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.

Dark Ride Hunting 10/22 – Lincolnshire + Yorkshire

Been a while since we’ve had one of these. With all the big, glamourous trips going on, there’s been nothing else to report on in the gaps, aside from a fun first time visit to IAAPA with DRdb and getting to watch Coaster Hipster ask Intamin about Juvelen just one more time. Sadly no one brought a big apple there though.

Oh and I went to ride #1399 Doggy Dog at Old Macdonald’s Farm out of nothing but tactical desperation.

It was time to get back to basics in October.

Fantasy Island

Always forget how grim the drive up here is. The reason for the visit (aside from one of the group needing the creds) – two new dark rides. One that nobody knows what it is and the other that I followed religiously on their website for months on end only for them to never actually update said website when it eventually opened late.

A.k.a. Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure. A second hand ride system from Dubai rehashed into an explorative romp of shooting screens with evil explorers and the tribal masses.
It’s clever what they’ve done with the space and there’s some physicality to the interactive part, which is always nice. Most of it is already broken however and the graphics lag pretty badly in places. S’alright.

I now know what the other one is, The Guardian, but it wasn’t running so that’s no good at all. Instead the staff member that was sending people away all morning went for a lunch break (someone needs to be here) and we ended up joining a few other confused guests on a journey into a completely unmanned, but switched on ride.

The queue was massive and well decorated, for what is just a 4 person simulator arm. Clearly there’s some sort of pre-show going on here. Something wasn’t right though.

Didn’t need Family Roller Coaster, but I’m shameless enough to lap it again if someone else does and it is in the spirit of hunting after all. This one has picked up an injury.

I can talk about many things in this shot. Most strikingly the colour of that water splash.

Millennium has lost the title of smoothest major Vekoma coaster, it now has a bit of jostle to it. The wind was up and it was super slow through most of the inversions, providing a weird, crunchy bit of flop time and then nearly stalling into the last section.

Rhombus Rocket wasn’t hauling as much as previously, clearly a back row only ride for that evil twisted hill.

Did The Volcano (shot tower) because nothing better to do. It’s a thing.

After somehow re-convincing myself it was for scientific research, I did dare to re-ride Odyssey after hating it several years prior. We arrived to the station just as it closed down for wind however so we’ll never know how that would have gone down. Gives it a 1 out of 4 success rate on my visits.

Feel like I’ve been to this park too many times already. It’s not the greatest. Stuff like Seaquarium and Toucan Tours have charm but it’s really not a revisit kinda place. Too much faff.

Never too much faff if it’s something new though. We headed up over the Humber bridge (another new bridge cred) and into central York, through castle walls and all. Why?

Jorvik Viking Centre

Dark ride, that’s why. 10% museum and 90% ride, I had stories of this attraction from my parents riding it back in the ‘80s. It’s all changed since then, receiving a new ride system in 2001 and new scenery from 2015. It’s long, slow and all rather impressive.

The new(er) vehicles for Time Ride have on-board audio and screens to teach you all about what’s going on in each scene.

Scenes include this guy, a man selling a cabbage to a woman who doesn’t want one and someone on the toilet. York, 948 A.D.
Would recommend.

Day 2

Cred Hunting 10/21 – Merseyside & Cheshire

2018, Southport. The Pinfari looper wasn’t ready first thing because of ‘health and safety stuff’ and ‘the rain’. We camped it out far longer than necessary to eventually be told “Got problems with the brakes, probably won’t open today.”

Let’s give that another go then.

Southport Pleasureland

Fast forward 3 years and exactly the same thing happened. This time the park is paid entry rather than per ride, so it stings just that little bit more.

Luckily they have added one other cred in the meantime, one of these littler Pinfari things that used to live in Scotland – seems they’re all gradually defecting.

Not sure why it’s called #1 The Rocket, I guess because just plain old Roller Coaster was already taken. The station had an interesting feature in the form of some discarded seatbelts lying on the platform. Some seats had them, some didn’t, the restraint is hilariously awkward (but at least not over the shoulder) and off we go.
It isn’t the first of these I’ve ridden this year that’s surprisingly smooth for what it is. How are they managing it?

With no signs of life from the looper, the only other thing to get some money’s worth from was the Ghost Train. Being Halloween season and all that, it was rather popular and attracting a sizeable queue. The ride host was having a great time entertaining guests with a fake bloodied hand, throwing babies into the crowd and generally being a bit of a legend.
Inside the ride itself there were also a couple of roaming scare actors, which I wasn’t expecting, so that managed to be quite effective in getting to us. Makes me think it’s something that this type of low end dark ride could do with on the regular, to make it stand out a bit.

As the rain set in and the train for the spiting coaster wasn’t even parked in the station, with no one around, it was time to give up on it yet again. Although some staff claimed ‘it may open later’, something which we’ve heard far too many times, they had already cancelled their fireworks and late opening hours so it clearly wasn’t going to be worth sticking around, particularly when someone was waiting for us at another park.
Stupid Southport.

Gullivers Warrington

In better news we had once again achieved some success thanks to our new best friend at Gulliver’s Milton Keynes. He put us in touch with the relevant people at the Warrington establishment who were happy to receive us for the afternoon and escort us to the coasters.

Upon arrival, our contact had gone AWOL, but the admissions staff appeared to have been briefed on what was happening and so yet again, we ended up with free roam of the place.

First port of call was a somewhat momentous achievement. #2 Antelope was that all-elusive final wooden coaster to complete the UK set for me, in fact I’d have every operating woodie in Europe now were it not for a certain spite over in Madrid.

The layout looked quite good for what it was, though somehow it manages to ride hilariously poorly for the size. The first drop was punctuated with a highly vigorous to-and-fro pumping motion as soon as the train gathered any speed, shaking us all about in a purely comical, yet not painful fashion. The first turnaround was taken at incredibly slow speeds, crawling around like an overly exaggerated version of my regular playful mocking of Balder.

This cycle continued throughout the rest of the ride. Gain speed, shake violently, slow to a crawl, including during such highlights as the double up, the double down and the bonus straight at the end. Terrible ride, but it made us laugh a lot and was a ton of fun for it.

With the park having sold on numerous coasters over the years (an astonishing 4 of which I’ve managed to since pick up in their newer homes), the only other one required here was the well named #3 Wriggler. Took a while trying to find it, eventually doing so and racking up a couple of proud laps on yet another Wacky Worm for the season.

Time to check out the dark ride selection. Sadly the Gilly Princess Ride was out of action. Doesn’t look like a gamechanger, but would have been nice to experience it for research purposes.

Temple Raider was going strong at least, though we sadly narrowly missed out on their Halloween overlay timeslot, with many costumed scare actors pouring out of the ride whilst we stood in the queue.

Which resulted in a rather humble affair, it could have done with a few scares. The ride had guns at some point though they appear to have been removed and you can still spot the targets as you travel around some generic ‘temple raiding’ type scenery. Nothing special, but rounded off the visit nicely.

And so ends the day on a not too unhealthy +3. Not the greatest of successes but I’ll take what I can get at this point and this time of year.

Cred Hunting 07/21 – Bucks & Northants

There’s a travelling coaster called (amusingly) Shrek that’s been teasing me for months now. It first came onto the radar when it was just 10 minutes up the road one weekend, the rain was chucking down all day and I simply couldn’t be bothered to get up and do something about it. The fair it was a part of then proceeded to tour around various nearby towns, only without the coaster any more. The one (of many) that got away.

Suddenly Shrek resurfaced in Corby, of all places (had to look it up), with just one day left to go again! I was loathed to make this into a six hour round trip for something that could and should have been so simple (and yet totally would have done anyway), so had a browse of the local options to see if we could make anything more out of the adventure. Things didn’t look promising, they’re all elusive, exclusive and many different kinds of trouble around that area.

We haven’t had any luck with them in the past, but a friendly email was fired off to Gullivers with zero expectations. If all else fails there’s an attempt at Billing Aquadrome on the cards – a name that’s been floating around in the back of my mind for years without even knowing what it’s about.
Amazingly a response came back almost instantly. Of course you can come, happy to help, we’ll sort you out no problem!
Where have you been all my life?

Gulliver’s Milton Keynes

It felt like sacred ground, standing at the entrance to the UK’s largest purveyors of the dreaded ‘no adult groups’ rule, a rule that has haunted the common coaster counter for generations. A flash of our communications at the gate soon had our saviour with a clipboard appearing, who explained that while usually we’d get a chaperone for this type of visit, they were just too busy to spare anyone and so unleashed us freely on the park. Amazing.

To the coasters then. First one was #1 Crazy Mouse, in a shed, though we weren’t even sure if it existed any more because it didn’t appear on the website. It’s still here, in all it’s glory, complete with giant cat and grand piano theming. Not sure if it’s the norm, but the ride took one lap with the house lights on and then another couple in the dark for extra effect. L&T Systems at their finest.

I’d never even considered the place as anything but a cred run that can’t happen, yet it turns out they have dark rides too, making the mission twofold. Gulliver’s Travels definitely features Gulliver, though I’m not so sure about the travel part. I particularly loved the overly relaxed position of the seating on this thing and the ride system has an amusing habit of just letting empty or lighter cars tailgate those in front because they simply run that much faster.

The Silver Mine cars did the same, though this time there were more immediate distractions in the form of targets to shoot at, ones that set off various effects such as shaking rats and… shaking bats. No scoring systems, just fun, it’s the taking part that counts.

The beast of the park was having all sorts of adventures by the time we arrived, immediately ejecting hats (they were warned) on the amusingly profiled first corner. In case no one noticed, it’s been a million degrees here recently and the train was coming in too hot and failing to park in the station properly. The capacity of the ride had already been reduced in order to compensate for this, but the engineer was called and decided the best solution was to cut down to loading just 2 cars out of 5.
I’ve never done something from EOS rides, to my knowledge, and am now that much richer for the experience. #2 Twist and Joust has charm, it has clunk, it beats those SBF Visa spinners any day. I also love the minimalist attempt at theming.

The lineup is completed by an absolute staple of this game, the Zamperla 80STD. Rides called #3 Runaway Train are fast becoming the new ‘Roller Coaster 1’ too – it may not even be the last of the day. This one had so much glorious shade, it was great. It rode rather brutally too, for oversized adults on a children’s coaster at least.

With our lap of the essentials complete it was time to depart with an immense sense of satisfaction. Great stuff from Gulliver’s. Now, about those other parks…

Billing Aquadrome

Just up the motorway is this place. It had been sold to me as ‘pay £5 to a man at a gate to get into the ‘resort’, then rock up to the funfair bit and pray that the cred is open.’
As if things weren’t already going swimmingly enough, ‘the man at the gate’ nodded us straight through, no questions asked, no cash required.
Well now it doesn’t even matter if it’s not running (it totally does).

Of course it was open. After an amusing episode with a token machine that appeared to be dispensing hand sanitiser simultaneously with the tokens (at least we hope it was that), it was all aboard the second consecutive #4 Runaway Train. I thought I knew my Cavazza Diegos coasters when I saw them, but this one is actually from Big Country Motioneering, of ‘The Ultimate‘ fame no less.

Shrek

Can’t forget about #5 Shrek though, the instigator of all this glory. If you ever see him on the road, make sure to give him a wave. He was parked up on the side of a roundabout in the middle of nowhere, also known as Corby. Disappointingly the operator just referred to the ride as ‘The Dragon’, but it’s one of those entertaining extended oval rides that begins with a backwards launch and then just keeps on going and going. It brought back fond memories of roughly this time last year, an afternoon spent in Southampton on the exact same ride type, during Covid restrictions part #17. Their one even had bubbles. What a birthday that was…

All in all another spontaneous (and fabulous) +5 from the UK. These really are unprecedented times.

Dark Ride Hunting 07/21 – Alton Towers

It’s been a relatively long time since I’ve been to the Towers, over recent years I’ve become a little unenamoured with the place, in the cliched way in which we tend not to appreciate that which we have easy access to. I’d like to say it haruns deeper than that and that I’d find the place burdensome even on a foreign holiday, but this visit left me less sure about the whole thing.

Arriving in the car park at 9:30 is burdensome, particularly when the express parking is unavailable and the only options are a 20 minute walk to the entrance or an offensively long queue for a monorail. The walk hurts even more in that moment when you glimpse Nemesis through the trees and realise that it’s going to take you half an hour to get there on foot, although I did at least learn something new in that moment from a nearby guest – that was ‘The Air’ and Nemesis is actually black.

Nevertheless we reached Forbidden Valley in relatively high spirits to find a lovely short queue for Nemesis. It broke down almost instantly, but was promptly fixed and we got two laps in back to back including a visually stunning front row experience and a violently stunning ride towards the rear. Either it’s been far too long since I’ve actually ridden something properly good or it was running really well. Probably both. I’ve sorely missed the sensation of a coaster attempting to rip my feet off and it’s one of the main reasons this remains a top tier invert. My feelings remain the same though, I love it, but I’ve never found myself desperate to marathon the thing, like I would for so many other rides given the opportunity. Is that because I subconsciously know I can always come back? Is it because Nemesis is not excessively standout in the Alton Towers lineup? Or because it’s just not that type of experience? Deep philosophical questions.

The Air (Galactica) was almost walk on, so it felt rude not to round off the incohesive Forbidden Valley experience (garish travelling flat ride aside). I love the soundtrack for this thing and spent the walk moaning like an audiophile about how their sound system wasn’t doing it any justice. The ride itself managed to be even more excessively meandering than I remember and it’s one of the main reasons this remains a bottom tier flyer. Fun though.

I’m attempting to be (relatively) positive today, so I won’t mention the jarringly tacky elements of the recent Duel overhaul. Instead here’s two points of interest before I move on.
For the benefit of disabled friendly access, Duel’s queue no longer has the wonky floor.
The staff were making a particularly big fuss over filming and photography on the ride via the PA, even bringing the system to a halt (bonus points for spamming the reaper’s eyes during this).

We then made the biggest mistake of the day and entered the Rita queueline for an advertised 45 minute wait (by this stage, one of the shortest in the park). Through some sluggish operations and a poorly timed breakdown as soon as we were tantalisingly close, it took 2 hours.
2. Hours.
I don’t even like Rita.
I did manage to find that elusive mild airtime in the back row though.

During that time the app was being useless and wouldn’t let us book any food, so we rocked up to the nearby woodcutters place and were seated almost immediately only to find out, via having to then order the food on the app anyway, it would take an hour for them to cook a bit of chicken and chips. So that was half of the operating day gone.
Football based fortune began to favour us though. We had inadvertently ended up visiting on Euro cup final day, in which England happened to be participating. The crowds began to very noticeably disperse throughout the afternoon, in order to get home and watch it.

So it was over to Smiler, down to a humble half hour wait. It’s quite often running four trains these days and as such the two train duelling aspect of the coaster has become a rather consistent spectacle, one that I absolutely love to behold, ride interaction is just the best. I’m already a low key Smiler fan as it’s just so gloriously intense and silly, but this took it to another level – egging the trains on up each lift hill, hoping for that perfect timing, watching the rival train dance around you through the million inversions. I would have declared it the best ride of the day had it not attempted to detach my retina in those notorious final moments.

Don’t worry, there’s still time for a new worst ride of the day on the Wicker Man. I know the preshow is potentially boring on rerides (though who manages rerides at this place?), but I was sad to see it out of action. It used to be the best part for me.
Hold up. When did this lad get a bit rough and ready? He’s developed a bit of character, he tried to shake me up a bit. There was movement, there was motion, there was feeling. I… kinda liked it.
Watch out Wildcat, this thing might not be the worst GCI in the world any more.

We’d booked a slot to check out the Alton Towers Dungeon in the late afternoon and our time had now come. They currently allow for up to 4 groups per 15 minute interval, each designated their own spot on the floor of each room for spacing reasons. We were one of only 2 groups for the tour in the end and ended up being dubbed the Rotten Rascals, though I rather had my hopes set on being an Ugly Peasant.

I’ve previously done and enjoyed both the original London and Warwick Castle Dungeon, along with the new London one, which is meh. As such, basically everything that was on offer here is a rerun of scenes I’d seen before, usually with some local twist in the wording. Rooms like the courthouse, in which you get shouted at and humiliated, and the torture chamber, in which you get shouted at and humiliated, lost their impact somewhat with lack of a good crowd.

Two words come to mind for the ex-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory boat ride and they are ‘grim’ and ‘sparse’. It was weird to recognise parts of the layout and think that this used to be chocolate, now it’s a bloke hanging from his wrists and being sliced in half by a two-man cross-cut saw.
The twist on the pub scene was that it’s Dick Turpin instead of Jack the Ripper. It also used some elements of Sweeney Todd for a bit of ASMR in the dark, air cannons to the neck and a collapsing seat. Probably the most interesting one for me.
I thought the whole experience was paced quite well considering it’s part of a theme park and doesn’t want to eat up too much of your (overly short) day. It’s worth a shot if you’re into that kind of thing and haven’t done too many others in the brand before. It could probably do with an Extremis drop tower though, at the risk of rendering the dormant Nemesis Sub Terra more irrelevant.

The gameplan devised over lunch was working out nicely now, as the park was a ghost town. We walked straight into Hex, as should always be the case. The music was turned down a bit low and there’s more ambient light in the preshows these days, but it’s still the best madhouse in the business.

Jogged round to Thirteen to get a token lap in. It was so quiet they were having to wait for thirteen guests to despatch each train. There were two dummies in the back row of each train and if they’ve done that specifically to make it that requirement, then well done. Still a blast of a ride to me, if you can look past the comedically trimmed first drop.

Of course we hadn’t forgot about Gangsta Granny, the one and only real reason for the visit. With the worst queues all day and a capacity to match that of the former Wobble World bouncy castle, making it the last item on the agenda was a stroke of genius as we walked straight on to it, twice.

The queueline is are rather quaint, though clearly not designed to take the star attraction level crowds it currently receives. Once it settles in and stops being the ‘new thing’ (and when Covid goes away) I’m sure it’ll do just nicely. I liked some of the pictures on the wall, most notably the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury, though they haven’t quite captured his legendary scowl at the Ugly Peasant. There are a couple of repeats of these throughout the attraction, which is less than ideal.

Expectations were low for the ride and they were easily exceeded. It’s actually really well done, with a solid range of scene styles, a great use of the very limited space by means of various subtle sensations of movement to keep it dynamic and some amusing extra details to give it that rerideability factor. It has that charm that all dark rides deserve and I can see it becoming a staple for any future visit.

And so ends the day, it was time to go home, even though football wasn’t going to join us there. One more long trudge back to the car park – the monorail somehow had the worse queue we’ve ever seen, so I’m assuming most of those who left early, making it nice and quiet on park, missed the match anyway (and may still be queuing to this day).
It was fun, one of the better days I’ve had at Alton in a good while, but I don’t see myself increasing the frequency of my visits any time soon. All the signs are still there for it to go wrong and really we just got lucky with certain things (football), unlucky with others (Rita) and familiarity (knowing your way around a gameplan and what constitutes a skip the monorail queue) is obviously still a requirement for the most rewarding day out.

Talking of gameplans, I think this long overdue USA trip is well and truly stuffed for yet another year. I feel another Eurodemption coming…

Cred Hunting 07/21 – Legoland Windsor

Legoland was my first true theme park experience as a child and it’s ridiculous to think I’ve been visiting on and off for over 20 years now. In some ways the place is almost unrecognisable, particularly in terms of layout, though there are still a couple of corners that remain just how I remember them in those opening years.

The focus has definitely shifted somewhat, away from ‘Miniland centrepiece featuring a few rides’, with the ‘big’ rides all tucked away at one end. While the charming lego models of various landmarks across the UK, Europe and now the world are still present, they’ve gone rather full blast on the attraction front to flesh the place out and keep things fresh. This is great news of course, as far as I was concerned, there were three new dark rides and a coaster to be had since I last visited.

An overbearing threat of rain appeared to be keeping (some of) the crowds at bay as we arrived just after opening for a pain free bag and temperature check. The Legoland App gave us a good indication of where all the early risers had headed first (the two newest attractions), so we attempted to circumvent the major queues and started off with Haunted House Monster Party.

This Vekoma madhouse had flown completely under my radar somehow. The last I remember hearing is that the park wanted to get their own version of Ghost, the haunted drop tower ride found at other Legoland properties but that planning permission had been denied and then I must have simply stopped paying attention. It’s great to see that this type of attraction is still being sold and that a fresh idea was born out of the situation.

The experience begins with a preshow in which Mr vampire lego figure invites us to a social gathering (of less than 30), some mad scientist fellow attempts to explain his latest party trick and guests are then encouraged to do quick dance under the disco balls before boarding the ride itself. It’s fairly standard haunted swing fare from there, the satisfying sensation of illusion that comes with the eyes not agreeing with what the body feels. It’s still a genius trick that I admire greatly, though it seems there are only so many ways the story can be told by now. I was reminded of how refreshing the version at Parc Astérix was and I’d love to see another park think outside the box a little more with how they use this hardware one day.

With actual queuetimes not reflecting what was advertised by this point, we opted to try (and fail) to beat the system with logic instead and head for the new for 2021 attraction, Flight of the Sky Lion, in the hopes that the initial rush had died down. The queue itself is rather less pleasant than the Haunted House with its outdoor soft floor, instead being endless switchbacks of tall plastic screening broken up by a single wall of empty trays and lego boards to serve as an unfortunate reminder of the ongoing situation.

At long last we were batched into the preshow area, to be greeted by an amusing door that allows guests to ‘skip the ride and exit’ after an hour and a half of torturous waiting, along with some screens that set the scene. This UK’s first Flying Theatre is part of a whole new land called Mythica, a place in which all Lego sets can come to life, with a particular focus on imaginative creature builds. Maximus the Sky Lion wants to take us on an adventure through this land and, of course, mild peril may ensue along the way.

It’s then time to board the suspended, single file, 10-seat-across pods that act as your flight vehicle for the ride. Though it’s a first for the UK I no longer have enough fingers to count how many flying theatres I’ve already encountered and I have grown a little tired of the concept. Luckily, with this being a fantasy based adventure, it was a completely refreshing experience and one that reminded me of other motion simulator attractions in the way that the vehicle movements juddered and responded to activity on screen, as opposed to gently tilting to the left and right whilst ‘soaring’ over some landmarks (every, single other one I’ve done so far). I rather liked this one and it just goes to show that there’s still hope for the ride type yet.

I’m guessing some recent rain had put most people off the idea of the rapids, so we took the opportunity of a 10 minute queue to get reacquainted with an old friend Viking River Splash. I’ve always enjoyed the excessive violence on this ride, it collides with the walls far too hard in certain places and generally gives an above average rapids experience. Sadly most of the other water effects are turned off these days for what I’m led to believe are safety reasons.

Suddenly we were on a roll, the new for 2020 cred #1 DUPLO Dino Coaster was basically a walk on after having been reported at some ridiculous queuetimes earlier in the day. The ride hardware is about as +1 as you can get, though the theming is of course higher than the usual standard for this scale of attraction. One thing I noted was that the audio doesnt follow the entire layout – if the dinosaur you’re riding is supposed to be the one making all the “wahey” noises, then it sounds a bit strange onboard because this only projects from the far end of the layout, even though there are speakers available throughout the lift hill (the ones used for other audio in the introductory lap). Basically it sounds better off-ride. Am I overthinking a children’s coaster? Yes.

Would have felt rude not to give the nearby Fairy Tale Brook a go for old times sake, particularly as didn’t seem to be garnering much attention from other guests amongst all the latest and greatest. Can’t go wrong with the simple elegance of a storybook boat ride (other than when the boats happen to be full of water).

The Atlantis submarine attraction has undergone a retheme into Deep Sea Adventure since I last visited. I didn’t really care for the ride before, it’s a cool concept that’s rather underwhelming as a visual spectacle, nothing more than a good sit down. I didn’t notice any real difference here other than the building exterior, though I’m guessing the narration had changed as well. It still has that same issue of announcing “wow, look now, we’re in Atlantis” when there’s really nothing wow about the moment, and then it ends.

Also Poseidon has lost his trident.

Ninjago The Ride has been kicking around here for a few years now, though I never found the need to come and try it after experiencing the Legoland Billund equivalent prior to this ones existence. I did always like these for the sights and sounds, it’s a solid enough dark ride attraction in its own right. The interactive part – shooting by flailing your arms like a ninja as opposed to with a gun is a fascinating concept but rather difficult to get the hang of (for some at least, myself included). I always try many techniques and inevitably end up shooting directly into the floor or straight up into the sky, never inbetween. Sometimes it’s better to just sit and watch.

Which is what I chose to do for Laser Raiders. This Windsor version is more advanced in the layout (not difficult) and theming department than many of it’s worldwide counterparts so I thought I’d take the opportunity to soak that up a bit. One thing I noted is the presence of some cartoon mice at the bottom of some walls, in the cracks, mice that don’t seem to fit the theme or even the concept of Lego one bit. Strange.

Of course we had to ride the other classics before the day was out. The Dragon holds fond memories for me as my first ever rollercoaster, even though the truth behind that sentiment was shattered by a Wacky Worm I don’t recall at all. The dark ride section at the start was in surprisingly good shape, with the Dragon himself being all in one piece and operating fully as far as I could tell – haven’t seen him that way for a long time. The outdoor section with its over abundance of lift hills is always a laugh and a welcome change from any of the other stock model equivalents used these days.

Spinning Spider can easily become the most intense ride in the park at the hands of the right individuals. I could potentially attribute my yearning for strong forces and violent attractions to taking multiple laps on this as a 6 year old whilst my Dad relentlessly cranked out a dangerously fast spin. We channeled that spirit again of course and by means of taking turns probably hit about 50% of his output back in the day – still felt like too much.

All that was left now before the park closure announcement was to spend some time in Miniland. Here’s a photo dump.

They’ve added a few new areas recently to cover some further reaches of the globe as well as some easter eggs based on the new Mythica stuff. It was an educational experience, as I now know to look out for that giant arch that I’d never heard of before, if I ever make it to St. Louis this century.

Overall it was a solid visit and probably my favourite UK park so far this year. I expected grim things based given the more recent reputation for excessive crowding and poor value days out, but they seem to have reached a crucial tipping point at which there’s more now than enough major attractions to disperse the numbers fairly effectively and it’s actually a far more decent lineup than I ever give it credit for these days.
Your move Alton.

Cred Hunting 06/21 – North Somerset & South Wales

Weston-super-Mare, the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve visited the Funland park three times already since they came on the radar back in 2018, picking up 4 creds along the way. They’ve got a very high rotation rate of new rides and sure enough for this year again, it was out with the old and in with the new – 2 coasters gone, 3 more in their place.

An unpleasantly early Sunday morning start got us to a nearby multi-storey car park just as the rides were due to open, where we spent far too long attempting to pay for parking via apps, websites, texts and phonecalls as, although this is the 21st century, card payments were not an option.

Funland Theme Park

A quick lap of the establishment told us how many tokens would be required, some quick maths told us the most cost effective way of purchasing as the pricing changes with scale and then it was time for the day to begin in style.

The confidence with which we approached and boarded #1 Runaway Train, along with our having some shameless Liseberg apparel on display, appeared to have caught the eye of a local enthusiast who was also here for cred hunting reasons and took the opportunity to piggyback on the reduction in potential embarassment that comes with safety in numbers when riding such undersized creations. I had done one of these models before, but didn’t quite remember how limited it was when it came to the legroom department and the extortionate number of laps we then received was quite the endurance test for the knees.

Now that our mutual goals had been established, we headed for #2 €uro Coaster. Not the famed travelling Inverted wild mouse that’s a regular at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland, but rather a Zyklon Galaxi that’s toured through Asia as a tantalising glimpse into what quality of rides Europe has to offer. The shoulder restraints felt highly unnecessary for one of these, but it rode smooth like butter.

Last up was #3 Crazy Coaster the SBF Visa spinner (two loop edition) that brought back bittersweet memories of the trip that contained 4 of these bad boys. Summer 2020 feels like a lifetime ago.
It was upon his departure that it suddenly occured to me – that lone cred hunter from Bristol could have been the legendary Hixee of Coasterforce fame, and it turns out I was right. It’s a small world after all.

Pure cred hunting can lead to many oversights, one of which would be the Grand Pier just down the beach here that doesn’t have any rollercoasters. They’ve got a robot arm flat ride that they claim is the ‘smallest coaster in the UK’, but my imagination just can’t stretch that far. They do happen to have a dark ride though – another attraction I would never known about were it not for the DRdb.

The House of Horrors Ghost Train was due to open upon our arrival and has a big red ‘call attendant’ button on the entrance turnstyle. I expected it to be a setup to some form of jump scare but in actuality the staff member hadn’t actually arrived or even started the thing up yet.

The cars are unusual contraptions, sealing riders inside intimidating looking cages for that extra fear factor I guess, though I doubt this one could go too hard with the advertised ‘PG’ rating on the signage. This ghost train was far more detailed than the one from my previous excursion that I declared at the time to be the Wacky Worm of dark rides, though it was still pretty standard fare in the grand scheme of things.

Perhaps it’s the Vekoma Junior of the dark ride world.

As our itinerary for ride establishments was already halfway complete within the first hour and a half it seemed appropriate to do some general sightseeing of some things in the area I’d never before taken the time to visit. First up was Cheddar Gorge, just 30 minutes in from the coast, with some great natural scenery intersected by a winding road.

I do particularly enjoy tourist attractions that can be experienced entirely from within the comforts of one’s own car, and this was no exception.

Next was the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Though you can drive across it, it seemed more fitting to actually use our feet for this one and soak up some views, despite the ever increasing unpleasantness of the heat.

I’m just not used to sunlight (or the outdoors) any more.

After a leisurely late lunch we headed over a much bigger, though far less historically significant, bridge (the Severn crossing) and into Wales. I wasn’t keen on returning to Barry Island so soon after the travesty of my last visit (it got the job done at least), but I was the only one of the party who already had the Zyklon cred and then, yet again, I noticed that they had a ghost train.

Barry Island Pleasure(?) Park

The same police riot van was in place exactly as before, though disappointingly no youths were being bundled into it and I was unable to park (for free) knee deep in fish and chips on this occasion, instead getting stuck up a dead end of a road with several other cars and having to perform amazing reverse manoeuvres while dodging the general unsightliness of the surroundings.

Yet again it was in and out as fast as humanly possible, not helped by, in the 21st century, a token machine that declared it could accept ‘all major credit cards’ refusing to accept any of our major credit cards. With coins sufficiently distributed I took to the second Ghost Train of the day which appeared to have rather similar cars to that one in Mablethorpe from a few weeks ago. The layout was at least different inside, it lasted a bit longer and had somewhat more going on, though it wasn’t the most impressive of the day.

The final stop of the tour was Porthcawl, another place I had no particular desire to return to (a general feeling shared amongst all South Wales amusements it seems). It had at least been a couple more years since the last visit however and there was a far worthier prize on the cards. A shiny new Wacky Worm AND yet another Ghost Train.

Coney Beach Pleasure(?) Park

It appeared that disaster had struck as we entered the car park for this one, with Walibi Holland levels of queues and depravity attempting to merge into a single line and leave the premises for the day. It was too late to react, we’d made our bed as soon as we turned in. Looks like we’ll be sleeping here overnight.

They’ve added a queueline and ticket booths to the entrance here in what I assume was an attempt to alleviate the crowds. The rule appears to be that you have to pay to get in and walk around, though unless you walk up to the desk and actively channel what a great man once declared on a bench outside El Toro (‘I don’t like riiides’), you can just buy whatever tokens you need there and get in with those hassle free.

I was concerned at the sight of the decoration for this #4 Family Roller Coaster, that crude painting of the Ladybird from A Bug’s Life looks far too familiar and, not for the first time, I began to question the validity of this whole travelling, counting nonsense (still fun though). Subtle differences on deeper analysis at least, the one I recall was actually at the first park of this report, Funland, back in 2018, and didn’t have an op box, whereas this one does. It appears Güven Lunapark are knocking out these facades on a mass production scale and I, for one, welcome our new worm overlords.

This Ghost Train has been kicking around for an impressive number of years. The very open 4 seater cars must have had a few overhauls in that time.

It was dark, there was luminous paint, there were obnoxiously loud noises. There’s no real narrative or anything in the way of sensations to these, so I’m struggling to say anything much about them. I’d rank it middle of the three today.

There we go then, another +4 (and +3 on the ghost trains). I suffered for it though – still sunburnt, achey and bruised, clearly I need to warm my body back into these types of excursions, particularly if it ever comes to multiple days of it.
If that even happens this year…

Cred Hunting 05/21 – Lincolnshire

The road to Skegness could only ever be tolerated for the sake of creds and so with a potential +4 on the cards (pretty huge for the UK these days) we made the arduous journey up, far too early on a Saturday morning for what I’m used to these days – really need to get back into the swing of this business.

First stop of the day was Mablethorpe for their beachside funfair.

a.k.a. Dunes Leisure

There’s the beach.

And here’s the fun.
As I’ve now taken it upon myself to have a secondary counting obsession (dark rides), the first port of call was their Ghost Train. Foolishly anticipating cashless systems these days, we had arrived unprepared for such eventualities as “the card machine doesn’t work”, so this plan was immediately scuppered.

Tried our luck with #1 Roller Coaster the Wacky Worm in the interim where, after much tension and waving of technology through the air, the transaction went through. I was informed that “the back is the best row” (of course) and in jest that the Ghost Train operator “can’t even use a Microwave properly, say no more.”
Several glorious laps ensued, during which I took the time to observe the depth of the show building for the other ride (seemingly non-existent) and some donkey races on the beach.

I’d scraped together enough coinage to brave the Ghost Train alone and boarded in anticipation of a life changing experience. It was over in about 20 seconds, utilising no more than a handful of light up scary figures in each corner with the expected accompaniment of an overly loud noise. The building was impressively dark however, to the point of not seeing your hand in front of your face and there was a single effective scare with a mirror in which, for the briefest of moments, my brain couldn’t process what was happening and got spooked a little. Oh wait, it’s my face riding this thing. The most terrifying imagery of all.
Fair play to the operator, he was going for the classic jump scare at the exit too. Have to work with what you’ve got. I then contemplated for the first time such philosphical debates as – are low end attractions like this going to become the analogous +1s of the dark ride counting experience? Doing it for purely for the numbers and the entertainment of adventure, rather than the end result.
Probably, I decided, and I’m ok with that.

Fantasy Island

Some on the fly maths and geography dictated to us that the next stop on the trip would have to be Fantasy Island, and so we soon arrived at the familiar sight of surprisingly massive Vekomas in the middle of nowhere, except it wasn’t quite so familiar. That new Millenium paint job is… striking. At least you can tell them apart now, weather permitting.

The paint job of the new spinner, which resides in the prime parking lot coaster location, gave me vibes of Steel Curtain and the inevitable thought that I should have been riding that and a million other things next week instead of this but, you know… pandemic spite.

I count my blessings every day that I’ve already ridden Odyssey as it seems to be unavailable more often than not. Sure enough today the train is parked on the lift hill following a reported chain failure – that won’t be going anywhere for a while.

It potentially wasn’t worth it due to the pace at which the day was moving, but we had pre-booked wristbands for the wrong day – a last minute change of plans due to impending weather conditions had overruled proceedings and, thankfully, the staff were happy to swap the dates on the spot.

Headed straight back to the car park for the new and exciting stuff, beginning with #2 Family Roller Coaster, a second Wacky Worm on the bounce – I do like a bit of consecutive consistency in such matters and I wonder what the current record by anyone is for the most of these in a row.

The Maurer coaster #3 Spinning Racer is also from the travelling circuit, including certain visual clues such as the safety instructions inside the cars being written in German. True to form it was operating fairly efficiently and the layout is rather better than I remember from any previous iteration (somehow putting Laff Trakk in a building didn’t do it any favours), though the actual spinning was sporadic at best.

We had noticed on our way in and out of the indoor section that the queue for Millenium looked particularly grim, spilling well out of the entrance and into the surrounding area, as well as being complimented by plastic screening that looked straight out of a horror film – I don’t remember this one being great at the best of times.
Would have quite liked to get reacquainted with the ride but decided to pass on it. I like it, but not that much.

This sentiment was reaffirmed while we queued for a token lap on Rhombus Rocket and watched the single train despatch intervals for Millenium exceed 10 minutes. The powered coaster turned out to be a good decision as it was punching well above its weight, with some striking acceleration for one of these and there was a particularly violent transition that I have no recollection of, one that tried to cause serious injury for all parties involved.

The only other planned activities we had here were to revisit the two dark rides back indoors. Seaquarium was up first, with its simple circular boats and underwater scene theme. I never tire of the catchy soundtrack on this one, it’s an instant earworm.

Sadly Toucan Tours was also out of action for the day, so after a quick snap for the database it was time to hit the road again.

Lincoln Funfair

Final destination for the itinerary was a temporary fair in Lincoln (a second compelling reason to have changed this trip to the Saturday as this was their final day of operation). Cashflow issues arose again, getting in was fine with the token £1 entry fee on another card machine with signal issues. The operator for the Dragon however didn’t even own the necessary tools, resulting in the need for a quick trip to a nearby cashpoint, which the admissions staff were happy to let slide.

One tenner and many snacks later it was time for the final cred of the day, and what a way to end it, in helical powered #4 Dragon Coaster fashion. What can I say? It performed seven laps and I rather like the unpainted steel effect on this one.

4 new coasters by the end of the day then. Nothing spectacular among them of course, but what did you expect out of the cred hunting series?