Matt N

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

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

Hi guys. With all of us being into theme parks, I’m sure most of us know where our nearest theme park is, or our “local park” so to speak. Whether you visit it often or it’s somewhere you don’t really pay much attention to, we all have one. With this in mind, I’d be really interested to know; where is your local park and how often do you visit? Do you pay a lot of attention to your home park, or is it somewhere that you largely ignore? Personally, I live in Gloucestershire, so I’m in the no man’s land of major theme parks better known as the South West of England. As such, my answer might be a tad more complicated than for those of you who are lucky enough to have a major park close by! My answer honestly depends on how you classify “local park”: If you’re going with “the operating place closest to my home that has an RCDB file”, then the honour goes to Symonds Yat Leisure Park in Whitchurch, Herefordshire, which apparently once housed a Zamperla Powered Coaster (https://rcdb.com/6389.htm). This park is just 10 miles due north of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 15 mile, or just over 30 minute, drive. I’ve never been, and I honestly debate whether it’s still “operating” in the sense that RCDB thinks it is seeing as it’s now mostly a caravan park, although there is still a hedge maze and butterfly house around there. Incidentally, I passed near this park a lot in my driving lessons, as Whitchurch was just off the dual carriageway used by my test centre, and I even did a parallel park in a lay-by very close to it in one of my driving tests! If you’re going with “the operating park closest to my home with somewhat of a selection of permanent rides”, then I’d probably give that honour to Brean Theme Park in Somerset (https://rcdb.com/4862.htm), which is 34 miles due southwest of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 52 mile, or roughly 1 hour, drive. I’ve only been to Brean once, and it took me until last year to get there. I wouldn’t call it an overly major park, and I wouldn’t say that any of the rides are the sort of thing you’d want to go to for anything other than to tick off the creds, if I’m being honest; all 3 of the credits were one-and-dones, for me, and now I’ve ticked them off, I don’t feel any desire to revisit Brean unless they build a new ride of some note. If you’re going with “the semi-major operating park closest to my home”, I’d probably give the honour to Drayton Manor in Tamworth, Staffordshire (https://rcdb.com/4803.htm), which is 73 miles due northeast of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 93 mile, or roughly 1h 45m, drive. Paultons Park in Romsey, Hampshire (https://rcdb.com/4819.htm) is 5 miles closer as the crow flies, but awkward road layouts mean that it takes 116 miles, and a good 2 hours, to drive to. Drayton was actually the first park I ever visited back in 2008, but only I’ve been to Drayton on three separate occasions altogether, in 2008, 2018 and 2022 respectively. A fourth visit is planned for later this year to go and check out Gold Rush. Drayton isn’t a bad park by any means, and I do always enjoy my visits there, but it’s not somewhere I feel massively compelled to return to regularly in the absence of new major investment as it’s increasingly not overly targeted towards my demographic. The park is certainly prospering at the moment, however, and I look forward to seeing what its future holds! It’s interesting to me that my “local” parks are not places I’ve visited all that much. Drayton is my most visited of the lot, but even that doesn’t stack up very highly in the visit count compared to other parks I’ve been to; my most visited UK park by some margin is Alton Towers, which I’ve spent 43 days in cumulatively and is not exactly local, at a good 2.5 hour, 120 mile drive away! But I’d be really interested to know; where is your local park, and how often do you visit?

It’s quite optimistic nowadays, but it apparently came close to this figure in its early years. I was told it used to frequently hit or exceed 50 trains per hour (1,400pph) in its early years.

For those interested, I was able to get some throughput timings during my visit to Alton Towers today. The readings I was able to get were as follows: Galactica (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains/2 stations): 863pph (3 trains/2 stations, average of 4, 28th July 2024) Nemesis Reborn (Theoretical: 1,400pph on 2 trains): 954pph (2 trains, average of 7, 28th July 2024) Oblivion (Theoretical: 1,900pph on 7 shuttles/2 stations): 997pph (6 shuttles/2 stations, average of 9, 28th July 2024) Rita (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains): 758pph (2 trains, average of 8, 28th July 2024) The Smiler (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 4 trains): 755pph (4 trains, baggage hold open, average of 7, 28th July 2024) Thirteen (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 3 trains): 1,102pph (3 trains, baggage hold open, average of 6, 28th July 2024) In terms of a few other general insights: Operations on Nemesis generally seem to be notably worse post-retrack. I’m not entirely sure why, but before, you’d often get dispatch intervals of close to 90s, whereas it now seems like dispatch intervals of more like 2 minutes are more par for the course. Galactica’s dispatch intervals varied between very quick (~80s) and very slow (multiple minutes). I’m assuming that this is down to the dual stations? On The Smiler, I noticed that they seemed to be struggling to get enough people from the main queue up into the station quickly enough to match the ride dispatches at times. I also noticed that the merge host was heavily prioritising Fastrack and RAP over the main queue and single rider. Single rider in particular was abandoned for quite a few minutes at a time, although I accept that this may be something to do with them wanting to stagger the number of single riders in the station and using the baggage hold.

28th July 2024: Alton Towers Hi guys. Today, I returned to Alton Towers for a revisit after receiving a free return ticket following our weak visit to Alton After Dark back in March. Another visit to Alton Towers is not exactly anything new for me (today was my 43rd day at the park in total and my 3rd day this year), but one aspect was new for me… despite having visited Alton Towers so much over the years, today was my first time ever spending a solo day alone at the park! With my dad attending the nearby LIV Golf event at JCB in Rocester, he dropped me off at the park in the morning and picked me up in the evening, and I spent the rest of the day alone, which was a novelty for me at Alton Towers! With my dad unable to enter LIV Golf until 12pm, we left our home in Gloucestershire at just before 8:30am and arrived at Alton Towers at just before 11am. Getting my free revisit redeemed was quick and easy, and I was in the park by 11:10am: After getting into the park, I headed towards Dark Forest for my first ride… Thirteen I was originally going to go on Rita with a 20 minute advertised queue, but this had risen to 45 minutes by the time I reached Dark Forest. As such, I instead decided to try Thirteen, which also had a 45 minute advertised queue and was a ride I didn’t go on in March. Shortly after I joined, the queue time was re-announced as 60 minutes and ended up taking 55 minutes, so was perhaps marginally understated when I initially joined. That’s enough about the queue, though; how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 4, and it was great fun! I do rather enjoy Thirteen, and today was no exception; the outdoor section had some fun twists and the odd pop of airtime or two and seemed to pack fair speed, and that drop track and backwards section are always a laugh! Overall, then, Thirteen was great fun, and an excellent way to start off the day: After my ride on Thirteen, I decided to head to a favourite of mine in X-Sector… Oblivion Oblivion was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on it. There was an interesting happening while I was waiting for Oblivion in that a shuttle stopped on the lift hill briefly, and a staff member had to head up and press some buttons to get it going again; it was interesting to see this, and the problem was resolved in under 5 minutes! The queue ended up taking a little longer than advertised, ultimately taking 40 minutes, but I imagine that the stoppage may have played a role in this. So, how was the ride? Well, I absolutely love Oblivion, and today was no exception! Today’s ride was absolutely fantastic; smooth, full of sustained airtime, and so, so fast! I can still never quite believe the sheer speed the ride picks up in that tunnel; it’s Alton’s fastest coaster, and it certainly feels it! All in all, then, Oblivion was absolutely fantastic; it was great to get back on: After my awesome ride on Oblivion, I decided to head to the other coaster in the area… The Smiler The Smiler was on an advertised 45 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. As I was visiting solo, however, I had a secret weapon I could use… the single rider queue! This has often saved me significant time when queueing for The Smiler, so I decided to take a gamble on it. The gamble did not pay off as much as it has in the past, as I waited 25 minutes, but I still saved 20 minutes compared to the advertised queue time, so I can’t really complain! But how was the ride? Well, I was allocated the back row, and I’m sorry to say that it was the weakest ride I’ve had on Smiler in a good while. I really want to like Smiler more than I do, but I’m afraid to say that despite its grandeur and impressive engineering, I just don’t particularly care for it. Today’s ride was pretty rough and rattly, and I was also really stapled in by the OTSR by the end, meaning that by the end, my thighs, shoulders and neck were all feeling somewhat worse for wear. Smiler is an impressive ride, and it has some good elements, but I’m afraid I wasn’t a massive fan of it today: After my ride on The Smiler, I decided to head over to the other side of the park, taking a dark ride detour on my way over… The Curse at Alton Manor The Curse at Alton Manor was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so I decided to have a go on it. The queue time board was true to its word, as the queue was very short indeed; I think 5 minutes was a pessimistic estimate! I was interested to have another go on Alton Manor, as I‘d only actually ridden it once previously, 1 week after it opened in 2023. So, how was it? Well, I think it was a pretty good run in terms of effects; with the glaring exception of the Trommel Tunnel, pretty much everything worked! They’ve also done a few nice enhancements in there since my last ride! In terms of my overall thoughts on Alton Manor, these are largely unchanged compared to my initial ride in March 2023; I think it’s a nice overhaul of Duel, and it overall works well, but I don’t think it‘s perfect and I do perhaps find it slightly overhyped. As someone who’s not a huge fan of horror, I also find it a bit jumpy and overwhelming in places, even if I didn’t find the ride overall too bad in this regard. Nonetheless, I overall enjoyed my ride on Alton Manor; it was running very well in terms of effects, and I enjoyed some of the enhancements since my initial ride: After my ride on Alton Manor, I headed onto my next coaster… Nemesis Reborn Nemesis was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so I decided that was an opportunity too good to pass up! If anything, this 15 minute queue was overstated, as I only waited around 10 minutes; it’s great when that happens! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6, and it was absolutely excellent! The ride was fast, wonderfully forceful without being too forceful and also very smooth and comfortable (I personally find the much debated rattle largely benign; it doesn’t even come close to affecting my enjoyment, and I hardly notice it for the most part)! Having Nemesis back in the lineup has made me remember just what a cracking coaster it is; the layout design is so original, and I absolutely love some of those sequences of elements! Overall, then, I absolutely loved my ride on Nemesis; it was absolutely fantastic: After my ride on Nemesis, I sat down and ate my packed lunch for a few minutes. After that, I decided to go for another ride on Nemesis straight away; I thought that one of my favourite Alton coasters on a queue less than 15 minutes was an opportunity too good to pass up! I was seated in row 4 this time, and the ride was once again excellent, providing a highly thrilling and rerideable experience! After my ride on Nemesis, I headed over to Galactica, which had an advertised queue time of 15 minutes that looked even shorter. I was anticipating another very quick ride, but Galactica unfortunately broke down when I was just outside the station. I waited it out for 5-10 minutes, but it didn’t look as though the situation was improving, so I bailed and exited the queue after that: After bailing on Galactica, I decided to take a 3rd ride on Nemesis Reborn, which was still on a very short advertised queue of only 15 minutes. I was seated in row 3 this time, and the ride was once again absolutely awesome! I know this completely defies all logic, but I swear that Nemesis Reborn feels more intense towards the front of the train: After my reride on Nemesis, I took a route I don’t usually take and took the Lakeside Walk through The Gardens. This is a surprisingly excellent shortcut to the other side of the park, and the scenery is lovely! After taking this walk, I then headed back over to Oblivion, which had an advertised queue time of 20 minutes. The queue turned out to be under 15 minutes and later became only around 5 minutes, so I had not one, not two, not three, but four consecutive rerides on Oblivion! As with my ride earlier, all of these rerides were absolutely excellent; the raw sense of speed in that tunnel is unrivalled, and the airtime is wonderful! To make things even better, I had some wonderfully loose restraints on these rides, so I really flew out of my seat over the drop!: After my wonderful riding session on Oblivion, I headed over to a coaster I hadn’t yet done that had just reopened following an earlier bout of downtime… Rita Rita was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so as I hadn’t done it yet, I decided to give it a go. This 15 minute queue turned out to be overstated, as I found myself in the air gates of row 2 merely 5 minutes after joining. It’s always great when that happens! So, how was the ride? Well, I have to say that I actually quite like Rita, for all my sins. Yes, it’s no Stealth, but I think it’s a really solid coaster, with an awesome hydraulic launch and some cracking ejector airtime! It’s not the most comfortable coaster in terms of restraints, which is perhaps exacerbated by the stronger lateral motions than on Stealth, but I also don’t find it overly rough; today’s ride had only a small rattle overall. All in all, I really enjoyed my ride on Rita today; it was a good way to end the day, and I’m glad I went for a ride: After my ride on Rita, it was just gone 5:30, and my dad was on his way back from JCB to pick me up, so I wandered back to the entrance, bade Alton Towers goodbye for the day and headed out to the drop off zone: So, that brings my day at Alton Towers today to an end! I had a wonderful day; I liked having my first solo experience at Alton Towers, and I was really happy to get on 12 rides! Given that it was a Sunday in the summer holidays where I didn’t enter the park until 11:10am and stopped riding at 5:30pm, I was absolutely chuffed with 12 rides! It was a shame that Wicker Man, my favourite ride on park and favourite UK coaster, was closed following its fiery incident on Friday, and having some rides on that would have been the cherry on top, but its absence didn’t detract from the day and I still had an absolutely amazing day regardless! In terms of specific highlights; it would have to go to Oblivion and Nemesis. Of the coasters I rode today, those two were easily my favourites; I loved getting multiple rides on both, and both of them are comfortably among the finest coasters in the UK, in my view. It was also good to get back on some of the other rides, and overall, I just had a thoroughly brilliant day at Alton Towers today! Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! My next report will be coming in just 2 weeks’ time, when I head to East Anglia for my first ever visits to Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, Pleasurewood Hills and Joyland, so stay tuned for that!

The Sun has published an article on this incident: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/29498753/alton-towers-fire-wicker-man/ Interestingly, the cause is thought to be a “foreign object” according to an Alton Towers spokesperson… could this mean that a guest dropped something flammable on the track or something? It will also be “closed until further notice” while the park carries out “essential maintenance”, apparently… whether that means a day, a week, or longer is anyone’s guess. It’s a relief that this seemingly didn’t cause any major damage. I am slightly disappointed that this probably means that my favourite ride on park will be closed for my visit on Sunday, but I did get 2 rides on it in March, one of which was an unexpected night ride, so I can’t really complain too much!

Excellent news! Hopefully the extension of hours rather than cutting hours like Alton Towers are is a sign of Thorpe Park doing well this year! My only concern, though, is that there may not be demand for it. I remember Thorpe Park doing 8pm closes back in August 2019; I went to one of them, and the park had completely emptied out before 6pm. It was brilliant for repeat riding, but a damning indictment of the demand for late night openings… those 8pm openings were quickly dropped shortly after my visit. This is a positive sign on the whole, though! I don’t know if anyone else agrees, but overall, it does seem to me like Thorpe Park is the most prosperous UK Merlin park this year. The Hyperia buzz could be partially contributing to this, but it doesn’t seem like Thorpe has the general air of negativity surrounding it that Chessington and particularly Alton Towers currently have.

Out of interest, I’d be curious to know; which row do people find rougher on Saw? Personally, I find the front notably rougher than the back, as a general rule. On my most recent visit to Thorpe, I actually did 2 rides on Saw; I had one in the back, which was a bit rough in places, but not too bad overall, and I had one in the front, which was really rough. However, I’ve heard others say that the back is way rougher and the front is smoother, which completely contrasts with my experiences…

I’d be really interested to know how it works too! In all likelihood, it’s probably some degree of glancing and estimating from the staff. In some cases, I’m not even sure they do that; in one instance logged in my spreadsheet, Vampire at Chessington was advertised at 5 minutes, yet it was nearly out the entrance and I waited 60… I had an idea in my head of a near foolproof way of reliably estimating queue times. Imagine some sort of system that logs the amount of people entering and leaving the queue that’s paired with the ride computer system that logs the ride throughput, uniting queue entry/exit management and ride throughput management in perfect unison to make a wonderful, near foolproof queue time estimation system! Goodness knows how you’d implement it technically, but in the world of IoT and the like, it must surely be possible, at the very least… It’s unlikely to ever come to fruition, but I can dream!

Disclaimer: This is a long, geeky post. If you don't like statistics or maths talk, turn back now! If you'd like a more concise summary, a TL;DR can be found at the bottom. Hi guys. When you go to a park, you will often see advertised queue times all over the place to help you determine how long the ride queues are. But sometimes, you might find that these do not necessarily tell the truth. At times, you might get in a queue with a reasonable advertised time and wait far longer than expected, and at other times, you might get in a queue with a long advertised time and wait far less than expected. With this in mind, you might be wondering; how accurate actually are these advertised queue times? Can they be relied upon? Or are they largely hokum? Well, dear reader, that is the question I'm aiming to answer today. Through the power of statistics, I am going to work out; how accurate are advertised queue times? Let's firstly start with the methodology of my statistical analysis... Methodology You might be wondering "Matt, how on Earth are you going to get hold of advertised and actual queue time data to conduct this analysis?". Well, the answer to that is that I had an idea... for years, I've been writing trip reports from various theme parks, and within these, I often make reference to the advertised queue time and how it compared to the actual queue time. And I was thinking that I could use my anecdotes from some of these trip reports as samples for the analysis. Yes, there's finally a day where my comparisons of advertised and actual queue times come in handy! My method entailed reading my various trip reports from the UK Merlin parks from over the years and looking for anecdotes referring to the advertised queue time in comparison to the actual queue time of a ride. I chose the UK Merlin parks because these are where I have by far the most data from, and they are also likely to share similar technology, processes and the like for determining advertised queue times, which removes any uncertainty from working with companies with differing processes. I should note that I did not count every time I went on a ride. I only counted rides where there was one of: An explicit comparison between advertised queue time and actual queue time given. A comparison between advertised queue time and actual queue time that heavily hinted towards the actual queue time given. For instance, words like "walk-on" or "I waltzed straight onto the train" would infer a 0 minute actual queue time, and words like "the queue time board stayed true to its word" would infer no discrepancy between the advertised and actual queue times. There were rides I did not count, as I felt that they would not be representative of the actual main queue. These are: Any time where I talk about using a Single Rider Queue or otherwise benefitting considerably from single rider status (such as being called to walk past a long queue to fill an empty seat). Any time where I talk about using Fastrack or similar. Any time where I talk about waiting longer for a specific experience, such as the front row. Through these rules, I was able to gather: 15 days and 75 rides of data from Alton Towers, dating back as far as 23rd June 2019 9 days and 48 rides of data from Thorpe Park, dating back as far as 6th May 2018. 3 days and 9 rides of data from Legoland Windsor, dating back as far as 31st August 2017. 1 day and 3 rides of data from Chessington, from 17th September 2023. I should also give a few caveats. These are: This is my data and mine only. There are multiple reasons why that means that it may not be a fully representative sample. For example, Chessington and Legoland are under-represented, whereas Alton Towers and Thorpe Park are over-represented. The actual level of understatement may be higher than what this analysis suggests, as this only factors in queues I have personally waited in. If a queue looks vastly understated at first glance, there's a good chance I won't join it. Where I provided a range of time for the actual queue length, I went with the upper bound. For example, if I described a queue as taking 20-25 minutes, I logged the actual queue time as 25 minutes. I should strongly emphasise that this is not a massively exact science. The measurement of actual queue time was me looking at my watch throughout the queue, and for a variety of reasons, the movement of a queue can be affected in ways that the advertised time can't account for. With this out of the way, let's move onto the actual meat of the analysis... For each part of the analysis, I'll look at an individual park, as well as all 4 Merlin parks amalgamated together. For the individual park, I picked Alton Towers, as this is the park for which I have the most data. Let's start with a simple correlation analysis to determine the strength of the relationship between advertised queue time and actual queue time... Correlation For those not aware, the correlation between two variables determines whether or not they are inter-related. The magnitude of a correlation lies between 0 and 1, with 0 indicating no correlation and 1 indicating a perfect strong correlation, and a correlation can also be positive or negative. A positive correlation means that as the value of one variable rises, the value of the other rises in unison, while a negative correlation means that as the value of one variable rises, the value of the other falls. Now that I've explained a bit about correlation, let's have a look at what the data says about the correlation between advertised queue time and actual queue time! I'll consider two different correlation coefficients, Pearson and Spearman. Pearson's correlation coefficient assumes a linear relationship between two variables, whereas Spearman's correlation coefficient does not. If we look at Alton Towers on an individual level, the scatter graph of advertised queue time and actual queue time looks something like this: And the correlation figures are as follows: Correlation Type Correlation Coefficient (2dp) Correlation Classification Pearson 0.67 Moderate Positive Correlation Spearman 0.74 Moderate Positive Correlation Whereas if we look at the UK Merlin parks overall, the scatter graph of advertised queue times versus actual queue times is as follows: And the correlation figures are as follows: Correlation Type Correlation Coefficient (2dp) Correlation Classification Pearson 0.65 Moderate Positive Correlation Spearman 0.70 Moderate Positive Correlation So if we look at correlation, I think we can conclude that there is a relationship between advertised queue time and actual queue time. Based on correlation alone, we can infer that on a general level, there is a moderate-to-strong correlation between advertised and actual queue time, so if the advertised queue time increases, you can generally expect actual queue time to increase along with it. However, the correlation is far from a perfect positive correlation, so this will not be the case in every scenario. In fact, the fact that the positive correlation does not even quite breach the threshold of "strong" (which I was told was 0.75) would suggest that this is not always the case by a long shot, and the relationship is far from perfectly proportional. So in general, the correlation analysis would suggest that the advertised queue times are trustworthy to a broad extent to get a gauge of the broader picture, but perhaps with a notable margin of error for exact figures. Let's now look at the average discrepancy... Discrepancy (Vector) Let's now look at the average discrepancy as a vector quantity. Vector quantities have both magnitude and direction, so this form of discrepancy will consider whether the queue is overstated or understated as well as its actual magnitude. Where the queue is overstated, the discrepancy is negative, whereas the discrepancy is positive where the queue is understated. If we firstly look at Alton Towers on an individual level, here are the boxplots showing the ranges of raw and proportional discrepancies respectively. It's important to consider proportional discrepancy because if an advertised queue time is longer, there's bound to be a larger discrepancy in general: And the raw and proportional discrepancy stats, as well as average queue time, are as follows. Both mean and median values are provided, as each metric has flaws in isolation and I felt that showing both offered maximum transparency: Average Advertised Queue Time (minutes, 1dp) Average Raw Discrepancy (minutes, 1dp) Average Proportional Discrepancy (1dp) Adjusted Average Proportional Discrepancy (1dp) Mean (Calculated Average) 28.3 2.2 8.8% 7.8% Median (Middle Value) 25 0 0% 0% I should clarify that Average Proportional Discrepancy is the average of the proportional discrepancies listed alongside each anecdote, which excludes those where the advertised queue time was 0 minutes and the actual queue time was a different number (you cannot divide a non-zero number by 0, so a percentage proportion cannot be provided). Adjusted Average Proportional Discrepancy is a simpler calculation of Average Raw Discrepancy as a share of Average Advertised Queue Time on an overall basis, which (sort of) takes these into account. If we now look at the UK Merlin parks overall, here are the boxplots showing the ranges of raw and proportional discrepancy respectively: And the raw and proportional discrepancy stats, as well as average advertised queue time, are as follows: Average Advertised Queue Time (minutes, 1dp) Average Raw Discrepancy (minutes, 1dp) Average Proportional Discrepancy (1dp) Adjusted Average Proportional Discrepancy (1dp) Mean (Calculated Average) 26.1 1.3 13.7% 5.1% Median (Middle Value) 25 0 0% 0% So looking at this, Alton Towers and UK Merlin queue times are understated by up to 1-2 minutes on average. If we look at the median, that would imply that there's no discrepancy between advertised and actual queue time at all on average, and even the higher mean values infer that there are average discrepancies of less than 10% in some cases. At face value, these stats would give reason to believe that Merlin's advertised queue times are very accurate overall, with an average error of only 1-2 minutes and less than 10%. However, you should note my use of the term "at face value"... because that's not the full picture. You might remember that earlier, I said about how the discrepancy being shown here is a vector quantity, meaning that it has both magnitude and direction. That means that understated queues have a positive discrepancy value and overstated queues have a negative discrepancy value, so the two balance each other out. So while you'd think that the low average discrepancies shown here mean that the queue times are very accurate... the use of vector discrepancies here mean that all this really shows is that understating and overstating balance each other out quite nicely, meaning that you can't really rely on Merlin parks to understate or overstate their queues. They both understate and overstate to broadly equal extents. To get the true picture of how accurate these queue times really are, we need to convert the discrepancy values into a scalar quantity and look at the absolute values of discrepancy... Absolute Discrepancy To get the true gist of how accurate these queue times really are, let's now look at the absolute discrepancy values. Absolute means that only the magnitude of discrepancy is considered, and that the discrepancy values are scalar quantities rather than vector quantities. If we firstly look at Alton Towers on an individual level, the boxplots showing the range of raw and proportional absolute discrepancy values are as follows: And the raw and proportional absolute discrepancy stats, as well as average queue time, are as follows: Average Advertised Queue Time (minutes, 1dp) Average Raw Absolute Discrepancy (minutes, 1dp) Average Proportional Absolute Discrepancy (1dp) Adjusted Average Proportional Absolute Discrepancy (1dp) Mean (Calculated Average) 28.3 14.1 39.3% 49.6% Median (Middle Value) 25 10 27.5% 40% If we look at the UK Merlin parks overall, the boxplots showing the ranges of raw and proportional absolute discrepancy are as follows: And the raw and proportional absolute discrepancy stats, as well as average queue time, are as follows: Average Advertised Queue Time (minutes, 1dp) Average Raw Absolute Discrepancy (minutes, 1dp) Average Proportional Absolute Discrepancy (1dp) Adjusted Average Proportional Absolute Discrepancy (1dp) Mean 26.1 13.5 58.7% 51.6% Median 25 5 33.3% 20% So looking at these stats, UK Merlin queue times are wrong by 5-15 minutes on average, and broadly, the average proportional absolute discrepancy ranges between 20% and almost 60%. This would imply that the advertised queue times are not phenomenally accurate, and may not be 100% correct in terms of the exact figure on average. However, it would suggest that they are still quite good at a more general level to get a general gauge of how long a queue might be. If a queue is advertised at 100 minutes, it's unlikely to be walk-on, and vice versa. These figures suggest that the advertised queue times can generally be used as a broad gauge of the length of the queue, but should not be taken as gospel and the exact figures should be taken with some degree of caution. Let's now look at some final conclusions... Conclusion So in conclusion, how accurate are these advertised queue times? Well, I think these results show that they're overall reasonable as a gauge of the broad ballpark the queue time is likely to fall into, but have somewhat weaker accuracy at determining exact queue times. In terms of the correlation analysis, the advertised queue time and the actual queue time have a reasonable correlation, but not a perfect one. The two are moderately positively correlated, with a correlation coefficient of around 0.6-0.7, which would suggest that the two variables are broadly related and do increase in unison with one another in general, but this is far from a perfectly proportional increase and is not a perfect rule by any means. On average, the vector discrepancy between advertised queue time and actual queue time was to be understated by 1-2 minutes, and the percentage margin of error was often to be understated by less than 10%. This suggests that understating and overstating overall happen to roughly equal degrees, and you can't really rely on Merlin to reliably do either. On average, the absolute discrepancy between advertised queue time and actual queue time was 5-15 minutes, and the percentage margin of error for the advertised queue time was between 20% and 60%. This would suggest that the advertised queue times are rarely 100% accurate and should be treated with a degree of caution and a margin of error, but that they're generally decent as a way of gauging broadly how long a queue will be. If a queue is advertised at 30 minutes, for example, you can assume that it will probably be between about 15 minutes and about 45 minutes. That is quite a wide margin, admittedly, but the advertised queue times are unlikely to be amazingly wrong, on the whole. A 30 minute advertised queue, as an example, would indicate a roughly "middle of the road" queue time with a reasonable degree of reliability; the queue is unlikely to be obscenely short, but it's unlikely to be obscenely long as well. So in conclusion, I think this analysis suggests that the advertised queue times are decent for getting an idea of broadly how long a queue is likely to be, but are worse at pinpointing the actual exact queue time, and the estimates should be considered with a good margin of error and not taken as exact estimates. If you'd like to look at my data, here are the full spreadsheets for Alton Towers and UK Merlin queue times respectively: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c2b05czi2xwwDxKRVBMJ9qyB3_-_b0RyMdc-N8n8JJI/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jpqqpu2pErHY41vHTpDP_NEZqnjuMwgtVVp99JexjvI/edit?usp=sharing So that brings us to the end of this statistical analysis! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed concocting it, and I hope you found it interesting! I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts; I'm receptive to any feedback, good or bad! TL;DR: I performed a statistical analysis to try and determine how accurate advertised queue times are, using datasets of advertised vs actual queue times in Alton Towers and the UK Merlin parks taken from my past trip reports. A correlation analysis showed that there was a moderate positive correlation of magnitude 0.6-0.7 between advertised and actual queue time, indicating that they do generally increase in unison, but that this is far from a perfect trend and this is not necessarily a proportional increase. An analysis of average vector discrepancies showed that Merlin parks do not reliably understate or overstate queue times, with both understating and overstating happening to broadly equal degrees. An analysis of average absolute discrepancies showed that the queue times can provide a broad idea of roughly how long a queue may be, but are unlikely to be too accurate at determining the exact queue time.

It appears that a 10 minute lift hill stoppage on Sunday made the news and has unfortunately been reported as the ride “breaking again”. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uks-tallest-rollercoaster-hyperia-grinds-33304243 I know that this was only a minor stoppage that was resolved quickly, but they really will have to hope that it runs flawlessly from here on out, or else the media will leap on every small issue to further the notion that it’s an unreliable ride.

On a slight side tangent, what is the Single Rider Queue like on Hyperia? Does it tend to offer a notable advantage over the main queue, or is any significant advantage potential negated by it being quite busy? Does it get busy, or is it usually quite quiet? I’m going next month, and I was pondering whether I could potentially use it for a reride if my parents and grandad allow me to reride and they don’t want to go back on. I wouldn’t want to only have 1 ride on Hyperia if possible, but I obviously wouldn’t like to bet on what queue times will be like during August.

All of these good reviews of Hyperia make me excited to ride it, and gutted that I was unable to back in June! I’m now going next month, so I hope it plays ball until then… As for the splashdown area; that does look like a key disappointment of mine. The effect appears to be a complete damp squib, being hard to photograph from in the area, and I’m also not a fan of the presentation of the surrounding lake based on how it looks in POVs. I’d have hoped that they’d at least tidy up the weeds in it.

My apologies for bumping this thread, but as I posted in it with university woes at an earlier stage, I feel I should offer an update… I’ve had my final degree award confirmed this morning… and I got a First Class Honours, with my final award mark being 82.85/100! That means I am now a degree graduate, with a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Gloucestershire! My journey through university has not been plain sailing, but I’m happy I did it, and I’m pleased and relieved to finally have a degree!

It's unfortunate, but I think running on one train is the lesser of two evils compared to not having it running at all. At least the park are psyching people up for it being on one train in advance and warning that queueing times could be extended, though, so it won't come as a surprise. I must admit, though, that I am morbidly intrigued to see how long the advertised queue gets with 1 train operation on the ride's 2nd operating weekend...

Personally, I think that Thorpe could do with a big coaster with a 1.2m height restriction. A starter thrill coaster of sorts, most probably non-inverting. Something along the lines of a GCI woodie would work really well, in my view; it would be great fun and really rerideable, and it would also provide a nice starter thrill coaster, as well as another non-inverting thrill coaster that’s longer than Stealth. I think that something like a GCI would really add variety to Thorpe Park’s lineup and help make the park a more compelling proposition for older families.

Hyperia’s train is now actively being lifted off the track as we speak:

There is now work underway to hoist or rescue the train in some capacity: Hopefully this means that they can clear the stall, test it again and reopen promptly!

I had a really weird and surprisingly in-depth theme park dream last night that I just had to tell you all about! To set the scene, I was visiting “Fantasy Island in Skegness” for the first time with my family (well, it started as my nuclear family, anyway…). I put the name in quotation marks because as is usual with dream theme parks, this version of Fantasy Island had a fair few… discrepancies with the real life version. The day started with stuff that is actually in the real Fantasy Island, with Odyssey and Millennium being on my mind. Me and my dad initially took our seats on Odyssey. We were on the front row, and I was excited for the ride ahead. When we started ascending the lift hill, I was naturally smitten with being on the front row, and I bizarrely said “we’ve got good weather for it; I’m so glad that we weren’t plagued by weather bad enough to cause the ride to close”… even know there was fog so thick you could hardly see ahead of you, waves crashing over the pier, and wind so strong you could feel the structure shaking! My luck was not to last, however… as when we were near the top, a very loud siren suddenly started going off, with the words “WARNING: Bad weather alert! Activate abort sequence!”. We kept ascending the lift hill for a bit, so me and my dad looked at each other, completely bemused… but then, the ride suddenly dropped backwards back down the lift hill, without any prior warning, and whacked us back into the station at full speed. Thankfully, the ride had the hardest station brakes ever and was able to stop a full speed train in the station in a matter of seconds, and the staff just nonchalantly opened our restraints as though nothing had just happened and said “sorry, the ride’s closed due to weather”. After I got off Odyssey with my dad, quite a lot else happened. I struggle to piece together the exact sequence of events, as it was a bit of a blur, but I remember quite a few of the different attractions we did and a few of the different things that happened. These include: I had some sort of absolute temper tantrum in a random car park somewhere over Odyssey and Millennium being closed due to the weather. My sister was trying to console me, but to no avail; she was saying to me “Don’t worry, Matthew, we can always come back”, but I was angrily sobbing and yelling “No, [sister’s name]; this was my only chance and I BLEW IT!” before sobbing uncontrollably… in the background, Donald Trump was bizarrely there, yelling “This is fake news!” and “We need to build a wall around Fantasy Island!” We went in an attraction entitled “Gangsta Granny: The Experience”, ostensibly themed to the David Walliams book Gangsta Granny… which simply consisted of being repeatedly yelled at by a slightly drunk elderly lady eating chips and tomato ketchup and drinking a bottle of whisky. The lady also had a Southern US accent; think along the lines of Meemaw out of Young Sheldon. We went in a very long educational dark ride about the D-Day landings… I fell asleep halfway through it and got yelled at by my parents at the end as a result. They called me an “unpatriotic traitor” and “Hitler sympathiser”… We went on a ride that somehow had the ability to be a shape-shifting ride system; it started as a junior coaster, shape-shifted into a flying theatre halfway through and then shape-shifted back into a junior coaster at the end. Think along the lines of if The Dragon and Flight of the Sky Lion at Legoland Windsor had a baby and had the ability to shape-shift into one another. On this ride, my nan and grandad, as well as an 88 year old relative who I don’t think I’ve ever seen ride a roller coaster, popped up out of nowhere. We went onto a racing mat water slide whose theming was a bizarre hybrid of Minifigure Speedway at Legoland Windsor and VelociCoaster at Islands of Adventure… the ride had the racing lights, Roxy announcements and Team Legends and Team Allstars like Minifigure Speedway, but had a Jurassic World-themed queue, complete with raptors and a Bryce Dallas Howard/Chris Pratt pre-show video, like VelociCoaster. This Minifigure Speedway/VelociCoaster theming hybrid continued into the ride itself, with the ride containing upbeat racing music and announcements punctuated with odd sirens and raptor growls every now and then… the ride was also very short, at probably no more than 10 seconds long. We went into an attraction named “Hall of Tories”, which was kind of like a less celebratory version of the Disney classic Hall of Presidents. An animatronic version of each Tory Prime Minister post-2010 stood up and made a short speech, similar to the presidents in the Disney attraction, but towards the end, an animatronic Keir Starmer piped up from the back, started ranting about the Tories’ 14 year record in government and then encouraged the audience to throw foam balls at the animatronic Tories, from a bucket that suddenly appeared beneath the audience’s seats. The animatronic Tories tried to fight back with lines such as “£2,000 more tax under Labour!”, but eventually, the attraction ended with animatronic Starmer and the audience winning against the animatronic Tories. We went into a dark ride named “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, ostensibly themed to the Roald Dahl children’s novel of the same name. It claimed to be a “world-class immersive experience”, but was more akin to that AI Willy Wonka event in Glasgow in reality… We went to have burgers, and I kept laughing at the numerous typos around and saying I had to post them in TowersStreet’s “Merlin Typos and Grammatical Errors” thread… at this point, my uncle and cousins also appeared out of nowhere. To top things off, my entire family randomly became Asian at some point in the dream… when I was getting off a ride and looking for my family, an Asian woman wearing my mum’s clothes started beckoning me over in Mandarin (which I somehow understood…), and I followed along and thought nothing of it! It’s a while since I’ve had a theme park dream that’s been that much of an acid trip… I forgot just how utterly random and incomprehensible they can be!

I’m hearing word from a number of sources that Hyperia has stalled… I should stress that there is not photo or video confirmation of this at present, but if true, this isn’t good… It was all going so well after they resolved the stoppage on Saturday… EDIT - Here’s the best video I can find: Unsurprisingly, it appears to have stalled on the big outerbank.

Hi guys. In recent days, Hyperia, the UK’s tallest and fastest roller coaster, has opened at Thorpe Park. It’s only been open for a few days thus far, but a lot of people who’ve ridden it (although admittedly not everybody) are already declaring it their top UK coaster. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; is Hyperia your top UK coaster, if you’ve ridden? Has it finally knocked Nemesis off its top spot? Or if Nemesis wasn’t your top UK coaster before, has Hyperia usurped whatever you previously had on top? Or did it not quite reach the mark for you? I haven’t personally ridden Hyperia yet, so I’m voting undecided at the moment, but I’m interested to see the consensus!

For those interested, I rode Minifigure Speedway for the first time on Sunday (9th June). I touched on the coasters themselves in my trip report from the wider day, but I felt I should do a longer review, delving into the coasters in more depth and also discussing aspects of the investment aside from the roller coasters themselves, as I do have some... thoughts about the non-coaster aspects that I don't think I've really touched upon yet. Let me start with the coasters themselves. If I were to walk through the ride(s) element by element: The initial drop and rush through the station is quite good fun; it's always fun getting that sense of speed as you fly back through the station on these family boomerangs! The curved drop out of the station is good fun, if nothing earth-shattering. You pick up some decent speed around this corner! The hill before/after the billboard is a definite dead spot in terms of the ride pacing, with little going on in terms of forces here, but it's definitely a fun moment of interaction between the two sides that accentuates the duelling aspect quite nicely. Things start to get a bit spicier after the interaction moment, with two surprisingly fun corners before the second lift hill. These pack some surprisingly decent forces for a ride of this calibre! After that, you go up another lift hill and negotiate the circuit again in reverse. There's little different to report about the backwards lap other than that it's fun without being too intense, and I'd cite the previously mentioned surprisingly fun corners as packing surprising forces during the backwards lap. In terms of some other, more general aspects of the coaster experiences: They track very smoothly, although they perhaps have one or two marginally odd transitions here and there. If we're doing a like-for-like comparison between Zierer's family boomerang offering on Minifigure Speedway and Vekoma's ubiquitous competitor, I would give Vekoma's offering the edge. I think the Vekomas I've ridden feel quite flowy and dynamic in a way that the Minifigure Speedway coasters don't quite match, and the Minifigure Speedway coasters also have a general feeling of being a tad more... unrefined, for lack of a better term. These are very pedantic things, though, and I think the two are quite closely matched, in all honesty. Of the two sides, I would say I marginally preferred Team Legends (the blue one) to Team Allstars (the red one). Overall, I think the coasters are pretty good fun for what they are. They're not going to blow any minds around these parts or enter any top 10 lists, but we're not the target demographic; these are family coasters aimed at young children, with a 1.05m height restriction, and I think they work really well for that demographic. I'll now discuss some of the non-coaster aspects of the investment, as I do have some thoughts to share, both positive and negative. In the interests of fairness, let me start with the positives... The theme is really good fun. The announcements from Roxy are quite a fun touch, as are things like the race lights, the little pre-show (of sorts) for each side. I also like the billboard and giant minifigure statue. The theming is quite basic, but I think that what's there works reasonably well. The throughput is reasonable, and a definite much-needed improvement compared to other attractions at the park. The one interval I timed returned a combined throughput of 825pph for both sides, and in general, I'd say that the average dispatch interval appeared to be around 3 minutes, which would equate to a combined two-side throughput of around 800pph. 800pph is not earth-shattering, but I think it's decent enough and a vast improvement on many other rides at Legoland. The queue seemed to move plenty fast enough compared to other rides at the park, anyhow! With all that being said, I do also have some critiques to air... As was well publicised around opening, I think the landscaping and overall finish of the area by the queue and under the coasters looks poor. It looks a little less poor than it did in opening day pictures, but it still doesn't look great, and definitely still gives off a bit of a "building site" vibe, in my view. With that being said, it might look better once the planting has grown in a bit, and I accept that you won't really notice this when you're on the ride. It's mainly when you're off the ride that you notice it. I also noticed that some of the ride area fencing down by the billboard still looks quite temporary, which I'd also file under this category, but I accept that's a really pedantic one. This is probably going to sound very pedantic, and I apologise if it does, but I think that the design of the attraction leaves much to be desired in terms of viewpoints and interaction with those off-ride. Merlin coasters are normally quite good at considering this, but I think Minifigure Speedway's design does not give you much of a good off-ride view of the coasters from within the immediate vicinity. You can hardly see them from in the queue, with only a very brief glimpse of the tops of the lift hills being visible at the very beginning of the queue, and once you're off the ride, you're sort of underneath only a small part of the coasters, which makes things quite awkward from a photography and interaction standpoint and obscures much of the rides from spectator view. The best view you can get of the coasters is from quite far away in Duplo Valley. I concede that this could be in part due to the inherent nature of the rides being built on a hill, and this could just be me being weird, but it was just something I picked up on. Given that duelling coasters are quite good spectator pieces and often have good inherent visual appeal, I found this aspect all the more disappointing. Another pedantic criticism is that I'm not a fan of how the park don't let guests choose their side. Plenty of other parks with duelling coasters allow guests to pick a side without issues, and given that the queue even contains a flowchart encouraging riders to "pick their team" based on various questions, I am surprised that they don't allow people to pick. It does mean that guests may not get to experience both; I managed to experience both in only two rides, but that was through complete pot luck. Some may not be so lucky. Overall, then, I think Minifigure Speedway is a very solid investment for Legoland. The coasters are good fun and are exactly what Legoland needed; the park really needed a more thrilling family coaster than The Dragon, in my opinion, and the Minifigure Speedway coasters fit this niche like a glove! As much as I have my critiques of some of the thematic and visual aspects, I think the theme is also good fun, and I think the attraction is overall a very fun fit for the park and deserves to do well! Here are the photos I took of the attraction (I apologise for the lack of them and the vantage points... I feel this kind of reinforces my critique about the ride being weak for off-ride viewing):

I got some interesting throughput readings and operational insights from my recent visit to Thorpe Park, if anyone’s interested. Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains): 594pph (2 trains, 10th June 2024, average of 3) Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains): 1,067pph (2 trains, 10th June 2024, average of 8 ) Saw: The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars): 788pph (unknown number of cars, 10th June 2024, average of 8 ) Stealth (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 2 trains): 782pph (2 trains, 10th June 2024, average of 4) Note: There was an instance of guest faff on 1 or 2 of these readings, so a consistent figure may have been above 800pph without this. The dispatch time seemed to be 90s or a bit below when the ride was running smoothly. The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains): 1,063pph (2 trains, 10th June 2024, average of 6) In terms of some more general operational insights: Operations on Inferno were awesome. It was very rarely stacking, and stacking for only a short period when it did. It didn't stack on any of my 3 rides, anyway. Great job! Operations on The Swarm were also fantastic. The ride was frequently not stacking or stacking for only a very short period; on all 3 of my rides, it either didn’t stack or only stacked for a matter of around 10 seconds! I think Stealth could really do with a single rider queue or some means of filling empty seats. It seemed to really slow things down when the operators had to push down the restraint of an empty seat, what with how bulky those old Intamin OTSRs are. I noticed that operations on Saw were sometimes slowed down somewhat by holdups at the baggage hold, with the airgates occasionally being empty when a duo of cars turned up ready to load guests. Baggage holds normally improve throughputs substantially, but here, it oddly almost seemed to be taking away from the throughput (?). The pre-loading screens that the park have invested in currently seem a bit redundant, with nothing actually being shown on them. Overall, then, I’d say that operations at Thorpe Park were pretty good. The main weak link was Colossus, which returned a pretty weak figure, but I’ve long come to expect that from Colossus, and it’s understandable given the cramped and bulky nature of the ride vehicles and restraints. Inferno and Swarm had absolutely stellar operations, with little to no stacking being frequent, and Saw was also doing about as well as can be expected from a ride of that nature. I’ll be interested to see how Hyperia compares operationally whenever I eventually get on that!

I got a few interesting throughput readings and operational insights from my recent trip to Legoland Windsor, if anyone’s interested. Minifigure Speedway (Theoretical: Unknown): 825pph (2 sides each running 1 train, 9th June 2024, average of 2) The Dragon (Theoretical: Unknown): 555pph (unknown number of trains, 9th June 2024, average of 2) Note: While I do not know the exact number of trains The Dragon was running, I should note that there was occasionally a small gap in the station between a train leaving and the next entering, so I’d maybe take a stab at 2? I should caveat these numbers by saying that the averages are based off of a very limited number of readings due to either a very limited ability to consistently view the rides from their respective queue lines, me trying to conserve my phone battery or both. In terms of some more general operational insights: Flight of the Sky Lion seemed to be operating pretty slowly. There was only one staff member in charge of both batching the main queue and managing Fastrack/RAP, and things seemed to be moving pretty slowly as a result. The one staff member was working very hard, but I think they could maybe have used another. I did not get an exact timing, but at an uneducated guess, I’d take a stab at there being not much more than a cycle going every 10 minutes. As I say, that’s an uneducated guess from me, and it could absolutely be wrong, but things felt like they were moving slowly on there. On some rides, I noticed that the park weren’t filling empty seats. I can fully understand why they aren’t rigidly filling all empty seats, particularly given the demographic that visits Legoland, but on Ninjago, for instance, I got an entire 4-person car to myself when there was a 60+ minute queue of people behind me. Surely a group of 2 or 3 could have been batched next to me? In general, I think Legoland could do with some higher capacity rides. The queues often seemed to move quite slowly, and for some of the park’s more major rides, advertised queues were quite often approaching or over 60 minutes for much of the day. Minifigure Speedway is a start in this regard, with a throughput that definitely seemed improved on many of the park’s other rides, but similarly to Chessington, I think they could do with a few queue munchers. At least one new attraction that can get close to or exceed 1,000pph with relative ease would be good. For reference, the day of my visit was a Sunday in early June where the park closed at 5pm, so it wasn’t an especially peak day by any means. Overall, I’d say operations and throughputs at Legoland were somewhat slow. In many cases, the queues did seem to be moving quite slowly. How much of that was down to operations and how much of that was down to the intrinsic throughput of the rides, I don’t know, but many queues were quite slow, and I think the park could do with some higher throughput rides. Minifigure Speedway is certainly a start in this sense, though, and the operations on there seemed pretty good!