EmmaUK
Mega Poster
This is a post, and probably a thread, about my little cred run around Britain, sweeping up those little parks I’ve never had the pleasure (?!?) of visiting before. The team: Me, and my 8 year old daughter, Millie.
We were meant to be doing a tour from Ohio through to Virginia. At this exact moment I should have been checking into Hotel Breakers following on from a long day at Kings Island. Instead I’m in some random 3* in Great Yarmouth. Instead of Hersheypark, Six Flags Great Adventure and Knoebels, it’ll be Pleasurewood Hills, Brean Leisure Park and Adventure Island.
Day 1: Flamingo Land
Traffic outside of Flamingo Land meant that I arrived 10 minutes after opening, and I was instantly struck by how well themed Flamingo Land was. At least, it would be if that theme was Fresh Kills. You know that old story about Walt Disney sitting there and noticing that people would walk 30 steps before throwing away rubbish, so he put bins 30 steps apart to stop people littering? Had he done the exercise at Flamingo Land you wouldn’t be able to walk more than 3 abreast at Disneyland before bumping into a bin. The park is filthy. And its clear it has been for a while. Old cups can be seen in the lake in the queue for the pirate ship. Underneath Cliff Hanger was disgusting.
Anyway, understanding it was popular and had limited capacity we went straight to Mumbo Jumbo. I say straight there. It’s not the easiest park to navigate. I think the kind way of saying it is it grew organically. It has no flow and doesn’t make sense. Seeing what looked like an okay queue for Mumbo Jumbo we queued for 50 minutes and then reached… the one hour wait sign. The queue was so long and so slow. Noting that each train carried 4 I timed it. A dispatch every 90 seconds. Assuming each car was filled with 4 people (which didn’t always happen) that’s a mammoth hourly rate of 160 people per hour. As a great deal of capacity was also given to people who had bought queue jumpers, it took us nearly 2 hours to get on it. No idea why they would only dispatch one car when the other had arrived back in the station. This is a ride with a chain lift and 2 midcourse break runs. Finally getting one to Mumbo Jumbo we were shocked to find…. It was actually quite good. Controversial opinion, I think it may be UK Top 10.
We followed this up with a 45 minute for Kumali…before it broke down. We went to Hero. It had a worse queue and slower operations than Mumbo Jumbo. Velocity. Closed for the day apparently. Kiddy coasters. Most didn’t open until 2 and my 8 year old, who at first wanted to get all 9 credits, decided that she no longer wanted to go on kiddy rides. Or Hero because it looked like it hurt.
We circled back to Kumali via the Pirate Ship (side note – pirate ships should have an age warning – I simply cannot cope with these anymore).
Kumali’s massive queue wasn’t helped by 5 minute dispatches (seriously Flamingo Land, I get that you want to get more money from queue jumper passes – but by having people queue up the exit, it means that you cant allocate seat rows until after everyone is off, slowing everything down. Although cynically, maybe that is the idea to drive purchase of VIP passes). Well over 90 minutes later, Millie loved Kumali, whereas for me it meh. Very meh. Like its an SLC. Maybe it was I was still feeling ill from the pirate ship, but it wasn’t great.
After Cliff Hanger, a decent enough ride, and with 5pm close upon us, we headed towards the Hero queue to brave it, to see, against all odds, Velocity running. Joining the queue and praying that Millie was tall enough (she was – just!). Being passed by dozens of people all “meeting someone up ahead” (seriously Flamingo Land – sort the queue jumping out). Going through the painfully slow queue as all of the actually paid for queue jumpers had first goes, we finally got on (it was noticeable how dispatches sped up when they weren't taking some from the normal queue, some from the "VIP" queue). As for Velocity? It was really rather good. Again, possibly UK Top 10 for me.
So our final scores for day 1:
Possible credits: 9
Gained credits: 3
Day 2: Ingoldmells and Great Yarmouth
So the plan was that I would pick Millie up from my daughters, go to Ingoldmells, maybe even 4 creds from Skegness, before heading down to Great Yarmouth to get quick rides at Joyland and the Pleasure Beach.
Well. I didn’t want to leave my girlfriend early. So change of plan, skip Ingoldmells. Will have to do that in the future. Straight to great Yarmouth then.
Only to find the Pleasure Beach already closed when we arrived, and Millie decided / refused to go into Joyland as it “looked like it was for babies”. Note to self – pick a better partner for cred runs in future.
So one game of mini golf later it was:
Possible credits: 15 (I already have one from Great Yarmouth from when I was very young)
Gained credits: Nil
So tomorrow. Probably heading to Pleasurewood Hills then Southend Adventure Island. 8 possible new creds for me (I have one from Pleasurewood Hills from very young). Or, more likely, nil. Who knows.
We were meant to be doing a tour from Ohio through to Virginia. At this exact moment I should have been checking into Hotel Breakers following on from a long day at Kings Island. Instead I’m in some random 3* in Great Yarmouth. Instead of Hersheypark, Six Flags Great Adventure and Knoebels, it’ll be Pleasurewood Hills, Brean Leisure Park and Adventure Island.
Day 1: Flamingo Land
Traffic outside of Flamingo Land meant that I arrived 10 minutes after opening, and I was instantly struck by how well themed Flamingo Land was. At least, it would be if that theme was Fresh Kills. You know that old story about Walt Disney sitting there and noticing that people would walk 30 steps before throwing away rubbish, so he put bins 30 steps apart to stop people littering? Had he done the exercise at Flamingo Land you wouldn’t be able to walk more than 3 abreast at Disneyland before bumping into a bin. The park is filthy. And its clear it has been for a while. Old cups can be seen in the lake in the queue for the pirate ship. Underneath Cliff Hanger was disgusting.
Anyway, understanding it was popular and had limited capacity we went straight to Mumbo Jumbo. I say straight there. It’s not the easiest park to navigate. I think the kind way of saying it is it grew organically. It has no flow and doesn’t make sense. Seeing what looked like an okay queue for Mumbo Jumbo we queued for 50 minutes and then reached… the one hour wait sign. The queue was so long and so slow. Noting that each train carried 4 I timed it. A dispatch every 90 seconds. Assuming each car was filled with 4 people (which didn’t always happen) that’s a mammoth hourly rate of 160 people per hour. As a great deal of capacity was also given to people who had bought queue jumpers, it took us nearly 2 hours to get on it. No idea why they would only dispatch one car when the other had arrived back in the station. This is a ride with a chain lift and 2 midcourse break runs. Finally getting one to Mumbo Jumbo we were shocked to find…. It was actually quite good. Controversial opinion, I think it may be UK Top 10.
We followed this up with a 45 minute for Kumali…before it broke down. We went to Hero. It had a worse queue and slower operations than Mumbo Jumbo. Velocity. Closed for the day apparently. Kiddy coasters. Most didn’t open until 2 and my 8 year old, who at first wanted to get all 9 credits, decided that she no longer wanted to go on kiddy rides. Or Hero because it looked like it hurt.
We circled back to Kumali via the Pirate Ship (side note – pirate ships should have an age warning – I simply cannot cope with these anymore).
Kumali’s massive queue wasn’t helped by 5 minute dispatches (seriously Flamingo Land, I get that you want to get more money from queue jumper passes – but by having people queue up the exit, it means that you cant allocate seat rows until after everyone is off, slowing everything down. Although cynically, maybe that is the idea to drive purchase of VIP passes). Well over 90 minutes later, Millie loved Kumali, whereas for me it meh. Very meh. Like its an SLC. Maybe it was I was still feeling ill from the pirate ship, but it wasn’t great.
After Cliff Hanger, a decent enough ride, and with 5pm close upon us, we headed towards the Hero queue to brave it, to see, against all odds, Velocity running. Joining the queue and praying that Millie was tall enough (she was – just!). Being passed by dozens of people all “meeting someone up ahead” (seriously Flamingo Land – sort the queue jumping out). Going through the painfully slow queue as all of the actually paid for queue jumpers had first goes, we finally got on (it was noticeable how dispatches sped up when they weren't taking some from the normal queue, some from the "VIP" queue). As for Velocity? It was really rather good. Again, possibly UK Top 10 for me.
So our final scores for day 1:
Possible credits: 9
Gained credits: 3
Day 2: Ingoldmells and Great Yarmouth
So the plan was that I would pick Millie up from my daughters, go to Ingoldmells, maybe even 4 creds from Skegness, before heading down to Great Yarmouth to get quick rides at Joyland and the Pleasure Beach.
Well. I didn’t want to leave my girlfriend early. So change of plan, skip Ingoldmells. Will have to do that in the future. Straight to great Yarmouth then.
Only to find the Pleasure Beach already closed when we arrived, and Millie decided / refused to go into Joyland as it “looked like it was for babies”. Note to self – pick a better partner for cred runs in future.
So one game of mini golf later it was:
Possible credits: 15 (I already have one from Great Yarmouth from when I was very young)
Gained credits: Nil
So tomorrow. Probably heading to Pleasurewood Hills then Southend Adventure Island. 8 possible new creds for me (I have one from Pleasurewood Hills from very young). Or, more likely, nil. Who knows.
