From Chessington we drove to Margate and the Hussar Inn which is a pub with rooms above it, and quite a nice one at that too. The rooms were good sized, and the bathroom was massive, and yet the telly was tiny! The barman was excellent, helped us with any of our queries and served us a nice breakfast the following morning.
Dreamland Margate was next on the agenda, but due to the pandemic, they had delayed opening which is a real shame as I’d have liked to have tried some of their attractions. Margate itself wasn’t that great. It looks like it’s seen better years, but hopefully it’ll pickup once the pandemic is over and Dreamland opens again.
So we left Margate quite early the following morning and moved onto our penultimate hotel for the trip, the Skylark Hotel in Southend on Sea. Just a note to add here too, the Dartford tunnel is excellent, easy to pay and quite convenient, and it didn’t cost too much for us to pass through.
As for the Skylark Hotel, its situated right next to Southend airport so does suffer a little from noisy aircraft, but we had quieter rooms and it wasn’t that noticeable. The rooms were ok, but the bathroom was a bit mouldy in places and the halls could do with a bit of a refurbishment!
While we were in Southend we booked to visit Adventure Island, a local theme park right on the seafront. all day bands were £20 and entry is free. We were finally clear of the school holidays and our visit to Adventure Island was excellent, we barely queued for any attraction and managed to get around a lot of what the park has to offer.
We started on Rage, a Gerstlauer Eurofighter the parks biggest roller coaster. While I’d say this is the weaker of the 3 Eurofighters in the UK, it’s still a great ride with plenty of force and enough packed into its tight layout!
We then had a ride on Sky Drop, a Zamperla drop tower, and it was here we noticed how differently this park appears to operate. All the ride ops blend with the experience of the ride, they greet you on the ride, load you, and make it quite a personal affair that you have the best time you can possibly have on their attraction. It was excellent seeing the interactions between the operators on later attractions and it really helped make the park stand out!
As for Sky Drop, it was fun but not as good as Magma or Croc drop mentioned in previous blogs!
Next we tried Green Scream, a Zierer family coaster with a crocodile theme. This was another walk on attraction and was a pleasant ride that sits above a few of the parks other attractions. We then tried Archelon, a Waveswinger model themed to a giant extinct turtle, very similar to other Wavesingers out there, but the cycle did feel like it lasted longer.
From Archelon we moved onto Over the Hill 2: Spooksville, possibly the most confusing ride name in the UK. This park built dark ride has guests travelling past a variety of child friendly horror scenes, some with moving parts, but mostly static props. A very colourful ride, but not quite up there with other dark rides we’ve ridden.
After Spooksville, we moved over the other side of the park, which involves going through Adventure Inside, an arcade with a few bigger rides dotted about. Similar in idea to Fantasy Islands pyramid, but not quite as large.
In the other side of the park, we headed up to the Kiddi Koasta and Dragon, a family roller coaster and roundabout ride respectively. Upon boarding the Kiddi Koasta, it ran into technical difficulties and we had to come back later, but not before having a go on Dragon.
From Dragon, we had a go on the American Whip, a ride I’ve only ever seen in Planet Coaster, but Tracy knew of them so we had to have a go on it. For how simple the premise of the ride is, you get chucked into the turns with decent force, and once again the ride ops were interacting with everyone and making it even more fun!
We then had a go on the Helter Skelter, a ride type I haven’t ridden in decades, let alone years! It was a little trip down memory lane, to times gone by when all seaside parks had these and the Dual Snake slides.
Up next was Adventureville, a self built dark ride that is best described as weird! It has a very similar aesthetic to Spooksville, the colours of the props pop out and its well designed but it does have a soundtrack that will get stuck in your head!
I then braved Axis while Tracy sat back and watched, as she didn’t want to attempt this 30 meter tall inverting frisbee. It does look quite intimidating, and as part of its cycle it does hold you upside down for a while, but overall it wasn’t as terrifying as it looks. It gives good force when it picks up speed, but it isn’t as hardcore as it looks!
We then decided to stop for dinner, which was a burger meal that was very pleasant. Pricing wasn’t too bad, similar to Burger King really, but the food was good quality.
After dinner we had a go on Barnstormer, another Zierer family model, that I’d read has one of the best helixes on any junior roller coaster, so expectations were higher than usual. You get two laps on the ride, and the helix most certainly doesn’t disappoint! The layout is only very small, with a couple of drops and a few turns, but it’s certainly worth a ride!
Next we had a go on Mighty Mini Mega, a Pinfari MM29 roller coaster which offers a little force here and there, but is more pleasant than forceful. Though the cars are quite small, as the name might suggest, so I wasn’t quite as comfortable as I could have been!
As the day went on, we had a few rerides on Rage, Sky Drop and Barnstormer, as well as a go on Fireball, which is like nothing i’ve ever seen before. It’s like a ferris wheel but the rides face outwards and the gondolas tilt from side to side as the ride rotates. It’s a nice little ride, with another great operator to help it stay memorable.
By the end of the day, we’d ridden more in this park than we did at Thorpe and Chessington combined and we thoroughly enjoyed the whole day. Operations were excellent as mentioned earlier, there was only one ride that had issues and they sorted it out pretty quickly. Overall, well worth the drive down for a day or two to visit this park, and Southend on Sea is great too!
We ended up playing a round of mini golf and visited the arcades as well, met up with friends while we were there and genuinely had a great time in Southend!
Our next stop would have been Great Yarmouth for a day visit but due to the distances, we ended up going straight to our final stop of the holiday, Fantasy Island and the Villager Hotel…
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