Tag: Megafobia

Blog, Reviews

Wicker Man and the UK Woodies

Loops&Lapbars

There are plenty of rides in the UK offering new and exciting ways to thrill you. The smiler can send you upside down 14 times, Stealth can launch you to 80mph in 1.8 seconds and Odyssey can take you to heights no inverted coaster in the UK gets close to. However sometimes you have to look to the past for something new to thrill you.

Step in Wicker Man. At the time of writing, this is Alton Towers newest attraction. A wooden rollercoaster manufactured by Great Coasters International, themed to a cult worshipping a Wicker Man and sending you as sacrifices to feed the flames!

It stands at 22m (72.2ft) tall, has 795m (2608ft) of track and reaches speeds of 43 mph (70.2km/h) and replaced the much loved Flume attraction. It is marketed as the first wooden rollercoaster to incorporate fire into its theming and the first wooden rollercoaster in the UK in 20 years. The last being Megafobia at Oakwood.

Now I love Wicker Man. I like the theme, I love the ride experience and I particularly enjoy the scent pods they use in the preshow, but there are some much older woodies in the UK that can give the new comer a run for its money! So how does the newest major woodie stack up against its older compadres?

The first I’d like to compare it to is Roller Coaster at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. This is one of 2 scenic railways in the country (the other is at Dreamland Margate) and despite it being over 70 years older than Wicker Man, it still manages to top it’s top speed, reaching 45 miles an hour! Though the ride isn’t quite as thrilling as Wicker Mans’, Roller Coaster is still a great ride and comes in just behind Wicker Man’s biggest competitor, Megafobia.

Megafobia is a Custom Coasters wooden coaster located at Oakwood and is very well received as woodies go. This is the UKs fastest woodie, reaching 48mph (77km/h), reaches heights of 85ft and is 2956ft long. So Megafobia edges out Wicker Man in all categories, though it has no theming at all. When I first started writing this blog in mid 2022, I’d have said that Megafobia was the top woodie in the UK, but Wicker Man is bedding in and feels like it’s getting better and better with every passing season. There is little to split these two in my eyes, but Megafobia does give the more uncomfortable ride, not too harsh at all, but because of that small factor, and the theme difference, I’ve put Wicker Man above Megafobia. Atleast for now!

The next contenders for best UK woodie (that I’ve ridden) are all at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Nickelodeon Streak, Grand National, Blue Flier and Big Dipper. Blue Flyer is a good little kids ride but not quite in the big leagues and I’d say the same is true for Nickelodeon Streak too. Though Nick Streak has a great layout with loads of hills, I feel it takes them a little too slowly and doesn’t give as much airtime as the layout might suggest! It does slightly edge out the next competitor though.

Next up is Big Dipper. Turning 100 years old this year, this is a classic wooden rollercoaster built by William Strickler. It cost £25,000 in 1922, which would be over £1.9 million today, not bad when compared to Wicker Man’s £16 million!

The ride itself has age related roughness to it, though certainly not the hardest ride at Pleasure Beach. It will throw you into unbanked corners and drop you into the dips with a lot of force. The same can be said of Grand National which is arguably the most hardcore of the UK wooden coasters. If Big Dipper throws you into corners and dips, then Grand National launches you into them. It’s certainly not for the faint hearted and it can feel very intimidating, especially if you’ve ridden Wicker Man first!

I feel that Grand National gives the truest wooden rollercoaster experience as it feels raw and untamed, it’s noisy and rough and good fun to boot. Tracy will tell you it’s horrible, which is somewhat understandable as the ride can assault you as much as it thrills! I do enjoy Grand National, but if Wicker Man is a nice and velvety smooth wooden coaster, then Grand National is a slap in the face followed by a stiff drink. Brutal and yet fun.

There are a few other wooden roller coasters in the UK that I’ve yet to ride, such as Scenic Railway at Dreamland Margate and Antelope at Gullivers Warrington. There’s also Tyrolean Tubtwist at Joyland but I don’t think Tubtwist is of the same type as all the other woodies here. It does have wooden side panelling along the sides of the layout that are needed to help the cars spin and though it is classed as a wooden coaster, but that’s all there is, it hasn’t got a wooden structure or anything else, where all the others I’ve mentioned have.

Antelope looks like great fun and has a decent layout so I’d expect that to rank quite well but since I’ve not ridden it, I can’t rate it unfortunately!

So to summarise, here is the list of how I currently rank all the UK wooden coasters!

  1. Wicker Man
  2. Megafobia
  3. Roller Coaster
  4. Grand National
  5. Nickelodeon Streak
  6. Big Dipper
  7. Blue Flyer
Blog

Hereford & Oakwood – Stop 3

Loops&Lapbars

Once we’d finished with Alton, we hit the road, heading to Hereford and the Three Horseshoes Inn. On the way, we got caught up in some heavy traffic following an accident, which made us quite late to the Inn, but the staff were fantastic. They kept the kitchen open for us so we could have a something proper to eat, which we both had Steak and Ale Pie which was out of this world!

The following morning we were on the road early as we’d got a 3 hour drive to visit Oakwood Theme park over in Wales. The staff at the Inn packed us up a breakfast sandwich which was very kind of them and off we went.

In queue to enter Oakwood!

We arrived at Oakwood at around 9:15 which gave me plenty of time to get the drone in the air to have a look around before we got in queue to enter the park. Park opened at 10 and the train wasn’t running due to Covid restrictions so we walked into the park and queued up to enter Spooky Street and have a ride on Creepy Crawler first.

Not much to say about Creepy Crawler, it was a decent little coaster, not too rough and ready, not too fast but quite pleasant. Though we were surprised to find it had a camera for on ride photos which was great to see!

After that we had a go on Witches Brew, a tea cups ride themed to witches cauldrons, and then onto Spooky 3D, which was interesting to say the least. I can’t be too harsh on it as it is 21 years old and looks to be running technology and theming from around the time, even though it was revamped in 2003. Certainly an experience but not the best dark ride out there!

Megaphobia!

Next we had a look in Megaphobia’s shop and found the ride parts section and bought a digipass. We found this to be good value at £20 for as many photos as you like, all day long. We then got in queue for Megaphobia.

This is what I thought a wooden coaster should be. It was rough around the edges, decently intense and a proper thrill to ride! We both agreed that even after riding it only once that its the best wooden coaster in the UK, just edging out Wickerman at Alton Towers.

Following on from Megaphobia, we had a wander around and eventually found Treetops, which is another fun junior coaster, with a camera! Decently forceful, and has plenty of hang time too!

After that we had a go on the shooting range which was an up-charge attraction, but a first time for both of us shooting air rifles at paper targets. Well worth the money for 40 shots. Next it was time for a go on Speed: No limits.

Speed: No Limits going up the hill

Personally I feel that Speed: No Limits is the best Euro fighter model in the UK for what it offers and how it rides. Saw the ride is much better themed and more intense which just puts it ahead for me but I still think Speed is the better ride, if you take away Saw’s theming. This was also Tracy’s first beyond vertical drop, and though she was terrified, she ended up trying other euro fighters later on in the trip!

We then decided to have a sit down and something to eat, in this case a burger meal from the main food court in the centre of the park. The food was good, plenty of choice and extras, and not too expensive either, we’d happily recommend the food here! There were plenty of areas to sit down and eat, we picked a nice bit of grass under a tree behind the restaurant, it was lovely and pleasant!

Once we’d finished our dinner, we had a wander about, taking photos and the like, before having a go on Waterfall, a water ride thats gaining fame for its unique idea. You climb the tower to board a ‘tea tray’ that is then dropped down a chute and the idea is that you then skim across the water trying not to fall in before then end.

When we were there, it was quite popular and there was always someone not making it to the end and falling in. Its a real crowd pleaser and an excellent little attraction for Oakwood to have. On my go I made it no problem, Tracy on the other hand toppled over about three quarters of the way across to fits of laughter from myself!

Waterfall, will you make it across?

Once we’d gotten dried and changed, we had a round of mini golf, which was in a pretty poor state, but it was only £1 so I’m not complaining! We then started to queue for the Bobsled, the parks oldest ride. The queue took a very long time and there wasn’t much cover from the sun in the queue line. The ride itself is quite fun, but I didn’t feel the queue time was worth the ride itself. Get on this one early if you can.

To round off our visit, we had a go on the boating lake before a second ride on Megafobia and a trip to the parks shops. I would just like to mention at this point that you can buy old, used ride parts in the Megaphobia shop and they are very well priced. I ended up with a gear mechanism from Megaphobia for £25, an absolute bargain in my eyes!

I should also mention that Oakwood does have a very good area for younger families, we had a look around but ultimately didn’t have quite enough time to ride some of the rides there, but it looked like it’ll be more fun to have at Oakwood! A second visit will certainly be coming!

Once we’d packed the car up, we headed off for an overnight stay in Bristol for a quiet day off, before a visit to Bovington Tank Museum!