Divv3k

FANTASTIC Trip Report, Dave! I remember talking with you as you were planning all this out and how excited you were by it all. Glad to see you pulled it all off and had a great time! Universal Singapore really is an interesting looking place. It's just a shame that it looks like they've opened the place half-finished. I mean, I didn't even see any photos of that Back to the Future rapids ride you were so excited about! Thanks for posting. You should do more TRs in the future!

At the end of the day the park clearly just wasn't making money. Every time I visited the park it was absolutely dead. So whilst it looks like the owner is making excuses for closing the park, if the park was profitable it would stay open. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if it came out that more Scots visited Alton Towers than Loudoun Castle this year. To me, the biggest thing going against the park was the location, Loudoun Castle is quite far out the way for the majority of the Scottish population. I know I'm not the biggest M&Ds fan but that location they have right next to the motorway really works in it's favour. Not to mention that it's very close to Glasgow. One of the things that's occurred to me over the last few years is that Scotland has a very similar climate and population to a country like Denmark, which has some real kickass smallish parks which seem to be flourishing these days. Scotland for some reason can't even sustain one decent small park. - Divv "Sad but true" Walsh

This is a real shame. Loudoun was the only decent park in Scotland. Hopefully something can be done to save the park, or at the very least hopefully those good rides can find new homes!

Apologies Larry, here you go... Disco Fever!

Part Five: BREAN LEISURE PARK The last park of our weekend was Brean Leisure Park. Pretty much this is just a static carnival much in the same vein as M&Ds. Though the good thing about this place is well,it's not M&Ds! It's not a huge place but there's a decent selection of rides. It also is home to one of the best carnie ghost trains I've ever rode! I really couldn't believe how messed up Terror Castle was! Don't miss it if you're ever at the park! The park is getting a new coaster next year, but I've rode it before so I can't see me rushing back any time soon. But with that said, it is totally worth a short visit if you're nearby! Here's some photos... The final park of our little excursion out of Bristol is Brean Leisure Park! Oh yeah, we can’t forget to say “Hi Erik!” Okay, let’s get into “Fun City” and find some rides. WIPEOUT!!! Check out all my shiny little nuggets of golden token! Kiddie coaster number FOUR of the weekend! This isn’t just any kiddie coaster though… This coaster goes straight through Mickey’s UK retreat! iNerd! Wow, double-hander. Uh oh, looks like Brad’s got a Fudge tumour coming out his ass. Oh dear lord. This can’t be fun. At all. Amy clearly doesn’t understand what is about to happen. She looks WAY too happy! TPFear. Now that’s HOT! Scottish Steve rode this Ghost Train and LOVED it! Who are we kidding, we couldn’t get him near the thing! Probably a good thing too because he would have died. Seriously, this was one of the BEST ghost trains I’ve ever rode! Terror Castle is not your usual carnie-style ghost train. It really was messed up! Steve’s probably lucky he read the sign before we even got a chance to convince him to ride! OMG, Anth’s being “erased from existence” Back to the Future style! These guys rule when it comes to playing with balls. It’s only bloody Dave Wilson. Sooty managed to crap out a pretty panther-friendly TPBracelet. All the main characters from the Brean stable were out on display today! I’d try to write a caption for this photo but I’d probably make an arse of it. Best themed Kentucky Derby ever! Steve’s special, so special. Anth’s just checking into Wendy’s house. One credit to go, and it’s a good one. Everyone ready for a couple of minutes of Reverchon bliss? (What the hell is Steve doing to that stuffed toy?!) NO JAZZ HANDS!!! This one spun. I didn’t like it. TPDave is such a nerd that he had to update his coaster count on the exit platform! Random flat ride. UNSACTIONED TPExpression! The market right outside Fun City has some really choice items for sale. What’s this? New coaster? Anth seems pretty excited about this one. I wonder why? It’s Space Invader 2 from Blackpool! Pretty soon this thing will be enclosed with the world’s largest pineapple or something like that. Geeky “train on the grass” photo. Looks like it’s just about ready for a roof and some walls! Truth. California – Florida – Tokyo – Paris – Hong Kong – Brean. Well this was an awesome weekend! Thanks to all my Brit Crew cohorts who joined in the fun! Hope you enjoyed this trip report. Thanks for reading!

Well it wouldn't be a Brit Crew weekend without a little Wagamama and Reflex, would it?! Here we are at the Brit Crew's favourite chain restaurant in the UK - Wagamama!!! If you've never tried Wagamama before then you absolutely must! Go try it NOW!!! OMG, we're in TPFlat!!! TPRoom invasion! Yup, Bristol has a Reflex! Why else would we choose this city?! OMG, Anth's trying to squeeze one out on the dance floor! Bristol, meet The Rug. Hold on to that feeling!!! Steve's giving Bristol a huge eyeful of Rug tonight! Wrong chord, Steve. Unfortunately for Dave and Amy, they were NOT the best dancers in Reflex tonight. No, that honour goes to the weird, crazy guy who was hanging on the pole all night. Raz Ool! Words to live by! As always the Brit Crew had an absolute blast at Reflex! Another boozy night at Reflex comes to a close. Let's hope there aren't too many sore heads in the morning, as we're heading off to Brean!

Part Three: BARRY ISLAND So this was a park I knew pretty much nothing about. Other than the fact that RCDB said that it had a credit I knew it was a seaside park and nothing more. This was a real surreal park visit, we got tho the park and while it was totally open to the public as we walked up the midway we saw that pretty much every ride in the park had been abandoned and left to rot! Even crazier was that most of the rides weren't even boarded up or blocked off. You could walk up the entrance ramps and onto the loading bays if you wanted to. It was all a bit weird and pretty sad as some of the rides looked like they might have been pretty good in their day! Even weirder was this one corner of the park which had a few operating rides! So they let you walk through the abandoned portion of the park with all the cool looking rides only to let you walk to the crappy bit at the back with about three operating rides. Weird. I really am amazed this place is still open. I can't see it staying for long, so really I guess I should be glad I got to visit when I did! Photos probably tell the story better, so here you go... Okay so here we are at Barry Island. Looks quite nice and inviting, though a bit quiet… We're about to find that the words "Barry" and "Pleasure" don't really go well together! Oh look, a credit! But no, it’s closed… Well the entrance is open but there’s no one operating the ride… Looks like this one hasn’t operated in a while! Hold on everyone, I’ll operate this ride! It was just weird seeing a ride totally abandoned but without any kind of fencing or signs telling people to keep away! I mean I could have sat in the abandoned coaster if I’d wanted to! We actually had to restrain TPDave from pushing this car up the lifthill and riding it down himself! Just in case you ever need it, Larry! But wait, there ARE rides operating at Barry Island! This one looks a bit too grown up and mature for us. THIS is more our level! Yup we went all the way to the semi-abandoned amusement park and whored the place! Here’s the best part - it took two ride ops to STOP the ride at the end!!! These guys were just hammering and nailing the rotor the whole time we were there. They may have been employees or may just have been stripping it down for parts, I’m not quite sure. Well that’s all the operating rides covered, back to the abandoned ones! It's a closed and abandoned ghost train. Steve thinks they should all be like this! Cute AND depressing! This was about as stringent as the security around the abandoned stuff got. The rope didn’t even encompass the entire area that had crap in it! Dave’s pretty upset that the tow boat ride that he enjoyed as a kid is now all gone. Either that or he just saw a busted lamppost. Looks like some hobo’s set up a home in the old dark ride! Can you blame them? It looks like quite a safe home that even comes with an alligator and a moat to protect you. The whole place pretty much abandoned apart from that one corner. I don’t understand why they keep this part open to the public! These guys all picked the pink elephant log to pose in! Is anyone surprised? Looks like the log flume has seen better days. Anth’s got his two tickets and is ready to ride! Maybe not today, Anth! Like the coaster, the Log Flume entrance was open and you could just walk up the entrance and down to the loading platform. Okay, which one fills the trough? If you ever you forget where you are in the UK, just check the teacup. That’ll be an abandoned TV then. It was pretty freaky just walking around the abandoned place. Again, I don’t understand why they haven’t closed all this off! Cheer up guys, there’s still a food stall open! Freakiest Thomas ever! I think this pretty much sums it all up. Maybe they’re just gonna leave it like this another ten years so they can have that big 100 year bash! Of course Barry Island Pleasure Park only existed in the first palce because of the lovely, lovely beach next to it! There’s something very “TPR” about the bins here! Hi Erik! This summer’s number seller. Dave loves to play with Smelly Fun Balls! Okay guys, stop being emo, we’re gonna go drinking soon! Dave Fudge tries so hard to look hard but he still comes across as totally camp! Bye bye Barry Island! I look forward to reading the news report of 100 refugees found living in a Haunted Mine in South Wales. Boozy Reflex fun is up next!

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the comments. I wish you'd come up and said hey! Cool stalker photo though! Larry, I think we jumped the shark a LONG time ago! --- Part Two CONEY BEACH Seeing as there was no Crystal Maze for us to enjoy after our time in Oakwood we decided to take advantage of being on Wales' South coast and whore up some really ghetto parks. The first park was the infamous-on-TPR Coney Beach. Sadly there's only one kiddie coaster here now since the Pinfari Death Looper was removed but there's still plenty of ghetto death to go around (well there's a powered coaster too which we didn't ride, but I hear you don't even have to ride that one to count the credt. Right, Big Mike? ). I'm not sure I can say much more about this glorious, glorious place. here's the photos... Brace yourselves! We’ve arrived at one of TPR’s favourite ghetto, ghetto parks – Coney Beach!!! Hey, hey it's Hooka Anth! Whatever you do, don’t pull Scottish Steve’s finger. You WILL end up looking like Stewie. OMG, new attraction alert!!! I guess we;'ll need to plan another big Brit Crew weekend for next year! Dave’s got his cash ready to use Coney Beach’s state of the art lavatory facilities. Let’s check out Mega Blitz, the park’s Pinfari looper… Wow, this might be my favourite Pinfari looper ever! I’d say that this coaster has seen better days but I’m not entirely sure that would be true! Dave bought enough tokens so that he wouldn’t have to leave Coney Beach ever, ever again. OMG, it’s Nessie!!! It's only (another) sad and pathetic Brit Crew takeover! I think we’re on course for the most creepy and disturbing Brit Crew excursion yet! We tried to get in the funhouse but the op feared that we might trample all the kiddies. That was WAY more responsibility than I was ever expecting from this place! Dave’s a bit apprehensive about Coney Beach’s super scary ghost train. DEATH RIDE!!! Seriously Steve, you’d have loved this guy! "The naked monster only had one boob, but it was THIS big!" Coney Beach also has a VERY high quality haunted walkthrough! I could have swore I saw at least one of these guys at East Coast Bash. TPEmo. Yes, Dave. They’re hot. But they’re just paintings, and you’re engaged. Dodgem takeover! Mmmmmmm… Coney Beach cuisine! You won’t have to eat again for the rest of the weekend! Anth’s all about the baby love. Phew… It’s good to see that the Welsh seaside resorts are booming! With questionable seafood in hand we’re heading out of Coney Beach to somewhere which is, believe it or not, even MORE ghetto! The awe-inspiring Barry Island report will be up later!

Hi everyone! It's been a few months since I've been able to do a proper "Brit Crew update" so I'm happy to bring this totally biased and inaccurate telling of events of our recent weekend based out of Bristol. Originally this trip was planned as a journey to visit the Crystal Maze before it closed, but alas we were too late and it closed about a week after TPR visited in June. But still, we'd put together the framework of a good weekend and all we really wanted to do was get drunk so we went anyway! UPDATES: Part 1: OAKWOOD (Below) Part 2: CONEY BEACH Part 3: BARRY ISLAND Part 4: REFLEX! Part 5: BREAN LEISURE PARK My only previous visit to Oakwood was in 2008 when I found a really nice park with not a lot of people. That opinion really hasn't changed since this visit. They have two great coasters in Megafobia and Speed as well as a few other quirky attractions that make for quite a unique day. Now, if only this place was closer I'd visit more often! Here's the photos... Hello Oakwood! You're a lot brighter than my last visit! Here’s today’s heroic cast of Brit Crew characters who made the long journey to the south of Wales! There can only be one first stop at Oakwood – The Magician! Or Megafobia if the magician isn't around... Stop blocking out the sun, Anth! Megafobia was running really good today. Even better than my last visit in 2008! Megafobia will definitely move up a few spots in my rankings this year. While it’s not an amazing woodie by any means I can imagine there must have been an incredible ride in there when it first opened. Wow, Anth looks super excited for some Euro-fighter action! I’m pleased to report that Speed is STILL my favourite Euro-fighter in the world! Loopy, loop, loop, loop, loop. Aah, the rug is trying to escape! Sadly, the “Tea Trays”, one of Oakwood’s best attractions were closed today. You’ll just have to make do with the waterslide of death, Mr. Fudge! Everyone ready to frolic amongst the treetops? Good! Apparently iPhone is the official mobile phone of the Brit Crew. Bow down to the phallic icon, Sir Campsalot! Does Scottish Steve prefer beavers or balls? We’re not really sure! Zebra attack! TPFail. This is quite possibly the filthiest example of credit whoring in Brit Crew history. We had to find a ride op in the kiddie area and ask him to operate the coaster! TPDave being the fun-loving arse that he is already had the credit and persuaded the op to send us round nine times. TPTit. We're sad. Pathetic too. Everyone but Dave Fudge was brave enough to go down this slide. Truth. Steve: No Limits. Yay, Alpine Slide! Hurry up, Steve. You don't want Anth to block you out too! Steve’s rug is going to become athe scariest part of the Spooky 3D attraction for today only. Woohoo, we're about to ride Brer Rabbit’s acid trip! The ride essentially tells the story of the night when some drunken Southern Englishman with a mohican haircut invaded the burrow and started the craziest party known to rabbits. This has to be one of the most messed up kid’s dark rides ever built! Say goodbye to TPiPhone… As it is now PPiPhone! Ah, Hydro. Surely none of our group were stupid enough to ride this today! You would certainly need an armageddon coat to withstand this... Well done guys, it's only a two hour drive back to Bristol! Now go hug TPDave! Entire group photo! Thanks for an awesome day guys! Oakwood was really good once again! Even for a Saturday the place was really quiet, which worked out really well for us! There's some Welsh credit whoring action to come later!

Amazing update, Dave! It needs to be June 2011 right now!!! Can't wait to hear your Japan stories in person real soon!

I'm not entirely sure what it is but I want a McDonald's Food Strap! Loving the TR, Dave! It's building my excitement for next year's TPR trip nicely!

Having a great time on the trip! So excited that "It's all about Bryan" Day is finally here - the real reason I signed up!

Fantastic photos of Europa Park, Eric! I'm so gutted I wasn't able to join you guys for this leg of the trip as it really is the most amazing park in Europe! Looking forward to the next installment!

TPBash! This was a really cool day. It was a mishmash of the last day of the TPR UK trip, the first day of the Europe trip and a few Brit Crew meetups were thrown in too. The Brit Crew had been talking about this day for a while in the preceding months and had lovingly dubbed it "TPBash" in honour of our number one, ultimate Thorpe Park fanboy. Now let me just say that I've visited Thorpe Park a lot. I used to live close to it and have visited it probably more times than any other park and I really am a bit jaded when it comes to Thorpe Park because it doesn't have that many rides that I actually like to ride! Add in numerous issues in the past about operations and clientele I don't always think upon my visits too fondly. Today was a total exception, without question this was the absolute best day at Thorpe Park I've ever had. I'm sure the ERT and Fast Tracks played a huge roll but the place had a really great vibe this day and it really was great spending it with so many friends and watching people see the park for the first time! I don't need to say too much about the rides, I'm sure if you go through my past TRs you can get my thoughts on them. But I will say that whilst I liked Saw when I rode it originally I thought it was even better today! Yeah, there's still that issue that plagues all Eurofighters where the recently rehabbed cars run far better than the others but really Saw is probably my favourite ride at the park after Inferno. Okay, okay. Photos. I now present to you, TPBash... Today we’re at Thorpe Park for TPBash! We’re starting the morning off as the first riders of the day on Saw! But before any of that it’s time for Mike to CREAM UP!!! Saw in the morning without queuing is the best way to start any visit to Thorpe! GAME OVER! I have to say that Saw was running really good today. The ride really has grown on me quite a lot! It’s extra sizzly outside today so a normal cream up job just won’t do! Seems you can't put your hands anywhere in Thorpe without getting it stuck in a pile of syringes! New for 2010, just for Scottish Steve – The Saw Alive Horror Maze! I like it already! Whilst not the scariest walkthrough ever I got a real kick walking through all those different scenes from the movies! I really did like it! Rivers? Where we're going, we don't need rivers! Looks like Mike’s suffering an inconvenience. Hey look, it’s Scottish Lou! I think Lou might be making a joke that pertains to Russ’s height. Is it too soon for Fabbri-tower-related captions? I think TP may be sizing up a scare-Steve opportunity. WOW! That’s a lot of Fast Tracks! Thanks to Robb and Elissa we didn’t have to wait for anything all day! Yup, we’re Fast Tracking it to the max! You’re doing it wrong! Nemesis Inferno remains my favourite coaster at Thorpe Park! It was running really good again today! I wasn’t going to post this. Then I looked at Larry. The Wizarding World comes to Thorpe Park for one day only! Nice! This actually makes X:\ WTF worth riding! (if only to satisfy your curiosity that it really is as messed up as you think it is!) Gotcha, Steve. Log Flume, getting eaten by the trees. The Lion Bar shake from this place was amazing! Thanks for putting in my order, Larry! OMG, in the bazillion or so visits to Thorpe Park I’ve made, this is the first time I’ve ever saw people on this beach!!! Both sides were open too! I still don’t understand why Thorpe don’t just get rid of this area but at least it’s existence was justified today! I better not say too much about this photo. All I will say is that it was totally worth getting whacked in the back of the head with an ice lolly. Thorpe has added this really cool new upcharge that lets friends beat the crap out each other! It’s basically a riff on Duel from Gladiators, very amusing to watch! It’s even funnier watching Scottish Steve get his arse kicked! Yep, Steve. You were pish. Oopsie!!! Better put some more coaster photos in… Is that enough coaster photos? I hope so! Truer words... As our day at Thorpe comes to a close we decide we should all go back in time one more time on the rapids! Fran joined us too! I almost forgot to mention that Beth met up with us today! I hadn’t seen Beth since the Midwest trip three years ago, it was really good to see you again Beth! It may be the evening but that doesn’t mean Mike can let up on the creaming up! How about a little Saw ERT to finish off TPBash? Works for me! Look at it being all… Eurofighter-y… Beth cherishes the extra special Fast Track she was given. Beth keeps it under her pillow and pets it every night. Brad happened to criticise one of the bathroom at Thorpe Park which resulted in the ultimate TPFanboy engaging in full-on attack mode! Oh dear… After an amazing day at Thorpe we got to make it even better with dinner (and lots of beer!) at Wagamama! Can anyone tell me what number this is? OMG, have you ever seen anything scarier in your life?!?! I don’t think Beth is gonna use her iPhone 4 ever again! I can’t let this TR pass without mentioning Andrew who was on his last full day in the UK today! It was amazing having Andrew over for those six months but man, how they flew by! Hope you get back here soon, Andrew! As for Thorpe Park, well I can honestly say this was the best day at the park I’ve ever had so a huge thank you to everyone who was involved! Thanks for reading!

I don't really understand this seeing as the park already has three water rides (one of them already being a rapids!). But hey, any ride that gets added to Thorpe helps spread out the people between more lines so it will be good for that at least!

Ah, so that's where that coaster ended up! Oh well, looks like I won't be getting a new credit next time I visit Holiday Park!

I wasn't going to post these but then I looked through them and thought there was some decent material for a TR here (actually just some opportunities to poke fun at Mike but I'll pad it out with a TR too). This was actually my first visit to Skegness (hereafter known only as The Skeg). But it wasn't through lack of trying to visit! I'd actually planned out visits to The Skeg three times before this visit and each time on the morning of the visit I'd call up the park and ask them if the SLC would be open that day. Every time the answer was no. So in steps TPR, and I figure if I'm ever going to get on the Giant SLC my best chance is with TPR and so I actually made the journey all the way to The Skeg. (It's not a nice journey!) Lo and behold the Giant SLC never opened and so no one on the trip got to ride. I'm taking the blame for this as the ride is obviously cursed when it comes to me. So I ahve to say sorry to everyone who didn't get to ride! You'll all be pleased to hear that I plan on never trying to get that credit again so I'm sure it'll run perfectly for all eternity! As for the rest of The Skeg. Well the less said, the better really. Fantasy Island itself is an absolute dive. It's actually just a load of markets that happen to have some rollercoasters and flat rides planted around. I will say that the other Vekoma coaster was very good though! Unbelievably smooth! The other park in The Skeg is Botton's Pleasure Beach. It's a far nicer place than Fantasy Island even if it is quite small. It really is just one of those typical seaside parks in the same vein as Great Yarmouth or Adventure Island. I really liked it! So whilst The Skeg didn't leave the greatest of impressions I really am glad I finally visited and got most of the credits. Even better I got to hang out with some great friends I hadn't seen in a while! (Although I still can't wash the last of that damn Skeg off me!) Okay, without any further ado I present to you, The Skeg. We’ve made it to The Skeg! The home of the market and scallywags. But before we go anywhere it’s time for Mike to CREAM UP!!! We start the morning out with some Millennium Coaster ERT. With it being a Vekoma everyone is preparing for the worst! But somehow this thing was SMOOTH!!! I mean REALLY smooth! Erik tells me that Arrow had nothing to do with this one. That must be it! Even the loop is smooth! Sadly, Jubilee Odyssey was not open on my fourth attempt at getting this credit. I will not be trying again! This coaster is dead to me! Fantasy Island take a really creative approach when it comes to naming their rides. It so simple too – you just take the ride type and add the word “Fantasy” before it and voila, your ride is named! But don’t forget – NO JAZZ HANDS!!! Ask Lou about how much she LOVES the Fantasy Mouse! Hi Larry. Hands up if you’re too fat for Bouncy Bouncy! Yes, Russ is tall. That’s the joke. Mike searches through Lou’s bag for his sunglasses whilst TPDave is actually wearing said sunglasses. It’s funny because it’s a joke at Mike’s expense. Does anyone want to ride with Craig? No? Sorry man! The Skeg is home to a number of these crazy flat rides that you wouldn’t get me on in a million years. I see a lot of regret on these faces! Now you may have thought that The Skeg and Fantasy Island is all about the rides, but you’d be wrong. The Skeg is about one thing only – THE MARKETS! Nice to see that the M&Ds empire isn’t just restricted to Scotland! Can I have some salad with my Fat Balls please? Wow, I think we may have just walked through a time portal into the 1980s! If one positive thing can be said about The Skeg, it’s that they make damn good cakes! Gotta love the markets in The Skeg, they cater for everyone. Cheese bags, they help ALL cheese say fresh longer! Anyone want to go get their picture taken with this evil looking owl? No, didn’t think so! Fantasy Island does have a dark ride, The Magical Seaquarium. (Larry, I think you need this sign!) It features tiny raft boats and other random sea-stuff. This is Bob the Lobster. He keeps his eyes in his binoculars. so that they stay dry After a horrendously long wait for our food we were finally able to make it out of the ghetto part of The Skeg! That’s right there’s a part of The Skeg that is not ghetto! (well not as ghetto as Fantasy Island at least!) And that part is Botton’s Pleasure Beach! Yes, that contraption up there is indeed an inverted Wacky Worm! The longer than normal benches allow for some very cosy threesomes! Yeah, it’s inverted! Don’t believe me? Then check the reflection in my sunglasses! This is the runaway train, except it didn’t so much “run away” as “meander slowly along”. Those Fudge brothers sure love to meander! Putting rollercoasters on top of arcades seems to be pretty popular at seaside parks these days. Don’t let Blackpool catch wind of this. They’d probably put up the arcade and “forget” to put the coaster back up! I’m liking this place a lot already! Little do we know but Rockin’ Roller is about to realign our insides! We see you, Wacky Worm! You’re next! Rockin’ Roller was my first experience with one of a Fabbri Wild Mouse. I can’t say I’m any more excited about these than I am about the Reverchon ones! It wouldn’t be a British park without a Wacky Worm now would it? And it wouldn’t be a proper visit unless there was a Brit Crew takeover of sad and pathetic proportions! Are you guys ready to have the beejesus spun out of you? I wouldn’t know for sure but this looked like the craziest waltzer I’ve ever seen! All that was missing was the crazy loud bass music! Scottish Steve, cover your eyes! Watch out, the Mad Hatter is ready to pounce! "Hello? Hello?" Random group photo! It was so great to meet up with so many old friends today and meet a few new ones! So with a Yorkie McFlurry in hand I’m getting the hell out of The Skeg, never to return! Thorpe Park is next!

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment! It really is appreciated! Chuck, I'm pretty sure if anyone on that ride had the munchies it was the Doc Brown puppet. Thanks Guy! I'm not 100% but I don't think U-571 is even that advanced! To me it seemed like they had a few garden hoses fed through the walls and turned them up full blast whilst shaking the structure a bit! Definitely a "unique" experience!

PART THREE: MOVIELAND STUDIOS Now this park I really didn't know much about at all. For some reason I expected some really ghetto place with not much to do. How wrong I was! This place was fantastic! Granted, some of the rides are knockoffs and I don't think the park has licenses for any of the IPs that they use but this place has really done a great job! The park looks really good and most of the rides have a unique Italian twist to them! The park's small size is quite deceiving - there's so much do here. In our time in the park our group left without even thinking about checking out the water park because there were so many things in the main park that we wanted to do! I just hope that no major movie studio tries to come down on this place because I get the feeling it could disappear really fast if that happened. This was a fantastic way to end my jaunt to Italy. I knew the company would be good, I just didn't expect the park to be as good as it was! The park certainly had a lot of character. A great place to spend my 26th birthday! The final park in Italy – Movieland Studios! I really didn’t know much about this place at all beforehand. But I really expected some small ghetto place for some reason. That couldn’t be further from the truth! This park was awesome!!! Welcome to Italian Police Academy. I admit I haven’t seen any of the movies so I don’t know for sure but it looks like the park just got a load of Italian actors to take the place of the ones from the movies and threw together their own simulator! This father and son combo can’t wait to experience the latest in simulator technology! This ride knows its limits. It simulates being a simulator! The ride itself is basically one square room with two rows of cars back to back and two big screens. Nothing fancy about this! We didn’t have time to do Terminator 5D. I’m holding out for 7D. But hey, Terminator 5D does have FOUNTAINS!!! ITALY HOT. Movieland Studios instantly became awesome to me at this moment. Do you ever find yourself wondering "What ever becomes of Larry's sleeves?" Well now you know. CAUTION: OVERLORD AT WORK. Yes, that is a shag-pile carpet affixed to each car on the OCK-TO-POOOSSS! "I have tiny useless arms AND a horrible, horrible rash on my stomach!" I think this one car and furry constituted the park’s opening parade. Brilliant! Hey, its Morgan, Melissa and Christine! Enjoying Troncosaurus? Brad’s doing his best to keep dad dry on Troncosaurus. Like every other log flume in Italy, Troncosaurus keeps you fairly dry. If only the same could be said for other rides at Movieland Studios! Thie Italians are apparently very trusting people. This is where people leave their bags when they go to ride the log flume! The bat-signal makes any theme park show better. The Horror House was one amazing haunted walkthrough! Probably one of the longest mazes I’ve ever done too – it seemed neverending! Time for a piece of Divvia! Movieland Studios bought this Intamin First Gen Drop Tower from Loudoun Castle in Scotland! The ride never made it to Scotland but I’m led to believe that Loudoun Castle did buy it and sell it on when they were denied planning permission. Though I’m sure if it did end up in Scotland it wouldn’t have been called “Hollywood Tower” or feature the Twilight Zone theme right before the drop! Yup, this park blatantly rips off anything and doesn’t care! I love it! Magma 2 is the park’s “Backstage Tour”… It might not look much in the photo but these vehicles absolutely bomb it down these narrow roads! It’s pretty scary! The backstage tour also takes you on a quick look at the lightsabre factory. FIRE! The drivers like to freak all the riders out by having extremely close calls with approaching vehicles. I don’t think you’d see anything like this in the UK! How the hell did I survive this ride?! The Dukes of Hazzard restaurant serves you fast food pizza. Just like in the TV show! Yup, I had pizza in Italy. How cultural of me! Though this one really just tasted like any theme park pizza! So I was reading the park map and saw “U-571 – Submarine Simulator”, I wondered to myself “how the hell would that even work?!” Let me try and expain... Well, first of all you get sent into this hangar type thing where water starts firing from below, I’m guessing we’re getting bombed or something! Then some dude starts shouting at us all to get into the submarine as fast as you can! We get in the submarine, and don’t these two look a bit nervous? Well they had no need to be! Renee and I on the other hand got near enough drowned! I have never got more wet on any ride in my life! I basically had a hose pointed at me for three minutes. Good thing we’re in Italy, where it’s hotter than the sun! So it might be gone from Universal, but Back to the Future lives on as a ride in Italy! Any park that shows clips from Back to the Future in the line gets the Divv stamp of approval! Yup, that’s a monorail train themed to a Delorean! Rail? Where we’re going we don’t need rail! The monorail takes you over part of the park and when it reaches certain attractions it stops next to these scenes where this creepy Doc Brown puppet explains what you’re seeing! It’s hilarious! Damn you for drowning me, U-571!!! I searched the gift shops but sadly could not find a Doc Brown puppet for purchase. I totally want one! The monorail gives you a good overview of the backstage tour. I’m guessing that’s why they called it Back to the Backstage. Apparently the piston holds. I didn’t bother with the powered kiddie, but they did a nice job with it in the Dino section! Sadly this Schwarzkopf goodness was not completed in time for our visit. I’ll just need to ride it when I come back to Italy for Gardaland’s new coaster. That’s if the park hasn’t been shut down by six different movie studios by then. Look mum – I saw Lake Garda! This photo goes back to the backstage of a photo TR! Bye bye Movieland Studios. I did not expect this place to be anywhere near as amazing as it was! I didn't even make it to the waterpark either! I could have easily spent an entire day here! Bye bye TPR tour bus! You're all awesome. Enjoy your trip to Germany! Hello Milan train station! Italy does have some really cool trains! Europe rocks! Yay for more Italian culture! Actually this was a very scientific experiment in which I proved to myself that Big Tasty with Bacon in Italy tastes exactly the same as Big Tasty with Bacon in the UK. Train station culture! Here I am at the door to the beautiful Ryanair plane. Sadly this is where Divv’s Italian Adventure ends! All three of the parks in Italy I visited completely blew my expectations out of the water! I loved them all! Better than the parks was the opportunity to spend time with some of the fantastic friends I’ve made through TPR over the years. I met some really amazing new people too! Thanks to everyone involved, I had an incredible tme, I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to join in the German fun! If you got to this point in the TR then thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

Elissa, I love that you're doing this thread! Totally agreed on Crystal Maze, I really am gutted to hear that it's going. Though it's a good thing that you guys are around to bring us that information as plans are now formulating for a Brit Crew weekend to say "farewell" to the Crystal Maze! Totally agreed on Thirteen, if you ignore the marketing and take it for what it is, it's a really fun ride. I just don't get why they marketed it the way they did. I was incredibly impressed with that Premier Inn, it was HUGE! I would absolutely stay there again some time. I'll need to see if we can work out a Brit Crew trip to Sipson Tandoori at the same time!

Thanks for all the nice comments! --- PART TWO: MIRABILANDIA The second park on the itinerary was Mirabilandia. I had been wanting to visit this park for a long time, mainly because of Katun they added iSpeed and the park just looked even more interesting! Thankfully the park lived up to my expectations! It might bot be as aesthetically pleasing as Gardaland but it sure does have better rides. And I'm not saying the park isn't aesthetically pleasing either because it really is a very nice looking park! Katun was the big attraction for me at this park, my expectations were high and wow, did it deliver! I'm not good at getting geeky and explaining in detail why I like certain coasters so much so let me just say that this is my favourite B&M invert after Nemesis. It's that good! iSpeed isn't to be forgotten about either! The coaster it' most comparable to is Maverick at Cedar Point, it's just as good too, probably a little better in my view! The rest of the park has a lot of cool attractions like a massive Ghost Train and a weird shooting dark ride themed to post-apocalyptic New York. This park also suffers from the Italian anomaly of water rides that don't get you wet! (Except for the Splash Battle, which was just awesome!) Here's the photos! Woohoo, we’re at Mirabilandia! How about some ERT on Katun to wake us up? Yes please! Katun ERT rocks! Yes, yes it does. Now follows some geeky photos of the best coaster in Italy! It's like Montu, but better! They don’t make B&Ms quite like this any more! We all got many rides in this morning! Katun has one of those vertical loop things. It works pretty well. Yes, I do believe that is a Stargate that the ride goes through at the end… Steve liked Mirabilandia so much that he tried to make love to it. I think this photo more or less writes its own caption. Mirabilandia are awesome and offer the amazing Q-Bot system! They call it V-pass and they basically just herd you straight to the front of any line as soon as you show up with your Q-Bot. We hardly waited more than a few minutes for anything all day! Time for some Intamin sexiness… Take Maverick, add a hint of Stealth and you basically have iSpeed. The result is one really, really good ride! Erik gave the Intamin ride thumbs up. Don’t tell his boss! That’s right, we didn’t have to wait in any lines to ride iSpeed! Enjoy this photo, because unlike my usual self I really failed at getting many good iSpeed photos. Sorry! Leprotto Express is the park’s kiddie coaster, they really put a lot of effort into theming this! The park goes specifically out of their way to tell you that whisky is prohibited on this ride. This makes me sad. Yes, we’re all whores. For a kiddie coaster, this was pretty good! It’s 11am – also known in Italy as beer o’clock. CAUTION: OVERLORD AT WORK. Mirabilandia have taken a very creative approach with their log flume and themed it to a Colorado car wash. Although, in what seems to be in Italain log flume tradition this one doesn’t get you very wet! Was still pretty cool though! With the absolute sweltering heat of Italy I felt the time was finally right for me to pop my Splash Battle cherry. I’m glad I did – it was awesome!!! I’m looking forward to a few more Splash Battles on the US trips this summer! This is the crazy, crazy L&T Wild Mouse with pretty much zero height restriction! I think it was KidTums approved! Ghostville was a bit of a weird Ghost Train it was very long and had big open sections rather than little narrow corridors. It was a little different at least. Everybody rode it. Well, almost everybody. Lou asked me to take a photo of this tree for Jon. So Jon, here you go. Please tell Lou more about this tree. Thanks. Watch the low ceilings. This is seconds after Scottish Steve whacked his head right off the rock! Southern Steve and Brad. Father and Son reunited at last. Looks like these two are going undercover any second. We were running out of time but thanks to the awesome V-Pass we were able to just jump onto the rapids as we passed by. It was wetter than Gardaland’s but still was weirdly dry for such a hot country! I wasn’t complaining this time though as we had a bus ride coming up! The awesome V-Pass also meant we just had enough time to squeeze in a quick visit to post-apocalyptic New York. Yup, it’s a pretty nice area but it’s strangely stuck out on its own at the edge of the park. Reset itself was pretty cool, but I didn’t bother shooting. There was enough to look at without concentrating on hitting the targets. NOT the TPR bus. Mirabilandia really exceeded my expectations! I expected Katun and iSpeed to be good, but really they were both GREAT! Add in an amazing Q-Bot system and its impossible not to have loads of fun at this place! The final update, Movieland Studios is next!

GASM was a piece of crap. I'm not sad to see it go! I'm hopeful that whatever gets put in its place will be a lot better!

The 2010 TPR Europe Trip visited Italy and well, I just happened to be there! This was very fortunate for me as I'd never been to Italy before and there's really no better way to visit a theme park than with TPR! UPDATES: Part 1: GARDALAND (Below) Part 2: MIRABILANDIA Part 3: MOVIELAND STUDIOS The base of operations whilst in Italy was the fantastic Gardaland hotel. Really, this place was right up there with the good Disney hotels! Onto Gardaland itself, on paper it doesn't look that amazing - an SLC, Vekoma looper, an S&S weird thing and a mine train being the coasters. But really, the park is really great. It looks fantastic and whilst the SLC and the S&S thing really aren't the best the other two coasters are actually quite good! The park also has some great dark rides in Ramses and I Corsari. Ramses is the park's shooting dark ride which finally brings together those two closely linked movie franchises: The Mummy and The Terminator. Yep, it's weird but it works somehow. I think you can put a Robot Skeleton Army in pretty much any ride and I'll be impressed! I Corsari is the Pirates rip off which is actually done really well. They have a section where you go through this foresty area with loads of mist that's just plain brilliant. Anyway, there's loads to do at Gardaland and it looks like next year there will be even more! I wonder what next year will bring! Onto the photos... TPR are in Italy! Gardaland welcomed our group with FREE BEER!!! Thanks Bruno! OMG, the TPMop has gotten completely out of control. I can't believe theItalians even let TPDave into the country with that! Scottish Steve likes his flakes frosted in the morning. They’re great! If only the car was moving right now. Does anyone know what park we’re at? Any ideas guys? What’s that I see through the trees? Oh dear. This SLC was pretty bad. Apart from the BONUS HELIX, which was inexplicably smooth (in comparison to the rest of the ride at least). Mammut is the newest coaster addition to Gardaland. It’s one of those very rare things you hardly ever hear about… A good Vekoma! Seriously, Mammut was excellent, especially at night. I wish Merlin had bought more than one of these for their parks! Hey, it’s the weird white Chewbacca dude. He kind of looks like me. Gardaland has one of these very cool “Flying Island” rides. I’d never done one before so I was quite intrigued by it. The island gives a fantastic view of not only the park but also Lake Garda itself. Everyone look at the cute little Intamin drop tower. Now reach out and touch it. Hmmm… That’s a very Big & Massive clearing of space over there! Ouch, I almost forgot about the SLC! Check out the BONUS HELIX in all its glory!!! Yay, for good Vekomas! Bet you just can’t wait for Larry’s TR for the other half of this photo, right? Look at me, I visited Lake Garda and even saw the lake. My mum will be so proud! ITALY HOT. How much for one of the gihugic jars of Nutella please? TPR, Gardaland and Bruno were able to help us out today with these fantastic Gardaland gift passes, they pretty much allowed us onto every coaster in the park without waiting! Sequoia Adventure, the park’s S&S Screamin’ Squirrel is certainly unique. But unique doesn’t always equal good! Could this be the most pointless rollercoaster ever built? Quite possibly! Oh dear lord, another Vekoma! This one wasn’t actually too bad. The new restraints on the trains made the ride far more tolerable! Almost good, but don't tell Erik I said that! This ride is absolutely Pinfari’s crowning achievement – the longest Wacky Worm in the world! Boy was this one wacky!!! ITALY HOT! Derek takes a second to confirm that he is in fact Jesus. Ramses! Or as it should be known – The Mummy: Rise of the Machines. Hey UK Apprentice fans – did you ever wonder what happened to Saira Khan? Well now you know – she’s doing the Ramses preshow! Random theming in the Ramses line. Ramses really was very good, even if I’m not a fan of shooting dark rides there was loads going on and the Robot Skeleton Army just kicked ass! Yo ho, yo ho, an Italian’s life for me! CAUTION: OVERLORD AT WORK. Yes Lou, we can see your Fantasy Bruise, it looks very painful. OMG, this could be the scariest thing I’ve seen since the TPMop! Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this before! Burning town at the end of the ride! Such a novel idea! In all seriousness, this was one of the better Pirates clones. We even rode again the next night because we liked it so much! Somehow I don’t think my personal Fantasy Kingdom would feature Tony the Tiger. But it would feature Peena Puu! There were loads of members of the Puu family in Fantasy Kingdom! In here lives a Vekoma Mad House, or as Gardaland likes to call it, a Magic House! As with all Vekoma Mad Houses this one was a lot of fun! (Don't tell Erik!) Don’t forget to buy your milkshakes on the way out! I wonder what Gardaland will Build & Manufacture here? Italian Lasagne – in Italy! How cultural of me! If you need to take a dump at Gardaland be prepared to squat! Rapids are important rides here, because you know – ITALY HOT! This is nowhere near enough bad enough a photo of Larry to include. I’m sorry. If Predator had sex with The Little Mermaid this is exactly what you would end up with. This is the amazing Gardaland hotel! It was really nice, right up there with Disney and those other amazing resorts in Europe! Everyone buy Piers drinks to thank him for circumcising TPDave’s head! Back to the park for some World of Color! World of Color wherever you look! Pretty! How the hell did I end up in Holiday World?! Good Vekoma. This is in the park’s American section. I look forward to seeing these guys in the flesh on the Middle-America trip! This was some mighty tasty park food! Anything with copious amounts of melted cheese with ham usually works for me! (Beer is good too!) Why is it that nearly every European log flume or rapids is themed to Colorado? What happens in Colorado that everyone wants to get in a boat and plummet to their deaths? Hello TPR people!!! This was a fun log flume, but like most of Gardaland’s water rides it doesn’t get you very wet! Yay, we get to see World of Color again! I better not finish this TR without mentioning the new for 2010, Inferis. It’s a haunted walkthrough that was pretty good, though I don’t remember encountering many actors. But I do like the fact that more parks are adopting year round haunt mazes! Gardaland definitely exceeded my expectations. Whilst it does lack a world class ride to set it apart, it does look fantastic and there really is a lot to do! I’m looking forward to seeing what happens here next year. Hopefully they’ll get that world class ride! Speaking of world class rides, Mirabilandia is next!

Since when did Divv hold the keys to the Brit Crew?! Dave Yeah, if that was the case no way TPDave would get in!

I'm gutted to hear about the Crystal Maze. I loved it in there! Although I have been amazed that it's continued to stay open all these years. Loving the updates so far! Looks like everyone is having fun! Not all of the British are down about the World Cup. Just the English. The Scottish are loving it so far!