So I feel the blog took a massive back seat last year thanks to YouTube and I hope to get back to writing about our exploits more regularly this year! So what better way to start than by having a brief run through of the season ahead.
Starting off, there’s the new additions to the UK, of which there are 4 main attractions to talk about:
Nemesis Reborn at Alton Towers
Hyperia at Thorpe Park
The ‘Intamin Launch and Lift Coaster’ at Drayton Manor
Minifigure Speedway at Legoland
I’ve also listed them in order of preference where Nemsis is my most anticipated addition this year. Hyperia is certainly the more impressive looking machine but I think it’ll be too short to take the top spot from Nemesis this year. I don’t think it’ll even be the best coaster at Thorpe Park as it currently stands!
Then there’s the new coaster at Drayton Manor, the so called ‘lift and launch’ coaster. I do like the idea that this will possible have spinning trains on it and the photos coming out of the new attraction do look good, if a little lacking in height and length so far. I suppose I should also mention Shockwave’s changes too. I don’t think it should be put along side the other 4 as its just a new train, name and some theming, and I really don’t agree with the changes myself but it might be fun!
Finally there’s Minifig Speedway at Legoland. I think this one will be a bit of a sleeper hit to be fair. As it currently stands, I think it’s the one I’m looking forward to least as its competition is just more appealing, but given how Velociraptor manages to be thrilling and quite fun, as well as it being Legoland, it may very well surprise us all!
Then there’s the events we plan to visit this year too. We’ve already booked to go to Oakwood in July as part of the Your Experience Guide event. I couldn’t turn this one down as they hosted the first event we ever went to last year and it’s at Oakwood, a park I’d like to get back to and ride Megafobia and Speed to death.
Love2Explore are also working on events too, as are Attraction Source, so a few more events on the cards with these guys too!
This year, Merlin have decided to scale back their park events, which I think is a bit of a misstep myself. Yeah, sure, Festival of Thrills wasn’t the best last year, but Mardi Gras seemed to do well, same with Carnival at Thorpe Park. I hope this means that the money saved will be invested in making Oktoberfest, Scarefest/Fright Nights and the fireworks the best they can be!
Our European excursions don’t seem to be stopping this year either, with the hopes that we can get to Denmark for Legoland Billund, Lego House, Bakken and Tivoli Gardens. We also have a rough plan in to visit Bellewaerde, Bobbejaanland, Movie Park Germany, Walibi Holland, Hansa Park and Heide Park on a road trip if we can.
We’re also due to visit Efteling and Toverland this month. We’re going for Tracy’s birthday as well as taking a couple of friends along for a sort of honeymoon trip. And yes, Baron 1898 is due to be running this time around so I can’t wait for that! There’s also the fully finished Avalon area at Toverland too.
All of this pales in comparison to the park and attraction that I’m most excited for this year, Europa Park and their newest coaster, Voltron. Europa Park is a park I’ve heard so much about and it’s all good stuff. Voltron looks like they tried to cram as many elements into a coaster and it looks insane because of it!
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!
Though we haven’t had quite as many brand new attractions to ride this year, we’ve visited more parks and done more events than last year. As with last year, I thought it would be fun to look back at the 2022 season, rank the events and new attractions we rode this year and reflect on the season passed.
The Events
Over the last year we went to the following events:
Alton Towers Opening Weekend
Alton Towers Festival of Thrills
Thorpe Park Mardi Gras
Thorpe Park Carnival
Alton Towers Octoberfest
Chessington Howl’o’ween
Thorpe Park Fright Nights
Legoland Brick or Treat
Alton Towers Scarefest
Fantasy Island Fear Island
Legoland Fireworks Spectacular
Alton Towers Fireworks Spectacular
That list is just in the order we did them, not the order I enjoyed them most. The best event we did this year, at least in my opinion was probably the Alton Towers opening weekend as we saw plenty of other enthusiasts as well as sharing it with a couple of good friends too.
It wasn’t truly an event in the same vein as the others but I included opening weekend as it’s celebrated as such and I enjoyed it!
The most surprising event and probably the second best we did was Fantasy Island’s Fear Island. For such a relatively small park to put on such a good event was staggering and though not everything was a massive hit, the scare mazes definitely were!
The most disappointing event unfortunately goes to Scarefest at Alton Towers. As highlighted in my blog, the event felt a little lacking and missing something special to mark the occasion.
All the other events and visits we had were great, though I did feel that Carnival was just Mardi Gras but with a yellow overlay, but it was still enjoyable none the less!
The Attractions
There wasn’t many new attractions to try this year but we did get around all the ones we could! We managed:
Sik at Flamingo Land
Enso at Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure at Fantasy Island
The Guardian at Fantasy Island
Wild River Rapids at Fantasy Island
Farm Yard Flyer at Paultons Park
Vikings at Drayton Manor
Barrel Bailout at Chessington World of Adventures
Trawler Trouble at Chessington World of Adventures
Not a very long list but still plenty to go at!
The best this year, at least in my opinion, was the long overdue Sik at Flamingo Land. Daft name but great ride! Despite it being my home park, we only managed it once and I’ve heard it’s having a few issues as the years gone on but I’ll get back to it next year to see!
The weakest of the new additions is a tie between Enso and The Guardian, a bit of a cop out, however both had issues.
The upcharge and lack of value for money on Enso is what took it away for me. Even then, once you’d paid the fee, I wasn’t blown away by the feeling of free spinning. I followed all the advice people have me such as sitting in the right hand seat and going alone but even still I didn’t get the same levels of enjoyment out of it as other seem to!
Dragons Fury, when sat facing backwards, spins more going into the first break run than Enso did through its whole layout. That ride is probably built with spinning in mind, but it is included in park entry at least.
The Guardian was a good idea that was executed badly. Bad CGI and screen quality hampered an otherwise good idea, especially when you first enter the queue line and see all the theming and effort that’s gone into this attraction.
I’m not sure if it was budget constraints or purposeful decisions that caused the issues but they are somewhat easily rectifiable and should make this attraction live up to the expectation that the queue line builds up!
As for the other new attractions this year, there was Vikings which is a good themed area with a good new ride in Loki. I wasn’t really that blown away by it though. Thor is just another Disk’o Coaster and Jormungandr is still Buffalo Coaster with a new theme. Sleipnir is decent though, especially for younger kids.
The whole area is pleasant to walk through and features a lot of wood and some Viking theming but it could do with a bit of an expansion on the theme in my opinion! It was put together very quickly, especially when compared with some of the other new additions and in the nicest possible way, it shows! Just a bit of fine tuning, a few props here and there and it’ll be spot on.
Another surprise entry was from Fantasy Island with Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure. This was much better than expected. I’m a sucker for interactive dark rides, I think every park should have one and this one stands out from Tomb Blaster, Rootin’ Tootin’ Target Trail, Sheriff’s Showdown, Laser Raiders and Dual because of its use of both screens and physical props. The cars were comfortable and the shooting was fun. It just lacks on ride photos and the physical props adding to your score!
The New Parks
This year we visited a lot of new parks, this includes:
Funland Hayling Island
Crealy
Barry Island
Southport Pleasureland
Joyland
Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
Pleasurewood Hills
I think the biggest surprise out of all the new parks we visited, for me at least, was Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. The ride selection was great, there were very few queues throughout the day and we had a great time.
Joyland was also a wonderful little park. Though not even a half day park, it was worth our money and time, and I’ll certainly visit here every time I’m back in Great Yarmouth in future!
Crealy was a nice and tidy park, as was Pleasurewood Hills. Both have good ride line ups but in both cases we weren’t the intended audience of the parks, so it wasn’t quite as fun for us as some of the other parks, such as Barry Island or Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.
Finally I’d like to mention both the owners of Southport Pleasureland and Barry Island for all their help with regards to filming around their parks and on the attractions!
The New to us Attractions
In this section I’d like to highlight some of the existing attractions that we only experienced for the first time this year. We tried all sorts, ranging from our first scenic railway, a 70 year old virginia reel, weird and wonderful flat rides, all the way up to two different snail attractions!
The biggest standout of the year is most certainly Roller Coaster at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach. This is our first scenic railway (of the 2 in the UK and 7 worldwide) and is the second fastest wooden rollercoaster in the country only behind Megafobia. Though not as thrilling as Megafobia, or as well themed as Wicker Man, its definitely the smoothest woodie we’ve ridden and was a joy from start to finish.
Other standout attractions of the year include Lightning 360 at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, Roller Coaster, The Rocket and Ghost Train all from Southport Pleasureland and just because of the sheer amount of spinning we got, I’ll include (what I believe to be Crow’s) Spinning Coaster from Hull Fair too.
There’s one final attraction that was notable this year too, that being Kite Flyer at Pleasurewood Hills. This was the only ride all year that made me feel genuinely ill afterwards! I’m not sure if I was having an off day, the ride cycle was too long or I moved my head too fast while the ride was spinning but it really knocked me for 6.
Summary
We’ve ridden some great attractions this year. Tried some terrible ones too. Had some ups and downs, rainy days and absolute scorchers along the way. Throughout all the visits we’ve had, we’ve always had fun. Yeah Enso was a bit pricy, Sik took far too long to open and Kite Flyer went a step too far (for me at least), but each day was still fun.
We’ve shared at least 3 visits with friends and family this year, I’ve found that one of my best friends, Pedro, is a secret adrenaline junkie and both he and Tami are welcome to join us anytime they like!
I’m not sure there is too much to be excited for in terms of the UKs new offerings next year, but as this year comes to a close, we’ve started drawing up rough plans for our visit next year, with a blog to follow once we know more.
Hopefully next year will be as fun as this year has been but only time will tell!
The Awards
Best New Attraction
Awarded to the best single attraction opened during this year.
Sik
Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure
Loki
Best Event
Awarded to the events that I felt were the best from this year.
Alton Towers Opening Weekend
Fantasy Island – Fear Island
Thorpe Park Fright Nights
Best New Park
Awarded to the park we visited for the very first time this year.
Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
Joyland
Crealy
Best New To Us Attraction
Awarded to the attraction that we experienced for the first time this year.
Roller Coaster – Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
Ghost Train – Southport Pleasureland
Lightning 360 – Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach
Best Rollercoaster Overall
Awarded to the top 3 rollercoasters from my ranking page.
The Smiler
Stealth
Nemesis
Best Flat Ride Overall
Awarded to the attraction that I felt was the most fun and enjoyable flat ride from the last year.
Haunted House Monster Party
Detonator: Bombs Away
Zodiac
Best Onsite Stay
There were only two to pick from, but its awarded to the park with the best onsite stay we had through the year.
Thorpe Shark Cabins
Alton Towers Star Gazing Pods
Best Customer Services
Awarded to the park who’s customer services were needed and how well they handled our issues.
Alton Towers
Pleasurewood Hills
Southport Pleasureland
Best Food
Awarded to the park that I think had the best tasting food from the year.
Chessington World of Adventures (Drop n’ Chicken Nuggets)
Alton Towers (Front Lawns Catering)
Thorpe Park (Pizza Pasta Buffet)
Most Disappointing Visit
These are my least memorable visits from the year. Non were bad, just didn’t fully hit the mark!
Alton Towers – Scarefest (Lacked Ceremony for the 15th anniversary)
Oakwood (Rained off with no rainy day return)
Legoland – Firework Spectacular (Too short!)
Worst Ride of the Year
Grand Canyon – Southport Pleasureland
Kite Flyer
Rootin’ Tootin’ Target Trail
Park of the Year
Awarded to the park that, overall, had the most enjoyable visits.
Our first big park would have been Oakwood theme park in Pembrokeshire, but the weather took a turn for the worse and though we had a couple of rides there, we ended up leaving as it was just too wet to enjoy anything.
We did still manage a ride on Treetops, Speed and Megaphobia, with Speed being the standout here but marred by the weather unfortunately.
Megaphobia should have been one to watch as it runs faster in the rain but we both found it to be quite uncomfortable nearer the back of the train. Such a disappointment as I’d looked forward to getting back to Oakwood and reriding the parks 2 big coasters as well as Bounce.
Speed was still good, a little jerky in places but nothing terrible. It gave me a great pop of ejector airtime over the first hill and ran the rest of it’s layout without much drama. I really want to give this attraction a few more rides as I really do think it’s better than Saw, but I’ve not ridden it enough to make that distinction yet!
The other ride we managed was the parks junior coaster, Treetops. The ride ops were brilliant and tried their best to cheer everyone up but there’s only so much you can do with a half empty train of drowned park goers! Shout-out here to the lady who was in the Treetops photo booth for being the very first person to ever recognise me by my blog name! Thank you very much once again!
We will get back to Oakwood in future as the park still has loads to offer, but it won’t be until next year now with it being such a long way from home though!
For our holiday this year, we’ll once again be doing a UK road trip! This time however we won’t be visiting a single Merlin park, instead opting for a few new places!
Even though we’re only going away for a week this time, we’ll be covering just as much distance as we did last year. we’ll be visiting Crealy, Barry Island, Oakwood Theme Park, Southport Pleasureland, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Flamingo Land!
A map of our travels!
As well as the parks, we’ll also be stopping off at Tankfest down in Bovington, seeing what the Centre for Alternative Technology can show us at Pantperthog and hopefully going up Mount Snowdon!
I don’t know what I’m looking forward to most, whether it’s seeing the tanks on show at Tankfest, riding Megaphobia and Speed or trying Drenched for the first time, or maybe seeing what Enso has to offer at Blackpool.
As with last year, I’ll have blogs up for each day, and a final conclusion with my thoughts on the attractions, new and old! Can’t wait for the 24th to roll around now!
This year, there isn’t as much to be excited about as there was last year in terms of new rides, but there are still plenty of new attractions coming to look forward to!
Valhalla and Enso at Blackpool Pleasure Beach are probably the best that we have this year, with Valhalla being regularly rated as the best dark ride in the world on many lists, so I look forward to experiencing this for the first time!
Won’t be too long until we’re spinning through the junior immelmann!
Enso will see one of Icons trains modified so the rear two seats will spin freely. If Time Traveller and The Ride to Happiness are anything to go by, then I can’t wait to try Icon with spinning seats, Mack seem to build top tier spinning coasters. This is currently the closest we have to a Mack Extreme Spinner in the UK so hopefully it goes down well and we get a ground up thrill machine!
Next would be Farmyard Flier at Paultons Park. We’re heading down there for our first stop of the season in March but the attraction won’t be ready for when we get there which is a shame, but it does also mean another trip to Paultons and I certainly won’t complain at that prospect! I hope as much care has gone into this attraction as the others at Paultons.
Farmyard Flier from the air!
Alton Towers are introducing 3 new children’s attraction to CeeBeeBees Land, but I’m certainly not the intended demographic here!
Next up is Drayton Manor. They’ve been teasing a new Viking themed area and a retheme to Buffalo coaster. There aren’t many details on the new attraction(s), but based on the time frame, we can probably rule out a new rollercoaster for now.
Drayton Manor, with investment, will be even better!
Hopefully we’ll see a nicely themed area, with a good replacement for Pandemonium. If Adventure Cove is anything to go by, then we should be in for a real treat here!
This year should hopefully see the opening of Flamingo Land’s new rollercoaster. As yet it hasn’t had an official name released but everyone is calling it ‘Inversion’. I hope they come up with a better name personally but I am looking forward to getting on this for the first time. I’m expecting it to be great as its a near clone of Colossus at Thorpe Park, a ride I’m warming up to. The biggest difference is that it has lapbars instead of over the shoulder restraints which is definitely a plus!
The Colossus clone, ‘Inversion’, from the air!
Finally, there are a few smaller additions to the smaller parks such as Adventure Island getting a Tivoli Extreme, Barry Island getting a KMG speed 2, and Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach getting 2 new rides, Pendulum and a Rockin’ Tug. All of which I hope to get to throughout the year!
I haven’t been to a lot of the smaller parks such as Barry Island and Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach, so everything they have to offer will be new to me!
More attractions joining Rage at Adventure Island mean more to enjoy!
I’m hoping to get to many of Thorpe Parks new events such as Mardis gras and Carnival, as well as sampling their Oktoberfest to compare to Alton Towers’ version.
I’d like to see Chessington refine Wilderfest this year and to get back to Alton Towers for their Oktoberfest and newly announced Festival of Thrills!
Dragons Fury at Chessington World of Adventures.
Our bigger trip this year will be to cover a lot of the Halloween events going on, with the hopes of seeing Paultons, Legoland, Thorpe park and Alton Towers, with potential for Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Chessington if time allows!
Plenty of Halloween events lined up this year, including Brick or Treat!
I also plan to see Legolands fireworks this year, as well as Alton Towers’ display too!
Finally I hope to get back to Oakwood and ride Megafobia and Speed: No limits to death and visit a few parks in the south west.
A busy year lined up this year, visiting more new parks and seeing new events!
What a season this has been! Starting all the way back in April at Drayton Manor, and finishing at Alton Towers for their incredible fireworks!
I thought for this blog I’d do a mock awards ceremony, giving me chance to talk about highlights of specific parks, rides and attractions, and to voice a few opinions on others.
Best Event
To start with, I think the park with the best event this year was Alton Towers, with their Firework Spectacular. It would have been Thorpe Parks Fright Nights, but Towers just took it with how good a day we had, and how special the fireworks were.
This year we managed to visit the following events and this I how i’d rank them:
Alton Towers Fireworks
Thorpe Park Fright Nights
Alton Towers Oktoberfest
Legoland – Brick or Treat
Wilderfest – Chessington World of Adventures
Mardi Gras – Alton Towers
None of the events were bad at all, Mardis Gras is only at the bottom as we didn’t really see much of it. Wilderfest was ok, but could be improved here and there. Brick or Treat was great, Oktoberfest was excellent, and Fright Nights and the Fireworks were both really brilliant events, its just the fireworks were slightly better in my opinion!
Best new ride for 2021
There is no doubt in my mind that Storm Chaser is my number one new ride for 2021. We’ve had some great new rides this year, including Gangsta Granny: The Ride and Flight of the Sky Lion, and we’ve had some that are alright, but there are better versions currently on offer, such as Croc Drop at Chessington.
Personally, I wouldn’t say any of this years new rides are bad at all, I just think that Croc Drop could have been a bit more than a redressed Magma, and Spinning Racer at Fantasy Island is good, but will probably be gone very soon. Hopefully next year Flamingo land will get their 10 inversion rollercoaster up and running!
Best overall park
This year, I think the park I’d give this to is Paultons Park. Their ride lineup is good, the park isn’t too big or too busy and has been a joy both times we’ve visited this year. Alton Towers and Thorpe Park are close behind as both have given really great days out, Thorpe park especially.
If I had to say which is the weakest park this year, it would have to be Chessington World of Adventures. The park does need a few new rides and a few of the older rides updating a little here and there. Paultons Park has shown what it can do, hopefully Chessington will up their game to follow!
Parks we’ve visited this year are:
Paultons Park
Alton Towers
Thorpe Park
Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Adventure Island
Legoland
Drayton Manor
Oakwood Theme Park
Fantasy Island
Flamingo Land
Clarence Pier
Chessington World of Adventures
I think I’d rank them in that order too, based on the enjoyment both myself and Tracy have had during our visit(s) there.
Adventure Island and Oakwood were both pleasant surprises, especially Adventure Island as their ride operators were like none in any of the other parks! Both have good rides, and plenty to choose from!
Drayton Manor has done well this year in my eyes too, Adventure Cove has really brightened up Shockwave and the area as a whole. Same with Legoland, Mythica is a great area and the park has some great attractions, but does lack a really good thrilling coaster in my opinion!
Fantasy Island was good, and they seem to keep adding attractions and changing things to keep things fresh so hopefully we’ll see more added there soon. Same with Clarence Pier, but their problem is a lack of space!
Flamingo Land could do with some work. It’s a great day out, with some really enjoyable rides, but it looks so tired in places and lacking in budget to finish things off properly. Hopefully when their new 10 inversion coaster opens, they’ll get a surge in popularity and invest in the park more. Mumbo Jumbo, Kumali and Velocity deserve more attention than they currently get!
Best & worst existing new rollercoaster
This is the category for an existing rollercoaster that I rode for the first time this year. Running for top are Nickelodean Streak at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Megaphobia and Speed: No Limits at Oakwood, and Shockwave at Drayton Manor.
Megaphobia takes this one, but Speed: No Limits and Shockwave come close as all three are great rides in their own right. I feel that Megaphobia is the best of the UK wooden rollercoasters, offering enough roughness that you’d expect from a woodie, but not being too overbearing and uncomfortable. Grand National and Big Dipper are great examples of older, rougher woodies. They will throw you about and take no prisoners!
At the other end of the scale, we have the worst existing rollercoaster that I rode for the first time this year. It could very well have been Infusion at Pleasure Beach as that can be borderline painful. It could have been Dino Chase or any of the junior coasters, but for me, its Buffalo Coaster at Drayton Manor. It might be well loved as a classic rollercoaster by some, but for me, it was utterly dreary and didn’t really do anything!
At least the junior coasters have theming to them or offer pops of ejector on back row rides, or something! Buffalo just didn’t do anything for me!
Best & worst flat ride
For this category, all flat rides are up, be it Pandemonium at Drayton Manor, Cyclonator at Paultons Park, Magic at Fantasy Island or any of the existing flat rides we have here in the UK.
There are lots to choose from, but for me, the best flat ride I’ve ridden is Red Arrows Sky Force at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Built by one of my favourite manufacturers, Gerstlauer, this Sky Fly attraction isn’t the tallest or most thrilling attraction I’ve ridden this year, but it stands out for being interactive. Controlling the wings either side of you allows you to flip as much as you can manage, or in Tracy’s case, as little as you like.
Honourable mentions to Pandemonium, Apocalypse, Magic and Cyclonator too. All were first time rides for me this year, and I remember each one for surprising me with how well the attraction rode, or how little it made me feel ill afterwards! Magic especially. It looks like it’ll spin you a little too much but I felt it was just right, comfortable and memorable too.
Though Pandemonium can have the title as most painful ride too since its restraints dug into my shoulders quite badly during its extended upside down sections. Shame its being removed from Drayton Manor, but I’m glad I did get a ride on it before it goes!
The worst flat ride I’ve ridden this year would probably be Quantum at Thorpe Park. I don’t really get on with Magic Carpet or Miami type rides in the first place so I wasn’t that enthusiastic about Quantum. Coupled with the fact that operations are dreadful on the ride, so queues take far longer than they should, I didn’t really enjoy this one at all. Tracy did though so that’s a bonus!
Best water ride
This one is easy enough to award based on how wet we got on the ride. Stormforce 10, easily takes the top spot for me this year as no other ride we went on soaked us through like this one did!
A very close second would have to be Waterfall at Oakwood. Riding a plastic tray, you drop down a slide and have to navigate a long channel of water in the hopes of skimming across its surface to the end. Not only is it a great attraction to have a go at, but also fantastic fun to watch others having a go, whether they make it or not!
Other notable water rides this year would be Adventure Cove River Rapids at Drayton Manor, Viking River Splash and Pirate Falls: Treasure Quest at Legoland. Adventure Cove River Rapids rides well and the water effects make it one of the better rapids rides, alongside Viking River Splash which actually felt like a proper rapids ride with how turbulent it was!
None of the water rides I went on this year were bad I’d say, although River Caves at Blackpool Pleasure Beach was one of the weaker ones in my opinion, feeling quite dated and lacking something special.
Best dark ride, interactive or otherwise
For this, I’ll be including all the Vekoma madhouses, shooting rides and ghost train type attractions. I’ll be writing a separate blog comparing the many Vekoma madhouses on their own, but for now, I think the best dark ride I’ve ridden this year has to be Sheriff Showdown at Drayton Manor, with Duel at Alton Towers, Tomb Blaster at Chessington and Lego Ninjago: The Ride at Legoland following close behind.
The Haunting at Drayton manor would be up thanks to its pre shows and effects prior to the crypt scene! However it’s actual madhouse part and the lack of clarity in the queue as to whether the attraction is running dampened the whole package for me. Both Hex and Haunted house monster party have good pre shows, but better madhouses to experience so I’d rate those better.
Season 2022
Next season, we’re hoping to get across to Europe to start to experience some of the world class attractions over there, as well as visiting more of what the UK has to offer!
For the UK, I’d like to get back to Oakwood and have a go on Drenched, Tidal Wave at Thorpe Park and hopefully The Ultimate at Lightwater Valley! Rumours are circulating that Icon could be getting spinning trains which would be a very different approach to the ride, and if so, I’d like to give that a go!
As for Europe, Taron, Zadra, The Ride to Happiness, Red Force, Baron 1898, F.L.Y and Talocan are all on the bucket list if I can manage it!
Hopefully I’ll have written plenty more blog posts and gotten the hang of Youtube, my drone and my cameras a little more by then as well!
Similarly to my blog comparing The Smiler to Stealth, I’d like to breakdown 3 very similar yet ultimately different rides. 3 Gerstlauer Eurofighters here in the UK, Speed: No Limits, Saw: The Ride and Rage.
The facts
All 3 rollercoasters feature similar elements, all have beyond vertical drops, all have vertical chain driven lifts, over shoulder restraints, 8 riders per car and all feature at least 2 inversions.
The fastest and tallest is Speed: No Limits, followed by Saw: The Ride and finally Rage is the shortest and slowest. Saw has the longest track, Rage the shortest and Speed features only 2 inversions, while the other two have 3.
Bottom of Saw’s beyond vertical drop with Samurai behind
Saw is the only one to feature any real theming. Rage does try to have a little storyline with a superhero called Captain Rageman attached to the ride, but beside a voiceover and a few static boards, that’s really it. Speed has no theme.
Speed was the first to be built, arriving in 2006, then Rage in 2007 and finally Saw in 2009. As mentioned earlier, all feature beyond vertical drops, with Rage and Speed having 97 degree drops and Saw’s being 100 degrees.
Speed navigating its heartline roll.
All have held a record for the steepest drops in some form or another, where Speed and Rage were the steepest in the world being tied with 7 others for the title. Saw never held the world record as Steel Hawg ( at Indiana Beach, Indiana) was introduced a year earlier than Saw, and beat its 100 degree drop by 1 degree. However Saw did hold the UK title for 16 weeks before Mumbo Jumbo (at Flamingo Land) took it away again. I’ll certainly have to talk about Mumbo one day!
The theming of Saw
As I mentioned before, only Saw has any theming worth talking about, and it is very heavily themed around the Saw films. It features an extensively themed ride station and building as well as a decently themed queue and of course, a soundtrack.
Saw’s well themed station
Though Speed doesn’t have a theme, I don’t feel it would benefit from one. The same for Rage. Both are fine enough rides without theming, though they could certainly do with a soundtrack to listen to!
Ride experience
All 3 ride well enough, but I feel that the weakest is Saw a that does suffer a fair bit with rough patches, where Speed feels incredibly smooth. Rage is certainly in the middle ground here, not as smooth as Speed, but certainly not as rough as Saw!
I find the trains on all 3 to be quite comfortable, the restraints are just right, and keep you in place enough to enjoy the ride. It’s certainly a different experience being on your back when ascending each rides lift hills but I didn’t feel uncomfortable in my seat on any of the rides.
All 3 would definitely benefit from lap bar restraints as opposed to the over shoulder ones we have, especially Saw, that would add even more to the ride!
Inversions aren’t everything…
Saw and Rage both feature 3 inversions, and Speed only has 2. Each has a different layout, and though each has similar inversions, all are unique in their own right.
Saw has a heartline roll, immelmann loop and a dive loop, Rage has a loop, cutback and heartline roll, and finally Speed has just a loop and heartline roll.
Interestingly, Speed is the only one of the 3 that doesn’t immediately enter into an inversion following the beyond vertical drop, instead opting for an airtime hill, that is taken at decent speed and offers great ejector airtime!
So which is best?
In my opinion, Speed is the better ride out of the 3 but Saw is the best overall experience. The scenery, story elements and ride itself, push Saw slightly ahead of Speed if you take the whole package into consideration.
Rage is the weaker of the 3 for me. It’s still a great ride and well worth a visit to Adventure Island to have a ride on, but I would honestly say that Saw and Speed are better overall.
As I stated in my previous blog, I’d like to summarise our trip away and add any advice to others planning on the same sort of trip.
The Parks
Over the course of the holiday we visited 8 very different parks around the country with our standout favorite of the trip being Paultons Park, with Oakwood and Adventure Island coming in close behind. That’s not to say that Pleasure Beach or Alton Towers were bad at all, more so that Paultons left an excellent impression on the both of us!
Alton Towers and Chessington were a bit of a letdown due to how busy they were, but it’s not entirely fair to blame the parks here, I’d booked for Towers on a bank holiday and I didn’t know Chessington would still be within the holidays. That being said, we did Thorpe Park just before Chessington and that went a lot smoother, comparatively.
Pleasure Beach was also excellent, probably the best of the parks from this trip that we’ve already previously visited. We did give it two days though which meant neither day was rushed and we managed to get on mostly everything we wanted to (except Avalanche, which kept running into issues).
The Hotels
For the trip we stopped in 10 different hotels and guesthouses, each different to the next. Highlights for anyone aspiring to visit UK parks would be the Ramada at Cobham services, because the location is excellent for Legoland, Thorpe Park and Chessington, and the service have excellent facilities.
All the places we stopped at were good, True Lovers Knot in Blandford Forum was the only one we had anything like a negative feeling towards, and that was purely for the way the staff interacted with us. The rooms themselves were probably the most premium feeling out of all the places we stayed, it’s just the staff and lack of a warm welcome that really put us off.
Advice from our experience is just to make sure you’re not driving too far from one stop to the next. If I were to do it again, I would probably add a stop a bit closer to Oakwood as Hereford was a bit of a trek that early on in the day! Other than that, everywhere we stopped at was mostly what we expected, just make sure to read reviews before booking the cheapest places as some accounts suggested some properties were down right dangerous!
The Car + Equipment
I own a Mazda 6 Estate which offered up plenty of room to carry all our belongings and didn’t cost an arm and leg to run. We filled up twice throughout the trip, once in Bristol and the second in Southend, and it cost around £165 for fuel for the whole trip.
Daft bit of advice to give, but spilt clothing into little bundles so you can take in only necessary things to each stop, saves you lugging about large suitcases!
It should probably go without saying that you’ll want something comfortable for the long miles, and something that has enough room for all the things you’ll need. We took enough clothes to get through the 2 weeks we were away but we did plan in stops to laundrettes if needed. We didn’t take any cooking provisions and ate on the road for this trip, but you could easily bring along a gas camping stove and cook to cut down on expensive meals out.
Another probably obvious thing to add would be to keep a bit of money spare for issues with the car as I somehow managed to pick up a puncture while we were in Southampton and ended up needing a new tyre. I’ll take that over a larger fault though! I do also have breakdown cover just incase.
The Cameras
I took with me my Nikon D5600 DSLR, 18-55mm Nikkor lense, 70-300mm Tamron Lense, DJI Mini 2 drone as well as a GoPro Hero 6 Black. I didn’t get a chance to use the GoPro as most parks don’t allow on ride recording, and I never thought to ask at Paultons, Oakwood or Adventure Island.
I have since bought a Nikon B700 superzoom camera as I lacked ability to take photos at larger ranges and long range DSLR lenses are extremely expensive!
The Rides
Standout attractions from our visit will certainly be Storm Chaser at Paultons Park, Red Arrows Skyforce and Nickelodeon Streak at Pleasure Beach, Gangsta Granny: The Ride at Alton Towers and Megaphobia and Speed: No Limits at Oakwood.
We both felt Croc Drop was a bit over hyped, it looks the part, but the ride sequence itself isn’t as good as Magmas. The Big One at Pleasure Beach really needs some work in regard to operations, they don’t seem to utilise multiple trains as well as other attractions do. The queue really kills it, as twice we’ve had really long wait times unfortunately.
Hopefully with this year’s additions, we’ll see more and more development into the UK Theme Park scene and get bigger and better, world beating attractions!
Closing Comments
We’d have liked to have done our intended trip to Europe, but I’m more than happy with how our holiday around the UK went, we’ve both ridden some great attractions, visited new parks for the first time, tried some new and tasty food and overall had a fantastic stay here in the UK!
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!
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