some of the photos I took:




    After a relaxing ride on Euro Tower, we headed to Great Britain for something completely different…
    Abraka-Shakespeare: Reloaded
    We fancied trying a show, as we had not watched any yet. As such, we went to the 11:45am showing of this magic show in the Globe Theatre. I must say, the Globe Theatre is a surprisingly phenomenal replica of the true thing, and it did feel very British! Anyway, how was the show? Well, I won’t deny that from an objective standpoint, it was a very impressive show; some of the illusions were very impressive, and the overall production value was excellent! However, it did reinforce my previous belief that shows aren’t really my thing, so as such, I decided after this to opt out of watching the Spanish horse show with my parents later on. That’s nothing against the show we watched, as I thought it was rather impressive, but they’re not really my kind of thing on the whole:

    After the show, we sat down in France to eat some lunch. We once again ate from the boulangerie, but we tried some baguettes this time, and they were once again delicious!
     
    After eating lunch, I noticed that Silver Star was on a mere 10 minute queue. I couldn’t miss an open goal like that (My favourite ride in the park is a stone’s throw away and on a 10 minute queue? Get me in line!), so I dashed off alone and had a quick ride. I was seated in row 8, and it was phenomenal, with considerably more airtime than the earlier ride:

    After my awesome ride on Silver Star, I met back up with my parents, and we headed to ride…
    Cancan Coaster
    Cancan was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. The queue was distinctly shorter than it had been on Wednesday, which was a definite bonus; we were on quickly! So, how was the ride? Well, I really enjoyed it! I noticed many new details within the queue and ride that I hadn’t noticed on the previous ride, and the coaster itself was great fun and surprisingly thrilling as it had been the first time! Yes, this ride might not be big 3 level, but I think it’s a terrifically fun coaster, and the themed experience aspect of it is beautifully crafted from start to finish; everything has been thought about, and it’s absolutely seamless, and so well done as a themed attraction! Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Cancan Coaster, and my parents seemed to as well:

    After Cancan Coaster, we had a brief sit down to watch the fountains in France before heading to a different area to ride…
    Volo da Vinci
    Volo da Vinci was on a 10 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to give it a go. The queue took slightly longer than 10 minutes (more like 15-20), but I have to say that I was very impressed with the queue from a design standpoint. It’s very well themed, and this leads me on to a wider overall point I’ve been noticing over the last 3 days; Europa’s smaller attractions have almost as much effort put into them as their larger attractions, which I’ll admit really surprised me. When you see something like Volo da Vinci, or a smaller dark ride like Snorri Touren or Madame Freudenreich’s, having such a well designed and in-depth queue, I’ll admit it is a very pleasant surprise, and does make even the most mundane of attractions feel that little bit more special! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was a nice little ride for what it was! You got really good views, and the pedalling aspect was quite novel:


    After Volo da Vinci, we strolled through Germany for a bit, and decided to try something else slightly different…
    Marionetten Bootsfahrt
    We noticed that this ride (I apologise, as I’ve probably butchered the spelling…) had no queue whatsoever, and we thought it looked intriguing, so we decided to give it a go. I never even knew this ride existed prior to stumbling across it on our stroll, so it was a surprising one to discover! So, how was it? Well, I’ll admit it was rather weird, and slightly unnerving, but something about it was weirdly charming, and I thought it was a nice little ride to relax on:

    After the puppet boat ride, we decided to try another more relaxing ride…
    Panorama-Bahn
    Panorama-Bahn had no queue, and we noticed it was convenient for getting towards another ride we wanted to do, so we decided to give it a go. Anyway, how was it? Well, I thought it was a nice little train ride, with some very nice views of Europa’s various different areas:

    (I apologise, as I notice I didn’t take any photos on the ride…)
     
    We got off Panorama-Bahn in Great Britain, and from there, we decided to take a stroll through Austria and the wonderfully charming fairytale section in order to get over to…
    Arthur
    Arthur was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. We really enjoyed this yesterday, so were keen to give it another ride today. The queue was distinctly shorter than it had been the previous day, which was a definite bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, it was just as brilliant as it had been yesterday; the theming is incredibly well done throughout, and the coaster sections have surprising vigour! Yes, it might not be big 3 level, but it’s a really fun attraction that never fails to put a smile on your face:

    After Arthur, it was not far off being time for the Spanish horse show, so my parents headed over to Spain to watch that while I split off to do a few more rides.
     
    I examined the queue times, and my first port of call was Silver Star. I did this not once, but twice in a row, and on my first ride, I decided to queue up for the front row. I was unsure how it would ride up front, as some elements did seem like they’d benefit from being ridden at the back, but I’ve got to say that it was still absolutely phenomenal, and possibly my strongest ride on Silver Star yet at that point! You really got pushed over the big camelback hills in the first half in such wonderful fashion, with some truly sublime sustained floater, and even some of the elements I thought would be more suited to the back, such as the second half and the first drop, were still truly excellent! And surprisingly, it was similar to a launch coaster in that the sense of speed felt heightened up front; even though Silver Star doesn’t look overly fast from off-ride, it feels phenomenally fast when you’re on the front!
     
    I initially thought that the front was my favourite row on Silver Star, but my second ride was on row 8 and it was equally sublime, so then I started second guessing myself! You know a ride is good when you can’t decide your favourite row!
     
    After that, I went for a second ride on Cancan, on an advertised 15 minute queue. It was just as fun as earlier on, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
     
    After that, I then went back to Silver Star, and I enjoyed a further 2 rides. My one ride was in row 4, and my other ride was in row 6, and both were absolutely exceptional! I also got a certain sense of personal satisfaction because that took my ride tally on Silver Star for today to 6 rides, which took the record for the most rides I’ve had on one roller coaster in a single park day; the previous record holder was Swarm, where I had 5 rides on it in September 2021.
     
    Those were my last rides on Silver Star of the trip; they certainly ended my rides on that coaster on a high! However, I need to talk a little more about it before I move on. I have to say that the ride has grown on me over the course of my 3 days in Europa; it is truly sublime, the airtime is something else, it’s smooth and comfortable, it keeps its pace throughout, and I love it to bits! I also had plenty of rides on it over the last 3 days (10 in total), and that 10th ride had exactly the same impact as the first; every ride I had on Silver Star had me in complete shock and fits of laughter, and every ride gave me a true euphoric feeling of wanting to run straight back round. My rides on it today in particular made me grow very attached to it in a way I can’t quite explain, and as I was floating down the first drop and camelback hills, and being ejected off the MCBR, I was having truly scary thoughts. I was thinking to myself “is Mako really better than this?”. Yes, Mako is ever so slightly smoother than Silver Star, and the shock I had upon first experiencing that immense first drop and those phenomenal airtime hills will live with me forever and always make it a special ride, as well as one that ranks highly, but it’s been absolutely years now since I rode Mako (and I only rode 3 times, at that), and I have to say, Silver Star’s raw greatness was truly having an impact on me. I love how it keeps its pace and phenomenal airtime right to the end, and I love how every airtime moment is phenomenally impactful in its own special way, and I love how smooth and rerideable it is, and getting in the queue to ride it was truly making me feel a palpable buzz. I found it hard to tear myself away after my 6th ride; I could have kept going until ride close!
     
    With that in mind; I have had a change of heart. Mako’s had a good 6 years at number 1, and it’s still an epic ride, but until I ride it again, I think it’s been narrowly surpassed. Silver Star is my new number 1 roller coaster.
     
    Sorry about that… that bombshell sounded far better in my head than it looks on the screen…
     
    Anyway, back to my Europa day.
     
    After leaving Silver Star, I headed over to Iceland. However, I decided to have a slight change of tempo on the way and try something new…
    Schlittenfahrt Schneefloecken
    Schlittenfahrt Schneefloecken was walk on, and I hadn’t done it yet, so I decided to give it a whirl. I believe this is the ride that enthusiasts refer to as “Bench” (correct me if I’m wrong), so I was interested to give it a go. So, how was it? Well, it was slightly unnerving riding it on my own, but it was a perfectly charming little ride, if not anything earth-shattering:

    After Schlittenfahrt Schneefloecken, I ended my day with a ride on Wodan. I was seated in row 6, and it was phenomenal; it’s perhaps the most unhinged roller coaster I’ve ever been on, but it maintains immense rerideability!
     
    After that, I left the park for the last time this trip:

    I then met up with my parents again, and we headed to Hotel Colosseo for a delicious evening meal in Antica Roma, the Italian buffet restaurant:

    After that, the day came to a close.
     
    So all in all, I had a phenomenal final day at Europa! It was quite a different day to the first 2 in many ways, but still equally fulfilling, and I was very satisfied! As well as my “ride count on one roller coaster in a day” record being broken on Silver Star, I also broke my overall ride count record; I make my total count for the day to be 21 (previous record was 16), and if you need a reminder, I did the following rides:
    Silver Star x6 Wodan x2 Cancan x2 Alpenexpress x2 Blue Fire x1 Piraten in Batavia x1 Fluch der Kassandra x1 Euro Tower x1 Volo da Vinci x1 Marionetten Bootfahrt x1 Panorama-Bahn x1 Arthur x1 Schlittenfahrt Schneefloecken x1 I was very satisfied with that, personally!
     
    Thanks for reading! Tomorrow, we’re going to be spending a few hours exploring the Europa Park hotel resort, so my summary will probably be somewhat briefer tomorrow, but keep your eyes peeled for a report all the same!
  25. Matt N
    28th April 2022 (Europa Park Day 2)
    Day 2 today! I know I said that we were planning to have a more relaxed day today, but we had more left to do rides-wise than we’d previously anticipated, and if I’m being honest, I am quite naturally drawn to rides compared to Europa’s other stuff, so I’ll digress that that did go out of the window somewhat as the day went on. It wasn’t quite as intense as yesterday, however; there were less coasters involved, and my parents said it felt more relaxed than yesterday.
     
    We did oversleep slightly, and my parents weren’t feeling ready to enter the park early, so I did enter the park on my own at a little before 10am. As with yesterday, I was compelled to start on…
    Wodan Timbur Coaster
    Wodan was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so I decided to give it a go. The queue ended up being a bit longer than advertised, taking around 35-40 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 9, and it was just as phenomenal as yesterday, being blisteringly fast and packed with airtime:



    After an awesome ride on Wodan, I decided to have another try of the other coaster in Iceland…
    Blue Fire
    Blue Fire was on an advertised 30 minute queue time, so I decided to give it a go. Interestingly, the ride once again had a brief breakdown while I was in the queue, but it must be said that it was resolved very quickly; only one empty train cycled and then people were back on it! Operations were also phenomenal; for some idea, 20-seat trains were launching before the train in front had even hit the final brake run, which is really quite nuts! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 8, and it was similar to yesterday; a very good, fun ride with some nice inversions and hangtime:

    After Blue Fire, my parents entered the park, and we headed together to ride…
    Arthur
    Arthur was on a 35 minute advertised queue time, so we decided to give it a go seeing as we hadn’t done it yesterday. The queue for this was quite long compared to other rides in the park, and it took a little longer than 35 minutes (perhaps closer to 45 minutes to an hour), but it was very well themed (although that is admittedly the case for most queue lines at EP)! So, how was the ride? Well, I must say it was a very pleasant surprise! I went in anticipating quite a tame, kiddified ride, but I’ve got to say that it was really quite a fun dark ride roller coaster; the dark ride portion was brilliant, with some great scenes, and the coaster element was more thrilling and more substantial than expected! Overall, Arthur was a really fun attraction that we all thoroughly enjoyed; certainly a pleasant surprise:


    After Arthur, we sauntered around the Austrian lake for a bit before riding…
    Josefina’s Magical Imperial Journey
    Josefina’s was nearby, it had a very minimal queue, and my mum had expressed desire to ride it, so we decided to give it a go. I’ll admit that this was slightly different to what I was expecting from having viewed the Austrian lake yesterday; I thought riders had water cannons to shoot passers-by with, but it turns out that that was a completely different ride! Anyway, how was Josefina’s Imperial Journey? Well, I thought it was a really nice attraction; nothing too thrilling for sure, but a very nice way to relax for a few minutes, with wonderful scenery and some really cool fountains! Overall, we really enjoyed Josefina’s, and it was certainly a nice little ride for what it was:


    After our ride on Josefina’s, we decided to trek over to Greece to have a go on…
    Pegasus
    Pegasus was on an advertised 25 minute wait, so we decided to give it a go. This was one of the 4 credits I was missing, and the only non-water coaster remaining at that point, so I was intrigued to try it. I did notice that Pegasus appeared to be one of the lower capacity Europa coasters; with only one train of 18 riders, it wasn’t throttling people through at quite the same rate as the others, so the queue ended up perhaps being longer per the amount of people in the queue than some of the park’s other rides. That’s not to say that it was at all slow, mind you; as is usual in Europa, the staff certainly didn’t hang about when the ride was parked, and the train appeared to be sent in very little time at all; great job, guys! Anyway, how was the ride? Well, it was quite a pleasant surprise! I was expecting something akin to a Vekoma Rollerskater like Hippogriff, but the actual ride was very fun, very smooth and a fair bit more thrilling than expected; it reminded me more of Thirteen’s outdoor section, with perhaps even a tad more punch than that, and on the back row (where we were seated), it had a surprisingly fun pop of airtime on the drop, as well as in one other area that I remember! Overall, I thought Pegasus was a very fun ride, and definitely a pleasant surprise:

    After Pegasus, we decided to tackle the other Greek roller coaster, and our first water ride…
    Poseidon
    Poseidon was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. This was our first water ride of the trip, so I was interested to see what it was like. Before getting onto the ride itself, I must talk about a rather embarrassing moment that occurred in the queue. I was taking photographs with my phone, and I was prepping to take a photograph of a boat splashing down the first drop. However, I didn’t realise that the queue was designed in such a way that the waves could come over into it, so as such, I got caught off-guard and got surprisingly drenched! My phone was fine, but things certainly got off to a pretty wet start on Poseidon! It must be said that the queue and general area are stunningly themed; I think the whole bit around Poseidon is a truly stunning vista within Europa, and the queue is fantastic! So, how was the ride? Well I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a fan at all. I was intrigued to see how the coaster sections rode on Poseidon, as my only previous experience with a Mack Water Coaster was Journey to Atlantis at SeaWorld Orlando, whose coaster section is not especially extensive, but I’m sad to say that I didn’t especially enjoy the coaster bits of Poseidon. It was similar to Euro Mir in that it seemed to get hideously rough whenever it sped up or turned (although perhaps slightly less bad than Euro Mir), and I was bashed around like hell. And even on the straight bits, it seemed to vibrate in a rather uncomfortable way that hurt my bottom a bit (I know that sounds weird, but that’s what I genuinely felt). Wetness-wise, I got pretty soaked; my trousers were soaking wet through! However, we’re not talking anywhere near a Valhalla level soaking or anything; it was still within the comfortable realm of wetness, so I’d say it delivered as a water ride. Overall, while Poseidon looks beautiful, I wasn’t really a fan of its on-ride experience; it was too rough for me, I’m afraid:


    After Poseidon, we had a bit of a sit down in France with some delicious baked goods; we had pretzels from the boulangerie, and they were delicious!
     
    After that, we walked for a bit, and headed onto…
    Piccolo Mondo
    Piccolo Mondo was on a walk-on queue, so we decided to give it a go; it was a new dark ride that I thought looked intriguing. So, how was it? Well, I thought it was quite good fun; it was certainly quirky, but it had quite a fun vibe about it, and it had lots of fun animatronics and scenes! All in all, definitely a fun little ride:

    After Piccolo Mondo, we decided to try the other dark ride in Italy…
    Geisterschloss
    Geisterschloss also had a very small queue, so we decided to give it a whirl. I’d heard that this was very similar to Disney’s Haunted Mansion, which I really liked, so I was interested to give it a try. So, how was it? Well, I can definitely see the similarities between HM and Geisterschloss (not least the stretching room pre-show, which was almost an exact replica of its Disney inspiration), but it was surprisingly dark and gory in comparison to Haunted Mansion, with a lot of heads being cut off and dead bodies. It also appeared more reliant on jumpscares than HM, and while it was a nice dark ride, I’m not sure I liked it quite as much as its Disney sibling:

    After Geisterschloss, we cut through an alleyway to get nearer to the entrance of…
    Silver Star
    Silver Star was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so we decided to give it a ride. As with yesterday’s rides, the queue moved at phenomenal pace, and I’m not sure it even took 15 minutes! So, how was the ride? Well, we were seated in row 7, and it was just as phenomenal as yesterday, being packed full of awesome airtime:

    After Silver Star, we sauntered steadily over to Portugal to do our final new coaster, and our next water ride…
    Atlantica SuperSplash
    Atlantica was on an advertised 35 minute wait, so we decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, this was somewhat understated, and it ended up taking close to an hour all in, which was the longest queue of the trip so far. That’s not through the fault of the ride team, however; the queue still moved fast, and there are many theme parks where I’d be thrilled with an hour’s wait, so I guess Europa has just spoiled me over the last 2 days! So, how was the ride? Well, it was perfectly all right, but not something I was particularly thrilled with or something I’d rush to do again unless it had a short queue. The main drop was quite good, and the airtime hill was a fun moment too, but the ride didn’t do an awful lot, and I thought the coaster functionality didn’t really serve much purpose; it just kind of existed, and it didn’t really add a lot to the ride for me. Don’t get me wrong, Atlantica wasn’t a bad ride by any means, and I did get pretty wet on it, so it certainly served its purpose as a water ride, but it wasn’t a favourite of mine, and I think my parents agreed. It looks beautiful, however, and is very well themed:


    After Atlantica, we sat down for a few minutes before deciding to do another water ride while we were still wet…
    Fjord-Rafting
    Fjord-Rafting was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. We were going to do this yesterday, so I was intrigued to see what it was like now that we’d vowed to do water rides today. So, how was it? Well, I thought it was a very enjoyable rapids ride; there were loads of good waves, loads of good effects, some really nice theming, and it was overall a really good, fun rapids that was decently wet while still being within the realms of fun! I definitely liked this rapids a lot! (I apologise, as I realise I forgot to photograph Fjord-Rafting…)
     
    After a fun ride on Fjord-Rafting, I split off from my parents; they went to the paddle steamer in France for some drinks, while I had one last ride on each of the big 3.
     
    I initially started with Silver Star, where I scored a back row ride; it was absolutely sublime, with tons of phenomenal airtime!
     
    I then trekked over to Iceland, where I joined a 25 minute queue for Blue Fire. I scored a back row ride on this too, and similarly to earlier, it was good fun!
     
    I then finished the day with a ride on Wodan. I was seated in row 9, and this was possibly the most fast-paced Wodan ride yet; the ride felt absolutely unstoppable!
     
    Having done the big 3 in quick succession, and having done multiple rides on each now, I am definitely noticing a hierarchy emerging in terms of how I rank them. Silver Star is top dog (a truly spectacular ride that is packed with fun and infectiously rerideable!), Wodan is a very close second to Silver Star (absolutely relentless, and so much fun!), and Blue Fire is a more distant third (still an excellent coaster, but lacking a certain something to take it into that truly top tier alongside Silver Star and Wodan. Nevertheless, the last inversion is truly excellent, and the ride is certainly great fun!).
     
    After my rides on the big 3, I headed back to our hotel, where I met back up with my parents to close off the day with a lovely evening meal in Restaurant Castillo.
     
    So, that was day 2! We had a great day today, and I thoroughly enjoyed ticking off more attractions we hadn’t done, including some slightly different ones compared to the rather coaster-heavy first day!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed my report from day 2! Day 3 will be coming tomorrow, and my mum has already strategised a plan of action for us tomorrow that involves ERT and getting on some of the remaining rides we haven’t done, as well as rerides on our favourites and possibly a show or two as well!
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