North America 2025 – Canobie Lake, Funtown Splashtown + Palace Playland
I had naively thought that we could escape some of the more disgusting heat this trip, as prior to flying out literally every destination had been expecting a cool 21°C for the forseeable. While that came true for the first day, from here on out it was completely out the window and never really recovered.
I’ll take this opporunity to apologise for having to uphold the tradition of a British man complaining about the weather while on holiday.
And so, now heading towards the mid-30s and with a sea of school buses containing school leavers descending on the park in front of us, we had a less than ideal visit to
Day 2 – Canobie Lake Park
To be fair, the crowds themselves were pleasant enough. This was no hell on earth at Hellendoorn, just excessively, excessively busy with a bunch of well-behaveds for what is essentially an unremarkable lineup.
The park isn’t really built to take a queue and as such most, if not all lines were already spilling outside entrances onto the pathways. In for the long haul we just went with the flow and waited a solid 90 minutes for the ol’ #1 Yankee Cannonball.
Not really worth that sort of wait, it had no choice to be a one and done but probably was anyway. It goes into the car park, does a few wooden rollercoaster things and then you get off and get on with your day.
We were clearly dealing with an age range that were ‘too cool’ for the #2 Dragon, so it only took a handful of cycles to get on this one. They were batching it super fussy and slow though, like let two into the station, personally guide them to the front row, sit them down and talk to them, before letting the next two in for the next row and repeat.
Maybe something did kick off once. I expect nothing less, for a powered dragon.
There’s the lake.
The Mine of Lost Souls was pretty cool. A more trippy, out there Sally dark ride that didn’t involve shooting for a change. You go in the titular mine, but then end up in Egypt and laughing in the face of death, all kinds of fun weird. Recommend.
As yet another place hadn’t opened their ‘new for 2025’ SBF spinner, to much uproar, last cred in the park was expected to be a faff of low capacity unshaded misery. Thankfully we discovered / remembered the wrong #3 Untamed had a single rider line which offered some shade and a slightly more reasonable wait time.
It rides rather awfully from everything after the loop though, much worse than old mate Rage. Everyone just got off visibly red in the face and / or ears, complaining. Thus spawning a new phrase craze.
Paultons, 2026!
And that was it for Canobie. Seemed nice enough on the surface, just didn’t really have the opportunity to appreciate it any better given the crowds. A tick off the list.
Funtown Splashtown USA
Next up was a park I was anticipating slightly more, after putting themselves on my map in 2023 with the opening of another awesome looking Sally dark ride.
But they also have a reasonably large CCI woodie, which was kinda cool. #4 Excalibur was playing a medieval version rendition of Linkin Park songs in the station, definitely put a smile on my face for that.
As for the ride, it starts strong and in the trees with some pretty wild moments. Then it forgets what to do with itself about halfway through, in the trees with some pretty boring meandering. Not bad.
And a #5 Wild Mouse. No need for an opinion here.
Business out of the way it was time to soak up the Whispering Pines Hotel. Queueline animatronic that can be entirely skipped is amazing and also vastly underappreciated.
And the ride itself is pretty damn good too. Shooting ghosts again, but in a far more story-based manner and with a lot more technologies involved in the decoration. It’s not as super atmospheric as I had perhaps hoped, but contains some really good figures, a sprinkle of magic here and there and a creepy cat called Katbattikus which I now own, so there was something for everyone. A personal highlight for sure. Recommend.
All in all, everything here was walk on, parking was free, wristband cheap after a certain time and on this occasion it was a great little place to spend a couple of hours.
Palace Playland
Back to business, there’s another couple of creds down the road, by a beach. Day parking is a scam here, as with most US seaside towns, but there’s some hourly street parking just one street over, by the little train station.
This is #6 Sea Viper, which is infinitely fascinating for being the largest thing Preston & Barbieri have ever built. You’re welcome.
And an SBF spinner not from 2025, called #7 Wipeout. No need for an opinion here.
There’s the beach.