Well this trip was a right mess, hopefully that makes for a good read.
First day was cut in half by a ‘rescheduling’ of the flight. Not that this really mattered in the end (spoilers). Touched down in Shenyang halfway through the day to find that apparently there’s no legit public transport from the airport to the city. Ended up with a taxi ride that seemed to take forever, though the driver was friendly enough.
Checked into the hotel. Still time for a few creds. Took the metro to somewhere vaguely near a backup plan park. Strolled through a nice green space from there, but there were no surprise creds in sight. I always forget how massive everywhere is in China, so the plan to walk it was becoming a burden and ended up jumping on a bus to…
Day 1 – Nanhu Park
Always good to start strong. One of those ‘stick a grubby amusement park in the back of some trees in the city’ places that China does so well.
Walked past various other activities like karaoke in the pagoda, karaoke on the bridge and karaoke on the riverbank. Varying vocal quality.
Eventually stumbled into the hustle and bustle of the amusement area. Turned down about 50 people wanting customers for some dodgy looking flat rides. “Nah mate, creds only.” The first person to earn some money was standing outside this ride, somehow managed to negotiate a 2 for 1 deal out of him.
#1 Spinning Coaster
Classic spinner of unknown origins. The cars have the ability to rotate from the top of the lift, unlike the usual ones of these that don’t allow any spinning to kick in until about halfway through the layout, but the poor trackwork never allows it to pick up enough speed to do anything much.
A proper beast was up next, looking lonely and abandoned. An old woman was running some insignificant ride in front and beckoned. No no, open the cred for us instead. Money in hand, how could they say no?
#2 Golden Dragon Roller Coaster
Loved this one. Such character. Before we could sit in the train, a musty old cushion was placed on the seat for us. After squeezing in, a second musty old cushion was wedged in between my left side and the edge of the car. I like where this is headed.
Got 3 laps of pure comedy, each time the lift struggling more and more to engage, breaking our backs once it did. Need to relocate that cushion.
#3 Jungle Squirrel
JUNGLE MOUSE! I’m ashamed to say that I’ve had to enter the country 5 times to get on one of these, so I was very happy to finally do it. Close your eyes and the spirit of Wild Mouse lives on. Minus the air time.
Headed over a bridge to a more barren section of the park for the biggest ride of the day. Now some damage could be done. The guy running it was delighted to have a customer and immediately jumped on the microphone to try and churn up some more business with me as the poster boy. Nah. No one was buying it.
Off we go then.
#4 Roller Coaster
The layout starts with a slow helix of doom that builds tension before you plunge into the undersized loop.
The inversion was pretty grim, something akin to a sucker punch. The remainder was manageable.
The final and most shameful cred in the park was a small worm thing, but it was abandoned and the train parked in the wrong place, so that didn’t happen. Pity, probably one of the few of those that would actually let adults on. Here’s a depressed monkey instead:
Jumped on the ferris wheel opposite for some views.
Boat ride on a zipwire there that I expected to go into the water at least. Nope.
The pods on the wheel didn’t smoothly follow with gravity, rather lurched and grated in stages, so it felt a little sketchy. Not the worst wheel of the trip though.
I had tried to distance myself from the hype surrounding this ride somewhat, for the year or so leading up to it opening. In trying not to let it sink in that my favourite ride type was coming to the UK, it eased the expectations and even by the time I was sitting down in the thing, the realisation hadn’t quite hit me. When that moment finally arrived I found myself in a sexy Mack bucket seat, sitting on a launch track, in Blackpool. What?
First impressions were good. Nothing was overwhelming, but it felt like a solid layout that had somewhat more to give… and give it did.
I kept going back to it throughout the course of the day and it only ever got better. I soon came to the selfish realisation that regardless of how well Icon was received by the public, how well it did for the park, whatever, this ride is exactly what I wanted for the UK.
This isn’t purely down the ride itself, but also the park it’s located in. Blackpool Pleasure Beach is great for its easy-going atmosphere, but the park also separates itself from most others in the country by being just well run and packed full of enough attractions for you to really get the most out of your day there. Queues don’t get huge, operations are great.
When I first rode Icon it was a gorgeous weekend, we didn’t even arrive for the park opening time, but had done all the rides bar a couple of breakdowns by lunchtime. The brand new attraction never got above 15 minutes, but it can’t physically hold a queue of more than about 20 minutes.
Why does this matter? Because Icon is ridiculously fun and re-rideable. Something that has been missing for me in this country, personally, forever. I’m very happy to say it’s my new favourite in the UK and I’m extremely excited that it’s been built somewhere that really lets you make the most of that.
Nemesis had that crown before, and it’s great, but it was never a ride I’d want to do 10 times in a day, even when the UK scene was all I had. Merlin parks are forever falling out of my favour as the queues and operations get steadily worse. It’s a struggle to turn up to those places on a whim and have either an overall good time or spend some time whoring something you love. Even if they did get something as good as this I just feel it would be harder to enjoy and appreciate. When I do turn up to them, the time investment is rarely worth the return for me, and that’s a much more significant factor when you’re dealing with your ‘local’ parks – there’s no real obligation to stay when you can just sack it off and go home if you’re not feeling it.
Enough sidetracking. The back seat of Icon is where it’s at, all the key air time moments are enhanced by this position and it’s those moments punctuating the other sensations going on that make this style of ride special for me. The first hill is crazily good with it’s sharp entrance and exit, separated by a slow drag over the crest.
A well executed sequence of twisty elements follows to keep you amused, never too repetitive and always with at least some purpose.
The gentle downhill inversion is glorious, something Mack have always managed to nail for me. Then the ride gets a little wild and kicks you down into the second launch and you’re soon being dragged through another almost indescribable feature with a mesmerising mix of sensations.
With more twists and turns, including one particular moment of the layout that stands out with some strong positive forces (another tick for variety), the ride keeps you happy all the way into the brakes, never truly letting up. I even appreciated the way it flies straight out of the brake run again and into the station, coming in hot. I like a sense of purpose in a ride.
Minor onride nitpicks: The mist in the tunnels that it opened with was off within the first few weeks. The wonky hill near the end doesn’t kick as strongly as some of its rivals and is a bit unbalanced in that it’s tailored towards the left half of the train. I would have liked a counter to it somewhere in the layout. I never really felt, appreciated or even noticed the interactions and near misses with other rides that, during the whole ‘how the hell are they going to fit this ride in at Blackpool?’ conversation, seemed like they would be a dominating part of the ride experience. Maybe I was wrong earlier and I was overwhelmed, the whole time.
The entrance and queue are decent. I like the framing of the ride over the gate and the way the pathway follows inside the supports for a while. The fact that Grand Prix is mincing along the fence next to the queue makes me laugh. The station is decent too. It looks like a bit of modern interior design, the phrase ‘those mirrors will just open up the room’ must have been said at least once. They’ve adopted the free-for-all row allocation strategy which I know and love, the staff sometimes got annoyed by this, but I hope it sticks. The bag holders and section of wall that is built directly into the transfer track and move with the train also make me laugh. The exit to the ride is a bit lacking. The plain black walls are too high to enjoy the views as you pass between the two launches, the floor is already collapsing and the stairwell is boring.
I fell for the soundtrack as soon as I heard it in person and found myself singing it quite often throughout the day which is always a good sign. It ignites an infectious spirit within me, standing in the station and tapping along to it while waiting for my turn to ride. The music ended up a worthy addition to trip playlists.
It’s the only rollercoaster in the UK I can say I actively want to go and experience, every year, many times. I think that says it all.
As the largest theme park in the UK, Alton Towers is home to a wide variety of interesting rollercoasters. Often attempting to be leaders in ride innovation or, more recently, seekers of ‘world’s first’ claims, the ‘secret weapon’ series of installations at the park has seen both prototypes and record breakers come to life within its vast grounds. Although I seem to have grown out of visiting this park any more than necessary, I do appreciate the relative level of consistency and uniqueness across a coaster lineup of this scale.
#11 Octonauts An inoffensive +1 with notable theming.
#10 Beastie A surprisingly vicious +1 that can no longer be found at the park. Fear not, this ride now lives in deepest, darkest Wales.
#9 Runaway Mine Train Although it is probably one of the stronger Mack Powered Coasters out there and a solid family favourite with ride operator interaction and multiple laps on offer, it’s a very long time since I’ve gone out of my way to ride this one and I generally skip past the whole area of the park that contains it now. I do love it when multiple rides within a park are intertwined and their atmosphere can feed off of each other so the fast section of the layout that runs past the rapids ride in the tunnel was always my favourite moment.
#8 Spinball Whizzer/Sonic Spinball I have had good rides on this at certain times as you can get a bit of a violent spin. There’s even an on-ride photo of me for this somewhere, of which I’d say there are less than 10 in the world from any ride so it must have meant something important at the time. The ride is rarely worth the queue for me these days though, particularly with its poor capacity, just a bit too much of a fairground attraction for Alton Towers really.
#7 Rita – Queen of Speed/Rita If you’re into launches, it lacks the punch of a Stealth. If you’re into coaster layouts you can really sink your teeth into (like me), Rita lacks anything else interesting as well, consisting of corners in alternate directions with uneventful hills between. It was built in the era when launching into a corner mostly led to an awkward transition, bordering on the uncomfortable if you’re not prepared for it. It used to be an ordeal to ride when I was more susceptible to this type of thing, now it’s just there. What I do like about this ride is the launch announcement. The half hearted ‘go, go… go’ is very representative of the ride and always brings a smile to my face.
#6 Wicker Man The simple process of riding other wooden rollercoasters makes this ride seem weak. Couple that with the disproportionate popularity/queue times and I am often left with this question to myself: ‘why bother?’ It took us 22 years to get a new woodie in the UK and with all the technologies and manufacturers now on offer they still failed to surpass the very low bar set by the others we already have in the country. The preshow is better than the ride experience and builds towards something that wants to lean on its theme more than its thrill, which I would be perfectly fine with if it actually made any further attempt to do that. It doesn’t. The hardware is an underwhelming experience and the ending shed is completely squandered. Wicker Man is the worst GCI in the world, but it’s otherwise fine to ride.
#5 Air/Galactica I know Merlin have developed a reputation for dark and dingy theming these days, but at least that’s a theme. Air had none of that, no presence, no energy. Just a prototype in a car park, by a car park. For a park that definitely errs strongly on the side of theme, I see this as significant step down. Then it had a name change and Virtual Reality added and that of course didn’t help at all (other than the new soundtrack, which I have a strong appreciation for). I like the build of momentum at the start of the layout with the double down style first drop and the sections where the train is swooping over grass rather than concrete are decent, but the fly to lie being the only interesting element it attempts just ends up being uncomfortable and something I’m glad they never repeated. Air is now the worst B&M flyer in the world, but it’s otherwise fine to ride.
#4 Oblivion When the concept worked for you, this was a great experience, I can’t deny that. Now the ride boils down to a singular decent out of your seat moment. This is the UK, so that makes a good ride by comparison. Fear of a single element as a base concept on a ride seems almost impossible to bring about these days and I do miss that to a degree, even if it’s just by watching or experiencing it through other people. There’s a lot more out there now diluting the simple sensations that used to scare people, like just a (near) vertical drop. Oblivion is now the worst B&M dive layout in the world, but it’s otherwise fine to ride.
#3 Thirteen I was never subject to any of the hype and/or marketing around this ride, so the common complaint that it wasn’t what people were expecting never bothered me. The only thing that bothers me is the trim brakes on the first drop that drain it of any real significance. It’s actually the only coaster in the park I have a soft spot for, a little bit of an emotional attachment. The drop track still kicks my ass (particularly with the teasing bounce it does before the drop) and it was potentially my first ever genuine joyous surprise moment on a ride the very first time it shot backwards in the dark. It’s also the first time I ever saw this new era of quirky shuttle layouts and switch track sections being run at an efficient and impressive pace. Watching the track move, followed by the mini ending launch is so satisfying and I remember thinking this could become so much more. And it did.
#2 Smiler I like the ambition behind this ride. It was made to break a record and often in this industry that leads to a lack of creativity, but I’d argue this was done in a better way than most other significant records. What came before it? Colossus. How can we do the most inversions? Let’s take that super basic sequence of inversions already out there (loop, cobra, corkscrew) and add enough rolls at the end to win. Smiler went beyond this, the inversions are almost all different and much less commonplace – they even invented one for the ride (or is it two?) and they’re paced between other interesting features like the vertical lift. The best part of the ride, as with the previous record holder, is the surprise airtime hill between inversions, and it does this twice, and better. Sometimes being upside down is fun too now, it’s a statement of how ride inversions have improved in general – they have a lot more variety than they used to and offer many more sensations to go with it. It doesn’t fully pull them off due to Gertslauer’s struggle with quality at the time, but the ride gives it a good go. If it was built to their current standard, we could have had a potential Nemesis beater. As a ride it’s both long, something the UK lacks a lot (Ultimate aside) and intense to me even now, which is also hard to come by these days. I like an intensity that earns itself – if I could ever ride the Smiler several times in a visit, I suspect I may even struggle a little, but I also think I may grow to like it even more than I currently do. Sadly the park, the queue and to a lesser degree the restraints mean that will never happen.
#1 Nemesis The most clinically positioned ranking in the list. Yes, it used to be my favourite ride but that was before I really thought about such nonsense (deep scientific importance). I believe it says more about the quality of the other things I had done than it does about this ride. Aside from that, it was always a professional relationship with Nemesis for me, never personal. I never fell in love with it. I enjoyed it because it was the done thing to do and I respect it. The overarching use of storytelling and intelligent integration of the hardware into the terrain set a good benchmark for many future attractions. As a ride it’s forceful, well made, well paced and that downwards helix that introduces you to the concept of having your feet ripped off by the force of a rollercoaster is legendary. Unlike the rest of this list, Nemesis is a good example of the ride type, but it doesn’t excite me.
With all the big stuff successfully ticked off, there was time for a brief stint of mopping up creds. Sat navs here are pretty terrible as nowhere has a uniquely identifiable address and it has to rely on names only. It didn’t know any of the smaller parks existed, so to find some WiFi and work out another plan of attack, let’s go to somewhere it has heard of:
Day 4 – Burj Khalifa
Didn’t know how or where to fit this in amongst all the rest of it, so just winged it and turned up first thing hoping to book a time slot as you usually have to with these big tourist buildings. Luckily it was quiet enough to go straight in however.
So up we go.
Decided to just do the cheaper deck as again, got to save something for next time haven’t I. Wasn’t particularly blown away by the height of the tallest building in the world here, maybe it isn’t helped by the surroundings and a lack of a sense of scale.
The nearby area was significantly more sparse than I had imagined. Have some views.
All in all, just your standard observation deck stuff. Next.
Got lost in the mall on the way back to the car and with a stroke of good fortune walked straight past something that stirred a reaction in my head.
VR Park Dubai
Fairly sure I saw that name the previous night when scrolling through Coaster Count. Sure enough, they’ve got a bonus cred.
#1 Dubai Drone
I had done all my planning for the trip through coast2coaster and for some reason it wasn’t on there, so would have quite easily missed it all together. But here we are. A slightly more significant ride than your average bonus +1 as well, being a Gerstlauer spinner. Shame it has compulsory Virtual Reality headsets, though the name of the place would imply that that’s kind of the point. The ride itself was alright, I think. VR wasn’t good, emulating being flown around the city in a drone, with poor graphics and a very poor matchup between the camera rotation and the on-ride spinning. Didn’t try anything else in the park, needed to get back on track and, you know, VR.
Armed with some names of landmarks near to the parks I wanted (mostly supermarkets and hotels), tried the sat nav again. It knows a small shop on the other side of the road to this massive mall (which it doesn’t know) that houses the park (which it doesn’t know) and there was some dust by a bridge nearby on which people seemed to be parking. That’ll do then.
Adventureland
This place looked the most intriguing (and significant) of the lesser parks around the area. Stopped off for some food in the mall first and sat watching the powered coasters buzzing around the entrance facade which faces into the food court area. I like that.
Went to the ticket window to purchase a prepaid card, asking for just the 3 coasters. The response was: “I don’t know how much things cost, you’ll have to go and look first.” Sounds fun.
Had a wander, did a quick bit of maths and went back. Was able to provided a very precise number, but it all got complicated with bonus deals and stuff. Never mind that, just want the creds.
#2 & #3 Forest Train & Kukulcan
I knew the place had the 2 powered coasters, but had no idea they were stacked on top of each other so creatively. This crazy station building houses both, the red one being up top and the yellow one below. They share the same entrance and are labelled the ‘slow train’ and ‘fast train.’ Chose to start with the slow, though the staff guy kept insisting the fast would suit better. Don’t worry, there’s time for both.
Forest Train is indeed slow for the most part, mincing around some inside theming and across the lower half of the outside of the park, but it picks up some good speed on the way back into the station and takes the final corners fast enough to cause damage (and uncontrollably continue for a second lap).
Kukulcan is a bit faster, higher up and more intense for a ride of its nature and has many amusing low clearance moments.
#4 Rocket Cycles
The Zamperla motocoaster was last. Usually expect to hate these things, but it wasn’t too bad at all. The lift hill is another entertaining example of their use of space in here, with the rarely seen 90 degree corner halfway up it, like an RCT throwback.
That was fun. Time for any more? It was a hotel address that got me to the general vicinity of the next place, but car parking wasn’t quite so obvious. Eventually stumbled on a patch of tarmac with a hut in the corner that cost a couple of quid for an hour. That’ll do. On walking to the mall (which it doesn’t know), there’s a massive car park (which it doesn’t know) right outside. Ugh. At least it was the same price.
There’s another cred across the road from this mall, but the place was fenced off and deserted. Spite.
Sparky’s Al Ghurair
Rocked up to this place with very little time left in the day. Straight to the desk. “How much for the cred?” Some complicated explanation about prepaid cards again. “Sounds good, just take the cash.” In the midst of this, a very friendly local woman decided to give her ride card away to save me some deposit money. I didn’t have the exact change and the ticket woman didn’t have the correct change to compensate. I said don’t worry about it, keep the extra, but she was either very insistent on being helpful or didn’t want to get in trouble with the accountant. She began calling over multiple members of staff as well as other guests to root through all their wallets and pockets for some extra change. This was getting out of control. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.” Ran off to the Rol(l)er Coaster.
#5 Roller Coaster
This spinner was fun. More weirdly shaped lifts to fit it into the building and some inconsistent spinning action along the way. Made for an interesting and relatively unique experience.
As I went to leave past the ticket desk, she had the correct change lined up for me on the counter. How lovely.
Didn’t quite know how this day was going to pan out, but I had the combo ticket for the water park and they opened an hour earlier. I picked up a work colleague who had flown in the night before and wanted to take the opportunity to see first hand what my hobby was all about. Cred time.
Day 3 – Yas Waterworld
Caved and went for a locker on arrival, mainly to protect the precious paper park ticket.
Once again I was overly early and we spent a good 15 minutes milling around at the door. Everyone else’s excitement was building. I wasn’t so sure. Got no pictures of the park unfortunately. Not the type of person to feel the need to wear a phone in a plastic wallet around my neck like a few others I noticed here. (If you look closely, you can spot the coaster track in one of the pictures later. There’s a little game for you).
Walked straight to the cred as fast as my inappropriate footwear would allow and navigated the stairs with some difficulty.
Kinda liked #1 Bandit Bomber, if just for the relative uniqueness of it. Even just having bare feet made it a new experience for me. It’s got the comfy Vekoma SFC trains, 2 lifts and a bit of fun through the layout. Also like the barrels on the front of the train that get automatically refilled with water each time it sits in the station.
Nearly left at this point, but figured there was still time for trying something else. Ah, might as well. I know I don’t trust myself to be flailing solo in a tube, so I’d rather do something where you get to sit in a dinghy. Selected the big 6-seater one (Falcon’s Falaj?) and struggled up even more stairs to the top. Sat down, glasses and footwear in hand, thinking I can’t really hold on to anything now… well, this will be an experience.
Christ it was intense. I might be converting to this stuff at some point. It took less than 3 seconds of the boat tipping backwards off the ramp before I was completely soaked, couldn’t see and was in hysterics, from there it was just a brutal alternating succession of crazy air time that shouldn’t happen and vicious walls of water to the face. It all ended in a blur and you have to jump out into a waist deep pool to escape the insanity. Almost as wet as Valhalla that.
Hmmm. I need to leave now and the shorts I’m wearing all day are somewhat… soaked. Stood around in the sun for a while, carefully toeing the line between drying off quickly and getting sunburnt. Then proceeded to the exit.
Got the car rather wet and drove round to the mall car park, parking next to what I thought was a Ferrari (appropriately). Apparently it was a Corvette. They’re not going to let me in now.
Ferrari World
You know what time it is. Super cred mode. Straight to Rossa, no time to think.
There was a little time to think actually, they were operating it super slow and apparently it was just teetering on the edge of being too windy to run it at all. Never mind that, let’s get it over with.
No one was being brave enough for the front, so we slithered up to the opportunity. They supply you with goggles which were already biting into my face, staring down the launch track. Meh.
#2 Formula Rossa
It is fast, I’ll give it that. So much face wobble by the end of the straight that I’m rather thankful for the trims to be honest, it felt like I was about to lose a cheek.
Speed isn’t everything though and I wasn’t particularly blown away by the rest of the layout. It impressed me, it’s fast and ridiculous, but sadly it doesn’t offer much else. I admire the limits being pushed and the highlight was probably seeing the water sprays on the wheels during the brake run.
On closer inspection, the layout is bigger Rita…
Took another go in the back later on and that basically just ruined it for us. A staff woman did say “no one ever asks for the back” and now we know why. Rode really awful in all the corners. Really, brain shakingly awful. No thanks.
On to better things?
Flying Aces was probably my most anticipated ride of the trip.
#3 Flying Aces
Didn’t really get the fuss about these Intamin wing coasters on the first lap, it felt like a lot of pointless meandering and not much going on. Gave it a couple more goes during the day. Yeah, not bad. It’s a grower. I’ll come back to it later.
#4 & #5 Fiorano GT (Left & Right)
This custom Maurer ride looks like a harmless bit of fun. It’s pretty decent, again if only for being somewhat unique. The lack of banking in the corners give it a bit of extra kick as well as a more genuine feel for what it’s trying to achieve as a car race, which I appreciate.
Never quite seemed to be racing though, it always ended the same way. Wonder if the launches are overly intelligent to make that happen. Also the restraint unnecessarily having the same hoopy handle as Maurer’s spinners in a really awkward, out of reach place amused me.
#6 Turbo Track
Turbo Track to round off the creds. Everything was walk on at this time, so that’s yet another set finished in 45 minutes.
An Intamin launched shuttle ride that was a bit something and nothing really. A very faffy loading procedure for a coaster that’s over in 30 seconds. Chose the seats facing backwards to start off with, but going in blind didn’t even help to give it any noticeable forces.
Felt like it barely made it up the spike as well. Certainly didn’t see much up there. Think someone else already said this, but it’s a good use of space and that’s about it.
Ok, I’m not feeling this park as much. As with the Spanish place, it’s all a bit Ferrari up its own arse, which isn’t the best vibe. I wonder if the dark rides will fix that.
If you start with Speed of Magic. Noooooooooo. The preshow starts off with a kid on a bed playing a game with this cartoon guy called Nello and he’s a rather unpleasant character – encouraging kids to act like they’re the best at everything and everyone else sucks. Cool. The boy gets pissed off with the game (rightly so), then Dad walks in. “I’VE JUST BOUGHT A FERRARI MATE.” Best Dad ever (right?). “Here’s the keys.” Nello steals the keys. Gotta play the game to get ’em back boy. Sigh. Once you’re on the simulator it ain’t that great either. Don’t really remember much beyond obnoxious shouting from Nello as he drags you around on strings through the jungle, ice, lava, desert? Then FUTURISTIC FORMULA 1 and you beat him in 5 seconds. You got lucky punk.
In total contrast to this, Benno’s Great Race is really good. An inventive twist on a shooting dark ride where a rabbit is racing the feds (beavers?) through Italy, the ‘gun’ is a spanner and you have to help him along the way by breaking boxes, cutting spiders webs and putting bees in jars. Great stuff.
Think it was pizza time after that. When in Rome. Again, quality food, reasonably priced. UAE you’re killing it.
Oh here’s that other dark ride of the factory tour, Made in Maranello. Didn’t rate it, wasn’t particularly interesting and a bit more ‘look how great we are.’
Did the cultural maze full of quotes from Zayed himself, this being the year of Zayed. That was more interesting.
This dumb thing still isn’t ready.
They had lots of ‘decades of music’ mini events going on around the park with local DJs which was quite amusing. An 80’s one with Rubiks cubes, graffiti and 2 blokes having a dance off. 70’s one with disco people trying to grind against you while you walk past. 60’s one with hula hoops. Then the 90’s one – it had this beatboxing guy who was very good at his job. He announced the entrance of a skateboarder, a BMX guy and someone on rollerskates. World Champions in their field he says. They messed up so many times that it got rather embarrassing and we left (not sure why we were watching in the first place).
Well if that’s the tone being set, I’m gonna find out if they do handstamps so we can leave. They do.
Went out into the mall to find the bonus cred in FunWorks. On the way there was this exhibition about the new Warner Bros. park I missed by a month. They were getting people to pre-book for cheap, so I had a little nose around and got given a WB passport souvenir in which you’re supposed to fill in your details. Good for the collection I guess. FunWorks
#7 Yolo Works then. Bad staff, bad guests, awful ride. A stain on this country. Didn’t take a picture in my disgust. The ride suffers from the same problem as halfpipes in that you don’t want to be facing 90 degrees to a snappy launch mechanism with a shoulder restraint in your face. My colleague didn’t know what to think after sitting this one out and watching the ordeal I went through only for me to then tell him how terrible it was. Why do you ride it if it hurts? Don’t question it.
Had some more food in a food court style area and a bit of a sit down. What time does the park shut? I ask myself. I’ve got 11pm in my head. Looked it up. 8. What’s the time? 7:15. Ah…
Forcing down the rest of a sandwich and half a litre of sprite while powering back through the mall, hope I’m not gonna regret that.
Ferrari World
Flying Aces at night. Oh man this thing came to life. Rides ‘warming up’ is apparently still a thing even when it’s 40°C outside to start with. It did things to me. Things that I’ve not felt before on a coaster. Dangerous things. I grew to love it, character and all. The queue is amazing, but if anything it’s jarringly loud. I wouldn’t want to be stuck queueing in that rocky section with the planes going over. Thankfully they let me run through the fastrack entrance every time, once I got into marathon mode.
The lift hill is just ridiculous. Love those minimalist supports. It has such a great sense of purpose as it pulls you up to the top whether you like it or not. I was just laughing with glee at it and after a few laps it turned into one of those magical moments. Insane first drop and the non-inverting loop is fun, but this is all stuff I’ve seen before. It’s the little things that set it apart. The speed hill chucked in out of nowhere which is killer, then this upward banked corner into an air time hill which throws you dangerously sideways instead of upwards for no good reason. It wasn’t doing that earlier and I’ve never felt a ride do that before, especially with so little holding you in. The stuff dreams are made of.
The snappy twists in the second half, if you’re in the front or back wing seats, are just brutal in the best way and it only got better and better the more I rode it. Fantastic ride.
Fortunately no early start was required for today, so I managed to sleep for 1000 hours as well as find time to slither to a supermarket for supplies.
On the way I encountered this.
I had thought about making time for going in, but parks and sleep were the priorities for now, so settled for a few snaps from the outside. I’ll save it for a non-solo trip.
Time to hit up Dubai Parks & Resorts. They’ve got some odd car parking here, the signs keep conflicting and switching between VIP parking only and ALL parking. It wasn’t just me who was getting confused by this, as by the time i reached the ticket barriers, some people were causing a scene and trying to reverse out of there rather than pay the displayed prices on the booths. I carried on anyway and asked them about ‘normal parking’. It’s still in the same area and costs £4 rather than £20 and just isn’t advertised anywhere for whatever reason.
You don’t get to park in the shade again (sorry car), but you do get to wait in a tent for a little train to take you to the parks. While waiting they give out free water to adults and ice pops to children, then the train proceeds to bypass the VIP section while they stand staring in shock. Great stuff.
The only park open this early is:
Day 2 – Legoland Dubai
Having done what I consider to be too many iterations, I try not to actively seek out these parks any more, but as it was open for 3 hours outside of Motiongate and part of a cheaper deal, it would be rude not to get the creds wouldn’t it.
Actually quite liked the place, mainly because it was completely dead and there’s far worse places to kill a couple of hours.
The central hub of the park is the indoor Miniland, but while everyone got caught up in that, I powered straight outside to the Kingdom area. How predictable.
#1 Dragon
Oh look, one of those Dragon rides again.
Staff were super friendly and excited to see the first customer of the day, rather than hating their life like in most Legolands. Something I noticed both here and in other parks in the country is that the staff are really good with children, which I can’t say I’ve ever particularly noticed in any other place.
Same old dark ride section of the ride, just a little newer looking. Same old ride outside, closer to Malaysia than Germany in smoothness thankfully. Job done.
#2 Dragon’s Apprentice
The other cred had fired up by now, so got that knocked off as well. Again, very friendly for some strange bloke riding a kids coaster at Legoland on his own. No judgment here.
This was my first experience with entire outdoor park sections in this part of the world and I found myself darting between shade spots as quickly as possible. Quite fun really. Might as well tick off the dark rides.
Oh, Lost Kingdom Adventure again. The really, really short one that’s just a circle layout. Played a game of how many different effects can I spot and set off, good little sit down.
Always cautious of these now, after powering into Billund’s expecting it to be a ride and finding out that it was just an aquarium. Submarine Adventure here is a ride, and I think I liked it more than Windsor, mainly due to having a sub to myself. Still feel like it needs a little more spectacle though. When the dramatic music hits and it says “welcome to the city of Atlantis”, there’s just a small lone pyramid with some lego knobs on top. I want some huge epic set to look at. But it’s Legoland.
Well that’s the park done in 40 minutes. Time to chill in Miniland.
Yay Lego pics. These are probably the best parts of all the parks, because they have all their unique builds relevant to the location. I wish the same level of creativity went into the ride lineups.
This was an Eid exhibit where you can build your own lantern for the display.
Stuff vs Burj
Lotte wins of course <3
Burj vs Burj
Got lost in this area for about half an hour. Still not enough time killed. There was a sandwich board up advertising the 4D showtimes. Fine…
Ended up with the obnoxious Nexo Knights film again. Marginally better than having to suffer through the one based on the Lego Movie, but ugh. Best part was the audiences over the top reactions to all the 4D bits. I remember being wowed like that the first time in Disney, age 12. What happened?
Another sandwich board made it clear that I also had time to try the Ninjago puppet stage show.
Ok, I’m intrigued.
This was actually pretty good. It ain’t no Lion King, but it was rather clever and refreshing to me at least.
So there we go, a reasonably happy experience at a Legoland property. Off to the next park.
Maybe next time.
The Riverwalk area between the parks here is really nice, aside from the lack of shade. Kept up the vampire routine and powered swiftly to the park entrance, still a little too early.
There was a small group outside also waiting, and they began doing bag checks early so that we could move forward to the turnstyles. After a short while they stopped this and just let the crowd build up outside, confused, resulting in a rather awkward 15 minutes of either staring down the staff at the turnstyles, or at the guests behind who felt like they were missing out (hopefully the VIPs again).
Motiongate
The call comes in. And we’re off. All that time I’d been having a bit of a tactical think, so super cred mode again, I knew where I was headed.
Straight into the massive Dreamworks building.
Via Toothless of course.
Now is not the time to appreciate this magnificence.
#3 Madagascar Mad Pursuit
They do have locker rules in this park, but they’re free (for an hour at a time) and automated with minimum hassle. So that’s a win. There’s a great queueline for this ride (theme of the day), circus style, that passes through a little runaway cart with lots of imaginative posters on the walls.
Can’t help but think of Kärnan when I see these Gerstlauer Infinity trains now, which makes me fearful in a good way. Something tells me this won’t quite be the same experience.
Pretty much the same turn into a dark ride section and hold before the launch as Velociraptor the previous day. I don’t know my Madagascar, but something is said about the animals and the bad guy and it being time to escape the circus. The train launches through a psychedelic tunnel and into the main darkened ride area. It’s good fun, but you can feel like it’s holding back a little, being aimed at such a family market with the IP. There are hills in the layout that could kill at higher speed, but the ride just doesn’t quite want to that to you.
It also features a few effects that light up as you pass by/through and a brief section into the area outside the ride entrance for guests to get a little off-ride glimpse, in the same vein as Spiderman the previous day. The experience ends on the brake run with an angry bear in the cart, those penguins and a statement along the lines of ‘people in love are never happy’, which made me laugh every time.
Time to make the most of that free locker. In my narrow minded view of getting the creds done, I’m powering off to Dragon Gliders next and BOOM.
#4 Dragon Gliders
I’m taken aback. That’s a bloody spectacular area I’ve just walked into. I wasn’t prepared for this. Found myself just meandering around in amazement for a while, rather than going into the ride. I already love this IP, love the films, and they’ve done it so much justice. The staff guy at the entrance is wearing a themed costume and completely out of character for myself I have to tell him how amazing that is. Ahhhhhh!
The queue is really detailed and atmospheric, with a bit of Gobber action on audio, some posters and drawings teaching you about dragons as well as a selection of animatronics, screens and other effects.
On to the hardware then. I didn’t quite ‘get’ Arthur. It was all a bit something and nothing, like a cool concept but poorly executed, though maybe that’s just IP bias.
I get this, it’s just done right. 90% dark ride and 10% coaster. There’s a fantastic mix beyond physical sets and screens, including some clever projections and story-telling shadows. It has a fresh story, going on a bit of an adventure with Hiccup and Astrid. You stumble upon a mean icy dragon and have a bit of a fight with it, survive, and then return to Berk for a bit of a celebration which is when the ride just opens above the main off-ride entrance plaza again.
This part works so well. There’s so many little easter eggs around inculding the catapult sheep everywhere (21 sheep salute). And then the ending hits, where they’ve captured the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless perfectly in a single animatronic and sound clip. And then Gobber’s voice speaks to you through on-board audio: “Not at all what I expected, look at you… still alive.” Again, made me laugh every time. Perfection.
No time to let that sink in, back out into the sun. There’s more Mack goodness afoot.
#5 Capitol Bullet Train
I was a little confused as to how this was a concept. I don’t like the Hunger Games, so much as respect it. Seen the films once and sort of enjoyed them, but can’t really stand to see them again. So how is a Mack launch coaster going to be a high speed train into the city? A train which in the film they amusingly claim does 200Mph like that’s some mind blowing futuristic achievement. For a train. Have they not been to China?
It doesn’t make sense, but they’ve made a reasonable attempt. The queue is full of boarding procedures and announcements, lots of posh luggage around and a glimpse into one of the trains with posh food inside. By the end of the ride (the brake run) they’ve made it feel more like the city, with a subtle change in architecture and some billboards up.
So what’s in between all that? Got in the back of the train first, with personal recommendation from the staff bloke who said “it’s the best seat: good in the spike.” It is good in the spike. The first warm up launch is rather amusingly slow, as the loop is so close to the launch track and it only goes a quarter of the way through it, but as with the others of this type it’s the backwards one that catches you by surprise. The loop itself is lovely and floaty, there’s a few twists and turns and one really sharp multi-directional airtime hill which is probably the highlight of the ride. I’ve said before that Mack always nail their inversions and the other one in the layout is really good, but then it’s all over a bit quick. Solid fun, but nothing spectacular.
#6 Smurf Village Express
Smurf Village Express came next. I had it in my head that it was a Vekoma Junior (a likely assumption) but definitely thought to myself while riding ‘this seems better somehow.’ Oh yeah, it’s a Gerstlauer. They always nail their family rides.
#7 Green Hornet: High Speed Chase
One more Gerstlauer then and it’s a slightly custom Bobsled thankfully. No more than a one and done though. Not sure what the theme was inside, then it’s just concrete outside.
Sat behind a couple of Indian blokes who after making such a huge fuss about getting on it, rode it with the most amusingly unphased stances. Clearly just a +1 for them as well.
Well that’s all the creds knocked out in 45 minutes again, better go check on my locker.
Went to Kung Fu Panda land from there. Another really, really nice area in the Dreamworks bit. Sadly the ride here was down all day, but could have been worse.
Shrek’s Merry Fairy Tale Journey it is then. Less than 0 expectations for this, cos ugh, Shrek. Absolutely loved it.
It’s just a retelling of the first film, but with the premise of Shrek and Fiona putting on a puppet show to retell the first film to their kids. This is styled really cleverly in a wonderful dark ride that’s packed full of great detail. It has some fancy ‘trackless’ moments with the vehicles splitting off from your neighbouring cars into a 2 lane path. In one of these in particular near the end, I’m not sure if it was just the sudden difference in scale of one of the sets, but the 2 cars end up side by side going into a big church scene that was a real ‘wow’ moment. Then the dragon eats the short bloke (in a hilariously low budget puppet show manner) and the wedding happens, the cars turn round on the spot, and the cardboard cut out guests in the pews change. Great stuff.
Panem Aerial Tour was a bit of a mixed bag. I thought it would be a flying theatre ride for whatever reason. Then once inside it made me start to think it was an immersive tunnel. In the end it was just a simulator in a curved screen. Similar with the story. Thought it was going to be as described in the preshow, just a nice sightseeing flight over the capital and some of the districts. Then there’s a signal breaking through and rebels talking, oh maybe they’re gonna interweave that plot a bit. Then the ride is mostly 90% just that plot, a bit of a high speed flying chase through the city in a sub par simulator and nothing like it promised. Was better in my head I think. Soarin’ over some fictional lands. Would have done the job better.
Positives though – another nicely themed queue with information about all the different districts, and then an actor as one of the nasty security blokes (peacekeepers?) sneaking up on people after the preshow and scaring them silly. Also the sign outside said 30 minutes, I asked if that was because it runs time slots, or from an actual queue. The response was “mmmmmm a bit of both.” It was actually a walk on.
Ghostbusters: Battle for New York was again, rather good. Slightly too high a ratio of screens for the shooting sections, but very nicely themed. Ended a bit abruptly. Didn’t take a picture.
The list just keeps going. Hotel Transylvania. No idea what this was. Absolutely loved it.
Another pseudo-trackless dark ride, the highlight of which is a huge open hallway with tons of crossed pathways and cars everywhere going in all directions between scenes. On the first go I was all alone for this moment and it just filled me with childlike excitement and glee.
Second go was ruined by having a couple of British tourists behind me constantly moaning about how bad it all was. Really?? You don’t know what good is. Can’t take them anywhere…
I normally skip drop towers unless I think they’re of particular interest, but it was so quiet everywhere I thought I might as well have a go on this one. 60 minute queue – 10 times the national average. Nope.
Hung around outside Underworld 4D, wondering whether it was actually open. The show time board was outside, but awkwardly blocking the door, and the exit shop was all boarded up with a sign saying closed. It was open. Yet again, a very nicely themed queueline. Preshow was a bit awkward, standing around watching a screen of clips from the movies(?) and some story about a vampire. The actual experience was rather bizarre. Obviously it’s more dark and graphic than your average 4D show. I liked the beginning with someone getting shot through the head synced with a water effect to the audiences faces, but it never got better than that. The rest is done from a POV perspective of the vampire bloke getting into fights, though the seat movements fell way short of what was going on. Need the Ben10 hardware.
The Smurfs Studios Tour had too many good rides come before it. It was alright. Did the job.
Think that was everything covered bar the rapids, which I had planned to vampire later. With a couple of hours to go until sundown, decided to go chill in the Dreamworks area again.
Had a very nice tofu & noodles dish from the Kung Fu Panda area (my kinda scene). Still a strong showing from the park food around here.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was alright. Couldn’t work out who made it. It had some interesting pacing, moments where it would almost come to a standstill before rushing off again. Not sure if they were planned or not. I got mildly wet, but it wasn’t brutal enough for my taste in water rides. Had possibly the weakest queue of the park too, comprising of just cattlepens and a couple of TV screens.
Dragon Gliders broke down for a bit unfortunately, but then it got dark and I had some night rides on Capitol Bullet Train instead. The former also fixed itself before the end of the day so I managed to finish on that high.
All in all, another great day. Properly impressed with the quality of attractions and overall appearance of this park and the bar has been set even higher now. Watch out IMG.
Conveniently I was required to be in Abu Dhabi for 3 days for work, so I jumped at the opportunity to have a bit of fun beforehand. This wasn’t somewhere particularly on the cards for me in the near future, but I’m very glad to have been now. The whole place far exceeded my expectations in pretty much every aspect and I’d happily go back for more.
The first day was a bit of a marathon. I had an overnight flight with 0 sleep, being surrounded by the Chinese who kept their lights on the whole time and were having their usual loud conversations. There’s no escaping them.
Landed first thing in the morning and sorted out the hire car. Through more luck than judgment, I had timed things just right and this was the first day of celebrating the end of Ramadan, so didn’t have to worry about not being able to eat. It also seemed to have a positive impact on the parks, everywhere was super quiet.
This was first made eerily obvious as I hit the dusty trail and perhaps saw about 10 cars total on the first hour of the journey. Bombing down a 4 lane motorway in the desert with absolutely nothing in sight. I like this already.
IMG Worlds of Adventure
Pulled up outside the park nice and early, believe I was the 3rd or 4th car on site. There’s some sweet Mack coaster goodness to admire on the way in.
Free parking, but unfortunately none of it is covered here, so the car and anything in it is gonna get an absolute roasting.
Eh, can’t be that bad.
Largest indoor theme park. That’s convenient.
Hung around the entrance area for a while until they let us through to the turnstyles.
From there, they did an opening ceremony to a crowd of about 50, which involved some mediocre dancing to the tune of Let Me Entertain You. Everyone rushed forward to meet the bloke from Adventure Time, while I headed off to the rides.
Ooo it’s a nice looking place. There’s definitely some magical vibe going on with the indoor-ness, which these pictures won’t do justice at all. Everyone’s really friendly and it all just looks great, particularly the jungle/dinosaur area being in half dark all the time. I was concerned about bad locker rules being an inconvenience to me, but the staff girl told me “nah, no need to bother with that nonsense.”
#1 Predator
Got the Gerstlauer Eurofighter out of the way first. Ugh, Rage clone.
It was actually better than I remember it. I only recall liking the way it hangs in the loop, but the rest of the layout is rather forceful and fun for what it is. It’s mirrored too, I’m sure that’s what makes the difference.
Ended up losing my way in the jungle area looking for the next cred and found myself in Avengers land instead. Spiderman then.
#2 Spider-Man Doc Ock’s Revenge
The queueline here is particularly impressive, going through some dingy alleys and themed rooms, before passing under a darkened tease of a section of the track. I didn’t expect much from this ride either as, you know, clones, but I really enjoyed it. The lift hill starts in a flashy strobey underground tunnel that’s pumping tons of mist into your face before dropping you into the quick off-ride viewing section.
There’s a transition from there where it lets you know that it’s a ride not to be messed with as it plunges down back into the depths of the inner themed area which is full of skyscrapers. Depending on your direction of travel and current intensity of spinning, this can be a real surprise and some of the following turns end up crazy forceful. It all ends a little too soon for my liking, but really good fun.
Still in cred mode, powered back over to the Mack Blue Fire clone (thats 3/3), which was hiding at the back.
#3 Velociraptor
Some of this queue looked rather good as well, though it just turned into plain walls shortly after here. I like the trains with their yellow and red dinosaur skin look, disappointed I didn’t manage to get a picture. Got straight on the ride and made myself at home in the sexy bucket seats again. Being spoiled with them this year.
The pre-launch section is rather cool, passing through some jungle and more mist being pumped out at you. There’s a big screen on the right, on which some dinosaurs start making a scene, prompting you to leave quickly. The door to the outside opens a little early in all this and sunlight pours in to ruin the effect of the screen before you’re off.
Ahhhh! 40°C! The cooking effect from the sun isn’t noticeable while you’re moving fast, but as soon as you hit the brake run you can feel the burn and being a vampire I’m thinking ‘gotta get back inside, gotta get back inside.’ The ride is great fun of course, being a Mack launch coaster.
Not sure what they were going for with the outdoor area. There’s a random greenhouse chucked in amongst some palm trees and some dust. Better than nothing I guess.
Each of these parks on this trip I was in super cred mode to begin with and it was never fully justified. This was all knocked out in about 45 minutes, so it was time to relax.
Did Forbidden Territory the dinosaur dark ride next. It was quite good, the queue has some story building if you get to spend any time in it and there’s some impressive physical theming inside but it got a bit screen heavy towards the end and the vehicle movement was a little awkward rather than thrilling.
Avengers: Battle of Ultron followed. I was rather excited for this simulator, being a fan of the cinematic universe, but maybe that hurt it for me, as it’s not directly from that particular media source. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the ride sequence, all felt a bit been there, done that with lots of recycled tricks in almost the same environment as its competitors (Spiderman/Transformers) unlike, say, Fantawild ones.
The Ride of Ooo was the busiest attraction all day. Queued a whole 10 minutes or thereabouts. Half dark ride, half suspended monorail over the park, it wasn’t without its charm. Don’t particularly know the brand though.
I liked The Amazing Ride of Gumball. Had a little preshow to set the scene and tell me what it even was, cos never heard of it. It’s a fun shooting ride, the type that seem to be becoming my favourites with the mixture of physical targets, screen based blastings and crazy unpredictable scores.
Hulk 3D Epsilon Base was up and running next. Another preshow to set the scene, before strapping in to the huge circle of seats. I was expecting it to be a rather relaxed affair, having only sat in a dome theatre ride like this before for a slow Chinese fairytale, but this one really gets up a good forceful spin, there’s a lot going on and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I believe that just leaves Ben 10 5D. More preshows, which the locals had now run out of patience for and were all intently staring at the door to the theatre rather than watching any more. Vicious attraction! The moving cinema style seats on this give you a right good kicking, which I wasn’t expecting at all. It brought back memories of the John Cleese ride with its intense car crash moments.
Rounded the day off with a few re-rides, but got rather exhausted towards the end of the 36 hour day. Nearly died a few times on the drive back to the hotel, quite literally being half asleep. All for a good cause.
Great park then, liked it a ton more than I expected. Very relaxed atmosphere and good selection of rides, while not suffering too badly from being an RCDB clone fest. I remarked while I was there that I thought this would be the ‘bad’ park of the trip. The bar has been set high.
This particular crawl was meant to happen last year, but it turned into something better(?) in the same area. Better late than never.
Day 2 – Dennlys Parc
Not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. A tiny little place with Spanish pop music everywhere, it had a fair bit of charm.
#1 Nitro
Got extra excited for a bit as I had forgotten what this is, but damn, it’s a Moebius loop (one continuous piece of track). Sends you round both sides in one cycle, so no quandaries about half a cred or anything. It contained a couple of rough turns, but nothing too serious. The main drops and hills weren’t bad, but it ain’t no Pax.
#2 Furio
Can it get worse? The ‘worst custom steel rollercoaster in the world’ – Mitch Hawker 2013.
What? How? It rode with the same level of inoffensiveness as the Soquet yesterday. Does pretty much nothing.
#3 Voltigo
And we’ll finish off the coasters here with pretty much nothing. At least it’s an obscure manufacturer for the list. Only 2 Gosettos in the world.
Did one of those Desperado 4D screen shooting attractions where you sit on the little rocking horses as they’re quite fun. Must have done too many now, victory over everyone else came quite easily.
Did one of these discount rapids rides, which was a laugh.
That looks like the same tower as yesterday. Eh, might as well. No tingle from this version though. Pure ejector at the top of each main burst – they’re running it hard. Highlight of the park for sure.
That was all rather easy. Next?
Bagatelle
Bit of a weird entrance to this park. Bag check before a pink tunnel under the road, then some big metal entrance gates and many confused people standing around.
#4 Kid’z Coaster
Excellent once you get inside though. The first thing you come to is a Wacky Worm on tarmac. A beautiful sight.
#5 Gaz Express
Was expecting some at least some moderate crowding on a summer weekend, but maybe football (World Cup final) is good for something. Walked straight on to the most intriguing attraction here.
The Soquet Aquatrax, potentially their finest achievement. 2 helices of doom, one moment of violent air time in the back and some tasty fire effects. Who could ask for more?
#6 Famous Jack
The name doesn’t sound like a cred, but here we are. Reverchon failed to beat Zamperla today.
#7 Triops
The last couple of areas had seemed quite nice, but now we’ve stumbled onto concrete wasteland with a Vekoma Invertigo on it. It’s like they know not to try and glam it up.
With their Paris Metro air gates.
Oh no, Invertigo. My very first of these. Got somewhat nervous about how terrible it could be. The sign even mentions ‘side impacts’ (or lateral chocolate), so that’s reassuring.
The restraints are super hench like El Condor, already touching your ears before you move, so that’s reassuring.
It’s fine. No problem at all. Not as intense as a regular Boomerang, and smoother than most of them. Might still be a spark of Liseberg (its original home) magic left in it.
Can’t find the last cred now.
#8 Spirale des Dunes
Oh there it is, a baby Soquet. That’ll do.
Again that was all rather easy, time for a baguette and to see what else they have.
Like Bocasse, they were also celebrating some sort of anniversary, by splashing out on a new(?) film for their simulator attraction. This was beyond confusing, starting with what felt like a circus horror walkthrough, expecting a preshow in a punch and judy box – nope. Expecting a preshow in a room with screens inside giant 3D glasses – nope. Straight on the ride, no glasses, the simulators are decorated with bones, pop music playing, “hold the red bar.” The video was a rollercoaster on the moon! Well that was a thing.
Disaster struck at this moment. Somehow my drink had leaked absolutely everywhere in my bag. An actual swimming pool of it, just stewing in the bottom. Everything got affected, everything. It all smells rather fruity now, but also a tad sticky and I’ve had to order myself a new passport as several of the stamps are now unreadable. Volvic you heartless bastards.
The log flume here had a bit of pace to it. Drier than my bag though.
Is that a… a Hafema rapids? Had to assume it’s a Soquet again, but it does have the same crazy whirlpool element, just with less enjoyable wall collision. This became the trip of surprisingly good water rides. Drier than my bag though.
Who needs one log flume when you can have 2? Smaller than the first, but a more intense drop for its size. Drier than my bag though.
Had another go on Gaz Express and some kid in front of me decided to stick his hand/head in the fountains that spray the track mid ride. I got SOAKED by this, but still drier than my bag.
And that was it. The place was turning into a ghost town due to that sports thing and we had a Chunnel to catch. Assume everyone in the terminal was British as there was no reaction to the final result of the match. Train was delayed as always. People were moaning as always. Burger King was broken as always. That’s enough of that for one year.
We were going hold off a little longer, but the Chunnel booking system for the summer holidays wouldn’t have it any other way. Another obnoxiously early start and battling with closed roads, but for a worthy cause. There’s new wood on the horizon.
Day 1 – Parc Saint Paul
Walked away from this place less than a year ago thinking it was a good little park, but probably won’t be back. Then they had to be awesome and throw together a Gravity woodie out of the blue.
Look at the colour of it. Doesn’t get much newer than that.
They haven’t had the chance to put up a sign yet.
It wasn’t open first thing as they were still hammering some wood onto the lift hill.
And then taking a small group of people with Expedition GeForce, Cedar Point and the wrong coaster crate shirts for a backstage tour + Exclusive Ride Time. Ugh, enthusiasts.
Sadly Wild Train was down all day (the train has gone walkies), so we took the time to reacquaint ourselves with Formule 1.
Formule 1
Pax you crazy beasts. Without the other one in the park for direct comparison, this was a lot better than I remembered. Ridiculous air time in the big drop as well as the silly bunny hill and it rides way smoother than it should.
Their log flume was something different to try. The world’s dinosaur theming craze continues.
Also did this haunted walkthrough, hoping it would house a secret ride or something. The highlight was a piece of vibrating floor which reminded me of Lost Gravity. Good times.
#1 Wood Express
The French were being cheeky and slithering in past a fence earlier than the posted opening time, so we assumed it was all ready.
Gravity you crazy beasts. How can you pack so much into so little? Not being much of a fan of Twister, I had assumed they were a go big or go home manufacturer, but it turns out they really are my boys when it comes to wood.
13, not that I like to count them, moments of very decent air time. Well paced with a good bit of variety, all out of a tiny 49ft drop. And the station is nearly halfway up that height, so it could have potentially done more. *Insert derogatory Wicker Man comment here*
The trains are cute, no-belt baby Timberliners and it was weird for me to not see them in red. They seem to always be red. Except that one that’s blue. And the one they copied this from.
This park never seems to get particularly busy, and they were operating very well for 1 train of 12 people, so we got plenty of goes out of it with a consistent 10-15 minute queue. Back row was the place to be, just for the extra bonus in the first drop really.
Brilliant investment for the price. Well done Parc Saint Paul.
So what else can we find around this part of the country?
A million cars covered in bike racks and stickers were driving recklessly in the opposite direction to us while a local town ground to a halt, so we got stuck in the Tour de France on the way to the next parc. All part of the culture.
Parc du Bocasse
Celebrating 50 years with Parc du Bocasse seemed like a bit of fun. It was quite a nice place actually. Reminded me of that RCT scenario with the bridge over the road, mainly because it has a bridge over the road.
#2 Jurassic Twister
Minimal dinosaur effort on the first cred. A Zamperla version that does spin. Not bad. I say this every time now, but it still never got better than Brighton Pier.
#3 Train de Mine
I’ve never managed to ride a Soquet before, so this was my first. It’s a fairly inoffensive experience, most comparable to a small French Jet Coaster, but nowhere near as cool. The V-shaped track and lazy 45 degree up/side-stop wheels kinda bug me.
#4 Gonzales
That leaves the smallest cred. DC rivals colour with a legit IP.
The twisty air time hill looked like it could rival Alpina Blitz, but only managed about as much as Shambhala.
Gave this tower ride a crack as it seemed relatively big and we didn’t recognise who made it. It was surprisingly decent. 3 rounds of 3 upwards shots, the first of each providing a bit of tingling sensation (I’ll leave it to your imagination as to where).
We had spotted what looked like a gem on the way in. Is that a… a Hafema log flume? My boys when it comes to water.
Apparently Splash-O-Saure is made by Soquet and it’s very suspiciously similar to Mami Wata (if that means anything to you). What’s all this about the Chinese copying rides when the French are at it as well.
It does a Tidal Wave to the exit path, soaking the unsuspecting guest, or in the case of a hot day, the ready and willing guest.
Couple more dinosaurs than the cred here.
Dinosaurs crashed a plane.
Or something about time travel? My stamps don’t quite last that long.
One of the staff members at this ride spotted the shirt I was wearing and was either from ‘Parkfan’ or calling me a ‘park fan’ (apologies for me being massively confused and tired at this point). I assumed the former (but without actually knowing that was a thing) and I kept saying no as if I wasn’t the latter. The conversation ended with “Kärnan – great ride” with a thumbs up and a nod, so all was well.
Up next: Reverchon vs Zamperla Spinners. The showdown continues.
After a tricky night of finding everything closed (in the usual French fashion) and a quick burst of driving down the wrong side of the road, we set off a little earlier the next morning to hunt down some breakfast, ending up with some tasty Pain of Chocolats. Still doing it right.
Day 2 – Nigloland
The sight of the 5th tallest drop tower in the world surrounded by some trees soon greeted us and we were amongst the first 50 cars or so to arrive at the car park. I was expecting it to get busier throughout the day, but it was all far too easy again.
The world’s most lax bag check followed and we joined the crowd that had just been let in the park, all powering along the main pathway. They eventually all dispersed around us (not sure where to), leaving us with a virtually empty queue for Alpina Blitz. That works.
#1 Alpina Blitz
I’m being spoiled by the number of these Mack Mega trains I’ve sat in this season, they always feel so homely. Being a bit biased, I wanted this to be better than the Intamin almost-equivalent layout, but it never quite matched the ferocity of Piraten, who seems to be a particularly special beast.
I was very happy to learn that it has its slight variations, so at least you get a somewhat different experience out of it other than the trains.
And it is of course still extremely good, for me the best ride in the country by some margin, combining comfort with a punchy mix of strong airtime.
Also wonderfully photogenic and nicely ‘styled’.
Well I do feel like lazing around in the shade too. But what else do they have on offer here?
#2 Schlitt’Express
Got your standard Mack mouse. This one is offensively smooth, almost to the point where it loses its fun.
#3 Chenille
Got your standard Wacky Worm. Can’t go wrong there.
Hérissons de la Forêt Magique lets you ride in a cute little hedgehog and has a hint of a dark ride section.
Big wheel. Can’t see a huge amount of the park from up there as it’s so well… vegetated?
Only the big rides stand out from the trees.
#4 Spatiale Expérience
Was rather looking forward to the space themed indoor coaster as well, being a big fan of Eurosat (nervous about its refurb).
The spirit lives on in the smaller brother here. Hasn’t quite got the musicality, but it rides like a beast and is a lot of fun.
Also got rather excited for Donjon de l’Extrême, being a big fan of drop towers. And since when do they have pseudo lap bars? It’s also massive and does give you your observational spin at the top first (for those who can bear to look), which is an added bonus.
The drop itself was a tad underwhelming force-wise, as the big ones often are, but it goes on for an age. Got a bit stapled by the restraint on both attempts which may have hindered things a little.
Haunted Mansion was great. A fair amount of obvious Disney inspiration going on, but still of decent quality. Absolutely love the cars, which are just like an ornamental bench on top of a platform. They’re very ‘open’ and give a rather good spin too.
The park Euro-spited themselves here by having a new for 2018 declaration for this ride already on the map. It wasn’t ready.
#5 Gold Mine Train
Powered mine train was a thing. Bonus points for the log flume interaction. Minus points for teasing the log flume, which had the only massive queue all day.
Really liked the park overall. Nice atmosphere, not overly busy. Well kept, looks nice – the castle and Swiss areas are simple but effective. Efficient operations, lots of fancy bag holders actually in use (take note Parc Asterix…) and a couple of smart turnstyles that count down the correct number of people per batch. Water jets scattered around to keep people cool. Good ride selection. Decent food. Free parking. No complaints at all really.
Good for you Nigloland.
We returned home through the Channel tunnel that night, but our work in France wasn’t done yet. Due to an exciting new addition at one park, we came back for more a mere 2 weeks later.
