Fleetwood_Mack
Mega Poster
I finally made it back to the Land of Flamingo on Monday! We arrived at the park an hour late due to an accident/closed road situation somewhere nearby. Lots of driving around in circles until Google/Apple maps figured out the road was closed and took us another way round! That was a fun start to the day.
Park absolutely dead all day. Just us (a group of 4 gays) and a few chavvy families. That's it. We did all of the major coasters inside of an hour! Some thoughts on the coasters:
Sik - Fun but absolutely murdered my thighs during the inline twists. It hurt. Despite the thigh torture it's great fun and I love how open and vulnerable you feel in those trains. We said we'd come back to it later in the day. Unfortunately, god had other plans and Sik was down for the rest of the day.
Hero - I was reluctant to get on this due to everything I've ever read about it. It wasn't the most pleasant experience of my life, but it also wasn't almost as bad as I'd expected. It's total crap, and we didn't ride it again, but I didn't suffer like I thought I would. We probably wouldn't have done it if Sik wasn't down. We wanted to do something different by the time we got back around to it, so bit the bullet.
Mumbo Jumbo - A bit rougher than I remembered (last visit was in 2016) a couple of transitions caught me in the shoulder. Still fun though, I think we had 4 rides on this throughout the day.
Kumali - Didn't get on this last time so I wasn't just plucking my Sik cherry, but my Kumali cherry too. This might be my new favourite SLC in the country. I know it's a low bar, but I wasn't expecting to like it more than Odyssey. I think I do! It's fun, and surprisingly smooth.
Velocity - Caught me off guard and crushed my delicates during our first ride, but was still surprisingly fun. I was never going to make any babies anyway! I don't remember it being so rattly before, but it wasn't uncomfortable or rough. I actually like this one a lot.
Flip Flop was closed all day, Lost River still looks not even nearly ready with very little appearing to be happening, and with Sik also dying somewhere between midday and 1pm, we eventually got bored and left around 4pm. For some reason (possibly the accident and most people arriving late) they extended the opening until 5, but the park was like a ghost-town at 4 when we left and a lot of the staff were quite happily sitting around doing nothing! We did the zoo after lunch between 1-2pm, but by that point it had gotten so hot that we were mostly walking around grumbling about the heat and trying to stay in the shade. The park really could do with more cover from the sun. I know you don't get much of it in the north, but it really was uncomfortably hot that day. The amusement park side especially, which is just a big, open concrete slab. It feels more like a fairground than an established theme park, and we felt cooked by lunch!
They could definitely do with a kind of "sparkle project", to freshen the coaster side of the park up a touch and make it feel nicer. Other parts of the park are excellent. "The Coaster Strip" is horrible. IMO they also need another thrilling flat ride, and a decent sized family thrill coaster. The line-up does feel a bit sparse. The park feels almost like a Temu version of Chessington. Even one or two more rides might have kept us on site that extra hour. By 4pm - we just weren't arsed about lapping any more coasters.
It was a good day out, but not great. If they don't invest in something big anytime soon it'll probably be another decade before I bother going back.
Park absolutely dead all day. Just us (a group of 4 gays) and a few chavvy families. That's it. We did all of the major coasters inside of an hour! Some thoughts on the coasters:
Sik - Fun but absolutely murdered my thighs during the inline twists. It hurt. Despite the thigh torture it's great fun and I love how open and vulnerable you feel in those trains. We said we'd come back to it later in the day. Unfortunately, god had other plans and Sik was down for the rest of the day.
Hero - I was reluctant to get on this due to everything I've ever read about it. It wasn't the most pleasant experience of my life, but it also wasn't almost as bad as I'd expected. It's total crap, and we didn't ride it again, but I didn't suffer like I thought I would. We probably wouldn't have done it if Sik wasn't down. We wanted to do something different by the time we got back around to it, so bit the bullet.
Mumbo Jumbo - A bit rougher than I remembered (last visit was in 2016) a couple of transitions caught me in the shoulder. Still fun though, I think we had 4 rides on this throughout the day.
Kumali - Didn't get on this last time so I wasn't just plucking my Sik cherry, but my Kumali cherry too. This might be my new favourite SLC in the country. I know it's a low bar, but I wasn't expecting to like it more than Odyssey. I think I do! It's fun, and surprisingly smooth.
Velocity - Caught me off guard and crushed my delicates during our first ride, but was still surprisingly fun. I was never going to make any babies anyway! I don't remember it being so rattly before, but it wasn't uncomfortable or rough. I actually like this one a lot.
Flip Flop was closed all day, Lost River still looks not even nearly ready with very little appearing to be happening, and with Sik also dying somewhere between midday and 1pm, we eventually got bored and left around 4pm. For some reason (possibly the accident and most people arriving late) they extended the opening until 5, but the park was like a ghost-town at 4 when we left and a lot of the staff were quite happily sitting around doing nothing! We did the zoo after lunch between 1-2pm, but by that point it had gotten so hot that we were mostly walking around grumbling about the heat and trying to stay in the shade. The park really could do with more cover from the sun. I know you don't get much of it in the north, but it really was uncomfortably hot that day. The amusement park side especially, which is just a big, open concrete slab. It feels more like a fairground than an established theme park, and we felt cooked by lunch!
They could definitely do with a kind of "sparkle project", to freshen the coaster side of the park up a touch and make it feel nicer. Other parts of the park are excellent. "The Coaster Strip" is horrible. IMO they also need another thrilling flat ride, and a decent sized family thrill coaster. The line-up does feel a bit sparse. The park feels almost like a Temu version of Chessington. Even one or two more rides might have kept us on site that extra hour. By 4pm - we just weren't arsed about lapping any more coasters.
It was a good day out, but not great. If they don't invest in something big anytime soon it'll probably be another decade before I bother going back.
