This is quite an exciting blog to write as we’ve somewhat finalised our plans for the coming year
This year, as I put down in my 2023 resolutions blog, we were hoping to get across to Europe and thanks to our latest bookings, we now shall be! I’ll go into a little detail later but to start our season, we’ll be at Blackpool Pleasure Beach! We only had 1 trip there last year so it’ll be nice to get back on Big One, Icon and celebrate Big Dippers centenary. We would have been going to Alton Towers for the opening weekend, however…
Next up will be Alton Towers in April for the Your Experience Guide (Pleasure Beach Experience) event. I’m very much looking forward to meeting like minded enthusiasts as well as getting a few rides on Wickerman before the park opens! I’ve never been to an enthusiast event so this will be my first and something I’m very much looking forward to.
Our big trip this will be in Europe as I mentioned earlier. We’ll be going in mid May and our route will take us to 6 different parks and will take us through 4 countries, starting in France, then Belgium, The Netherlands and finally Germany! Our intention will be to take the Eurotunnel across to France then stop the night before visiting Plopsaland De Panne for the first time. Next will be Bobbejaanland then onto Efteling for 2 days, stopping in the Holiday Village Efteling Loonsche Land.
Then we’ll have a day off to see the surroundings and then onto Toverland! Next stop will be Phantasia Land for 2 days, stopping in their Hotel Charles Lindbergh. Finally we’ll visit Walibi Belgium on the way back to the Euro Tunnel and the UK.
All in, we should have the chance to ride up to 42 new rollercoasters, as well as plenty of flat rides and other attractions.
Not only will we be visiting 6 new parks, seeing new sites, eating different food, but I’ll be driving the whole way too. I’m don’t know whether I’m more excited about the chance to drive new roads, seeing new things or the fact I’ll be doing it all with Tracy too.
Not only will we be making a grand tour of Europe, but we’ve also got annual passes for Drayton Manor this year. This is the first time I’ve ever held a park specific annual pass and it’ll supplement our Merlin annual passes too. We intend to visit Drayton Manor for their new events so the annual pass makes financial sense!
We’ll also be threading in visits to all the Thorpe Park events, not only to compare and contrast to last year, but as part of the competition being run by Thorpe Park to have a chance to be the first to ride Project Exodus when that opens! I won’t be able to visit every day as we live over 220 miles away, but you have to be in it to win it, so event visits will have to do!
In the autumn, we hope to make a final trip across to France to visit Disneyland Paris and Parc Asterix over Halloween as we’ve been to neither park and want to see both! We will definitely make a concerted effort to get to Fantasy Island for Fear Island again as that was a definite highlight of last year!
Finally, we’ll try to get back to Paultons, Chessington for the new Jumanji area as well as my home park, Flamingo Land, to see how Sik is settling in.
There’s so much to be excited for this year, from trying out Taron and F.L.Y, to Baron 1898, Troy, Fury and The Ride to Happiness! Along the way, I’ll be comparing these to their closest UK offerings, such as Icon being our closest thing to Taron etc. I also can’t wait to see all the themed areas, try out the food, trying to speak German and French again and just having an overall great time this year!
I will, of course, be doing blogs for each visit and possibly trying out video logging (Vlogging) for some, starting with the Alton Towers event in April!
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