Paultons Park

[Inferno]

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 

[Matt 236]

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. 

[Benin]

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

[Matt N]

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: