PTR: Dickens World

[dubaidave]

Before reading this review, here are a few points to remember. I don’t usually do long text reviews of attractions, but I though this one deserved it. If you want to see the photos, you can jump straight to the next post and ignore all this waffle.

 

I had read several reviews of Dickens World, most were rather unfavorable, but hey, I was in the area and they had a boat ride and haunted house so I thought I would check it out. I had heard that they got very busy; there are stories about queuing round the block for 3 hours just to get in and queuing inside for 2 hours to get on the boat ride.

 

This in mind we arrived at, what was basically a large warehouse next to a factory outlet, shortly after 9.30.

 

There was no one there. AT 10 o’clock the large clock face on the outside of the buildi8ng opened up and a boat popped out and a long spiel was rendered to me and my parents, and a couple of other people walking past the car park. Around 10 15 they opened the doors and we trotted in. We were the first, and for a while, only people in.

You take a narrow and unthemed staircase up to the first floor, the whole of the ground floor is taken up with different shops. You then emerge into a very dark room. Before your eyes have chance to adjust you are accosted by a lady in Dickensian costume, wanting to take your photo. If you allow this the resulting flash does nothing to help your eyes adjust to your surroundings. You stumble, partially blinded onto a surprisingly well theme bridge. After pausing for a while you look into the main courtyard of Dickens world.

Now, before I go much further I must say the courtyard is extremely well themed. The facades of the buildings and the main square look very authentic, a lot of time and effort has obviously been spent to recreate Dickensian London.

 

As you make you way into the courtyard there are a few costumed characters strolling around. The sense of emersion in the courtyard is only broken by the modern coffee shop placed there. After taking in you surrounding for a while, and it is stunning, you need to look for some rides. I will try and review each attraction as we experienced them. The first job is to identify where the attractions are, not and easy job, there are signs that say boat ride, etc, but they don’t really seem to point anywhere.

 

Great Expectations Boat Ride ( Beware Spoilers)

 

Naturally this was the first place we visited, I had read of 2 hour lines for this ride and indeed as we entered we passed signs saying 2 hours wait form this point. The walk in is very well themed, somewhat reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean. We walked straight to the boat, result, to be greeted be 2 costumed characters, who seemed shocked to see us. They though the ride was not open yet, anyway, we jumped into a boat and, after a short delay for the empty boats in front to clear, we were off. The recreation of London sewers that I had read of was not all that bad, the water was clear, rather than the advertised brown, but the theming was rather good. A small boy is seen peeing in the corner and you enter the Folly Ditch Sewer. This is a nicely themed lift hill with some nice water sound effects in the background.

 

At the top you arrive at the much touted flight above the London Rooftops. This is where it starts to go a bit pear shaped. For some reason the ride is taken at an incredibly slow pace both in the water and on this conveyor. The conveyor takes you past some rooftops which are badly let down by a painted backdrop behind. There are some shenanigans with a line of washing that lifts out of your way as you, very slowly, move under it.

 

After this voyage you push though some ghost train style rubber doors and come to a halt. There is lots of flashes and an animatronics figure stands up and say something I cant remember. There are more flashes as the boat is turned 90 degrees and then you are sent down a backwards drop. Its not a bad drop, not Valhalla good, but OK. You reach the bottom and go through some docks with assorted vermin and then you come to a water wheel, remember you are still going backwards. There is some talk about not hitting the water wheel and you boat is turned a full 180 degrees and carries on its very slow course.

You carry on through the dock with some nicely themed shop fronts. And into a grave yard, again the grave yard is nicely themed but uneventful. You then pile into the back of stacked up boats whilst being introduced to characters from great expectations. These are in the form of static mannequins that are lit up in turn. Unfortunately, due to the backlog of boats in front of you you miss the last few.

Finally you are let off by a cheeky cockney chappy and let back into the main square again.

 

So, is it any good? Would I wait 2 hours to ride it? No is the simple answer, but to be fair to an attraction that has obviously spent a fortune on this ride, I will clarify.

 

First off, Due to the design of the boats, unless you sit in the front, you can hardly see anything. The backs of the seats are so high they totally obstruct your vision. Secondly, the ride is so damn slow. It takes around 8 minutes to complete the ride, excluding the backlog of boats. If there was lots to see this would be fine, but there is not much to see. I rode it 3 times and by the 3rd time was begging for it to end. I would guess that the reason it is so slow is that you would need to fel you got value for time if you had waited 2 hours to ride. Overall the themeing of the ride is stunning, let down by a couple of badly painted backdrops and a very very slow passage.

 

The Haunted Mansion

 

The map, amusingly calls this attraction the haunted man. I had read several reviews of this as well, it opened after the initial opening due to the, Dickens World quote, ground breaking special effects used inside.

 

You are welcomed by the, now customary, costumed character, I am sure she was someone form one of the books, but I had no idea. You are led into a very nicely themed entrance hall with peeling wall paper and a once grand staircase ahead of you. You are told to wait here, and we do, This is the biggest group we have seen here all day, maybe 10 people. We wait a while ad the costumed lady comes in and say we can go up the stairs. At the top of the stairs is a sparse corridor and we walk along, until, we see a glass room. We are told to wait here and our guide disappears. After a short time an animated man appears projected on the screen. Once this short projection is finished we wait and then assume we should walk on. After 2 more rooms like this, the one with scrooge is quite convincing as the projected figure sits on a real be in the room. The final room has a chair in at and the same costumed character appears sat on it and wishes us a good and says something about the terror following us home, then we are back in the square again.

 

Ok, this is an interesting one, because it was not opened when the press previews were done and because of phrases like, ground breaking special effects, and live actor interaction, everyone in our group was expecting more.

In Short the haunted house is rubbish, a complete waste of time. Yes the lobby is very well themed but, the fact that you are left alone to move form scene to scene on your own, means that any atmosphere is lost. The rooms themselves are quite well done but are far too long. You can also hear the next scene playing and the boat ride thundering down the drop behind you. The final room where the real life actor appears and talk to you could have been fantastic but it wasn’t. Most of our party had no idea who she was or that she was a live actor and what she said made no sense at all, something about the evil following us home. To call this attraction Haunted is a slur on even the cheapest haunted walk through.

 

 

Dothboys Hall

 

This was a school house, and when we walked in there was a costumed teacher asking questions about dickens books. On the desks were touch screens with a strange snake and ladders game with questions about Dickens book. Several of the screens didn’t work and we spent all of 2 minutes in there.

 

Peggottys Boathouse

 

This was touted as a start of the art 4D extravaganza. Again, the theming of the attraction was excellent. You were sat on church style benches and the show began. It was the story of Charles Dickens in Animated for. The 4D effect consisted of a drizzle of water and a fan blowing on you.

This was a totally wasted attraction. They could have done so much with the subject matter and the 4D experience; instead they chose a quite badly animated film with hardly any effects.

 

Apart from a children’s play area and a pub, the only other attraction was

 

Britannia Theatre

 

This is another attraction that did not open originally as there were problems with the state of the art animatronic effects. Indeed we had to wait nearly half an hour to get in, due to problems with the effects. In fact when we did get seated, strangely on temporary chairs and table, not theater style seating as you would expect, they had to call help just to get the doors closed.

 

The show itself was actually quite good. It was a mixture of animatronic effects and projections. The talking grave stones were quite good, as was the huge book that changed from drawings of the character to live action projections. Over all this was a show that would not have seemed out of place at, perhaps, the Magic Kingdom 10 years ago.

My only real criticism was, again, it was slightly long.

 

Something that deserves special mention is the show in the courtyard. Lots of buildup was given for this and, it turned out, to be a version of Oliver Twist, using the same costumed characters that wander around. For a very strange reason this was done by them miming to a pre recorded voice over track, very strange in that people kept missing their ques and at times it seemed like a badly dubbed movie. They were also short of actors, in fact when one of the characters was arrested, and the voice over said 2 policemen escorted him off, he actually handcuffed himself and dragged himself away.

 

So we are now at the end. Overall Dickens World is a place of total contrasts. The theming is magnificent, for an attraction that cost $123 million it does look amazing. However there is very little content once you are there. The boat ride is OK, the Haunted House is appalling and the Theatre show is quite good. Maybe if there were lots of people there and you had to do a lot of queuing it could take a while, but we were done by 12.30

 

I read somewhere that the staff are on rotation daily, so one day they could be on the cash desk and the next be playing a part in one of the plays. This seems a very strange concept but could account for the poor performances in the Oliver Twist play and the general lack of interest by most of the street actors.

 

Anyway, here are the photos.

[dubaidave]

Here, as promised are the photos, if you skipped my overly long review above, all you need to know is that Dickens World is Rubbish.

Please note, due to the very low light levels I have artificially enhanced a lot of the pics so the colors might be a bit funny.

If you do not sit in the front you cant see much at all

Ahead are characters from the novel

You are about to enter the graveyard

Bonus point for real fire.

Mind you don't hit that water wheel.

You are then sent backwards down a small drop

This bloke pops up and says something

This is the area that rotates the boat.

and an emergency exit

At the top you emerge onto the rooftops of old London

Can you spot the cunningly disguised lift hill?

We head off into the, surprisingly clear waters of London sewers

This is true if you are in the back of the boat

Lets head into the boat ride

Here are a few shots of the very well themed courtyard

You then move into the main courtyard

This is the view you see as you walk over the entry bridge

At 10 o clock this boat popped out

Thankfully we didn't have to Que around the block today

[dubaidave]

Part 2

You then emerge, blinking, into the daylight

And then it was over

They really love this projection on glass technique

Mr Dickens himself

The Animatronics were quite good

The britannia theatre was the last attraction

The 4D theatre is hardly worth a mention

This is one of the projection rooms

The Haunted House

Here was the condensed version of Oliver Twist

[RCFreak]

lol honestly that's the first I've heard of the place since it was announced howeevr long ago. I had no idea it was open already! Very nice pics, the place does look really well themed, and the attractions do look pretty pathetic. Thanks for sharing!

[krouvi]

It looks amazing. I really think it started as a great idea and now it is even better than whatI imagined. Even by looking at the photos I was getting into the stories and this dark feeling. The only "bad" thing I can think about is that many kids of nowadays don't read the great stories and don't care about it. However, many adults would love to visit this place.

Thanks for sharing.

[MattyD]

You've highlighted the main problems that the place has always had.

 

I only live about 10mins from Dickens World and work 5mins from it. I could probably take an hour for lunch and see all the attractions. There's simply not enough there, 10 out of 10 for theming but barely even 1 out of 10 for content!

 

You also have to take into account that people who are within an hours drive of Dickens World are also within an hours drive of Thorpe Park, Chessington, Legoland and these all offer far more attractions for your money and so people are far more likely to go there! If they had put it more attractions, maybe even a small rollercoaster or some more dark rides, maybe even a shooting dark ride themed around one of the books then more people would go.

 

The problem is it seems to have been set up more for education than entertainment whereas if they'd set it up with rides etc. that were both then more people would have been interested!

 

Thank you for the trip report Dave, it was nice to see an independant observer confirm my feelings about the place. Makes me feel less cynical!!!

 

Matt

[Emiroo]

Nice TR! I didn't know this place exisited.

 

BTW - Did they have any Dickens Cider?

[89James89]

Not to mention the actual boat ride has a exact copy in London Dungeon that also has a small drop ride and a kind of theartre thing with he moving chairs and all still around 1 hour away (I'm basing this on the fact that thorpe park is about 30 mins away form London so it may abe a bit further away).

 

Cheers

 

89James89

[dubaidave]

No Dickens Cider that day

 

I was thinking the same thing about London Dungeon. We went there the next day but the boat ride was down so missed that one.

[MattyD]

Not to mention the actual boat ride has a exact copy in London Dungeon

 

I'd completely forgotten about that! But again, you can get the same stuff elsewhere plus more, they really needed to have something really special or different if they wanted to pull in the crowds!

 

Matt

[dr.gumbo]

Thanks for the photo's. I always wondered what this place turned out like, mainly because I couldn't be bothered to find out myself. It a shame they didn't think the place through better.

 

Again, thanks for the photos.

[dandaman]

 

Does this remind anyone else of the Thomas the Tank Engine coaches, or am I the only one?

 

Dan "Why, yes, I did have a childhood" Smith

[kamikazewatermelon]

Wow. What a total flop for such a nicely themed place.

[krouvi]

When I come to think of it, maybe the target audience of this attraction are toursits who don't wish to spend an entire day in a park.

[ECZenith]

Dandaman... LMAO the first thing I thought of was the "troublesome trucks"

 

And then the second thing I thought when I saw the tombstones is that they kind o flook like bootleg Haunted Mansion singing statues.

 

There's a lot of nice theming on that boatride, I wonder if the place will expand someday, I can't see it as a place people will keep going back to again and again.

[brilinjo]

Nice TR! I didn't know this place exisited.

 

BTW - Did they have any Dickens Cider?

 

 

Humour, ar ar