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Funfair Rides


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So we went down to the Beach Brent Cross today as the weather couldn't have been more amazing really. Was a good day out overall however would I recommend the beach to a friend? Absolutely not.

If you don't know what it is, it's essentially an urban beach with a giant funfair plonked down next to a shopping centre and a motorway in Central london. An ideal location? Of course, many passers by will be able to see this event as they have tried to make it as grand as possible. It's essentially a summer winter wonderland and unfortunately I preferred winter wonderland a lot more.

Yes winter wonderland is a LOT more expensive, however the rides and atmosphere there are so much better. The Beach wasn't particularly cheap either, not a complete rip-off just not cheap in the slightest. It's a £3 entry fee to get in(free if you download Brent Cross Plus app) and then you have to pay for food, drinks, games and rides on top of that. The access to the beach and paddling pool area itself are free however.

The price is partly why I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, however this event was also insanely busy. We must have queued at least 20-30mins to get in, in a long windy cattlepen queueline. Admittedly they were getting people in thick and fast however the queue was pretty damn long. Once inside, if you want to sit on the beach itself it's so overcrowded that you have to go searching for the smallest space and once you eventually sit down, loads of screaming little children will chuck sand all over you and throw their buckets and spades at you. If there hadn't been so many people maybe the beach itself would have been a bitmore enjoyable.

The rides themselves were of a decent standard. In terms of good rides they had a full size rollercoaster(Thriller), a KMG afterburner(showtime), a fabbri booster maxx(Mach 5), a starflyer(aviator), a travelling log flume(pirate river), a waltzer and many more smaller attractions for the kids. The rides were pretty pricey and the big rides were all 3-5 tokens. However, the rides didn't seem very popular and were going half empty the majority of the time.

The final reason I despise this event is due to the tokens system. It is £1.20 for one token, £10 for ten tokens or £20 for 25 tokens. It's a bit like this at winter wonderland however at winter wonderland it's so much easier. There are plenty of token boxes at winter wonderland opposed to the single one here which means you would have to queue for ages to purchase your tokens. Then you have to work out which rides you can afford to go on with the specific amount of tokens you have. This then forces you to buy more as you usually end up with tokens left over meaning you have to spend them for another ride as they are non refundable. At winter wonderland you also just get a piece of paper whereas here you are given little metal gold discs meaning they are extremely easy to lose. It's all part of the scheme to try and make you spend as much money as possible as they want you to lose them or force you into buying more.

Anyway so the rides we went on:

THRILLER rollercoaster: priced at 4 tokens(previously £6 at winter wonderland), this rollercoaster was alright however was extremely rough and boisterous, you really got thrown around and your shoulders would press into the restraints. My legs would also smack into the back of the seats infront so it was pretty uncomfortable.

Pirate River Logflume: priced at 4 tokens, this standard travelling log flume was relatively short but good fun. Was really nice to have a cool down and a refreshing splash with such hot weather. Not particularly worth £4 though.

Mach 5 booster: priced at 5 tokens, I've been on this before and payed £5 however my last experience on it was faster, longer and much more intense. This time the ride was not being run at full power and whilst it was still good fun, it was no where near as insane as I had previously experienced. A real shame as I was looking forward to it however it was going pretty empty and I imagine they weren't making much money so therefore were compromising on the amount of power they were using.

So that's pretty much it, whilst I recommend both going to a beach and a funfair, I don't recommend going to the two combined together. It's far too overcrowded and expensive and turned out to be unfortunately worse than my expectations of the attraction.

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It's been a while since I've made any posts really to this forum, let alone any form of trip report, so I thought I would bring my presence back to life by a funfair trip report.

Once again, like last year, I ventured down to Milton Keynes for the firework and bonfire funfair this year. Usually, every year I have one incentive to go; Rock Rage. This year my incentive to go was no different, as I knew rock rage would be returning, however the fair as a whole had actually changed a lot since last year and it was actually quite pleasing to see the line up of attractions on offer this year.

The fair had a very different atmosphere on the whole this year, I ventured down on Sunday 8th November, the final cheap night. I'm not sure whether the difference in atmosphere was due to the crowds, the atmosphere on the individual rides or the new "around the pathway" style layout so that you would come across the rides one by one instead of the random dotting of rides all over a muddy field like last year.

All the rides were supposed to be priced at £1.50 for the final cheap night I believe, with the exception of the brand new Elegant giant Wheel(which was priced at £3 a go for a very windy and nerve-racking experience at the top!). However, several rides around the fair didn't appear to be obeying this pricing scheme; for example the mirror maze was priced at £2 and Vertigo booster was priced at £2.50.

When we got to the fair, it was pretty dead. There weren't many people around so we decided to take a walk around the new layout and see what attractions were on offer. Whilst it was a shame to see the toboggan coaster and the starflyer leave from last years line up, it was nice to see Crazy Frog, Elegant Wheel and King Loops(only one in the UK) to fill the void. All the other attractions were the regulars from previous years. We waited for the crowds to pick up and once they did, the atmosphere picked up also. Most rides tended to be going full with people waiting to get into the next ride. Vertigo booster also had a full queueline and rock rage had half of its queueline full, the longest queue I have personally ever seen rock rage operate with.

Unfortunately, later on in the night there was a short but extremely heavy period of rain, which really appeared to scare the guests off, as after this heavy shower, the queues/crowds around the rides quickly dispersed as people left the grounds.

My ride count for this year:

Elegant Wheel x1

Crazy Frog x1

Extreme x1

Energy Storm x1

King loops x1

Superbowl x1

Rock Rage x4

I have a couple of videos of King Loops and Rock Rage, in my opinion the two most exciting rides at the fair this year. Unfortunately, these videos were taken after the heavy shower of rain meaning both crowds and atmosphere had died down slightly. These videos were taken whilst we were on the rides and on rock rage, we are in the car which is flipping like crazy and then gets stuck upside down before doing even more flips! Absolutely insane and was ridiculously intense! I was completely screaming my head off ;)

King Loops:

Rock Rage:

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Just remembered, I've actually been on 5 top spins: rammy, rippy, hurukan (tibidabo), top spin (madrid) and top spin (painful transporting one when it was at dreamland).

Rammy, hurukan and top spin (madrid) were the good ones, rippy was just in a horrible setting and there just wasn't something in it that made me love it, top spin (transporting one) was just insanely paneful.

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