Cred Hunting 10/22 – Yorkshire, Derbyshire + Nottinghamshire

The Yorkshire coaster scene ain’t what it used to be since the death of the Ultimate. Someone went and got a Colossus clone though, so…

Day 2 – Flamingo Land

And what a clone. Due to the fact that it’s still fairly substantial and I had no immediate plans to go somewhere better for a while, #1 Sik earned a nice round #1400 from me.

They have presented it slightly better than I had expected them to, in parts. Being able to look down on the layout from certain spots is pretty rare, there’s some solid plaza type interaction and that little fountain effect in the turnaround at the end.

The mist is a bit much though, I’d rather it was fog like on the very end brakes. Smells better, less like a wet slap in the face.
The theme? Not for me. Words on a screen in the station to the effect of ‘a modern twist on urban clothing’ amused me. Tracksuits.
Having the shop as both the ride entrance and exit was also a step too far, along with everything from there feeling rather ‘discount Icon’.
The one thing I can kinda get into was the station rave. Bring back X.

I’ve already done the lap bar ‘Rev. B’ of this model as well, so didn’t have much of interest to take away from the actual ride experience. There’s a hilariously prominent rattle already going on, which was thankfully comedic rather than jarring. The re-profiling of the airtime hill is worse than the original because it’s more pronounced.

Without having to worry about head banging and all that you can appreciate a bit more just how relentless the pacing of the ride is at least. It’s very anti-B&M when it comes to that early multi-looper style – no faff, just keeps on hitting. The endless heartlines feel more dominating as well, which is a good thing this time with the lap bar. It changes the effect from slow, disorientating hangtime into trying to hurl you outwards from your seat multiple times.
S’alright.

Well that’s £37.50 spent. Are we leaving?

It honestly feels like that with Flamingo Land. I just don’t care at all for anything they have, which is rather impressive considering how much they have of it now. Let’s remind ourselves at least.

Mischief Mansion dark ride for the courtesy. It ain’t very good and even the operator tells you that before it begins. Spot the Bubbleworks ‘inspired’ scene.

They have donkeys, no hats. It should be a fulfilling day out, but it manages not to be.

Halloween, get excited.

Didn’t ride Kumali.

Did ride Cliffhanger. Better than Fantasy Island’s.

Didn’t ride Hero.

Did just wanna ride the motorbikes on Velocity. Regretted it.

Did ride Mumbo Jumbo, no regrets.

Think that just about covers admission, what’s next?

Our legend of a contact at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes had set us up with a couple more visits in the vicinity.

Gulliver’s Valley Resort

First up was their newest park. For the third time in a row, having been told to meet someone and be escorted around the park, we arrived to just be let in and roam free. They had on a piece of paper that ‘the roller coaster club’ was coming. Not quite, but we’ll take it.

Never done one of these from SBF before. Don’t worry, they’ve managed to shift nine of them in under 5 years, I’m sure we’ll all find one somewhere. #2 Grand Prix Racers builds up a bit of speed for a nasty crunch in that one valley, so top quality as always.

Have done a few of these from Zamperla before. One of the bigger stretches in the coaster counting world, but just sit back and admire those subtle undulations on #3 Rocky Ridge Railway.

Token dark ride in Tombstone Mine. Same as one of the other parks but with no guns. Had a bit of a Halloween overlay, pretty scary for a kids park, but could well take the record for world’s shortest.

Done.

Gulliver’s Matlock Bath

With their previous parks all being in fields, it was a surprise to find that this one has all the terrain and views of the delightful Derbyshire Dales. Bit of a hidden gem in the chain.

The streak was broken on arrival, as the admissions staff picked up the phone to someone who was going to come and take us to the #4 Log Coaster.

And take us he did, with the VIP privileges of going up the exit path to skip the queue. Except there was no queue and we had the ride to ourselves anyway.

The guy had obviously dealt with some dirties before as he expected us to want to also ride a piece of children’s play equipment, in the guise of a zipline, in the guise of a ‘rollercoaster’. We declined and had a brief discussion about the silly nuances of this hobby before I asked if we could try their dark ride instead. I do count those. In a different way.

And thus he became the second legend of the Gulliver’s universe. The (yet another) Silver Mine had already closed for the day but although he wasn’t working on rides that particular week, baby-sitting and operating were amongst his many talents. He even had the keys to just open the thing up for us and run it himself.
This one does have guns again, not for points, for effects.

As one final bonus, because it had been one hell of an uphill climb through the whole park until that point, we were invited to take the chairlifts back down to the entrance.

The scary ski type ones that come in behind you at great speed. Cracking views though. Definitely the nicest of the Gulliver’s.
Set complete, but there’s already a new cred at Milton Keynes now, so the circle of life continues.

We bade several farewells both to the staff and the lightweights of our group at this point, who wanted to head home because ‘work tomorrow’.

I had my eye on more creds for the journey back, however. Work can wait.

Nottingham Goose Fair

And what an adventure it was. No on-site parking because, to put it lightly, it’s a right mess. We used a nearby park and ride and hopped on a tram for a few stops which was a novel experience in itself. Never knew Nottingham had them.

Coaster Count was so useful at this point, but also such a tease. They had 6, six! creds on-site in a jumbled maze of fairground nightmares. I only needed two though and the above pictured wasn’t one of them. That’s Ice Mountain in disguise, owned by that Mellors lot. Skip.

Fear not though, at the other end of it all, after much searching, we found the other identical #5 Wild Mouse that was needed. Cheaper than the other, too, the cheek. I don’t think it’s a Reverchon because it was even more jank and was one of those that’s missing the double up and the final speed bump.

And they had two identical ones of these, again one of which I had ridden and one I hadn’t. You can tell this was the right #6 Runaway Train for me because it has Mario on it. It did about 50 laps too many and then we got the hell out of the place.

What I didn’t preface any of that with is that this was by far the worst fairground I’ve ever been to. If you’ve ever seen Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park at capacity, picture that, but 10x busier, 10x louder and 10x narrower.

Maybe it’s my inner old man kicking in but I couldn’t understand how anyone seemed to be having a genuine good time here. I was on a mission, I had reason to put up with it all and that’s fine, but stand between any two rides or stalls for a single moment and get two ear-splitting, out of sync dance tracks battling your brains out.

To make the crowd flow even worse, what must have been nearing 50% of all visiting groups had toddlers in pushchairs, unable to move, constantly bashing ankles and moving at 0.1Mph in all directions. Why anyone would want to bring children of that age to such a hostile environment eludes me.

There were police everywhere, people sitting on the floor crying, guests being accosted by other guests on drugs, at least two fights and it wasn’t even dark yet. Barry Island eat your heart out.

Oh, and not a single goose.