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Mark9

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  1. Mark9

    Drop it like it's hot.

    By Mark9,

    In 2012, I was assigned to write a feature for Colossus's tenth birthday. The article itself was my best work if I don't say so myself. It was my intention that I would be able to do a similar piece when it came to 2003's blisteringly hot but underwhelmingly* tepid Nemesis Inferno in 2013. But this did not happen. No matter what I wrote, constructed or thought about, inspiration abandoned me and I just couldn't put together a piece that would do Inferno justice. And the problem comes down to one sticking point;
    There is just nothing special about Nemesis Inferno.

    Nemesis Inferno, distinctly middle of the road.
    But worry not fellow Thorpe fanboys and coaster nerds for the story doesn't end there. It is for that reason that for me, Nemesis Inferno is one of Thorpe's very best roller coasters and one that I get the most pleasure out of riding during a visit. Let me tell you a tale about a ride that was hyped to the max, but could never reach those lofty heights.
    Back in 2002, Colossus had done unexpected things for Thorpe, it's visitor numbers rising and rising and the construction of a brand new Inverter would have been a spectacular thing indeed for English enthusiasts. Remember, we are talking about a time when Nemesis most definitely ruled the roost in the UK and unless you were up for travelling to America, Italy or Spain, chances are it was your only shot. The hype surrounding Inferno was definitely something different, particularly when it was associated with the Nemesis name. I can remember at the time, discussion on Inferno's finale helixes being discussed as potentially as intense as Nemesis's helix after its first inversion. Talk about building the hype.

    Of course, come April 2003, Inferno opens and it isn't quite as good as it's predecessor. My favourite description at the time was a ride on Inferno's front row was not as intense as a ride on the Happy Halibuts of Octopus Garden. Talk about damning a product.
    At the time, with only Colossus complimenting Inferno, it came under harsher criticism then it probably deserved. With only two major roller coasters** to keep customers happy, Inferno came under the limelight in a way that many rides do not. After all, inverters had really boomed in the 90's with the Batman clones being installed all across America and rides that dominated their respected parks like Katun, Montu and Alpengeist. By 2003, with new types of rides starting to dominate such as sky hogging mega coasters and Intamin's brand new launch technology breaking record after record it's easy to see why Inferno was not enough and why Inferno could actually be seen as a bit, old hat.

    This is all hindsight of course. With the addition of Stealth, Saw: The Ride and The Swarm, things have increasingly changed at Thorpe and of course, so has Nemesis Inferno. As higher, faster and more attention grabbing rides have been added, Inferno has become more of a support roller coaster. When everything else goes to hell in a hand basket, Inferno is the old reliable. Always the ride with minimal queues, always the ride that eats through queues like it's going out of fashion and always the ride that delivers a smooth, intense experience. Never really pushing its customers too far but always delivering its promise of an enjoyable and satisfying ride. I know there are those that will disagree. A B&M inverter should be the absolute pinnacle of intensity, nothing should be considered more when riding this ride type. If that is the promise then Inferno doesn't deliver. Luckily, just up the M1 and left a bit is another roller coaster that does fulfil the necessary criteria.

    At Thorpe however is a ride built on the tail end of a coaster boom, one that is loved by a small but vocal minority. And for me personally, it holds some very special memories. It was my very first B&M and by default my first B&M inverter, it was the first ride that I really followed construction of and I know full well that it is my most ridden ride thanks to many Single rider sessions in 2004.
    More then most then, I can say that Inferno is an average ride at best. But even average is better then the majority of roller coasters out there. And that's good enough for me.
    Thanks for reading, Mark9

    *I made up a word just for this review. Now that is dedication for you
    **I know people will say X:/ No Way Out was a major roller coaster. it just isn't OKAY!
  2. Mark9
    So another year passes and it only seems right to look back on 12 months of fun, thrills and excitement, in a way that only Mark9 can. So where do we start?
    January 2014 - Disneyland Paris
    Ok, sure, this trip only featured one new ride (Peter Pans Flight fact fans) but it also marked the occasion where I somehow managed 42 hours of consciousness, the trip where I took a nap during cinemagique and where Jamie fell asleep eating food in Hyperion. Yes there was fatigue and short tempers but it was a fantastic way to start a brand new year. From what looked like a flooded ferry to getting more rides on Tower of Terror.


    February 2014
    And now the season takes a slight down turn. This month featured my only trip to the Towers and this kind of epitomised Merlins year for me. Whilst Nemesis was running well (albeit on one train) and things like Spinball had minimal queues, there was no atmosphere in the park whatsoever. Usually during February there's excitement for the upcoming full season but not this time around. This year marks the first season since 2003 that I did not ride Oblivion and the first since opening that I didn't ride Rita, The Smiler or Thirteen. And part of me didn't even care. If it wasn't for Dan9's company this trip would have been completely forgettable.
    March 2014
    And then it was Thorpe's turn. Despite multiple rides on Inferno and The Swarm there was little to no energy in the park. The same old problems were occurring such as Slammer and Samurai closed or reliable issues up and down the place. Thank god for the company of the rest of TPM or I would have really despised my day out. And luckily with this month out of the way, the season really began...
    April 2014
    I had last visited Chessington in 2012, before Tomb Blaster had its queue line incident so had reasonably high expectations. And frankly, this was the star UK park for me. The park somehow looks rejuvenated in places and run down to hell in others. Unlike others, I like Scorpion Express and do think it has breathed life into a ride that was well beyond its sell by date when it closed in 2012. Zufari was rubbish even before I compare to Kilimanjaro but getting on rides like Fury and Vampire sent me into rose tinted glasses land. I do like Chessington in spite of its many, many faults.

    May 2014
    New Rollercoasters:-
    179. Medusa - Discovery Kingdom
    180. Kong - Discovery Kingdom
    181. Cobra - Discovery Kingdom
    182. V2: Vertical Velocity - Discovery Kingdom
    183. Superman - Ultimate Flight - Discovery Kingdom
    184. Roar - Discovery Kingdom
    185. Boomerang: Coast to Coaster - Discovery Kingdom
    186. Roadrunner Express - Discovery Kingdom
    187. Tatsu - Magic Mountain
    188. Apocalypse - Magic Mountain
    189. Superman: Escape from Kryptonite - Magic Mountain
    190. Goldrusher - Magic Mountain
    191. Riddlers Revenge - Magic Mountain
    192. Green Lantern - Magic Mountain
    193. Batman: The Ride (backwards) - Magic Mountain
    194. Scream - Magic Mountain
    195. Colossus - Magic Mountain
    196. Goliath - Magic Mountain
    197. Viper - Magic Mountain
    198. Ninja - Magic Mountain
    199. Full Throttle - Magic Mountain
    200. Big Thunder Mountain - Disneyland
    201. Matterhorn Bobsled B - Disneyland
    202. Space Mountain - Disneyland
    203. California Screamin’ - California Adventure
    204. Goofys Sky School - California Adventure
    205. Gadget Go Coaster - Disneyland
    206. Silver Bullet - Knotts Berry Farm
    207. Xcelerator - Knotts Berry Farm
    208. Coast Rider - Knotts Berry Farm
    209. Boomerang - Knotts Berry Farm
    210. Pony Express - Knotts Berry Farm
    211. Montezoomas Revenge - Knotts Berry Farm
    212. Jaguar - Knotts Berry Farm
    213. Sierra Sidewinder - Knotts Berry Farm
    214. West Coaster - Pacific Pier
    215. Matterhorn Bobsled A - Disneyland
    This of course was the flagship trip of the year, a visit that was two years in the making and had a lot too live up to. I can say for sure it lived up to the hype and features some of my favourite rides ever. Starting with the city of San Francisco, everyone should make as much effort as possible to this historic, cultural, awesome city. No one can fail to be disappointed by the Golden Gate Bridge or where history was made in the Castro. To the sealions down at Pier 39 or Alcatraz this place is amazing.

    The long, long, LONG drive to Magic Mountain is worth the distance. I know its reputation is low but it has a lot of original, decent rides including my favourite flyer, my favourite suspended and my favourite stand up. With strong support rides like Apocalypse, Goliath and Scream it should be on anyones radar to visit.

    Despite my negative comments in my trip report, I really did love Disneyland and California Adventure. From California Screamin' to Haunted Mansion it's really a place filled with such variety and within a stones throw of Los Angeles. Speaking of Los Angeles, despite not spending as much time as I had wished, walking up to the Hollywood sign will be something I always remember. That view is spectacular.

    And finally 24 hour day at Disneyland which was some feat. World of Color at 3:30 in the morning. Magical.

    A classic Liner

    An event in its own right

    One too many drinks in the Castro
    June 2014
    So June didn't see any theme park visits. Instead I decided to be cultural and visit the wonders of Amsterdam. I'm sure if you use your imagination you can just guess what I got up too. From the Red Light District too a club that features people that don't fit into gender brackets. It was a most enlightening trip.


    A cultural gin museum
    July and August 2014
    Ok, so I didn't go anywhere but I did get a mortgage and move into a new flat in the old Olympic village in Stratford.

    September 2014
    216. Helix - Liseberg
    217. Kanonen - Liseberg
    218. Balder - Liseberg
    219. Lisebergbanan - Liseberg
    Set hype levels to stun. This was the month of Helix, Mack's latest and greatest roller coaster. I've always heard a lot about Liseberg and suffice to say I was very happy with my trip. Excellent rides and roller coasters and a great time was had in Gothenburg nearby where I went into a scary submarine.


    October 2014
    Rather hastily, a trip to Phantasialand was booked, paid for and done just like that. I forgot how much I adored this place and was very glad to be back. I will not be leaving eight years in-between visits next time.

    November 2014
    And finally, to bookend the trips was Disneyland Paris to come and ride Ratatouille (and to finally get on Orbitron and Autopia) In a few years time, Ratatouille will be recognised as the fantastic ride that it truly is. This is Pixars greatest work since Toy Story 3 screen wise. Go and visit and see for yourself.
    And with that, my year in a nutshell. So what is the most notable rides of 2014?
    Best Water Ride:- Chiapas
    Best Dark Ride:- Ratatouille
    Best Rollercoaster:- Tatsu
    Biggest Surprise:- California Screamin'
    Best Park:- California Adventure
    And finally, the best new ride of 2014 goes too....
    ....
    ....

    None other then the utterly sublime Radiator Spring Racers. In my mind it will take a hell of a lot to top this in 2015. But then Europa Park is just around the corner..
    Thanks for reading, in fact thanks if you even made it this far down the page. Please feel free too leave comments below.
  3. Mark9

    Closed Season Part 2

    By Mark9,

    Italy
     
    With the exception of Gardaland, Italy is a relative unknown in the rollercoaster world. Despite the country containing two of the best rollercoasters in Europe, its relative distance from the UK and distance between parks always means Italy is a difficult nut to crack. Baring in mind, I last did a theme park road trip there in 2011 and the developments that have occurred in the last five years, there is now, no reason not to visit this fantastic country.
     
    We started in Rome, back when Rainbow Magicland was a brand new theme park. Since then Cincecittá World has opened which you can explore in Ben C's Italy blog from 2015
    http://forum.maniahub.com/blogs/entry/714-roman-roaming-highlights-from-italy-part-1/
     
    Rainbow Magicland
     
    This odd little park is a definite unknown. Despite the big promises and high expectations from when it initially opened, the park has never really set the continent alight. It has the space and some very intriguing attractions but it's never been able to grow beyond that. About an hour from Rome itself, it's one I would visit again thanks to Shock and Huntik.
     
    Shock for example is a good ride to demonstrate the almost amateur approach of the park. It begins with very odd meandering before launching you off to the sky with some great aerial movements. It's loud, it's fast, its relatively intense, its photogenic and it leaves its best trick till last.

     
    Whilst Shock is the parks signature ride, it's pretty much the only rollercoaster that genuinely impresses. The parks spinner is pretty terrible for example, a ride in a giant shed and suffers from the same problems that Winjas and Spinball suffer from; the turns counteract the spinning momentum meaning the ride never really gets going. Luckily the theming is fantastic so at least when walking past the ride, there is something to admire.

     
    The surprise stand out was without a shadow of a doubt Huntik, a next generation shoot em up with fantastic effects. We really enjoyed.

    I'd recommend a visit here to start a trip off with. 
     
    Miribilandia
     
    I really like Miribilandia. That is off course help by Katun which is undoubtedly my favourite B&M worldwide. The height of the thing, the fantastic intensity and the traditional B&M layout combination really works here and the ride whilst feels controlled (unlike say... enthusiast favourite Nemesis), it rides so well that can be forgiven for anything. I love it.
     

     

     
    Next up, comes I-Speed a well loved Intamin launch rollercoaster. It's a good ride, solid, well paced and keeps its speed throughout. The only issue is those damn restraints which tend to cut into you on the fast corners. If it was able to get the new restraints, it would definitely fly up the rankings.

     

     
    I have yet to ride Divertical but I've heard 'some' good things. The final real quality ride there is Reset, a dark ride themed to.. well I'll let the pictures do the talking. Worth riding and very separate from the rest of the park.
     

     

     
    And finally, after driving across Italy, we come to Gardaland, at a time when people did generally seem to like Merlin. With Raptor, Krake and The Swarm all built in quick succession, it's amazing how Merlin haven't quite reached that lofty standard for a while. I really like Raptor, I personally think that despite it not really featuring large drops and big inversions, it has a much more original layout, more well paced then any of the others and I really love its industrial look.
     

     

     
    Since my visit Oblivion: Black Hole has opened so another reason to visit Italy for you all. In terms of when I when I went, Raptor was only really the major ride that shone. Other rides like the awful S&S attraction, so awful I've forgotten its name and the Venom twosome aren't great back up coasters frankly.
     

     

     
    Other rides really are terrible though, the Atlantis ride is tedious in the extreme. It looks pretty but no, not any good. The park does also suffer from similar Merlin issues to ours such as up-selling and very few support rides.
     
    Finally...
     
    Just a shout out to Italy as a country. It's a fantastic place and my absolute favourite theme park trip memory is sitting on a balcony in our apartment overlooking the sun setting, with a couple of beers and just enjoying everything about the country. It's lovely and definitely worth a visit over. 
     
    Thanks for the reading and for Part 3, I shall be attacking the big egg that is Germany.. wish me luck. 

  4. Mark9

    6 month break

    By Mark9,

    Hello again, long time no see. It's been a quick six month break since I've been on here, since my 'emotional' breakdown a few months back. In that time, my love for rollercoasters has been reinvigorated without the related cynicism that forums can sometimes create. I thought I'd do a blog of somewhat of what I've been up to. 
     
    April 2017 - France/Germany road trip
     
    Three months ago, (where has the time gone), myself along with Peaj, Dan and Fred went on a six park trip across Western Europe parks. The aim was for everyone to grab the odd new B&M, Intamin and new parks galore. For all of us, the only new park was Movie Park Germany. I have to admit our trip was oddly planned, we somehow missed all the new rides that were due to open in May, however I think in spite of this, we had a wonderful time. So to start off we went to Parc Asterix. I think of this is a very under-rated place. The rides are fun, enjoyable, interestingly themed and very re-rideable. The obvious highlight is Oz'Iris which, five years after my first ride is still an incredible ride. We managed a back row and front row ride and each was enjoyable. It managed to toe the line between modern and old school B&M and the custom layout works really well with the nearby theming.

    Tonnerre de Zeus has had some queue line work too but seemed rougher then I remember, presumably its starting to age and might need a little bit of work done. I was impressed with the parks newer additions such as the disk which features fire effects and the way the ride is designed into the lake. I love Goudurix. This may be controversial but it's an intense, raw experience which many newer rides could learn lessons from. Sure its still rated one of the worst rollercoasters in the world but I don't think it deserves the hatred it received.
     
    Park 2 was Nigloland, a park celebrating its 30th anniversary. This park has a lot of Mack rides, in fact it almost comes across as a mini Europa Park. This was my biggest surprise of the trip frankly, it's a fantastic park that retains its family history and the obvious pride in the place is something you just don't get with company parks. The obvious star of Nigloland is Alpina-Blitz, an absolutely sublime rollercoaster and by a country mile my favourite ride of the trip. One of my favourite aspects of it is the little Mack touches, the way the ride has such forceful air time in the Blue Fire type trains, the little walkway that extends over the track in the station to allow disabled access, the way it borrows the best bits from Piraten (Djurs Sommerland) and improving on them massively. As I've got older, I don't re-ride rides more then 2/3 times but Alpina Blitz, we got ten rides out of. It is worth the trip to here alone.


    Other rides in Nigloland aren't 'quite' up the standard of Blitz, but they don't need to be. Euro-Sat has a little brother here for example and whilst not quite as good or as long, is a nice surprise. The log flume, I found very strange. It runs about nine boats in total and contains only one drop in a very short layout. Strange. I loved the powered coaster, I forced the others to ride a further two times. A few rides there were a bit dodgy such as the Jungle Cruise rip off or the Jurassic Park walkthrough which were a waste of time really, but in the context of the park are good fillers. The new drop tower which sticks out like a saw thumb was pretty terrifying if only for the sheer size of the tower. The drop had nothing on our Detonator, however its height was intimidating.

     
    Park 3 - Holiday Park
     
    The original intention was to visit Walygator for Monster and Anaconda. However when that decided to open three weeks later, we quickly diverted to Holiday Park in Germany. It's been eleven years since I last visited and I originally didn't really like Expedition Ge Force finding it over-rated and disappointing. My opinion on this has morphed slightly, however I think EGF is now severely outclassed by Shambhala, Alpina Blitz and Piraten. The ride was running one train and because of intamin related problems, it took ages to load. The restraints bite hard into taller people meaning the air time hills become more and more painful as it goes on. I'm 6 foot and was on the edge of pain. It was more enjoyable then I remembered but there's just no way that the ride is number one.

     
    The new star of Holiday Park is Sky Scream. I liked it a lot. I'd been on Superman at Discovery Kingdom and it is pretty much exactly the same albeit, the theme is very different. Horror theme just doesn't work on this kind of rollercoaster, especially in glorious sunshine. Holiday Park suffers from a lack of family rollercoasters. It has two thrill machines and then everything else is slightly below par. An average omni-mover, a pretty good rapids and a stupidly wet log flume don't really make up for the lack of family support rides. The drop tower being themed to a teenager tv show was odd.
     
    Phantasialand
     
    Everyone knows this park is awesome, that goes without saying. I love the Baron hour extra ride time for guests at the end of the day, I love the hotel, I adore how cheap the ride photos and food are at at the park. I hate Winjas. The news of a launched flyer is welcome news. Kind of glad it isn't B&M as well. 

    Fantastic views of Mamba from the hotel room
     
    Movie Park
     
    This place is weird. You can tell that it's had a change in direction with one half of the park being movie themed and the rest rides just chucked at pathways. The highlight by far was Van Helsing which isn't just a good ride, is a stand out Gerstlauer wild mouse. Some really forceful hair pins and great dips in a ride that really showcases the best of the company. It's theme was pretty decent too, although admittedly the head peeking out of the ceiling on the exit platform was more comedic then scary. The rest of the park is pretty poor though. Star Trek was desperately needed but not ready to open on our visit. The Vekoma SLC was Dan's first of this type, well deserving of a front row seat. Wasn't that bad but after Oz'Iris and Black Mamba, it doesn't come across well. The only photo I have of the day is Oswald at Disneyland Paris so that will have to do.

     
    And finally Efteling 
     
    When I was younger and in my theme park teenage years, there were three parks that I always wanted to visit because they sounded more magical then theme parky. They were Liseberg, Tivoli Gardens and Efteling. And I was finally ticking this off my list. The park was busy and queues for the big rides topped an hour. My obvious interest was Baron 1898 which I'll talk about later. Firstly, Flying Dutchman. What a great concept let down solely by the middling rollercoaster bit. The theming of Efteling is second to none and the atmosphere of the indoor bit is fantastic. I was slightly thrown off by the lift hill where I thought an obvious backwards bit was going to happen but didn't. Next, Volga Rock a rather extravagant Vekoma rollercoaster which I really enjoyed. My memory is hazy because of the sheer oddness of the trip. The fairy dark ride is fabulous. I was taken back by the sheer scale of the ride, the attention to detail of the sets is incredible. The Venom Madhouse requires you to know Dutch and well, we don't. Music was great though. Joris en de Draak, the parks racing woodies were both running one trains and to be honest, I didn't think it had anything on Wodan. I don't get the appeal of racing coasters to be honest, the rides motions get completely ignored by wanting to see where the other train has gone. And I hate losing.

    And finally, Baron. I thought this was a wonderful take on the dive machine concept. I like my rides to involve the people passing by so the little bell emanating from the lift hill when a train is about to descend is the kind of detail I love to see. The show rooms on this don't rely on a knowledge on the Dutch language enabling anyone to understand the story. The drop is rather nifty and whilst shorter then Oblivion has a similar impact. The zero g is good.The air time hill is terrible. There isn't a single bit of sensation as the train rises and falls over the track and fills like its there to increase ride length only. The ride also has a problem with capacity. It only has three trains and even with that there is massive stacking. Oblivion with its seven trains (in its heyday anyway) runs rings around Baron. In spite of this, 1898 is thematically far more interesting and engaging then Oblivion. The power of dive machines to grab attention is second to none. 

     
    And with that the trip was over. Some of the top parks in Europe are only a couple of hours away from the UK so there really is no excuse not to go.
     
    Next up was Thorpe Park which was absolutely dead. Where was everyone? This was my first time on Derren Brown and I have to say it was relatively enjoyable. It suffers from the Merlin problem that acting = shouting at guests and ordering them around. I loved the train concept and even fell for the bit where a tube train is thundering down the tunnel. We were lucky that there was no queue and we got batched in straight away. It's not worth a long queue but it is interesting that the ride length of Derren Brown is probably longer then every other ride at Thorpe put together.
    This is Samurai which I haven't ridden for about three years.
     
    Next up was Disneyland Paris where we were by chance around for the reopening of Space Mountain as the shameless cash in, Hyperspace Mountain. I didn't like this one bit and the main problem is the clashing of themes. Star Wars on the Californian version is fine, that has a rather charmless theme as it is. The Jules Verne mixed with X-Wings and Death Stars doesn't work at all. Sadly this ride will be a lot more popular with visitors, equalling longer queues, meaning the original version from 1995, may now never return. On the plus side, the new trains are excellent albeit, slightly more restrictive then the old ones.

     
    Other new features for the 25th include a new parade (which was a massive upgrade from the old one), a new firework show (which is a massive downgrade from Dreams) and new day time shows celebrating the magic of DLP.

    I forgot to mention Europa Park, but lets face it that place is just insanely incredible. It was the quietest I've ever seen it with being able to stay on Blue Fire three times in a row or walk on front row Wodan. New area Ireland is fine, the rather odd choice of theming a rockin' tug around a Titanic life boat is an interesting choice for a ride..
     

     
    Blue Fire remains as incredible as always, surely one of the best rides ever built. It's on its 9th season but you couldn't tell it as it has not aged one iota. The drops with that level of smoothness make it one of the most consistent rides out there.
     
    I apologise for this blogs length and well done if you even got half way. It's been a breezy six months and I'm so glad that my passion for theme parks have been reinvigorated. Nothing is like our hobby, the sheer escapism and joy from theme parks is unrivalled. And to end this length trip report, here's Scenic Railway at Margate which gave me chills.
     

  5. Mark9

    The new Germany

    By Mark9,

    When I say to people I'm going on a holiday with a week of rollercoasters, they ask what do I like about rides. At first I said it was the rollercoasters and all the different rides but as I've grown up it is completely all about the immersion and escapism. And nowhere is escapism more true in the Netherlands which has seen massive park expansions in the last ten years. Theme parks are fully upping their games and as I've wanted to revisit Efteling and take my first trip to Toverland, 2019 seemed like the right time to take a visit.. so...
     
    Walibi Holland
     
    We had a game plan here, to hit Lost Gravity first and all the other rollercoasters before trying out Untamed. This plan fell completely apart when both Untamed and Lost Gravity delayed opening. So instead we tried Goliath first
     
    Goliath
    .
    For those that know me, I'm not a massive fan of the earlier Intamin rides. I don't have a high opinion of Expedition Ge Force and as much as I like Millennium Force it isn't a ride with much content. Goliath was a pretty pleasant surprise. It's got a lot going on but weirdly has a lukewarm reception in coaster circles. Lots of air time, two big helixes, a pretty amazing turn around after the large hill where the train turns to its side to corner. I was pretty impressed with the ride staff too who ran a very efficient ride. For those that have been on EGF, the loading takes a long time. Here, the staff were fast and the trains never stacked. This gained a 61 minute queue through the day but luckily we only queued 10 minutes for both of our rides.
    7/10
     
    El Condor

     
    The true highlight of Walibi Holland is the stunning El Condor, the worlds first Vekoma SLC. Now we only queued 10 minutes luckily for this but later on in the day this had a 90 minute queue. It was as rough as expected and if you have done an SLC, you know exactly what to expect.
     
    4/10
     
    We took a walk round the park as the parks Rock and rollercoaster clone now had an hour queue as did the Vekoma boomerang. Lost Gravity and Untamed still weren't open so we took a ride on the kiddy coaster and the Vekoma Madhouse which was very cheesy with its early 2000's sound effects. The ride was good though, the same as Hex really just a bit less themed. I enjoyed this surprisingly.
     
    It was after having a little look around that we saw that Lost Gravity was open. We queued 97 minutes for this..
     

     
    This is a more extreme Mack then most with thrilling inversions, good air time and a very different layout. Think of a Gerstlauer eurofighter but with even more aggressive drops. Later on in the day we took advantage of the single rider queue (majority of Walibi Hollands rides have them) and got on in about ten minutes. The outer seats on this are slightly rougher then your average Mack ride but it is very good.


    The main queuing cattlepen.
     
    8/10
     
    And wallah, straight after it was over to the now open Untamed.

    This ride reminds me of the entirety of Margate with large love letters all around the queuing area and on the rides main lift hill. One issue with the queue is because it's mainly a dirt pathway, in the rain everyone just gets a bit muddy on their trousers. It also has no cover so we just end up soaked by the time we got to get on. In the sun I can imagine it might be a bit much.

    The ride is absolutely fantastic. I genuinely find it incredible that this company just installs hit after hit. When people hype things up to a degree, I normally try to keep myself controlled and not read into the praise. It makes me glad that I can come to each ride with a completely open mind and just enjoy the ride for what it is. And Untamed was outstanding. Everything I value about rides sits in this attraction such as the great drops and air time, the insane pacing which particularly at the end of this ride is non-stop and breathtaking. For me it just lacks the length of Steel Vengeance but is worlds above Goliath at SFGA.
    10/10 and easily a top five rollercoaster.
     

     
    Rest of the day was just trying to lap up the other rides and get some credits such as the Vekoma Boomerang which was far above others of its type.
     
    And so, Walibi Holland is an interesting park. I'm not sure if I'm particularly bothered about getting back as to be honest its not so much a theme park as it is an amusement park. It's clearly going from strength to strength and its future is fully secure with Untamed being one of the best rides in Europe.
     
    Toverland
     
    With no exaggeration, Toverland is one of my favourite parks in Europe. Considering the park only opened in 2001, it has gone from strength to strength to have one of the best rollercoaster line ups and themed areas I could possibly want. This is what a theme park is to me, beautiful areas and rides that look beautiful, ride well and a place where you can just relax, sit back and just immerse yourself.
     
    Fenix
    Fenix represents the last of the B&M's in Europe for me to ride. I initially completed this on Flug Der Demon last year but then this and Valkyria opened. 

     
    Fenix is quite unlike all the other B&M wing riders I've done. The others are pretty... slow is a fair assessment. But this one absolutely zooms through its layout and is by far the fastest and most intense wing rider I've done. We managed front row on both sides and also near the back of both.
    The main drawbacks is the initial start of the ride is just a bit empty box. They've attempted theming with an ice dragon head breathing smoke at you but this start is 'lacklustre'. Once you finally get going though, what follows is an intense start with great air time, massive helixes and an enjoyable ride.

    7/10
    I love a list so..
    1. Gatekeeper
    2. Flug Der Demon
    3. Fenix
    4. Raptor
    5. The Swarm
    6. X-Flight
     
    Troy
     
    Excellent GCI. When people criticise Wicker Man for being too short I sort of understand it, especially from people who have ridden Troy. It is an action packed thriller of a woodie that has a long length and great air time moments.
     
    Dwivelwind

    8/10
     
    Wow. What a ride this is. We managed eight rides during our day and each one was better than the last. This thing spins like absolute crazy and is so re-rideable. Very much a big surprise and a highlight of the trip.
     
    And the final main ride of the trip is the Booster Bike which is okay but pales into significance to the other rollercoasters.
     
    To get an idea of how beautiful this place is though, here's a few photos fro Avalon which I adored and could have spent hours in. What an enchanting and magical place.

    So yeah, Please go.
     
    We also went to Efteling and Disneyland Paris which were both excellent days out. I love Efteling so much, its a real gem of a theme park and Baron 1898 just makes me squeal. Love it.
     
    Many thanks.?
     



  6. Mark9
    I wouldn't say that Californias Great America is a park that anyone has a huge itch to get to. Unlike some others in the Cedar Fair group, its investments are on the lower end of the scale. Flat rides are the name of the game and even its planned hyper that it was rumoured to get was given to another park instead (Orion).
     
    Eight years ago, it was either this or Discovery Kingdom and bizarrely I chose DK. I thought that was a great little park, but this time it was CGA's turn. It's relatively easy to get to, sitting in San Jose and it took about two hours of train journey from San Francisco. I'd heard very little about this place before so upon arriving I didn't really know where anything was or what support rides there were. The entrance for example looks very similar to other Cedar Fair parks but also Six Flags Great America. I've since learned that and CGA were once owned by the same group.
     
    Our first destination was Flight Deck which has the distinction of being B&M's first custom inverted rollercoaster. Built in 1993 the ride features three inversions and is a very old school B&M. It looks stunning in its bright red attire and the ride looked well maintained. My first reaction was how small the station was. It's very cramped and its the same with Patriot and many of the original gang of B&M's are the same (Batman clones tend to have tiny stations too). Also, for all the criticism I saw that Emperor has no station at Seaward, well.. there isn't a station here either. Geek, be consistent.  Once getting on, after waiting one train off we went. Very positive G Force heavy, really nice inversions and a well paced layout. There is an odd bit in the middle of the ride where the train travels in a straight line over the station which felt at odds with everything else. The ending is particularly great with an intense helix over a small lake. There was no second train. Unlike Cedar Point which runs three trains to a fault or Silver Bullet which had its second train in bits scattered all over the break run, Flight Decks second train doesn't seem to exist.

     
    This isn't an extra-ordinary inverter and neither is it a dud. It's a good, solid B&M which has clearly served the park well. It just made me so glad we have Nemesis. I know its very easy to compare every inverter to Nemesis but the reality is, Nemesis is outstanding. From a layout perspective, a theming perspective, an efficiency and capacity perspective. Every park could learn a lesson from our grubby white alien.
     

     
    I next wanted to get on Patriot but we went the wrong way and ended up exploring all the park instead. Some of my favourite flat rides passed (KMG Afterburner, Huss Breakdance) before we just ended up getting lost. I checked the app and it said that Railblazer was 0 minutes. Staying cautious we decided to take a chance. Now this has two trains running. Which is good as at 8 people a train it has serious capacity issues. We ended up waiting half an hour which I was pretty happy with. To be honest, as good as it is, it's too fast. It zooms through the layout at break-neck speed and it feels very hard to take it all on board. Air time hills, inversions. it's like a blur. No major park should get the off-shelf model. It's too popular for what it is and it just cannot handle a park with crowds. The legend that is Josh C has been tweeting about Jersey Devil, so when he reviews, I'll be very interested in that one.

     
    With that out the way we took a ride on Demon, an arrow looper. I like the old arrow loopers. Whilst rougher then most modern rides there's something about a ride with janky track design that just appeals to me. As they start to arrive at the end of their lives, I'm just glad to have got on some of them.
     
    Next was Patriot. This used to be a stand up before it got converted to a floorless (like Rougarou and Firebird). Whilst I do get why parks are running away from stand up, I dunno. The floorless train doesn't add much beyond making the ride rideable? Maybe thats the point. My husband made the observation that if it wasn't for the height restriction, this would be an excellent 'starter' rollercoaster for an aspiring thrill seeker. And it got me thinking about rides like this and Daemonen at Tivoli Gardens. And he's so right in the observation. Very few inversions, mildly intense without being mind-blowing. Considering this is a B&M from 1991, its aged pretty well from what I could tell. Still, no second train to be found.

     
    After lunch it was time for the wooden coasters. We started with the CGI Wooden coaster, Gold Striker. This had a second train! wow. This was a fantastic ride. Really fast and intense. And with most of the ride hidden from the walkways, it took me by surprise. It probably sits just under Wodan for intensity. Some of the turns it was doing, for a traditional woody, were fabulous. Heavily recommended and the best ride at CGA by a country mile.
     

     
    And onto our final new rollercoaster Grizzly. Quite easily the worst operations I have ever seen on a ride. It took over seven minutes to unload, load and dispatch a train. Part of this seemed to be staff training, the other part was sheer incompetence. You're running one train around your mildly interesting rollercoaster. This shouldn't be that difficult. But it was. What looked to be a twenty minute wait ended up taking around 70. I was done after this, Didn't even want to attempt the low capacity Arrow wild-mouse which was displaying a 40 minute wait. 
     
    So instead we went on two flat rides including the breakdance. Every park should have a breakdance. They are the best flat ride by far. And we called it a day around 4pm. This park needs investment. On the surface everything looks fine. But it provides a middling day out in a state that has Disney, Knotts & Magic Mountain. Hard to compete, yes, but CGA isn't really even trying. It has great support rollercoasters in Flight Deck and Gold Striker but it needs that killer, triple A attraction to make the difference. And two trains on its rides. 
     
     
  7. Mark9
    Having been given a breakfast slot for 9:45, we decided to skip a bit of continental and headed into the park around 9:00 instead. Seeing a main street so empty is an experience you'll rarely get so we took the opportunity to get some photos and get some coffee from one of the various outlets along Main Street.

    I'll never get tired of the Castle/Main Street view.

    LOOK AT THE THEME!
    We also approve of buying food and getting tickets for free coffee later in the day.
    One thing I really noticed about the parks here is how much more relaxed you can be. With Florida you get caught in a whirlwind of rushing about from ride to ride, reservation at restaurant to show or parade and never take proper time to appreciate where you are. Throughout our time in Paris, we did a lot of sitting around, relaxing and soaking in the atmosphere. Playing a part in that is that there is less to do here then in Florida but I can only put that as a benefit to Paris.
    Our first stop during Magic Hours was Space Mountain: Mission 2. From outside, it is a frankly stunning piece of design, that giant cannon is a piece of theming genius and fits in perfectly with the rest of Discoveryland. I'm rather fond of this area as it is. I can understand why they diverted away from Tomorrowland as that area dates faster then they can build/update it.
    As for Space Mountain. I do like the ride on a thematic level. The idea of being launched into space via a giant cannon is based on Jules Verne's novel 'From the Earth to the Moon' and I love it. I just wish the theming worked such as the recoil of the cannon or the misters as you are blasted into the building. The ride itself is rather atypical of Vekoma. Enjoyable but you really struggle to find a position in which you don't bang your head on the side of the stupid restraints. That being said it is very well paced inside, the ride keeping its speed up to the last moment. It does feel a bit like you are descending into a vortex as the trains spirals around the building, every now and then taking in an inversion surprisingly.
    We rode several times through the trip and it was either outstanding, unbearable or average. So I find it hard to really rate it.
    Our next ride was Buzz Lightyears Laser Blast, A ride I despised in Florida but here it was actually a decent ride. The props all seemed to make sense and weren't all cardboard cut outs with targets on them. I even liked the finale which I won't spoil here. I don't understand the points system but then again, it is only a throw away ride.

    With no interest in Orbitron or Autopia we decided to head back to the central hub and wait for the rest of the park to open. More views of the wonderful Sleeping Beauty castle awaited us.



    With 10 o clock upon us it was time to venture into Frontierland. We grabbed a fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain whilst everyone else descended into its main queueline. We instead thought we'd try out Phantom Manor. It's American equivalent, Haunted Mansion, is one of my favourite dark rides and I'd heard many great things about the Paris version. I wasn't disappointed as such. The subtlety of the storytelling (ie, there was no narration) meant that we had to really pay attention to the scenes throughout. Something to do with a bride whose family dies (or she murdered them) and so she gets buried as the ride descends from amazingly themed Mansion to an odd underground Western film. Very odd. The shoe-horning of Phantom Manor into Frontierland didn't work for me although there is no way the attraction itself could fit into the other three lands of the park. A triumph though and just shows that when it comes to dark rides, Disney are (mainly) on top.

    Our next stop was the Molly Brown boat ride around Big Thunder Mountain. We never found the time to do this in Florida so it was a welcome find to get on it and just relax for twenty minutes. It's a shame that aside from Big Thunder Mountain there is nothing to really look at. I hear that some kind of fountain show used to occur at the end but no longer works.


    Next time will focus on Big Thunder Mountain, Fantasyland and yet again we get to Pirates of the Caribbean to find it broken.
  8. Mark9

    2013 - A Retrospective

    By Mark9,

    2013 has not been the grandest years for theme parks in the country, more like a cheap table wine that you pick up for cheap at Tescos. From obvious budget cuts and rides standing but not operating for an entire year at Chessington too The Smiler trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink at passers by, it is clear that the Uk industry has stagnated somewhat in 2013.

    And yet, shockingly and surprisingly, despite not adding anything substantial, Thorpe Park has come out as the clear winner by a long shot. From much better reliability park wide, to improvement in effects up-keep and new events, the park has clearly embraced social media and openly interacts with guests more frequently. This all in turn with a slight shift in target audience, Thorpe has the potential to be the park of 2014 as well if it can keep the ball rolling with ideas that are fresh and innovative.

    So where did this begin? Ah, I know, March time. I had booked a whole week off of work so that I could visit Thorpe for its opening weekend, take a look at how The Smiler construction was going and have a go on Zufari whilst enjoying old family favourites such as Runaway Train, Dragon Falls and Vampire. It wasn't to be. A refurbishment list made itself apparent, a lot of these rides were not to be open due to the park not able to maintain rides for a quarter of a century and Zufari was postponed by a week. No matter. As temperatures continued to drop, three successive trips to Thorpe occurred, one for the Swarm media photo day with Thorpe Park Mania, one before a meet weekend and another on what was to be the coldest trip of the season. On all three days, somehow, Slammer worked continuously, we even had a ride in the snow which is pretty surreal, I'm sure not many could say they've done that. Despite the freezing temperatures, the only rides closed all day were Colossus and Saw. A Trip to Chessington could have given you a ride on Bubbleworks and Tomb Blaster if you were really lucky. Alton also impressed during March, the emptiest I had ever seen it. Surprising sights such as only two people on Air at 4 in the afternoon is very different to the usual sights.
    May
    New Coasters - 142. Wodan - Europa Park

    With the sun out, birds singing and all but one ride open at Chessington (for now), it was back with my theme park shoes and off on holiday. Instead of staying with the UK, it was back off the Europe for my favourite theme park so far. Europa Park is an utter joy to be had. Even though we spent three and a half days there it just isn't enough to fully embrace the joy of a theme park that is run professionally and efficiently with show after show, ride after ride and a park that has full pride in everything it provides for its guests. Ride highlights included Blue Fire being as good if not better then I remembered, the wonderful Euro-Mir and the very impressive, relentless Wodan. We stayed in the sublime Bell Rock resort and scored Eurovision one night, toured the hotel the other and had a delicious cocktail on our final night. Thursday night it was back off to England for a days rest and then onto the next trip, Denmark.

    New Coasters:- Dæmonen - Tivoli Gardens
    Odin Express - Tivoli Gardens
    The Caravan - Tivoli Gardens
    Rustcherbanan - Tivoli Gardens
    Vandorm - Bon Bon Land
    Vild Svinet - Bon Bon Land
    Hunderprutterutchebane - Bon Bon Land
    Tornado - Bakken
    Rustchebanan - Bakken
    Mine Train Ulven - Bakken
    Racing - Bakken
    Vilde Maus - Bakken
    Mairehønen - Bakken
    Piraten - Djurs Sommerland
    Skatteøen - Djurs Sommerland
    Karlo’s Taxi - Djurs Sommerland
    Thors Hammer - Djurs Sommerland
    Juvelen - Djurs Sommerland
    Jungle X-Plorer - Legoland Billund
    X-Treme Racers - Legoland Billund
    Dragen - Legoland Billund
    Timber Ride - Legoland Billund
    Lynet - Farup Sommerland
    Mine Expressen - Farup Sommerland
    Flagermusen - Farup Sommerland
    Pindsvinet - Farup Sommlernad
    Falken - Farup Sommerland


    On our arrival it was a sweltering 16 degrees (hot for Denmark) but throughout the week, the weather would fly up and down. It is a very odd climate indeed. We spent the first night celebrating Denmark's win of Eurovision and throughout the week we would hear that music blasting out of car windows. We even got to see the winning act perform live at Tivoli. The major highlights off the trip were the first Rustcherbanan at Tivoli Gardens, which is a truly wonderful attraction and deserves to be appreciated for its sheer beauty and smoothness, Piraten and Juvelen at Djurs Sommerland which were equal in the fun and thrill stakes, Polar XPlorer at Legoland Billund was a very fun ride, as was Lynet at Farup Sommerland. With the good comes the bad and Bakken was truly atrocious with the diabolical Tornado symbolising everything I think wrong with the modern day Intamin company. Not enough refining, too much trying to please a park on a sub-standard product. The Rustcherbanan at Bakken had also been seriously ruined by KumbaK with magnetic breaks destroying any element of momentum that the ride tries to build.
    I left Denmark feeling very sad, it is a wonderful country, if not for its coasters then for its feeling of freedom, liberty and forward thinking Danes.
    June
    New Coasters - 170: The Smiler - Alton Towers

    And after what felt like a life time of waiting, The Smiler finally got itself going and very swiftly, a trip was planned with my non coaster friend. The Smiler is a great ride. Ok, so it can't upstage Nemesis or Oblivion but I still maintain it is a great ride with a bit of a kick in it especially towards the end. You could say I've been lucky, every time I've visited, it has been open and whilst seeing break downs galore whenever I enter the queue, I've always been fortunate enough to ride. Even with it throwing bits off quite frequently. For my 25th birthday, it was off to Thorpe where I got my last ride on Slammer before its annual four month closure. It was a beautifully sunny day with minimal queues. And still it wasn't my best trip to Thorpe this season.. but that is coming. Shortly after my birthday, spent a weekend at Towers for some Smiler loving. The end of the month saw the Inferno ERT even for TPM members where we got to walk through some of the ride area and some lucky pups got to have a little walk up the lift hill.
    July
    This was a relatively quiet month with a solitary trip to Alton Towers where yet again a substantial ride count was halted by the troublesome Smiler eating up so much of the day.
    August
    Now this was the trip of the season. Thorpe hosting its summer late night events. I know some got rained on and the organisation is not as strong as it could be. But during my trip I can safely say I had the best Thorpe I've had for some time. The park was busy enough during the day but with the later hours, I got a chance to properly relax and appreciate my time there. With the joyous hot weather as well, it didn't feel like a theme park in the UK with rubbish weather and even worse opening hours. It felt like I was in sunny Florida or Italy with some great friends from TPM. I came away pretty blown away by how great the trip was, testament to how much Thorpe has grown and increased in confidence during the season.
    September
    New Coasters -
    Space Mountain: Mission 2 - Disneyland Parc
    Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - Disneyland Parc
    Indianna Jone et le Temple du Perile - Dienyland Parc
    Casey Jr - Disneyland Paris
    Crushs Coaster - Disneyland Paris
    Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster - Disneyland Paris
    RC Racer - Disneyland Paris
    Tami Tami - PortAventura



    And so with the weather starting to deteriorate it was off to Disneyland Paris, a place I have never been before. I did enjoy it and found it far more relaxing and stress free then the pressure kitchen that is Disney World. It helped that the parks were very quiet with 5 minute queues on Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Tower of Terror being seen throughout the visit. Dreams was a real highlight, seriously great entertainment and needs to be seen by as many as possible. The final trip, two weeks later was PortAventura which unbeknown to me was the start of its Halloween events. Now, I really don't like Halloween events. I know they are extremely popular but I don't find them scary in the slightest despite the actors best efforts. For me, the important thing for the trip was to get my ride on Tami Tami and to fully enjoy Shambhala and Dragon Khan. Which I certainly did, getting more then my fill on both these coasters. Baco, lived up to its awful reputation, set last year but maintained fully in 2013. Is it worse then Tornado? They are both awful and nasty.

    My year was finished off with a Fright Night finish at Thorpe. I don't do mazes but with it being quiet during night, it was nice to get a few night rides on Inferno, Stealth and front row Colossus.
    ​And with that the year off theme parks is over. 2013 was not a great year for the UK admittedly. So much potential completely left untapped with Smiler not being as reliable as required and Chessington letting down every single guest that walked through its doors with its sheer incompetence. I used to be a major Chessington fan but frankly its no longer worth the effort. Full of low capacity rides that are either falling apart, closed or so low on staff that it takes five minutes to load a boat. Hence my lack of visit in 2013.

    Here's to a full on 2014 for everyone and thanks for reading (if you did).
  9. Mark9

    Closed Season Part 1

    By Mark9,

    The dreaded closed season. A time when the ride games return, the silly season occurs with people making the same jokes about Colossus being repainted or Rumba being rethemed. Just be glad the Intamin aquatrax joke hasn't reared its ugly head. I like to think of closed season as a time of opportunity, a start of planning trips for 2017 and I thought I'd just put together a few blogs to maybe, inspire.
     
    Denmark.
    A road trip around Denmark is surprisingly easy. Start your trip in Copenhagen which features Tivoli Gardens and easy access to the rest of Denmark follows. Along the way you can discover the fantastic Djurs Sommerland, the original Legoland and Farup Sommerland. If you so desire, visit Bakken which is easily my least favourite park in the whole of Europe.
     
    Djors Summerland 
     
    A park with two of my absolute favourite Intamin rollercoasters, this relatively small park in Denmark is a must visit. Along the way discover a topple-tower, a Gerstlauer bobsled and with a new rollercoaster in 2017, it's sure worth a visit.
     
    Piraten

    This fantastic Intamin mega-lite is a wonderful example of how you don't need to top 250 feet to be a decent rollercoaster. This air-time machine is genuinely one of Europes best rollercoasters. It warms up too an irresistible level the more it runs and must be ridden.
     
    Juvelen

    I have a lot of love for Juvelen. It was an absolute surprise on my visit From its twisty layout and head-choppers to the unexpected force of its second launch, it's a wonderful example of how a family rollercoaster can deliver so much more then just another thrill ride.
     
    Tivoli Gardens
     
    The thing with the Gardens is emphasis on wide open spaces and the beautiful scenery. Admittedly I visited in torrential rain but this doesn't dampen spirits.
     
    Dæmonen

    This tiny B&M is shoe-horned into the gardens and yet still packs a punch. Featuring three inversions, it is also one of B&M's shortest. It looks beautiful at night and with it's two train operation, queues are kept to a minimum. A sure-fire favourite.
     
    Farop Sommerland
    Towards the end of our trip, the final park was Farup which features a Gerstlauer launch coaster which despite some jerky moments, was a hit. The wooden rollercoaster Falken was also a hit, despite its slight oddness.
     
    Lynet

     
    Falken

     
    I heartily recommend a trip to Denmark. Not only do you get some fantastic rollercoasters, you visit a culturally rich country with beautiful scenery (and beautiful men and women) as well as a country that truly caters for everyone. Whilst a trip here can be expensive, planning ahead and accordingly can really save you money. 
     
    Thanks for taking a look, next time, the very exciting Italy.
  10. Mark9

    2015- A look back

    By Mark9,

    If 2014 was a year with new rollercoasters left, right and centre, then 2015 was like returning to old friends and sharing a big hug. This was a first for me. Not a single new park in 2015 and only two rollercoasters to my name. Why was this? I wish I knew but my priorities seemed to be tried and tested parks rather then venturing out into the unknown in a quest too boost a coaster count.
    To start the year, it took till May to visit my first theme park of the year; the amazing Europa Park. We all know the draw with this, the important thing is that this theme park blows my mind overtime and if you haven't been yet, go. The best collection of rides, shows, hotels, entertainment, bars, environments and theming in the world. We took a detour via Disneyland Paris which just seems to go from strength to strength.

    A month later, came Florida for my birthday (Although my partner will always maintain it was just for Star Wars weekend). Despite all the criticism Florida gets, I always have a wonderful time at Disney World and always shed a tear when I leave. Was good to see Dan9 on his first trip there too.

    October time and back to Disneyland Paris before the big refurbishment years hit which includes massive closures to Disneyland Parc. No Thunder Mountain, no Star Tours and other rides down for several months. We were there to take my partners mum on her first Disney trip. She had an amazing time is already pushing us to visit for Christmas in 2016.

    The final foreign trip of the year was a free trip that I won to Europa Park. I could complain that we were only there for a day and a half and spent most of the time tired, but thats petty when everything about the trip was paid for buy the Stuttgart government. Every ride had some kind of Christmasy vibe such as the Spacemen on Euro-Sat dressed as Santa or entire rafts on the Indian river raft ride taken over by Snowmen. It was wonderful.

    And now.. the depressing part of the trip report.
    I've taken a massive break from Merlin, even before the Smiler incident. My trips to Alton, Thorpe and Chessington in 2014 had been pretty depressing. The parks were getting run down, lots of ride closures and things broken and a general feeling that the parks were not where they should be and with no hope in sight I'd just gone cold turkey and wouldn't be talked round to visiting. Once the Smiler crashed in June, I felt compelled, despite my feeling that Merlin don't deserve defending, to defend the park against the public and particularly the media calling our parks unsafe, deserving of closure and other negative comments that really put a shiver down my coaster enthusiast spine. Despite all the bad things that I know of the Merlin parks, safety has never been something I've questioned or even thought of when riding an attraction at their parks.
    I even felt a need to visit and it wasn't until August that I stepped back into Thorpe Park. The same old issues arose. Loggers, Saw, Slammer, Colossus, Fish, Storm Surge and the Swarm all closed at the same time. The terrible Angry Birds Land and the not even worth looking at I'm a Celebrity Maze hardly inspire confidence that Merlin can get these parks back on track. There are some nice shiny parts of Thorpe but Nemesis Inferno, Stealth, The Swarm and Detonator cannot save Thorpe. A worthy, insightful, interesting, entertaining, fun attraction is needed desperately IMO.

    October saw me visit Alton. Christ what a ghost town. The Smiler incident has truly ripped the heart out of Alton Towers. I've never seen Nemesis, Air and Rita running one train and struggling to fill all the rows and I've certainly never seen Oblivion on a two carriage operation. Whilst all the outrage at Alton about rumoured ride closures and massively cut hours is justified, theres only so much money that can be made from the few people that visit. It's very easy to sit in a room and declare Alton a disgrace for whats happening there. All we can say is that Alton is ever to get back to its feet, it needs to remember what its sole purpose is and hopefully in two/three years time, Alton would be the popular place it was ten years ago.

    And with that, happy new year everybody!
  11. Mark9
    I must admit when reviewing Disneyland two years ago I was way to harsh. Part of the nature of theme parks is having high expectations and them not quite being fulfilled. Part of that is my fault, I'd built the place up to be the place that Walt built, when in reality the place has grown beyond recognition from when he was alive. The aspect I wasn't quite prepared for was just how small (in comparison to Disneyland Parc or Magic Kingdom) Disneyland is and how crowded it could become. Everytime I think of the place I think of the bottleneck entrances to Adventureland and Tomorrowland and that somewhat overshadowed the excellent stuff that is contained within. So the time, a little older, a little wiser, here is another full blown review of Disneyland. Woo.
     
    So to start of with.

     
    The New
     
    Decked out for the 60th anniversary, the castle has been decorated in diamonds on its spires. Special 60th anniversary merchandise adorns each shop. Special 60th cake pops, toffee apples, muffins, cupcakes tempt even the stingiest gate. I'm a sucker for this stuff frankly. We tried nearly everything and I have to give top ranking to the cupcake with bavarian buttercream.

     
    Three special shows were introduced for the anniversary, the first being Disneyland Forever which is the main firework show in Disneyland. It's very reminiscent of Dreams in Paris but there are a few differences. Disneyland Forever uses projection mapping all down main street so that it's not essential to see the castle, it uses physical effects, my particular favourite was the Finding Nemo where the Matterhorn was used during the ring of fire scene. The snow effect during the inevitable Frozen scene was awesome as well.
    If Disneyland Forever was a more atypical fireworks show, then World of Color - Celebrate was far more representative of the history of Walt Disney and the company. It's come in for a lot of stick from Disney fans. I personally really liked it even though the Frozen scene was completely unnecessary. WOC-Celebrate bought a tear to my eye and a collective aww during the scenes such as Dumbo being hugged by his mother or Beymax. 
    I really enjoyed it.
     
    The final main addition was the Paint the Night parade. My highlight was the Cars lorry as it looks wonderful in its lights and on the whole, a very enjoyable parade.
     
    So what else is new (well, for us anyway)
     
    Alice in Wonderland
     (gulp)
    I really liked this. I normally have a problem with rides that try and tell a whole film story in less then three minutes (Peter Pan's Flight I'm looking at you). But because of the subject matter, Alice in Wonderland is a wonderful (pun intended) attraction that in my opinion, is worth the 40 minute queue we did on our final day.
     
    Finding Nemo Submarines
     
    I have to admit that this wasn't an attraction that I think is very noteworthy and I personally think I would have preferred the original version. Nemo to me, doesn't fit in that well here and it feels a little hokey. Like the omnimover at EPCOT, I feel the IP has been shoehorned in. I have a lot of respect for the ride itself and its size and scale but the subject matter isn't to impressive. Big props to Disney for keeping the thing going and even bigger props to the poor submarine operators, whose feet are exposed to guests at the bottom of the sub.
     
    Hyperspace Mountain
     
    I didn't like Space Mountain on my original trip, I'm happy to say that Hyperspace Mountain was a vast improvement. The use of projections through the ride of TIE fighters and X wings, as well as physical effects such as laser shots along with a ride that felt far zippier then before left for an impressive ride. 
     
    Grizzly River Run
    This rapids ride, whilst pretty much themed quite sparingly, is an intense, violent and soaking water ride. I found both of the drops terrifying and seemed to spin the boat more then I would really like. Would re-ride on a warmer day (It wasn't very warm when we rode!)
     
    Luigis Rollicking Roadsters
    New for 2016 was this redesigned attraction. Previously was a set of tires which with your body leaning in certain directions, would move the tire. It was a hard attraction to crack and was replaced this year with a ride based on the same technology from Ratatouille and Mystic Manor. I liked this for what it was. The movements of the cars is potentially better to watch then it was tor rise as watching the cars do there thing was mesmerising. 

     
    New Characters that we met


    Oswald, My personal hero!
     
    The old
     
    I felt this time, I was able to appreciate the rides far more and particularly the park structure. This was thanks to the previous trip, the app that displays live queue times and also lets you know what fast passes are available. We never queued more then ten minutes for Star Tours, Splash Mountain, Hyperspace Mountain, Indianna Jones, Radiator Springs Racers, all the busiest rides on park. We also learnt fairly early on that certain rides fastpass return times never get far enough ahead. Big Thunder Mountain and California Screamin' for example were always 40 minutes later. Even at night, we were able to get easy night rides on BTM and I have always been a big fan of these rides. We also used the parades to our advantage. Unlike Paris and Florida which have massive areas to avoid parade routes, Disneyland doesn't. When it's running, it effectively cuts the park in half. This means easy access and tactical positioning mean minimal queues at the best times. For instance, for the Soundsational parade, we positioned ourselves near it's a Small World so that when the parade ended, a quick run meant less then a five minute wait for the ride.
     
    Sure this all sounds rather strategic and boring and maybe it is.  By having frequent fastpass available, we utilised our day better and I found I appreciated the park far more. Rides that before, I thought of very little such as Mr Toad's wild Ride and Rodger Rabbits Cartoon Spin were suddenly more enjoyable. I still prefer California Adventure on a park basis. I love the variety of rides and my appreciation of Screaming' rises after every ride.
     
    And just to mention...

    I think it would be a crime to change this to Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm a massive fan of that film but compared to the Tower which in my opinion is a timeless classic, no flash in the pan film series will ever compare to a ride which is so thoughtfully themed, imagined, designed and constructed. Whilst it wouldn't be so hard for say a Brit to take (what with Paris less then three hours away and being eight hours away from Florida), it seems absolutely ludicrous that we are even considering a world where the Tower of Terror is replaced. 
     
    So, on that note, I had a much better time at Disneyland for my second trip to the Golden State. As a theme park, Disneyland is somewhat stretched to braking point. But there is no doubt for me now that with the addition of Star Wars Land, the park will go from strength to strength and I hope this solves some of the parks capacity issues.
     
    And of course Radiator Springs Racers is there, which is just one of the most beautifully scenic rides I've ever ridden.

     
    Mark9 out.
     
  12. Mark9

    Florida 2023 - A snapshot

    By Mark9,


    Florida
    Quick run down of my trip to Florida last time. My last trip in February 2022 saw me lose a lot of trust in the Disney company, their parks were an absolute hassle.
     
    Magic Kingdom - Much better this time around. Even without Splash Mountain, the queues were just a lot shorter. Genie+ is relatively strong here and with a lot more rides, the spread across the rides is good. I really like Tron Lightcycle Run. I acknowledge that it is way too short but the strong launch and the excellent soundtrack make this an enjoyable ride. The outside area gives the ride a great visual and the lighting package is beautiful. 
     
    Animal Kingdom - Now 6 years since investment, this has become the quietest park and as a consequence, remains the most enjoyable and relaxed of the four parks. It also for me has the most consistent rides with the only weak link being Kali River Rapids. Everything else is Disney's best. The park has the best food across the parks and remains strong to its central theme of conservation.
     
    Epcot - Meh. Just a one and done park for me. Each ride is fine but not worth going on more then once. Didn't even get on Testrack due to reliability issues. Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind is fine but it's a lot of faff to get on and I just find the eight minutes of pre-show beyond tedious and completely self indulgent. The ride is really fun with good air time. But we are essentially have a vekoma family spinning rollercoaster with hours of queuing that goes with it. The two songs we got were good but they completely drown out the commentary from the Guardians as you're riding. 
     
    Hollywood Studios - This day was tough. Started out with no Rise of the Resistance, Rock 'N' Rollercoaster and Slinky Dog and that caused massive backlogs everywhere. The only ride that worked all day was Runaway Railroad and Star Tours, everything else was an hour wait or more with multiple bouts of downtime. This was the toughest day at Disney, Hollywood Studios just needs more filler rides. Everything is top tier but nothing is there to soak up the people. Genie+ is strongest here but if you're in stand by, it is a miserable day out. 
     
    Seaworld - This park opens at 10 but the only ride open by 11 was Kraken. Dismal start to the day and it was unbearably hot waiting outside Pipeline with no cover. Pipeline is the worst B&M I have been on, a rare misfire for me. For some reason the vest restraints dug into my shoulders the entire time. Yuck. The ride itself, the seats clunk up and down and for a ride that is relatively full of air time, the seats thud up and down over the hills. I found the whole thing just really uncomfortable  but I do realise this could just be me. Manta, Kraken and Mako were excellent as per usual. Ice Breaker was weird with awful restraints. The ride starts off fairly good but the restraint does keep getting tighter and tighter as it goes on.
     
    Busch Gardens - Williamsburg is far better. The ride line up is just a tad stronger. Iron Grawzi is well hyped and it is good. but best rollercoaster in the world I'm not so sure. For one the operations absolutely suck. 5 minute dispatches every single time. The ride is also.. for me.. too short. You race into the break run at full speed so it feels like it has a lot more to give. There are some great elements though such as the first drop which made me grey out each time. Some of the air time is pretty good, others is excellent. It has some of the odd transitions that Twisted Timbers and Wildcats Revenge has which are actually more painful than enjoyable. So yeah, I'm undecided on where I sit with it. Montu was fine, Sheikra didn't seem as impressive after Griffon, I liked Cheetah Hunt this time around. Tigris has vile restraints and Scorpion is excellent. 
     
    Galatic Starcruiser - The soon to be closed hotel experience was by far one of the finest things I've ever completed in my life. It was so engaging, full of great plot twists and excitement and there's a part of me that thinks if it had been just a little bit cheaper, it could have succeeded. 
     
    Thanks for reading. 😃
  13. Mark9
    Tornado at Bakken is one of the worst rollercoasters I have ever had the misfortune of riding. It is so atrociously bad that it made me wonder what 25 things are better then it. Here is what I came up with and I hope you enjoy reading.
    1. Being kicked in the testicles
    2. Going to the Dentist
    3. Riding Furius Baco none stop for an hour
    4. Crashing your car into a wall
    5. Being mugged
    6. Having to endure a queueline at PortAventura
    7. Driving in Italy
    8. Being sick after a heavy night out drinking
    9. Getting the Victoria line during rush hour
    10. Sitting next to someone with body odour on a packed out London bus
    11. Watching Holby City
    12. Enduring homophobic abuse
    13. Going all the way to Towers and finding out the Smiler is closed
    14. Reading Theme Park Review
    15. Being insulted by Robb Alvey
    16. Shopping at Asda
    17. Shopping at Primark
    18. Eating Brocolli
    19. Eating Brussel Sprouts
    20. Flying with Ryanair
    21. Being stuck in a lift with someone who has just farted
    22. Queuing for Colossus on one train operation
    23. Living next to very loud neighbours
    24. Riding Saw. At all.
    25. Visiting Chessington during the 2013 season
  14. Mark9
    Qui a besoin du monde, quand tout ce que vous avez besoin est une terre
    When choosing the trips for 2013 there was two that were outright yes's and two that came about quite by chance. Disneyland Paris was not an all and all winner, in fact Chris and I were putting off Disney until our California trip next May. However with Disney extending their 20th Anniversary celebrations and with Chris feeling a little Disney craving, we decided to go for Paris even with no Ratatouille. After a speedy 2 and a half hours of Eurostar fun we arrived at the resort. The first thing that hit me is how immediate Paris is compared to Florida. I think inevitably, Florida may crop up again and again as it my theme park benchmark and for me holds a lot of loved memories.


    Whereas with Florida, a long journey from the airport gets you just within the gates of the World, here you stumble out the station into the Downtown area. I somehow missed the tower despite the fact it was my most eagerly anticipated ride. We made our way to our hotel, Sequoia Lodge, a hotel themed around the Wildnerness. Bambi seemed the most prominent character

    Checking in complete and with a bit of Mark9 persuasion, Chris relcutantly said we could have a go on Tower of Terror and also the Army Man parachute thing. The first because it's my favourite ride ever and the second ride was because the next day it was to be closed the rest of our holiday for refurbishment. Our first stop however was the Early of Sandwich which is better then the other fast food offering at the resort.

    TASTY.

    Aww.
    When walking into Disney Studio Park the first thing that really struck is how it is pretty much Hollywood Studios but on a smaller budget and much smaller. The Tower immediately dominates the entire park, hell it can even be seen from Big Thunder Mountain and the Alice in Wonderland maze. The other thing that hit us what the park was busy. We checked out the queue boards and 35 minutes for Rock 'N Rollercoaster, 60 minutes for Army Man Parachute ride and finally a cool 80 minute wait for the Tower of Terror (Which was only running two out of three lift shafts)
    mmmm 80.
    After a bit of wondering checking out just how small the place truly is, we settled for Army Man parachute ride, considering it would be our only chance to ride it. The first thing I have to say is that the queue really was 60 minutes so it was accurate at least. The second thing is that the queue line really was too wide allowing Spanish families to queue jump at will. You may think I'm generalising but the majority of the time it is Spanish groups who create problems at theme parks and after all, I have experienced PortAventura where queuing isn't mandatory.


    The ride itself is okay but not worth an hour waiting time.
    We had a wonder around Toy Story Playland including seeing Rex, leaving Toy Story Land to see Ratatouille construction and then re-entered Toy Story Land to leave for Tower of Terror.



    The Tower. Ey Ey Ey. It is my favourite ride bar none and is truly exceptional. All of the Tower staff need to be paid more for their efforts for example. They don't just work on a ride, they act the part of creepy bell-hops, grinning oddly at guests or deliberately running through the lift doors in utter panic scaring guests silly with their screaming. They help to make each ride that little bit different. The ride itself, well I was reading through a few other trip reports and saw a lot prefer this tower to the Florida one. Both have so much merit but I actually ended up preferring the Florida one. Sometimes the waiting around for a lift in Paris got a bit tedious, what with this tower using two different levels of loading. The actual ride experience is probably just that little bit better then Florida however but ultimately Florida's to me feels more efficient and looks far more interesting then Paris's more blockier, blander look.



    I still love both though and could photo it all day.
    And with our rides ridden, we decided to go back to the hotel and get myself a hair cut before heading to Annettes for some food. Themed around an American diner, this wasn't bad food and I liked how some of the staff went about on roller-skates.


    Bed time, ready for a full on day at Disneyland Parc.
  15. Mark9
    Big Thunder is the quintessential family roller coaster. Mildly fast, full of variety and not too many large drops to scare kids. The general consensus is that Paris's version is the best of the four. While I can only compare to Florida, I'd go as far as agreeing with aspects of that opinion. The only real part where Paris falls down is its queue line. There seems to be various ways that the ride is run and none of them seem that great. On the first day for example, fastpass was available but there was no one batching into the main queue and unlike Florida, the fastpass queue didn't get their own side of the station. So what you had was fastpassers having to split into the queueline whenever a gap appeared. The second damaging thing was that at some point in the queue, it splits into two sides. If you decide to queue on the right you get whacked by a longer queue length, fastpass people attempting to join and that is also the side where disabled guests get on. If you opt for the left hand side you almost walk straight into the station, undeterred by distractions. It's the most bizarre operations and despite it being a very high capacity rollercoaster, has so much faff going on. Florida doesn't have any of these problems so it's almost like Paris decided to try something different and it doesn't quite work.


    The ride itself is similar to Floridas version with two key differences. The first is a fantastic start to the ride with the train dipping into an underground tunnel and gathering a lot of speed before it engages with the first lift hill. It's great to see that with thirty years of running, the Big Thunder lift hills still have the loudest lift chains out there. I wouldn't be surprised if kids were more scared of the noise then the ride. What happens for the majority of the rest of the ride is the same as Florida, California and Tokyo so I won't bore by describing the ride in detail.. except the ending. I was always a bit meh about Floridas dull ending through some rocks and skeletons. Paris is far superior with the train lurching violently to the left, into a cave and descending under the river, gathering so much speed like it really is out of control. I'd bet that it isn't as steep as it feels and yet works very well. The trains pulls up out of the tunnel into the break run and everyone is a bit blown away by that ending. Great finale and really makes the Big Thunder island concept work very well.


    We decided to have another go, what with it being a ten minute queue and chose the left hand side of the queue line. It was then off to face one of my greatest terrors; Indianna Jones!
    I'm not sure what the point of this ride is. It doesn't fulfil the quota of upside down rides as there is already Space Mountain and there's already a ride themed around a mine car at Big Thunder. I can only think that this was a desperate attempt at another ride in the park for adults. Whatever the reason, I know it has a poor reputation for being rough, boring and unnecessary but I kind of liked it. Sure it can't do straight lines or hills without whacking your head on a restraint but as a ride it was perfectly acceptable. It had a five minute queue the majority of the time so I don't think it entirely fits into the park in anyway. If Disney got rid and went for a ride like the version at California, I wouldn't say no.

    Our next stop was Pirates of the Caribbean but was for some reason unavailable. We had the same problem at Florida on our first trip so had no worries that it wouldn't open at some point. We decided on doing some Fantasyland rides such as Pinocchio and Snow White which we queued 10 minutes a piece for. I like this rides because they aren't flashy and "look at me" like some dark rides and they do their job of telling their respective stories adequately. Sure they won't win Gold Ticket awards but for high throughput, reliable attractions they work well.


    Next stop was the notorious it's a Small World. I liked it. I don't know why I like the idea behind the ride when everyone else despises it with a passion, but it just works for me. It looks like its had a clean up too as the majority of animatronics were working, it looked tidy with no dust anywhere and things looked repainted. For a high capacity boat ride, it ticks all the boxes.. even if it never seems to be able to get a queue.



    Finally with the rain now fully upon us, we found a nice hidden away area with one of my personal favourites from the trip, Casey Junior. I adored this ride and I can't figure it out why. It just seems so novel and under-stated

  16. Mark9
    To break up the flow of Benin Germany trip reports ( ), I've written a little something about my trip to Liseberg. Anyone who follows me on twitter or Facebook, probably knows what's coming. Alas, this will be a more detailed account of my trip.
    So I'm just going to start with, great park. It features a good selection of flat rides, a well paced fun rapids ride and a very peculiar log flume. There's not many parks which have four very re-rideable roller coasters and Liseberg arguably has three that you can ride over and over again. Well what about the fourth? Well this is where my report begins, Kanonen, an Intamin launch coaster that I know many on here don't like. In theory I shouldn't either. It demonstrates everything I don't like about the majority of Intamin rides such as those horrible restraints, lowish throughput, an attempt at a ride that should never got off the ground. And yet after the first ride I thought it was fine. The more I rode it the more I really liked it. I can't put my finger on why either. The launch for example feels like there's a trim at the end as the train loses speed very quickly. The top hat isn't anything to write home about. I like the vertical loop which has a lot of hang time as the train pretty much struggles to get round it. The stengel turn contorts the train horrifically and ironically, the ground hugging turn kills any momentum the ride previously had. And the inline which is fitted into a tight corner, barely making it before slamming into the breaks. It shouldn't be enjoyable, in fact most don't like it I'm rather fond of its unassumingness.



    So to put into perspective, this is nowhere near a top ten ride. That's okay though, as it's never going to pretend to be one, it never had an ambition to be fighting it out with Katun and Nemesis. No this is a take it or leave it launch ride. I'll take it but I know most will ignore and never return.
    With that little bit of awkward out the way, lets now go onto the big guns, Balder a big player in the Mitch Hawker poll and the 2nd most popular (queue wise) ride at Liseberg. I want to put it out there that ironically, whilst being quite tolerant of rough rides, when it comes to woodies I expect a bit of the old shaky. These are rides that feel more organic then constructed, the wood flexing and creaking as a train rushes through its circuit, I expect a bit of activity, I'm fond of being thrown about a bit. Balder is not that ride. Balder is more concerned with treating you nicely, chucking you into forceful ejector hill at every hill but never pushing it too far. I think that's more a failing then a positive actually. Every hill chucks you into the same thrilling sensation and when it does 7/8 of the same type of hill it does get a bit predictable.

    With that being said, it is a top tier ride. There isn't another woodie that I've previously been on that delivers such constant air time as this. Even the stunning Tonnerre de Zeus does lose a bit of momentum 3/4's of the way through. Here Balder delivers a thrilling and fast ride from first drop to break run. The little humps in particular are the rides highlight. One of the better woodies in Europe certainly but as relentless and out of control as Wodan? Not a chance.
    [interestingly, my partner Chris, said Balder was boring and was so predictable that he found it hard to enjoy]
    Onto a more classic attraction and a ride whose name I can't say without adding more ananana, it's Lisebergbanan, a classic if I ever did see one. This if you like is Schwarzkopfs crowning glory, a testament to the awesomeness of their rides, a people eating machine that is much loved by all that visit the theme park. One I thing I'm a big fan of is how it utilises the natural hillside to create a pacey, well designed attraction. Whilst never truly leaving its ground hugging nature, it uses the energy of the train in neat ways and never needs an extra kick like a second lift hill or launch area to get the train going again. We could use more rides like this in the modern era, too many parks concern themselves with gimmicks or tag lines and forget that getting through people should matter more then anything else. A fond favourite and very good in the dark.

    And now, finally; Helix.

    Instead of going through a full analysis of why Helix is so awesome, I'm just going to cover a few basis. I don't want to give too much away here for those who haven't been yet.
    1. The drop out of the station into the corkscrew is a sublime way to start the ride.
    2. The two air time hills are absolutely fabulous. By the end of my two days, the tops of my legs were aching from the sheer amount of air time.
    3. The turn after the first air time hill is incredible. Think Nemesis's first helix and then add a lap bar, it's an incredible moment.
    4. The middle half of the ride is sublime, seriously sublime. I cannot think of a ride out there that is as well paced and relentless as this. A perfect combination of layout, ride train and intensity.
    5. The second launch into the largest inversion on the ride is brilliant. Look out over the park on your ride and just enjoy.\
    6. The second air time hill. So good, it deserves a second mention. Utterly deceptive and yet awesome.
    7. A fast moving queue line is always a good thing. If the queue is out the door, it's only an hour long. Worth the wait and then some.

    So the real question when it comes to it is.. is it better then Blue Fire? I'm going to be controversial and say no. Blue Fire is far more fun and likeable then Helix but don't let that be a criticism. It's like saying do you want a million pounds or a million and one pounds. Both rides are so sublime and top of the field that it becomes irrelevant. And unfortunately in this age of lists and top tens, one has to be slightly better then the other. When it comes to the criticisms of Helix being it's throughput is slightly lower or its theming isn't quite as consistent as Blue Fire, thats just picking at straws. What we are seeing with these two rides is a demonstration of Mack's perfection. Intamin hasn't a hope of catching them now, even if their new lap bar is any good, it's too late for them to catch up with the diversity and perfection of the Mack model. All I ask is that the UK gets one soon, don't let this concept get away from us. Because if we got one, I'd have no doubt that Nemesis would be toppled from the top of the roost..

  17. Mark9

    Glitz and Glamour

    By Mark9,

    Yes I know what you're thinking, another Europa Park/Disneyland Paris trip report from Mark9. I was blown away by Europa Park in 2010 and 2013 and surely this trip can't be any different. And how could I possibly compete with the three blog wonder of Matt Creek's comprehensive Disneyland trip reports. Well... this is a report with a little bit of difference (Or at least I hope so, this is all on the fly so might just end up me complimenting every aspect of Europa Park). Nonetheless, I hope this entertains or at the least interests you.
    Scene 1 - Staying on site at Europa
    I make it a point to stay on site at Europa. Unlike other parks where it isn't essential, I feel staying on site gives such an advantage because of the sheer beauty and theme of the hotels. I've previously stayed in the Tipidorf, Hotel Colosseo and Bell Rock, and this time around was Hotel Alcatraz. Themed around a Spanish castle, this 9 floor building is the closest to the theme park.

    During check in I was hoping, praying for a view of the park. My wishes came true with an 8th floor view over the entire park. This blows away my previous favourite view of Shambhala and Dragon Khan at PortAventura.


    Hotel Alcatraz itself isn't the best of the hotels at Europa but it is certainly the most intimate, As an alcoholic I particularly enjoyed the 40th anniversary special cocktails in the bar on the 9th floor which afforded spectacular views of Wodan and the hotel area. I had a Blauer Enzian (The Mack name for their powered coasters) and a 40th Euromaus special. They were delicious.

    Staying at Europa Park is a fantastic experience and well recommended. The staff are friendly, accommodating and the attention to detail in the rooms is second to none. Next time, I'll be staying in Hotel Isabel but for first timers, Colosseo is the one I'd recommend.
    Scene 2 - 40 Years of Europa Park
    ​Something that separates Europa out from the competition is its sense of pride in its achievements. It's easy for a park owned by a coaster manufacturer to perhaps do this, investments after all are cheaper and as a showroom for the Mack products, it can afford to be perhaps more extravagant then others. I find this a cop out excuse though. The reason Europa Park is the best park in Europe (perhaps the world) is because it never rests on its laurels, it never slows down and it never stops improving. Back in 2013, massive works had been done to the rapids including a new lift hill building, animatronics and theming and a new tunnel to accommodate the rapids going over the pathway into Iceland. This time around two other rides were in the process of change. Columbus Dinghy, a simple boat carousel like Chessington's Seastorm had seen massive change with new queue line theming, a show during the ride and a simple addition of a steering wheel which allows the rider to control when the boat spins. A small change but massively changes the fun levels of the ride. And completely unnecessary as there was nothing wrong with the ride set up previously.
    The other two ride's to see a change is the rides Splash Battle, Whale Adventure. Now with the tag line 'Northern Lights'. It wasn't open unfortunately, still in construction but a massive change and I'll be interested if the water sprayers remain on the boats. Eurotower has been spruced up with new theming and a steampunk look.
    Other new additions include a new 40th anniversary parade, a new 4D show which was really fun, a travel escalator in the car park (WOO) and a new show called Fabulous Europe. This was a dud, essentially trying to imitate Disney's Soarin' but lacking any kind of cohesive flow or enjoyment.


    Scene 3 - Rides and Stuff
    Rides are Europas bread and butter. With so many, it's impossible to get them all done in a day. That being said, there has been some operational changes and it makes me slightly concerned. Firstly, Europa was always a park that wanted you in and out a seat as quickly as possible. That hasn't changed. What does seem different is that the rides weren't at full (or higher capacity). Now maybe it wasn't necessary as the park wasn't packed on our visit, but I was surprised to be hanging around for a few seconds in stations on Euro-Mir and Eurosat along with trains being deliberately stacked. Silver Star's third train never made an appearance, neither did the second Pegasus train. They also seemed pretty intent on checking bars which in previous years only happened on Wodan and Blue Fire. Now the only ride not really checked is Alpen Express, that was the only ride that ran with urgency.
    Arthur as a piece of ride hardware is sublime. It's an amazing piece of kit that train. The ride itself could be better. There's some parts of the ride show that don't live up to expectations such as the giant rat in which its pulley system is more noticeable then the rat itself or the fact the first screen on the ride is so in view of the queue that its effect is pretty much zero. I would love for a park like Phantasialand to get their hands on the hardware as they could do it absolute justice. Europa kind of dropped the ball on the ride experience on this one, even though I enjoyed the ride for what it was.

    And finally, I just wanted to show some pictures of how beautiful Europa is. Trip reports sometimes get stuck in a list of ride descriptions and misses what makes a park good or bad. This time around, I really wanted to appreciate what makes Europa special.

    Euro-Mir

    Switzerland

    Atlantica Supersplash and Portugal

    Austria

    Greece
    And with that another year of Europa Park had passed. Pleas visit this wonderful park. It deserves every accolade and every part of your attention.
    Scene 4 - Disneyland time
    I'll keep this brief. Visiting at the moment doesn't deliver the Disney experience that people probably deserve, at least if you're going primarily for the rides. With Space Mountain closed for a refurb, a lot of pressure is being put on Thunder Mountain and that seems to have terrible reliability. First day, it was closed, second day it opened at 12, third day it was on and off. With both main coasters down, rides like Indianna Jones and Phantom Manor have 45 minute queues. It's the first time I've ever used an Indy fasts or even seen it running. Beyond refurbs of Thunder and Space, another massive ride is required to spread those queues. A potential Star Tours 2 refurb in Discoveryland will only go so far. All the ride investment is in Studio Parc and even there was rammed. I'm never going to queue 55 minutes for RC Racer or 20 minutes for Slinky Dog. That's an insult.
    The park though is on the up and is a very different place from my first visit in 2013. Life seems to be returning such as a new spring time show, more meet and greets occurring regularly and the stages in Frontierland/Discoverylandcoming back into action. With Cafe Hyperion closed in Discoveryland, all the other food places on park were open. I couldn't believe my eyes to see Hakuna Matata open and actually serving food. Hopefully this isn't temporary and will continue to serve in future.



    So all in all a successful week. If you read this far, I thank you for your time. Till next time, Mark9 out.

  18. Mark9

    Oh Blast..

    By Mark9,

    Some rides hit you right in the gut with their immediacy in impressing you. Over the years I've done countless rides and things like The Hollywood Hotel Tower of Terror or Katun will give that immediate buzz from the get go. From ride to ride, you come away with the immense feeling of doing something at the top of the tree. Some rides take a little longer; it's why I never judge a ride solely on the first go.
    On this list are things like Rush, Thirteen and one that is rapidly becoming one of my favourite attractions, Space Mountain Mission 2 in Paris. I've heard all the criticisms and in some ways I understand them. It's rough, it needs new trains, it needs the old music back, the new theme isn't as good, it looks run down, half the effects don't work and so on. And yet when I'm next to the ride itself the smoke billowing and the loud roaring as a train leaves the cannon to embark on its Space mission, I get this warm fuzzy feeling inside. I feel like this is a ride geared to impress me, it wants to draw me in with it's giant cannon, it's Jules Verne furnishings, it's ride out of time look.

    Lets talk about the ride first and foremost, ironically for me one of the least important parts of Space Mountain. I think it's great. Whilst the ride has never done well in enthusiast circles (It sits at 246 on the Mitch Hawker Poll for example), that original well paced layout punctuated by three inversions and a matching soundtrack runs rings around sister ride Rock N Rollercoaster next door. The proximity of new (or re-working effects maybe) such as the corkscrew through an asteroid storm or the way the first inversion takes a long time of winding through the building before hitting you is a great piece of coaster design. The lift hill towards the super-nova always messes with me, at first I couldn't work out what was happening and I'm not exactly a rookie enthusiast. The final inversion, well I still couldn't put a name to what it is without checking rcdb. So really, what I'm trying to say is that even though it has a fair bit of bite to it, this is a ride I would love to ride again and again. Unlike many, I don't find the ride particularly rough. That being said, I also rather enjoyed Goudurix....
    My only criticism of this rollercoaster is the horrid jolt as you sit on the launch track. I've never enjoyed the backwards motion as you engage with the launch drive. The massive slow down at the top of the building is also a slight pace killer although thankfully it's almost forgotten the moment you descend into 'space.'

    In the time since I first rode this attraction, it has gone through a lot of changes. It currently sits in the middle of a massive refurbishment plan. All the signage and the ride building has all been cleaned up and a lot of ride effects such as the smoke that billows from the cannon or the meteorite strikes are now thankfully working. Its heavy rumoured that during its next refurb next year that the old Jules Verne story plot line shall return. I'm not sure how I feel about this as I never got a chance to ride the older version. I do wonder if it will be a step backwards or if perhaps a happy home between the two themes could work. A mission 3 perhaps. Suffice to say the addition of new trains would be a welcome change to the ride. People do have complaints with the restraint system (although not something I take issue with) and if it was to make a smoother experience I'm all for it.

    And finally, the ride theme itself. I think it's genius and puts it a step above its American and Asian equivalents. Before any complaints come in, I've not had a chance to ride Japan and Hong Kong but I'm talking purely form ride building perspective. Paris's version is pure steam punk glam. The glistening blues and golds of the ride structure is as aesthetically pleasing as it is original. And the Colombiard cannon is fantastic. I'll take points away from it because of the lack of a recoil but everything else makes this in my personal opinion, one of Disney's greatest triumphs. Overtime a track launches and the mechanical sound sounds of the cannon preparing to fire starts up, I stop and listen. Along with the on/off steam effects it really creates something special in Discoveryland.
    It's easy to become jaded about these things, after all it's a twenty year old ride and whilst Disney has created bigger and better things (Radiator Springs and Expedition Everest I'm looking at you), there is no doubt in my mind that Space Mountain is one of my favourite attractions in Europe. And that is something I never thought I'd say two years ago.

  19. Mark9

    Cedar Point Part 1

    By Mark9,

    I'm going to go via the park layout when talking about the rides here, its easier then trying to remember the order (Millennium Force will be the exception).
     

    Ah Cedar Point. Ever since I first got properly into rides in 2003, seeing the Top Thrill Dragster documentary on Ch4 (I think), I've been endeavouring to get out there but things stopped me. But no more.  The first thing that surprised me really was the park layout. The front of the park is absolutely loaded with attractions, Raptor is right on the midway for example and sandwiched in next to it is Valravn. Rougarou and Millennium Force being just a stone throw away. But then Maverick and Steel Vengeance are a good fifteen minutes walk right at the back of the park and in-between that is only really Top Thrill Dragster. People will hate me for this potentially but the park has zero atmosphere. I guess this comes from preferring theme parks to amusement parks, every single ride is just completely silent, the only sound coming from bored Cedar Point staff asking you if you enjoyed your ride or the ride itself. Its bizarre, even Six Flags rides have music around them. But not here. I also think their fastpass system absolutely wrecks the place. Basically, the basic package is around $79 and this is al the high throughput rides like Raptor, Rougarou and Gatekeeper. But if you buy the $99 package you get all the low throughput stuff like Steel Vengance, Maverick, TTD and Force. It's no surprise that Raptor is going around with a 5 minute queue, whilst the lower capacity rides have 30-60 minute queues. It's an oddly unbalanced place.
     
    Anywho..... with that out of the way..
     
    Gatekeeper
     
    With any ride at Cedar Point, there's always an expectation especially as this is one of the most talked about theme parks in the world. With GK, its always come across as a very average ride, some saying the Swarm is better. I don't care if I am an exception to the rule though and I absolutely loved Gatekeeper. I thought it was the perfect wing rider with near misses that actually work, a large sprawling layout that does the wing rider concept justice, no awkward shuffling of the trains through transitions and no effects that are turned off to safe money. It looks gorgeous sweeping over the entrance to the park and never ran less then three trains keeping queues to a minimum. It was a big surprise and even my fiancé liked it (and he hates all wing riders). 

     
    Raptor
     
    This is no exaggeration. Raptor is an absolute beast and one of the most intense inverters out there. It took me a little bit by surprise as I was expecting a tamed down version of Monster at Walygator, but no trims on here, just a pure thrill ride that is not for the faint hearted. My favourite part was the final helix which whips you into the break run. I also loved the loud roar from the ride, it's absolutely ferocious and B&M certainly don't make them like this anymore. It also looks wonderful in its colour scheme.
     

     
    Valravn
     
    This was something of a disappointment for me. To be honest its completely pointless at Cedar Point. Steel Vengence, Maverick and TTD already do pretty much this ride but do far more interesting things. Valravn just feels like a bog standard dive machine but it was always busy and suffered a lot of downtime during my visit. It may (have been) be the tallest, longest dive machine but for my money, Baron1898 and Oblivion are far superior rides and in a park like CP, with many tall rides, Valravn is a bit of a let down.
     

     
    Iron Dragon is next up, this was an ok suspended but it doesn't really seem to do much with its concept. It doesn't really swing much and when it feels like its about to get going, a lift hill appears or a break run. What was nice to see was how busy this ride was. It always had a 15 minute queue. 
     
    Rouragou
    Another orange B&M (seriously, why are the B&M's at the front of the park?), this time the former stand up coaster now floorless coaster Rourgarou. This ride is pretty odd, its former Mantis state making a very abstract floorless coaster. More positives stand in that it always ran three trains so queues were at a minimum and its a very fast ride with another very loud old school B&M roar. What it isn't though is smooth, the trains do tend to knock you about a bit. For my money, Raptor is a far superior ride, I do think Rouragou's first drop is a bit of a guilty pleasure though.
     

     
    Millennium Force

    So this ended up (by careful planning) being my 300th coaster credit. I think it was a rather apt choice. I have a love/hate relationship with Intamin at the best of times and I am glad to see MF really impressed. I like that its a coaster built purely to show off some speed. It's not really an air time ride like most gigas/hypers are, its purely to show off some height at great speed. We only rode on the back row for our rides but I thought it was a fantastic ride. I particularly liked the two tunnels which the ride speeds through.

     
    And onto the final ride of this part.
     
    Top Thrill Dragster
     
    Intamin acceleators are really not my thing. Whilst you get this really impressive launch, the ride rarely ever carries that momentum on for long. Kanonen was probably the best for having an interesting layout and Rita/Desert Racer try their best, the majority are simple letting their impressive speed make up for lacking rides. Top Thrill Dragster is very much one of those rides that impresses with speed but feels completely unmemorable to me. Controversial maybe, but I much prefer a ride like Maverick, Icon or iSpeed which have far more then just an 8 second ride. The launch is fantastic, don't get me wrong but if I'm going to be queuing an hour (plus with rollbacks and breakdowns may I add), then there are much better choices at CP to waste your time waiting for. No point in hitting 420 foot if you only have a second to really appreciate it. I think I may be in the minority for this but its been 15 years since Dragster opened and rollercoasters have moved on from just being record breakers and nothing else.

     
  20. Mark9

    Canada's Wonderland

    By Mark9,

    The final park of the trip is a short skip and a jump from Toronto, Canadas Wonderland is a park boasting 16 rollercoasters and masses of flat rides. Whilst only two of the rollercoasters are really noteworthy, the park is well known for hosting the only Huss Jump 2 in the world as well as owning a Mondial Super Nova and top scan. 
     
    So.. first the elephant in the room.
     

    The humongous and previously biggest B&M ever is an intimidating beast. Surrounding the park entrance with its massive hills, Leviathan is one impressive ride. It's easily the parks busiest attraction and the Canadians love it. What about me though? Having done Millennium Force two days previously, what would doing my second giga coaster in two days do?

    The problem when you build something to be a country's biggest or most impressive is that you have to do very little with the ride to get the attention. Leviathan has a crippling problem that really bothers me but really what it is a very fast rollercoaster with very little air time. It darts around corners and through tunnels very quickly, the snappy turns being particularly fun. But then it ends. Mako, Silver Star and Raging Bull all have ride content after an MCBR to make the ride feel like it has two parts. The first full of giant hills, the second more smaller hills and helixes. Leviathan enters a break run. It's a massive anti climax after a ride with that much speed just ends with little fanfare. The argument could be made that the ride has done all it has needed and anything else would just be window dressing and just lengthening the ride. Well Fury 325 does exactly that and is well loved because of it. Leviathan feels like a waste of a massive opportunity. We had three rides including a night ride and although the night ride was more like it, it still felt underwhelming.

     
    Luckily there is another ride for a second chance and that is Behemoth.

    The main difference between this and Leviathan is the height, the train configuration and ride length. Everything that isn't great about Leviathan features on Behemoth and more. It's a fantastic, air time filled ride. Whilst Levy is all about the speed, this is all about being chucked out of your seat and each hill provides that little burst of it. Of all the hypers I've done, this does the most with its post MCBR section featuring several air time hills and a nice forceful helix. I loved Behemoth because its what a B&M hyper should be all about. It has a great river side setting and does justice to its right length and height. This is without a doubt my favourite hyper coaster from B&M. It had maybe a maximum of a ten minute wait so re-rides were easy and it really delivered.


     
    Vortex is the second arrow suspended on the trip. It doesn't feature two lift hills and its all the better for it as it has a great layout, big swings and properly follows the terrain. The lift hill takes it atop the rocky mountain, the icon of the park, before dropping down the hill into some big helixes that make the car swing pretty violently to the right. It then drives down towards Yukon Striker lake. Whilst a short ride, it delivers a powerful punch. This had the second longest wait of the park for some reason. It has a pretty broad appeal to a lot of people and delivers an interesting and good ride.

     
    What doesn't deliver a good ride is a Volare. This is my first of these horror shows and whilst I don't think they are anywhere near as bad as is made out, they really aren't great attractions. From the torture device restraints to the way the thing just cannot corner properly, instead rattling and jerking left and right, it seems crazy that the have kept this. Right next door is an SLC, this was one of the better ones. I maintain that give these things a good restraint system and they would be fine because I take no issue with the layout. 

    Hello SLC bunny.
     
    Whilst this park has 16 rollercoasters, a majority are pretty much off the shelf models like SLC's, Boomerangs, Mack wild mouse/powered coasters and the odd one is original. The Mighty Canadian Mine Blaster made sure that even if I wanted children, that would be impossible now. It started off fine but one of its hills just sent the restraint down another click and ouch. Every hill then become a battle not to cry out in horror..
     
    No, what this park really does is flat rides and it is here that makes Canada Wonderland that little bit more well rounded then Cedar Point #controversy

    The torture device.
     

    The Submission experience
     

    The blast from the past.
     
    The parks impressive selection has one big downfall in that each ride has a might short cycle. The Mondial supernova for example lasted less then a minute and it barely built up any speed or sensation. I'd actually ridden it in Germany 12 years ago when it was called Air Wolf and there, it was a mightily impressive, intense ride. Here its only okay. The Zamperla ride didn't need to last much longer then a minute as it was weirdly forceless despite holding you upside down for longer then other similar rides. And finally, the Jump2 was just one of the most bizarre ride experiences I've ever done. If I had to describe it, it would be like what would happen if you're moving along merrily in a car and are then shunted suddenly 50/60 feet into the air in a second. It was jerky yet smooth, fast yet slow, short yet tall. I'm not really surprised that Huss only sold one because it's not a solid ride experience. I didn't come off whooping at this amazing ride but I didn't feel disappointed. It is distinctly average and yet none the less I am glad to have ridden it.

    We managed to get on all the rollercoasters here and a majority of the unique flat rides so at 9pm, we decided to leave our first Canadian theme park. I recommend a trip here for those that like their theme parks a little bit weird. This is a theme park of variety, where each member of the family gets a lot of ride choice and things to do. Its like the polar opposite of Cedar Point which almost deliberately targets thrill seekers only. With another 16 coasters under my belt, the day was good and our next week was going to be a completely different kettle of fish and one of the most breathtaking and life altering weeks of my life..
     

  21. Mark9

    GOAT - Rise of the Resistance

    By Mark9,


    Disney
    Back in 2010 the first Harry Potter attraction opened at Universal Orlando and a single ride changed themed attractions forever. No longer were theme park fans really satisfied with cookie cutter themes with a hint of a story, immersion was now the name of the game. The area of Hogsmeade increased Islands of Adventure's attendance by 1.5 million guests, an astounding figure by any standard. Since the Harry Potter franchise has given birth to two further expansions and is now home in California and Beijing. 
     
    But Universal isn't completely my bag. I prefer the Disney parks. Universal has so much dross like Jimmy Fallon, Kong and Fast and Furious. Those attractions just feel thrown in whilst every Disney attraction feels placed and fits in to its surroundings. Naturally Disney saw the success of the Wizarding World and went off first with the world of Pandora (and the guest favourite Flight of Passage) and secondly with Galaxy Edge. Now, I'd previously visited the Floridian version back in its opening week in 2019 and whilst I loved it, it felt like something was missing. Smugglers Run is great, the look is great but where was that top tier attraction? Rise of the Resistance was delayed due to technical issues with the attraction and would be opening later.
     
    Looking back it was a mistake to open Galaxy's Edge without Rise. People put off visiting until it opened anyway and the area was seen as a failure for a while by the media. But now, with everything open and the world now able to visit, how exactly does Rise fit in.
     
    This review will feature big spoilers for this ride. Scroll to the final paragraph for a summary with none of the spoilers.
     
     
     Rise of the Resistance puts you in the position of joining the Resistance and fighting against Kylo Ren and the new Empire. Unlike the rest of Batu which is basically a trading town,  Rise is set in an abandoned ruins with the queue taking place in small rocky corridors. The queue is long and mostly outdoors It commands a waiting time of an average of 100 minutes and is by the busiest ride in Disney World. We were fortunate and that it was open on time on one of our hotel extra hours times and over two trips we managed three rides. 
     
    Once you hit the batching point you are assigned a room, I'm happy to call this the war room. Inside, BB8 greets you beeping away before being shooed away with a holographic Ray who tells you about the mission and welcomes you to the cause of the rebel alliance. The door opens and you are now outside with Poe's X-Wing and your transporter awaits in front of you. You board and the ship takes off. You leave the planet of Batu and it doesn't take long for some Tie fighters and a Star destroyer to appear and trap you in a tractor beam. The captain begs you to not reveal the rebel base to the First Order. Your ship is boarded and you leave from the day you came in from (I cannot tell you what an amazing effect this is, no video can do it justice. For all intents and purposes you have literally left the outside world and are now indoors on a space ship. It's outstanding). You are now prisoners and surrounding you are storm troopers, Tie fighters and droids. The group is escorted to the prison cells. where you are batched into interrogation groups. The cast members are outstanding, calling people scum and coming down hard on dissent. Think Nemesis Sub terra but with subtle acting and not unnecessary shouting. You enter your cell where Kylo Ren tells you how he will get the truth out of you personally. They leave and then a secret door is burnt through by the rebel alliance. Another great effect. You board your vehicle and the ride begins.

     
    What begins is a tour de force of physical effects, screens and Disney firing on every single cylinder. R5 will be driving you to escape pods on the ship but this is a long journey and I probably won't do the ride justice with my words. To start off with your R5 needs to convince other vehicles that he is escorting prisoners. These are just the new ride vehicles going to the loading area but the story implies these are evil droids and I just found it so clever. 
     
     
    You almost make it to pods when Storm Troopers appear and start firing at you. The vehicles head backwards and after two corridors enter a room full of AT-AT's. More storm troopers appear and Finn appears from behind some crates and urges R5 to take you down to the pods. Instead the lift takes you half way up the building and out into the control room of the Star destroyer. Kylo Ren and Hux are here, discussing the torture of the prisoners (ie Us). In front of them, rebel ships appear for the attack and Kylo turns around and sees us. He gives chase, first attempting to use the force to bring us back, luckily some doors close on him. We then head into a lift shaft but his light saber appears through the ceiling. We escape and head past some gun turrets firing at the rebel ships. These weren't working on our visit but they are supposed to move back and forth and your vehicle is supposed to move back and forth between them avoiding the gun fire. `You take a turn to the left and the rebels score a hit with the room being half destroyed. Around another corner and Kylo appears declaring your end. But we are in luck as another rebel hit reaches his target and it is implied Kylo is blown out of the ship. R5 takes you to the escape pods which works in the same way as a towers of terror lift shaft with a star tours motion simulator screen. You really feel like you've been jettisoned out of  a ship and are crash landing onto Batu. The Vehicle exists the pod and you are now back outside and have successfully defeated the First Order, hooray.
     
     
     
    It wouldn't be an understatement to say this is one of the best dark rides ever created. Disney have taken all of their 65 years of theme park knowledge and it feels like everything has been put into this ride. I was mightily impressed by every trick in the book being used to create this attraction and the perfect integration of screen based media and physical effects to put on the show. It works incredibly well and it is a miracle that it works as well as it does. Back to my original point, Galaxy's Edge needed Rise because it is the main event, the reason people want to be in a Star Wars themed area. it is incredible. This is an attraction that on a first ride will shock you and surprise you consistently. And that is more then 99% of rides out there can ever hope to achieve.
     
    A triumph in so many ways.
     
     
  22. Mark9
    The threat of thunderstorms dominated day two. Cloudy skies and the threat of torrential rain was testing me as we made our way to the Old country. This is a park that is always looked at fondly for its stunning looks. I've never been the biggest fan of Busch Tampa, it just makes me feel hot even thinking about it. but Williamsburg is very different. Its European influences bring a different charm to other American parks and its cozy entrance makes you feel comfortable. The threat of rain meant we just wanted to hit the big rides quickly before anything shut down from the weather. We headed straight to Apollos Chariot, the first B&M hyper coaster. They have got better, let's put it that way. I think for 1999 this was probably an impressive ride but hyper coasters have come a long way. This was weak and I'd say my least favourite rollercoaster at Busch. I didn't even expect Pantheon to open to be honest. I'd heard that it rarely opens on poor weather days so when I saw it running with people on, I was straight on. It was also walk on.
     

     
    There's quite obvious comparisons with Toutatis which is an absolutely sublime ride and whilst the highs on Pantheon aren't as good, there's something to be sad for Pantheon. it's a really good rides. It's nowhere near as aggressive as Toutatis, but thats fine. Pantheon hits you with much more sustained air time moments such as the banked curve which is as graceful as it fun. The top hat is also untrimmed so you get the full force of the air time compared to its French cousin which deliberately slows you down. It hits the breaks at the end pretty hard which makes me think it could have done more. A really great ride and I just adore the spikes on these rides. They are so. good.
     
    Next was Verbolten (RIP Big Bad Wolf). I'm going to pin myself here and say I reckon Verbolten is the better ride. It's just so much fun, full of force and really good moments. The sudden drop isn't as seamless as Thirteen but these drops are so punchy and such great moments that I'll forgive it. The iconic drop isn't as great as the rest of the ride funnily enough, Big Bad Wolf wins here. Really enjoyed this ride, at this point I was starting to believe that BGW might have one of the finest ride line ups out there.
     
    Next was Alpengeist, one of those rides that is pretty well known for its stunning first drop and not a lot else. I was hyped for Alpengeist I can safely say that it delivered in every aspect. The lift and first hill are absolutely humungous but thats not all. I love how the lift hill slows down towards the top, a trim right on the pre drop even tries to shave some speed from the train but it's not enough. The speed and sheer force as you drop down the valley is one of my favourite drops ever. It's just incredible. 

     

     
    You rise into an Immelmann before diving down into a vertical loop. These are so forceful, not much more to add. You speed down into a cobra roll which just feels massive and its properly intense as well as you jerk through the snake head. The ride then takes a breather as it comes out of the valley and to a mid course. this shaves a lot of speed out of the train which is a shame but I think after the insanity of the previous parts of the ride, this might be a sigh of relief. A mid tier zero g followed by a really good corkscrew finish off the ride. This was, I'd say, my favourite ride of the trip and is definitely a top ten contender. In coaster circles we talk about how Nemesis and Black Mamba use the ground whilst American rides don't really. Alpengeist is like the best of both worlds as its uses the landscape to create this incredible rollercoaster. 


     
    By this point I was full of energy. The last three rollercoasters had been superb and the next was a GCI woody. This reminded me of the Wicker Man except it had zero story or theming, no centrepiece. It was just a french themed wooden rollercoaster on a hill. It also ended up being my 400th rollercoaster credit. It was a fine enough ride but not my favourite GCI.
     
    We next ended up at Griffin. I love this ride. It's just stupidly big. I know Valravn is bigger but lord, Griffin just has that fear factor. 

     
    I think this ride is excellent. Like Sheikra, I think it gets slightly overlooked as just a one hit wonder but I think these rides hit like no other, especially with the older style restraint system. This has such a hit of air time, my favourite weirdly being the jump into the water pool. 


     
    By this point, I was really into this park. It has a really gorgeous look to it and the rides are top notch. We took a little walk to find Loch Ness Monster and ended up at the very bottom of the valley. I was blown away by this area with three of the most iconic parts of their big rides, all next to each other.
     

     
    Once we ended up on the other side, we got into Loch Ness. This did hurt a lot more then your average Arrow but its such an historic ride, it deserves its place. The helix in the dark was my favourite part of the ride.
     
    With all the major rollercoasters completed we took some time to enjoy this park. Whether it was the food which was excellent, the 50 cent beer or the fantastic rides, this park was a real highlight. On day two, the rain did not hold off and as a result both Apollos Chariot and Pantheon was closed all day. Everything else though, completely walk on with what felt like less than 1000 people on site. The park ultimately closed at 4PM (it was originally 9PM when we first booked) so clearly the weather kept people away. But nonetheless we had a great second day and would recommend this park to anyone. It's world class. 
     
     
     
     



  23. Mark9

    East Coast USA: Park 3 Six Flags America

    By Mark9,


    Six Flags America
    The little invested Six Flags America is an interesting place to me. It was by far the least refined of the parks visited on this trip and yet it had a certain local park charm. The main purpose of this visit was to get on the first B&M ever constructed. While B&M as a team and worked on other rides, this was their first ride under the B&M name. The previous day, Firebird had been closed all day. So I was concerned about that but my worries were unfounded. Firebird was open on time and ready to go. 
     

     
    It initially being a stand up, this is the third stand up model I have ridden that has been converted to Floorless. Unlike Patriot this layout was okay and pretty substantial. However it doesn't ride particularly well with some rough moments scattered throughout. But it does have intensity and it's easy to see why this ride was just the start of a world leading company. We got three rides including the front and there wasn't much difference between them.
     
     
    Superman - Ride of Steel almost feels like a relic from the past compared to what Intamin can do now. This is a very odd layout with long straights and giant helixes. It was running one train (which is all it needed) and rode pretty well. Surprisingly enjoyable without being outstanding. And thats a great review. I personally prefer Goliath at Wailibi Holland which is a snappier layout but Ride Of Steel is fun.

     
    I managed to trick Chris onto Jokers Jynx which is a clone of Flight of Fear but outside. He hated it just as much as the other version. I preferred the other version just because of it being inside. Not much to say although it definitely needs a repaint and refurbishment.
     
    Batwing the Vekoma first generation flying coaster was fascinating and if it wasn't for downtime and reliability would have ridden a lot more. But I'm thankful for the one ride we did get. This was great but it felt so dangerous. The vest restraint is substantially different to the B&M version with essentially two flaps being seat belted together in the middle. Bizarre. This was great to get on with really unique sensations and a very different layout. Just not enough go's around to really get a good feel for it.

     
    We did a couple of flat rides as this isn't really a rollercoaster park and the staff were great. Less of this corporate feel like Cedar Fair and Disney has and the more raw local park flavour. I personally liked that it wasn't generic 'want to go faster' stuff and this tailored feel. it's hard to describe but it was just more what I value from guest interaction.
     

     
    We got to Wild One, one of the parks two wooden coasters. This was a classic wooden coaster built in 1917 and relocated in 1980 to Great America. Randomly on two trains this was the most popular ride at the park and it felt like it was going to collapse. Needs a bit of work as a lot of the paint has chipped away over the years. I really respect Americas treatment of their classic wooden rollercoasters, it feels like every park has one dotted away somewhere and they are always consistent, some of the busier rides at the parks they are in.


     
    Unfortunately both Rajun Cajun (Reverchon spinner) and Roar (GCI woodie) were closed so after a couple of re rides across the park we decided to leave early and get some classic American Mexican food. 
     
    Would I revisit this park? Again, if the investment was put into it yes. But it is clearly a bit of an ugly duckling of the Six Flags chain. Thing is though, this is one of the better operated park across my visits. Each ride was well staffed and they were getting trains out at pace. It just needs some love. 

  24. Mark9

    East Coast USA - Park 4 Hershey Park

    By Mark9,


    Hershey Park
    Hershey Park was the one I most worried about. They have a notoriously strict weather policy and wirth predicted thunder storms all day for both days of our visit I was extremely concerned. Storm Runner, Skyrush and Candymonium do not operate in the rain, all the other big rides close in heavy rain. We arrived with giant black clouds hovering over the entrance but Canydmonium was running for extra ride time. Our goal was to hit as many rides before the heavens opened and I had purchased fastrack as I was most worried about Hershey being the busiest, this being the weekend. 10AM, park opens, here comes the rain. We dash to Candymonium and dun dun dun, rides closed due to rain. All that time running half empty and then the moment the rest of us get in, closed. My heart sunk.
     

     
    We made a swift dash to any ride that we could see with guests on and thankfully Great Bear was open. This 1998 B&M inverter, this being the second of the trip had big competition what with Alpengeist a few days earlier, its vintage is a classic, older B&M and relatively well reviewed. The operations are absolutely dire. This ride easily had the worst operations in the park with 3-5 minutes of stacking on every train. We opted for the back row and watching them, it's just not good. B&Ms are designed to be easy to run but some of these parks just don't run them like they should. 
    Great Bear was alright. There are moments where it feels like the train just wants to get going but the layout just gets in the row. For example the drop off the lift hill where you helix over the midway. It's really cool actually, quite forceful but to get us to the rest of the layout, it has to rise and unfortunately loses quite a lot of speed. You drop into a vertical loop, an Immelmann and a zero g roll. These are all great in their own right but.. I dunno a bit generic of a layout. Then as the train repositions itself over the river, the train roars into life speeding through a straight piece of track (it is so weird) and into a really forceful corkscrew. Then the train meanders past Superdooperlooper to get back to the station. This ride feels like a generic inverter meets auto complete. And thats the theme for a few rides at Hershey.

     
    We got on the last ride for a while. Every outside rollercoaster was now closed and... I kind of got a bit depressed. It's very hard to get out to a park that you've' heard so much about, built expectations, planned for years to visit and then you arrive and you're defeated by the weather. We waited around in the rain, hoping for some let up in the weather. It came after about half an hour where we saw Trailblazer testing. This arrow mine train was pretty bad, it felt like it was built because it was the in thing in the 80's but without any concept for how to make it interesting. The rain was still pretty heavy but we managed to get over to Jolly Rancher remix, Chris really didn't like this a it hurt his head. I like the colour and music but it's a generic Vekoma boomerang so it's not going to trouble any top tens. We rode their nebula in the rain, in which their terrible operations meant we got drenched. We then went skipped a 15 minute wait for Fahrenheit , a surprisingly good Intamin looper. The only Intamin to feature a vertical lift in this style, this is a well paced, comfortable, intense ride with some of the best air time in the park. Our first ride in the pouring rain meant we were pounded with water and couldn't see a thing. But we know we enjoyed it. 

     
    Monorail was ridden which was a nice little break from the park and from this we could see that the Boardwalk area of the park was all open. After initially struggling to find it, we eventually got down there for a ride on Wildcats Revenge. This is an outstanding RMC and I echo some of the thoughts out there that this and Aeriforce One in Atlanta are the very limits of what we can take in air time. Wildcat hurts. It is a violent, intense and vicious ride that rag dolls you across its layout and never lets up. No moment is wasted, not a single seat delivers a mediocre ride. I was incredibly impressed and this rates as my second favourite RMC after Steel Vengeance. It had great operations, a sublime layout with pace and some wild air time. I loved it. We then took a little walk to the mid way and had a go on Superdooperlooper which was on one train. This was average and also has the auto complete option on. Waste of a layout. Comet is a great old style woodie and highly recommended. Also one of the most consistently busy rides. 

     
    Skyrush. Is a moment. It is vile. I don't mind out of control feeling rides, heck Wildcat is exactly that kind of ride. But Skyrush is nasty. It has this horrible feeling, like you're riding a horse and it's just trying to throw you off into the bushes. On a side seat is is rough and that feeling off being thrown to your death is amplified. Was also slightly concerning when you sit in the break run and your seat releases slightly. Not a fan. To make up for this ride, it was off to Candymonium which was walk on so we had three goes round. I think Candymonium is excellent. The evolution from Apollos Chariot to this ride shows how much better the B&M hyper has become and Candy is full of air time and nice little moments. Chris's description was 'they built Candymonium to apologise for Skyrush.' Rather apt I think.

     
    The final ride before the rain returned was Storm Runner, the 2004 intamin accelerator. I was slightly disappointed to be honest. I've been spoilt by Stealth which has an excellent and faster launch. Storm Runners lacked the punch that even Rita has. The layout is okay on paper but it felt rather lifeless to me. I like the colours of the ride more than the ride itself. With the rain back we opted for a few more rides on Wildcat and then riding Lightening Racer, both sides. I liked both sides of the GCI even if Thunder is the side that always wins no matter what. Now, Laff Trek. What am embarrassment. Hershey should do this ride a favour and shut it now and put it out of its misery. Absolutely atrocious. Poorly run in every respect. Maurer spinners are not good enough for any park like this and this needs to be wiped off the map.

     
    We did a second day here and topped up our ride counts, particularly on Storm Runner and Candymonium. I think the prospect of the rain had put a lot of people off visiting, it being a Saturday in the holiday season, queues were perfectly reasonable with walk on Skyrush and ten minute Candy waits. We both agreed that Hershey Park is a great park but Chris felt that it had an okay ride selection but nothing they have is the outstanding ride, the top tier attraction. And I sort of agree. The boardwalk type of park is one that doesn't appeal much to me, the Blackpool, ride on top of the other has never been a firm favourite. But I can see why this park would have such a following. Weather aside.. Yeah. This review feels rather mixed but the key is on those days, two weeks ago, this is what the park delivered.
     

     
     
  25. Mark9
    In 2012, Thorpe Park is a maelstrom. It is a giant, it is a behemoth it is, put it simply a hit.
    Seated within its small grounds lies coaster after coaster and some of the most well known flat rides around. Top scans, Afterburners, giant swings, drop towers, sky swats. It even has some pretty nifty water rides in Loggers Leap and Tidal Wave. The Swarm surely secures Thorpe Park at the very top of the theme park tree.
    And yet, a part of me always harkens back to the days where Colossus and Nemesis Inferno ruled the roost, where the top five rides were of real variety, where you could rest away at Thorpe Farm or relax in Sunken Gardens. There are some that must think I'm mad, "Surely Mark, you're into top flight thrills, not boring, meandering train rides to a dull, down trodden farm, a past echo, an area that doesn't deserve its place in a technological forest."
    Sir you couldn't be more wrong and here is why.
    A theme park is more then just the rides that it contains. Sure you can throw ride upon ride upon ride at a place and charge to the hilt. But, particularly in Thorpe Parks case everything becomes samey. It says it all when Stealth, the parks only major roller coaster without inversions, is about the only ride that breaks the mould at Thorpe. The majority of rides at Thorpe spin you in some direction or invert you repeatedly. Many rides do both. Rides like Mr Monkeys Banana Ride and Depth Charge are becoming more scarce in a park that increasingly tries to intimidate you silly.
    Be it beyond me to criticise Thorpe Park and the way it sells its park. I do not have a degree in market research or target audiences and I will never pretend that I do. But I do personally think Thorpe have a problem. There is really, very little entry level rides left at the place and they are the rides that are increasingly being targeted for removal. It's questionable how long Depth Charge or Mr Monkeys or Chief Rangers Carousel have left before they are replaced by another fast, inverting, spinning flat ride. And part of me thinks this is sad. I never ride them and judging by Thorpe blindly ignoring them, I bet very few people still do.
    And this is why my favourite Thorpe Park era was 2003. A varirty of rides of all shapes and sizes, areas where you can rest, a time where every staff member genuinely cared about customer services and the appearance of the attractions and a time where there was real optimism about the direction of the park. Remember these were the days that Samurai still span in Mystic East, Eclipse was brand new and we had only just heard rumours about a possible Xcelerator clone coming to Thorpe Park.
    Exciting days indeed.
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