Photo TR: My UK Trip

[australianalex]

I just recently got back from a 4 week holiday to the UK visiting family and friends. In between hugging relatives and being too embarrassed to talk to old friends, me and my Mum visited a total of 6 theme parks and I managed to ride a total of 28 coasters, bumping my count from 17 to 45.

Be aware that this is my first TR, so the captions are going to be a bit crap.

 

Park #1: Ocean Park, Hong Kong

 

The first park wasn't in the UK at all. On our layover in Hong Kong, we took a visit to Ocean Park. I really liked Ocean Park, it has a beautiful setting and some good rides. It seems a lot as been done since TPR's last visit to the park: there's a new entrance plaza, a new themed section and of course a new B&M.

Let's get started with the pics.

 

Welcome to Ocean Park!

The new entrance plaza was really cool and had a great atmosphere with plenty of music and entertainers around.

I think this part was new as well. It was themed as a classic Hong Kong marketplace.

Time to go to the rides! The infamous cable car of death was awesome and had a great view of the park entrance and the ocean.

Coming up the mountain we spotted something Swiss, yellow and awesome.

So naturally we headed to it first! Time to get our hair raised

Hair Raiser station pic. I really caught the girl in the third last row at an unfortunate time.

Hair Raiser was my first B&M so my opinion may be a bit biased, but I think it was great! Some decent intensity and even a bit of airtime. Sadly, the tiny insane looking hill before the Zero G Roll provided nothing more than a bit of floater air. The view was awesome though.

The Zero G Roll was a bit forceless to be honest. But I guess that's the hallmark for the newer B&M loopers.

Wait WTF? Is that guy in the second row flipping me the bird?

Whirly Bird was ok. The lever didn't make it swing side to side nearly as much as I'd expect from playing RCT3

New hotness opening later this year! Well, it's just a powered coaster. But still, WOO.

We spotted an Arrow Looper at the bottom the hill. Wanting to keep our skulls intact, we stayed away.

So we headed down the endless escalator of death to the park's third coaster.

Despite being a Zamperla, Minetrain was actually fairly good! Though a bit rough, it has great views and of course "the drop".

This is "the drop". It may not look like much, but in the back seat this drop provides crazy ejector airtime!

Wanting to escape the heat, we headed to Jellyfish Spectacular, which really was quite spectacular.

And then had lunch, which was also quite spectacular (at least for theme park food).

The view while eating was also spectacular.

We had a great day at Ocean Park! Next stop: Thorpe Park.

Edited July 13, 2012 by australianalex

[simon8899]

Wanting to keep our skulls intact, we stayed away.

 

CHICKEN!!!

[Intimidator305]

The view from up there is incredible.

 

Thanks for sharing. I can't wait for more!

[MeMeMe]

Oh come on, I've been visiting in the UK for a week and a half, and I STILL haven't gone to Thorpe Park. Apparently Alton Towers is out of the question...

[Jerrykoala2112]

Ocean Park looks incredible! I'm only saying that because I've never been to an Asian theme park, as they all look really fun! That 'drop' on the mine train looks absolutely crazy. I really hope I get a chance to ride that some day. HairRaiser looks alright, a tad boring, but a nice fit for the park. My only question is that do you have to take the gondolas to the ride area of the park? Entrance plaza is at the bottom of the hill, you take the gondolas to the top? Or are there rides all around the mountain?

 

Great pics BTW, can't wait to see the UK Trip!

[RoCo]

For the views alone, I must get every Ocean Park credit someday. Gorgeous.

[australianalex]

For the views alone, I must get every Ocean Park credit someday. Gorgeous.

It's a stunning park for sure. I'd love to go back, we weren't there for as long as we'd hoped due to the heat. I also ended up missing out on their S&S Drop Tower and Mondial Jet Force flat ride which both looked fun.

Ocean Park looks incredible! I'm only saying that because I've never been to an Asian theme park, as they all look really fun! That 'drop' on the mine train looks absolutely crazy. I really hope I get a chance to ride that some day. HairRaiser looks alright, a tad boring, but a nice fit for the park. My only question is that do you have to take the gondolas to the ride area of the park? Entrance plaza is at the bottom of the hill, you take the gondolas to the top? Or are there rides all around the mountain?

Most of the rides are at the top of the mountain and most of the animal exhibits are at the entrance plaza. You can either take the cable car or the monorail, though I recommend the cable car for the views. I recommend going to the cable car straight away though, as later in the day the queue for it gets absolutely horrendous as most people begin at the bottom before heading up.

 

Anyway, here's the next update. Sorry it took so long, my computer's been acting up a lot lately, making it very difficult to post pics without it freezing up and making me lose my work. Hopefully it's fixed now!

 

Park #2: Thorpe Park, Surrey

 

Thorpe Park was honestly my favorite park of the trip. I'm not sure why it gets such crap reviews: it has some great coasters, great flat rides, it's decently themed and the staff were generally quite friendly and efficient: probably the best staff of the trip, tied with Alton Towers. They seemed to run full capacity on all coasters, most of the time. However, I was extremely annoyed to find on my second visit that they were only running one train on the Swarm on a very busy day, causing a line that should've been around 30 minutes to become 90 minutes.

Anyway, enough bitching. Time for pics!

 

Welcome to Thope Park and welcome to Nemesis Inferno!

Nemesis Inferno was good fun. It was fairly intense and fast paced, and of course fantastically smooth.

Zero GEEEE!

For a small drop tower Detonator packs a huge punch! Really put a smile on my face.

The next coaster of the day was the Swarm. This was one of my favorite coasters of the trip. It's a very fun, graceful ride with some great theming. Sure, its not super intense, but its certainly not forceless.

Sadly this is the only real "near miss" on the ride.

Bet you've never seen this shot before.

Or this one.

Stealth was next, and Stealth kicked ass! Sure, it wasn't as good as Superman Escape but it was pretty damn awesome and its launch was insane!

This is Stealth. It goes fast.

"Hold on Shaniqua, we goin' down!"

Stealth also has some pretty awesome airtime right about here.

X:/ No Way Out was just... odd. It's basically just a backwards roller skater in the dark with some random midcourse pauses. I got off feeling violated.

Rush was awesome. Screamin' Swings are my new favorite flat ride! The overwhelming feeling of insecurity you get staring straight down with only a little lap bar keeping you on is awesome.

I have mixed feelings about Colossus. While it's an intense ride with an awesome finale, it hurts. A lot. Each time I rode, I came off clutching my head.

Over the airtimeless airtime hill.

Into pain

OwOwOwOwOwOw

Though the rest of the ride is hell, this part really makes the ride. The twists are smooth, intense and disorientating. Best coaster finale EVAR.

The final ride of the day was Saw. I was actually a bit nervous about riding Saw, partly due to the vertical lift but largely due to my fear of anything horror movie related. The idea of the indoor dark ride section made me feel a bit ill.

But it was awesome! In fact, it was my favorite ride in the park! I'm not sure why people hate it so much. It has good theming, it's drop is insane and it's fast paced and intense throughout. It even features some awesome pops of airtime. Sure, it's a little rough but it's nowhere near as bad as Colossus.

"Oh shi-!!!"

Airtime!

 

We had a fantastic two days at Thorpe Park. Next stop: Paulton's Park! Yay?

[larrygator]

Hello, are you going to finish this PTR?

 

I need a picture of Paulton Park's "Magma" for the Park Index.

[Ed Farmer]

 

 

Hooray for brand new B&M coasters that don't have the dip designed out.

[Midgetman82]

Cool TR, and great pictures. I've always wanted to travel to the UK someday and visit these parks.

 

Also you say that Superman: The Escape is better than Stealth. Do you mean the one at Six Flags Magic Mountain, or some other Superman ride?

[PKI Jizzman]

^Seeing that he's Australian, I'm 99.9% sure he's talking about Superman Escape in Movie World.

[Midgetman82]

Oops! Didn't see that! Yeah, that Superman coaster does look better than Stealth.

[australianalex]

^ Lol, yes I meant Superman Escape at Movieworld.

 

 

Here it is guys, I know you've all been waiting with baited breath.

 

Park #3: Paultons Park, New Forest

 

I did a day trip with my UK friend and his siblings to Paultons. Overall I'd say its a nice park. Its nicely landscaped, and would be perfect for young children. Obviously it's lacking in the thrill department, but it's perfect for the target audience.

 

Once we got to the park, we ran straight to Cobra, the park's Gerstlauer Bobsled.

After hearing rave reviews about these types of rides, I was excited. However, Cobra was a bit tame. I know it's meant to be a kid's coaster, but they could've let it run a little bit faster.

Especially over these "would-be" airtime hills that lacked any airtime.

But oh well, it's still a fun family coaster, and the helix after the switchbacks was actually fairly intense.

"The Edge" is just another Zamperla Disko, so I was expecting it to be a bit dull, and it was. What I wasn't expecting was for it to be rough! I was bouncing around throughout the ride, it was very odd.

Just for Larry - a crappy pic of Magma!

Magma was okay I guess. It only really dropped about 10ft at a time, but younger kids seemed to find it quite scary.

This thing was EVIL. The seats had no padding, which meant you were thrown into the side of the car and ran the risk of bursting your ribcage. So the only way to ride comfortably without cracking your ribs was to pull yourself to the other side, which was frankly a superhuman achievement.

Despite my hatred for water rides, my friend managed to drag me onto the park's log flume, complete with evil water cannons for people to take out their anger on innocent riders.

This is an unacceptable amount of wetness.

Our final ride before heading home was Stinger. Yay for being a credit whore!

 

We had a fun day at Paultons. Well, a fun two hours. After riding most of the "major" rides and re-riding Cobra a couple of times we were done.

Next stop: Oakwood Theme Park. Yay for sheep!

[caffeine_demon]

Our final ride before heading home was Stinger. Yay for being a credit whore!

 

You didn't ride flying frog and you still call yourself a credit whore??

[australianalex]

Haha I did consider riding it, but I didn't want to sink quite that low.

[australianalex]

Park #3: Oakwood Theme Park, Wales

 

I somehow managed to convince my mum to drive me out to Wales on our 4 day trip on the way up to Scotland to visit Oakwood Theme Park. I was looking forward to this park as it seemed to have two excellent coasters. It was overall a nice park with some pleasant landscaping, however it's really only a half day park, especially if every ride is a walk-on like they were on our trip.

 

Welcome to Oakwood!

I spy a Eurofighter

I'd heard great things about Speed, many call it the world's best Eurofighter. However I have to say I preferred Saw. Speed just didn't seem as intense, and had a very rough spot before the loop. However its airtime hill is INSANE.

This section is a headache. Literally.

The helix was quite intense.

I don't know if I'll ever get used to vertical lift hills.

I did forget to mention how awesome Speed's drop was, if not as awesome as Saw's.

The next coaster was Megafobia, my first "proper" woodie.

It was great - gave an out of control experience with plenty of airtime and laterals. However, while the front seat provides some "fun" roughness, the back seat just hurt, and actually gave me a headache. However the back seat also provided awesome airtime on the first drop.

Regardless of any roughness, Megafobia has a beautiful setting and is the real centrepiece of the park. And on the other side of the structure it has SHEEP!

Bounce was okay, I didn't know Huss made spaceshot type rides, but I have to say I prefer the S&S versions. The launch was okay, but there was no airtime and the drop from the top was very tame.

As awesome as it looked, I didn't try Drenched. Mainly because I hate water rides, and this one looked very wet.

Now THAT is steep.

 

Next stop is Alton Towers, home to my new No. 1 Coaster (doesn't take a genius to tell which one that'll be )

[downunder]

Great reports. Ocean Park is the only Asian Park I've been to. I went there when I was very young, and Dragon could possibly have been my first looping coaster.

 

I agree with you on Thorpe - they have some very good coasters I really liked: Saw, Colossus, Nemesis Inferno & Stealth, and I'm sure Swarm is very good too. X: No Way Out was more X: No Way In - they seemed to hold everyone in the outside queue, and when I finally got to the coaster there was no one there.

 

For me, Alton has one amazing coaster (I rode it at least 25 times on my visit), but I found everything else just okay at best - gorgeous park though.

[willh51]

That is an interesting new(?) paint job on the Arrow at Ocean Park, not sure I like it. Nice photos from all the parks, too. I remember some Travel Channel program talking about Megaphobia sharing a field with sheep or something.

[spinning man]

Next stop is Alton Towers, home to my new No. 1 Coaster (doesn't take a genius to tell which one that'll be )

 

Of course, the squirrel nutty ride. Good gracious, the Gs on that ride are intense.

 

Joking aside, I find it strange how I still haven't ridden Nemesis even though I live in England. But last time I went there, in 2010, I wasn't a proper coaster enthusiast. My mistake I guess.

[cfc]

X:/ No Way Out was just... odd. It's basically just a backwards roller skater in the dark with some random midcourse pauses. I got off feeling violated.

 

That is, pretty much, the X:/ experience--yet I find this ride endearing in its stupidity.

 

I'm not a big fan of Colossus, either.

[australianalex]

 

That is, pretty much, the X:/ experience--yet I find this ride endearing in its stupidity.

I agree, for some bizarre reason I wanted to jump right back on after I'd gotten off.

[caffeine_demon]

didn't you do the toboggan thingy then?

 

Or brer rabbit's burrow?

 

[australianalex]

^ Sorry to disapoint you, but no. I've ridden plenty of toboggan rides and I'm not a big fan of them. And I don't actually remember seeing the rabbit ride.

 

 

Park #5: Alton Towers, Staffordshire

 

Alton Towers is a fantastic park. They have a decent coaster collection (with one standout), beautiful theming and great landscaping. Unfortunately, despite being a weekday it was quite busy at the park. However we were lucky enough that we timed each ride correctly and only had to queue for 15 minutes for most rides. The longest we had to queue was 60 minutes for Thirteen, which was not worth it. At all. We didn't get to ride Nemesis Sub Terra due to it maintaining a 45 minute plus queue all day, but from reports of the ride it doesnt sound like I missed out on too much.

On to the pics. (Sorry if this update isn't that great, I was in a rush to get it done before school).

 

This is a MUCH better use of crappy Vekoma track than what it was originally intended for.

Welcome to what is probably the UK's prettiest park.

We started off on my most anticipated coaster of the trip - Nemesis!

Riding in the front seat I found Nemesis a little dissapointing. It was fun, but nowhere near as intense as I expected. However, a later ride in the back seat cast any doubt from my mind - Nemesis kicks ass!

I can confidently say that nobody else has ever taken this photo.

You really get whipped through the inversions.

This is where the Air Shop pump all their leftover rasberry slushie at the end of the day.

Ooh, artsy. Kinda.

Nemesis' neighbour, Air, was fun. It was my first flying coaster, so to me it was quite a unique experience.

If I found THIS fun, I can't wait to try Tatsu some day.

We caught the skycar to the Dark Forest to try Thirteen. Thirteen was cool, its drop element was very fun, and took me by surprise. The theming in the queue is very effective and the soundtrack very creepy. The outdoor coaster section was OK, but it would've been much better if it weren't for the TRIMBRAKES on the first drop. WTF Intamin?

Rita wasn't as good as I expected, it definitely didn't live up to Stealth or Superman Escape.

This launch felt fairly weak.

Airtime here? LOL, nope.

Oblivion was great. It had some great airtime and intensity on the drop, and the tunnel was very cool. I was also pleased to see very little lines for it due to it running SIX trains!

This is Oblivion. It goes down.

Yup...

Last ride of the day was Sonic Spinball. It was fun, but fairly uncomfortable and almost "scary" for some reason. I wasn't sure wether I loved it or hated it.

A puzzling end to an awesome day!

 

Final stop of the trip: Pleasure Beach Blackpool.

Edited July 24, 2012 by australianalex

[The49er]

You'd love Tatsu. I know I did...

[rubysparkles]

You'd love Tatsu. I know I did...

 

Air was my first flying coaster too, I loved it when I first went on it. After going on Manta (and Tatsu) though I was blown away. Same with going on Oblivion first, then getting to go on Sheikra/Griffon.