Cred run mini-reports (general topic)

[Peet]

I thought it might make sense to have a general topic for us to report whatever dismal cred runs we've been doing to stave off the madness brought on by lack of creds.

I posted my Hastings trip in Last Cred Review topic here since I didn't think it was worth creating a new topic for, so that's the sort of thing I have in mind.

My lastest one was a brief stop-off at Dismaland Funland at Weston-Super-Mare which we kind of treated like a motorway service station off the M5.

The cred was "Euro Coaster" - yet another SBF MX49, identical to the ones at Barry and Clacton except this one has OTSRs (!).



It was fairly dull as you can imagine, OTSRs made it even worse than the others, although the views were pretty good.

The park/funfair is on the site of an old Lido which is fairly interesting, you can see a few remnants of the Lido like these coloured tiles:



It's a shame you can't get a better look as I find this kind of faded Victorian splendour quite interesting (I recently had a wander round the old Lido at Margate which is pretty fascinating in its own way).

It's the same site that was used for Banksy's "Dismaland" in 2015, which funnily enough was a sort of dystopian parody of this exact kind of attraction.

We had a very short wander on the beach:





Then we headed on down the M5. The 2 kiddie creds were both present and operating, but I didn't bother with them (bad goon?).

A couple of boring practical notes:
- The toilets outside cost 20p while the toilets inside are free and about 30 seconds walk from the 20p ones, so that's odd.
- There is parking right outside but you have to pay for the full day. Luckily it's free after 6pm and we arrived bang on 6.

 

[Hixee]

- There is parking right outside but you have to pay for the full day. Luckily it's free after 6pm and we arrived bang on 6.

As a 'somewhat' local, the trick to parking in Weston is to park on the roads that run perpendicular to the seafront, only a short walk from the beach and free. I've also only ever got there early, and parking wasn't too hard. Usually looks pretty grim once it gets to about midday. Admittedly never been for the evening slots...

 

[Peet]

In amongst all of these great trip reports from all over Europe and the USA, I bet what everyone really wants to read about is my trip to grab a +1 at Clacton-on-Sea, right?

Just in case I'm wrong, I'll keep it brief!

I'd "sold" it as a day at the seaside for me, wife and baby, but first order of business was of course the cred. I got spited by this back in 2013 in Aberdeen, it's always a nice feeling to resolve a spite.


The queue was painfully slow and took about 20 minutes in the end while wife and baby got ice cream. I really don't understand why these places where most people pay per ride don't seem to care about throughput. They should be absolutely maxxing-out the throughput on busy days like this to maximise their profit, but instead the staff were taking their time and enjoying the sunshine, so dispatches were about 5 minutes apart making for a staggering 144 passengers per hour. The separate offload/onload stations really didn't help here either, I don't see the point with single train rides like this.

I was lucky to grab a front row seat:


I actually rather enjoyed the ride. It is of course jerky, uncomfortable, and lacking any kind of airtime, even on the main drop (on the front row at least), but that was all to be expected. I love the low seating position, like you're sitting on the floor, which reminds me of the late great Wild Mouse (RIP), the loop is pretty fun, and overall it was just a bit of a laugh. It's in really nice condition too having been refurbished before coming here.

I love how these old Pinfaris have the Pinfari badge on the front of the train, like a car badge.


For £3 per ride I would have gone round again if it wasn't for the queue, but instead we went around the Seaquarium on the pier which was small but good value at £3 each, then went to the softplay which was pretty good for our 14 month old, but looked amazing for older kids. The inappropriately named "Wild Mouse" (a wacky worm) was closed so there was no cred whoring temptation (but my poor kid is going to get dragged onto SO many of those as soon as she is tall enough!). After that we left the pier to get fish and chips somewhere a little bit less crowded, had a stroll on the beach, and headed home.

 

[davidm]

Go on then, I'll join in.

So I had planned a little visit to a local beer festival yesterday. And entirely coincidentally I spotted that there was a fair on nearby.

Result!

Beer festival was all very "middle-class" - not very big and it did get busier than my picture suggests later on (was apparently sold out but
never got very busy - odd). Was not a huge range of beers on, but enough to keep me occupied for a few hours. Hic.



So after a few hours at the beer festival, I wandered up the road to the May Day fair; https://www.facebook.com/KnutsfordFair/

Did not know much about this apart from the old not-IP-infringement-at-all "Batman" from Wales/Malmo was there, I guessed that if that was
there then there might be a few others (like a wacky-worm)

First thing I cam across though was "Crazy Chase" though - which was surprisingly fun for a little trailer-ride thing.



A bit further on was a "Runaway Train" (think this has been at some of the Winter indoor fairs in Manchester the last few years, so glad I
had never bothered with them then! )



Less fun than the first one though.

"Snowman" powered kiddy cred? Yep, I have no shame.



Zen ride on that, got into it OK but struggled a bit to get out. Given my beer-festival-induced state of mind I decided that "falling out"
was the best way to extricate myself from the small seats.

Moving on, ride-op would not let me ride the "Family Roller Coaster" (a go-gator) as I was "too tall" - pah!



And then the "big" ride "Batman" - must have been "big" as it was £4 as opposed to £3 for the others - was good enough. I'd never ridden it
in Wales so I now think if I wait long enough all the roller coasters that I've not ridden will eventually move to closer to my house.



Suitably enthused by my spin on Batman, I went back to the go-gator and tried to bribe the ride-op to let me have a go. That amused him so
much that he let me on (and refused my bribe as well, letting me on for the normal £2.50).

Wooo unexpected random +5 then (2 powered tho')

Never found any wacky-worms though, so if there was one there it was hiding.

--

The fair is on until next weekend if anyone else is desperate for that go-gator cred. The beer festival has finished though.

 

[Rob Coasters]

January 2022

The year started off pretty badly in terms of having a wrecked sleep schedule, with New Year's Day being the main culprit among others. The target for today was to visit Lakeside Shopping Centre for a small funfair they're holding that had an unridden Wacky Worm. My anticipated time for leaving the house to make this trip was 1pm. Lack of sleep at night happened. I left at 3.

Barely staying awake I make it to the Jubilee line where I sat from start to almost finish, getting off at West Ham of all places for the National Rail service to Chafford Hundred. I had my train ticket booked and ready to collect from the station, only for absolutely no ticket collection points to be seen. Immense confusion filled my mind as I paced up and down the stairs leading from the underground entrance to the National Rail platforms. Eventually I give up but not before tapping my card onto a reader at the bottom of the stairs - turns out you're never supposed to collect tickets on this line, you instead just have to tap your card at the station instead and again where you're getting off? Huh?!

Well the ticket I booked is now useless but hey I managed to get a partial refund. With that train faff out of the way I cross a bridge and find myself at my destination. I saw a Booster from the train, I could try a Super Trooper again! I wonder how good their Waltzer is? Could I ride a Ferris wheel without freaking out for once?!

Walked through the shopping center to the fair.

Coughed up a fiver.

Rode #116 ???.



Left and went back home.

 

[TilenB]

I'm not really into writing long trip reports these days anymore, but writing something up about a cred run I did an hour ago is no biggie.

The funfair organized by Slovenia's largest funfair operator Lunapark Müller is back to Ljubljana and this time round it did feature a cred, so I squeezed in a visit on this very warm day in May. The temperatures outside are close to 30°C today and to make the feel even more Summer-like, the air-conditioning in my car refused to work. Luckily the fair is only a 20 minute drive from my house, so it wasn't too exhausting to get myself there.

At the fair, there was a selection of different rides owned by Müller and a few that were rented from foreign showmen from places like Netherlands and Slovakia (judging by the license plates)




I wasn't particularly interested in doing any of the fairly expensive flat rides (I believe that Afterburner style ride cost about 8€ to ride), so the sole reason for my visit was this fully licensed Jumanji themed oval coaster built by the mysterious Eastern European manufacturer Yamasakutalab and owned by an unknown Slovak showman. Coaster-count had this down as being owned by Müller, but the trailer that the station was sitting on had Slovak license plates and the operator didn't speak any Slovenian, so I assume this is one of the rented rides.



It was a fun little coaster. Obviously it didn't do much, it went around for ages (at least 10 laps, but honestly, I stopped counting at some point) and the strawberry scented smoke machine in the station was a nice touch. The ride also appeared to be in very nice condition with the track likely receiving a fresh lick of paint before coming to Slovenia.

There was another coaster that was due to be present at the funfair, but it was stored in an area that couldn't be accessed by the general public behind Jumanji.


The ride in question is a rare Soquet powered coaster called Tokyo Express that Müller purchased from a Belgian showman Deville ahead of the 2022 season. I'm not sure quite why the ride wasn't set up for the funfair, but it wasn't a spite for me considering that I've ridden it in Hasselt a few years ago under its former owner. Hopefully they'll manage to get it running for the future fairs, though.

And this was it for today, a quick +1. Always nice to have these pop up near where I live, considering the nearest proper theme park is probably at least a good 3 hour drive nowadays.

 

[TilenB]

Alright, lets make another brief one again.

This weekend we went to spend a couple of days in our seaside apartment in Piran (see my profile pic ) with my dad. A new heatwave is looming large, so we only went out to the beach and to make a 5km walk in the evening to Portorož where Lunapark Müller set another funfair in a disused parking lot for the 3rd year running (ignoring the COVID stricken year of 2022). In 2019 they had a small CAM powered coaster that they've since sold on to the Italian fair circuit, 2021 was coasterless, but this year powered coasters were back on the menu!


The coaster in question was this old Soquet powered coaster, Tokio Express, mentioned in the post above.



Tokio Express ran on the Belgian fair circuit for a more than a couple of decades before being retired after the 2018 season. I've previously ridden it under the old owner Deville at a funfair in Hasselt in 2016, so this wasn't a new cred for me, but it was the first coaster that my dad has ridden in almost 4 years (see https://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/coasting-through-the-alps.42980/)










The ride is a fun little figure-8 layout, similar to the rides that other manufacturers (see Pinfari, SDC and Mack) built in the 80s and 90s and is relatively unique, considering it's one of the few Soquet travelling coasters that are still around (from the top of my head, I can only think of King and that odd semi-powered looping coaster that is back to touring the French fairs after a 10+ years of hiatus).

There were a few other rides on offer (haunted house walkthrough, Afterburner and an odd looking suspended Ranger), but at 8€ apiece for the thrill rides (the coaster luckily cost only 5€), we weren't particularly interested in riding any of them. Maybe next time I'm in the area and looking for an adrenaline rush.

 

[Niles]

Does anyone remember the Gateway resort, a park that was looking at getting 7 coasters in wales?


On a recent trip i popped in, sadly the above never came to be but there is at least one coaster, a Fabbri spinner.


I had emailed in advance to check if i could ride it as i wondered if it would be open this time of year and i would be getting there around 6pm. They said they would close the ride around 10pm but weather depending.

On our way there the rain was torrential, arriving at the resort the car park was packed and the rain had lightened. There is a big main building which was full of people watching football and having roast dinners, the outdoor amusement park however was dead, no staff, no guests.


They had an ice skating ring with hardly anyone on it but there was a staff member, i asked if the coaster was open and she said yes but i have to ask a funfair member. Going over to the fair all i could find was a bulldog manning a game stall, he was very friendly but sadly he could not start the coaster for me

His owner however popped out and asked if i needed help, i asked for the coaster she said sure, took my money and disappeared behind the giant teddy's when her voice said "head over he will be a minute."

Standing in the cold and looking at the coaster the control panels were covered up, a nice man (think we woke him up from a break) came over and was nice enough to wipe the seat down and take the covers off to get the coaster going.

Now i have done a clone of this and did not think much of it, this however was brilliant. The coaster is at the back of the park and darkness surrounded half of it, the lights on the car would light this area up as it span which was cool but it was the spin, my god each turn was perfect and just got faster and faster, my gf off the ride thought it was broken as even when it hit the breaks i was still spinning so fast. After a while of spinning he stopped it and got me off, with my head spinning i wabbled off the ride, this was easily the most crazy and disorientating spinner i have been on, so surprising i thought it was a pretty great ride.

If you ever find yourself that way i say pop in, 3£ to ride and the staff were very nice to let me go on considering the weather and lack of customers not wanting just roast dinners and football.



Later in our trip we stopped in Swansea for a quick rest where they just happened to have a winter wonderland with a cred, i am having trouble finding any info on it, if anyone knows the make (im thinking SBF) or showman that would be cool just to add to my spreadsheet



Other than the creds we had a nice trip where we went to Dryham Park, the botanical gardens and visited coastal towns like Tenby, it was a chill nice little mini break

 

[Peet]

A rare Chance to ride
I have a particular love of weird and unusual coasters, and therefore I have longed to try out a Chance Toboggan. @Niles kindly tipped me off that one was running at Gang Warily funfair near Southampton, so I persuaded the Mrs that it would be a fun day out for a 2-year old toddler and a 7-week old baby, and off we went.

The first thing to do was of course to leave the Mrs standing in the mud with the 2 kids while I went on the Toboggan. I believe this is the one that has operated at Great Yarmouth PB and Clacton Pier in the past, I had not heard of it appearing at funfairs until late last year when Niles got the cred. It must have been refurbished recently as the cars look pretty swish (it runs 4 of them!).


One of the many things that makes these rides weird is that the cars are fully enclosed, obviously due to the tight clearances of the ride. Most of us have at some point had to slam an over-full car boot to squash down all the stuff to get it to close, but few of us have experienced what it's like to be the stuff getting squashed - well now I have!



Safely squashed in, leaning diagonally across the seat to fit in, off I went. The janky old vertical lift hill in a tube is pretty disconserting, and the first few corners feel very pecarious. The spirals get a bit dull after the first couple, but the bunny hops at the end are kind of fun but painful. Overall it's a pretty dreadful ride but I loved it for the novelty factor and gladly handed over another 4 tokens for a re-ride. My wife, who generally likes roller coasters, politely yet firmly declined to take a turn.



Apparently the toddler was not happy that I didn't taker her with me but watched me go round with fascination.

There was a Runaway Train kiddie cred too, which she was big enough to ride so she got her 4th cred and enabled me to get a completely shame-free bonus kiddie cred. She loved it and we rode again, but then she discovered the kiddie car ride and insisted on riding that 3 times, so she got more rides overall than I did. Amazingly it turns out that I had been right when I claimed it would be a fun day out for us all .

 

[davidm]

Totally reckon that ^ Runaway Train is the same one from my drunken-cred-run further up this page

 

[Howie]

Bunch of us went on a mad day trip to Walibi Belgium on Saturday, the challenge being to see if we could visit a European theme park for less than £100 per person.
Believe it or not, I think we more or less managed it:
Return flights from Manchester to Charleroi - 34 quid each.
Cheap Walibi tickets thanks to a Valentine's day special offer - 32 quid each.
2 cheap cars from something called Getaround (kinda like Airbnb for cars) - approx £20 each (there were 8 of us).
Petrol & Walibi parking - about a tenner each.
No hotel of course because, well... because it was a day trip.
The only real kick in the pisser was the parking at Manchester Airport - 38 quid for a day! Robbing c***s.

I didn't think this warranted a full, in depth trip report as I did one from WB less than a year ago (The Curse of Sandman, remember? ) and I couldn't be arsed to go through all that again, but what I will do is give you a short, waffle-free overview of the day plus some updated thoughts on some of the main creds, cos I'm nice like that.
Actually scrap that, there were quite a few waffles involved cos, well... it's Belgium innit.

In attendance were a handful of the usual suspects, @MouseAT , @Libby_Liz , @witchfinder , relative newbie Emma from the FLY into the New Year run back in January and her other half Nas, plus 2 brand new newbies in the form of my semi goon buddy Colin and some tall bloke with a beard called Dan.

The weather was crap. It rained pretty much all day. Ironically we had far better weather - blue skies and sunshine - way back at the beginning of January in PhantaPlopsaEfteling than we did here at Walibi at the end of April.
I mean, it wasn't exactly a monsoon, at least the park didn't flood again, but it was that fine rain, y'know, the kind that gets you wet.

On the other hand, crowds were minimal, no more than a 10 minute wait for anything and lots of stuff was simply a walk-on sooo, y'know, God bless drizzle.

Thanks to rather convenient flight times and WB only being a 40 minute drive from Charleroi we got to the park at around 10.10am and were able to stay until about half past 4. That gave us plenty of time to ride all the creds that we wanted, plus a couple that we didn't want, as well as the significant dark rides & flats, enjoy a leisurely lunch, plus get a whole bunch of rerides on Kondaa. Lovely!

Ain't no doubt about it, Kondaa is an absolute beast of a ride. I rated it very highly last time I was here, comfortably in my Top 20 and now, a year on, that still holds true. The first drop legit tries to kill you. If the sharp yank as you crest the lift doesn't get you, the sudden twist to the right definitely will. Do that on the back row with a loose lap bar and you'll be more or less standing up as you plummet down that 160ft drop. Insane!
First camelback is sublime. Doesn't matter where you sit, you'll be getting serious airtime right here.
Outerbank is another strong highlight - fast, floaty and hangy. Honestly, those first 3 elements are about as good as it gets, near perfection.
The non inverting cobra roll (or cobra roll, for short) seems to get mixed reviews but I rather like it. Yes, the pace of the ride is hindered briefly and it's not particularly forceful, but it's an unusual, exotic-looking element for a mega coaster and I applaud its creativity. And besides, the pace soon picks up again as you drop out of it into another killer airtime hill. Bank to the right into the wave turn, bank to the left into another strong airtime hill - yes yes, all very nice and whippy. The only really questionable moment for me is the weird, twisty double down thing. I mean, it does deliver some airtime but it just feels a little bit awkward somehow, a bit... forced. But not to worry, another wonderful, powerful, straight line airtime hill comes next. Finally, it's a lovely, snappy left turn into the home run, three back to back bunny hills before screaming into the brakes. OK, so maybe the bunny hills don't quite have the exquisite profiling and timing of some of RMC's finest work (Untamed comes to mind), but it's still a hilarious finale to what is, despite some very minor niggles, an absolute powerhouse of a coaster.
Great presentation, atmospheric soundtrack and, in my experience, solid operations and good reliability complete the overall package. Truly a top tier coaster on the European stage although, oddly, not the best coaster to open in Belgium that year. Go figure.

Kondaa may be the star attraction here but there's another ride at WB that I have a lot of love for, and that's Pulsar. What a machine! This too sits comfortably inside my top 10%. Although it does feel like a bit of a stretch to even call this a coaster to be honest, I mean essentially it's just a giant splash boat with a swing launch, right? But the ride experience adds up to so much more than that. It's fun, sure, loads of fun in fact, but it's also a lot more thrilling than it has any right to be. The launches, or hefty shoves, as I prefer to call them, have real meat to them, you can really feel the power and the torque needed to propel such a big, heavy boat. The hump has some airtime, really quite strong airtime on the third passing, the vertical spikes have some delicious floaty hangtime and again, by the time you're on the third spike you're really quite high up, looking straight down at the trough as it fills up with water. It really is quite a thing, this. The whole experience builds and builds to a spectacular finale that has everyone on board clapping and laughing like braying donkeys.
In the textbook definition of what an amusement ride is designed to do, few coasters nail it the way Pulsar does. It's brilliant!

Completing the trio of WB's must-do coasters is Psyke Underground. What's not to love about ThunderLooper in a tube? It's simple, it's short, it's retro, it's very 80's, the theming is a bit cheesy and yet, despite (or possibly because of) all that, it's amazing.

Tiki Waka is alright. Looks pretty.

Calamity Mine is alright. Quite long. Looks pretty.

Fun Pilot is alright.

Vampire is bad.

Loup Garou is bad. RMC it.

We didn't ride Cobra (because it's bad).

We rode the drop tower. It was good.

We rode the 2 big dark rides, Popcorn's Revenge and Challenge of Tutankhamon, they're both good. Very good, actually. Not Rise of the Resistance good, obvs, but good by Walibi standards.

We had lunch in an Eastern bazaar, over near Cobra. It was alright.

Here is a picture of some goons riding a kiddy cred in the rain:



"These aren't the goons you're looking for":


Here is a picture of the smoker at the hot dog stand, taken simply because it has a naughty word on it:



And finally, here is a picture of the awful woodie, taken simply because it has a Walibi Belgium sign in front of it:



These are the only pictures I took all day.

I think that's everything.
It was a fab day, really enjoyed it. Apart from a disgustingly early, goon o'clock start (alarm was set for 2am that morning! ), it all felt very manageable and stress free, most of us were back at home by about 10pm. For me, it was no harder than going to Thorpe and back in a day, and a lot easier than attempting a day trip to somewhere like Flamingoland or Pleasurewood Hills, and no doubt a lot more fun too.

So there you have it. European parks in a day trip. It's the future. I've tasted it.
Tastes like waffles.

 

[Sandman]

Kondaa, Psyke and Pulsar. The humblest 1,2,3 punch.
Glad you had a curse free time

 

[Rob Coasters]

Trips that didn't have any new creds so far this year...

Hyde Park Winter Wonderland - 2nd January 2023

Visited on the last day with the intent of crossing off stuff I hadn't ridden yet.
Failed.
Utterly sick of the timed ticket system, and me being forced to empty my entire drink before entry (my fault, I know) started the day on a massive downer. Ice Mountain was first. Was good, didn't spin as much as last time. I realised that I absolutely hated being here due to the overwhelming crowds, absurd prices and utterly useless timed ticket system that needs to be blown up. I shouldn't have to prebook what rides I'm going to do in advance as that's always something that I decide on the day.

Rides that I was intending to do that I skipped: The dive bomber booster, the dragon's nest starflyer, the No Limit freak out, the XXL, the other Snow Jet, the rotor.

Did the Aeronaut starflyer. Intimidating.
Did Olympia. Fun.
Did Airborne. Cycle ended after about a minute and a half, left the ride still craving the adrenaline rush that it was supposed to fill. Why so short?
The crowds & general chaotic atmosphere finally got to me.
Walked out, entirely unsatisfied with a strong disliking of what just happened.

Living an hour from such a colossal fair should in theory be a good thing, I wish I still enjoyed it as much as I used to.

Thorpe Park - 18th March 2023 (Passholder Day)

Ran to Stealth, with a RAP abuser (who openly brags about doing so) snagging the front row from me despite my sprinting. He was rewarded with a rollback. I got my ride, we barely made it over the top.

Rode Saw 7 times. Good single rider queue.
Rode Rush. Again another disappointly short cycle, with not even a single full height swing. Left the ride still craving the adrenaline rush that it was supposed to fill. Nothing worse than "missed potential".
Rode Saw 4 more times. Good ride, not a single one was rough.

Ended up being probably my favourite Thorpe visit despite missing the rollback. The atmosphere was incredibly fun and I always get a strange feeling in me when I watch one of the Stealth rollbacks or look back on the day. But despite how much I enjoyed it, my desire to renew my annual pass is very little right now as I have heavy concerns about the way Merlin is running their parks right now (specifically concerns regarding the Aramark F&B takeover which has done nothing but bad for the parks). Not happy with them to say the least. Though I probably will renew when Ghost Train opens and when Exodus goes vertical... it's inevitable that I'm going to renew.

Ealing Common Funfair - 8th May 2023

Bank holiday, found Danter's Air. Not as intense as 2017, hopefully it's back at its former glory, but otherwise good ride. Then snagged a ride on their spinning Wild Mouse before the fair closed up for the night.

 

[Howie]

You don't need to read yet another trip report from Plopsaland. Over the last couple of years there's been shed loads of 'em - Hell, two of them were from me. You've read all the reviews, watched all the pov's and you already know where I stand on The Ride To Happiness (it's the best coaster in Europe), so you really don't need to read all that again.
What you do need however is a bunch of pictures of 10 goons cocking about on a cheeky winter day trip.

Things kicked off on the Friday night when 4 of us (the Midlanders) descended upon Chateau de @DelPiero for beers and barbecued food.
There was me, @witchfinder , Tom, Emma and some new old guy called Chris. He's cool though and it meant that for the first time in about 5 years I wasn't the oldest person on the trip, so boom to that.





Say what you like about Delpiero (no seriously, say anything you like about him), but the guy knows how to put on a good spread. Top job, mate.



Much like our 'European-park-for-less-than-£100' adventure to Walibi Belgium last year (see this thread, 3 posts up ), this was a single day trip, which involved meeting up with five more goons at Folkestone and taking two cars through the Channel Tunnel.



Dead good the tunnel is, I like it lots. If it wasn't such a ball ache to get to Folkestone from where I live, I think I'd be on it every other weekend. Sooo much easier and less faffy than flying.
Anyways, once you've driven off the train at Calais, hang a left into Belgium and boom, it's only about 35 minutes to...



Gotta love that main entrance tho. It ain't no Efteling, but there's no mistaking where you are, that's for sure.

Team Plop, assemble:


As you can see, added to the squad now are Aaron (@Bentleya ), Maycock, Peachy (@chainedbanana ) and the two Emily's. A mighty fine selection of goons, I'm sure you'll agree.

Bit of a delay getting in though because one of the group, who shall remain nameless, had forgotten that they hadn't actually bought a ticket and tried to scan in with an old ticket from last year.
Anyone wanna take a guess on who that person might have been?

While waiting for that to get sorted out, Tom decided to cock about in the fountains:


Once everybody was in, The Ride To Happiness was first on everyone's agenda. Or at least taking photographs of it was. Pesky first timers.






Ahhh, there she is. Hello my lovely. I've missed you.


I love this ride. But here's an observation. It is, by it's very design, very variable. It's supposed to offer new and differing ride experiences every time, whether that's going down the first drop backwards, or going through the vertical loop sideways, or going through the second launch while spinning, or any other combination of wild maneuvers you can think of. And The Ride To Happiness achieves that, triumphantly. However, the obvious downside to that is that some rides are better than others. Now don't get me wrong, around 80% of the time RTH delivers a great ride, no matter where you sit, no matter what time of day, no matter the weight distribution in your car, you'll always get strong launches, you'll always get some degree of rotation and you'll always get good airtime and it'll always be a right laugh.
Unfortunately, about 10% of the time, you may on occasion encounter a 'dud' ride. One that doesn't spin the way you want it to, or one that rattles a wee bit, or one where the hangtime gives you a slight headache, or one where you spend the majority of the layout pinned sideways. When that happens, yeah, I can see why this ride doesn't leave the best first impression.
But man, at the other end of the scale, the other 10%, when everything falls just right, when it's fully warmed up and you get an unbalanced car in the front or back row and it spins like f***, and the onboard music is pounding, and you have a bunch of excited goons to ride with, this thing can be outrageously good fun. It might take several laps or even a whole day before you get that holy crap moment, that one killer ride that seals the deal, but when that happens, seriously, I can't see this ride not  making anyone's top 2%.
There's simply nothing else out there quite like it, not even Time Traveler. It might be the same type of coaster, but everything about that ride has been dialled up to the max on RTH - stronger launches, better pacing, more spinning, more inversions, more forces,  way more airtime plus, the icing on the cake, that killer onboard soundtrack. It's an amazing, amazing ride.
Not rode it yet? Go. Just go.
Rode it already? Just go again.

We rode all the other creds too. Crowds were virtually zero so it was a station wait or a walk on for everything all day, so the newbies were free to mop up all the +1's without cred anxiety.

The powered dragon coaster:




The Roller Skater:




And the #Likeme coaster:


Hey look, a Ford Capri!


I used to have one of those back in the 90's. Loved that car, 2.8 injection it was, fast as fook, much scarier than any roller coaster. Shoulda kept it.

Here is a picture of Emma inside a giant cup of Cécémel because... well, because why not?


Heidi is always worth a reride or two. Doesn't give much in the way of airtime, but it tears around the track at a decent lick and is plenty of fun:


And let's not forget Anubis. Cracking little ride this:



Considering how small the trains are - 3 rows of 2 - it's amazing how differently it rides in the back compared to the front. In the back it can be pretty rough and head-bangy, but on the front row Anubis is glass smooth and an absolute hoot. One of the punchiest launches on the planet. Fab!

Here is a picture of a donkey. Alas, no hat.


Plopsaland also have a new indoor kiddy's area called Circus de Bumba. In it are one of those kiddy's balloon rides, a kiddy's dark ride and a bunch of kiddy's play equipment, ball pits n stuff.
Yeah, we went in for a look.


And yeah, we had a ride:



It was a mildly amusing distraction, but on the whole it's a bit meh. Quality wise, it's on a par with Gangsta Granny I'd say. Circus de Bumba?
Circus de Bumbaclaat, more like.

And of course, no visit to Plopsaland is complete with paying respects to witchfinder's pig:


Some of you may be wondering how this whole pig thing came about? Well, amazingly I managed to track down the original picture of witchfinder abusing the pig:


Aww, look how young he looks.
This was on a CoasterForce Live back in 2017 and this most distinguished porcine specimen has become a source of amusement, the location of many a group photo and the inspiration for many a pilgrimage ever since...




Today we would continue that tradition:




As you can see, unlike witchfinder, the pig hasn't aged a day.



That seems like a good place to wrap things up. As you can probably tell, it was a great day out, everyone had a really nice time. Even the weather was decent, Maycock was wearing shorts ffs!!

It's a long old day, attempting European parks in a day trip, but it's definitely doable and, more importantly, it's extremely affordable. This trip cost each of us about £75 all in. That includes park tickets, tunnel crossing, fuel and all parking charges/tolls. In other words, about the same price as 5 laps on Enso at Blackpool, and that's not including the entrance fee!
And just for the record, I got 10 laps on The Ride To Happiness this time, plus got to enjoy all the other treats that Plopsaland has to offer. When you put it like that, it's kind of a no brainer innit?

 

[witchfinder]

Good to have all those embarrassing pig-related photos in one place, thanks @Howie

It was a great way to kick off the coaster season though!

 

[Bentleya]

Great write up from a fab trip @Howie; although tiring – it was the perfect start to the year.

 

[chainedbanana]

Well I certainly seem to have made a pigs-ear of it!!! ....any holes goal I suppose!