Tag: UK Theme Park

Blog, Reviews

Nemesis Reborn – Review

Loops&Lapbars

I should start this one all the way back in 2022 when Nemesis closed to the public and the marketing campaign for the ride began with the Phalanx being created and taking over Forbidden Valley.

Alton Towers showed that they know what they’re doing when they put their mind to it. The Smiler Takeover wasn’t that, neither were some of the scare maze decisions last year, but to close the ride and hold an event for it, then keep up the hype train all year with various marketing details and documenting the rides retracking is masterful work.

There wasn’t a single enthusiast in the country that didn’t know what was going on with the ride. Even the general public had a much better idea than you’d expect when a ride is being built and it’s all down to that excellent marketing campaign. The creation of characters, the Phalanx and Nemesis herself were all done justice.

Fast forward to 2024 and the marketing is coming to a close, we know what the new beast will look like, we know what the new story is (to some extent) and excitement for the rides return is at an all time high.

Opening day arrives on the 16th of March 2024 and people are talking about camping out to get as close to the front of the queue as they can. The park opens and 5 hour queues form to get onto the new ride as we’ve all missed it in the last year.

Only 90 minutes when I queued!

I wasn’t in the first 5 hour queue, I got to the area to see what else had been done around Forbidden Valley. I knew that they’d replaced the original Nemesis cannon with a helicopter and I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the change but getting into the area and seeing that first instantly changed my mind. It’s massive!

It’s one of many changes through the area to bring Forbidden Valley and the Phalanx Research facility to life, and in my opinion, make it a world class area now.

The area isn’t just Forbidden Valley and the ride area isn’t just Nemesis, it’s now the Phalanx Research facility and the Nemesis containment area and the little details really sell it. The signage for the containment area is all twisted and bent, as though something large has pulled at the signs and almost attacked them.

Then there’s the station. My god, the station. It’s been overhauled and tidied up, and new effects added. Inside the station platform now resembles the innards of the Nemesis beast, with what looks like ribs and viscera all over the ceiling. The outside looks incredibly smart and the biggest new feature is the eye.

This appears to be a curved screen that loops animations of Nemesis’ eye and it gets angry as the train passes by and vents smoke onto the train. This looks visually impressive and because of the trains design, it pulls the smoke across the top of the station, adding even more to it!

The queue line has been moved around a little and has a large, if unaspiring looking canon built into it that ‘fires’ at the train as it passes by the first corkscrew. I say fires, but it’s just a sound effect and the canon is a little on the plain side compared with other parts of the queue line.

There’s also a container in the queue that belongs to a group of Nemesis sympathisers that want the beast setting free as they feel it should be left to its own devices and they claim the Phalanx are up to no good.

It is heavily implied that the Phalanx are now conducting experiments on the beast and forcing it to lay eggs that can be turned into weapons. What I got from all this is that they’ve lost control and are now panicking and are trying to save themselves from the wrath of Nemesis as well as those that would find out what they’ve been up to!

It’s very sinister and almost feels like it should be part of X Sector. Even the new Forbidden Valley sign feels very X Sector, but I won’t be complaining in the slightest!

As for the ride itself, it is still Nemesis. It does have a little of the iconic roar as it bounds around the layout, it is nice and intense where it used to be and it’s comfortable. The only issue, and it’s a fairly big one, is that the trains seemed to have developed a rather annoying bounce to them. It almost judders around certain parts and I hope this can be rectified in time as it’s about the only negative I can give for the ride!

Otherwise, John Burton has done John Wardley proud, his team have taken what Mr Wardley started 30 years ago and improved on it in almost every way possible in my view. Merlin have shown what they can do and I really hope Alton Towers gets even more of the good stuff in the years to come so they can thoroughly cement themselves as the UK’s premier theme park and a world class destination.

From left to right Me, John Burton, Tracy and John Wardley

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The Loops & Lapbars 2024 Season!

Loops&Lapbars

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!

Blog, Reviews

Gullivers Kingdom – The first visit

Loops&Lapbars

As part of LoveTwoexplores weekend, on the second day we ended up at Gulliver’s Kingdom in Matlock Bath.

The first thing that strikes you when you approach the park is the terrain the park is built on. It’s essentially a mountainside! There’s definitely been some creative uses of the land throughout the building of this park.

Once we were parked up and got into the park we headed to our first of our two exclusive ride times. The first was on the only roller coaster called The Log Coaster. We only had one go around but it did mean we had more time for the next attraction which was the Riggers Revenge Zip Line.

Now I’ve never done one of these before but I have done similar and the idea is that you’re strapped into a harness and then attached to the rail above allowing what is this essentially free flight around the park. You start off the attraction by climbing a small hill and then you jump off and it swings you around the roof tops and trees before bringing you back into what is essentially a station. For all intense purposes it is a roller coaster though it’s not really classed as such!

By the time we’d had a few goes round on the zip line the park had open to the general public so we headed down to the chairlift for the first of many trips up and down the hillside. This lift takes you from the very bottom of the park to what is the second highest point in the park and onto our first ride up here the Laser Dodgems.

These are exactly as the name implies dodgems with laser guns! Though throughout the whole day the gun scoring systems didn’t work unfortunately. It was still a good laugh as these dodgems seemed faster than the ones yesterday and they had forward and backwards pedals which is unusual!

After a couple of cycles on the laser dodgems we moved on to the Drop Tower attraction. It looks quite small compared to other tower rides in the UK but it does have great views over the park and surrounding area. It’s also quite intense as it doesn’t mess around with the drops. It takes you up then drops you then takes you back up then drops you again and it is quite forceful, a lot of fun as well as being quite comfortable too!

Once we were done with the drop Tower we headed up to the the highest point in the park which is another Western themed area but getting there you get the chance to use something called The Travelator! This is a transport Ride of sorts that takes you up the final little hill to the very top of the park. This only covers about 75 m or so but it’s a unique thing I’ve never seen in a park before!

At the very top is the western themed area as mentioned earlier which includes two rides; a dark ride and the log Flume. We all had a go on the log flume first and like a lot of other rides at the Gulliver’s parks it feels like this should be more to look at but it does make up for it by going through what looks like a purpose-built gorge that does actually look really impressive considering the demographic of the ride! The drop was short and sweet and you didn’t get too wet overall so I’d say this is quite a pleasant little ride!

The next stop was Silver Mine but it didn’t open for about 20 minutes so we ended up having a bit of a break and then queued up for the dark ride. Much like yesterday’s Tombstone Mine this one is set in a Western mine area but this one retains its guns so there are targets to shoot at. Unlike other interactive dark rides in the UK though this one doesn’t keep score, the guns are simply there to activate things as you go around the ride. It was quirky but probably not as exciting as it could have been!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon riding very similar rides to Gulliver’s Valley, such as the Dino Explorer Cars, Crazy Barrels, Carousel and Gully’s Pirate adventure. A couple of standouts were The Cycle Monorail and Gully’s Magic Bikes.

Both of these are pedal powered attractions (of sorts) where the monorails is entirely powered by your peddling and the Magic Bikes raises and lowers depending on how fast you peddle. Great fun, but quite tiring if you’re as out of shape as what I am!

For dinner, we stopped in the parks chippy and had chips, sauce and a drink. The curry sauce was one of the best I’ve ever tasted and the portion size was decent for the price too. Food options were pretty standard across both parks, offering the usual fast food but it was tasty.

The vast majority of the afternoon was spent re-riding the attractions and just enjoying the scenery around the park. We had a look in the toy and puppet museum as well and this was a nice distraction from the rides!

To finish up, I’ll say that Kingdom is a great little park and definitely the more scenic of the two parks we visited but I think I prefer Valley. Purely because it’s newer and therefore it’s a lot tidier to look at. Kingdom seemed in desperate need of a pressure wash here and there and some of the scenery tidying up a little. That’s not to say that Kingdom is bad, far from it, but it would be better than Valley if it had a bit of work done here and there!

Blog, Reviews

Gulliver’s Valley – The First visit

Loops&Lapbars

The Gullivers family of parks is a group that I wouldn’t normally be able to visit as they have a very strict adult to child ratio which means only adult groups can’t usually go.

However, thanks to Love2explore setting up a little event, 29 of us were allowed to visit as part of a larger group! We jumped at the chance to try something completely new to us and had a great day along the way!

Our first stop was the Gullivers Gears area of the park, which includes Carfari, a tracked car ride, Dodge City, a dodgems, and Grand Prix Racers, which is the biggest rollercoaster at the park. As part of our visit we were allowed 30 minutes with Grand Prix Racers all to ourselves so we cycled it over and over again. Though it’s hardly the most insane coaster we’ve ever had for an exclusive ride time, it was definitely one of the funniest!

The ride itself is a clone of Junior Red Force at Ferrari Land in Portaventura World but not quite as extensively themed. It is a nice, fun ride, if a little jarring on some of the transitions. Nonetheless, we had a right laugh riding it, and Gulliver’s were even happy with us recording on the rides, so we got a lot of footage through various different cameras!

Dodge City was the next stop and we had a great time here too, even if there was only six cars on the track and the track was pretty small!

Car fari came next and this feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity. The ride itself meanders round very short oval shaped course but doesn’t really have anything to look at, however right next to the Gears area there’s a little farm and it feels like it would be better if it went around the farm!

Once we had finished in the Gears area we moved on to the Wriggler. This is your standard wacky worm though when compared to other models, this one is incredibly smooth! You couldn’t fit two adults in each car but that didn’t take away from the fact that we all piled on the train and had a right laugh doing it!

Our final stop before dinner was the Rocking Tug, which is exactly as you would expect, a rocking tug! It does have some nice theming to it but overall it’s just a rocking tug.

Next up was dinner and we ate in the Lilliput Restaurant while a show was playing. The restaurant offered your standard thoroughfare of park food such as burgers and sandwiches and wasn’t too expensive. The only issue was that the digital boards for ordering food didn’t really tell you what was included in the price so Tracy ended up ordering more than she really needed!

After dinner we headed into the Western themed area of the park and had a go on the three attractions there. These were the Rocky Ridge Railway, Apache Falls and Tombstone Mine.

Rocky ridge railway first and unfortunately there’s not really much to talk about. The best part about the ride is arguably the fact that it feels like a wild mouse mixed with a conventional long train coaster as the layout is very back and forth like a wild mouse is. However unlike a wild mouse it’s incredibly slow, but this does make it a perfect fit for a kid’s first roller coaster.

Next up was arguably one of the best rides in the park, Apache Falls. This is a river Rapids ride very similar to the one that Fantasy Island installed last year though this one is a permanent fixture. It didn’t really have much theming to it but unlike the vast majority of other rides it did have some music playing which was nice to hear and added character!

Do be aware though, you will probably get very wet on on this rapids ride despite its deceptive size. The reason being is that Gulliver’s have installed wooden partitions in the trough which catches water and throws it back at the boat so you get a nice showering effect right off the lift hill. It feels very similar to storm surge at Thorpe Park though a lot more thrilling and more interesting!

The final ride in the Western themed area is Tombstone Mine which at one time of day was an interactive dark ride. However the shooting element has since been removed leaving a decent ride but not quite as good as it could be. I think the shooting element would have definitely improved this one, at least for me!

After the Western themed area we headed into the pirate themed area and had to go on the pirate ship and teacups ride which are both as you would expect. The teacups ride, here called Blackbeard’s barrels, is somewhat interesting in the rotates both ways so it will stop halfway through to rotate the other way and you’ll get decent spin in the cars.

The final area of the park is The Lost World and as the name would imply is heavily themed around dinosaurs. This theming extends to the five rides that we had to go on starting with Jurassic Jeeps.

Jurassic Jeeps is another car ride similar to carfari earlier however this one has a lot more things to look at. It’s not quite as good as the one at Paulton’s in my opinion but it’s still a great ride for kids.

Speaking of great rates for kids next up was Paragliders which is a swing ride but unlike most others, this one doesn’t lift and tilt it keeps a level spin which makes it once again perfect for kids.

The next stop was the thing that pretty much everyone was looking forward to, Gyrosaur. This is the most thrilling ride at the park and is a gyro swing ride which means it completely inverts.

Though it’s not quite as thrilling as Cyclonator or Maelstrom it’s still a great addition to the park as it means older kids have got something to go on while the younger kids go on the young rides. As a group of enthusiasts, we thoroughly enjoyed it naturally!

Finally there’s T-Rex Towers and Lost World River Tour which are both water rides of differing thrill level. T-Rex Towers is a fun set of dingy slides where two will race and the third does its own thing but is faster and covered. I had to go on the cover tunnel myself.

The river ride feels like an extension of Jurassic jeeps as both do the same, they traverse a short course surrounded by dinosaurs whether they be static or animatronic and with river rides case there’s a little show scene of dinosaurs playing Walk The Dinosaur by Was Not Was which is a bit of fun.

After we’d all had to go on the right and lost World we headed back to the entrance to have a walk through the final traction monster Manor. This is essentially a ghost house but very kid-friendly. You can tell a lot of effort has been put into this one as there are many scenes to see with plenty of details within. It’s not the scariest attraction but it does have a little bit of character to it and the Facade is quite impressive outside.

Once we’d finished in monster Manor we had a go around the shop and I was surprised to find PIN badges and patches but other than that there wasn’t really much Gulliver’s related merchandise which is a bit of a shame but I can understand it with the park appealing more to kids.

So how did we find it?

Despite the fact that we were all a large group of enthusiasts I felt like I had a really good day. Yes the rides weren’t the most thrilling but we still had a right laugh. It would be nice if Gulliver’s had days where no kids were allowed and groups of adults could come and enjoy the rides for themselves as everyone can enjoy every ride there, which means no one’s left out.

If you do have kids Gulliver’s is definitely worth your time and money, I think Paulton’s Park is still better but that’s because it appeals to a wider audience and has things that really really interest me. However don’t let that take away from the fact that Gulliver’s are still great fun and great value too. As we were part of a large group we ended up getting discounted tickets which came to around about £15 which is incredible value considering how much we got done during the day as well as having exclusive ride times on the roller coaster!

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Saying goodbye to Shockwave (as we know it!)

Loops&Lapbars

It wasn’t so long I was writing a post about Shockwave, how it was an under appreciated gem of the UK coaster line up and how I adore it, even with its faults.

Now Drayton Manor have announced that Shockwave, in its current stand up form will be no more starting next season and I thought I’d like to say my part on this.

As I mentioned in my other blog, I really do like Shockwave. I like the sensation of riding standing up, I like the noise and the thrills. I think it fit nicely into Adventure Cove, the area they built around it and it looked great with the station refresh.

But converting it to sit-down only will kill it for me! I know the park is going down a family friendly route but top level thrills are part of a family line up, at least in my opinion! The best parks are those that cater to everyone and Drayton Manor had plenty of variety back when Pandemonium was still there.

You had Apocalypse, Shockwave and Pandemonium right at the top of thrills, then Air Race and Maelstrom the next level down. Then there’s Accelerator, The Bounty Pirate Ship, The Rapids, Drunken Barrels, Sherrif Showdown and The Haunting next. Then you have Thomas Land for younger kids (and adults alike).

Now there’s only Shockwave left at the top of the pile and taking away it’s stand-up train will be a big loss to it. I’d be more than happy if it ran two trains, so they can use the same layout but allow younger audiences to ride it, and still offer a top level thrill for those who want that too.

I don’t feel like this is the best decision, but it is decided and we’ll just have to move on without the stand up trains. What I’d love to see though is either Floorless trains, so it remains a unique ride in the UK, or even better, spinning trains.

I’m not entirely sure whether putting spinning trains onto Shockwave will keep it at the 1.2m height restriction the park is going for, but it would definitely be a worthy replacement for the stand up trains in my opinion!

I’ll keep an open mind about what Drayton Manor does with Shockwave but it’s a real shame that it’s going and I hope they can capture at least a small amount of what made the original so special when they change it.

For now at least, Shockwave still stands and will do so until season’s end, so we’ve got until October 27th to enjoy what we’ve got before it is no more!

I’ll be riding the life out of it when we go for the Vikings event later this year and that will be the final farewell from me. Expect a lot of posts about it on that day!

This is also my 100th post and I think it’s somewhat fitting making such a special milestone a blog about such a special coaster!

Blog, Reviews

Drayton Manor – Thomas Land 15th Anniversary

Loops&Lapbars

This year is a year of celebrations, from The Smiler (and Hero’s) 10 birthday, to the coronation of King Charles. It’s also the 15th anniversary of Thomas Land at Drayton Manor, and we went along to see how everyone’s favourite tank engine was doing.

Thomas land was subtly decorated with bunting around most of the railings, a large birthday cake by the entrance and Thomas had a little hat on and birthday livery. It was very in keeping with the area and didn’t look out of place at all!

There were shows on throughout the day, but I couldn’t tell you what shows are new for the event or the usual ones as I don’t spend enough time in Thomas land to notice them I’m afraid! Though we did see one of the shows where Rusty, Dusty and The Fat Controller were playing musical statues with the kids. It was very entertaining and didn’t feel overly silly or awkward either!

That’s about it for the 15th Anniversary event and I’m not sure what more they could have done, so I might as well use the time to talk about Thomas Land itself!

The area is set out in two halves, with the Train Tours attraction bisecting both halves. It would be nice to have a cut through over the rails from one side to the other, but this is a very minor thing! At the time we visited for the event, there were around 20 attractions, ranging from simple carousels and demolition derby rides, to guided rail car rides and a junior roller coaster!

It would be nice if they could somehow link up these two parts

Standout attractions for me are Thomas, Percy and Rosie’s Engine Tours, Troublesome Trucks Runaway Roller Coaster, Winston’s Whistle Stop Tours and The Thomas Exhibition (though this is undergoing renovation and relocation).

Engine Tours takes you from the main section of Thomas Land, to the back of the zoo where 2 more attractions are based and though it can take a while to load, check and set off, it goes past a few scenes from Sodors railways before returning the other way. Sometimes the attraction will run two trains that have to synchronise and set off at the same time, but this time only Thomas was at work.

Troublesome Trucks Runaway Rollercoaster is a great little Gerstlauer junior coaster that only has a simple helix and small hill but offers just enough to make it fun for us, as well as being a great introduction to roller coasters for you younger thrill seekers!

Winston’s Whistle Stop Tours is a Zamperla monorail with single cars that take you on a tour of one side of Thomas Land. It gives great elevated views of most of the area and interacts nicely with some of the rides it goes past with the on board audio. Very gentle and charming to boot, and recently they’ve added a photo green screen to the queue, so you even get a photo before you board the ride!

The Thomas Exhibition is a fantastic look back through the life of Thomas the Tank engine, from the early days of the Railway series of books by Rev. W. Awdry, to the Thomas and Friends TV series and all the way up to All Engines Go! As I said earlier, this is undergoing a relocation as it was set at the end of the zoo tucked away in a corner, but it’ll now be in the same building as the shop, you’ll not miss it if you ride Whistle Stop Tours as the exit path takes you through where the exhibition will be.

We’ve only seen it once and it was great to look back at how far the series has come and how much it has changed over the years. It was also a bit eye opener as to how many new characters have been added to the series over time. I grew up with the original Thomas and Friends series, and so much has changed and been added from what I knew! The model railway inside the exhibition even uses models from the original series which was great to see!

There are plenty of other rides too, Captains Sea Adventure will get you wet, and Cranky’s Drop Tower is a great entry level tower ride, but there are some rides that we can’t have a go on, such as Sodor Classic Cars. They require and adult and child in order to ride this one which has meant we’ve been unable to ride it even once! It is a shame but the area isn’t designed with us enthusiasts first and foremost so I’m definitely not going to grumble!

There’s also a great café in Sodor Airport, very comfortable and welcoming. They sell a range of teas and coffees as you’d expect as well as kids meals and sandwiches. it wasn’t too expensive when we’ve been in their too, which is nice!

So that’s Thomas Land really, it’s a wonderful area full of good attractions all well themed and in kepeing with the spirit of Thomas and Friends. New for this year there will be a junior log flume ride called Thomas and Percy’s Submarine Splash which we’ll be hopefully riding during the Coronation Street Party, which will be our next blog!

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Alton Towers – Festival of Thrills – The Smiler Takeover 2023

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This is Alton Tower’s first event this year and the second time we’ve had the Festival of Thrills. In this blog, I’ll compare it to last years event, see what worked and what didn’t and give my verdict.

As it’s The Smilers 10th anniversary this year, Alton Towers have branded this years Festival of Thrills as The Smiler Takeover. This means the Ministry of Joy, a fictional group who are behind the construction and running of The Smiler, are out and about and have invaded certain parts of the park. The interactions we had with the staff were great and they really did keep in character, coming across as reassuring and blatantly fake, in line with The Smilers story. They were very well acted!

As for the park itself, there were several displays dotted about each of the big roller coasters were the ministry were conducting tests to find new and interesting ways to being back peoples smile, such as terrifying them on Th13teen, or measuring excitement levels on Rita. You couldn’t interact with the scenes as they were static, and it would have been nice to see some lights or sounds on at least one of the displays! There was also a stamp collecting element, where each ride had a stamper that is used to emboss a card you pickup at any of the stations or at the park entrance. Once you’ve got all 6 (from the 6 big coasters) you can post yourself on social media with it for a chance to win an overnight stay in the resort hotel.

Over in X-Sector is where the bulk of the event was taking place. There were 3 shows to watch, Meet the Ministry, The Ministry fear Test and a karaoke show. We didn’t see the Meet the Ministry show as we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we did see the Fear Test and Karaoke shows. The Fear Test was pretty decent as it put a chosen subject through a series of daft tests designed to raise their fear levels and earn them a one way trip to The Smiler. The actors were entertaining and kept in character very well. I really liked the fact that once the tests were done, the test subject received The Smiler fast track tickets which was great to see!

As for the karaoke show, it was very cheesy and maybe a little bit lacking on quality. It wasn’t so bad it’s good, or so bad it’s terrible, just somewhere in between in my opinion! some of the songs being sung were linked in subtle ways to the event though so that was something.

Outside of the event, we got our first ride on Twistatron, the parks newest Retro Squad ride. This is a self built trabant/wipeout style ride but the seats face out from the centre. The ride took ages to load and unload and when we got on, it was actually quite good fun until it got properly going as the seats and restrains mean that the ride simple feels like its trying to throw you out. Usually this is a good fun element to rides but here, it just felt uncomfortable. Thankfully Alton Towers don’t run these rides at full speed for long so it was still enjoyable. On the fair circuit however? I wouldn’t want to ride knowing it would run faster and for longer.

Spinball Whizzer was finally up and running (which was actually it’s first day this season). It’s had a bit of an overhaul so I’ve read, and if so, then it is noticeable! The first thing we noticed were the restraints are now very tightly locked in place. This wasn’t so much an issue for me, but it was for Tracy. She ended up having to take her coat off and ride the ride cross legged in order for the restraint to close far enough. I think this is a bit overkill as we’ve never had anything like that issue before on Spinball or Dragons Fury at Chessington. I hope they relax this just a tad as Tracy said it’ll be a ride she won’t rush to go on in future because of this.

It’s not all doom and gloom though as a positive change seems to be that the break runs now longer jolt the car as they pass through. When we rode it, we sailed through all the break runs and it made for a much better experience! The final break run is still quite abrupt, but you can prepare yourself for that one much easier.

Other than those two rides, there wasn’t that much to talk about. The Smiler was running great and queues were quick, Th13teen was the same and The Curse at Alton Manor ran nice and smoothly today too.

Overall it was a good day, but the event was definitely lacking somewhat. I’ve seen a lot of criticisms about the event online and some are daft, while others I agree with! I feel that they didn’t quite take the takeover far enough and it felt a bit like the scenery around other rides was an after thought, though the park wide audio was great. Another criticism is the lack of event specific merchandise, or at the very least, something to commemorate The Smilers birthday! I’d have loved a pin badge or t-shirt to take home but unfortunately, there wasn’t anything for us!

How does it compare to last year? Well I certainly thing last years was better myself. The music used for The Smilers stage last year fit much better, and the Festival of Thrills was overall a bit better quality than this years offering. It’s a shame as I was quite looking forward to it, what with it being The Smiler themed and The Smiler being my top coaster (currently). I hope we see something come out through the season to commemorate this great attraction.

Overall, we still had a great time but it just could have been a little better here and there!

Blog, Reviews

Flamingo Land April 2023 – First visit of the season

Loops&Lapbars

Our first visit to Flamingo Land was an impromptu one. We had a gig on Friday and met up with friends for it and had an airport run on Saturday which left Sunday completely free, which for us is unusual. So we decided on visiting Flamingo Land much earlier than expected as we had planned in to visit later in the summer.

We paid the full gate price of £52.50. We did pre-book online but it was less than 48 hours before our visit as advertised so I have no issue there. I’ll get it out of the way now and say that £52.50 is a bit of a price hike and it does feel like Flamingo Land are going a bit too high with this but I also understand that they have a zoo to run, rides to maintain and we’re all in a cost of living crisis too. All other parks prices have gone up so it’s natural to expect Flamingo Lands to have done so too.

What I do think is a bit of a kicker is the way the park was being run on the day we visited. There were a lot of closed shutters around the park, meaning that a lot of grab n’ go food units were unavailable. It’s not like there wasn’t anywhere to eat or anything of the sort, but any time we thought we’d stop to refill drinks or get something to eat, we found ourselves going to the same 2 units throughout the day, one in The Hub and the other in The Zanzibar restaurant area.

Moving on from the food side of things we head into photography and merchandise. Our first ride was Sik, then Hero and both of these offer on ride photography and their shops were open all day so you could, if you wanted to, buy on ride photos from this two rides. Mumbo Jumbo and Kumali also have cameras but most of the times that I’ve been, they haven’t been functional but they were today. We had a ride on Kumali but didn’t like the photo it took but we noted that Mumbo Jumbos photo unit was open. We had a wander around the back of the park to see if we could see the tigers as that’s another thing we’d like to see (and have missed them every time we’ve been). Still no sign of the tigers today, so we headed back around to Mumbo Jumbo to find that the photo kiosk was closed, and it wouldn’t reopen all day.

This was such a shame as I was planning on buying a photo from there as I’ve only got one other Mumbo photo and that was from 2017! I believe we were at Mumbo Jumbo for around 1pm so the photo kiosk was closed for more than half the day, which was a shame but it didn’t ruin the day or anything of the sort!

As for the rides, Sik was riding vert well once it got going as there was a bit of a breakdown as we boarded but we did eventually get a ride and it was just as good as I remembered from last year! Kumali rode well too, giving one of its signature smoother rides for it’s ride type and Mumbo Jumbo and Hero were still great fun. Velocity was closed so we couldn’t have a go on the motorbike coaster, but we had our first go on Voodoo, a pirate ship ride that I often overlook, as Tracy had her first go on Cliffhanger too.

Once we’d done with the bigger stuff, we moved onto Muddy Duck Farm to slow down a bit and had our first rides on The Tractor Ride and Wacky Racers. Both of these could do with a little attention to make them a bit more fun, but they were decent nonetheless. To finish the day we had a go on Mischief Manor, the parks only dark ride and it was running ok. Most of the scenes were running as intended but it does look a little worse for wears and could possibly do with a refresh in the coming years!

Not only was this our first visit to the park this year, but it was also the park I’ve chosen to star having a go a vlogging. You can find a link to the video here. I’m fairly pleased with how it turned out, especially for our first time doing one of these. There are a few rough spots but I’ve learnt a lot from this one video alone! Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

We had a great day at the park, despite sounding mostly negative earlier. We rode some of our favourite rides and had a great time figuring out the whole Vlogging thing too. I hope to get back to Flamingo Land later ion the year if we can, but for now, this was our first visit and a great day was had by all!

Blog, Reviews

Alton Towers – The Your Experience Guide Secret Weapon Saturday Enthusiast Event

Loops&Lapbars

Such a long title for a blog, and a long day too! This was our first ever theme park enthusiast event and was hosted at Alton Towers and put together by the fine fellows at Your Experience Guide(YEG) (Formally Pleasure Beach Experience).

The day started off early at 8am where we all congregated around the turnstiles of Alton Towers, we were checked in and greeted by the YEG team and given our event lanyards and passes. Once we’d gotten sorted, we just stood around and took in what was going on before eventually noticing Loops and Donuts, someone who I’ve been messaging back and forth with on Facebook and was excited to finally meet! We accompanied each other throughout the day and we had a right laugh, so thanks very much for that folks!

Once Alton Towers were ready for us, we went though bag checks and followed the YEG team to Wicker Man for the first of our two sessions of Exclusive Ride Times (ERT) for the day. Exclusive ride times are blocks of time set out, usually outside park hours, to allow complete takeover of a ride or attraction. In our case we were given ERT on Wicker Man from 9:00-10:00 and Oblivion from 18:30-19:30. In this hour, you just keep riding and riding as much (or as little) as you like and it was fantastic! Not only did we get to essentially pick whatever row we wanted, but also the trains were filled with likeminded individuals who were waving at everyone and just generally creating a real buzz of an atmosphere. Such a great time, and this was only the first part of the day!

Once our ERT had ended, we moved onto the shop to see what new merchandise was available this year. I was a bit disappointed to find very few things in 2XL sizes. Because of this, I ended up with a couple of pairs of socks and about 10 pin badges. These were priced at £8 a piece which I think is incredibly expensive, but I had set aside money for T-shirts and hoodies that I couldn’t buy so badges will do nicely.

Next we made the long trek over for our first ride on The Curse at Alton Manor, the reimagining of Dual in Haunted Hollow. I will be doing a blog going into detail of what I liked and disliked, and my overall impression of the ride but for now I’ll say that it was a great ride with some really unexpected sequences! Look out of the new blog here when I write it!

Galactica was our next stop and the ride was suffering a little from a breakdown which meant we ended up queuing for a bit longer but once they cleared the issue, we had a good ride on the old flyer. There does seem to be a little bit of attention being given to Galactica, as it has had some new decals placed about and tidied up a bit. It still could do with a good paint or cleaning, and the tunnel is still very bare, but a good ride nonetheless.

Now we’d finished up with Galactica, we headed over to the Skyride to find that it was closed, and had been all day, so we made the long walk through the gardens towards Dark Forest to see what was happening with Rita and Th13teen. After seeing the queues and noticing the time we decided to have dinner at Burger Kitchen, ride Flavios Fabulous Fandango and head over to Katanga Canyon for the second part of the event, an unofficial takeover of Congo River Rapids at 3pm.

Though not the same as our ERT earlier, this takeover saw the whole group join the queue for Congo River Rapids with the general public and have a right laugh doing so! The boats were being filled, ours had the full 7 in and we barrelled down the course, getting wet and having a few good bumps along the way. This is definitely the best way to ride the rapids!

Next stop was another unofficial takeover, this time on Curse at Alton Manor. This gave us ample time to not only compare it to our earlier ride, but also see things we missed the first time.

The next part of our event was at 18:30, so that left us with about 3 hours to fill, so we headed back up to Runaway Mine Train for a ride on the classic coaster. The area and theming has seen a good tidying up and the entrance looks brand new again thanks to a lick of paint and some sprucing up! It still rides the same as it always has, and it was a squeeze to get into the cars, but we managed and a fun time was had by all.

Our next stop was back over in Dark Forest for a ride on Th13een and Rita. Th13teens queue line has seen a lot of the trees and bushes cleared away, opening it up a bit and you can even see the coaster as it does the outdoor section in the forest. I quite like that you can see this, but it is also a shame that it doesn’t look so overgrown and supernatural now. A back row ride for us which was great fun!

Our next stop was Rita but this ended up being our last stop for the day as when we entered the queue, an announcement was made that Rita was experiencing technical issues but we stayed in queue as there was still another 35 minutes of park time left. By the time it came to 5:45 however, the staff informed us that the engineering team still hadn’t arrived and by the time the arrived, fixed and sent test cars out, it would be after 6pm, so we headed into X-Sector for the Smiler Shop (as the Smiler was also having issues).

The Smiler shop was the same story as earlier unfortunately. Lots of great merchandise to buy, but nothing at all in 2XL here. Now I’m not sure if I should be asking whether they have things in my size, or whether they just don’t get as many lines in 2XL as they used to, but I hope we see more larger sized apparel!

With the Smiler shop being our last stop, the final part of our day was an ERT on Oblivion. It was scheduled to run from 18:30 until 19:30, however there were technical issues that meant the ride wasn’t ready in time. However we weren’t left to be bored as the ride operators, specifically Kian (I think that was his name) had us playing a game where you have to try to catch the finger of the person next to you while the person on the other side does the same to you. Great fun and loads of people interacting keeping the atmosphere positive whilst things were fixed in the background.

Shuttles did eventually start raining down the Oblivion track, so they allowed us on at around 18:50 and our hour started from then which was great to hear! I don’t remember exactly how many rides I got on Oblivion, somewhere around 8, but each one was fantastic and really showed me how much fun Dive coasters are. I usually overlook Oblivion as a one and done sort of affair, but I had a lot of fun doing back to back rides on it, made all the more fun by Tracy, Loops and Donuts and the rest of the crowd!

At this point I would like to mention the staff at Alton Towers as every single person we spoke to seemed interested in our day and our wellbeing. We were constantly checked if we were having a good time, and it never felt forced either. The staff always felt as though the actually had an active interest in your day and conducted themselves professionally and were very welcoming!

Finally I do want to thank all the folks at Your Experience Guide for making the day run as smoothly as it did and put on an excellent event! From greeting us at the start of the day, to keeping us informed throughout and even just shaking my hand and thanking us for coming at the end of the day, it all added onto a very memorable visit to Alton Towers! The same can be said for Loops and Donuts too. As I mentioned earlier, we spent the whole day together and we thoroughly enjoyed their company (and I think they did ours too!) Thanks again for a great day, and hopefully see you on our travels in future!

Photo taken by Paul Young and used with permission (Featured image too)
Blog, Reviews

The Retro Squad. Weighing in my opinions!

Loops&Lapbars

Recently I’ve been seeing more and more people voicing their opinions and concerns over the Retro Squad at Alton Towers, and I thought I’d put my thoughts out there too.

To be completely blunt, I think they’re good and certainly do their intended job of helping with capacity. Don’t get me wrong, it would definitely be better if Alton Towers got some permanent, well themed flat rides instead, but the Retro Squad are a good second best.

I like that they have at least put some effort into making them more than just bog standard fairground attractions. They all have proper names and their frames are covered over with boards to make them look a bit tidier. They even have a little back story that they come from an alien planet and are summoned to assist. They do lean a lot on the 80s Transformers idea but I think it works well. If Michael Bay can make vending machines turn into Transformers, then Merlin can make park attractions!

The most recent Retro Squad ride, Twistotron seems to have had the most exposure as it has its own video showing how it’s been corrupted by some form of evil transformer, which I would read into it being some sort of villan. My hopes are that it is run at full power and shows off how fairground attractions are run, as the other Retro Squad rides are run a lot slower than they would be if they were at a local fair.

Roller Disco is a prime example of this. Its a standard Waltzer but is run slower so you barely spin at all. I’ve only ridden it once, and I enjoyed it as I find waltzers make me ill if they spin too fast, then stop, then spin too fast again. Roller Disco was a nice change as it didn’t make me ill at all, however I know many people have differing opinions, Tracy included!

Mixtape in June 2021

Mixtape was a great little ride that if repainted and themed up a little would have been a decent ride to permanently fit into X-Sector. I don’t think Spinjam fits as well as what Mixtape did but still has that sort of sinister look to it that could work, at least a little!

Spinjam in 2022

The other ride is over in Forbidden Valley being Funk n’ Fly. This is a standard Super Trooper attraction and I don’t really have any feelings for it at all. It possibly could fit a little in with Galactica I suppose but only very loosely!

This year’s offering is Twistotron, a Trabant style, self built attraction that usually tours around Scottish funfairs and is placed on the site where Enterprise used to sit in X-Sector. I haven’t ridden this one as yet but I don’t think it is best suited for X-Sector. It would have fit a little better in Dark Forest or even on a plot of land by Spinball Whizzer to give that ride some backup.

I suppose really, my opinion is that they work well enough, they could be better and some would be better placed in other parts of the park.

I’ll definitely agree with the masses that Alton Towers needs some really good flat rides but what I don’t agree with is that funfair rides have no place in a theme park. Chessington is just about to open a new Jumani themed area and it’s two supporting rides are both things I would see at every funfair out there. A junior Miami Wave and a Super Jumper ride are both funfair attractions that are themed up to fit the area. Then there’s Ripsaw and Rameses Revenge. Though neither of these currently exist, they were both static installations of rides that are capable of touring the fair circuit. I could go on and on but I think I’ve started to make a dent in my point!

The point is that most people seem to jump in them for being funfair rides. Rides that have no place in a theme park. Rides that aren’t wanted and other things should be put in their place. Yet no one suggests any alternatives or even takes into account how many flat rides out there are perminant versions of touring rides (Mamba Strike, Ostrich Stampede, Vortex or Wave Swinger).

I think the new Intamin Dynamic Motion Stage would fit great in at Towers, or if that’s more of a dark ride then a Zamperla Energy Storm or Blendez, or how about a Technical Park Aerobat or Gerstlauer Sky Fly?

There are many different rides out there, and I bet a couple of the ones I’ve mentioned will end up on the touring circuit.

As for Retro Squad? Let’s just enjoy what we have, let Alton Towers use them to their advantage and hope that we start to see replacements for Ripsaw, Energiser, Submission and Enterprise in the near future!

Funk n’ Fly!