Tag: Theme Park

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Thorpe Shark Cabins

Loops&Lapbars

Recently we stopped at Thorpe Park in their on site accommodation as mentioned in my Carnival blog post. Here’s my thoughts on the Thorpe Shark Cabins!

The cabins themselves are quite small, some might say cosy and comprise a double bed, 2 bunk beds, a wet room and a little storage for your belongings.

The beds were very comfortable and there was only just enough space to fit 3 adults and a child in there but we managed. I can imagine a less organised family, or one with younger children might struggle as there isn’t much storage for larger items like prams and the like.

The wet room was also quite small but offers the basics to get you by. It has a shower, a very small sink and a toilet, as well as a couple of rails above the toilet for towels. It’s also worth noting that you can’t drink the water from the taps and bottled water is provided. I’m not entirely sure why as not reason was given, but I also didn’t ask any members of staff!

Air conditioning is provided and pretty much required as the cabins retain heat as they’re built using metal shipping containers. You can’t see much evidence to suggest as such besides the walls, but their size does emulate this fact.

Included in our price was 2 nights stay, breakfast and 1 hour fastpass in the park. This was advertised as the second day but it seems to work on any day you go, and its done on a wristband, that also gets you into the hotel from the car park too. These wristbands were great and I’d like to be able to purchase hourly fastpass tickets moving forward as I think they are a good idea!

It’s worth mentioning that we booked the cabins as part of the Merlin Holiday Club as we’re pass holders. We then added another two to our booking at no additional cost for the stay, but they did have to pay for breakfast at a cost of £15 per person. I didn’t think this was unreasonable and we were told multiple times about the additional cost so it wasn’t a surprise or anything.

Improvements

Though we enjoyed our time in the cabins, there are certainly a few improvements that could be made. Firstly, having somewhere to put your things in the shower would be great as there is only one shelf in there and the toilet. Just a few hanging hooks or another shelf or two would be great!

Though the space was only just enough, I wouldn’t mind seeing a two person cabin being built taking up a third of the space the 4 person ones do. Then alterations made to the current 4 person cabins so they are about a third bigger.

I would also like to see the entrance to Thorpe Shark changed a little. Currently you enter the park, go through security and then you’re able to access the hotel. I’d much prefer it if you could come and go a little easier and be able to enter the park only after you’ve been through the hotel, like how the other Merlin parks operate. The cabins do feel like a hasty way of adding on site accommodation.

I wasn’t as though you couldn’t leave once you were in, but there was a gate that you had to exit through and then had to have permission to re-enter, showing you wrist bands and having your bags checked again if a member of the security team was present.

Finally, and probably the biggest issue with the Thorpe Shark cabins is the lack of things to do after the park has closed. I’d have happily wandered around the park after hours for photo opportunities, or even a few hotel exclusive later rides. The only thing we could find to do, outside of bringing games to play, was the pub, and the provided games on the TV in the room.

Compare this to Chessington where you have access to parts of the zoo, a swimming pool and live entertainment, and Alton Towers, where you have live entertainment in 2 different hotels, the rollercoaster restaurant and mini golf.

I’d like to see some of the rides left open a bit later for hotel guests, maybe only a couple of hours or so, and possibly rotate what rides are offered each month. Failing that, a mini golf course, or access to the main arcade in the park wouldn’t hurt either, or convert the 4D cinema into an actual cinema showing a good range of great films.

Overall the cabins were good, but certainly weaker than what Alton Towers, Chessington, or even Blackpool Pleasure beach offer. I’d certainly recommend them at least once, and more so for a couple of thrill seekers like us, rather than a family!

Blog, Reviews

Thorpe Park Carnival

Loops&Lapbars

For a little weekend getaway we decided on a visit to Thorpe Park, and that we’d stay on site in the Thorpe Shark Cabins. I’ll have a full dedicated blog talking about our experience with them but needless to say it’s the weakest offering of the Merlin Parks on site accommodation. That’s not to say it was bad, far from it! Just a little room for improvement!

During our visit, Thorpe Park were hosting their new Carnival event. I had a small feeling that it would be an almost identical event to Mardi Gras but aside from reusing a few assets, it felt like a completely new event from the ground up.

As the carnival events started around 12, and we had 1 hour fastpass bands due to our hotel stay, we went on a few rides first.

First stop of the day was The Swarm, and it gave a good ride and a few of the water effects were working today which was a nice bonus!

Next was Flying Fish and besides it being a very tame ride with not much to mention, there does seem to be a lot of noise coming from the front of the train as it pulls away from the station. Whether this is normal, a sign that maintenance is needed or something bigger is going on I’m not sure. I wouldn’t be too upset if Flying Fish ended up having to be removed as it is quite jerky for a powered coaster.

After Flying Fish we had a go on Stealth and got a fantastic back row ride. Even Tracy, who has been a stern hater of the top hat, had fun this time around, which was pleasing to hear!

Our next stop was supposed to be Rumba Rapids, but for whatever reason, the ride wasn’t operational, and stayed closed throughout the day. This is a shame as the weather was perfect for the light spraying this rapids ride gives you!

Onto Nemesis Inferno and yet another good ride here. Nearer the back of the train this time, and we got very little headbanging at all and a lot of force in the final helix. The more I ride Inferno, the closer it gets to the original at Alton Towers, but I’m fairly adamant that it’ll never take the top spot!

As our fastpass hour was coming to a close, we managed to get onto The Walking Dead. Though lacking any live actors again, the ride was just as enjoyable as it always has been. A really nice solid ride.

Trailers: Breakout at Bozo’s

The biggest thing to talk about with regards to Carnival, has to be their reintroduction of the Trailers scare maze that first opened at Fright Nights 2021. I didn’t experience this the first time around so I can’t compare this iteration to the original but as a standalone event, it was good fun!

Breakout at Bozos follows the story of the SuperSpark cinema that regularly suffers from power surges and these surges open portals into the film’s on-show, only this time the portals work both ways so Bozo and his crew have broken free and are wreaking havoc.

Though the maze was advertised as a scare maze with a twist, it just felt like a standard scare maze to me! There were some funny elements such as being asked to kiss a shark and the Brainsburys shop but because of the rushed nature of the attraction, you don’t get time to pick up on all the scenes.

In terms of fear level, I’d say it was on par with the others I’ve done, probably not as scary as Creak freak massacre but definitely up there with Platform 15. A decent entry level Scare maze!

Carnival

The main carnival event was held behind Colossus’s turnaround, right next to Zodiac and Rush. It featured a stage, a couple of food shops, a stall selling carnival merchandise and a few paid for sideshows.

The stage played host to a few different acts through the day such as fire performances, mime troupes and a plenty of dancing and music!

The performances we managed to see were good, and the actors were very entertaining. I think the highlight for me was the Ringleader show, where he introduced his Circus troupe and faced competition from another group of his ex-colleagues, now working in the Junkyard as a rival group.

There wasn’t many roaming actors outside of the area setup for Carnival like there was with Fright Nights, or the Mardi Gras parade, but they were all in character and fun to watch, even if the mimes were a bit creepy…!

Aside from the main area behind Zodiac, there was also a smaller area called the Junkyard. This was between Nemesis Inferno’s shop and the central arcade, and had a selection of food vendors and a little space for more acts to perform, primarily the rival group to the Ringleader I mentioned earlier.

There were also a few audio tracks added to the bigger coasters. Stealth for example, featured audio about being a human cannonball, Colossus had an acrobat talking about its 10 ‘acrobatic loops’ and Nemesis Inferno played more into is fiery theme by suggesting you walk on fire and brave the heat.

Overall Carnival was good, probably on par with Mardi Gras, definitely not better but certainly not worse either!

The rest of the day

After we’d finished with Carnival, we got on more rides starting with Black Mirror Labyrinth and then Derren Browns Ghost Train. Both were as you’d expect, though Ghost Train was noticeably worse than usual. Black Mirror Labyrinth didn’t have much more to show us than the first time we tried it and really does feel like a one and done attraction already.

I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little excited to talk about Zodiac. Though the ride is nothing special, and doesn’t quite function how it once did, it was my 100th unique flat ride. It wasn’t planned at all until I looked on Logride (an app I use to track what I’ve ridden) and it showed I was up to 99 individual flat rides.

Zodiac and High Roller were showing as the last two attractions I’d yet to ride at Thorpe Park, so I had a go on High Roller before finishing off the list, and achieving my 100th flat with Zodiac! (As a side note, High Roller is classed as a children’s ride)

After we’d had some dinner at the Pizza and Pasta Buffet, we had another ride on Nemesis Inferno which was once again really intense. After Nemesis, I managed a walk-on over at Colossus to see how it rides after it’s been running all day. It wasn’t quite as rough as it has been, but still had an element of roughness to it and with Sik being as good as it is, Colossus needs looking at in my opinion!

Our next rides were a back-to-back on The Swarm, and though the earlier ride was good, these were insane! The ride runs so much better after it’s properly warmed up. It feels so much faster and yet still as smooth as it always has been. Highly recommend a late ride on The Swarm.

After that we had another go on Flying Fish before our final ride of the day on Tidal Wave. Once again we got thoroughly soaked, and even got a second dousing upon leaving the station as the next boat came down the drop! Great ride in hot weather and a perfect end to a packed day.

Conclusion

Thorpe Park Carnival was a great day out, not only for the Carnival event but the park was very quiet for the time of year. Stealth didn’t seem to get longer than 10 minute queues, and even Saw: The Ride managed to stay under 45 for the most part.

Carnival was certainly a good, enjoyable event and hopefully it’ll blossom out into an even better event next year too.

Blog, Reviews

Ramada By Wyndham at Cobham Services

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This is a very different blog to my others, but very relevant to other blogs I’ve made. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve stayed in the Ramada at Cobham services for our trips to Thorpe Park, Chessington and Legoland as its location is great for all 3 parks.

Legoland is 30 minutes away but Thorpe and Chessington are about 20 minutes each and since the hotel is located on a service stop on the M25, it has a lot of facilities and places to eat too.

We’ve stopped here on at least 5 separate occasions since first finding the hotel on our 2021 road trip around the UK. The staff have always been great, the rooms clean and the prices very reasonable. If I recall we paid £29 for a nights stay on our first visit. (Though we’ve not managed to get it quite that cheap since!)

The rooms are a good size and have most things you’d need for a few nights away, including a bed, shower, kettle, storage, plenty of sockets and even an ironing board, iron and hair dryer. Not mind blowing by any means but ample for our needs. It’s worth pointing out that there are sockets close to the bed too.

They do provide face wash and shampoo in the bathroom but I always take my own anyway, I think everyone does! They will also help out with additional tea and coffee supplies and a few basic hygiene needs, though I’ve not had to use this service so I’m not sure what they’d offer!

The hotel is set over two floors and does have a lift to the upper floor. We’ve never had a ground floor room so I assume they’re family or accessible rooms which would make sense to me.

There’s a lot of greenery around the back and side of the hotel and plenty of places to sit and eat or watch the world go by in downtime. There’s even a nice pond with all the wildlife you’d expect.

Around the back of the hotel.

As it’s next to the M25 there is quite a bit of road noise during the night but it’s only noticeable with the window open and closing it mutes that. There’s a blower in the room too that cools the room sufficiently but in the heat of summer it struggles to get rooms down to selected temperature as I don’t believe it is actually air conditioning, though it does claim to be!

The hotel has access to the services’ massive car park so there is always ample parking for even the largest of vehicles.

A view from our latest visit in May 2022. Plenty of room for Coaches!

It won’t blow you away like some of the top 5 star hotels will, but it’s not a 5 star hotel itself. What it is is a well connected, pleasant and clean 3 star hotel, situated in an excellent location for theme park enthusiasts such as myself!

Blog, Reviews

Hayling Island 2022

Loops&Lapbars

While we were down south, we thought we’d visit Funland Hayling Island to see what this park had to offer, and to meet up with some friends for a day out.

Funland from the air!

First thing to note is this isn’t an all day park. You can spend a lot of time here, but to ride each ride once would only take an hour or two, but when we went, there were two rollercoasters and plenty of flat rides to make it worth the trip!

Parking was easy enough, with there being two seafront car parks right next to Funland, with one offering a free cup of tea with your ticket and the other offered a few tokens for the rides.

Park entry is free but each ride has a token value but wristbands are an option. As we’d visited with a couple of friends, we opted for tokens and split the cost between us. We spent £40 on 72 tokens, which was ample for everything we wanted to do.

As for the park itself, it’s your standard seafront attraction, but does feel quite run down in places. There isn’t much theming around the place, and what theming there is could use some maintenance and a spruce up.

Some of the rides have themes attached and it just feels a little out of place, such as the Flying Elephants ride, where others loosely fit together such as Spinosaurus, Dino Falls and Jurassic Safari. Not overly themed by all means, but grouped together with small elements here and there. It wouldn’t take away from the experience if all theming was removed, but it doesn’t really add much either.

Flying Du…Elephants?

Interestingly, the aforementioned Flying Elephants was once at home in Liseberg in Sweden, which will probably explain the theming. Dragon’s Breath and the Carousel were also at Liseberg until moving to the park. I like seeing bigger parks attractions moved to smaller parks as they’ll make good use of them rather than scrapping them altogether!

The parks biggest attraction is Runaway Mine Train, an L & T systems Wild Mouse that once stood at Gulliver’s World. Not much to say really, it’s in a very similar vein to Rattlesnake at Chessington, but without the theming and I don’t feel is quite as good to ride.

Runaway Mine Train

The other rollercoaster is Spinosaurus, an EOS spinning coaster relocated from Gulliver’s Land this time. Of the two coasters here, this one is slightly more memorable for its name alone as its quite clever, being both the name of a dinosaur and an indication of what the ride does. Fairly standard ride, not very fast or too spinny, but still fun nonetheless!

Other notable attractions include Soarin’ Seagulls, a Zamperla Magic Bikes ride, Extreme, a standard Miami ride and The Flume of Doom, which is a log flume. The Flume wasn’t operating when we were there but it does look to be uniquely themed to a dangerous radioactive waste site.

The name and ride type in one easy to read sign!

Other than the bigger rides, there are a few smaller rides and attractions, as well as an arcade with penny pushers and fruit machines. There does seem to be a fair few food outlets too but when we went, most of them were closed as it was slightly out of season.

Overall I personally enjoyed Funland, but I won’t head back there all too often. I think I prefer Clarence Pier of the two as its ride selection and overall aesthetic are a bit nicer, but I can still recommend Funland, but only for a visit every year or so!

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10 Rollercoasters I’d like to ride

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Here is a list of 10 of the rides I’d most like to experience as soon as I possibly can! They are all from abroad so hopefully I’ll get my passport renewed and get to them soon!

Helix- Liseberg

Helix’x Logo – Wikipedia

Helix looks to be Icons bigger brother. I know simply by looking at it that it’ll be an excellent experience, especially if Icon is anything to go off. It’ll be smooth and intense and from the POVs I’ve seen, it looks to have some great views too! I’ve listened to the soundtrack to this ride so much and it’ll be great to finally hear it while waiting to ride this beast.

Taron – Phantasialand

Taron’s Logo – Coasterpedia

This is seemingly Europe’s premier multilaunch coaster. Everyone talks about it and has such high praise for it. I’d like to see what all the fuss is about! Looking to be similar in design principle to The Smiler with it having many interactions with its own track (though lacking any of the inversions), I can’t wait to see if the hype is worth it! I’ve heard Klugheim is also excellently themed too.

Top Thrill Dragster – Cedar Point

Top Thrill Dragsters too hat element – Wikimedia

This could easily be Kingda Ka as well, however I think I’d pick Top Thrill Dragster over Kingda simply because it seems to review better. I’ve heard the launch on Kingda can be very shaky and it has over the shoulder restraints, where Top Thrill uses lapbars!

Zadra – Energylandia

Zadra’s first drop – Wikipedia

The first of two Rocky Mountain Construction rollercoasters on this list. I could easily put Steel Vengeance, Untamed, Twisted Timbers or any of the other RMC attractions but I’ve chosen Zadra purely for that insane looking stall element and its proximity to the UK. Untamed may be closer to me but I like Zadra to be my first RMC!

Intimidator 305 – Kings Dominion

Intimidator 305 logo and lift hill – Wikipedia

I305 looks so intense. I’ve watched plenty of videos that say how the ride has had to be reprofiled as the first drop straight into the high speed turn was too insane and needed dialing back. Even after that work has been carried out, it is still said to be one of the most intense rides out there, so count me in!

The Incredible Hulk Coaster – Universals Islands of Adventure

Incredible Hulk Coaster – Wikipedia

This one is here for 2 reasons. Firstly it looks great, situated partially over the lake and it’s trains and plaza look so good!. Secondly, this is one of the rollercoasters that Tracy has said terrified her for the first time and she regularly compares other rides to this one as some sort of benchmark. So I’d like to see what it’s like of course!

Velocicoaster – Universals Islands of Adventure

Velocicoaster signage – Wikipedia

The newest ride on this list, Velocicoaster has so much to love. Its trains look so sleek, it has two launches and features a host of excellent looking elements, specifically its stall and roll over the lake. It has a lot to offer and since I’m a fan of the films, its a no brainer to ride this beast!

Manta – Seaworld Orlando

Manta navigating one of its many elements – Wikipedia

I’ve ridden both Hero at Flamingo Land, and Galactica at Alton Towers, and though I enjoy both, Galactica is the better roller coaster in pretty much all regards. Therefore I’d like to have a ride on one of the bigger flying roller coasters to see what they can truly offer since Galactica/Air was the original flying prototype. Plus that flying turn where the water jets up looks so good!

Do-Dodonpa – Fuji-Q Highlands

Do-Dodonpas huge loop – Coasterpedia

Simply put, it’s the launch. No other ride offers acceleration like Do-Dodonpa does and to the speed it goes to too. It’s the 4th fastest on the planet and offers acceleration that is class leading. I’ve only ridden Stealth that can come anything like close, and though it does. I think Do-Dodonpa will blow my mind! At time of writing this, Do-Dodonpa is standing but not operating and is listed as permanently closed on Google, hopefully it’ll be back up and running soon!

Lighting Rod – Dollywood

Lightning Rods station building – Coasterpedia

The second RMC on this list and one that piqued my interest because of the launch and its pacing. Off ride videos always show this monster taking elements at decent speed and never really relenting. The last 3 drops one after the next look so much fun and I really hope to get to Dollywood to ride soon!

This is just a list of 10 of the rollercoasters I’d most like to ride currently. There are still plenty more I could had added such as Maverick, Untamed, The Ride to Happiness and Time Traveller to name just a few! One day I’ll get abroad and sample some of these extreme machines!

All photos used are credited to the original owner in the links below them!

Blog, Reviews

Planet Coaster Review

Loops&Lapbars

Like many other enthusiasts out there, I love to play computer games! In particularly theme park simulators of which there have been many great (and not so great ones) over the years, including the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, Parkitect and the Thrillville series. At the time of writing this though, I think the best one on the market is Planet Coaster!

Frontier Developments & History

Frontier is a game developer based in Cambridge, UK and has helped to shape a lot of the theme park business simulation space. They’ve had a hand in the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, the Thrillville series, Jurassic World Evolution series, as well as Zoo Tycoon (2013) and Planet Zoo.

After the release of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, everything was well. The company had a string of decent games, and had now worked on a staple title in theme park management genre. Things began to sour though as it was found that the games publisher, Atari had been underpaying Frontier for sales of the games, amounting to $2.2 Million (£1.6 million). This led to a lot of legal issues and backlash, even leading to the game being pulled from sale from the Steam store.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3’s Logo

Though no official settlement ever came from this, Frontier did eventually relist Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 on Steam, now as a Complete Edition. This came bundled with the Wild! and Soaked! expansions much like the Platinum and Deluxe editions prior, but with ‘enhancements’.

As for Planet Coaster? Development started sometime before January 2015 when the game was first announced, and it was released on the 17th of November 2016. It serves as a spiritual successor to the Rollercoaster Tycoon Franchise, with Frontier stating that the ‘Tycoon’ name “doesn’t carry the cachet anymore”. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement as Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and its expansions, were the last great Rollercoaster Tycoon games, after that, Atari seemed content with butchering the name and slapping it all over cheaply made mobile games riddled with microtransactions.

Atari did actually do 1 great thing with the name after Frontier left and that was to rerelease Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 under Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic, which is an excellent way to play these older games on modern PCs and tablets, so kudos to them! I’ll have to go through the Rollercoaster Tycoon Franchise in another blog sometime as it’s such a sad story!

Planet Coaster

As mentioned before, Planet Coaster follows on from Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, and you can certainly see it in many ways, from the look of the guests, to the menus and ride selection. A lot of the staple rides are here, such as the Enterprise, Top Spin, Drop Towers, Chair Swings and of course rollercoasters! A lot of these are named differently to their real world counterparts, such as the Enterprise being called the Collider, and the Screamin’ Swing being called a Hammer Swing.

At time of writing there are over 200 flat rides, rollercoasters, tracked rides and shops to build and customise, as well as a plethora of scenery and building construction items to fully realise your theme park desires!

Some of the rollercoasters available in game

A few of these are part of extra downloadable content that is priced anywhere from £1.99 – £12.99 on Steam, with the most expensive and most recent being a tie in with Ghostbusters. These are regularly on sale so you can pick them up for bargain prices with a little patience!

The current list of available downloadable content packs for the game.

It’s not without its issues…

The game plays very well and is a joy to control, but does have a couple of issues that I’d love to see rectified in a sequel.

The first big issue I have with the game is the performance in larger parks. When you’ve got 2000+ guests in parks with hundreds of scenery pieces and rides, the game can really struggle with everything going on. I think part of this stems from each guest having individual AI and being somewhat aware of other guests as they try to avoid each other and not just walk through one another.

One of my larger parks, having nearly 7,000 guests means the framerate rarely goes above 25FPS.

The other is the path building system in the game. It can feel quite limiting as there isn’t a way to fill in sections of ground as path without it being part of a square block. You can use the games path system to almost fill in entire areas but it can be very picky and a pain to work with!

You’ll start by building a block of path then move onto freeform path building to make a curved end. Now that small triangle can’t be filled in and needs additional work to cover up, or path rethinking. (see below)

Improvements to the game

Besides the issues mentioned above, I’d love to see transfer tracks built into the game from the start. You can mimic the look of transfer tracks, but not the functionality at present!

I’d also like to see much more customisation for rollercoaster trains. For example different fonts and placement of the ride name, different colours for the 0 car and such, and maybe a system that could allow for completely unique trains, using the in game engine! Maybe something like Need for Speed Carbon had for its car customisation. Parts of the ride vehicle can be selected and pulled, or pushed to make them bigger or small, curved or straight, and so on!

Next on my wish list is certainly more fonts. At present there are 8 different fonts available, many of which don’t look that great when used on signs as they look unfinished. I’d love to be able to import custom fonts but there isn’t the functionality for that here unfortunately.

Having finally gotten around to trying No Limits 2 and trying out their Ride Controls board, I’d really like to see that incorporated into Planet Coaster in someway. It’s great fun dispatching trains and running through the rigmarole of preparing a rollercoaster for operations! Perhaps a full ride operator mode in future?

Another minor thing I’d like to be able to do is rotate buildings around the X and Y axis to allow buildings to be tilted or placed at a slant. It would also help when building large structures too as you’d be able to copy other parts and rotate as needed.

This building can only be rotated left and right, not forward/backward or left/right.

All in, there is a great game here, and the hundreds of hours I’ve played for most certainly backs this up, but I would love to see, or even just hear of a sequel, especially if it adds some of the things I’d love to see!

Planet Coaster © 2021 Frontier Developments plc. All rights reserved.

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Stafford & Alton Towers – Stop 2

Loops&Lapbars

After leaving Blackpool, we headed on to Days Inn at Stafford M6 southbound services. The rooms were standard rooms, twin beds, desk and the like, with an excellent shower but a lack of air conditioning. We had a very good nights stay here.

The following morning we were up, fed and on the road again ready for a day at Alton Towers!

We’ve visited Alton plenty of times before hand and are well rehearsed in how to dodge most of the queues, but I made a fatal mistake, by booking Alton Towers on a bank holiday Monday. The park was extremely busy and it meant we didn’t have much time to do many of the excellent rides this time around.

Our first stop was the new for 2021 World of David Walliams and Gangsta Granny: The Ride. There was a little confusion as to where the queue for the ride actually started, as they weren’t letting folk into the purpose made cattle pens initially, but eventually they filtered us in and after taking our photo in the queue, we boarded the ride car.

I knew nothing of the story aside a few little things I’d picked up from the queue line, but by the end of the ride, i’m pretty certain I know whats going on! The ride was brilliantly done! Very bright and vibrant, the motions, smells and visuals were a real delight to behold, and both of us thoroughly enjoyed it!

After we’d finished in the shop, we had a go on Flavio’s fabulous fandango and the Royal Carousel. Both were good times, though the operations on Flavios were quite poor, with the ride ops seemingly not fussed about getting people onto the ride in any meaningful time.

The Enterprise, finally running!

The next stop was to X-Sector where I finally got to have a go on the Enterprise ride. I’ve seen it many times before on previous visits, and always wanted a go, but for whatever reason, it’s never operated. So I had my go, Tracy sat it out as she wasn’t much of a fan of the ride type. I wasn’t disappointed! Though I do feel that the bulk of the fun of the ride is actually when it’s laying flat, it was still fun to go up in the air and experience nothing but the ride’s forces keeping you in place.

Next we tried our first Retro Squad ride with Mixtape. I’ve never seen anything like one of these before, its a real visual treat when its going and the audio they had on was great and really fit in. I think that if they gave it a bit of a repaint and fit it permanently, it would fit perfectly in X-Sectror with The Smiler and Oblivion.

We skipped The Smiler and Oblivion as their queues were quite lengthy and instead we headed up to the Dark Forest for a ride on Rita, one of my all time favorite rides. We ended up buying Fast Passes though as we couldn’t stay too late and the queue was into the 90 minute realms. As usual, we really enjoyed it, the launch is still exhilarating and the airtime we get keeps us coming back!

Rita!

After Rita, we were pretty much done. The crowds were a bit too much and operations were quite slow so we missed out on the other Retro Squad rides, Forbidden Valley and Wickerman this time around, but we’ll be back later in the year.

While we were there, Alton Towers was hosting Mardis Gras, which involved each areas having its own festival, with plenty of entertainment, street food, bright colours and music all around the park. Though not as good as what Scarefest was in 2020, it was still a great addition to the yearly line up, and we hope they do it again next year! We did feel that some of the food on offer was very expensive, but there was plenty to choose from, with cheaper options available.

Overall, a bit of a disappointing visit to Towers this time around, but I know it was my fault booking on a bank holiday, but we still had fun, experienced the big new ride for this year, and experienced things for the first time, so it wasn’t all bad news!

Next stop is Hereford, and onto Oakwood!

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2021 Summer holiday

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The Big One running tests

Over the summer Tracy and I did an epic 1600 ish mile trip around some of the UKs best theme parks. Over the course of two weeks, we visited:

  • Blackpool Pleasure Beach
  • Alton Towers
  • Oakwood
  • Paultons Park
  • Thorpe Park
  • Chessington World of Adventures
  • Dreamland
  • Adventure Island
  • Fantasy Island

As well as the above, we also stopped off at Bovington Tank Museum and Clarence Pier, but we didn’t ride anything at Clarence Pier as the wristbands had sold out! The tank museum was an excellent day out if, like me, you’re into that sort of thing!

In subsequent blogs, I’ll breakdown each park we visited in turn, our experiences there and what we liked and didn’t like!

The only one I won’t be able to say much about is Dreamland at Margate as it wasn’t open when we arrived and, at time of writing, still isn’t open properly, so another visit will be needed there!

Dreamland Margate

In all, we had an excellent trip all told, there were a few things we’d have done a little differently when we do something like this again, but otherwise nearly everything went brilliantly, with only a few little issues here and there!

The next blog will talk about Blackpool Pleasure Beach and our visit to Blackpool itself.

Stay tuned!

Nemesis Inferno!