Fantasy Island UK, Worst Theme Park in the World?

[martinb]

Right, where do I start?

 

Good points:

 

It has the best skyline of any park in the UK, closely followed by Thorpe Park.

 

It does have some excellent rides!

 

Bad points:

 

The staff are the rudest bunch of chavs you will ever meet, all complete with eyebrow piercings, burberry hats etc.

 

The big rides are never open, unless its busy.

 

The market, for gods sake, you either want a theme park or a market, you can't have both, it don't work!

 

Ride maintenance, does it exsist? Example, Fantasy Mouse purchased in 2000, have you seen what it looks like now? Its covered in mouldy green fungessy stuff, yuck! It used to be bright orange, now its two tone of rust and mould! And during the easter wekeend Absolutely Insane hadn't even been put back together following the closed season!

 

Jubilee Odyssey, alot of people hate this ride, I persnollay like it, I would just love it to be sold to another park, where it would be maintained well and looked after, then I think more people would like it!

 

**The Jubilee Odyssey train is currently stuck between the horse shoe turn & sidewinder, its been like that for nearly a week now, knowone has even gone near it!**

 

Paying system, big rides £4 each, the rest 60p tokens, average of 4 tokens per ride, how bad is that?

 

The greed form the owner! I know all theme parks are there to make money, but alot UK parks also think about their guests and what they want, but this one doesn't, I know he's invested alot into the park over the last few years, but have you noticed that big rides are starting to leave, G-Force went a few years ago, now the BIG wheel's going. My Dad knows of the owner of Fantasy Island, he told me hes not a nice person, apparantly he charges £10,000-£15,000 per market stall per year! And have you seen how many there are??? So for as long as hes in charge, the markets going knowhere!!

 

So does all this make it one of the worst parks in the world?

 

Like I said, it has some great rides, but they're not used to their full potenial, like they would be if they were at a "real" theme park

 

Rides I like: The Beast, Volcano, Jubilee Odyssey, Millenium Coaster, Techno Jump, Dragon Falls water slide, Absolutely Insane, but I would love to see all these rides re-located to other parks, preferably small UK parks like Pleasurewood Hills, Pleasure Island, Lightwater Valley etc!

 

Please tell me of your experiences of this so called "Britains No.1 themed resort?? If you don't have any experiences, your lucky, but feel free to comment!!

Nice skyline, & thats it for the good points!

Jubilee Odyssey train, just sitting there waiting for something to happen!

Absolutely Insane over the Easter weekend!

[philcoaster83]

The theme of this place is 'Chav'!

 

this place sucks.

 

The rides stink- the Queen should personally chop the head off of the designer of Jubilee Odessey, the most painfull ride in the world (and that includes Manhattan Express and White Canyon).

 

Actually having no head would be an advantage on this abomination.

 

Millennium coaster is so so.

 

But the view is horrid - caravan after caravan (read Trailer in american).

 

I never ever intend to visit there again as long as I live. I am so glad that Hastings doesn't have a coaster because that place is worse.

[martinb]

Jubilee Odessey, the most painfull ride in the world (and that includes Manhattan Express and White Canyon

 

Thast a bit over the top, I know its rough but its far from the roughest in the world, ME hurts when you go down hill in a straight direction, JO just hurts in the usuall SLC places, like I said above, I bet if JO was a nice little park and it was looked after a lot more, it would be liked a lot more, I bet you were in such a bad mood because you were in such a bad park so you then hated everything about it!

 

About the caravans, its not like they're pikies caravans, there holiday parks, its a very popular holiday destination is Skegness, one of Britains most popular, so its bound to have loads of Holiday Parks!

[Hicko]

So you make a post slating FI and now your defending it?

 

*Confused*

[martinb]

I'm not really defending it, I said in the begginning that JO would be liked alot more if it was a little park and was looked after!

 

And the caravans have nothing to do with FI, thats just the view you get from all the tall rides, I was just explaining that the caravans are holiday parks, not travellers!

 

I see where you are coming from though! But I'm honestly not defending it, its a bad bad park with some good rides which would be petter placed elsewhere!

[Guest]

Its been a while since I've been there, and I've not been to any parks outside the uk but its definetely the worst park I've been to in this country in terms of overall enjoyment.

 

For starters, its in a horrible location; the ultra flatness of Lincolnshire doesn't exactly make for an intriguing and magical setting and I'm no fan of Skegness and its charming locals at the best of times.

 

Then there's the rip off prices...this park would GREATLY benefit from wristbands considering it'd do good to be able to come up from the local holiday parks and just mill around for a day at your leisure instead of counting the pennies every time you want to ride. For something thats called a 'resort' its not exactly the kind of place you can feel relaxed in. On top of it all, last time I was there you couldn't use the normal tokens for the Millennium Coaster; you had to buy a special Millennium token at £4 a go..it just makes everything that little bit more awkward.

 

I have to admit I don't remember having much of a problem with the ride-ops attitude (I might have been wearing my rose-tinted specs again) but I wasn't best pleased at being locked into the restraints on MRC for 10 minutes while we waited for enough people to fill up the train. And for once I was actually annoyed that a ride cycle was too long...then again the ride in question was a scrambler and it was insanely fast...urgh.

 

Just to be fair the positive points about Fantasy Island are that MRC was fun and smooth (but a bit slow and plodding near the end) and Volcano was pretty breathtaking for the uninterrupted view of Lincolnshire you get at the top. I went the year before Jubilee Odyssey so I've not had the pleasure of riding it; it certainly looks fun anyway despite the bad reviews.

 

Unfortunately (what?! more negativity?) me and my friends quickly went through cash on only a few rides, so in the end we decided it was better value for money to go and brave the 'delights' of a Skegness pub...and to be honest that was the most thrilling white knuckle experience of the day.

[Shockwave]

Fantasy Island isn't really a theme park for a start. So on that basis, no. Topic dead and buried!

 

But I know what you're getting at. It hasn't got the best atmosphere of all the parks I've been to, and sadly rates way down on my list of least desirable parks along with Uncle Bernie's, and M&Ds in Scotland. The rides are very hard to miss as you approach. I'd like to say I like the skyline, I really would. But the closer you get, it just becomes a huge blob of Vekoma and S&S which God has sneezed onto the caravan sites that surround the park. Blackpool's skyline is great because it has some history to it. Fantasy Island's doesn't.

 

It has an arcade, a market, and a few rides alongside. So in that sense, it's a lot like Uncle Bernies. But unlike the Swap Shop, it has made an effort with some of its rides. The Millennium Coaster was one of the best Vekomas I've been on, The Beast was very good if you got an outside row seat, and I got an awesome spin going on Fantasy Mouse. I'd also give the maintenance crew some credit for fixing Fantasy Mouse despite the park's population of about 50 people.

 

The park is very expensive, I won't deny that fact. I've spent more here in an hour here than any other park I've been to - Disney included. But the one plus about the pricing structure is taht it puts a lot of people off riding, which quietens the rides down a lot. The park aren't too fuddy about filling the rides either. I rode Jubilee Oddysey twice with anyone else on board - there's more to come on this ride.

 

Despite the horror stories I've heard about the park's ride ops, I had no problems with the people who run the rides when I was there. I had good talk with the guy who was running Odyssey about the coaster itself, the park, and he gave me a free go on the ride. Which was nice. I also had a good chat with the guys running the S&S Thrill Shot, about how it worked, what the options were, etc etc.

 

Now onto Elissa's favourite coaster she has yet to try!

 

Jubilee Odyssey looks really impressive, but all that stops after you crest the lift. The Deja Vu restraints and the bouncy-bouncy wheel on track motion give a pretty bad ride. I was very lucky to get on the coaster at all considering all the problems it has. For those who aren't aware about the ride's ailments:

 

Originally, the park put in an application for a 265ft tall coaster, but this was rejected by the planning commision. After a reduced height of 165ft was granted, the ride was built, and subsequently championed by Andy Hine. But it began to have problems just weeks after it opened. It seemed that Vekoma had underestimated how strong the North Sea breeze is, and after the train completed the Cobra Roll, it would climb up to the 'Stall Turn', and it stalled. Only Vekoma could come up with a name like that!

 

Undeterred by the ride's serious problems in doing what it was built to do, wind shields were installed on various bits of the ride to try and maintain the train's speed. Of course, if you put these shields where the wind isn't doing its worst, then it doesn't really do much good. So, after several months of valleying, the stall turn (or LOL turn as I'm calling it now) was lowered, along with the sideloop (as I'm led to believe).

 

Then to cut a long story short, the owner of Fantasy Island wasn't best pleased that his new ride wasn't very good, and managed to get almost a lot of his money back from Vekoma. According to the ride's website at the time, the ride cost in the region of £28million, which I still don't believe is completely true. (For £28million the park could have bought Millennium Force twice.) So after the matter was settled, it was clear that the park and Vekoma were not going to be working together in the future, and the park's Hammerhead LOL (I mean Stall) was cancelled.

 

It's not a park that I would advise going to visit at the start of the year. Alton Towers and Parque de Attractiones have reminded me of the follies of early season visits. Combined with a ride as unreliable as Odyssey, you'd have more joy shooting yourself in the foot. But try it in late August when the weather is not windy, and it's not a bad place to spend an hour or two when it's quiet. And the parking is free after 6pm too.

[DerekRx]

I can't really say its a good park or a bad park, as my only visit there they decided to close the park early due to lack of crowds. Sounds like Knotts!

[martinb]

On the Millenuim Coaster I was waiting about 25 minutes for the train to fill up, but on the Odyssey I wasn't, it was dispatched straight away with only a few people on it??

 

I've never gone to FI to just visit there, I visit Skeggy a lot, and I always go to FI for a least an hour just to go on some rides, usually the Volcano, but I couldn't imagine how angry I would be if I travelled along way to just visit FI for the day, like I would Alton Towers!!

 

If you visit in August the Jubilee Odyssey will be open 99% guaranteed tp be open because its the summer holidays, but FI is open everyday of the week from the end of April to the end of September and I will guarantee you JO & MC will never be open during the week, and rarely be open at the weekends(unless its the school holuidays)

 

Fantasy Island claims to be one of Britains most popular Tourist Attractions, which has to be a lie(although the market is heaving with people in the summer)!

 

I'm also surprised that the Police haven't yet done anything about them conmen in the market, there about 3 stalls, one near the fantasy mouse, one near the 1st loop on MC and the other under the cobra roll of JO, they will take as much of money as they can, do not get sucked in to there conning ways, when they start selling there will be a group of people watching, go and watch and see for yourself how much they con people, but don't get sucked in!

[FlippyTrick09]

Dang it sounds like the park needs a new owner or someone needs to shut it down (but save the rides). There isn't any reason for a park to not keep up with their rides. If the man is so greedy, he should keep more maintnence on his rides so they would actually be up and running and not be muddy and stuff, so people will actually come and he could make more money. Its just so simple.

 

Another thing. The way you discribed the staff, I have never seen anything like them at anypark I've ever been too. The didn't have any facial peacrings or what ever kind of hats you were talking about. Yes, they may have been rude, but they were cleaned up.

 

Some one chould knock some sence into the owner of this park, because he is letting a really good park go. I'm sure if he just fixed some stuff, paint stuff, and get a new staff, he would see his attendance shoot up. Its just so simple.... Anyway I'm glad I got that off of my chest haha. Even though I've never been there I can tell that the park is bad. WEll Thats it for now- Mitchell

[martinb]

In a different thread about Fantasy Island, some bloke explained about one of the staff on The Millenium Coaster being drunk, and not bothering to check their harness, he wasn't too bothered about the harness not being checked becase he's an experienced coaster rider, but what if it had been a newbee to coasters?

 

The owner would make more money if provided wristbands for guests, I would be willing to pay £20 for wristband thats valid on ALL rides, when ALL the rides are open, which is rare!