West Midlands Safari Park 26th October 2020

[Matt N]

Hi guys. I was originally supposed to be in Oakwood today, but due to the circuit breaker in Wales, that didn’t happen. However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t still ride some rides and have a fun day, because we instead trekked to West Midlands Safari Park for the day! It was my first time visiting the park as an enthusiast (I apparently went as a small child, but I have very little memory of it) and my first time ever experiencing any of the rides, so I was looking forward to doing some of those!

Once we’d got in, our initial thought was to do the safari, but that looked very busy, so we decided to leave that for later. So we instead started in the walk-around section of the park:

As it turned out, we’d visited during the park’s Halloween celebrations, and I must say, they’ve made a tremendous effort with decoration, with all the staff dressed in Halloween costumes and copious amounts of pumpkins around:

When we got in, we started by looking around some of the indoor animal enclosures (which I apologise as I did not take any pictures of), before going through some of the park’s animatronic walkthroughs, which I must say were very impressive, with some great animatronics and surprisingly good theming in places...
Ice Age

Land of the Living Dinosaurs

After our nice little walk through those, we then went into the park’s Reptile House (which I again forgot to take any pictures of; apologies) before getting to the part that you guys are probably most interested in; the Adventure Theme Park! After buying some tokens, we headed to our first ride...
Rhino Coaster
Rhino Coaster was open and on a very small queue, so we decided to give it a go. I’d only done one other of this layout in the form of Flight of the Hippogriff at Islands of Adventure, so I was interested to see how this rode in comparison. So, how was it? Well, it rode pretty similarly to Hippogriff, as expected, although possibly a touch smoother:

After Rhino Coaster, we decided to go for our next coaster credit...
Monkey Mayhem
Monkey Mayhem also had a very short queue, which we joined. I kind of know the drill with these Reverchon spinning mouse coasters now; this was my 6th one, and I’ve got to admit that I’m not personally a fan of them at all. However, I must say that the ride looked in very good condition having been recently spruced up; I particularly liked the monkey-themed cars! So, how did Monkey Mayhem fare in comparison to the other Reverchons I’ve done? Well, I’d unfortunately say it’s probably the roughest one I’ve done yet, as it seemed to really hurt around those corners:

After Monkey Mayhem, we were done and dusted on the credit front, as despite the fact that this park does have 3 credits and I'd only ridden 2, I did feel that African Big Apple was possibly a bridge too far:

Because of this, we used the remainder of our tokens on a ride I was somewhat more excited for...
Venom
Venom was a ride I was really looking forward to; I very much enjoy its sibling Detonator over at Thorpe Park, so I naturally wanted to ride. To make matters better, the queue was completely walk-on; exactly what you want to see! So, how was Venom’s drop? Well, I thought it felt even faster and more forceful than Detonator’s, which is no mean feat! Oddly, given that it’s actually smaller than Detonator, I also thought it felt far taller; perhaps it’s psychological, being surrounded by WMSP’s far smaller rides as opposed to the behemoths at Thorpe? Overall, I loved Venom, and I’d probably say it’s my new favourite drop tower in the UK:

After Venom, we then moved into the African Village, where we encountered lemurs and meerkats. I must say that this area was very well-themed, although for some reason, I only took a picture of the meerkats:

Finally, we left the walk-around portion and got back into our car in order to go for a drive around the safari. It was a pretty good safari, with some nice animals; have a few photographic highlights:

After that, we headed off home.

So overall, we had a very nice day at West Midlands Safari Park! It’s not the largest of places, but there’s plenty there to do, and it was a nice place to spend a day out! From a personal perspective, I was happy to add +2 to the coaster count as well as a new park, and to get a ride in on Venom, but I also really liked the other parts, such as the animatronic walkthroughs and the safari!

I hope you enjoyed reading my report! Provided all is OK on the COVID front, my next report should come from Alton Towers in November!

 

[Hixee]

I did feel that African Big Apple was possibly a bridge too far:

Ah no worries, those bridges get smaller.

 

[Matt N]

Ah no worries, those bridges get smaller.

I appreciate that it may seem a little odd that I wouldn't want to ride a credit that seems pretty easy to get, but I was kind of put off riding kiddie credits after an embarrassing experience on Octonauts last year (the ride host laughed at me as I got on, and it just generally felt very, very awkward), so I decided against riding this particular coaster.

Also, it would have cost a combined £6 for me and my mum to ride, and it had a pretty long queue compared to some of the other rides we went on. Not to mention that it meant I can save the milestone of my 75th credit for something else (probably something at Paultons)...

 

[Niles]

Nice report Matt interesting to see the park, looks like a nice mix of rides and animals, it’s one of those parks I hope to get to at some point.

Sorry to hear about your octonauts experience, would not let it put you off, just one rude person. I don’t mind it anymore and it Is fun to bring friends and family on to make them go through it to ? I took my friend on the frozen coaster that looks like Olaf, haha him cringing made me laugh ?