Flamingo Land - Thursday 11th August 2016 PTR

[Coaster]

PARK OPEN:10am - 6pm

RIDES CLOSED: Voodoo

 

Having never visited Flamingo Land before, I was looking forward to getting to a new park and wasn't sure what to expect.

 

We arrived at 9:30am and bought our tickets with no queueing, after which we entered the park to find that Cliffhanger was already open!  On the way over we noticed that Mumbo Jumbo was also open, despite there still being 20 minutes until the opening time, so we did that followed by Cliffhanger - a very good start to the day.

 

The park is set out fairly well with some nice theming in places, however some of it could do with some TLC, for example Kumali's entrance sign.  Also there is little in the way of audio, though there is some in the ride stations etc.

 

The staff were much better than I was expecting after hearing horror stories, they were actually very pleasant and friendly.

 

The worst point for me about Flamingo Land was that throughputs were dreadful, I'll cover it in more detail further down but basically, two of the four "big" coasters only run one train, and the other two (which are multiple car rides) were both running three cars but only having one out on the track at a time.
The park runs a fastpass system, but fortunately due to it being a quiet day it didn't have a huge impact on the main queues, though it was still frustrating at times.

 

For the benefit of those who haven't visited Flamingo Land, I'll review a few of the rides.

 

Velocity is the stand out coaster at the park for me, it's forceful, has a small amount of airtime and a unique seating arrangement.  The launch was also more powerful than I was expecting, and as an overall coaster I rate it much higher than Rita.

 

Kumali was also fairly good, and it runs much better than Infusion.  The first drop is good however the loop that follows is forceless, as is the zero-g-roll.  With that said, the other elements were good with the right amount of bumpiness to be enjoyable, but not painful, and as an overall coaster it works quite well.

 

I wasn't sure what to expect of Mumbo Jumbo, and I wasn't a huge fan of it.  The ride feels far too trimmed, with the two elements that should be the highlight (more than vertical drop and a turn banked outwards) feeling far too tame due to this.  With that said it's very different, but not something I would consider "good."
It was running three cars, however one was always stacked in the station and they waited for the car in front to be in the brake run before dispatching the next one which is laughable.

 

Hero wasn't as painful as I was expecting, however it wasn't comfortable and the coaster itself provides little other than being rattled around in a cage.  Like Mumbo Jumbo operations were also extremely slow on this meaning that the queue moved at a snail's pace.

 

Lost River was, frankly, dire.  The throughput is unbelievably bad, actually it's worse than that!  The ride was running three boats, however each boat had two rows closed off bringing the total number of people in each down to 12 (rather than 20).  The overall ride time is around 5-6 minutes, much of which is meandering around the zoo areas, and they were stacking boats in the station and only dispatching when the third one was coming down the drop at the end - we worked out that it was getting about 120pph!
Onto the ride itself, the outdoor section was boring and the drop was rough and dull.

 

Mischief Mansion was hilarious, it's an amusing dark ride with bizarre props and the cars face side-on.  On the not-so-funny side, we waited 45 minutes for it as they were only running three cars, and rather than spacing them out they waited until all three were back and then send them at short intervals.  We caught up with the car in front halfway round which ruined the ride somewhat.

 

Flip Flop is a very good flat, much like Maelstrom at Drayton it has a lot of force and airtime, however the ride cycle was too long IMO.

 

Cliffhanger offered more airtime than Ice Blast but the launch itself is weaker, so it's difficult to decide which is better.

 

Pterodactyl was very unnerving as it was windy and the chairs were spinning around, definitely the scariest ride of the day!

RIDECOUNT:
Velocity x3
Kumali x2
Mumbo Jumbo x2
Hero x2
Flip Flop x1
Cliffhanger x1
Pterodactyl x1
Twistoasarus x1
Lost River Ride x1
Mischief Mansion x1
Cycle Monorail x1
Splash Battle x1
Runaway Train x1
Zoom x1
Train x1

 

TOTAL: 20

 

Highlights:
- Great to be at a new park
- Velocity was a solid coaster
- Staff much better than expected
- Rides opened much earlier than advertised
- Nice theming in places

 

Lowlights:
- Very low throughputs
- Rides were mostly "average"
- Far too many kiddie coasters
- Lacking in audio
- Fastpass system in use

 

Photos

 

Velocity;

 

 

Kumali;

 

 

 

Mumbo Jumbo;

 

 

Hero, one of the strangest coasters I've ever seen;

 

 

 

Lost River, it looks great but delivers so little;

 

Thanks for reading