Paultons Park are pooing all over the competition in the UK aren’t they.   Amazing.  The change in this place since I went as a child is astounding - it’s unrecognisable.

 

Magma going is a weird one - feels like it’s only been there for about 20 minutes 

This weekend I went to Paulton’s fan day, the park certainly put on a lovely event. 

 

Several tours/BTS were carried out throughout the day, from seeing Cobra’s ride workshop, Storm Chaser’s OP cabin/train workshop process, the new construction area and much more. 

 

We had over an hour of ERS in Tornado Springs and Ghostly Manor (more on that soon) as well as a lovely buffet in Mel’s Diner and a Reveal/Q&A with park management. 

 

The biggest news/reveal of course was the new Vikings area (Valgard), which will include a new coaster, flat ride, restaurant and also re-themed Cobra (soon to be Raven). Surprisingly, the new coaster will be a Gerstlauer eurofighter, but hopefully the park will carry it off well, I find the smaller ones the better rides usually. 

 

Vague hints of a new water ride the following year were revealed, but not much else. Very exciting still. Magma will be a goner later this year. At least for Paultons. The lodges are several years away still. 

 

They also did a Q&A and showed how they build Ghostly Manor, which given the areas footprint/show building is impressive they got that all in. They also did a silent disco, but I left at that point. 

 

So, Ghostly Manor? My thoughts? It’s a lovely compact dark ride mixing screens and scenes nicely (they have 10 of them), plus the queue line is nicely done too. Whilst it doesn’t hit the same way as Alty Mans or Danse Macabre (which I did days earlier), it’s a decent addition to the park and great to see them finally obtaining a dark ride. Should suit the park nicely. 

 

Interesting times ahead perhaps. 

Think Drayton also recently adding a Vikings area (and the Valhalla refurb) has made it feel a bit ott as a theme.

As some may be aware, I visited Paultons and rode Ghostly Manor for the first time yesterday.

 

Overall, I have to say that I think it’s a really cool addition!

 

To start things off, first impressions are very good! The facade is lovely, as is the outdoor queue line; every time I walked through it, I was noticing new details, and there are some cool pieces of theming! I particularly liked the swing that moved on its own and the painting; I thought these were cool items!

 

The indoor queue line is also really nice! There are some nice smell pods (I think they emit a lavender-type smell?), and there are lots more nice thematic details! I thought the tubes with ghosts captured and moving around in them were a nice touch in particular!

 

In terms of the ride itself, I’ll keep it spoiler-free and say that I think it’s overall really good fun. I had 5 rides in total, and in terms of a few good points, I’d say the following:

• For the Paultons Park audience, I think it strikes the perfect balance between cartoony fun and scares. There are some moments of what I would call mild scariness that might scare a young child, but it’s not an all-out horror fest and the cartoony visual style keeps things fun and jovial!
• Some of the scenes are really nicely executed, with a good blend of screens and physical set pieces. There are a couple of nice animatronics in the ride, and things like projection mapping are also used effectively.
• While the ride is more shooting gallery-like in style, I think it works here, and the scenes aren’t long enough for it to feel monotonous. Each mini game isn’t particularly long (maybe 30 seconds at most?), so you do quickly get moving rather than feeling like you’re shooting at the same scene for ages on end.
• I found the gun system relatively comfortable to hold and easy to use. It did take a bit of getting used to and learning, but I think that is more down to my dreadfulness at interactive dark rides rather than any issue with the software!
• The Gameplay Theatre ride system is very clever, and it gets a lot of ride duration out of very little space. When you consider that Ghostly Manor replaced a 4D cinema, I think Paultons have done tremendously well!

I do have a couple of small critiques and points for improvement, however. These are:

• I think some of the screen-based scenes (namely the ones facing outwards) lack physical scenery or any kind of bounding to try and hide the screen edges. I know that they are constrained with what they can do to some extent in these scenes, and you aren’t going to see physical scenery as elaborate as that in the inner scenes, but I think something to try and keep the immersion going would be nice, even if it was just some themed bounding for the screen edges. As it stands, these scenes basically just consist of a screen and some black floors and black walls; there’s no physical theming there at all.
• For the ride to flow seamlessly, it is very reliant on there being no hold-ups at the boarding and exiting stages. The mini games in each scene run for a predetermined duration, so if the boarding or exiting process is held up in any way, the mini game just ends and the ride sits still in a scene for a while with “the ride has stopped and will resume shortly” projected on the scene or onto the screen. To make the ride more flexible against disruptions in boarding and exiting flow, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the mini games continue running for the entire length of time the ride was stopped in a scene for, regardless of how long it is, for so that people’s attention isn’t drawn to the delay.
• If I’m being really picky, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the transition between scenes a bit more dramatic in some way and distract from visibility of some of the other scenes while you transition. Maybe a blast of smoke or something would work?

But overall, I think Ghostly Manor is great fun and a brilliant addition to Paultons Park! It’s not the world’s most elaborate dark ride, but given that it replaced a 4D cinema, I think they’ve done very well with the space, and as a first dark ride for the park, I think it works excellently. They’re onto a winner with it, in my view, and it plugs a gap in their lineup!

 

If you’re interested, here are a few photos I took:

 

In terms of the rest of the park, I had an excellent, and very quiet, day! If you’d like to read more about it, my trip report is here: 

 

I attended the opening day of Valgard yesterday, so let me take a stab at a longer review. Let me start with the area and wider theming...

The Area/Theming

Overall, I think they've done a lovely job with the area! The theming is all absolutely lovely, and they've finished it off very well! In terms of a few specific points of interest:

• There are some very nice details around! One of my particular favourites was the sheep "powering" the lift hill for Drakon, but I thought that there was loads to look at!

• As someone who wrote a post a few days ago remarking that Paultons' theming lacked theatre and pizzazz, I do have to concede that Drakon is somewhat of an improvement in this regard; I was particularly surprised by the pre-lift section, which is very nicely done!

• People (myself included) griped for years about Cobra being unthemed and lacking atmosphere, and it looks a damn sight better now; they've done an absolutely brilliant job with Raven! Even just having the themed queue and station and little bits like the clock towers in the middle and the area around it has enhanced the overall atmosphere no end!

• The Feasting Hall is an absolutely excellent indoor space, with some lovely details and a beautiful interior finish. I particularly liked the big fireplace and the big viking ship!

• I didn't really notice The Edge not being cohesively themed in; as much as including it would have been nice, it's tucked away somewhat and I don't think it sticks out like too much of a sore thumb.

• One minor gripe I would raise is that I think Drakon could maybe have used some theming that interacted slightly more with the ride and/or was slightly more visible to riders. When queueing, you can see some nice details in the ride area, including a shipwreck that lights up with some fake fire and some spikes, but I don't think these are terribly noticeable when on the ride; after the initial interaction with Raven, it does feel a tad like you're riding over some generic nice landscaping. I think more visible theming interactions from on-ride in the vein of Storm Chaser and Pterosaur in the same park or Raven in the same area, or Merlin coasters like Nemesis, Swarm and Wicker Man, might have been nice.

All in all, though, I think it's a lovely area and continues Paultons' streak of very nicely detailed and finished off areas. The park are certainly onto another winner alongside Lost Kingdom and Tornado Springs, and compared to an area like Drayton Manor's 2022 attempt at Vikings, I think it's absolutely night and day!

Let me now move onto the main event...

Drakon

I was highly critical of Paultons building a Gerstlauer Euro-Fighter and have made no secret of the fact that it was far from my first choice of coaster for the park. Having ridden it, I do maintain that it maybe wouldn't have been my first choice and it has not converted me to Euro-Fighters as a ride type in a drastic way, but I acknowledge that it is a good coaster and I think it will go down well with the audience, and that I was perhaps overly harsh at points in the build-up period. To raise a few specific points of interest:

• The stall does offer some very good hangtime. I'm quite surprised that Paultons went for such a dramatic inversion on their first ever inverting coaster, but I'm a fan of it and think it works well (or would if it weren't for the restraints... more on that later).

• I always like the drop on these Gerstlauer Euro-Fighters, and this one is no exception; it offers some nice airtime!

• The ride is definitely much smoother than I'd feared it might be; the tracking was generally very smooth throughout on my rides with minimal rattle or headbanging, although there were still odd sections where my head made mild, brief contact with the restraints.

• The ride is perhaps the least intense of the Euro-Fighters I've ridden, and I wouldn't call it an especially forceful or impactful coaster on the whole even if I think the layout is mostly good fun. For the park, I think this works well, but I thought it was worth pointing out.

• The first hill going over Raven doesn't really offer any notable airtime, which I was a little disappointed by. I understand that it probably had to be a certain height to clear Raven, but Gerstlauer, for all their flaws, are often quite good at injecting surprise airtime pops into their thrill coasters and a small part of me was hoping that it would be another surprise airtime burst from Gerst!

• The ride also doesn't really have any airtime more widely aside from the drop, so doesn't continue Gerstlauer's tradition of incorporating good surprising airtime moments. I wasn't necessarily surprised by this given the layout, but I do think this is something that Saw, Speed and Smiler do better.

• The main flaw I would raise, and a criticism that I 100% stand by from when the ride was initially announced, is that I think the OTSRs impede the ride and I would have preferred it with lap bars. On my 3 rides, I found that the OTSRs crushed my thighs and made the stall in particular somewhat uncomfortable. I begrudgingly accept the reasoning for OTSRs, but don't necessarily agree with the logic and think that some nice lap bars, as I know Gerstlauer offer, would definitely have made the ride more fun.

All in all, then, I think Drakon, while not my first choice, is a fun coaster that will suit the park well. It's a very welcome step up in thrill from Paultons Park, and I think the younger guests will like it! In terms of comparisons, it's currently my highest-ranking Gerstlauer thrill coaster for the reason that it's more comfortable to ride than the others, although as I said, it didn't convert me to Euro-Fighters in a drastic way and I've settled on a 6/10 and #49/148 overall. I still personally rank Pterosaur, Storm Chaser and Raven slightly higher within the park.

Finally, I'll briefly touch on Vild Swing...

Vild Swing

I'd never ridden one of these ART wild swings before, so I was interested to get on one for the first time. All in all, I'd say it was OK, but nothing to write home about as someone who's not a big fan of flat rides. The swinging is quite good fun, and early on, none of the sensations feel overly intense, but I would say that the cycle was maybe a bit long for me and I was starting to wear of the repetitive rotating motion by the end. If you’re keener on flats than I am, though, I think you’ll like it!

So all in all, then, I’d say Valgard is a great addition to Paultons Park! The theming is delightful, Drakon is overall a fun coaster that will suit the audience well, and if you’re more of a fan of flat rides than I am, then I think you’ll enjoy Vild Swing! I also think Serpent’s Curse looks like it will be a fun addition for next year!

To close out the review, here are a few photos I took throughout the day: