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Where is your local park and how often do you visit?

Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. With all of us being into theme parks, I’m sure most of us know where our nearest theme park is, or our “local park” so to speak. Whether you visit it often or it’s somewhere you don’t really pay much attention to, we all have one. With this in mind, I’d be really interested to know; where is your local park and how often do you visit? Do you pay a lot of attention to your home park, or is it somewhere that you largely ignore?

Personally, I live in Gloucestershire in the UK, so I’m in the no man’s land of major theme parks better known as the South West of England. As such, my answer might be a tad more complicated than for those of you who are lucky enough to have a major park close by!

My answer honestly depends on how you classify “local park”:
  • If you’re going with “the operating place closest to my home that has an RCDB file”, then the honour goes to Symonds Yat Leisure Park in Whitchurch, Herefordshire, which apparently once housed a Zamperla Powered Coaster (https://rcdb.com/6389.htm). This park is just 10 miles due north of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 15 mile, or just over 30 minute, drive. I’ve never been, and I honestly debate whether it’s still “operating” in the sense that RCDB thinks it is seeing as it’s now mostly a caravan park, although there is still a hedge maze and butterfly house around there. Incidentally, I passed near this park a lot in my driving lessons, as Whitchurch was just off the dual carriageway used by my test centre, and I even did a parallel park in a lay-by very close to it in one of my driving tests!
  • If you’re going with “the operating park closest to my home with somewhat of a selection of permanent rides”, then I’d probably give that honour to Brean Theme Park in Somerset (https://rcdb.com/4862.htm), which is 34 miles due southwest of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 52 mile, or roughly 1 hour, drive. I’ve only been to Brean once, and it took me until last year to get there. I wouldn’t call it an overly major park, and I wouldn’t say that any of the rides are the sort of thing you’d want to go to for anything other than to tick off the creds, if I’m being honest; all 3 of the credits were one-and-dones, for me, and now I’ve ticked them off, I don’t feel any desire to revisit Brean unless they build a new ride of some note.
  • If you’re going with “the semi-major operating park closest to my home”, I’d probably give the honour to Drayton Manor in Tamworth, Staffordshire (https://rcdb.com/4803.htm), which is 73 miles due northeast of my house as the crow flies, and I can reach it in a 93 mile, or roughly 1h 45m, drive. Paultons Park in Romsey, Hampshire (https://rcdb.com/4819.htm) is 5 miles closer as the crow flies, but awkward road layouts mean that it takes 116 miles, and a good 2 hours, to drive to. Drayton was actually the first park I ever visited back in 2008, but only I’ve been to Drayton on three separate occasions altogether, in 2008, 2018 and 2022 respectively. A fourth visit is planned for later this year to go and check out Gold Rush. Drayton isn’t a bad park by any means, and I do always enjoy my visits there, but it’s not somewhere I feel massively compelled to return to regularly in the absence of new major investment as it’s increasingly not overly targeted towards my demographic. The park is certainly prospering at the moment, however, and I look forward to seeing what its future holds!
It’s interesting to me that my “local” parks are not places I’ve visited all that much. Drayton is my most visited of the lot, but even that doesn’t stack up very highly in the visit count compared to other parks I’ve been to; my most visited UK park by some margin is Alton Towers, which I’ve spent 43 days in cumulatively and is not exactly local, at a good 2.5 hour, 120 mile drive away!

But I’d be really interested to know; where is your local park, and how often do you visit?
 
Brean or Weston.

Been to Brean one - not yet needed to go back.
Been to Weston twice - cos they got a new cred.
They're both a bit turd really.

Not really the best selection of 'local parks' this neck of the woods.
 
BPB pass holder since they came out, but for one year when I disagreed with the directions the park was going.

Visit once a month....maybe, massively down on its hay day when I was there every weekend but it still despite its faults represents good value and a fun day out, and while it has the three wooden coasters and the Rev, I will continue to visit.
 
When I'm in Montreal, it's La Ronde, which is 20 minutes by car and about 45 minutes by public transportation. I have been here two years now and have only gone twice, and both visits were this year. Great Escape is just shy of three hours and we go there more often.

When I am "home" at my home in Windsor, Cedar Point is my home park at 2 hours away, and I try to make it a point to visit at least once a season. I suppose CJ Barrymore's can be considered an amusement park now too, which is about an hour from Windsor, but I haven't been there since my 12th birthday,
 
Flamingo Park in Hastings is my nearest with its spinning wild mouse cred. Typical seaside fun park. Visited regularly as a kid but only ever drive past it now. Popped in once a couple years ago to get the cred.

Nearest major park is Chessington. Visited yearly as a kid, but since 2011 I have only been three times as it's not as good as it was up to the early 2000s.
 
Seaworld San Diego... ten minutes from my house, and as an added bonus it is like ten degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the area my house is in. I'm there once a week during the off-season. Not as often in the summer. Probably applying for a job there next summer.

Knotts and Disney are about an hour and 20 minutes away without traffic. I'm at Knotts at least once a month when not on trips.

Magic Mountain is usually about 2 hours away depending on the roulette game that is L.A. traffic. SFMM is like 3 or 4 times a year, but usually I make them marathon days during the week.
 
My closest park is Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA (I live in the Jacksonville, FL area), but I consider Busch Gardens Tampa (3.5 hours away) and SeaWorld Orlando (2.5 hours away) to be my "home parks" as they're the ones I go to most often.
 
My primary home parks are
Busch Gardens Williamsburg - 20 min drive - I tend to go 1-2 times a month. Sometimes 3x if there's a special event going on
Kings Dominion - 1 hour drive - I tend to go once a month. Sometimes more if there's a special event going on

I'm spoiled enough to have secondary home parks I travel regularly to as well.
Universal - I usually go 1-2 times a year just to get use out of my pass
SWO/BGT - I'll go 1-2 times a year. Maybe more if they have new rides open
SFGAdv - It was Hersheypark the past couple years but I seem to have a better time at GAdv so I go there more often
 
I'm living in a bit of a no-man's-land when it comes to theme parks and unsurprisingly people often ask me how I even got into this hobby when there's so few proper parks nearby.

The closest rcdb listing is the alpine coaster (https://rcdb.com/13033.htm) next to lake Bled. It's about a 30 minutes drive from home. I've been a few times, the most recent visits being with foreign enthusiasts that came to visit Slovenia. I don't count alpines and there rest of that place could hardly be considered an amusement park, as it's mostly a tiny (former?) ski resort with a rope course at the top of the hill.

The next closest thing is this tiny park Parco Junior in Lignano Sabiaddoro in Italy. I haven't yet been there, as their cred only opened late last year, but it's about an 1h50min drive from home. There used to be a different park in that town before, Gulliverlandia, that I managed to visit in its final operating season back in 2018. Not much to write about it, but their tiny L&T coaster is still the closest permanent coaster that I've done.

Closest proper park is a tougher question. I've always considered Gardaland (3h50min away) and Mirabilandia (4h30min away) my childhood parks, but I've hardly visited since I became an enthusiast. I've recently visited both after a long hiatus (5 years for Gardaland and 12 (!) for Mirabilandia), liked both, but I doubt I'll be making too many trips to either in the near future. Italian parks (especially Mirabilandia) are great value for money, though.

Fantasiana in Austria is a tiny bit closer (about 3h30min away) than those, but as it stands, I would hardly consider it a major park. It has a very well rounded line-up of family friendly rides, though hopefully Helios will help push the park to becoming more of a major player in the market. Just a shame that it will come at an expense of the brilliant Wild Train. Has to be noted that I only got there for the first time a couple of months ago, despite hearing praise for Wild Train ever since I became a proper enthusiast.
 
Technically closest - Chessington. 15 minute drive or 45 minute public transport. Generally will do one full day and 3-4 "pop in for a couple of hours" trips per season. If Mandrill Mayhem ever loses its single rider queue, I could see those quick trips disappearing.

Honorary "home park" - Thorpe. 40 minute drive or 90 minute public transport. I'm there pretty much whenever I find a fully empty day on my calendar without another trip already planned, which usually works out about once a month.

Have always lived in this area so take it for granted sometimes, but I'm aware it's a good area to live for parks, especially over the past couple of years.
 
Thorpe Park is 2.5 miles away from me as the crow flies, 4.8 miles travel distance. Does this make me the CF-er who lives closest to a "proper" theme park?

At one point, I lived 1.2 miles away as the crow flies, 1.6 miles in terms of travelling. During that time, I would usually walk or cycle to the park.

How often do I visit? Ehhhh, more than enough. Usually once every couple of weeks on average I'd guess, sometimes a bit more. More recently, I've been spurred to visit slightly more regularly as I can pop in for a couple of hours, get some rides on Hyperia via SRQ, and then go home.
 
Mine is Alton Towers. It's only 23 miles from where I live - from a nearby hillside I can even watch the Alton firework displays from a distance - but it still takes me about an hour to get there cos most of the route is slow, higgledy piggledy, B-roads.
You know that last couple of miles before you get there, from about Denstone onwards where you're winding your way through Alton village? Yeah, it's like that pretty much the whole way for me. Burdenous.
Obviously, it's my most visited park by some margin, been going regularly since the mid 1980's when we had annual school trips there. Reckon I've visited about 70 times in total.
Having said that, I haven't been since Sept 2022. I do get fed up of the place sometimes and occasionally need to take some sort of sabbatical so I can come back and see it with fresh eyes again. This is one of those times. With no Nemesis it just wasn't worth visiting in 2023 and now that Project Ocean is underway, figure I may as well wait for that to open before going back so that there'll be several 'new' things for me to do. Reborn, Sub Terra, Alton Manor, Ocean etc...
 
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At home in Orlando, Disney World was closest and I made good use of that annual pass. For a number of years I was visiting multiple times per week all year long. So that added up to quite a lot. Universal was next closest which I visited on occasion (but I prefer to visit Disney). SeaWorld was next which I visited on occasion but the excitement of visiting on a weekend or something is tempered when you work 50+ hours a week at the same place!

Now that I'm living in Saudi Arabia for work, I guess technically my closest is Sala City, a little FEC with a figure 8 spinner. Not the most thrilling. For a proper park it'll be Six Flags Qiddiya next year, which I'm fairly excited about.
 
Ignoring an SBNO cred in a shopping mall, the closest to me is Ocean Park. If I hit the trains right, I can potentially be there about 20 minutes after leaving my flat. I haven't been there for probably 3 years though since there's nothing new and I've never bothered with an annual pass for it.

I tend to count Hong Kong Disneyland as more of my home park. It's further than OP, but I can still get there in about 45 minutes. I've always had an annual pass for it as well. Every year I say I'm not going to bother and then every year I just renew it anyway even though I don't really go very often anymore. Since renewing it in February, I think I've only been twice.
 
For me, I am of practically near equal distance to Legoland and Thorpe Park.

Although Legoland is closer by a small margin to me, I consider Thorpe Park to be my home park as it is a 40 minute train journey from Reading and the shuttle bus from Staines being more direct.

I go to Thorpe Park on free weekends (and occasional days off from work) when there is a day I don't have much to do and I generally time visits strategically to minimise queues.

Legoland, I haven't been to in years and I wouldn't feel as comfortable going solo considering the demographic is not solo visitors in their 20s. I'd personally feel more comfortable going with a group or a friend.
 
Technically closest is Tibidabo in Barcelona (Spain) but in my heart my home park is PortAventura in Tarragona. I visit both once a year, although lately I have skipped visiting PA if they don't have any interesting discounts or my schedule does not allow for it. Instead I am prioritizing saving to go to parks that are further away.
 
If we strictly talk about local parks, I have to choose between Parque de Atracciones de Madrid and Parque Warner Madrid (Spain). I own their annual pass, so I visit Parque Warner every one or two weeks. I don't really go for the rides (except for the mandatory Batman Gotham City Escape ride) but as a social meeting point with other enthusiast friends. I live on the outskirts of Madrid, so the 1-hour trip is unavoidable wherever you want to go 😅

If we talk about a home park, I consider it absolutely different from a local park. Like @redheadedRobin, PortAventura is where I consider "home". Due to the distance (6 car driving hours) and ticket prices, I don't visit as often, but I try to go at least a weekend once a year, just to return to where it all began and to see how the park is changing over time.

BTW, ❤️ Shambhala forever xD
 
Drayton Manor is my closest, probably about a half hour away from me driving. I did use to live a bit closer growing up though. I've also got Alton Towers about an hour away, mostly on winding roads.

I've done both parks a lot - Drayton was a yearly or more occurence as a teenager, but I went only once in the past 15 or so years and haven't been back for a long time. Looking to do that now with all the changes.

I've done Alton Towers twice in 3 years, gonna give it a miss for a bit now unless they build a new coaster.

On one hand I should feel blessed, on the other I am jealous of all the Londoners who get to be able to easy fly literally anywhere to go on coasters without it being a massive faff. Birmingham Airport isn't that far few me either, but it's more limited than the London ones.
 
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