[Photo TR: Non-German Tom's California Adventure]

Superb Tom! Been looking forward to this TR. What is it with you and super tiring long journeys? Before I read the caption on the blurry photo I guessed it was Vegas so it couldn't have been that turbulent!

 

Eagerly anticipating part two...

[PTR: Legoland CA, Knott's, DCA, and D-Land]

Good to see that Tom is in safe hands. Is it wrong that I'm jealous of someone being in California?

[Congrats to Robb and Elissa]

Just want to throw in my congratulations too. What a lucky kid to have you two as parents!

[TPR Hoodies are BACK!]

I guarantee you it's colder in Glasgow!

[Lost Schwarzkopf - BMRX comes to the UK?]

Camelot's closer to Southport (not by much). I think there may be a bit of truth to the rumour of closure. This is what it says on Camelot's website.

 

Contrary to rumours that we are closing, we intend to be very much open and offering a fantastic day out for many years to come!

 

The development plans recently announced by our owners, Prime Resorts, discussed the long term future of the site. However, whatever route is adopted, this is a long way off happening. As a result, it is very much business as usual, and we will still be here with all your favourite shows and attractions at fantastic prices for a good number of seasons yet. Indeed, talking of exciting developments, watch this space for the 2007 season, we're expecting a big, exciting new addition!

 

That's slightly different to what it said before. Seems that the park will keep going just now but things will need to pick up in the future or the park's condition will be reconsidered. Hope this new ride is a success and the park manages to pick up more ex-Southport custom.

[Lost Schwarzkopf - BMRX comes to the UK?]

Great to know that I'll be able to ride a Schwarzkopf at Camelot again. Hopefully this will be the big thing that rejuvenates this floundering park. I'm way more excited about this ride than I am about the SLC going to Blackpool.

[Photo TR: Liseberg 15/9/06]

So I’m not long back from my weekend in Gothenburg with Jo and we had a GREAT time. First off I should say that Gothenburg is a really nice city, very clean and very pleasant. We had great weather too. The only negative I can think of is the prices over there – it’s pretty expensive even compared to rip-off Britain.

 

On Friday we flew into Gothenburg City airport which until Ryanair started using it was not much of a passenger airport. It was quite amusing as when we got off the plane we were hoarded into what appeared to be a barn where the airport dudes reversed in the trolley with all the cases and everyone just had a free for all to get theirs. I’ve never seen anything like it. It appears that they are building some new things there and the departure bit of the airport is really small but actually looks “airporty”. From the airport we took a 20 minute bus ride to Gothenburg central station. We grabbed a quick McDonalds for lunch before setting off to find our hotel. It didn’t take long – Gothenburg isn’t very big so we found everything we wanted to do within walking distance.

 

We checked into our hotel – the Hotel Liseberg Heden. It was really nice although for some reason despite it being a double bed we were given single quilt covers.

 

After quickly checking out the hotel we headed a few minutes down the road to Liseberg. Since the park didn’t open til three we actually had to wait at the gates for about 15 minutes before the park opened. When the park opened we headed straight to Balder. No wait – we walked straight onto the front row. OMFG! It’s absolutely insane!!! Robb, Elissa and the rest of TPR didn’t exaggerate – this is the best coaster I’ve ever been on. The airtime is crazy. We rode it a fair few times over the weekend and I have to say that I found the back row even better. It’ll take something mighty to even come close to Balder in my eyes. I could go on forever about how amazing Balder is but words and pictures don’t do it justice at all. Just shows you that you don’t have to be the tallest or fastest anything to be the best.

 

We spent a while in the park with pretty much walk on conditions the whole time as matter of fact I think the only queues we waited in were the kiddie rides we did.

 

Kanonen’s good. Not amazing but good. I found it a bit rough in the back but had a really good ride in the front row with some good airtime over the top hat. Of the three Intamin accelerators I’ve ridden I’d rank it below Stealth and Rita but that’s not to say the ride isn’t good because I really enjoyed it.

 

Lisebergbanan was fun. I’m sure I remember someone describing it as a really fast mine train on crack and I’d pretty much agree with that. Lots of banked turns and a little airtime. Good use of the terrain, a solid coaster.

 

The rest of the park was fun too. Amazing rapids ride, the log flume was ok, shot and drop towers were pretty standard faire but gave you really good views. I also loved the observation tower it gives some breathtaking views. Special shout out to the Ice Bar too, despite it being the most expensive drink I’ve ever had it’s a really cool novelty and I’m glad I did it.

 

We went back to the park on the Saturday night to ride Balder in the dark and I have to say it’s probably the best coaster ride I’ve ever had. I love the way the light the ride at night. As a matter of fact I love the way they light the whole park at night.

 

Liseberg is really an awesome place and I expect I shall return really soon.

 

I have to thank Robb, Elissa and the rest of TPR for going to Liseberg in the first place and giving it such rave reviews. If it wasn’t for TPR I probably wouldn’t even have considered a trip to Liseberg for a long time.

 

Some photos now...

We had an amzing time at Liseberg. Thanks TPR for convincing me to go! Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Hardcore Superstar - that's what I came to Sweden for!!!

So's Lisebergbanan!

Yeah, Kanonen's lots of fun too.

It's Balder... Through Kanonen!

I've never felt anything like it!

The airtime is just so insane.

"The Ice Bar's really cool and all but let's ride Balder some more!"

Me and Jo enjoy some expensive, ice cold vodka cocktails.

Check me out in the fancy jacket!

After the UK add on trip photos we just HAD to check out the Ice Bar!

"Ah, Randolf, Robb's long lost metal statue relative!"

Exclusive, never before seen shot of Blader and Kanonen!

You also get a great look at Gothenburg city. Here's the Ullevi stadium which recently hosted the athletics championships.

YHere's the S&S twins.

The observation tower gives you a really cool look at the park.

You even get a great view of Lisebergbanan from the queue.

And here's the drop tower, again its all about the views from up there.

Shot Tower, pretty standard stuff, however the views you get from the tall rides in Liseberg are superb.

We rode the Flume Ride to complete the water ride collection.

Even if they did get my area a little moist.

I really enjoyed Liseberg's rapids.

What's more scary? Animatronic green bunnies or Divv looking like this?

Can't forget the kiddie credit!

How is it this is supposed to go? Oh yeah - "Hey Joe I'm about to ride Lisbergbanan!"

Here it is through the trees.

Kanonen was also lots of fun.

Yes Balder does kick this much ass!

Empty park + Balder = best theme park experience ever!

Yay we're at Liseberg!

Since it seems like the done thing around here I had a go at getting my head into the safe.

So this is our hotel. Hotel Liseberg Heden. Very nice.

It's a total free for all to get the cases. Maybe I'm not as well traveled as some others but I've never seen this before.

In the tiny airport there's no baggage carousels, this wee guy just drives the cases in!

[What Was The Last Coaster You Rode?]

Balder, back row, Saturday night at 9pm. Best ride on a coaster I've ever had.

[TPR Hoodies are BACK!]

Was in Gothenburg for some Balder action over the wekend but thats my order in now!

[Liseberg Photos]

Mmmm Liseberg. Such a great place to spend a day or two!

 

I'll be doing just that tomorrow! Can't wait! Photos are amazing - want to ride Balder NOW!

[What Was The Last Coaster You Rode?]

Last coaster for me was Crazy Train at Codona's, Aberdeen. Nothing to blow you away, but very fun for a Pinfari.

 

Next coaster will be Balder - can't wait!

[Photo TR: Codona's, Aberdeen - 9/9/06]

^ Yeah I'm pretty ill today too! Haven't been able to speak - probably a good thing for everyone else! You'll be glad its in the past now because thats the most daunting drive ever.

[Photo TR: Codona's, Aberdeen - 9/9/06]

Yesterday Tom and I hit up the northernmost park in the UK - Codona's in Aberdeen. This is a place I've wanted to visit for a while. Being one of only three parks in Scotland Tom and I was eager to complete the collection.

 

Poor Tom, he got up at the crack of dawn to drive from Manchester to Glasgow to pick me up only to get stuck in a horrendous traffic jam for about two hours after he'd got into Scotland. Traffic jams were to be a bit of a theme to the day as we ended up in quite a few as the day went on. So after about three and a half hours of travelling for me and well over seven hours of driving for Tom we finally got to Aberdeen. We parked in a pay and display which was about a ten minute walk from the park only to find to our horror that the park actually had a free car park. Shall be noted for next time, if there ever is one, which is probably unlikely unless a new coaster goes in.

 

The park itself was alright. Extremely small, but the park uses the space well cramming in quite a lot of rides into a tiny space. Codona’s is also home to one of those rarities that is the "rooftop coaster", yeah you Californians can brag about your parking lot coasters but how many on rooftops do you have?

 

The rooftop coaster - Looping Star, a Pinfari ZL42 - I suppose you could call it the park's star attraction was pretty much standard Pinfari faire. Wasn't too rough until after the loop when it seemed only too happy to remind me that rollercoasters in Scotland aren't generally supposed to be smooth. Safe to say that no re-ride was necessary. Next up was the Sad and pathetic credit aka Big Apple. More standard Pinfari kiddie faire with an added bump on the lift hill.

 

Final credit of the day was yet another Pinfari, a Mini Mega, first time on one of these and I have to say it was actually pretty good. It even had a bit of airtime. Nothing major but still there's not many Pinfaris that offer that. Definitely the best coaster in the park and one of the best in Scotland. I know that's not saying much but it really was quite good fun, well apart from the what we soon realised is the Codona’s standard "bump" on the lift hill. I don't know what it was but it was like the train was going over a rock or something on the same spot as it went up the lift hill. In the same place every time.

 

With the credits out the way, we checked out some of the other rides. Typical fairground stuff for the most part. An excellent giant slide (offering airtime and elbow bruises), an uneventful chair-o-plane (well it was called Shockwave meaning I had to get a photo of Tom with it) and a ghost train that was pretty standard fairground stuff too (except for Tom struggling to get his seatbelt on). We finished on the big wheel to get some photos of the place. They had one of those portable Log Flumes too but we gave it a miss not wanting to get wet.

 

As I said, the place was pretty small and I doubt I'll be rushing back any time soon, but it was a fun day and I'm glad I did it. As Tom noted the place was actually fairly modern looking. It was pretty clean too. A damn site better than the craptacular M&Ds.

 

After we finished with the park we wandered up to the main street in Aberdeen and grabbed a McDonalds. By this point Tom was pretty wiped out from the early rise and all the driving and was probably quite daunted from the pending drive home but he did well despite the glaring sun making its best effort to blind us.

 

Oh and on the way we noticed a sign for a place called "Battledykes"! Sadly I was too slow at getting my camera out in time to get a picture but I bet those dykes sure have a lot of fun.

We also saw what must be the world's loneliest McDonalds it's just sitting at the side of a road with nothing but fields around it (well there was a factory of some sort in the distance, bit it just looked so lonely).

 

All in all a fun if not long (longer for Tom) day.

 

Onto some photos.

We finish this trip report with a picture of the Worlds lonliest McDonalds. Seriously it was just out there in the middle of nowhere. Thanks for reading!

Just as we were leaving I noticed this. The Crazy Train is sponsred by food! Maybe it's a legal thing thet every park in the UK must have at least one food sponsored ride?

This is the park's quote of attractions. Not many but I still had fun.

I was intrigued by the red and white thing in the middle. Is that supposed to be theming?

Certain death awaits these poor individuals.

Here's the rooftop coaster. Looping Star.

Here's the Log Flume that we didn't ride. Themed with an elephant holding a log.

You could get a good view of the whole park from up here. here's the good Pinfari, airtime and all.

We finished up on the Grampian Eye.

Grr, I'm angry Ghost Train car! GIMME SOME CANDY!!!

Where it took Tom about a half hour to work out how to use a seat belt.

Next up was the Haunted Hosue ghost train thing.

Tom's too small to ride himself?

This guy didn't seem too happy to be in Aberdeen.

"Riding this many Pinfaris gives me a headache this big!"

With the coasters conquered we moved onto the slides! There's Tom flying down!

Tom braces himself for the worst. But it actually ended up being FUN!

Looks like it could be evil.

Next up - CRAZY TRAIN!!!

Tom's looking pretty sad and pathetic.

Time for a sad and pathetic credit.

Tom seems excited about this!

Makes sense. Fear for your life now!

Hmm, raised height restriction. I wonder what type of coaster this is?

Ooh, rooftop coaster!

Here we are at Codona's, free car park and all.

[Pleasureland Southport to Close FOREVER!]

Now for the news everyone was waiting to hear...

 

The Funhouse will remain OPEN!!! Ok so you'll need to travel to a parkless Southport to visit it but it's great to see what so many people have called the best part of Pleasureland stay alive.

 

Official announcement is on PLS's homepage: http://www.pleasureland.uk.com/

[Pleasureland Southport to Close FOREVER!]

I only visited Southport for the first time a few weeks ago, I'm really glad I did now! But really sad for all the locals losing their jobs and for the UK to be losing another park.

 

On the bright side Camelot have put a message up on their site denying rumours of their imminent closure and even saying they're added a big new attraction next year. Southport ride anyone?

 

Link: http://www.camelotthemepark.co.uk/planning_your_visit/20

[Photo TR: M&Ds Scotland's Theme Park]

Somehow I get the feeling that the elusive travelling Pinfari credit will be around for a while, from what I gather it’s been there most of the season. But with M&Ds you can never be sure as they’ll move any ride onto the travelling circuit without notice. It’s just like a Déjà vu - it might take 4 or 5 visits to the park to actually get the credit.

[Photo TR: M&Ds Scotland's Theme Park]

Believe it or not despite M&Ds being my local park up until today I only had one credit from this place. That credit being the Pinfari RC70 aka Tornado aka Death Machine. So having the day off due to me getting the English Bank Holiday instead of the Scottish one for some reason I figured the park would be dead today and I'd hopefully be able to get all my credits in and never have to return to this awful place again.

 

Despite being curious about how Tornado was running without its corkscrew (the corkscrew was removed this year and replaced with an S-bend) I decided I wasn't going to bother paying the money to ride that piece of crap and so only bought enough tokens so I could get the credits I needed.

 

Hit up the kiddie coaster first, well after playing a game of find a ride op. I managed to find about six of them huddled round one stall and the clearly were more interested in screaming at each other in Polish rather than talk to me. I thought I'd had my fill of Polish staff at the Pleasure Beach last weekend too. I eventually managed to communicate to one of them that I wanted to ride the kiddie coaster and eventually got on. Standard Big Apple - not much more to say about it.

 

Next I hit up the Pinfari RC40 aka Express. This is listed as retired on rcdb. It's been in the park all season from what I can tell. It was gone last year and was doing some travelling fairs. Anyway, why does this thing have over the shoulder restraints? I see no logic in them at all on this ride. Add to that I had to slouch down in the seat so that they'd come down this was a very uncomfortable ride for me. Still a credit nonetheless.

 

After that I went for what I thought would be my final ride in the park - Vortex the Pinfari Invert. I was actually surprised at how good this was, being a Pinfari I expected it to be as rough as hell but It was actually ok, nothing spectacular but I came off wondering why I wasn't in any pain at all. Best Pinfari I've been on. I also came off wondering why I still had tokens left in my pocket. I realised that the Vortex ride op hadn't taken any tokens from me. Instead of doing the honourable thing and going back to give the ride op the tokens that I clearly shouldn't have been in possession of I figured I may as well check out how the Death Machine was now running.

 

Ok, so I expected it to be hellish and it was. The S-bend isn't as rough as the corkscrew was but that doesn't make up for the rest of the ride rupturing your spleen and taking chunks out of your body. This is still for me the roughest coaster in existence. The restraints don't even clip down they're merely clipped on by a bit of seat belt. It's very disconcerting and frankly I've pretty much had my fill of M&Ds.

 

I also noticed that the Booster Maxx that had appeared there a few weeks ago is now gone in true M&Ds fashion.

 

Thankfully I was only there for half an hour and doubt that I will need to return. M&Ds the SFMM of Scotland.

Maybe I should have read the warning! They're not kidding! Thanks for reading!

The ride like the rest of the park - still sucks.

A final shot for the lift hill enthusiasts out there.

I'm still not looking forward to this.

Complete with swanky new S-bend!

Time for some white hot death!!!

My 50th coaster too.

Next up was the Pinfari Invert which was surprisingly good.

Mmm. Best part of M&Ds.

Got this UK credit Tom?

Here's one for all you lift hill enthusiasts. You know who you are!

Next up: Express - a Pinfari RC40 which makes occasional appearances at this park.

Find a ride op and you might just get to ride!

First credit of the day: Big Apple.

Here I am at M&Ds or as I like to call it: The Tragic Kingdom

[Photo TR: NGT and The Boy have a few drinks]

Fantastic guys! The bar for random trip reports has just been raised.

[S&S Sansei Discussion Thread]

Glad to hear S&S look to continue albeit under new management. Probably a good thing actually - hopefully this will eventually mean more reliable rides. To me reliability issues is probably the biggest reason they've gotten themselves into this position.

[What is the new ride Blackpool Pleasure Beach are getting?]

Signs for the new ride have started to go up. One is on the Promenade next to Coasters and the other is on the Turtle Chase site. Still no signs of construction. My money's still on a Mack watercoaster. I'm just happy to see something new going in - as long as it's NOT Traumatizer!

 

Here's a couple of pics of the new signs I took on Saturday.

Here's the one the Turtle Chase site. Sorry about the blurryness.

Here's the sign on the Promenade

[Photoshop Contest - Voting Time! Voting Ends Sunday!]

 

Any ideas for the next one?

 

--Robb

 

Design Bantron!

[Minor News: M&Ds removes a corkscrew from "Tornado']

I stopped by the park on Saturday and it was the busiest I had ever seen it. I was planning on taking a quick ride on Tornado to see how it rode but having only 15 minutes to spare in the park the queues didn’t allow me to ride anything in that short a time. Suffice to say people still looked to be in the usual substantial pain by the end of the ride. I also noticed that “Express” the Pinfari PC40 is back at the park which is good for me as I don’t have that credit yet. Hopefully I should have time to get back within the next week so I can pick up the Express credit and brave out Tornado – Redux.

[A videogame related Question to Robb]

^ Halo being the lone exception.

 

No love for GoldenEye?

[Photo TR: Theme Park Review goes to COMIC CON!!!!]

Best TR EVER!!! You should have totally bought the skull/turtle/camper and taken it all across the world on your travels!

[UK school holidays]

Just FYI the Scottish school holidays tend to be a bit earlier and start around June 30th running to mid-August. Not that any of the Scottish parks are super crowded anyway but we ARE in the UK.