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Matt N

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Blog Entries posted by Matt N

  1. 28th March 2026: Alton Towers Day 2
    We (well, I for most of the day) had a second day on park today! Although the plan wasn’t to stay until dark today, I was still looking forward to another day on park getting some more rides in!

    Now before I get into the meat of today, I should preface that today was also the opening day of Bluey in CBeebies Land, which I hadn’t realised prior to booking. If you’re expecting a review, I’m afraid you will be disappointed; each to their own, but as Alton Towers is a non-trivial journey from the South for me and I only go a couple of times a season at most, I have better things to do with my time there than wait in an obscene queue for a kiddie coaster. I’ve previously ridden worse in terms of size than Bluey, but on short to walk-on queues. I’m not ruling out ever riding it, but Bluey stayed between 90 and 150 minutes all day from what I saw, so I did not partake in a ride on this particular occasion!

    Now I’ve got that out of the way, let me start the day. My mum fancied a quiet morning, so on her suggestion, I actually tried something I’ve never done to get to Alton before… I caught an Uber from the hotel in Uttoxeter! I was sceptical of how well this would work given the well documented rural nature of Alton Towers’ immediate surroundings, but it actually worked very well; the driver turned up within a few minutes, and I was at the park before 9am! This is definitely a way forward for if I ever go to the park with my parents again, I feel, and it has made me think that doing Towers alone without driving may be more achievable than I’d thought, particularly if I was willing to make a few sacrifices in terms of day length.

    Despite getting to the resort at 8:56, there was already a pretty considerable queue waiting to get into the plaza, and when I saw that this was the state of the plaza at 9:02, I had a feeling we were in for a busy day:

    After a bit of a countdown for the aforementioned Bluey opening, the turnstiles were opened at 9:30 or so, and I went against the grain and headed to Dark Forest for my first ride…
    Rita
    I have always favoured Dark Forest as a morning starting point at Alton Towers, and on this particular occasion, I felt very vindicated in this, as while hordes of people were heading to CBeebies and a fair few were heading towards the likes of Wicker Man and Smiler, I was one of only 3 people within my line of vision heading into Dark Forest, and when walking speed was taken into account, I was only the 2nd person in line for Rita prior to opening! I had hoped that this would put me in good stead to be on the front row of the first train of the day, and while Fastrack or Ride Access Pass unfortunately took front row on the first train, I got front row on the second, so I can’t moan too much! So, how was this morning ride on Rita? Well, I thought it was absolutely cracking! These Intamin hydraulic launch coasters really shine on the front row, in my opinion, and this morning’s ride on Rita was no exception, with the ride packing a sensational sense of speed throughout! For all its flaws and the flack it receives, I do really like Rita; it was certainly a good way to start the day:



    After I got off, nothing else within a reasonable walking distance was open and Rita was only on an advertised 15 minute queue, so I went for another ride! The queue took more like 35 minutes, but my row 8 reride was good fun just as the previous one had been; while the back lacks the sense of speed of the front, and I would definitely favour the front on Rita if I were choosing, I thought some of the airtime felt a bit more potent further back on the train!

    After my reride on Rita, I decided to join the pre-queue for the other coaster in the area…
    Thirteen
    It was nearing 11am, so as reliability was still patchy elsewhere due to weather, I decided to wait a few minutes for the opening of Thirteen while I was in Dark Forest. The ride opened on a queue that was advertised at 60 minutes by the time I reached the entrance, but I decided to use my secret weapon… the single rider queue! This worked in my favour, as I managed to get batched into row 7 within 20 minutes; I can never complain about that! Operations were also awesome on here, with 3 trains running and dispatch intervals of less than a minute at points! So, how was the ride? Well, as it was yesterday, the ride was great fun, with smooth tracking and some good pops of airtime during the outdoor section and an indoor section that’s always a laugh! I was sat next to a woman on my ride today who’d never ridden before, and when she asked me “is there a loop on this one?” and then uttered “thank god for that” when I said no, I did have to stifle a chuckle when I thought of the impending surprises that were to come… she then proceeded to scream her head off throughout the ride and the indoor section and asked me in a horrified voice “is it over?” when we hit the final brake run! I always love riding Thirteen next to people who’ve never ridden it before… that indoor section is still surprising plenty of people 16 years on:
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/r2mQJ04k/IMG-1688.jpg[/img]
    After I got off Thirteen, a lot of things either weren’t open or had extremely long queues. I initially scoped out the advertised 95 minute queue for my on-park favourite Wicker Man, but it looked at least as long as advertised if not longer, so I changed course and ambled steadily over to Forbidden Valley, riding a near-guaranteed short queue on the way there…
    The Curse at Alton Manor
    Curse was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so I decided to take a ride on there. The queue for this was coming out of the house and almost into the extended queue, which is probably the longest I’ve waited for it; I think it might be the first time I’ve ever seen the full pre-show while waiting! However, the queue moved quickly and took 10 minutes, as advertised. So, how was the ride? Well, I do really like Curse; I think it’s a big improvement on Duel, and it has grown on me as time has gone on. It’s very atmospheric and has lots of really nice scenery and effects, and it’s also very cohesive in a way that Duel never was! It was also a very good run on here today effects-wise, with practically everything of note working! Overall, then, Curse was a nice way to break up the coastering; if nothing else, the short queue and some time indoors were appreciated on a day where the feels like temperature was billed at -4°C:
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/5g591cmS/IMG-1691.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/wr7CkzZc/IMG-1689.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/ccX0Gbry/IMG-1690.jpg[/img]
    After Curse, I ambled over to Forbidden Valley to ride another coaster…
    Nemesis Reborn
    Nemesis was on an advertised 80 minute queue, but as it never seems to get an overly long queue, I had my suspicions it may not be 80 minutes. And even if it was, I figured that of all the long queues on park, Nemesis was probably the least arduous to be in, with it being an interesting queue line with lots to look at and also a fast-moving queue too, so I decided to take a ride on there. My suspicion of 80 minutes being overstated was correct, but perhaps not quite as correct as I’d hoped, with the queue still taking 65 minutes. However, it moved quickly due to relatively good operations, so it could have been worse! So, how was the ride? Well, it was excellent; while not quite as good as the night ride yesterday, that layout always packs a punch! I always find Nemesis a really exciting coaster in terms of pacing, with the first few elements being brilliantly structured, but the ride also regaining pace quite nicely with that final inversion at the end! Today’s ride maybe had a slightly more noticeable vibration than yesterday’s, but even still, I maintain having now had a double-figure number of rides on the retracked version that the much-discussed rattle is an entirely benign sensation and does not affect my enjoyment at all. It’s more of an odd noise than anything that actually impedes enjoyment for me! All in all, then, I loved my ride on Nemesis; it’s an absolutely fantastic coaster that’s definitely among my top 3 on park, and I also think that the revamp gave it a brilliant new lease of life:
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/7tx5hwhP/IMG-1694.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/yF52Nz7z/IMG-1693.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/zHnwVvy0/IMG-1692.jpg[/img]
    After I got off Nemesis, I met up with my mum, who entered the park while I was in the queue. We headed down to Wicker Man, which was reopening from some downtime when we got there. I originally joined the advertised 70 minute queue for a final ride, but after 45 minutes had passed, the ride went down for a weather delay. As I knew my mum was keen to get home, I hadn’t even reached the queue line shop after 45 minutes (the queue was moving oddly slowly despite the ride dispatching quicker than yesterday, if anything), and it was frankly cold as anything and starting to hail, I decided to bail out of the queue at that point and meet back up with my mum:
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/YF1bbzSy/IMG-1695.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/6R3rywwT/IMG-1696.jpg[/img]
    [img]https://I.ibb.co/7tcKdNyK/IMG-1697.jpg[/img]
    As it was past 2pm at that point and my mum was keen to get home, we slowly made our way out of the park. I did catch a brief glimpse of Bluey as I walked out, and while I didn’t partake in a ride, it looks nicely done and bigger than I expected!

    So, that wraps up the second Alton Towers day of the trip! I must admit that this maybe wasn’t my best ever day at Alton, but they can’t change the weather and I also acknowledge that attending on the opening day of a new roller coaster, whether intentional or not, may not be the best idea. And besides, there was plenty of fun had today; the two Dark Forest coasters were good, as were Nemesis and Curse! I would have liked that ride on Wicker Man at the end to seal the deal, but I did ride it twice yesterday, so it’s not exactly devastating that I wasn’t able to ride today. I always like a trip up to Alton regardless, and this has been a good and roundly successful trip! I don’t think 13 rides across 2 (or maybe more like 1.5) days is a bad effort myself; I was pleased to get on all operating coasters of interest at least once across the weekend, and some rerides were had too, which is never a bad thing! Not to mention, I managed to get those all-important night rides on Nemesis and Wicker Man, which were awesome!

    Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report! My next report will be on 12th April, when I head to Adventure Island in Southend for my first ever visit. I’ll be interested to see a new UK park and get on the likes of Rage for the first time!
  2. 11th September 2024: PortAventura Park Day 2 and Ferrari Land
    We had our second day today! Today, we headed back into PortAventura Park for another day of fun, and also headed into Ferrari Land to get on Red Force for the first time!
     
    Similarly to yesterday, we entered via the Gold River hotel entrance at a bit before 10am. It looked a little busier here today, and I did have some trepidation about whether it could be busy due to it apparently being a public holiday in Catalonia today, but we decided to initially try the park without Express once again and see how it went:


    We decided to tackle the park in a slightly different manner today, starting in China to knock off Shambhala and Dragon Khan early. As much as doing Uncharted first yesterday got us on the ride with a short wait compared to anything we saw at other points in the trip, we did note that as per the app, we ended up missing half an hour of Shambhala and Dragon Khan being incredibly quiet, so we thought that we should take advantage of that today…
    Shambhala
    Shambhala only had a very short pre-queue, so we decided to ride that first. This proved a good decision, as we only waited around 5 minutes for it; you can never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front part of the very back car, and it was sublime once again; you really feel the pull over the first drop and the hills in the back, the airtime is sublime, the speed is sublime, and everything about it is just wonderful! You’ve undoubtably heard me rhapsodise about Shambhala enough by now, so I’ll end my take there:



    After our ride on Shambhala, me and my mum headed to the other Chinese coaster…
    Dragon Khan
    Dragon Khan was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a go. This queue was if anything overstated, as we only waited 5 minutes for it; I would never complain about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in an outer seat on row 2, and similarly to yesterday, it was not a bad ride at all! It was maybe fractionally rougher than it was yesterday, but still nothing too bad overall, and the layout is excellent on there, with some brilliant inversions and great forces! My mum was not a massive fan, although that perhaps isn’t overly surprising given that she also doesn’t like things like Nemesis and Kraken:

    After Dragon Khan, I went in the single rider queue for another reride on Shambhala. I waited 40 minutes (exactly the same as the advertised queue time) and got dead centre in the train that time, but it was still sublime, and I noticed that you got stronger force going up into the hills sitting a bit further towards the front!
     
    I then met back up with my mum and dad, and we headed into SesamoAventura, an area we only briefly walked through yesterday, and did something a little more unique to our trip…
    Sesame Street: Street Mission
    Street Mission was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so we decided to take a ride on there. The queue time board was true to its word, as we waited exactly 20 minutes; it’s always quite satisfying when these things are bang on the nose! So, how was the ride? Well, I went in with somewhat low expectations and was unsure of what to expect other than that it was an interactive dark ride themed to Sesame Street… but this possibly ended up being the biggest positive surprise of the trip so far! Street Mission was an absolutely fantastic dark ride! The 3D technology worked very well and the screens were excellent, but there was also an abundance of physical theming that was blended in seamlessly with the screens, the simulator section at the end was excellent, and overall, it was just such a fun and well executed dark ride! Overall, we all thoroughly enjoyed Street Mission, and I’d go out on a limb and say that it’s my favourite interactive dark ride I’ve done (yes, I would even say that it beats out Men in Black at Universal); it was fantastic, and such a positive surprise! We’ve even talked about possibly doing it again tomorrow:



    After Street Mission, we further explored SesamoAventura, and as it was on a short queue, me and my mum did another ride to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters…
    Tami Tami
    Now as I don’t generally ride kiddie coasters, I was not originally expecting to do Tami Tami, but it was on an advertised 10 minute queue time, and it honestly didn’t look too embarrassing in person (it looked big enough to possibly qualify as a “family coaster” rather than a kiddie coaster), so me and my mum went to give it a go. The 10 minute advertised queue time was if anything overstated, with the queue taking more like 5 minutes, and we were on the ride within only a train or two’s wait. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the back row, and for a smaller coaster, it actually wasn’t half bad, with some good bits of speed! These coasters are what they are, but some of the turns were surprisingly good fun for a smaller coaster! Overall, then, Tami Tami wasn’t a bad kiddie/family coaster at all, and better than we were expecting; it did feel good to get the clean sweep of PortAventura Park’s coasters:


    After Tami Tami, we headed over to Mexico to do an attraction me and my dad had already done yesterday…
    El Diablo
    El Diablo was on an advertised 20 minute queue time, so as my mum hadn’t done it and me and my dad thought that she might like it, we decided to take a ride on there. The queue moved quite quickly, with the ride attaining a decent throughput of around 1,000pph or slightly under, and we were on within 15 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in the front row, and similarly to yesterday, it was quite a fun mine train coaster with some fun bits of speed, albeit it was perhaps a tad jerkier than it seemed yesterday:

    After El Diablo, we went for some lunch before my mum and dad left me to my own devices in the park for a bit before we entered Ferrari Land in the evening. As we’d eaten lunch in Meditarranea and it was on a relatively short queue, I decided to take a ride on…
    Furius Baco
    Furius Baco was on an advertised main queue time of 30 minutes, but as the single rider queue looked better than it had yesterday, I decided to chance that today. It ultimately took around 25 minutes, which I don’t think is too bad given some of the queue times I had seen for the ride at points. So, how was the ride? Well, I was once again seated in an inner seat in row 4, albeit on the right side rather than the left this time, and my thoughts were very similar to yesterday. The launch is excellent, but I’m not a massive fan of it as it’s pretty rough; however, it was not quite as bad as some of my worst fears and it wasn’t quite rough enough to be in contention for my “worst coaster ever” like I know it is for some. I have only ridden it in the inner seats, however:


    After my ride on Furius Baco, I decided to hot foot it back towards the back of the park, taking a ride on another coaster with a short queue on my way there…
    Stampida
    Stampida was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to have a go on there. I picked the Red side, and the queue time board was true to its word, with me queueing exactly 10 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6, and similarly to yesterday, I’m afraid I wasn’t the biggest lover of Stampida; the ride was pretty rough, and it also had very uncomfortable lap bar restraints that really dug in and constrained any kind of airtime potential:



    After my ride on Stampida Red, I made a beeline for Mexico, as Hurakan Condor, which had spent pretty much all of my time at PortAventura on a ridiculous queue, was advertising only a 10 minute wait. When I joined, however, it became abundantly clear that this queue was longer than 10 minutes, and while I initially stuck it out thinking that the queue didn’t look too long, I decided to bail after 15 minutes of practically no movement:


    After bailing on Hurakan Condor, I decided to head to Shambhala for another single rider queue reride. I waited marginally longer than the advertised queue time this time, waiting 35 minutes compared to an advertised 30 for the main queue, but when I got on, I scored the front car this time. Shambhala on the front was phenomenal, and possibly one of the best rides yet; the unencumbered sense of speed felt slightly stronger up front, and the sensation of getting pushed up into the hills was sublime:


    After my reride on Shambhala, the single rider queue was unfortunately too long for me to have another reride and get back to meet my parents in time. As such, I instead decided to check out Hurakan Condor again, but the advertised queue time was back up to 1h 20m, so I gave it a miss for today and instead rerode El Diablo on a 10 minute advertised queue time as I was walking by. I was seated in row 3 this time, and it was similar to earlier:

    After getting off El Diablo, I pondered doing a reride on Dragon Khan on my way back to Meditarranea to meet up with my parents, but it was already approaching 4:30pm, so I thought that the queue looked a tad too long for me to be able to ride it and walk back to meet my parents by our agreed meet up time of 4:45pm. As such, I decided to just steadily walk back to Meditarranea and close off my day at PortAventura Park there:

    That was not quite the end of the day, however… when I met back up with my parents, we went to head into Ferrari Land for our one visit of this trip. We were at the entrance a little before the opening time of 5pm, so we had to wait for a bit before they opened the gates:


    When we headed into Ferrari Land, we decided to join the masses and head into the pre-opening queue for…
    Red Force
    Red Force had a modest, albeit not small, pre-opening queue by the time we reached it, so as it was the primary draw of the park for us, we decided to join it and wait for the ride to open. We initially felt quite good about our prospects, as we were ahead of much of the pre-queue… but the ride unfortunately failed to open at the park opening time of 5pm. It was inactive for a while due to a technical fault, and 1h 10m of additional waiting passed before they started sending test trains around and a full 1.5 hours of additional waiting passed before the ride actually started operating with people on board at 6:30pm.  On a side note, I got to see them manually push the train slowly up the launch track and manually pull it slowly back along it, which I’ve never seen before; that was interesting, if nothing else:

    Once the ride opened, we ultimately waited around 35 minutes for it, which we didn’t think was too bad given that the back of the queue when the ride opened was pegged at 1h 30m. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 2, and it was an absolutely fantastic coaster; it was incredibly fast with a phenomenal sense of speed, and it had some great airtime at the top of the top hat! I also felt that the overhead lap bars were much more comfortable than the old Intamin OTSRs! However, if I’m being totally honest… I perhaps controversially prefer Stealth, and given that Red Force is the tallest and fastest coaster I’ve ridden by quite some margin, I was maybe expecting a tad more. The launch was a bit rattly towards the end, notably more so than on Stealth, but the main critique I had is that I think this ride style does miss a little something without the hydraulic launch. Red Force is undeniably a very fast coaster and provides an awesome sense of speed, but without the rapid acceleration of the hydraulic launch, I almost felt that the ride didn’t feel quite as fast as it actually was. Nonetheless, Red Force was still an absolutely fantastic coaster that I loved, and I’m very glad I got to ride it (I was honestly slightly doubtful that I would even get to ride in the initial moments of our Ferrari Land visit):



    After getting off Red Force, the ride had a 1.5 hour advertised queue and my parents had booked an evening dinner reservation in the hotel for later, so any notion of reriding it went out of the window. As such, I instead decided to try…
    Thrill Towers
    Thrill Towers was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so being a fan of a good drop tower, I decided to have a ride on there. The queue ultimately only took 20 minutes, as a second tower that was initially closed reopened while I was in the queue; you can never moan about that! But how was the ride? Well, I was allocated the shot tower side, and it was good fun, with a fun launch and some fun floaty airtime, but I think I’ve ridden better examples of the genre elsewhere:

    After I got off Thrill Towers, I met back up with my parents. I pondered doing something else, but our evening dinner reservation was looming, and Flying Dreams had a queue too long for us to ride it and get back to the hotel in time for dinner, Racing Legends was broken, and Red Force also had a queue too long for us to feasibly reride it, so we decided to call it a day there and head back to our hotel. Interestingly, we walked past the main entrance to PortAventura, which we hadn’t properly encountered previously:


    So, that just about wraps up our second day at PortAventura Park and our visit to Ferrari Land! I had a great day; PortAventura Park once again delivered, with Shambhala rerides being sublime, surprises like Street Mission being awesome, and the park generally being wonderful, and it was great to get into Ferrari Land and ride Red Force! Crowd levels also weren’t nearly as high as I’d feared despite it being a public holiday in Catalonia; I didn’t feel that the crowd levels and queues were an awful lot different to yesterday, and I was still perfectly fine without any form of Express Pass.
     
    In terms of Ferrari Land; I admit that my experience there was probably discoloured by waiting an extra 1.5 hours for Red Force to open and not spending an awful lot of time in there, but my opinions on it are very, very mixed. What’s there is excellent; Red Force is an absolutely superb headline coaster, and there’s also some lovely theming throughout the park. However… there frankly isn’t nearly enough of it. Ferrari Land is a very small park, and with only one real headline attraction, I think it is much too small for a stand-alone theme park; Red Force is basically the sole noteworthy attraction. It would have worked far better as an additional themed area of the main park, in my view. I also take issue with the way in which it is operated in some regards. I think the model of opening it in the evening from 5pm-10pm, while a nice idea on paper, causes issues because it causes practically everyone in the resort to converge on Red Force at once when the main park closes, which makes the queues for it very long and means that it struggles to handle the demand.  I also take issue with you only being allowed one visit to Ferrari Land in the package holiday deals; I feel that it would work better if they operated an unlimited 2-park park hopper ticket, similar to what Universal does, as then you could mix and match PortAventura Park and Ferrari Land more freely. Nonetheless, Red Force is excellent, and the park has some nice thematic foundations, so if PortAventura can expand and develop it in the years to come, many of these points will become moot.
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this report! Tomorrow, we’ll be heading into PortAventura Park for our final day there before heading home, so keep your eyes peeled for that report!

  3. Thorpe Park 10th September 2022

    Thorpe Park · Matt N · 09/10/22 10:05 PM

    Hi guys. Today was, interestingly, my first visit to Thorpe Park of the season; by my usual standards, September is quite late in the season for me to be visiting Thorpe for the first time! Today was also the return of my solo theme park tripping; as with last September, my parents’ love of professional golf was greatly useful, as they were going to watch the championship at Wentworth and offered to drop me at Thorpe for the day.
     
    We left early and made very good time; entry was very prompt, and I was in well before opening:




    Once the park opened, I headed to my first ride…
    Nemesis Inferno
    Nemesis Inferno was on a walk-on queue, so I decided to start my day there. As promised by the queue times board, it was deserted and I waltzed straight onto the second train of the day; always a bonus! So how was the ride? Well, I was seated on the outer seat of the back row, and I’ve got to say that it was absolutely brilliant! It was glass smooth, had just the right amount of force, had great pacing, and was an overall awesome coaster; having ridden the original Nemesis at Alton Towers a month ago, I perhaps controversially prefer its Thorpe Park sibling, and by a fair bit. I should also add that the operations were awesome on this run, with no stacking whatsoever! All in all, Inferno was fantastic, and a brilliant way to start the day:



    After Nemesis Inferno, I decided to try another ride nearby…
    Detonator
    Detonator was on an advertised walk-on queue, so I decided to take a ride. The ride was very quiet as promised; I only waited one cycle! But how was the ride? Well, it was absolutely fantastic! Even though I’m not generally a huge lover of flat rides, a glaring exception to that is drop towers; I can’t get enough of a good drop tower, and Detonator stacks up very well against others in the genre for me! In spite of it not being the tallest drop tower in the world, that drop is phenomenally punchy! One interesting thing that was also happening today was that the ride host appeared to be overriding the regular ride soundtrack and doing their own spiel, holding us up there for quite some time; it almost reminded me of HangOver at HPWW! Overall, though, Detonator was very good; I thoroughly enjoyed it:


    After Detonator, I went to do another coaster…
    Stealth
    Stealth was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride. It took slightly longer than this in reality, taking more like 30 minutes. So, how was the ride? Well I’ve got to say that it was absolutely fantastic! I was seated in row 5, and the launch hit just as well as it ever does, the airtime was brilliant, and the ride also seemed a fair amount smoother than it was last year; it seemed really quite jolty at times last year, but it wasn’t overly rough at all today, which made it a fair amount more enjoyable for me! Overall, Stealth was awesome today, and has definitely shot up a fair bit for me:



    After Stealth, I headed down towards Old Town to go on another coaster…
    Saw The Ride
    Saw was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so I decided to head over there and have a go on it. The advertised queue time absolutely skyrocketed before too long; it had hit 60 minutes by the time I reached the ride, and it quickly hit 120 minutes shortly after I joined the queue. However, I had a secret weapon up my sleeves… the newly added single rider queue! As anyone who’s read my recent Alton Towers trip reports will know, the single rider queue on The Smiler has been a very useful asset to me in terms of reducing queue time, so I was intrigued to see what it would do on Saw, particularly with a 120 minute queue time. It wasn’t quite as much of a remarkable silver bullet as Smiler’s, as I waited 40 minutes, but in fairness, I did only queue for 1/3 of the advertised main queue time, which I can’t really complain about! But how was the ride? Well, Saw isn’t really a favourite of mine, and today wasn’t too much of an exception, but in all fairness, my front outer seat ride was not exactly the worst ride I’ve ever had on Saw by any stretch. The first drop jolt got me pretty badly, and the ending was pretty rough, but the ride wasn’t too terrible other than those two sections. One thing I must commend about Saw that I’ve never really noticed before is that the ride actually has quite a bit of airtime; I can think of at least 3 pretty strong pops on there, and that drop off the MCBR gives off considerable shades of Silver Star! In reality, it is probably one of the strongest coasters for airtime in the UK, in my opinion; it’s a shame it’s so rough in places, as I think I’d really like it if it were smoother:


    After Saw, I decided to break up the coastering with a flat ride…
    Rush
    Rush was on an advertised queue time of 40 minutes, so I decided to have a ride on there. This ended up being pretty accurate; always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I may have talked above about drop towers being an exception to me not generally being a huge flat ride fan, but Screamin’ Swings are another notable exception; I really enjoy Rush, and today’s ride was no exception! I really like the gorgeous pops of floaty airtime at the top of each peak, there’s a great sense of speed in each trough, and it’s also nice and thrilling without being overly intense, which always gets me on side! Overall, Rush was great fun; it’s always a ride I thoroughly enjoy, and today was no exception! Perhaps controversially, I'd take it over either of the gyroswings I've ridden any day of the week, and it's not even close for me:


    After Rush, I had a reride on Nemesis Inferno, as it had a mere 40 minute queue. I was seated in row 2 this time, and it was every bit as good as earlier; Inferno is just an incredibly solid ride, in my opinion, and really good fun! It’s definitely one that has considerably grown on me over the years:


    After Inferno, I sat down to eat my packed lunch on a bench near to Derren Brown’s Ghost Train, timing the throughput of Detonator as I ate (I had a very good vantage point!).
     
    After that, I took a bit of a walk to my next ride…
    The Swarm
    The Swarm was on an advertised 40 minute queue time, so I decided to have a go on it. This queue ultimately ended up taking a bit longer, taking close to an hour in the end. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and I’m sad to say that while enjoyable, it was probably one of the weakest rides I’ve had on Swarm. I like Swarm, don't get me wrong, but I don't really love it any more like I used to, and I think today's ride reinforced that. It is a slightly frustrating one for me these days; there are still many elements of it that I absolutely adore, but there are a few niggles that do take away from it a fair bit for me these days. The first is its smoothness; this wasn't too much of an issue today, as the ride was fairly smooth on my inner seat ride, but it's definitely not the glossy smooth ride it once was, and I've had outer seat rides that were really quite bumpy. The second is the fact that I always grey out for several seconds on the helix over the water when I never used to; I know that some people like this, so I'm probably being overly picky, but I don't personally find it an overly pleasant sensation, and it does take away from my enjoyment of the ride somewhat for me. The third, and to be honest probably the main one, is the vest restraints. I used to really like them when I was young, but I'm afraid to say I'm not particularly fond of them at all anymore, and they do detract from the ride a fair amount for me. I'm not personally a fan of how rigid they are and how much they tighten during the ride; they seemed to particularly detract today, even taking some of the sting out of that awesome final inversion. It's a real shame, as Swarm was my first real Thorpe Park love; it spent a 2 year stint as my number 1 coaster of all time (yes, had I joined the forums prior to riding Mako at SeaWorld Orlando in 2016, Swarm would have been the coaster I'd have gushed about endlessly!), and it's also my most ridden coaster of all time outside of Alton Towers (some of those Towers classics are in another league of ridership numbers, really...). And there are still many elements I really love about it; the sense of speed, particularly on that first drop, is absolutely phenomenal, and that last heartline roll over the station is just absolutely sublime! Overall, while my ride on Swarm was still enjoyable, I'm afraid to say that it fell a bit flat compared to some of my phenomenal experiences on it in the past. I know I probably come across very picky here, so I apologise for being overly harsh, but I cannot lie about my own thoughts:



    After my ride on Swarm, I headed for a reride on Stealth at an advertised 50 minute queue, which ended up being closer to 70 in reality. I was once again seated in row 5, and it was just as fantastic as it had been earlier; Stealth really was riding excellently today, and I've really fallen back in love with it! I really need to get back on the front row at some point... my one experience of the front row, in 2020, sticks out in my mind as being my most enjoyable ride on Stealth by a fair margin:

    After my ride on Stealth, I headed down to Lost City to ride...
    Colossus
    Colossus was on an advertised 50 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. Now anyone who has read my posts for a while will know that I do not hold much love for Colossus, but by this point it was one of the shorter advertised queues on park, and I also hadn't done it yet today, so I thought it might be worth giving it a spin. This turned out to be a slightly poor choice... because the queue ultimately took 110 minutes, meaning that I waited nearly 2 hours for Colossus and ultimately frittered away any opportunities to ride anything else today (I joined the queue at about 4:15pm, and by the time I exited the ride at about 6:05pm, I had to dash back to my parents in the drop off zone). Ah well; it can't be helped, and I'm sure that the ride staff were certainly trying their darnedest to shift the near 2 hour queue! But how was Colossus? Well, I'm afraid to say that I didn't enjoy the ride at all; I was seated in row 10, and it was incredibly rough and uncomfortable; I got very sore ears and a properly good headache out of the experience. I also find the cars/restraints extremely uncomfortable, and I'm not a fan of the consecutive series of slow heartline rolls. On the plus side, I think the layout of the first half is quite strong, and I did get a very, very slight tickle of airtime on the ride's airtime hill, which I've never had before! Overall, though, I do not find Colossus enjoyable at all; it's definitely one of my all time least favourite coasters. I apologise if that comes across harsh, as I know some of my reasons for disliking it are very picky, but I feel like honesty is the best policy when it comes to my opinions on these things:


    After Colossus, it was just gone 6pm and my parents were waiting in the drop off zone, so my day ended there:

    I had to rush out pretty abruptly, as I was informed that my parents only had 9 minutes left in the drop off zone... after I reached the car park, we all headed home.
     
    So, that sums up my day at Thorpe Park! I had a really good day; I was very pleased with my ride count of 9, and it was great to get back on some of my favourites! Inferno was awesome, Stealth was great, Detonator was fantastic, Rush was really fun, Swarm was good... there were loads of really good rides today! Thorpe is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, and today was no exception; I had a great day!
     
    Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed my report from Thorpe Park! That's probably going to be my final trip report of the 2022 season (I don't see myself going anywhere else this year), so... trip reports wise, I guess I'll see you in 2023!
  4. 8th August 2022: Alton Towers Day 2
    We had our second day at the park today! Staying in the hotel naturally gave us an advantage, and I had a particular advantage this morning as I headed in alone at about 9:15, therefore I had plenty of time to get to my first ride of the day. That hotel entrance remained a phenomenal secret weapon as it had been the previous day:

    If you’ve read many of my Alton Towers trip reports before, you’ll know that a common strategy of mine when greeted with a pre-opening Alton Towers is to start in Dark Forest and ride Rita first thing. It’s at the back of the park, but also has low capacity and often holds a substantial queue later on, so getting it done early eliminates a substantial amount of waiting. I attempted to implement this strategy once again, but sadly, Rita was experiencing difficulties, and I was informed by the ride host that it would be opening late:


    With this in mind, I instead decided to get in a pre-opening queue nearby:

    This queue was for…
    Thirteen
    Thirteen’s pre-opening queue appeared quite long, but I thought I might as well join it seeing as I was in Dark Forest and it was the only other ride I could start on in that area. Thankfully, this queue was not nearly as long as it initially appeared, only taking around 15 minutes. So, how was Thirteen? Well, I was seated in row 4, and it was really good fun just as it had been yesterday; in fact, it seemed a bit more fun today, with a little bit more airtime in the outdoor section:

    After Thirteen, I retried the other coaster in the area…
    Rita
    Rita was on an advertised 10 minute queue, so I decided to give it a ride while in the area. Rita was the only one of the big 7 I hadn’t ridden yesterday, so I was looking forward to giving it a go. So, how was the ride? Well, it was pretty good fun; perhaps controversially, I do really enjoy Rita! I was seated in the back row today, and while it had a little bit of a rattle, this was certainly not a deal breaker, and the ride sensations themselves seemed awesome today; the airtime over the first twisted hill was unbelievable, and the pacing was absolutely turbocharged throughout! Overall, Rita was good fun today, and I’m definitely glad I gave it a ride:

    After Rita, we headed over to another coaster elsewhere that had a short queue…
    Oblivion
    Oblivion had an advertised queue time of 0 minutes, and we thought that this was an opportunity far too good to pass up! As promised, the queue was very short indeed, and strong operations on 2 stations meant that we were on the ride in very little time at all! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was absolutely cracking; the speed was exceptional, the ride was smooth, and a loose OTSR made for some excellent airtime! I do love Oblivion, and today’s ride was very fun indeed:


    After Oblivion, I split off from my parents and tried the other coaster in the area…
    The Smiler
    Even though The Smiler was on an advertised 100 minute queue and I’m not its biggest fan, I decided to give it a go for one reason; that single rider queue! I know I’ve talked about it a lot lately, but the SRQ really is a game changer on this ride, and I’m far more tempted to give Smiler a go if I can get on it in very little time. I must say that “how much queueing time can I shave off by using Smiler’s SRQ?” is becoming an increasingly fun game, and it was one that very much worked in my favour today, as I only waited around 15 minutes in spite of the 100 minute advertised queue time! So, how was the ride? Well, I’ll afraid to say it wasn’t that pleasant for me at all; I was seated in row 3, and I’m afraid it seemed to give me an incredibly thorough bashing today compared to yesterday’s ride. I came off with an incredibly sore neck and a definite headache:


    After Smiler, we headed towards the lakeside. Me and my mum had drinks and ice cream while my dad attempted to get a hole in one on the £1000 golf challenge… he sadly couldn’t win £1000 on this occasion. After that, we initially headed to Wicker Man, but the queue time had risen to 80 minutes by the time we got there, so this plan was quickly foiled.
     
    We instead decided to head over and ride…
    Galactica
    Galactica was on only a 20 minute advertised queue, so we thought we’d have a ride. I’m not sure the queue even took that long, to be honest; it was very quick, which is a definite bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and it was actually quite similar to yesterday’s; not my favourite ride on park, but smooth and actually not too bad at all, all things considered:


    After Galactica, we decided to try the other coaster in the area…
    Nemesis
    Nemesis was on an advertised 30 minute queue time, so we decided to give it a ride. The queue was stretching a fair amount into the extensions, so I did wonder if this was a bit understated, and it did ultimately take about 45 minutes. But how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and it was pretty good, although it seemed a little bit rougher than it did yesterday:



    After Nemesis, we headed back to a ride we’d tried to do earlier…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on an advertised 45 minute queue time, so we decided to take advantage of the substantial drop compared to earlier. I initially thought that this was somewhat overstated, as it only took us 30 minutes to reach the baggage hold and the waiting area for the pre-show, but the advertised time turned out to be fairly accurate, as it somehow took us 15 minutes to get through the pre-show area and queue through the station. Anyway, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 6, and it was phenomenal; fast, airtime-filled, and overall very fun and rerideable! As I said yesterday, Wicker Man always delivers for me, and is definitely a coaster that I like an awful lot more than I think I probably should:

    After Wicker Man, we had time for one final ride…
    Runaway Mine Train
    Runaway Mine Train was on an advertised 30 minute queue, and we hadn’t ridden it yet this trip, so we decided to have a go on it. The queue initially didn’t look too long, but looks were a bit deceiving here, as I later ascertained that the entire queue was open, and it ended up taking 45 minutes. Anyway; how was the ride? Well, we were seated in row 16, and it was good fun; even though it’s on the less intense end of the spectrum, RMT is a good bit of light hearted fun that never fails to put a smile on my face! It’s a definite guilty pleasure of mine; the intensity of that helix into the tunnel never fails to surprise me:

    After our ride on Runaway Mine Train, it was past 3pm, so we thought it was a good time to head back home.
     
    So, that concludes our 2 day trip to Alton Towers! I had a great time; even though my last visit was a mere 2 months ago, I do always enjoy a trip there, and it was great to get back on some of my favourites! It was also nice to stay in the Alton Towers Hotel again; I do always enjoy it there!
     
    Thanks for reading! I’m not sure where I’ll be reporting from next, but I know that a new trip report from me shouldn’t be too far away!
  5. 19th June 2022 (Alton Towers Day 1)
    Hi guys. After having started 2022 with some slightly more unusual (compared to what I usually visit, anyway) parks, I today returned to slightly more familiar turf; Alton Towers, my most visited theme park of all time! My mum found a very good deal on an Alton Towers Hotel stay, with 1 night in a standard room with park tickets only costing £107pp, so we thought it would be an absolute no brainer to go and spend 2 days at Alton Towers! Interestingly, my Nan has also joined us for her first Alton Towers trip in 3 years (she came with us in 2019), with a ride on Wicker Man in her sights after it was closed on her 2019 visit (it was one of her most anticipated rides after we’d hyped it up).
     
    We left Gloucestershire at around 7:30am, with us getting to the resort at a little after 10am. One key upshot of staying in a resort hotel was that we were able to walk in through the hotel guest entrance, which I have never done before! As such, we were in the park by 10:30am:


    After entering, we headed to our first ride…
    Galactica
    Galactica was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. Interestingly, this queue ended up being vastly overstated, as we waltzed straight into the station and only had a one cycle wait; always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I’ve got to say that Galactica isn’t my favourite coaster, as I find the flying position and some of the extended elements on your back that come with it a bit uncomfortable, but it didn’t seem quite as uncomfortable as my last ride was, for some reason, which was good. Also, we got front row, which is always a bonus! Overall, while not my favourite ride, Galactica was all right, and a good way to start the day:


    After Galactica, I tackled the other Forbidden Valley B&M…
    Nemesis
    Nemesis was on an advertised 5 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. The queue times board didn’t lie; it was a station wait! So, how was it? Well, I was seated in a row 3 outer seat, and it was good! Just the right amount of force, no headbanging; great stuff! There was a light rattle, but this was very negligible and had no major impact on enjoyment. Overall, it was a great ride:



    After that ride, I actually decided to go straight back round again for another ride on Nemesis; with a queue that short, it would have been rude not to! This time, I was seated in row 4 on an outer seat, and unfortunately, there was some headbanging present on 1 or 2 of the inversions, as well as a bit more of a judder than the last ride, which detracted from it a tad compared to last time. Still, this impact wasn’t major, and the ride was still very enjoyable!
     
    When all is said and done; as much as I don’t rate Nemesis nearly as highly as I know many do, and inverts aren’t as much my kind of thing as some other types of ride, it is a cracking coaster, and I’m very glad they’re saving it. Many of my niggles with Nemesis at this point are more signs of age than anything inherently wrong with the ride, which I’m hopeful the retrack might go some way towards rectifying. I look forward to seeing how it rides when it’s been retracked!
     
    After Nemesis, we met back up, and we headed over to…
    Duel
    Duel was nearby and on a walk-on queue, so we decided to give it a go. My mum tried to coax my Nan on Duel, but to no avail; my Nan refused to go in, so it was just me and my mum. Interestingly, the ride actually broke down for around 5 minutes shortly after we sat down in our vehicle. This meant that even when the ride did restart, we crawled through the initial scenes at a staggeringly slow pace, with the themed audio being replaced by a continuous loop of “please remain seated; the ride will restart shortly”, which made for an… interesting experience, to say the least; the themed audio didn’t start until a good couple of scenes in! So, how was the ride? Well, given that there has been a considerable amount of discussion online surrounding the ride’s future and the state that it is currently in, I was expecting it to be pretty awful, with a lot broken… but I didn’t think the ride looked nearly as bad as online comments suggest. Sure, it wasn’t working perfectly (a few targets were broken, and my mum’s blaster cut out halfway through the ride), and it is perhaps showing its age a tad now, but all of the main jumpscares were working, and overall, I thought it was a good, fun ride that still delivered on its intended theme and premise very well; my mum commented on how she thought it was surprisingly scary, so it’s clearly still delivering its punches! The breakdown also benefitted my score in an unexpected way due to the slower speed giving me more time to rack up points in the initial scenes; as such, I got a new personal best of 11,500:

    After Duel, we met back up with my Nan, and we headed on a little further to ride…
    Runaway Mine Train
    Runaway Mine Train was on an advertised 25 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. This ended up being pretty accurate, which is always good! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 10, and it was great fun! The ride kept up good speed throughout for a powered coaster, and that tunnel helix never disappoints! My Nan liked it as well; she commented on how “it’s faster than it looks”! Overall, I think RMT is a great, fun ride, and a definite guilty pleasure of mine; it’s definitely one of my favourite powered coasters, and a ride that definitely punches far above its weight in fun factor given its calibre, in my opinion:

    After Runaway Mine Train, we decided to head over to Mutiny Bay and warm up in Sharkbait Reef, as it was drizzling and getting surprisingly fresh at this point in the day given it’s the middle of June. It is a nice walkthrough to use as a 10 or 15 minute time killer; it’s well themed and has a surprising amount of animals in it:

    After Sharkbait Reef, we headed to a hotly anticipated ride…
    Wicker Man
    Wicker Man was on a 30 minute advertised queue, so we decided to give it a go. Now this was a hotly anticipated ride for everyone in our party; my mum and me, perhaps controversially, share it as a favourite ride on park, and my Nan was keen to ride after missing out on it on her 2019 visit; it was closed both days, and she’d been slightly bitter about it ever since! I was also very interested to ride Wicker Man again because since my last visit to Alton Towers, I have visited Europa Park and ridden Wodan, a larger GCI that really blew me away, so I was interested, and somewhat nervous, to see whether Wicker Man still held up for me. The queue time ended up being somewhat understated, with us ultimately waiting 45-50 minutes; the ride appeared to be struggling more than usual to maintain a consistent dispatch interval, and I think there may have been some form of reliability issues while we were waiting. Anyway, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 8, and I shouldn’t have been worried, because the ride was absolutely phenomenal; that was easily one of the best Wicker Man rides I’ve ever had! The ride was absolutely relentless, and had absolutely stacks of airtime; there were so many bits where I was hurled out of the seat brilliantly, and I wasn’t even on the back! The ride was brilliantly smooth as well, and really comfortable as woodies go; perhaps surprisingly given that I’ve now ridden Wodan, the ride honestly fared better in my memories than I’d remembered from my previous visit, and I’d genuinely say that there’s less of a gap between Wicker Man and Wodan than I’d previously thought! I’d still give Wodan the edge, as I think it does have slightly stronger airtime and a certain dementedness that Wicker Man can’t quite match, but there’s not tons in it by any means; Wicker Man was phenomenal, and my Nan thoroughly enjoyed it as well:



    After Wicker Man, we sat down and ate lunch for 20 minutes or so before I headed off to ride…
    Oblivion
    Oblivion was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. I split off to do this while my mum and Nan were finishing lunch, as my mum hates Oblivion with a passion and my Nan instantly ruled it out on the basis of how thrilling and intense it looked. The queue only took 15 minutes instead of 20, which was a definite bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, it was fantastic; I do absolutely love Oblivion, and today’s back row ride was no different; the sustained air off the drop was absolutely sublime, and the sense of speed in the tunnel was truly unrivalled! Not to mention, the bonus airtime pop into the brake run delivered a surprising amount as well! Overall, Oblivion was running very well indeed, and it truly cemented the ride’s high rating for me; I apologise if this is controversial, but it’s my favourite UK B&M:


    After Oblivion, I briefly met back up with my mum and Nan before once again splitting off to ride…
    The Smiler
    The Smiler was on an advertised 30 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. As I was riding alone, I decided to do something I’ve never done on Smiler before, and use a benefit very seldom seen at Merlin parks these days; I used the single rider queue! As such, I ended up halving the advertised queue time, only waiting 15 minutes as opposed to the advertised 30; great stuff! So, how was the ride? Well, I was situated in an outer seat on the front row, and I’m afraid it wasn’t one of the more pleasurable rides I’ve had on The Smiler. It did seem quite rough for a front row ride, with a fair few head bashing jolts, and when combined with the fact that the ride makes me feel somewhat strange anyway even when it’s riding smooth, it did leave me feeling a bit battered and bruised getting off. This might not have been helped by the fact that the restraint was surprisingly tight on my… sensitive area, and it got a proper walloping during one of the jolts, which did leave me feeling somewhat in pain getting off. Smiler is a ride I really want to like, and I do try to go on it with an open mind every time I ride it, as I do like the idea of the layout for what it is and I think it’s a very inspired piece of design, but I’m sorry to say that I never really warm to it, and that was exacerbated today with the fact it wasn’t overly comfortable either:



    After Smiler, I met back up with my mum and Nan, and we headed over to ride…
    Gangsta Granny: The Ride
    Gangsta Granny was on a 30 minute advertised queue, so we decided to give it a go. Me and my mum thought that Gangsta Granny was a ride that Nan might like, so we were intrigued to see her response. The queue didn’t look very long at all at first glance, but did end up taking the advertised 30 minutes, as it moved rather slowly; I did not time the throughput, but it can’t have been very high. So, how was the ride? Well, I really enjoyed it; I thought it was a very nice dark ride when I rode it in 2021, and I thought the same today; there’s some very nice physical set pieces and some very nice screens as well, and I do quite like the ride system! Nan liked it as well! On a side note, did it always have a bubble machine? I swear it didn’t have a bubble machine in 2021…:



    After Gangsta Granny, we headed over to Dark Forest to ride…
    Thirteen
    Thirteen was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. This wait time ended up being pretty accurate, which is always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 8, and I have to say that that might have been the best ride I’ve ever had on Thirteen; it was absolutely brilliant! Thirteen, while never devoid of it by any means, was never a ride that I would have described as having overly strong airtime. But today, there were 1 or 2 pops of airtime that properly yanked us out of our seats and properly surprised me! The first drop was excellent, with a brilliant pop of airtime that had me well out of my seat, and there was an airtime hill elsewhere in the outdoor section that really threw me up in the air, as well as the odd fun tickles of floater air that Thirteen has always been good at providing! The ride also had good intensity throughout both the outdoor and indoor sections, as well as impeccable smoothness and comfort! Not to mention, that drop track and backwards section were a great laugh as always! Overall, Thirteen was fantastic; it’s a ride that has grown on me a lot over the years, and today’s ride took it up another notch in my estimations. Yes, it might not be the most intense coaster, but it is brilliant fun; I have grown to like it a lot:


    After Thirteen, my mum and Nan were growing tired and headed on to the hotel room, leaving me to my own devices for the reminder of the day. As such, I then went and rode…
    Rita
    Rita was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so I decided to give it a go. The queue ended up being slightly longer than advertised, instead taking nearly 30 minutes, but this wasn’t really an issue; I was hardly pressed for time. So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 5, and it was good fun, although a touch more rattly than many of my recent rides, which detracted slightly. It must be said, though, that the ride remains a damn sight smoother and more enjoyable than I’d remembered it being in years gone by; the rattle that it had today was more a minor niggle than a true dealbreaker like its pre-2016 roughness used to be for me. And putting that aside, I actually think Rita has a surprising amount going for it. Yes, the layout isn’t the most interesting, but the launch is brilliantly punchy, the ride is fast paced, and an often overlooked element of Rita that I think really delivers is its airtime. There are 2 or 3 legitimately strong moments of ejector airtime, and even though the ride has OTSRs, these still deliver! Overall, I had a good, fun ride on Rita; yes, the rattle detracted a tad for me today, but I still really enjoyed it overall, and I think it gets a very unfair amount of criticism, myself:

    After Rita, I went for a walk-on reride on Oblivion. I was once again seated in the back row, and it was once again awesome, with some biblical sustained air and speed:

    After my Oblivion reride, I closed out the day with a reride on Wicker Man. Even though I was seated in the middle, the ride was just as phenomenal as it had been earlier; the pacing was relentless, and I was almost standing over some of the airtime pops! It was a truly brilliant ride to close out the day with:


    After my ride on Wicker Man, I made my way to Towers Street and exited the park to head back to the Alton Towers Hotel for my first stay in 3 years. Interestingly, we were upgraded to a Moon Voyager Room in spite of having only booked a Standard Room, and I’m certainly not complaining; the room is lovely:


    After a sit down in the hotel for about an hour and a half, we headed back down the golden path for an evening meal at the Rollercoaster Restaurant. I’ve dined at this restaurant 3 times now, and I absolutely love it; it’s such a brilliant novelty, the food is perfectly nice for what it is, and it’s possibly one of Alton Towers’ greatest nostalgia moves, in my opinion; all the old concept art and footage of coasters is absolutely captivating:


    After our Rollercoaster Restaurant meal, we headed back to the hotel and closed out our day.
     
    So in conclusion, we had a brilliant day at Alton Towers! I got a fair amount done (14 attractions in total), and there were some brilliant rides ridden! Wicker Man was phenomenal, and on absolute top form on both rides, Oblivion was fantastic, Thirteen was surprisingly brilliant… I could go on, because there were so many great rides today!
     
    Thanks for reading! Join me tomorrow for Day 2 of our trip!

  6. Drayton Manor 9th June 2022

    Drayton Manor · Matt N · 06/09/22 10:37 PM

    Hi guys. Today was a rather exciting day; my first visit to Drayton Manor in 4 years, and my first ever solo train trip to a theme park! I was keen to do this after noticing that my university train route (Lydney-Cheltenham Spa) had trains running directly to Drayton Manor’s nearest station, and I’m so glad I did it! It was one heck of a day, so let me kick off right from the beginning!
     
    Today started quite early, with a 7:24am train from Lydney, my local train station, to Wilnecote, the nearest train station to Drayton Manor. This took around 1h 40m, and all went well. Interestingly enough, this was my first ever time travelling north of Birmingham New Street on the train (albeit only slightly north of it):



    After getting off the train, I did a roughly 40 minute walk to the park, and got there at around 9:45am. The walk was very easy, and left plenty of time before opening:




    After a brief 45 minute wait, I was admitted into the park, and I headed to my first ride. I initially pondered doing the new Vikings area first, but I ultimately found myself stumbling onto…
    Apocalypse
    Apocalypse was on a practically walk-on queue (only a group of 4 were in front of me), so I thought it would be rude not to give it a go! One of the things bringing me to Drayton in 2022 was this ride’s final year, and sadly, I think you can tell that the ride is coming to the end of its life. Of the 5 towers, only 1 sit-down tower was operating (the others looked like they were completely broken and hadn’t operated in some time), and the queue never got above 1 cycle or so all day; the ride was often waiting for the tower to fill. Putting all this aside, though; how was the ride? Well, as much as I’ve never entirely gotten the enthusiast hype around Apocalypse, I’ve got to say that it was awesome; the drop was really good and punchy, and on the whole, it was a real rush, and a great way to start the day! Most interestingly of all, no one joined the queue after me, so I rode Apocalypse completely on my own; I was legitimately the only one in the entire ride area, which was quite surreal:

    After Apocalypse, I headed to my first coaster of the day…
    Accelerator
    Accelerator was right there next to Apocalypse and appeared pretty empty, so I decided to give it a go. I waltzed straight onto this, and the host gave me free rein on where I wanted to sit; I headed for the back row. So, how was the ride? Well, I’ve got to say that it was a fun little coaster, and more enjoyable than I’d remembered! It was very smooth, packed a solid pace, and overall, it was just a good, fun ride! I’m not the biggest fan of shuttle coasters, but this was perfectly good fun:


    After Accelerator, I decided to head into the new for 2022 Vikings area to ride…
    Jormungandr
    Jormungandr was nearby and looked quiet, so I decided to give it a go. Yet again, I waltzed straight onto this; my Drayton Manor day was going very well so far, as I’d only been riding for 10-15 minutes and was already on my 3rd ride! I’ve got to say, I think they did a nice job with the Viking overlay of this ride; it looks much nicer than it did as the Buffalo, the music is really nice, and I really like the new train design! So, how was the ride? Well, I was seated in row 7, it was a perfectly fine little powered coaster; it does the job for what it is! There were some sections where it actually picked up some decent speed, although it did seem as though it was struggling somewhat in others; it felt like it was nearly going to stall up some of the inclines. Nonetheless, Jormungandr was a nice enough ride for what it was:



    After my ride on Jormungandr, I headed to my first of the new for 2022 rides…
    Loki
    Loki looked pretty quiet, so I decided to give it a go. This ride was where the advantages of being a single rider began to present themselves; I was admitted straight on, as there was a seat going spare! So, how was the ride? Well, I was intrigued to try it, as I’ve never done a Zamperla Nebulaz before, but I’m not sure I was the biggest fan, in all honesty. It is a really cool visual piece, what with all the arms interacting with each other, but it was quite spinny; some people might like that, but I have quite a weak stomach for flat rides, so while it wasn’t the most nauseating flat ride I’ve done by any means, it did make me feel a bit odd. Nevertheless, it was nice to experience such a unique ride type for the first time, and I can see the appeal of it; it's quite the visual spectacle, and good if you like spinning:


    After Loki, I did the other new flat ride in the area…
    Thor
    Thor was walk-on, so I decided to give it a try. I’d never ridden a Zamperla Disk’O before, so I was interested to see how it rode, although I’ll digress that my aforementioned low spin tolerance did make me apprehensive as to whether I’d enjoy it. So, how was the ride? Well, I’ve got to say that in spite of my apprehension, it wasn’t as bad as expected intensity-wise, and was actually quite enjoyable! I still wouldn’t have said it was one of my favourite rides, but it was enjoyable, and well within my low spin tolerance; certainly not as bad as it looks, for my money:


    After Thor, I left Vikings and headed over to the other side of the park to ride…
    Shockwave
    Shockwave was the only non-kiddie coaster I hadn’t ridden at Drayton Manor at this point in the day, so I was keen to give it a go. I was interested to retry it, as I’d remembered quite liking it in 2018; I remember thinking that the standup riding position, while a bit weird, wasn’t as abhorrent as many make out, and the ride had some good elements and was fairly smooth. So, how was it? Well… I’m afraid I didn’t like it as much as I’d remembered. It wasn’t the standup riding position that caused me issue, though; I maintain that the position, while a bit weird, isn‘t abhorrent by any means. What my issue was was that it was a fair bit rougher than I’d remembered in 2018; the bottom of the first drop had an unpleasant jolt, and there was some horrid ear bashing in a few sections. Also; since when has the brake run been so harsh? I remembered it being a bit abrupt, but it’s so sudden that it always threw me forwards and really did my shoulders in. With that being said, I do like some of the elements on there; the zero-g roll in particular is a phenomenal inversion:

    After Shockwave, I decided to stay in Adventure Cove and do a flat ride…
    Maelstrom
    Maelstrom was walk on, so I decided to give it a go. I didn’t do Maelstrom on my first visit, so it was a completely new ride to me, and it seems well liked, so I was intrigued to try it, in spite of the fact that I didn’t overly enjoy Cyclonator, the first gyroswing I did at Paultons Park last year. So, how was it? Well, I’m afraid to say that like Cyclonator, it wasn’t really for me, so I think gyroswings in general are just a bit of a controversial dislike of mine. I do think I preferred Maelstrom to Cyclonator, though, as the restraints were more comfortable and it didn’t seem quite as intense spin-wise. It did still make me feel a bit strange, though, with the strong focus on intensity and spinning not being the best for my personal spin tolerance, and there seemed to be some rather uncomfortable doses of positive g’s in the troughs of each swing. I’m sorry to be a downer, but I think this style of ride isn’t really for me:

    After Maelstrom, I decided to try the other flat ride in Adventure Cove…
    Air Race
    Air Race was on a short queue, so I decided to give it a try. I was interested to try it again; I’d remembered it being absolutely vile in 2018, but I’ve done a lot more rides since then, and I wondered whether I might have built up a greater intensity tolerance over time. So did I enjoy Air Race more this time? Sadly not. Unfortunately, I found it equally vile in 2022 as I did in 2018; I could literally feel stuff moving around in my stomach with each slow flip (a proper churning feeling), and I came off it feeling horribly nauseous. I get why people enjoy it, as it is an intense ride, but it’s not really for me, I’m afraid:

    After Air Race, I needed a sit down, so I sat and had my lunch (it was getting to 12:15pm anyway), timing the throughput of Shockwave as I ate (I had a very good vantage point!). Once I’d eaten, I decided to go for something different, and perhaps unexpected given today’s not exactly hot weather…
    Stormforce 10
    Stormforce 10 didn’t appear busy, and I’d never done it before, so I decided to give it a go. I’ve got to say, this is a very nicely themed ride; I walked through it too quickly to get any real look at it due to the low crowds, but the queue appeared to be incredibly detailed, and really well themed! The station appeared well themed as well! So, how was the ride? Well, I’ve got to say that it was a really good water ride, although perhaps a mistake given the weather and how wet I got! One of the drops was a surprising soaker; the first and third drops (the forward ones) weren’t too bad (a decent spray, but nothing overly wet), but the second backwards drop got me pretty drenched, which was completely unexpected! Another interesting thing about my ride on Stormforce 10 was that it was my second lone ride of the day; I was seated in row 2 (the ride staff expected me to sit in the middle of the row as well, for some reason), and I went round Stormforce 10 completely on my lonesome! Overall, though, I did think it was quite an impressive water ride; in all honesty, I’d say it’s probably my top UK water ride that’s still operating (I always loved Logger’s Leap), or at very least up there with the best:


    After my ride on Stormforce 10, I took another ride on Shockwave to dry off. I was seated in row 5, and it was similar to earlier.
     
    After that, I rerode Accelerator. I rode in the front this time, and it was great fun, just as it had been earlier:

    I then took another quiet ride on Apocalypse. I was not alone this time, however; I was accompanied by a group of Year 6 boys, one of whom asked me to hold his hand on the way up, which I did. In terms of the ride itself; it was as awesome and punchy as ever:

    I then tried to ride The Haunting; I waited outside for about 10-15 minutes, but everyone was then ushered away due to the ride experiencing a technical issue. With that in mind, I decided to try the other dark ride right next to it…
    Sheriff Showdown
    Sheriff Showdown was completely empty, right next door to The Haunting and a ride I’d never done before, so I decided to give it a go. Interestingly, this ended up being another lone ride; with there being noone in the area other than me and the operator,So, how was it? Well, I thought it was a good, fun interactive dark ride! There were some nice animatronics, some great sets, and I actually found the game element quite a bit easier to interact with than on other interactive dark rides I’ve ridden; my score was 5,800, which I was pretty impressed with given my shocking aim and the short ride duration! All in all, Sheriff Showdown was definitely a fun little ride:

    I then had a reride on Jormungandr. I was seated in a similar seat to last time, and the ride was very similar to earlier:


    I then headed back over to…
    The Haunting
    The Haunting had reopened, so I decided to join the small crowd waiting outside. After a few minutes, we were admitted to the attraction; one interesting thing I noticed is that it’s batched differently to other Madhouses I’ve done. It wasn’t like Hex or something, where one group can occupy each room; only one group was allowed to be in the whole attraction on The Haunting. It wasn’t an issue by any means, what with the low crowd levels, but it was just an interesting observation I made. So, how was it? Well, I’ve got to say that I was very impressed! The story of a paranormal investigation is told very well and very clearly, and it is genuinely quite unnerving at points; this is going to make me sound like a right baby, but as someone who doesn’t overly like horror, it was toeing the line of my scare tolerance at times. I did find bits of it quite scary, and it definitely vindicated my belief that I wouldn’t like an attraction that goes beyond that level of scare, such as a scare attraction; a scare attraction is a vastly intensified version of that, so god knows how I’d react to that type of thing with actual people! Overall, though, I thought that The Haunting was a very well done madhouse; it impressed me, for sure, and of the 4 I’ve done, I’d genuinely be inclined to say it’s my 2nd favourite behind only Hex:


    After The Haunting, I had another great ride on Apocalypse:

    That was swiftly followed by another great, and practically walk-on, ride on Accelerator; I was seated in row 7 this time, and it was great fun! An interesting thing that happened on this ride was that in the queue, I met a potential enthusiast in the making; I was tapped on the shoulder by a young boy who enthusiastically said to me “excuse me, but I just wanted to tell you that the back provides the best experience on this ride!”. I told him that I’d enjoyed the back earlier, and he seemed very impressed and in agreement with me. He then boarded the back in my train, and when we got off, he said “That was awesome! I’ve done it 15 times!”. That might seem small, but that’s how theme park enthusiasm often starts!:

    After that, I headed to a ride I’d never done before…
    The Bounty
    The Bounty was walk-on, so I decided to give it a whirl. I hadn't done a pirate ship in a while, but I always used to enjoy The Blade at Alton Towers, so I was looking forward to The Bounty. So, how was it? Well, it was a fun enough pirate ship; it had some good swinging, some decent tickles of weightlessness, and overall, it was a fun ride:


    After The Bounty, I decided to have another ride on Shockwave. I bagged the back row this time, and it was quite similar to the other rides, although it possibly seemed at its roughest yet on the back. That zero-g roll still packs a great punch, though:

    After my reride on Shockwave, I, possibly against my better judgement after the soaking from Stormforce 10, decided to try another water ride...
    Adventure Cove River Rapids
    Adventure Cove River Rapids looked quiet, so I decided to give it a go. It opened after my last visit, and I'd heard some rave reviews (a lot of cries of "best rapids ride in the UK!" get thrown around), so I was interested to ride it. Interestingly, I was not allowed to ride as a single rider, so I had to wait for another group to join me. This didn't take too long, and I was quickly off on the ride with a mother and her young son. So, what did I think? Well, I'm afraid to say that perhaps controversially, I was somewhat uninspired by this rapids. I'll grant them, the Adventure Cove buildings are painted very nicely, and it is quite nicely themed, but it's the only rapids I've ever walked off of bone dry. Even the likes of Congo River Rapids and Rumba Rapids, in the UK, get you with a couple of waves splashing into the boat and a little light spray, but Adventure Cove River Rapids gave me nothing; there didn't even seem to be any water splashing into the boat (if there was any, it was perhaps one tiny splash). Granted, I was somewhat glad to remain dry on this occasion, but I would have rated it higher had there been a couple of waves that came into the boat and did splash the riders somewhat. In fairness, though, I could have just gotten it on a weak ride, or Drayton might not have wanted it to be a wet rapids, so it's probably unfair of me to judge too harshly:

    After Adventure Cove River Rapids, I had a reride on Jormungandr. I was seated in the second row from the back, and it was perfectly good fun:


    After Jormungandr, I had another ride on Apocalypse, which was once again awesome; I like drop towers a lot, and Apocalypse is a very good one:

    After that, I had another fun ride on Accelerator. I was seated in row 8 this time, and it was great fun:


    I then had another ride on Shockwave. I was seated in row 4, and it was very similar to my earlier rides; the brake run seemed to hit particularly hard on this ride, for some reason:


    After that, I bought a cup of Diet Coke, and sat down for a few minutes to drink that. I then did another new ride...
    Drunken Barrels
    Drunken Barrels was a ride I'd never done before, so I was interested to try it. I knew that this was a unique style of tea cups, so I thought it might be worth a try. So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was quite good fun; the tilting platform added a very interesting dimension to the teacups ride experience:

    After Drunken Barrels, I had yet another great ride on Apocalypse:


    I swiftly followed that up with another fun ride on Accelerator, in row 8:

    I then had another ride on Apocalypse:

    That was swiftly followed by a ride close to the front on Jormungandr:

    I then closed out the day with a final ride on Apocalypse:

    After that, the 4:30pm ride close had arrived. I went to the Walhalla food outlet to buy a Crunchie Blast ice lolly before heading out of the park and back on my way to Wilnecote station.
     
    I then closed out my day with a 1h 7m train ride home, from Wilnecote to Cheltenham Spa; I had to get picked up from Cheltenham due to the train to Lydney being cancelled:


    So, that was my day at Drayton Manor! I had a brilliant day; I was very glad to have completed a park visit on my own via public transport, and the park itself was a pleasant surprise too! I was expecting the park to be busy when I saw a plethora of school trip groups arriving, but my fears were unfounded, as the park was phenomenally quiet; nothing had more than a 1 cycle wait all day, and I got a surprising number of lone rides! If you weren't keeping track, and wondering whether all this riding had seen me break my personal ride count record (which previously sat at 21, obtained on my last day at Europa Park); my personal ride count record was not only broken, it was well and truly thrashed to death! If you weren't keeping track, my rides today were:
    Apocalypse x7 Accelerator x5 Shockwave x4 Jormungandr x4 Loki x1 Thor x1 Maelstrom x1 Air Race x1 Stormforce 10 x1 Sheriff Showdown x1 The Haunting x1 The Bounty x1 Adventure Cove River Rapids x1 Drunken Barrels x1 That makes for a final ride total of 30 rides in 6 hours! Yes, I managed thirty (!) rides between 10:30am and 4:30pm today! As a result, I did 26,000 steps today, which is my highest Fitbit step count by some margin, and I am somewhat achey, but I had an awesome day; my first UK park visit of 2022 couldn't have gone better!
     
    Thank you for reading! I'll be back at you with another trip report very soon, as I'm headed to Alton Towers on 19th/20th June!
  7. Right then; it's about time I did part 2 of my North American investigation! And in part 2, I'll be working out... what coaster selections in North America have the strongest top end?
     
    Yes, I'll be focusing solely upon the parks' most highly rated coasters in this question! As I got a few comments about the slightly weird results in part 1, I'm thinking that this question should hopefully correct that and produce results more akin to what you might typically expect, as I'm focusing only upon "the interesting stuff" here!
     
    So how did I work this out?
     
    Well, I used 3 different ways of attempting to measure this.
     
    The first method I used was...
    Mean of Top 3
    The first method I used was calculating a mean of each park's top 3. For those of you that don't know, the mean is the calculated average of each top 3, and the formula is as follows:
    Mean of Top 3 = Sum of All Ratings/3 (as the top 3 is being focused upon here, the count of ratings will always be 3)
    When this formula was applied to each park's top 3, the highest rated top 3s came out as follows:
    Ranking Park Mean Rating of Top 3 (1dp) Top 3 Coasters in Park (with ratings out of 10) 1 Cedar Point 9.8 Steel Vengeance (10.0) Maverick (9.9) Top Thrill Dragster/Millennium Force (tied at 9.6) 2 Six Flags Magic Mountain 9.6 Twisted Colossus (9.8) X2 (9.7) Tatsu (9.4) 3 Busch Gardens Tampa 9.5 Iron Gwazi (10.0) Montu (9.4) SheiKra (9.1) 4 Six Flags Great Adventure 9.4 El Toro (9.9) Nitro (9.2) Kingda Ka (9.1) 5 Six Flags Fiesta Texas 9.3 Iron Rattler (9.7) Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster (9.5) Superman Krypton Coaster (8.8) 6 Kings Dominion 9.3 Twisted Timbers (9.9) Intimidator 305 (9.8) Dominator (8.2) 7 Hersheypark 9.3 Skyrush (9.8) Storm Runner (9.2) Candymonium (8.9) 8 Busch Gardens Williamsburg 9.3 Pantheon (9.7) Griffon (9.2) Alpengeist/Apollo's Chariot (tied at 9.0) 9 Silver Dollar City 9.3 Outlaw Run (9.7) Time Traveler (9.5) PowderKeg (8.6) 10 Canada's Wonderland 9.2 Leviathan (9.4) Behemoth (9.3) Yukon Striker (9.0)  
    Let's move on to the second measure...
    Median of Top 3
    The second measure I applied was the median of the top 3. The median is the midpoint of a dataset (I.e. the middle value), so as we're talking about top 3s, the median value is the 2nd highest rated coaster at each park. When I searched for the median of each park's top 3, the top 10 were as follows:
    Ranking Park Median Top 3 Coasters in Park (with ratings out of 10) 1 Cedar Point 9.9 Steel Vengeance (10.0) Maverick (9.9) Top Thrill Dragster/Millennium Force (tied at 9.6) 2 Kings Dominion 9.8 Twisted Timbers (9.9) Intimidator 305 (9.8) Dominator (8.2) 3 Six Flags Magic Mountain 9.7 Twisted Colossus (9.8) X2 (9.7) Tatsu (9.4) 4 Six Flags New England 9.5 Wicked Cyclone (9.8) Superman the Ride (9.5) Batman the Dark Knight (7.2) 5 Six Flags Fiesta Texas 9.5 Iron Rattler (9.7) Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster (9.5) Superman Krypton Coaster (8.8) 6 Silver Dollar City 9.5 Outlaw Run (9.7) Time Traveler (9.5) PowderKeg (8.6) 7 Kentucky Kingdom 9.4 Storm Chaser (9.7) Lightning Run (9.4) Kentucky Flyer (6.2) 8 Busch Gardens Tampa 9.4 Iron Gwazi (10.0) Montu (9.4) SheiKra (9.1) 9 Six Flags Over Georgia 9.3 Twisted Cyclone (9.7) Goliath (9.3) Batman The Ride (7.8) 10 Canada's Wonderland 9.3 Leviathan (9.4) Behemoth (9.3) Yukon Striker (9.0)  
    After those two measures, I used one final measure of my own...
    Matt N Formula for Top End Strength
    The final measure I used was my own formula. You might remember that I used my own formula to denote consistent strength in part 1. The formula for top end strength is slightly adjusted compared to that, only taking into account the highest rating and the upper quartile. The formula I'm using to work out top end strength is as follows:
    Matt N Formula for Top End Strength = (Highest Rating + Upper Quartile)/2
    This formula does require me to touch upon the entire selection again as opposed to just the top 3, but the use of the upper quartile and highest rating mean that I can hone in exclusively on the more highly rated coasters while also considering the strength of the top end as a whole. For all intents and purposes, it's the average of the highest rating and the upper quartile, so the lowly rated coasters within a park's lineup still aren't considered.
     
    When this formula was applied, the top 10 parks were as follows:
    Ranking Park Matt N Formula Score (1dp) Highest Rating Upper Quartile (1dp) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Busch Gardens Tampa 9.5 10.0 9.0 10 2 Silver Dollar City 9.5 9.7 9.3 6 3 Cedar Point 9.5 10.0 8.9 16 4 Six Flags Great Adventure 9.4 9.9 8.9 13 5 Carowinds 9.4 9.9 8.8 13 6 Busch Gardens Williamsburg 9.4 9.7 9.0 9 7 Six Flags Fiesta Texas 9.3 9.7 8.8 9 8 SeaWorld Orlando 9.2 9.6 8.9 6 9 Kentucky Kingdom 9.2 9.7 8.6 6 10 Hersheypark 9.1 9.8 8.3 14  
    So, what did we learn in this part of the investigation?
     
    Well, I can quite decisively crown a winner for the park with the strongest top end based on my 3 measures, and that is Cedar Point. The park came out on top in 2 of the 3 measures, and even in the measure it didn't win, it still came 3rd. And I'll be honest, Cedar Point was literally a hair away from the top spot; the difference between Cedar Point and the winner in that measure, Busch Gardens Tampa, was only 0.05. (The reason the top 3 are all listed as 9.5 is because I rounded the Matt N Formula Score to 1 decimal place; there was a difference between each of their exact scores, albeit a very small one)
     
    Before I close off, here's my spreadsheet once again, so that you can peruse my workings at your pleasure:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D_Zv3-Nb3B8oV7WRe3_G34tWDeAde_rJ8cMSeDN6KpM/edit?usp=sharing
     
    Thank you all for reading part 2 of my investigation into North America's major coaster selections, where I attempted to find the coaster selections with the strongest top end. I hope you found it interesting, and I hope the results are more in line with what you were originally expecting than they were in part 1!
    TL;DR: I attempted to find the North American coaster selections with the strongest top end. I used 3 different measures to calculate this: the mean of the top 3, a calculated average; the median of the top 3, the midpoint value; and the Matt N Formula for Top End Strength, which calculated the average of the park's highest rating and the upper quartile. The winner was determined to be Cedar Point, which won 2 of the 3 measures and came an extremely close 3rd in the measure it did not win.
  8. Disclaimer: This post is extremely long, and if you don't like data analysis and geeky maths talk, I'd suggest you run for the hills and don't look back, because this post has quite a bit of it!
    Hi guys. Some of you might remember that I recently did a multi-part data analysis investigation on Europe's major coaster selections; the topic is here if you don't know what I'm on about: 
    In that thread, I asked numerous different questions about Europe's major coaster selections. So I thought that a natural next step would be to try North America; it would be rude of me not to pay the Americans a visit given how many coasters and parks are in the USA alone, let alone the rest of North America!
     
    But for those of you who have no idea about my previous data analysis investigation, let me just introduce what I'm doing...
    Introduction
    There are a lot of theme parks in North America, as well as a lot of roller coasters. So naturally, people (myself included) tend to ask questions like “which park has North America’s best roller coaster lineup?” or “which parks are quality-over-quantity and which parks are quantity-over-quality?”, amongst others. As such, while it’s not really a discussion thread as such, I thought it might be fun to try to take a quantitative look into some of these questions and try to answer them using some data science techniques. So join me as I attempt to perform a quantitative, multi-part analysis of North America’s major coaster selections! I'll split my investigations into a couple of posts, one for each question, to make it a little more digestible.
     
    Before we start, let me set out a few prerequisites and explain some of the facts regarding the investigation…
    Prerequisites of the Investigation
    I am using the coaster ratings on Captain Coaster (https://captaincoaster.com/en/) as of May 2022 to perform this investigation. If you look at each ride’s page on CC, it has a % score out of 100; this is what I have used and converted into ratings out of 10. For the rating out of 10 of a ride, I converted the percentage into a rating by dividing by 10 (so for instance, a ride rated 87% would have an average rating of 8.7/10). Building upon the ratings stuff; all ratings are rounded to the nearest 0.1 (so to 1dp). As a rule of thumb of what’s considered major, I went with; to be considered, a park must have 5 scoreable roller coasters. If you’re wondering why I get so specific in saying “scoreable roller coasters”, it’s because Captain Coaster does not score what it considers to be “kiddie coasters”, so not every ride in a park's lineup is scored. As such, this means that parks with 5 kiddie coasters wouldn't be eligible for this investigation; my rule ensures that a park in the study has 5 family/family thrill coasters, at the very least. It also doesn't score rides where the ridership is too low, but the effect of that upon this investigation is quite minor; only 1 or 2 parks/rides were affected. Off the top of my head, Tumbili at Kings Dominion and Wonder Woman Coaster at Six Flags Mexico (bizarrely given it opened in 2018) are not scored on CC due to their ridership being too low, therefore the investigation excluded them, but all the other new rides that have opened are counted. So the likes of Iron Gwazi, Ice Breaker, Pantheon, VelociCoaster etc are all included. However, one inconsistency is that Captain Coaster has a somewhat inconsistent definition of what it considers a kiddie coaster. Using some examples from my home continent of Europe, things like the Steeplechases at Blackpool are considered kiddie coasters, but Blue Flyer in the same park, which I personally would consider a kiddie coaster, isn't. I could have taken kiddie coasters into account, but I could not think of a fair way to do it, as rides that fall into this bracket that slipped through the cracks seem to have wildly varying scores. The site also has rides listed on it that some probably wouldn't count as roller coasters, but some do, such as SuperSplash at Plopsaland and Fuga de Atlantide at Gardaland. I just decided to go with the site's scores and the rides that the site scored, as even though I could calculate the mean rating of some unscored rides, I don't think CC's scoring system only uses mean rating, as I seem to remember it being mentioned that members' rankings are also factored in, so me attempting to meddle with CC's system risks introducing bias and skewing the data the wrong way, which you definitely don't want in a data investigation. However, I did think this was something I should raise before we begin. The most important prerequisite of all is that the results of this investigation are not necessarily the final answers to the questions I raised in my introductory paragraph by any stretch. All of this still comes entirely down to personal opinion, of course. Right then; I think that's everything, so let's dive into the dataset...
    The Dataset
    When searching through RCDB for theme parks that met my criteria, as well as cross-referencing with Captain Coaster to ensure that the criteria were met in terms of scoreability, I found 41 theme parks with 358 roller coasters between them. These parks, as well as the number of scoreable roller coasters they each contain, are as follows:
    Six Flags Magic Mountain (USA, California): 16 Canada's Wonderland (Canada): 16 Cedar Point (USA, Ohio): 16 Six Flags Great America (USA, Illinois): 14 Kings Island (USA, Ohio): 14 Hersheypark (USA, Pennsylvania): 14 Six Flags Great Adventure (USA, New Jersey): 13 Carowinds (USA, North Carolina): 13 Kings Dominion (USA, Virginia): 12 Six Flags Over Texas (USA, Texas): 11 Six Flags Over Georgia (USA, Georgia): 10 Six Flags New England (USA, Massachusetts): 10 Busch Gardens Tampa (USA, Florida): 10 Six Flags Fiesta Texas (USA, Texas): 9 Lagoon (USA, Utah): 9 Knott's Berry Farm (USA, California): 9 Six Flags St Louis (USA, Missouri): 9 Busch Gardens Williamsburg (USA, Virginia): 9 Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (USA, California): 8 Six Flags America (USA, Maryland): 8 La Ronde (Canada): 8 Dollywood (USA, Tennessee): 8 Six Flags Mexico (Mexico): 8 Kennywood (USA, Pennsylvania): 8 Six Flags Darien Lake (USA, New York): 7 Valleyfair (USA, Minnesota): 7 Morey's Piers (USA, New Jersey): 6 Worlds of Fun (USA, Missouri): 6 Michigan's Adventure (USA, Michigan): 6 Silver Dollar City (USA, Missouri): 6 Dorney Park (USA, Pennsylvania): 6 SeaWorld Orlando (USA, Florida): 6 Kentucky Kingdom (USA, Kentucky): 6 Luna Park (USA, New York): 5 Indiana Beach (USA, Indiana): 5 Great Escape (USA, New York): 5 SeaWorld San Antonio (USA, Texas): 5 Knoebels (USA, Pennsylvania): 5 Disney's Magic Kingdom (USA, Florida): 5 Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park (USA, New Jersey): 5 Disneyland (USA, California): 5 I think that just about covers everything, but if you feel I’ve missed an obvious one, then don’t be afraid to tell me.
     
    Let's move on to some fun stuff now... I'll start analysing some different common questions and see what answers I come out with. I'll use this first post to do...
    What is North America’s most consistently strong coaster selection?
     
    Yes, I’ll be finding out which coaster selection in North America is the most consistently strong! For clarity, this focuses on the entire scoreable selection and sees the consistent strength of a park’s lineup. This is not weighted solely towards a park’s more highly rated coasters (I’ll be examining the top ends of selections on their own in a separate question), but instead considers the consistent strength of a park’s whole selection. I’m basically asking “to what extent does each park in the dataset have a consistently strong, good quality lineup?”.
     
    There are numerous data science techniques we can use to find this out.
     
    Let’s start with the first one…
    Mean
    The first statistical method we can use is the mean. For those that don’t know, the mean is a calculated average, where the sum of all a park’s coaster ratings is calculated and then divided by the number of scoreable coasters in that park to work out the average rating. The formula for the mean is as follows:
    Mean Rating = Sum of all Ratings/Number of Scoreable Coasters
     
    When applying the mean to each park in the dataset, the top 10 most consistently strong coaster selections in North America were as follows:
    Ranking Park Mean (to 1dp) Number of Scoreable Coasters 1 Silver Dollar City 7.5 6 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg 7.3 9 3 Dollywood 7.0 8 4 SeaWorld Orlando 7.0 6 5 Cedar Point 6.6 16 6 Six Flags Magic Mountain 6.6 16 7 Busch Gardens Tampa 6.5 10 8 SeaWorld San Antonio 6.4 5 9 Six Flags Fiesta Texas 6.4 9 10 Kennywood 6.4 8  
    But mean is not the only statistical measure I can use…
    Median
    Another statistical measure we can use is the median. For those that don’t know, the median is the middle value in a dataset; the midpoint, if you like. For instance, in a dataset of 9 scoreable roller coasters, the median value would be the 5th highest rated coaster, because there are 4 coasters rated higher than it and 4 coasters rated lower than it.
     
    When applying the median to each park in the dataset, the top 10 most consistently strong coaster selections in North America were as follows:
    Ranking Park Median (to 1dp) Amount of Scoreable Coasters 1 Silver Dollar City 8.6 6 2 Busch Gardens Williamsburg 8.3 9 3 SeaWorld Orlando 8.1 6 4 Busch Gardens Tampa 7.4 10 5 Dollywood 7.3 8 6 Six Flags Great Adventure 7.2 13 7 Cedar Point 7.2 16 8 Disney’s Magic Kingdom 7.0 5 9 Dorney Park 7.0 6 10 Six Flags Magic Mountain 6.9 16  
    However, there’s one final statistical measure of my own that I’d like to test out…
    The Matt N Formula for Consistent Strength
    So far, I have used two pre-existing statistical measures; the mean, a calculated average, and the median, the midpoint value. However, each of these has its own flaws and things that it doesn’t really consider.
     
    The mean is flawed in that it can be quite easily skewed by a small number of data items on the extreme ends of the spectrum, thus not providing an accurate picture of the whole selection. Whereas the median, while possibly providing a more accurate picture of the general quality of a selection, does not take the extreme ends of the spectrum into account at all; if a park's coaster selection had a median rating of 6/10, the top value could be a 7/10 or a 10/10 and it would make no difference.
     
    With that in mind, I decided to come up with my own formula to determine the consistent strength of a selection. A formula that takes into account both the extreme ends of the spectrum and the general quality across the board. So let me present The Matt N Formula for Consistent Strength; the formula is as follows:
    Matt N Formula for Consistent Strength = (Highest rating + Upper quartile)*(Lowest rating + Lower quartile)
     
    I included the highest rating and the lowest rating to take into account the extreme ends of a selection, while I also integrated quartiles to provide a stronger picture of general quality throughout a selection.
     
    Those of you who followed my Europe data analysis might remember that I initially attempted to use this formula to work out strength in general without really quantifying what strength was, but I later decided that this particular formula would work better to determine consistent strength.
     
    When I applied the Matt N Formula for Consistent Strength to each park in the dataset, the top 10 most consistently strong coaster selections in North America were as follows:
    Ranking Park Highest Rating Upper Quartile (to 1dp) Lowest Rating Lower Quartile (to 1dp) Matt N Formula Score (to 1dp) Quantity of Scoreable Coasters 1 Dollywood 9.9 8.0 3.9 6.4 183.0 8 2 Silver Dollar City 9.7 9.3 3.5 6.0 180.7 6 3 Kennywood 9.3 7.2 4.2 5.2 155.3 8 4 SeaWorld San Antonio 8.8 7.6 3.4 5.6 147.6 5 5 Knoebels 9.4 7.5 2.7 5.9 145.3 5 6 Busch Gardens Williamsburg 9.7 9.0 1.1 6.4 140.3 9 7 SeaWorld Orlando 9.6 8.9 0.7 6.7 135.8 6 8 Cedar Point 10.0 8.9 1.5 5.4 130.6 16 9 Six Flags Magic Mountain 9.8 7.8 1.3 5.4 117.9 16 10 Disney’s Magic Kingdom 7.1 7.1 1.9 6.3 116.4 5  
    Let’s now summarise what we’ve learned…
    Summary
    So, what did we learn from this investigation?
     
    Well, while the methods used did differ the results somewhat, there were some names that universally appeared in the top 10 regardless. And there was one park in particular that did shine, scoring highly on all 3 measures.
     
    As it came top when using 2 of the 3 measures and came second in the measure that it didn’t win, I am saying that my data concludes that Silver Dollar City has North America’s most consistently strong coaster lineup. When a park comes out on top 2 out of 3 times and comes second the 3rd time (and a very close second, at that), it’s hard not to declare it the winner!
     
    I’m aware that the results might not be what some expect, and in some ways, they weren’t what I would have expected either, but it is worth me reiterating that this is asking what North America’s most consistently strong coaster lineup is rather than what the strongest coaster lineup is in terms of the park’s highest rated coasters. If I honed in exclusively on each park’s strongest rated coasters (which I will do in a separate question), I can sense these results would look very different.
     
    Also, just because my algorithm is saying that Silver Dollar City wins this, that’s not “the correct answer” by any means; it’s all down to personal opinion. The answer I’m showing here is merely the conclusion that my data analysis came to based off of the average opinions of a subset of coaster enthusiasts.
     
    Just for reference, here is a box plot I created using Python’s MatPlotLib library to show the spread of ratings for each coaster selection and how they compare to one another in a visual way:

    I’m aware that that’s a bit of a mess, so just for some idea, here is the order in which the parks appear, from left to right (the number at the side is the number of scoreable coasters the park has:
    Six Flags Magic Mountain (USA, California): 16 Canada's Wonderland (Canada): 16 Cedar Point (USA, Ohio): 16 Six Flags Great America (USA, Illinois): 14 Kings Island (USA, Ohio): 14 Hersheypark (USA, Pennsylvania): 14 Six Flags Great Adventure (USA, New Jersey): 13 Carowinds (USA, North Carolina): 13 Kings Dominion (USA, Virginia): 12 Six Flags Over Texas (USA, Texas): 11 Six Flags Over Georgia (USA, Georgia): 10 Six Flags New England (USA, Massachusetts): 10 Busch Gardens Tampa (USA, Florida): 10 Six Flags Fiesta Texas (USA, Texas): 9 Lagoon (USA, Utah): 9 Knott's Berry Farm (USA, California): 9 Six Flags St Louis (USA, Missouri): 9 Busch Gardens Williamsburg (USA, Virginia): 9 Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (USA, California): 8 Six Flags America (USA, Maryland): 8 La Ronde (Canada): 8 Dollywood (USA, Tennessee): 8 Six Flags Mexico (Mexico): 8 Kennywood (USA, Pennsylvania): 8 Six Flags Darien Lake (USA, New York): 7 Valleyfair (USA, Minnesota): 7 Morey's Piers (USA, New Jersey): 6 Worlds of Fun (USA, Missouri): 6 Michigan's Adventure (USA, Michigan): 6 Silver Dollar City (USA, Missouri): 6 Dorney Park (USA, Pennsylvania): 6 SeaWorld Orlando (USA, Florida): 6 Kentucky Kingdom (USA, Kentucky): 6 Luna Park (USA, New York): 5 Indiana Beach (USA, Indiana): 5 Great Escape (USA, New York): 5 SeaWorld San Antonio (USA, Texas): 5 Knoebels (USA, Pennsylvania): 5 Disney's Magic Kingdom (USA, Florida): 5 Nickelodeon Universe Theme Park (USA, New Jersey): 5 Disneyland (USA, California): 5 And here is the spreadsheet with the complete raw dataset, for your viewing pleasure:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D_Zv3-Nb3B8oV7WRe3_G34tWDeAde_rJ8cMSeDN6KpM/edit
    Thanks for reading part 1 of my analysis of North America’s major coaster selections! I’m hoping part 2 will be on its way before too long, and in that one, I’m planning to dive a bit deeper into the top end of these parks’ coaster selections, to see which parks have the strongest top tier; part 1 focused on the selection as a whole, but I know there is a lot of interest in the top tier of these coaster selections in isolation.
     
    But if any of you have any suggestions for questions about this dataset you’d like me to try and answer, then I’m very happy to accept suggestions!
  9. 30th April 2022 (Europa Park Hotel Resort, Travel Home and Trip Summary)
    Today was considerably less busy than the last 3 days, so as such, my report of our actual day will be far briefer. We had no 4th day on our entry tickets to Europa Park, but our flight out of Baden-Airpark was not until 7pm, so after checking out of our room at 11am, we had time to kill. And as we were on a huge resort and hadn’t explored too much of the other hotels aside from our own (Castillo Alcazar), we decided to have a relaxed amble around the Europa Park hotel resort for the day.
     
    As we didn’t really have anywhere to be, we didn’t leave our room until close to the 11am checkout time. After breakfast and packing were done, I spent my time timing the throughputs of various different rides out of the hotel room window; I could see Wodan, Blue Fire, Atlantica, Euro Mir and Silver Star very easily, which made for perfect dispatch timing conditions!
     
    After leaving our hotel room, we initially had a little amble around El Andaluz and the exterior area of that hotel:

    Then, we crossed over the road and strolled over to Bell Rock to take a look in that hotel:


    I’ve got to say, all of Europa’s hotels are stunningly themed; we were looking around Bell Rock, and that has so many stunning little details, but on reflection, all of them do!
     
    After a stroll around Bell Rock, we headed down a path into the town of Rust to briefly explore, passing by the other side of Bell Rock while we were there:

    We then headed into Hotel Colosseo, where we ambled around the piazza area for a bit. We wandered back up to the Colosseum to take in the views of the surrounding area, including of Rulantica and of the piazza and fountains:


    After that, we sat and watched the fountains for a good few minutes. I must say, they really are captivating to watch, and such a cleverly designed little touch! (I apologise, as after the Colosseum, my picture taking stopped for a good few hours…)
     
    We then headed into Pizzeria La Romantica for some lunch after having a delicious evening meal there on Wednesday. I’ve got to say, sitting outside in Colosseo’s piazza eating lasagne was a very nice way to kill time; it’s such a nice environment!
     
    After that, we then went inside the Hotel Colosseo lobby and had a look in the shop before having a sit down and also looking at all the pictures on the walls (the IAAPA Wall of Fame and such). The Mack family have certainly hosted a lot of celebrities at Europa over the years, and I don’t think I’ve ever been to a theme park before that displays its array of industry accolades so prominently!
     
    We then headed into the Colosseo cafe for a little dessert. I had a lovely bowl of caramel ice cream, and that was certainly a nice way to finish off our trip!
     
    After that, we headed back over to El Andaluz and sat in the lobby for a few minutes just taking in the surroundings:

    After our brief sit down, we then headed to our car to leave Europa Park Resort and head to Baden-Baden for our flight back to London Stansted. Interestingly, the travel home is where we encountered quite possibly our longest wait of the trip; getting out of London Stansted took nearly 1.5 hours all in.
     
    So, that was our final day! I apologise for today’s slightly dull report; I tried to make it sound as interesting as possible, but we really didn’t do that much. It was a nice relaxing end to a wonderful trip, though!
     
    To add a bit of heft onto today’s slightly dull report, I may as well do my final summarising thoughts…
     
    Trip Summary
    Well, the trip has now ended. And what a trip it’s been! As most of you probably know, it’s one I had been planning for some time, and it was my first ever trip to Europa Park, a heavily revered theme park and a place that was high on my bucket list!
     
    So, did Europa Park live up to the hype, and was it worth my many years of wishing to go there? Definitely. Without a doubt, it was all worth it.
     
    Europa Park is truly phenomenal. Stunning. Breathtaking. Joyful. I can think of so many superlatives to describe it, and when I say them, I mean every single one of them. In my opinion, Europa Park is a truly exceptional theme park for so many reasons, and despite my sky-high expectations, it did not disappoint in the slightest! It delivered in so many different ways for me, and there is so much I could say about it, but a few particular things that stood out to me were:
    The ride lineup is phenomenally well-rounded, and incredibly expansive: Europa has an incredibly well-rounded and expansive ride lineup. Rides-wise, you’re totally covered regardless of your taste. Europa has a plethora of coasters, including some absolutely phenomenal thrill coasters, yet it also has an expansive lineup of dark rides, a solid selection of water rides, and a wide array of very light-hearted, relaxing filler rides to stumble across! Yes, it might not be the most thrill-packed theme park on earth, with giant drop towers and huge coasters around every corner, but the thrill rides they do have are excellent, and more than satisfy anyone yearning for thrills, in my opinion! Silver Star is intensely rerideable, and such an epic ride in my opinion, and if you get bored of riding Silver Star, you’ve got Wodan, which is an exceptional coaster in its own right, and even though Blue Fire isn’t quite on the same level of brilliance as the other two in my opinion, it’s still a really excellent coaster, and an incredibly solid ride for thrillseekers! And I think EP caters to the whole family demographic wonderfully; I can think of so many Europa rides that would have young children, teenagers and grandparents alike all stepping off with huge smiles on their faces! So all in all, Europa Park has a exceptional ride lineup with almost universal appeal, in my opinion! The park as a whole is phenomenally well-rounded: Building upon my point about the park’s phenomenally well-rounded ride lineup; I think the park is extremely rounded in other aspects too! Everything has been thought about with Europa; ride hardware is not everything here. The theming and presentation are absolutely impeccable. The food is really nice and there’s a wide variety of things to pick from. The park is filled with nice little touches of flair and things to notice and look at. The atmosphere is lovely and relaxed throughout. I don’t think there’s one element of theme parking that the Mack family haven’t thought about and attempted to include within Europa Park, and for that reason, I would challenge anybody to visit and not find something to enjoy. Even if you’re not overly into rides, there’s a hell of a lot you can enjoy at EP. It is a true chameleon of a theme park, more so than any other I’ve yet visited; you could have totally different days at Europa Park and they would all be equally fulfilling. Do you want to hammer coasters non-stop? You can do that! Do you want to ride dark rides and discover wonderfully random rides you never knew existed? You can do that! Do you want to have loads of different food & drink? You can do that! Do you want to just sit back and take in a really pleasant atmosphere without overly exerting yourself? You can do that! At Europa Park, you can spend a day doing just about anything and it will always be fulfilling! The theming is surprisingly phenomenal: One thing that did surprise me about Europa Park was just how phenomenally well themed it is throughout. With it not being a Disney or Universal park or having the same kind of budgets, I was unsure how well themed it would actually be, but I was stunned at how beautiful every area is and how much effort is put into theming each ride and making it really special. The theming is absolutely exceptional at Europa, and while it’s not as grand in scale as the best parts of the likes of Disney and Universal, it’s very consistent, and there are so many little details interwoven around! I’d go as far as to say that while it doesn’t hit the highs of the big 2 theming-wise, I’d argue that Europa is generally more strongly themed than, or at very least matching, a fair proportion of Disney & Universal stuff. I certainly think the general level of theming and detail at Europa is at least up there with, if not above, some of the more weakly themed parts of the big 2, which really surprised me. The park has a wonderful vibe throughout: Interestingly given it’s quite a big player with huge visitor numbers, Europa feels remarkably relaxed throughout, and the vibe is absolutely wonderful in every area of the park; even as someone who doesn’t particularly like large crowds, I did not find one moment in Europa even vaguely stressful! Also, the park has a real feeling of warmth throughout that I can’t quite place my finger on; in a bizarre way, it almost reminded me of the warmth of somewhere smaller like Paultons Park, and it was very endearing! There are so many things I could say, but those are just some of the main ones!
    So all in all then, I was blown away by Europa Park. The place felt special; the second I stepped through the gates each day, I just felt my face curl into a grin of wonder! I probably looked quite silly, but it was truly brilliant and it truly made me happy; I could have spent many more days there! There are just so many things I loved about the park, and it truly resonated with me on so many levels. For that reason, I’m going to drop a far more decisive bombshell than last night’s, that I don’t see myself u-turning on tomorrow morning; Europa Park is my new favourite theme park in the world, of what I’ve visited. There, I said it. I love the theming, I love the coasters, I love the dark rides, I love the atmosphere; there’s just so much I love about it! Islands of Adventure (my previous favourite) is without doubt a phenomenal theme park, but Europa’s raw breadth of attraction lineup, consistent theming quality and phenomenal coasters are just something else for me!
     
    In terms of some key stats of interest; let me just break it down:
    New coasters ridden: 12 Coaster count after trip: 91 Favourite ride: Silver Star Favourite roller coaster: Silver Star (#2 overall out of 91… after some careful thought, Mako remains top dog) Favourite non-coaster: Piraten in Batavia Favourite dark ride: Piraten in Batavia Favourite water ride: Fjord-Rafting Overall ride count: 50 (over 3 days) Highest 1-day count: 21 (on 29th April 2022/Day 3) Most ridden ride: Silver Star (ridden 10 times)  Thank you for reading this report over the last 5 days! I’ve loved recounting my first experience of Europa Park to you each day, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my reports!
  10. 27th April 2022 (Europa Park Day 1)
    Today, our first day in the park finally arrived! It’s a day I had dreamed about for ages, and quite literally dreamed about within the last few months… although unlike in my dreams, no vloggers stopping me from boarding rides or university staff with cricket bats were here to ruin it for me (if you don’t know what I mean, check out the theme park dreams thread)! And it was a very exciting day for sure… let me get straight to the good stuff!
     
    We did not go into the park for ERT this morning, instead opting for a more relaxed start to the day. We headed into Europa at a little after 9:30am through the hotel guest entrance, which was very quick and easy:

    After getting into the park, we initially considered starting with Alpenexpress Enzian, but we could not find the entrance, so we instead decided to start with a nearby ride that we were all hotly ancitipating…
    Wodan Timbur Coaster
    Wodan was on an advertised 40 minute queue, so we decided to join it. I was very excited to ride Wodan; Wicker Man was my #3 prior to visiting Europa, so I naturally had high expectations for its bigger, badder cousin. The queue for Wodan is an attraction in itself, with very elaborate theming throughout, and we also had the bonus of it only being 20 minutes as opposed to the advertised 40, which is always good! So, how was the ride? Well, we rode in row 8, and I thought it was absolutely phenomenal; the pacing was truly relentless like no other ride I’ve ever ridden, and every bit of the ride felt like it was trying to fling you out of the seat in some way, including some very unexpected moments of airtime! Interestingly, I thought it encapsulated elements from all 3 of the modern wooden coasters I’ve done previously (Wicker Man, Mine Blower and Megafobia); the initial sequence of elements reminded me a lot of Megafobia with the sustained air on the way down the first drop and the big turnaround directly after, while the fun twists and turns, the relative smoothness and the comfy trains reminded me a lot of Wicker Man, and the awesome little pops of air at the end reminded me a lot of Mine Blower. And it integrated all of these elements wonderfully to make it an absolutely phenomenal wooden roller coaster; Wodan definitely became my favourite wooden roller coaster I’ve ridden (yes, I concede that I definitely liked it more than Wicker Man), and it has definitely blazed its way into my top 3 for sure! My parents loved the ride, too:



    After Wodan, we headed to the other major roller coaster in Iceland…
    Blue Fire
    Blue Fire was on an advertised 20 minute wait, so we decided to give it a go. Seeing as Icon was my #2 prior to visiting Europa, I was very interested to ride the prototype Mack launch coaster. Many had told me that Blue Fire was superior to Icon, so I was interested to see what I thought to it given my Icon love. The wait took a tad longer than 20 minutes due to a breakdown, but that certainly wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the ride team; trains were being hammered out, and as I later found would be the case with every ride at Europa, the queue moved very quickly, and the boarding/checking process took very little time at all; they don’t mess around! So, how was Blue Fire? Well, I thought it was a very fun ride; it was smooth, the inversions were nice (particularly the first and last ones; the last one is challenging for my favourite inversion), there were some nice transitions and it was overall a nice, fun coaster! However… I did think it was lacking a little something relative to Icon. I can’t quite put my finger on what, but I wasn’t getting quite the same wow feeling that I get from a ride on Icon. It could be that it’s not the most airtime-y ride, and I do enjoy airtime on this style of coaster, so I was missing a little air on there, but I’m not sure that was entirely it; while it was a terrific coaster, I did think it was missing that little spark to make it a true 10/10 tier ride for me. That’s not to say that Blue Fire isn’t a great ride, though; I thoroughly enjoyed myself on it, and it still makes my top 10! Neither of my parents seemed overly keen, though; my mum said it was “sick-making”, and said she isn’t riding again this trip, while my dad said that it felt slow for a ride of 62mph:


    After Blue Fire, we decided to wander for a bit and see where the path took us. It took us to Scandinavia, and Fjord-Rafting was initially considered as our next ride, but we then made the conservative decision to leave the water rides for a hotter day on our trip (tomorrow and Friday are due to be hotter), so we instead chose to ride…
    Snorri Touren
    I didn’t actually know how long the queue for Snorri Touren was, but I thought it looked intriguing, so we joined the queue. For such a hidden away attraction, I thought the queue was very nicely themed, with lots to look at and odd appearances from an octopus who I’m guessing is Snorri (?). So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was a fun little ride for what it was, with some nice theming, a catchy soundtrack, good projection mapping, and a rather surprising and clever section that almost resembled a simulator-style ride, which I thought was interesting! Overall, I thought it was a fun and intriguing ride, and my parents seemed to agree:

    After Snorri Touren, we decided to head to another dark ride that I knew a little more about…
    Piraten in Batavia
    Piraten in Batavia was on an advertised 20 minute queue, so we joined it. We thought the queue looked rather big from the outside, as it was spilling out of the building into the plaza, but it turned out that the sign was right, as the queue moved at a very fast pace and took no longer than advertised, perhaps even slightly less! The queue was also incredibly well themed, with some surprisingly massive rooms and lots to look at, which is always good! So, how was the ride? Well, I didn’t know too much about it other than that it was similar to Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney and replaced an older attraction of the same premise, so I went in (relatively) blind aside from people telling me it was brilliant. And I must say, I thought it was a truly excellent dark ride, and perhaps controversially, I’d take it over its Disney source material any day of the week (well, the WDW version). There was lots of theming to look at throughout, the scenes were really excellent (with some being surprisingly grand in scale), and other tools such as smells and projection mapping were also used very effectively in there; I thought it was a fantastic dark ride, and it seemed to be a hit with my parents too:

    After Piraten in Batavia, we headed to our next roller coaster, which was very nearby…
    Euro Mir
    Euro Mir was on an advertised 15 minute wait, so we decided to give it a go. The ride looks very impressive from off-ride, with the huge glass buildings and the big rocket giving it a very strong presence within the surrounding area. The ride also has an… interesting indoor queue, with some fun UV lighting and a soundtrack that is bound to be stuck in one’s head after riding (as is the case with a surprising number of Europa’s rides)! So, how was Euro Mir? Well, I was interested to see what I thought to it, as it seems quite marmite; I’ve noticed that people seem to either really like it or not think much to it at all. And sadly, me and my parents all fell quite comfortably into the latter camp. Europa had certainly been buttering us the right way up to this point, so I hate to say it, but… oh dear. This was genuinely horrible, and I don’t think any of us enjoyed it at all. I thought it was quite a strange coaster, with an interesting start with some controlled spinning and a very long lift hill given the height, which was intriguing. The aerial turns were OK, providing some nice views of the park… but that’s where the ride went hugely downhill, both literally and figuratively. Interestingly, it didn’t spin at all in the main thrilling body of the coaster, so nausea wasn’t really an issue, but whenever it sped up or turned, it got horrifically rough. Me and my mum were facing forwards, and we got bashed around a hell of a lot (particularly our shins/knees, getting bashed against the hard side of the car), but my dad, who was facing backwards, seemed to get the brunt of the bashing, with him saying that it really hurt his shins. Granted, Euro Mir is a fairly forceful coaster for a ride of its type, and it’s certainly novel, so I probably shouldn’t be so harsh, but none of us especially enjoyed it at all:


    After Euro Mir, we wandered into the Great Britain section of the park, where we had a spot of lunch in the sports bar before having a little stroll around the Great Britain area while working out where to go next:


    I’ve got to say, Europa is the perfect park for just strolling around; it’s truly beautiful throughout, and never feels too busy given that it gets over 5 million guests per year!
     
    After a brief stroll through Britain, we stumbled into Switzerland, where we boarded our next attraction:
    Schweizer Bobbahn
    Schweizer Bobbahn had a 15 minute advertised queue, so we joined it. I was interested to ride Schweizer Bobbahn; I’d remembered really liking Avalanche at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, so I was hopeful for quite a fun little coaster. So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was rather good fun myself, with some nice helixes and turns! I didn’t think it quite stacked up to Avalanche, though; it didn’t seem quite as fast, and it had a slight rattle in some of the more forceful sections that I don’t remember Avalanche having, which detracted ever so slightly. Nevertheless, I thought it was a fun little coaster for what it was, and certainly something I enjoyed:


    After Schweizer Bobbahn, we headed to do the other coaster in Switzerland…
    Matterhorn Blitz
    Matterhorn Blitz had an advertised 20 minute queue, so we decided to join it and give it a go. The queue felt like one of the longest queues of the day, however; Matterhorn Blitz is not the highest capacity ride at Europa, and the ride did appear quite popular. It was a fairly nicely themed queue, though, with a very nicely themed indoor section at the end, although I’ll digress that I found some of the animatronics a tad disconcerting! Putting aside the queue, though; how was the ride? Well, I thought the elevator lift was really interesting, and it was relatively smooth for a wild mouse, as well as well themed, but I don’t generally rate wild mouse coasters that highly, so saying it’s my favourite wild mouse coaster is damning with faint praise a tad. With that being said, though, I did like the theme, and it certainly looks pretty; this style of ride just isn’t really my thing, so I’m not sure I was ever going to rate it super highly:

    After Matterhorn Blitz, we took a stroll and found ourselves in Greece, where we got in line for…
    Abenteuer Atlantis
    I thought Abenteuer Atlantis looked intriguing, and it was on a 1 minute advertised queue, so we decided to join it and give ourselves a brief respite from coastering. The queue board certainly wasn’t lying; we literally waltzed straight on, and interestingly, we boarded entirely by ourselves, with seemingly no host there at all! So, how was Abenteuer Atlantis? Well, I thought it was a fun little interactive dark ride, with some excellent theming and animatronics and an overall fun vibe; I really liked it, and my mum and dad seemed to as well. Mum & dad scored well, with them getting scores in the 20,000-30,000 ballpark, but being as shocking at interactive dark rides as I am, I got a truly abysmal 701; I have very poor aim, so I never score particularly well on these. Nevertheless, we all found it a fun little ride:

    After Abenteuer Atlantis, we initially pondered riding Pegasus, but we were instead drawn to a somewhat more anticipated coaster located right next to it…
    Silver Star
    Silver Star was on an advertised 15 minute queue, so we decided to give it a go. One thing I must say about Silver Star is that I think it is quite possibly one of the fastest moving queues I have ever stood in; we were initially doubtful about whether it would actually take 15 minutes, as the queue looked quite large, but the sign wasn’t wrong, perhaps even a little pessimistic; we reached the station in around 10 minutes. I was going into Silver Star with very mixed expectations and feelings. My pre-Europa #1 was also a B&M Hyper Coaster (Mako at SeaWorld Orlando), so I had high expectations for SS, but I also had somewhat low expectations too, as it never seems to get very positive press; it appears to have marmite status among Europa’s coasters at best, with a fair percentage of people not rating it very highly at all while another percentage likes it, but doesn’t love it. As such, I was wondering whether to expect a pretty rough coaster lacking in airtime more akin to The Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, as a number of reviews had implied Silver Star to be quite rough and severely lacking in airtime. I was excited to ride Silver Star, but also quite nervous as well. Would the B&M Hyper experience live up to my glorious memories of Mako from 6 years earlier now that I’ve ridden considerably more rides?
     
    Well, I shouldn’t have worried. Unlike the similarly marmite Euro Mir, me and my parents fell firmly into the “love it” category with this ride, and I thought it was truly spectacular! I was a tad skeptical about how our first ride would be, as we were seated in row 5 (slap bang in the middle… not usually the best spot on airtime coasters) but it was absolutely breathtaking! The first drop provided stunning sustained floater, and it bought all of those glorious Mako memories flooding back. Each successive hill had glorious sustained air for seconds and seconds, and I thought the ride was pretty smooth and comfortable too (admittedly not quite the same wonderful level of glass smoothness as 2016 Mako, but that’s to be expected given that Mako was brand new when I rode it, while SS is 20 years old). The ending was excellent too; we got properly yanked off the MCBR with a phenomenal and surprisingly abrupt jolt of airtime, with each successive hill in the post-MCBR section being similar, and the s-bend rode pretty well too! Overall, I was truly blown away by Silver Star, and my parents appeared to be too; they both raved about the experience:


    After an epic ride on Silver Star, we headed to the other roller coaster in France…
    Cancan Coaster
    Cancan Coaster was on a 25 minute advertised queue, so we decided to give it a go. As with many rides at Europa, this had a beautiful queue, with tons to look at, and it moved quickly too; what more can you ask for? So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was really good fun, and definitely a surprising one; the ride was very smooth, and packed surprising pace throughout, with some really fun turns being packed in there too. I also thought the theming was very fun and whimsical, and I did like having the can can playing to you while you were riding! Overall, I thought Cancan was great fun; definitely one we all enjoyed:


    After Cancan Coaster, we decided to relax for a bit and sit down in the town square in France to watch the fountain show for 10 minutes or so:

    I must say, Europa’s France section is beautiful; it had a very nice atmosphere, and was lovely to spend time in! The fountain show was quite a fun watch, too!
     
    After our sit down, we decided to spice things up with another random ride we stumbled across…
    Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities
    I thought Madame Freudenreich’s Curiosities looked intriguing, so we decided to give it a go. As with Abenteuer Atlantis earlier, the queue was walk-on, which is always a bonus! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was quite a fun little ride! Certainly quirky for sure, but it was certainly a fun little detour, with some fun animatronics, a fun storyline, and surprisingly excellent theming:

    After Madame Freudenreich’s, we decided to take a gradual stroll down to Deutsche Allee, Europa’s very nice entrance area:


    We didn’t just stroll down to EP’s entrance area for the sake of it, however. While in the area, we took a ride on…
    Voletarium
    Voletarium was on a mere 5 minute advertised queue, so we decided to give it a go. The queue for Voletarium is almost an attraction in itself; it’s absolutely stunning, with some huge rooms and tons to look at! However, we didn’t get a lot of time to look at anything, as we practically waltzed straight onto the ride! So, how was Voletarium? Well, I thought it was a really nice ride, with some good cinematography, nice smells and some nice special effects on the side; definitely a good fun dark ride:

    After Voletarium, we took a bit of a stroll through the gardens area by Europa’s entrance, as in all honesty, we weren’t really sure where we were going at this point:


    We eventually found ourselves in Austria, where we briefly sat down to look at the fountains:

    After our brief sit down, we headed over to ride…
    Alpenexpress Enzian
    Alpenexpress had a 15 minute advertised queue, so we joined it. VR was in operation on this ride, but on our train, there were no VR riders, so we managed to score a ride towards the back of the train; always a bonus with these powered coasters! So, how was the ride? Well, I thought it was really good fun, with two surprisingly fast helixes; it’s probably up there with Alton Towers’ Runaway Mine Train as one of my favourite powered coasters:


    After Alpenexpress, we decided to gradually stroll back over to Iceland to take a second ride on Wodan. I was seated in row 7 for this ride, and it was just as phenomenal as earlier; in fact, it was possibly a tad faster, and I was genuinely somewhat worried for my unzipped jacket’s life over some of the airtime hills!
     
    After that, I split off from my parents to go for one final ride on Silver Star. You don’t think of EP as being overly big, but the walk from Iceland to France is surprisingly hefty! In terms of my second ride on Silver Star; I scored the back row, and it was even more phenomenal than earlier! Even with the trim brakes biting somewhat, every hill had a truly phenomenal yank of airtime over it, and the ride was absolutely exquisite from start to finish!
     
    You may notice that I have thus far steered clear of doing a direct comparison between Silver Star and Mako. So, has Silver Star dethroned Mako as my number 1 coaster? My answer is… not quite, but there’s phenomenally little in it; that verdict was not reached easily, and my rides on Silver Star today certainly had me second guessing Mako’s #1 placement more than any other ride has since Mako. It was a very tough decision, but I ultimately decided to keep Mako on top because while Silver Star is absolutely spectacular, I don’t think any individual element on it had quite the same wow factor as elements like Mako’s sublime first drop and first camelback hill, from memory, and while still very smooth and comfortable for the most part, Silver Star doesn’t ride quite as exquisitely as Mako did in 2016, and Mako’s completely glass smooth ride was one of the things I loved about it. I know that those sound like very pedantic reasons, but when two rides are both that good and it’s the top spot being fought for, I’m afraid that it has to be pedantry that ultimately decides which ride comes out on top. Nonetheless, Silver Star is a phenomenal coaster that truly took my breath away, and that back row ride in particular certainly had Mako quaking in its boots!
     
    After a glorious ride on Silver Star, I met back up with my parents, and we headed out of the park for the day:

    After that, we headed to Hotel Colosseo for a lovely meal in Pizzeria de Romantica before heading back to our room, saying goodnight to Europa Park for the day:


    So in conclusion, we had a wonderful first day in Europa Park! The park is absolutely stunning, with stunning rides and stunning theming; it’s certainly a phenomenally well rounded park, in my view, and I can’t wait to see the rest of what it has to offer over the next 2 days!
     
    I’m aware that our schedule was quite intense today (I was possibly further down the rabbit hole of “new park stress” than I’d have perhaps liked), so we agreed that we’re going to have a more relaxed day tomorrow, with some shows scattered in alongside rides we haven’t done yet (including water rides and the remaining 4 coaster credits), as well as rerides on our favourites.
     
    Thanks for reading (apologies for the length; if you read it all, you deserve a medal!), and I hope you enjoyed my report; I’ll be back tomorrow with day 2!

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