Matt N
-
Posts
414 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
26
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Events
Posts posted by Matt N
-
-
Hi guys. On paper, everyone’s dream theme park visit is one with no queues. Queues are the bane of everyone’s existence when it comes to theme parks, so to not have them sounds like a dream… right? After a recent visit to Paultons Park on 5th June that was particularly deserted, as well as some ensuing discussion with people off the back of that, I’ve been pondering this notion. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; in your view, can a theme park ever be too quiet? Is the theoretical ideal of a park with no queues and no crowds really such an ideal in reality?
Personally, I’m actually somewhat undecided on this.
From my own perspective, a large part of me would say no. A quiet park means all the more rides for you, and as a person who doesn’t mind doing a good number of rerides on things I enjoy, that suits me down to the ground! There are very few things better than a nice riding marathon, in my view, and depending on the park, some of my best memories in theme parks have been from times where I’ve just been able to ride over and over (a 30-ride day at Thorpe Park in September 2023 sticks particularly fondly in my mind)!
On the other hand, though, some might argue that depending on your own tolerance for reriding, queues are almost necessary to lengthen the day and break up the rides a bit. There’s also the argument about atmosphere that I can see; I had a brilliant day, but at points, my Paultons visit was almost quite surreal due to the sheer lack of crowds. When you’re the only person within visible eyeshot at points, it is certainly quite an odd experience!
So on balance, I would probably lean towards no, but I can see some of the arguments for yes. I can also see that the answer might differ depending on the park; I’ve certainly found riding lots of rides easier and more enjoyable in some parks on a quiet day than in others!
But I’d be keen to know; do you think a theme park can ever be too quiet?
-
On 6/11/2025 at 10:51 PM, Inferno said:
Thank you very much everyone!
Interesting to hear about school trip season… I (perhaps wrongly) assumed that Legoland wouldn’t be as badly affected by it given the younger audience. Fingers crossed.
I have to say it’s quite nice going to a UK park and not really knowing what to expect - it’s been so long!
I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Legoland gets primary school trip groups rather than secondary school ones like Thorpe and Alton. I went to Paultons last week (which is probably similarly pitched in terms of target age demographic) and there was a Year 6 school trip group there.
I never went on theme park trips when I was a Year 6 (only 11 years ago!), but it seems to be a thing now…
-
One thing I would say about Legoland is that the hill the park is set on can make it quite a trek to negotiate at times if you’re not the most able walker. I’m a relatively adept walker (if I do say so myself!), so I didn’t struggle with it too much on my most recent visit, but I have been in the past with a member of our party being in a wheelchair and it was quite hard work! With a small child, I can imagine that their littler legs might potentially struggle. So I’d recommend making use of the Hill Train, if it’s open.
I’d concur with @JoshC. on the note of queues. I found many queues to be pretty overstated on my last visit, and like Josh, I also found Minifigure Speedway’s queue to move quite quickly compared to that of other rides.
On the subject of Minifigure Speedway, I should also warn you that they do not let you pick your side as they do on many other duelling coasters. I struck lucky and managed to get on both sides without needing to ask, but if you are keen to try both, you may have to ask.
I haven’t visited with a young child (other than when me and my older sister were young children ourselves on our initial visit in 2009, which is now some years ago!), so I apologise if I’m not too useful to advise you on visiting with a child, but I hope you have a nice time regardless!
-
As some may be aware, I visited Paultons and rode Ghostly Manor for the first time yesterday.
Overall, I have to say that I think it’s a really cool addition!
To start things off, first impressions are very good! The facade is lovely, as is the outdoor queue line; every time I walked through it, I was noticing new details, and there are some cool pieces of theming! I particularly liked the swing that moved on its own and the painting; I thought these were cool items!
The indoor queue line is also really nice! There are some nice smell pods (I think they emit a lavender-type smell?), and there are lots more nice thematic details! I thought the tubes with ghosts captured and moving around in them were a nice touch in particular!
In terms of the ride itself, I’ll keep it spoiler-free and say that I think it’s overall really good fun. I had 5 rides in total, and in terms of a few good points, I’d say the following:
- For the Paultons Park audience, I think it strikes the perfect balance between cartoony fun and scares. There are some moments of what I would call mild scariness that might scare a young child, but it’s not an all-out horror fest and the cartoony visual style keeps things fun and jovial!
- Some of the scenes are really nicely executed, with a good blend of screens and physical set pieces. There are a couple of nice animatronics in the ride, and things like projection mapping are also used effectively.
- While the ride is more shooting gallery-like in style, I think it works here, and the scenes aren’t long enough for it to feel monotonous. Each mini game isn’t particularly long (maybe 30 seconds at most?), so you do quickly get moving rather than feeling like you’re shooting at the same scene for ages on end.
- I found the gun system relatively comfortable to hold and easy to use. It did take a bit of getting used to and learning, but I think that is more down to my dreadfulness at interactive dark rides rather than any issue with the software!
- The Gameplay Theatre ride system is very clever, and it gets a lot of ride duration out of very little space. When you consider that Ghostly Manor replaced a 4D cinema, I think Paultons have done tremendously well!
I do have a couple of small critiques and points for improvement, however. These are:
- I think some of the screen-based scenes (namely the ones facing outwards) lack physical scenery or any kind of bounding to try and hide the screen edges. I know that they are constrained with what they can do to some extent in these scenes, and you aren’t going to see physical scenery as elaborate as that in the inner scenes, but I think something to try and keep the immersion going would be nice, even if it was just some themed bounding for the screen edges. As it stands, these scenes basically just consist of a screen and some black floors and black walls; there’s no physical theming there at all.
- For the ride to flow seamlessly, it is very reliant on there being no hold-ups at the boarding and exiting stages. The mini games in each scene run for a predetermined duration, so if the boarding or exiting process is held up in any way, the mini game just ends and the ride sits still in a scene for a while with “the ride has stopped and will resume shortly” projected on the scene or onto the screen. To make the ride more flexible against disruptions in boarding and exiting flow, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the mini games continue running for the entire length of time the ride was stopped in a scene for, regardless of how long it is, for so that people’s attention isn’t drawn to the delay.
- If I’m being really picky, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the transition between scenes a bit more dramatic in some way and distract from visibility of some of the other scenes while you transition. Maybe a blast of smoke or something would work?
But overall, I think Ghostly Manor is great fun and a brilliant addition to Paultons Park! It’s not the world’s most elaborate dark ride, but given that it replaced a 4D cinema, I think they’ve done very well with the space, and as a first dark ride for the park, I think it works excellently. They’re onto a winner with it, in my view, and it plugs a gap in their lineup!
If you’re interested, here are a few photos I took:
In terms of the rest of the park, I had an excellent, and very quiet, day! If you’d like to read more about it, my trip report is here:
-
Apologies for bumping an over month-old thread, but I think that’s a really intriguing idea!
I imagine such a park would probably have more dark rides and slow-moving attractions, a little like Epcot, rather than high-intensity coasters and flats. How do you educate effectively through the medium of, say, an RMC?
I guess an example of where this was actually attempted (to a degree) was the brief opening of Britannica Park in the 1980s, before it was a failure and got turned into the American Adventure. I think its failure was more down to the fact that it opened half-finished rather than the idea of a Britain-themed park being a bad one, though.
I’ve always been quite intrigued by the idea of a British history-themed park, I’ll admit!
-
It was definitely a seismic event for the UK theme park industry, and I often wonder what the parks would be like had it never happened.
Would we have seen cuts at the likes of Alton Towers as we did? Would the likes of The Flume, Logger’s Leap and Ripsaw still be here? Would we have seen different investments? There are so many questions!
-
5 minutes ago, Inferno said:
I’ve read today that apparently the trains have had a new small support added underneath each row of seats. I wonder what the reasons were for that?
Could it be to make them vibrate less?
Some have been expressing concerns about a rattle, particularly since the wheels were changed, so I feel like adding that new support could maybe be a way of securing the seats a bit more and stopping them from vibrating as much?
I haven’t ridden it since the wheels were changed, but I don’t remember it having a bad rattle when I did it last year. There was a slight one there, but it didn’t detract from the ride whatsoever for me.
On a side note, I’ve heard that the new wheels are making the ride run faster than ever… I can’t wait to try it out again later this year!
-
It’s great to see Stealth back! Apologies if I’ve missed any prior posts, but did we ever ascertain what the issue was?
-
Is there any rumour about what part could have gone wrong? I’m guessing it’s something quite big for it to be causing so much downtime.
-
I think the main issue with Blade and Flávio’s going is that it makes an already thinned out lineup for the middle ground family audience even thinner.
In my view, it’s not really a flat ride issue, as we have got the Top Spin coming next year which somewhat counteracts Blade’s removal, but instead more of a middle ground whole family ride issue. The Blade was a key stalwart of Alton Towers’ middle ground family lineup, so with that gone, an already squeezed demographic is taking even more of a hit.
-
It’s looking to me like whatever is happening with the Beach might potentially be 2025’s draw instead. I wouldn’t be wholly surprised if they built some sort of ride there.
Where did the park get with that proposal to not need planning applications for structures below 25m? If that got passed by the council, then they could theoretically be doing anything below 25m without us needing to know about it.
-
Apologies for being nearly a month late, but I have some throughput timings and insights to share from my recent trip to PortAventura World in Spain. The throughput readings I was able to get were as follows:
- Dragon Khan (Theoretical: Unknown on 3 trains) - 668pph (2 trains, average of 4, 10th September 2024), 806pph (2 trains, average of 3, 11th September 2024), 409pph (1 train, average of 4, 12th September 2024)
- El Diablo (Theoretical: Unknown on 3 trains) - 1,000pph (2 trains, average of 4, 11th September 2024)
- Furius Baco (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains) - 580pph (2 trains, average of 3, 10th September 2024), 622pph (2 trains, average of 10, 11th September 2024) Note: The 11th September average was skewed downwards by one particularly slow reading at the end; the picture up to that point was closer to 700pph.
- Red Force (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 434pph (2 trains, average of 10, 11th September 2024) Note: This average was skewed downwards by one particularly slow reading at the end. Up to that point, the average was closer to 550pph, or a train around every 80s.
- Shambhala (Theoretical: 1,680pph on 3 trains) - 816pph (2 trains, average of 10, 10th September 2024), 774pph (2 trains, average of 9, 11th September 2024), 425pph (1 train, 12th September 2024, average of 2)
- Stampida (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains per side) - 1,229pph (2 trains per side, average of 6, 10th September 2024)
- Tomahawk (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 552pph (2 trains, average of 3, 10th September 2024)
- Uncharted (Theoretical: 900pph on 3 cars) - 720pph (unknown number of cars, average of 2, 12th September 2024)
Overall, I did not think that PortAventura’s operations were nearly as bad as I was expecting. Were they overly fast? No. But I also didn’t feel that they were abysmally slow either. Express Pass also wasn’t oversold, and queues moved decently. Queue times weren’t too bad either; I didn’t queue over an hour for anything all trip, and while the likes of Shambhala and Dragon Khan did get longer queues on occasion, there was always a major ride on a short queue to ride. Stampida, El Diablo, Street Mission and the water rides amongst others never seemed to get a queue longer than 20 minutes all trip.
In terms of the actual throughputs themselves; the only time I saw anything run on 1 train was Shambhala and Dragon Khan in the slightly hairy weather on Friday. Under normal circumstances, everything seemed to run at least 2 trains, and while not lightning fast, I didn’t think the dispatches were excessively slow either.
-
Following my recent (well, nearly a month ago…) trip to PortAventura World in Spain to close out the year, I can now update my top 10 and top 30 yet again, with a rather big new entry at the very top being the icing on the cake…
My current top 10, with a coaster count of 134, is now as follows (new in italics) :
- Shambhala - PortAventura Park: It’s finally happened… after 8 years, a new top dog is in town! I had very high expectations for Shambhala, and it did not disappoint; it’s an absolutely sublime coaster! As with Mako, the sustained airtime is glorious; the first drop is wonderful, and every single hill had brilliant sustained air! But there were a few little things that pushed it the distance above Mako for me. Unlike Mako, Shambhala keeps the thrills going right to the end, with every hill delivering, and as a result, I think it flows a bit better. The enhanced height and speed also really added to the ride compared to Mako and Silver Star for me, and another aspect I loved on Shambhala was the speed hill, which seemed much more notable in my mind than the similar element on Mako. Overall, though, Shambhala was just wonderful, and I loved every single one of the 7 rides I had on it while in Spain. Mako had a good 8 years at the top, but Shambhala is a very deserving successor!
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: It may not be top dog anymore, but Mako has held a special place in my heart ever since I first rode it back in 2016, and my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced my love for it! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: It may not quite be #1, but my goodness was it close, and VelociCoaster would certainly be a worthy contender for the top spot! There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are quite a few sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a firm favourite of mine! 10/10
- Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I did rank this below Mako of the two B&M Hypers I've ridden due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako's strongest moments, in my view, and while smooth in its own right, it isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako. I also felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! There are also some absolutely top-drawer moments of ejector airtime elsewhere in the layout, and the ride is smooth and rerideable! In terms of why I moved it up when I haven’t reridden it, this is because in retrospect, I think I was overly harsh on Iron Gwazi at the time, fixating on its very tiniest imperfections to try and quantify the slight disappointment of it not quite living up to my wildly high expectations on the very first go. This is going to sound odd, but Iron Gwazi is a coaster where the more I sit back and think about it, the more I actually love it. Thinking back, it grew on me considerably the second and third times I did it once the weight of expectation was off its shoulders, and it is genuinely a top tier ride that is more than deserving of a top 5 placement for me! 10/10
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park: What a sublime ride! I was excited for Hyperia, and it did not disappoint! I love a good hyper, and Hyperia is a phenomenal one! For starters, the ride is primarily designed around weightlessness, and it delivers this excellently; you seem to spend half of the ride pinned out of the seat in some capacity! The first three big elements on the ride are an obscenely perfect sequence. The first drop is absolutely unhinged and so, so good, delivering excellent sustained ejector, the non-inverting Immelmann is sublime and offers both brilliant speed rushing up into it and top-drawer sustained ejector coming out of it, and that outerbanked turn into the inversion is wild and pins you right of your seat with top-tier sustained sideways ejector! The zero-g stall is not quite up there with the other elements, but it is still excellent, with sustained hangtime, and the final two elements after the trim were surprisingly excellent, with both the outerbanked turn and the final airtime hill delivering! Overall, then, Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster, in my view, and it definitely lived up to the hype for me. It’s so good to have a coaster this brilliant 2 hours from home, that I can most probably ride at least once annually! 10/10
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa: I had remembered liking this ride back in 2016, but my reride in 2023 was even better than I’d previously remembered! I love a B&M Dive Coaster, and this was a fantastic one! The sustained airtime over both drops was absolutely phenomenal, and the sheer size of them produced a brilliant sensation of speed throughout the ride! You typically think of Dive Coasters for their initial vertical drop, but interestingly, I actually thought that the second vertical drop on SheiKra delivered just as much as the first if not more! Overall, SheiKra was phenomenal, and a really pleasant surprise; I often said that I preferred Oblivion, but I’d now say that I comfortably prefer SheiKra, as I do feel that the added height and length really add something to it! 10/10
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers: Wicker Man is a fantastic GCI coaster that I absolutely love! It may not look like much on paper, but I find it to be an enormously fun and rerideable coaster that never fails to put a huge smile on my face! I find it to be a really fast-paced coaster with some really fun twists and turns and some surprising pops of airtime, with some particular favourite elements of mine being the initial s-bend drop, where you gain brilliant speed incredibly quickly, and the big drop out of the high u-turn and following airtime hill, with both elements providing some excellent airtime that really whips you out of the seat! Overall, I find Wicker Man a hugely fun and rerideable wooden coaster with awesome airtime, twists and pacing, and I think it’s a ride that is definitely far more than the sum of its parts, personally! I decided to bump it up a few spots after my most recent visit in 2024, where it was running so well on the 2 rides I had; the airtime was kicking, the ride was blisteringly fast-paced, and it just made me laugh and smile so much! Somewhat similarly to Hagrid’s, Wicker Man just takes the raw fun factor to a whole new level for me! 10/10
Shambhala was the only ride at PortAventura to make my top 10. I had an outside hope that Red Force might make it in there based on some of the more positive comments I’d heard about it, but alas, it was “only” top 20 material for me! Perhaps controversially, I actually ended up marginally preferring Stealth…
In terms of the top 30 following PortAventura, this now looks as follows (new in bold) :
- Shambhala - PortAventura Park (10/10)
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10)
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10)
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10)
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10)
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10)
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10)
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10)
- Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10)
- Stealth - Thorpe Park (9/10)
- Red Force - Ferrari Land (9/10)
- Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10)
- Nemesis Reborn - Alton Towers (9/10)
- Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10)
- Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10)
- Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - Universal Studios Florida (9/10)
- Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10)
- Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10)
- The Swarm - Thorpe Park (8/10)
- Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10)
- Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10)
- Rock’n’Rollercoaster - Disney’s Hollywood Studios (8/10)
- Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10)
- Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence - PortAventura Park (8/10)
Another surprise contender since my last update that only narrowly missed out, sitting in the #32 spot, was Gold Rush at Drayton Manor! That was an unexpectedly excellent family coaster!
It has been an excellent year for me, on the whole. It’s been my most cred-tastic year ever, with 23 new credits ridden this year in total (the first time I’ve ever gone over 20 new credits in a year!), and I’ve also had 2 new top 10 additions in Shambhala and Hyperia (not quite as good as last year, where I had 4 new top 10 additions and a resurgent previously ridden coaster that re-entered my top 10 after a particularly strong performance on my revisit, but still pretty good, in my view!). For those interested, I would rank all 23 new coasters I rode this year as follows:
- Shambhala - PortAventura Park (10/10, #1/134)
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10, #6/134)
- Red Force - Ferrari Land (9/10, #15/134)
- Uncharted: El Enigma de Penitence - PortAventura Park (8/10, #30/134)
- Gold Rush - Drayton Manor (8/10, #32/134)
- Roller Coaster - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (7/10, #39/134)
- Dragon Khan - PortAventura Park (6/10, #50/134)
- Minifigure Speedway (Legends) - Legoland Windsor (5/10, #65/134)
- Minifigure Speedway (Allstars) - Legoland Windsor (5/10, #66/134)
- El Diablo: Tren de la Mina - PortAventura Park (5/10, #67/134)
- Tomahawk - PortAventura Park (5/10, #68/134)
- Furius Baco - PortAventura Park (4/10, #87/134)
- Stampida (Red) - PortAventura Park (4/10, #88/134)
- Stampida (Blue) - PortAventura Park (4/10, #89/134)
- Spook Express - Joyland Children’s Fun Park (4/10, #95/134)
- Tami Tami - PortAventura Park (4/10, #96/134)
- Egg-Spress - Pleasurewood Hills (4/10, #101/134)
- Cannonball Express - Pleasurewood Hills (3/10, #108/134)
- Wipeout - Pleasurewood Hills (3/10,#112/134)
- Whirlwind - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (3/10, #114/134)
- Big Apple - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (3/10, #118/134)
- Family Star - Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach (2/10, #127/134)
- Tyrolean Tubtwist - Joyland Children’s Fun Park (1/10, #134/134)
I’m not sensing that next year will be quite as fruitful due to me having to do an MSc dissertation over the summer, but me and my parents are still pondering another new foreign park visit next year, so who knows!
-
It would appear as though some sort of construction work has begun on Amity Beach, with diggers now present, indicating that some sort of major redevelopment or facelift could be coming: https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Thorpe-Park-2025-Beach-Redevelopment-Begins?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2CWtvfuCQDURzVQgibW2baEsyFLXyHir-_pXaA4HebIp8LVd8MwWxGwmE_aem_Um8Q1g2xTQTBRLVmFdmWDA
It’s a promising sign if the beach is getting redeveloped in some capacity. I personally feel that it’s currently one of Thorpe Park’s weak spots.
I wonder what could be happening?
-
For those interested, I returned to Drayton Manor yesterday for the first time since 2022, and resultantly managed to ride Gold Rush for the first time. I promised a longer review, so let me properly delve into things, having had quite a few more rides since that initial take!
I was intrigued to try Gold Rush, but some of the initial reviews seemed quite muted, so I went in with somewhat lowered expectations. But I have to say that it exceeded my expectations by a fair bit; I thought it was an absolutely excellent family coaster, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
The investment doesn’t just comprise of the coaster itself, though, with the wider Frontier Falls themed area also being new for this year. I’ll start with that…
Theming/Area
In terms of the theming for Gold Rush itself, I actually thought it was very nice overall! I think Drayton Manor have done a sterling job with the coaster’s theming and aesthetics, personally! To raise a few specific points of interest:
- I quite like the queue; it has some nice vantage points, the tunnels with posters and things are quite neat, and I think it’s overall been finished off very nicely!
- The station is very nice, with a very nice wooden look to it and some really nice details and thematic touches!
- As I rode more, I noticed a surprising amount of nice thematic touches around the ride area. For example, I noticed quite a nice water feature in the middle, I noticed that a pipe by the station was billowing out smoke, I noticed some neat little signs and written bits around the area… there are a few nice little touches, and things like that really add substance to the theme!
- The effects sequence in the “dynamite shed” is quite simplistic, but works well. The smoke and the synchronised audio is quite nice, and it’s reasonably effective overall despite its relative simplicity. On a minor side note, the American accent used on the ride is not terribly convincing (I overheard someone in the queue describing them as “the most British-sounding cowboy ever”, which I think is quite apt…), but that’s nothing more than a fun observation… I certainly couldn’t do any better!
- I think the overall finish of the ride just looks very pleasant and pleasing to the eye. It has some nice landscaping, the wooden look is quite pleasant, and it feels quite well finished off.
In terms of the wider Frontier Falls area; I think here is where things falter slightly. There’s undeniably been real effort put into sections of it, but if I’m being picky, it falls slightly short of being a fully cohesive themed area and comes across a tad unfinished. It seems as though the will to do a full themed area was there, but the budget didn’t quite stretch to an entire themed area and they could only do bits of it.
On the positive side, some of the new look facades look really nice with some fun details, I’m a fan of the sand effect paving that goes through parts of the area, and I also think that the rethemed Drunken Barrels (now called Blasting Barrels, I believe?) looks really nice and has clearly had real effort put into it. There was clearly intent from Drayton Manor to do a full Western themed area, and what’s there looks very nice, to be fair.
In terms of why I feel the area feels slightly unfinished to me; there are some rides that don’t really fit in with the theme, and resultantly, I also think the area boundaries on the end by Accelerator and Flying Dutchman are slightly blurred. The main examples I’m thinking of are:
- The Haunting has had no changes to blend it in at all, with it still retaining the same English vicarage theme it’s always had. To be fair, however, it’s tucked away enough that it’s relatively inoffensive within the wider visuals of the area, so this is quite a pedantic one.
- The main weak point for me was Accelerator. I admittedly didn’t get to see the indoor queue, as it wasn’t open and I couldn’t ride it, but externally, it looks as though there’s been little to no attempt at retheming it and it now sticks out like a sore thumb. I hope they’re able to do a bit more to make this fit the area in the years to come.
- Flying Dutchman also really sticks out, but I’m admittedly unsure if it’s in the area or not.
But overall, I think the themed area is nice, and the theming of the coaster is particularly nice and well finished off! I hope they’re able to finish off other sections of the area like Accelerator in time, as finishing off those bits will make it a really nice complete themed area!
Now let’s discuss the coaster itself…
The Ride
To be honest, Gold Rush was a coaster I was more intrigued by than overly excited by. It was undeniably unique and I could see that from the get go, but when some of the slightly muted initial reviews flowed in, I was sceptical about how it would ride. However, I have to say that Gold Rush thoroughly exceeded my expectations; it was really, really good fun and I enjoyed it a lot! It is not the most intense coaster by any means, but I think it’s just good, clean fun, and I often find that a very enjoyable quality in a ride; intensity isn’t everything!
In terms of some key points of interest within the coaster itself:
- I thought it packed surprising vigour at points; the backwards sections in particular were surprisingly forceful!
- The launches are quite good fun and have a nice punch to them. They’re not going to blow your head off, but for a family coaster, I think they do the job nicely.
- Some of the twisty bits were very good fun and felt quite dynamic. I think Intamin are excellent at throwing some nice dynamic twists and turns into their family coasters, and that really shines through here!
- The coaster is very smooth, with not a hint of rattle or roughness whatsoever. The trains are also lovely and comfortable!
- It’s a deceptively long ride. The track length isn’t very long, but the switch track technology means that you get quite a bit of ride time out of Gold Rush!
- In terms of the ride’s overall force set, I’d liken it quite considerably to Thirteen sans the drop track. A lot of the sensations feel very Thirteen-esque. I really like Thirteen, so I liked this! I think Thirteen marginally edges Gold Rush out for me if I were to pick a winner, but it’s actually very close for me; there’s certainly a much closer contest between the two rides than I’d expected before riding!
- The multi-cycle feature is intriguing. It’s certainly novel, and it does make you want to try the ride again later on! Of the two cycles, I’m unsure which I preferred; I thought the backwards section dropping down the lift was quite neat on Cycle 2, but I did think that the launch out of the effects shed was a bit better when done backwards on Cycle 1.
- I managed to get a lot of rides in various seats, and I think my preference errs towards the back row on Gold Rush, regardless of cycle.
In terms of a critique, one very pedantic thing I would say is that the ride is quite lacking in airtime given that the layout looks like it was designed to offer airtime in places. It has quite a few bits where it threatens airtime, but doesn’t quite go the whole hog and actually give you any airtime. I’m not expecting top-tier ejector by any stretch, but that is one thing I think Thirteen does better; on there, you have a surprisingly decent moment of air on the first drop towards the back of the train, and some of the hills in the outdoor section provide some fun floaty airtime regardless of seat. Gold Rush didn’t quite seem to match the fun floaty airtime pops of Thirteen, and to be honest, that is probably the one thing that keeps Thirteen fractionally ahead of Gold Rush for me. If Gold Rush provided those fun floaty pops, then it might have beaten Thirteen for me. This is a very pedantic critique, though, and doesn’t notably detract from the ride!
Overall, then, I think Gold Rush is an absolutely cracking little coaster, and a superb addition to Drayton Manor! It’s my favourite coaster at the park by some margin, and for families, I think it’s a simply superb coaster that should please everyone in the family! It is not the most intense of coasters, but for the 1m height restriction, I think it packs some really good thrills and is a great coaster for the younger kids while also pleasing the older members of the family; I certainly came off with a smile on my face every time, anyhow! For the whole family demographic, I think it’s the fun, rerideable family coaster that they needed, and it suits the park’s new direction down to the ground. If we’re doing like-for-like comparisons with similarly scaled coasters, I would say that it is my favourite coaster in the UK with a height restriction of 1m or below, beating out anything on offer at Paultons Park (the commonly cited poster child for a great family park in the UK, with a thoroughly enjoyable selection of family coasters).
The coaster itself is also themed really nicely, and what they’ve attempted with the wider themed area is very nice! I just hope that they’re able to get a bit of additional budget to fully complete the area and theme in some of those rides that currently stand out; that would be the icing on the cake!
To close off my Gold Rush review, have a few assorted pictures I took:
On a side note, I also managed to experience The Wave for the first time following the sit-down conversion, so I’ll briefly cover that too. I’ve long held the view that Shockwave would be greatly improved with sit-down trains, so I was intrigued to try it out. I think The Wave does improve somewhat on Shockwave… but sit-down trains aren’t the game changer I’d perhaps hoped they might be. They are generally comfortable and do make some of the better qualities of the ride layout shine through better; some of the inversions are reasonably decent! However, the ride is still a bit rough in places (although you admittedly feel the roughness a bit less with no OTSRs), that brake run slam at the end is still horribly violent, and it still hasn’t got the most interesting of layouts. I also noticed that the lap bar sometimes tightened a fair amount during the ride, and the new trains are also not terribly efficient for operations. The staff need to pull down the lap bar to a very specific place and ask you not to touch your bar, and then they need to press a different button before they push down your bar again to tighten it properly. It does make the operations rather inefficient.
With that being said, I think it’s overall an improvement. The ride is more comfortable than before, and it also fits the park’s new direction a lot better seeing as younger kids can ride it. It fits the bill quite nicely as a “first big inverting coaster”!
If you’re interested, I also wrote a trip report about the rest of my day at Drayton Manor:
-
Hi guys. Some on here have been theme park enthusiasts for a very long time, and over a period of multiple years, you’re bound to learn a thing or two. Whether you’ve learned what you most enjoy or whether you’ve learned how to get the best out of a park or ride, years of visiting parks is bound to have taught you things and shaped your perspectives in some way. I know it certainly has for me! With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what have you learned in your years as a theme park enthusiast? What have your years of park visiting experience taught you, and what new perspectives have you gained from years of coaster riding and park visiting?
I’ll get the ball rolling with some of the things I’ve learned over my years of theme park visiting…
Personally, I can currently think of two, off the top of my head:
- The first thing I can think of is that you can’t always judge a coaster based on only one ride. In my early years of theme park enthusiasm, I often only rode things once and didn’t get what people said about needing multiple rerides to fully appreciate something. I used to think that if I truly loved a coaster, I knew it from the very first ride. The second I first got off The Swarm in July 2014, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I first got off Mako in August 2016, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was my #1. The second I got off Icon in August 2018, I instantly knew I loved it and I instantly knew it was right up there with Mako (despite it now only being my #11, it felt like one of the times Mako came closest to being dethroned when I first got off in 2018). But in recent years, I’ve grown increasingly sceptical of my previous theory that you can fully get the measure of a revered coaster based on only one ride. The key formative moment that taught me this was when I went to Florida last year and rode both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi, amongst others, for the first time. Both rides were brilliant on the first run… but I wasn’t instantly sold on them being absolutely top tier for me. In both cases, though, the second ride really was the charm; both VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi were catapulted into that top tier after I took a reride, and it was the second ride that showed me just how great they both were. To some extent, I also experienced this with Hyperia at Thorpe Park recently; I absolutely loved it the first time, but it took the second ride to make me conclusively think that it was absolutely top tier. Now I will say that this mainly applies to hyped up, revered coasters for me; I still feel I can get the true measure of a kiddie coaster, Reverchon spinning wild mouse or Zamperla Volare from one ride without feeling the need to reride. If I actively don’t rate something, it’s unlikely that a second ride will change that. But in those cases where I love something, but I’m not sure if I think it’s truly top tier, I’ve learned that it sometimes takes a second ride to truly determine the full measure of it. Sometimes, of course, my initial opinion won’t change that much or it might possibly even decrease, but in some other glorious cases, everything falls into place with that reride, and the second ride shows me how truly top tier a coaster is when the first ride didn’t quite.
- The other thing I’ve learned is that intensity isn’t everything, and it’s fun and rerideability that’s truly important to me. In my very early years of riding big coasters, I used to be mildly dismissive of things that weren’t intense. In my early years of big coaster riding at Alton Towers, for example, my mentality was “1.4m height restriction or bust” once I was tall enough to ride the big 1.4m coasters. But over the years, I’ve grown to realise that there can be a point at which intensity is too much, and that the most enjoyable coaster experiences for me are the ones that are just plain fun and really rerideable. Intensity can definitely contribute to a fun and highly enjoyable ride for me, and being fun, thrilling and rerideable are definitely key components of a coaster that ranks highly for me, but I have definitely learned that the coasters that blow your head off with intensity are often not the ones I enjoy the most, and there are some coasters that aren’t particularly intense that I rate very highly. Hagrid’s at Universal is not an overly intense coaster, but it’s just such utterly joyous fun that I enjoyed it immensely and couldn’t not place it in my top 10! Wicker Man at Alton Towers is not an overly intense coaster, but the fun airtime and pacing makes me laugh so much that it can’t not be in my top 10 and 10/10 tier! Rides like these do not necessarily blow your head off with intensity, but are ridiculously good fun, and it’s rides like these that taught me that I truly care most about that combination of fun, thrills and rerideability rather than out-and-out intensity.
Those are just some of the lessons I’ve learned over my years of theme park enthusiasm; if I think of any more, I’ll post them! But I’d be interested to know; what lessons have you learned in your years of coaster riding and theme park visiting? What perspectives have your years of experience unearthed?
-
Funnily enough, my dad was saying to me when we were at Thorpe on 18th August “Let’s take bets on how long those actors last… I’m saying they’ll be gone by the end of summer”… it would seem he was quite possibly right!
However, is it a possibility that they’re just being re-allocated for Oktoberfest and Fright Nights?
-
In an intriguing move, it seems as though Rumba Rapids will be closing from 9th September, with no reopening date specified, according to the Ride Availability page.
Could this be simple cost-saving, or could it be something more?
-
I wasn't a massive fan of it in initial pictures, but I understand the need for it and I have to say that it doesn't look as bad in person.
I'm still not madly keen on it, as it does seem to make the queue seem even more like you're penned in than you already did before, but it's not as bad as I expected in person and I think it's good that the park is trying to retrospectively shade some of its queues.
-
The new site looks awesome; good work, all!
-
I have some throughput timings and insights from my visit to Thorpe Park on Sunday. The readings I was able to get were as follows:
- Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains) - 764pph (2 trains, average of 4, 18th August 2024)
- Hyperia (Theoretical: 1,050pph on 2 trains) - 765pph (2 trains, average of 9, 18th August 2024)
- Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 932pph (2 trains, average of 8, 18th August 2024) Note: This reading was skewed downwards by one particularly slow dispatch; prior to that, the average was over 1,000pph.
- Saw The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars) - 853pph (unknown number of cars, average of 10, 18th August 2024)
- The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains) - 882pph (2 trains, average of 5, 18th August 2024)
In terms of some more general insights:
- Saw and Colossus were operating about as well as I’ve ever seen them operate. Saw in particular seemed to be operated excellently!
- Hyperia was operated very well, with little to no stacking; a train was frequently starting to head up the lift hill as the train in front hit the brake run! However, its throughput is definitely inhibited by how slowly the train moves along the final brake run; due to this, there is unfortunately quite a bit of idle time in the station between trains. If they were able to sort this out and make the train return to the station more quickly, I think they would get much closer to that 1,050pph theoretical figure.
- Operations on Nemesis Inferno were pretty good; it quite frequently wasn’t stacking! I did notice quite a few empty seats on my train, though; maybe they could be slightly more forthcoming in encouraging different groups to sit together?
- The Swarm was a bit of a weak link, unfortunately. There seemed to be very little urgency to the operations on there; I honestly think the 882pph reading I got was quite a generous assessment of the situation. Dispatch times of multiple minutes were not uncommon. It’s a shame, as when operated well, Swarm can be a real throughput powerhouse! I do wonder if the return of the baggage hold on here would help; people dealing with baggage on the platform does seem to delay the opening of the airgates and the swift movement of people onto the ride somewhat.
-
Now I've ridden Hyperia, I'm changing my answer to an emphatic yes! No other UK coaster provides sustained weightlessness quite like that, and some of those elements are something to behold; the first drop, the non-inverting Immelmann and the outerbank into the inversion are three absolutely world-class elements, and as a sequence, that successive trio of elements is absolute perfection!
Yes, it's not the longest coaster in the world, but the length didn't bother me one bit. The negative g-forces and speed are so, so good on there, and the fact that every element hits and hits hard makes Hyperia an absolutely sublime coaster for me! It's easily my favourite UK coaster, and it sits in my overall top 5! We're lucky to have such a phenomenal ride in this country!
-
Following my visit to Thorpe Park yesterday, the first new addition of 2024 has graced my top 10!
Since I last posted an updated list in this thread, I’ve also rejigged the order of my rankings a bit, so the order is slightly different to what it was before.
With this in mind, my current top 10, with a coaster count of 123, is as follows (new addition in italics, altered placements underlined) :
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando: Even 8 years after my first ride, this coaster still reigns supreme for me, and my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld (where I had 5 rides on it) reinforced that! The sustained airtime is absolutely biblical (particularly in moments like the first drop, first airtime hill and speed hill), the sense of speed is wonderful, it's blissfully smooth, and overall, it's just such a fun, thrilling and rerideable coaster that I could (and indeed tried my darnedest to) sit on all day! I truly love this ride, and on my 2023 revisit to SeaWorld, it didn't disappoint! 10/10
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: It may not quite be #1, but my goodness was it close, and VelociCoaster would certainly be a worthy contender for the top spot! There is so much that this ride does well; it packs a great sense of speed throughout, with the second section in particular feeling ridiculously fast, there are quite a few sublime moments of ejector airtime that really whip you out of the seat, there are some truly brilliant inversions, and overall, it's just a truly stunning, spectacular coaster, in my view! In terms of some specific highlights; it's hard to pick from the wonderful array of sensations on offer. But if I had to choose a few, the second launch is absolutely obscene, packing a euphoric thrill like few other rides I've ever experienced, the top hat is sublime, packing some breathtaking ejector airtime on the back in particular, and the mosasaurus roll is an absolutely mind-blowing inversion that throws you out of the seat with some sublime sustained negative g-forces and ensures that you fly into the final brakes blown away! Overall, VelociCoaster is a truly stunning coaster, in my opinion; its blend of stunning airtime, impactful elements, fun, comfort and rerideability certainly make it a firm favourite of mine! 10/10
- Silver Star - Europa Park: I had quite low expectations for this coaster given that it's not overly well liked, but I have to say that I was blown away; I absolutely adored this coaster! It has wonderful sustained airtime, it's smooth and comfortable, it has an awesome sense of speed, the ending is absolutely brilliant, packing some phenomenal ejector airtime (particularly the MCBR exit), and overall, this is a stunning coaster that I absolutely loved! I did rank this below Mako of the two B&M Hypers I've ridden due to my feeling that its airtime, while stunning, never has quite the same impact as some of Mako's strongest moments, in my view, and while smooth in its own right, it isn't quite as blissfully smooth as Mako. I also felt it to be slightly less consistent, as I did have 1 or 2 slightly weaker rides on it during my trip to Europa. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a stunning coaster with phenomenal sustained airtime, and I love how it is incredibly rerideable and keeps the thrills going right to the end with that awesome post-MCBR section! 10/10
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa: This ride is phenomenal! In terms of some key strengths, it’s absolutely relentless in pacing and has some of the strongest ejector airtime I’ve ever experienced, and some of the big hitters in the layout like the first drop, outerbanked turn, death roll and wave turn are truly sensational elements that are right up there with the best, in my opinion! The first drop in particular is insane; whipping you far out of the seat with ejector airtime for a surprisingly sustained period of time never gets old! There are also some absolutely top-drawer moments of ejector airtime elsewhere in the layout, and the ride is smooth and rerideable! In terms of why I moved it up when I haven’t reridden it, this is because in retrospect, I think I was overly harsh on Iron Gwazi at the time, fixating on its very tiniest imperfections to try and quantify the slight disappointment of it not quite living up to my wildly high expectations on the very first go. This is going to sound odd, but Iron Gwazi is a coaster where the more I sit back and think about it, the more I actually love it. Thinking back, it grew on me considerably the second and third times I did it once the weight of expectation was off its shoulders, and it is genuinely a top tier ride that is more than deserving of a top 5 placement for me! 10/10
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park: What a sublime ride! I was excited for Hyperia, and it did not disappoint! I love a good hyper, and Hyperia is a phenomenal one! For starters, the ride is primarily designed around weightlessness, and it delivers this excellently; you seem to spend half of the ride pinned out of the seat in some capacity! The first three big elements on the ride are an obscenely perfect sequence. The first drop is absolutely unhinged and so, so good, delivering excellent sustained ejector, the non-inverting Immelmann is sublime and offers both brilliant speed rushing up into it and top-drawer sustained ejector coming out of it, and that outerbanked turn into the inversion is wild and pins you right of your seat with top-tier sustained sideways ejector! The zero-g stall is not quite up there with the other elements, but it is still excellent, with sustained hangtime, and the final two elements after the trim were surprisingly excellent, with both the outerbanked turn and the final airtime hill delivering! Overall, then, Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster, in my view, and it definitely lived up to the hype for me. It’s so good to have a coaster this brilliant 2 hours from home, that I can most probably ride at least once annually! 10/10
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park: Wodan strikes the perfect balance between pure demented insanity and amazing fun factor and rerideability, in my view! It’s an absolutely relentless coaster, with phenomenal pacing right to the end, and it has quite a few really surprising pops of ejector airtime, including an excellent first drop, but it’s also a really smooth and comfortable wooden coaster, and it just manages to be a ridiculous amount of fun! Overall, Wodan is such a fast, airtime-filled and fun coaster that I absolutely loved on my visit to Europa Park! 10/10
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure: Dismiss this as a “family” coaster all you want, but I think such quick dismissal would be a huge mistake, because this ride is phenomenal, in my view! Of the rides in my top 10, I’ll admit that this one probably has the least tangible reason to be there. However, the key reason why Hagrid’s ranks so highly for me is that purely and simply, it is a phenomenally, impeccably fun roller coaster! In terms of some specifics, the low-to-the-ground turns were a lot more thrilling than I expected and the launches were surprisingly punchy and great fun, but unlike many coasters, my love of Hagrid’s is for a much broader reason than any specific features of the ride layout. It is just so, so fun, and the ride will always leave you laughing hysterically and smiling on the final brake run, and that for me is really important. Riding Hagrid’s taught me a crucial lesson about my taste in coasters; it taught me that a coaster does not necessarily need greatness in the form of tangible elements for me to love it, and that fundamentally, all a coaster needs to be is fun. Hagrid’s is not the most intense ride by any means, but if you want pure fun, I’d struggle to recommend many better coasters than this one! 10/10
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa: I had remembered liking this ride back in 2016, but my reride in 2023 was even better than I’d previously remembered! I love a B&M Dive Coaster, and this was a fantastic one! The sustained airtime over both drops was absolutely phenomenal, and the sheer size of them produced a brilliant sensation of speed throughout the ride! You typically think of Dive Coasters for their initial vertical drop, but interestingly, I actually thought that the second vertical drop on SheiKra delivered just as much as the first if not more! Overall, SheiKra was phenomenal, and a really pleasant surprise; I often said that I preferred Oblivion, but I’d now say that I comfortably prefer SheiKra, as I do feel that the added height and length really add something to it! 10/10
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers: Wicker Man is a fantastic GCI coaster that I absolutely love! It may not look like much on paper, but I find it to be an enormously fun and rerideable coaster that never fails to put a huge smile on my face! I find it to be a really fast-paced coaster with some really fun twists and turns and some surprising pops of airtime, with some particular favourite elements of mine being the initial s-bend drop, where you gain brilliant speed incredibly quickly, and the big drop out of the high u-turn and following airtime hill, with both elements providing some excellent airtime that really whips you out of the seat! Overall, I find Wicker Man a hugely fun and rerideable wooden coaster with awesome airtime, twists and pacing, and I think it’s a ride that is definitely far more than the sum of its parts, personally! I decided to bump it up a few spots after my most recent visit in 2024, where it was running so well on the 2 rides I had; the airtime was kicking, the ride was blisteringly fast-paced, and it just made me laugh and smile so much! Somewhat similarly to Hagrid’s, Wicker Man just takes the raw fun factor to a whole new level for me! 10/10
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando: I had pretty low expectations for Ice Breaker, as its reviews are generally middling to negative, but I have to say that it massively exceeded expectations for me; it was a phenomenal little ride that I absolutely loved! I should say that the much-maligned “comfort collars” have been removed, so I experienced the ride without them, but I found it to be fantastic, with a fun and punchy swing launch, a backwards spike with some brilliant floater airtime, some surprisingly excellent pops of ejector airtime in places, some fun twists and turns, and a smooth and fun ride experience throughout! The trains are a little tight to get into and out of, but I found the restraints unobtrusive when I was sat down enjoying the ride, so I didn’t find them to be an issue overall. All in all, I thought Ice Breaker was a fantastic ride that hugely exceeded my expectations; it may not have quite been my favourite coaster I rode in Florida, but I dare say that coaster-wise, it was possibly the sleeper hit of my 2023 trip in terms of how much it exceeded my expectations! I expected very little, but I ended up absolutely loving the ride, personally! 10/10
The unfortunate casualty of the most recent addition to my top 10 has been Icon, which has now dropped out. I do love Icon to bits, and it’s still just about a 10/10 tier ride for me (it’s now the lowest ranking ride in this tier), but it’s the ride that’s tended to bear the brunt of the collateral damage of new additions to my top 10 in recent years. I do love the airtime, the fun factor and the way it all flows and meshes together wonderfully and encapsulates a lot of different elements, but one thing that’s become more evident as I’ve ridden more coasters is that it lacks any particular standout “wow” elements compared to things I rank more highly. For a ride to really stand out for me these days, it has to either take the fun factor to an entirely new level (e.g. Hagrid’s, Wicker Man) or it needs a couple of real standout elements, and compared to other rides in the 10/10 tier, I don’t think Icon delivers on either of those things quite as well, so I have found it sliding down the rankings in recent years. There could be a bit of recency bias at play here, as it’s easily the 10/10 tier ride I last rode the longest ago (my last ride was in 2019), but those are my current thoughts.
For those interested, my wider top 30 is currently as follows (I’ve also done a bit of rejigging here…):
- Mako - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Jurassic World VelociCoaster - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- Silver Star - Europa Park (10/10)
- Iron Gwazi - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10)
- Hyperia - Thorpe Park (10/10)
- Wodan Timbur Coaster - Europa Park (10/10)
- Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure - Universal’s Islands of Adventure (10/10)
- SheiKra - Busch Gardens Tampa (10/10)
- Wicker Man - Alton Towers (10/10)
- Ice Breaker - SeaWorld Orlando (10/10)
- Icon - Blackpool Pleasure Beach (10/10)
- Oblivion - Alton Towers (9/10)
- Stealth - Thorpe Park (9/10)
- Montu - Busch Gardens Tampa (9/10)
- Nemesis Reborn - Alton Towers (9/10)
- Nemesis Inferno - Thorpe Park (9/10)
- Revenge of the Mummy - Universal Studios Florida (9/10)
- Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts - Universal Studios Florida (9/10)
- Blue Fire - Europa Park (9/10)
- Mine Blower - Fun Spot Kissimmee (9/10)
- The Swarm - Thorpe Park (8/10)
- Kumba - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Kraken - SeaWorld Orlando (8/10)
- Megafobia - Oakwood Theme Park (8/10)
- Rock’n’Rollercoaster - Disney’s Hollywood Studios (8/10)
- Cheetah Hunt - Busch Gardens Tampa (8/10)
- Sik - Flamingo Land (8/10)
- Thirteen - Alton Towers (8/10)
- Rita - Alton Towers (8/10)
- Eurosat CanCan Coaster - Europa Park (7/10)
-
Earlier in the day, I promised to write a longer review of Hyperia when I got home. Well, here it is!
While it's not exactly the aspect of the project I was most interested in, I'll start by giving a few cursory thoughts on the theming and the area...
The Area
One aspect of Hyperia that has been heavily criticised is the theming and the area. I have to say that I did not personally get the hate for this; the front-of-house areas look fine to me. It's nothing breathtaking, but I think it's functional and looks perfectly fine. I quite like the black and gold aesthetic, I quite like the station, I quite like the plaza, the queue landscaping is nice enough, and the queue is by no means terrible (although not anything overly inspiring either). In terms of some aspects I would critique, however:
- The queue could maybe have had a more interesting and less contained layout. I would have loved it if the queue had wound around the ride Wicker Man-style and offered various different vantage points.
- The ride area itself is quite unsightly at present, particularly the area around the splashdown. The lake with all of the weeds in it looks quite ugly, in my view, and I don't think the actual splashdown area is particularly pretty either. The rust-coloured splashdown track in particular does not look good at all. However, you don't notice this too much on the ride, and the ride area will probably grow to look better with time.
- Speaking of the splash effect, the whole splashdown is an idea that had such promise, but has turned out to be a complete damp squib. It seems to have completely died only a couple of months into operation, but I did see it working on my visit 2 months ago, if I'm remembering correctly, and I think it's a completely redundant effect even when it works. That sort of effect is designed primarily for visual appeal for non-riders, so when it's hidden behind a 7ft fence and no one can see it properly, it completely loses its purpose.
- If I'm being pedantic, I'm not a huge fan of how the maintenance shed looks and I would have preferred for it to parallel the style of the station. That is an extremely pedantic point, however; it's not really a big deal.
Overall, though, I wasn't too displeased with the area and theming. It's not some spectacular theming extravaganza by any stretch, but I think it overall looks nice, clean, stylish and perfectly functional. I think the style works well for the sort of ride Hyperia is, and I was never expecting heavy theming from a hyper coaster.
Let's now move onto the far more interesting aspect of the project; the ride itself...
The Ride
Now Hyperia has been a ride that I've been excited for for absolutely ages. I watched its build process with great anticipation, and I had high expectations for the ride. But the question is; did it live up to those expectations? Well, dear reader, my answer is; yes, it definitely did! I had 3 rides today, one in row 8 and two in the back row, and Hyperia is an absolutely sublime coaster experience, in my view!
The negative g-forces are absolutely absurd; the ride advertises 14.8 seconds of negative g-force, and let me tell you, I can fully believe that figure! They've designed this ride for weightlessness and I think it delivers; you seem to spend most of the ride duration pinned out of your seat in some capacity!
The speed is also absurd; it's easy to forget just how fast Hyperia is, but let me tell you that you're quickly reminded of just how fast 81mph is when you're actually on the ride! The sense of speed in parts of Hyperia's layout is ridiculous!
For me, an element-by-element walkthrough of Hyperia goes something like this:
- The first outerbanked turn out of the station before the lift hill is utterly pointless; I don't know why this couldn't have just been a regular turn. The outerbanked version seemingly serves no purpose other than to be mildly awkward and uncomfortable.
- The lift hill is very fast. I liked the views from the top!
- The first drop is absolutely unhinged, and probably my favourite part of the ride! I'm a fan of a big first drop, and Hyperia's is truly wild; the ejector airtime is absolutely sublime and surprisingly sustained, and the 180 degree twist adds a really interesting additional sensation! It's definitely right up there as one of my favourite first drops I've ever done, alongside those of Mako and Iron Gwazi!
- The Immelmann is also absolutely sublime! I love the sheer sense of speed you get going up into it, and the sustained ejector airtime you get coming out of it is absolutely top-dollar! You're pinned out of your seat for a good couple of seconds, and the airtime is absolutely sensational! The Immelmann is another element that's right up there as one of my favourite elements on the ride!
- The outerbank into an inversion was a very hyped up element of Hyperia, and I have to say that it did not disappoint; it's absolutely insane! The sustained sideways ejector here is absolutely wild; you are pinned sideways out of your seat for what feels like seconds and seconds, and the negative g-forces are fairly strong in terms of force here as well! I'm not entirely convinced that I prefer sideways airtime to good old straight airtime, personally, but this element is absolutely brilliant nonetheless!
- The zero-g stall is an excellent element, but definitely weaker than the other three big ones for me. With that being said, you still get some very fun hangtime, and it is probably the most convincing example of a zero-g stall I've yet done (the other two stalls I've done are VelociCoaster and Iron Gwazi). I dare say I still find the zero-g stall a slightly overhyped element type based on my experiences of them, but this one did convince me of the merits of the zero-g stall a little more than VelociCoaster's or Iron Gwazi's did; it is a very good element with some excellently fun hangtime! The stall is fun, but not quite up there as a standout moment of Hyperia for me. With that being said, it has very tough competition in this regard; if this element were not on a ride as stacked with brilliant elements as Hyperia, it would probably stand out more!
- The splashdown trim is quite noticeable. I didn't find it uncomfortable enough to significantly detract from the ride, but the braking force is strong enough that it does seem to contort your face a tad...
- The outerbanked turn after the splashdown was a surprisingly excellent element for me! It seemed to start with you getting some really decent sideways floater that then transitioned into a surprisingly strong pop of ejector, and I found that really interesting and fun in terms of how it rode!
- The airtime hill into the brakes is an excellent way to finish with a bang; that hill provides a lovely pop of good, clean, surprisingly strong ejector airtime!
On this coaster, every single element hits and hits hard; there is a strong selection of standout "wow" moments on Hyperia. The first drop, the Immelmann and the outerbank into an inversion are all absolutely world-class elements, and that whole first sequence is just perfection! The other elements also hit well and provide good thrills and weightlessness, and I don't think there's one bit of Hyperia that doesn't deliver. Well, other than maybe the trim, and that weird turn before the lift hill...
As per usual with Mack Rides, the trains with overhead lap bars are immensely comfortable. I think Hyperia's are perhaps the most comfortable example of this train style I've experienced. In terms of smoothness; there is a rattle. It's noticeable. But it wasn't strong enough that it massively bothered me. It was more that I could feel a bit of a shaking sensation rather than that the rattle was actively hurting me or massively detracting from the experience. It's no worse than the mild rattle of, say, Stealth. The ride was overall very comfortable and enjoyable for me, and there were no severe jolts or anything (roughness-wise, I tend to find myself more sensitive to sudden jolts than rattling).
In terms of some comparisons; Hyperia is comfortably my favourite coaster at Thorpe Park (it was previously Stealth), comfortably my favourite UK coaster (it was previously Wicker Man) and also comfortably my favourite Mack ride (it was previously Icon). In terms of my overall rankings; out of 123 ridden coasters, I've conservatively settled on the #5 spot, behind Mako, VelociCoaster, Silver Star and Iron Gwazi (in that order).
If I were to offer up some pedantic hair-splitting critiques that explain why it's not my #1, and why it's not higher than #5:
- The rattle. Hyperia's rattle didn't overly bother me at all, but the coasters above Hyperia have a more perfect blissfully smooth feel to the point where it's almost an active positive attribute in itself.
- The trim. I didn't find it overly uncomfortable, but it is quite noticeable, more so than on Mako and Silver Star, and as I said, it does sort of contort your face a bit from the braking force, which isn't the case on Mako or Silver Star.
- The fact that the ride lacks straight airtime hills. As sublime as Hyperia's sideways and inverted airtime elements are and as plentiful as the sustained weightlessness is, nothing quite beats a good old straight airtime hill for me, and Hyperia does have somewhat of a shortage of traditional straight airtime moments.
I know those are very pedantic points, and pretty much entirely based on personal preference, but when you're talking about the top 5 and determining exact placements, I think I can afford to get pedantic! When the coasters in question are this good, it gets competitive at the top, and I have little choice other than to split hairs!
One legitimate critique I will offer of the ride itself is with regard to the capacity. It's not the highest for a brand new major ride, at 700-800pph, but I think a key reason for that has nothing to do with the park's operations and may have something to do with the brake run. They were operating brilliantly, and stacking was very rare, but the train seems to take a very, very long time to return to the station and moves along the brake run track very, very slowly. This results in more idle time in the station, and if they were able to speed up the train's movement through the brake run, it might improve the capacity. Hopefully this is something the park can look into in the future.
But overall, I absolutely loved Hyperia! It's my favourite coaster at Thorpe Park, my favourite coaster in the UK and sits in my top 5! The weightlessness is sublime, the sense of speed is absurd, the elements are absolutely top-drawer, and all in all, it's just an absolutely sublime coaster! What a brilliant investment for Thorpe Park and the UK theme park industry!
On a side note, here are a few photos I took of the ride:
Colossus
in General Discussion
Posted
That looks like a fun, albeit slightly random, addition!
It reminds me somewhat of the misters on Sik up at Flamingo Land around the same element, although this one shouldn’t get you wet like those do!