Tag: Zamperla

The adventure island in Southend-on-sea

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Going to Adventure Island

From London’s probably smallest terminus station, Fenchurch Street Station – which Douglas Adams fans may well be familiar with, after all Fenny aka Fenchurch was conceived there in the queue in front of the ticket counter – there is the only direct train connection to Southend Central. Arriving in Southend-on-sea, it’s only a few meters to the amusement park Adventure Island, which is located on both sides of the Southend Pier. Contrary to most opinions about Southend, this path is quite nice, at no time does it give you the feeling of being in the filthy gambler’s paradise of Blackpool, to which the city is often compared.

If you previously bought your Adventure Island ticket at one of the ticket counters of the c2c railway company, you can now exchange your travel ticket for a whristband, which means that the train ride to the park is free. However, with some crowds it can take a little longer until it is finally your turn to have your wristband put on. In this case it should be mentioned that there are also cash desks on the left side of the park.

Tour of the park

The right and smaller part of the park consists mainly of children’s rides, like the little dark ride Devil’s Mine Train, a Helter-Skelter slide decorated with colorful stars, a Fabbri skateboard, a really crooked Crooked House with a pretty weird interior and much, much more. In addition to a Zamperla Disk’o, a Tivoli Scorpion, a KMG Move It! 24, as well as a Twister in Pharaoh design join the rides in this area as somewhat wilder rides.

Scorpion

A Tivoli Scorpion is basically a HUSS Troika like ride, but it differs in some features. The most obvious feature is the much more compact design, because a HUSS Troika would need at least three times the space needed. Therefore, the forces are much higher, which, in combination with the noticeably higher speed, results in large swings, which of course are transferred unbuffered to the passengers. The gondola bearings are also very smooth-running, which makes a Scorpion an all-round intensive ride pleasure.

The Claw

If you want to feel really miserable afterwards, you should not miss a trip on The Claw. While a ride in a Move It! 18 can be a lot of fun and the big equivalent of Soriani & Moser brings a big grin to your face, the local Move It! 24 is just unpleasant to ride and quite repetitive. After you have been turned slowly upside down, you are accelerated very fast, which can lead to headaches and discomfort. The fact that a Move It has the biggest potential if the ride doesn’t go full throttle appears to be rather unknown to the park. A strange ride, which somehow doesn’t fit to the actual target group of the park.

Kiddi Koasta

However, since last year there is the Kiddi Koasta – a children’s roller coaster made by Zamperla. This compact ride is characterised above all by waves lying on the ground, over which you ride after a sleek downward helix. At least theoretically, as the very unpleasantly run-in lift and the jerky start spoil the experience a bit.

Mighty Mini Mega

The Mighty Mini Mega Coaster from Pinfari is located on the roof of a game hall built in 2010. This layout shows impressively that you can build a lot of track on as little space as possible, especially since the space used for this is hardly larger than that of the Kiddi Koasta one level below. The ride is also very smooth, which is hard to believe, especially because of the strangely shaped curves and the – for an adult body – much too narrow seats. Just like the braking track of the layout whose braking effect is generated solely by a plate mounted on the track.  The friction wheels then torture the train at a snail’s pace back to the station. Afterwards one can say goodbye to the ride operator with a high five; at least if one has found the ride mighty mega.

Barnstormer

Only separated from a ferris wheel, which is tightly squeezed into a suitable gap, we immediately find the next roller coaster in the park. Also with the Barnstormer a part of the ride runs over the roofs of the park buildings before it goes rapidly into a helix down to the ground, whereupon the ride ends. The Barnstormer offers a smooth and satisfying ride on a very untypical track. The only thing you can and may argue about is the color scheme of this roller coaster.

Green Scream

In the right part of the park, there are mostly full-grown attractions, at least as far as their ride length is concerned. A good example is the Green Scream – one of the rare New-Tivoli roller coasters made by Zierer. Compared to the one year younger Barnstormer, the ride is rather rugged, but the ride length and the length of the train are quite convincing. Especially positive is the fitting tape announcement, which almost deprives the Flying Fish at Thorpe Park of its coolness.

Time Machine

On the former site of the Dragon ride, and thus in the immediate vicinity of the turtle-looking wave swinger called Archelon, which can also be found at the danish theme part BonBon-Land, stands the Time Machine. Like other rides in the park, this ride is a self-construction. It’s just too bad that this attraction, originally planned for the 2011 season, simply isn’t spared from children’s illnesses even towards the end of the 2012 season, which is why a ride on the Enterprise-like carousel unfortunately couldn’t take place.

Rage

The last roller coaster at Adventure Island is called Rage and is a Eurofighter 320+ from Gerstlauer. The highest roller coaster of the park combines all important elements of a Eurofighter and adds a pinch of strange peculiarities. While the start remains the same, you can feel a strange lateral offset during the looping . This is followed by a rather bizarre turn, similar to a cutback, whereupon you see yourself head over heels again in a heartlineroll after an upward curve. A helix then rounds off the offering. While the ride can be compared to Vildsvinet from the Danish BonBon-Land and therefore can’t show any significant unrest, it still doesn’t give a perfect sensation, which is why I refrained from multiple repetitions.

Sky Drop

Situated in a strange cul-de-sac is the Zamperla tower Sky Drop. Unfortunately, the system can’t generate any negative forces during the drop, but as soon as it starts to rise again, the positive forces are quite strong and provide a very odd ride experience. Unfortunately the ride becomes monotonous very quickly. The ride experience could be a little bit better with less riding time.

Orbiter

Somewhat squeezed between the Tidal Wave dinghy slides and the dark ride Over the Hill there is another ride from Tivoli. The Orbiter runs in circles until at some point an inclination of 90° is reached. Without shoulder restraints and at a constant high speed, the ride is an exciting experience.

Over the Hill

The main attraction of Adventure Island is the ghost train Over the Hill, which comes with an eerie comic style. During the pitch-black ride over the hill animated scenes alternate with animatronics. Funnily enough, the ride is actually quite frightening, as there are a lot of things that are quite different from what you think. Over the hill is one of the most atmospheric ghost trains I’ve seen so far and therefore one of the reasons why you should definitely go to Southend-on-Sea.

Pictures Adventure Island

Conclusion Adventure Island

Adventure Island is a very remarkable amusement park on the English North Sea coast, which above all has a terrific staff that is absolutely outstanding. The dense development of the amusement park and the numerous self-constructions provide a lot of charm, which you should not miss in connection with a visit to the longest Pleasure Pier – where even a railway line connects both ends of the pier!

 

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Adventure Island

A visit to Germany’s most remote park

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Rügen Park

Miniature Village and Heege Rides

At the edge of the village of Gingst on the island of Rügen is the Rügen Park, a miniature park of decent size, which has grown into a small leisure park through its expansion. Typical for a small park in Germany you can find half of the Heege product range here, which is not bad for classics like the Butterfly, Luna Loop or the Nautic Jets.

The showpiece area and at the same time the root of the park offers miniatures from all over the world, but also regional buildings in small format. The level of detail is quite high, but the small gimmicks on the edge are missing, which is for example the Miniatur Wunderland in the Hamburg Speicherstadt.

The park railway and Familienachterbahn

The main attraction of the park is the Chance Park Railway, with the classic C.P. Huntington train. But there is also a second train in this park. This one has a funny grimace and belongs to the Zamperla children’s roller coaster, which luckily doesn’t try to kill you right away, like the Vagones Locos from the Parque de Atracciones de Madrid do. The ride with wide open safety bars was quite adventurous, but for the children, where the safety bars were mostly closed, the ride was a lot of fun.

Pictures Rügen Park

Conclusion Rügen Park

The Rügen Park is, if you are ever on Rügen, worth a visit. It is best to visit this park in the high season of the island, because then you can be sure to do everything without annoying conversations. Both the park railway and the roller coaster don’t really run very often, so it is advisable to wait a few minutes in front of the ride rather than postpone your visit to the back of the park and thus not enjoy the ride.

 

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Rügen Park

Stand up when you get to Drayton Manor!

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Drayton Manor Theme Park

Close to the English town of Tamworth, in a small town called Drayton Bassett, is the Drayton Manor Theme Park. The animal and amusement park offers some interesting and rare rides and can almost be called a showcase for the Liechtenstein company Intamin due to its impressive number of rides by the company.

When you enter the park through the main entrance you will immediately see the flagship of the park on your left. The Thomas Land consists of several smaller attractions and has been designed to match the children’s series Thomas and friends. The park was one of the first in the country to use a well-known IP – an unparalleled success, even though the amusement park is now often reduced to the Thomas Land.

Thomas Land

Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster

Among the larger rides in the Thomas Land area is a suitably designed train ride which has its second stop in the zoo area of the park, as well as the small Gerstlauer roller coaster Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster. The ride itself starts with some curve changes before you climb up the lift hill to start the fast paced ride, which has a very funny turn around. For children this junior coaster is simply fantastic, furthermore the Troublesome Trucks Runaway offers an excellent smooth ride.

Maelstrom

Opposite the Thomas Land is the visually very appealing Intamin Gyro Swing called Maelstrom. Compared to swings of various manufacturers, a ride on the Gyro Swing is surprisingly brute and absolutely brilliant. The airtime, as well as the acceleration are simply breathtaking. A great fun!

Bounty

Interestingly, there is another swing in the park, but it was not until a few years after Maelstrom that it found its way into the park. We are talking about the boat swing of the park, which again comes from the manufacturer Intamin. The ride called Bounty also accelerates very fast, but it has a much more family-friendly ride program.

Beside a typical English horse carousel you can take a quite interesting round trip with the well established Chance Rides C.P. Huntington trains. During the ride you will not only get good impressions of the main attractions Shockwave, Stormforce 10, Splash Canyon and G-Force, but you will also learn that the park used to be operated according to the Tivoli system.

Stormforce 10

The last attraction of the themed area known as Fisherman’s Wharf, which could also include Maelstrom, Shockwave and the rafting facility Splash Canyon below, is the Stormforce 10 whitewater ride.

After you have taken a seat in the boats the journey can immediately begin. Joyfully approaching the first shot, you are stopped shortly before and a gate closes behind you. The following effect is absolutely unexpected and surprising and ends as expected in cool water. Passing waterfalls we head towards the first drive up, where a turntable is waiting at the end to start the short and rather nasty backward ride. The problem of this is not the level of wetness, but the force with which the boat is braked, so the ride is definitely not for someone with a weak back. After you have turned around once again and passed under the station, you’ll be heading out into the lofty heights again and eventually reach the final shot at a snail’s pace, which will bring the ride closer to its end with a double drop.

The ride built by Bear Rides is not only unbelievably photogenic, but also simply unique due to the built-in effects, which is why you should not miss it.

Splash Canyon

Meanwhile, the rapids ride Splash Canyon offers a dry ride, which amusingly is declared to the passengers as a soaking wet one. The rapid ride itself is nicely designed and has, similar to Thorpe Parks Rumba Rapids, a very active wave pool. If one is lucky enough to be wetted by one of the numerous rapids, one can surely also be happy about the water jet shower at the end of the ride, if it catches one at all.

Shockwave

A few meters above the turntable of the rapid ride is the station of the only Intamin Stand-Up Coaster in Europe. After you have left the beautifully designed queue to Shockwave with all its stairs behind you and a train is waiting for you, you can try to get on your seat in some way, which is quite funny to watch, especially with small children. After the seat has been lowered slowly so that you are standing on your feet again and the two split bars, as well as the standing row, are locked, you slowly move towards the lift.

The rather strange first drop ends in a wonderfully intense loop, whereupon one tries to pull the ground from under one’s feet in a zero-g roll. The feeling to roll over the Splash Canyon is simply ingenious, especially as it increases the fear of losing something from your pockets during the ride. The two corkscrews that follow are the crowning glory of an all-round balanced ride, which in the end should not be any longer. The ride feeling is really something different and so it is a pity that there is only one ride of this kind in Europe. Due to the empty queues during the visit, the rides on Shockwave were unfortunately only held in the first row, so the ride sensation of the other rows could not be included in this review.

G-Force

In the direct vicinity there is a roller coaster of German production, which unfortunately doesn’t form a unit with the surrounding attractions. Rather, it represents something completely different and thus formed the basis for the theme area Action Park at Drayton Manor Theme Park. The musical background in the queue to G-Force, which takes the floor level of the station building, is outstanding and creates a great unity with the roller coaster. As soon as you have left the stairs behind you can take a seat in the Maurer Söhne X-Cars and wait for your passengers for a few minutes if necessary.

After leaving the first downhill run behind you, you go up the strangely shaped lift to do an even stranger but ingenious downhill run. On the following hill you can experience a lot of airtime before the Cuban Eight completes the ride. Contrary to the Sky Wheel from Skyline Park or Abismo from Parque de Atracciones de Madrid, G-Force offers a completely satisfying ride, which also has a very smooth ride. Unfortunately, there is also the problem with the bars, which from time to time adapt to the human body in a rather unpleasant way and thus spoil the ride, as one hardly gets any air.

Pirates Adventure

A little bit off the beaten track is the Pirates Adventure boat theme ride from Mack Rides at Drayton Manor Theme Park. The ride itself is beautifully designed, but – like most pirate themed dark rides – it lacks that certain something that only Disney can do. Unfortunately, the effects are rather sparsely set, the lighting is too dark in some places and the background music is as little dominant as the undisguised hall ceiling.

Ben10 Ultimate Mission

The newest roller coaster of Drayton Manor Theme Park is the smallest Boomerang variation by Vekoma, which is completely dedicated to the cartoon network series Ben10 Alien Force. Why they decided to go for the second, much weaker series remains a mystery to me, but the roller coaster Ben10 Ultimate Mission can convince from the beginning of the cue. The ride is fast-paced and especially during the forward ride quite intense. The backward part is unfortunately rather gentle, but if you consider for whom this roller coaster was created, this is absolutely acceptable.

The Haunting

Passing the 4D cinema of the park, where this year a film about the little prince is shown, we take a small path to a small mansion, where a research team is already waiting for us, so that we can watch the paranormal activities of the house a little bit closer. The story of The Haunting is brought closer to you through video recordings in a container in front of the mansion, but the other pre-show rooms also contribute well to the story. The main room seems to be quite small compared to other Vekoma installations, but is designed very well. Unfortunately the music during the ride is slightly monotonous but full of atmosphere. The compressed air effect simulating bats flying around did not work everywhere and the effect at the end of the ride is just unnecessary. All in all The Haunting is a really good Mad House by Vekoma, but unfortunately it can’t match the Hotel Embrujado from the Spanish Parque Warner, which is the closest comparison.

Wild West Shoot Out and Drunken Barrels

If you slowly climb the neighbouring hill you will find the interactive theme ride Wild West Shoot Out next to the beautifully designed Intamin Drunken Barrels, which unfortunately were broken at the time of the visit. This small dark ride, manufactured by Zamperla, offers an absolutely worthwhile ride, which is not only beautifully designed, but also has some funny effects.

At the top of the hill there is a restaurant, the Grill Inn, which is not only open to park guests and will probably not be very popular until some time after the park closes. Also the beautiful, although from the outside rather plain, park owned hotel can be found here. If the cable car would be running, one could play a round of mini golf at this place.

Apocalypse

At about half height of the small ascent is the entrance to Apocalypse, one of the best free fall towers in Europe. The 54m heighted tower offers five lanes, two of which each have the normal gondolas and the stand-up gondolas with corridor. The last gondola is a stand-up gondola without corridor. For the real freefall tower lovers, of course, only the stand-up gondolas are suitable, as they enhance the experience. But it should be said that also the normal gondolas are completely convincing. While the stand-up gondola without corridor is simply outstanding, the stand-up gondolas with corridor are a little strangely designed. After closing the bar, one has to move upwards here, so that at some time, one stands in the right position that was also approved by the personnel.

Apocalypse is similar to the freefall tower La Lanzandera from the Parque de Atracciones de Madrid and in contrast to the bigger versions like Huracan Condor from the Port Aventura Park it is simply convincing. The fall is breathtaking and intense, but unfortunately, the gondola on the Intamin Giant Drop is brought to the tilt position quite early during the ascent.

Pandemonium

One level lower, next to the Ferris wheel, is the Fabbri Pandemonium, named Pandemonium. This is basically a beautifully designed and much larger version of a Cataclysm ride made by the same company. Like the Flying Oil Pump from the Zoo Safari- and Hollywoodpark Stukenbrock, the degree of freedom of this upside-down swing is simply high, which guarantees a fun ride with a lot of hang time. By the way, during the ride you have to be very careful not to scream, as the park does not want to make itself unpopular with its neighbours and points this out quite clearly.

Flying Dutchman

The latest Intamin ride at Drayton Manor Theme Park is a flying swing variation called Flying Dutchman. Here you fly through the air in small boats attached to steel cables, which is very relaxing due to the inclination of the seats.

Buffalo Coaster

The last roller coaster at Drayton Manor Theme Park is the Zamperla Powered Coaster Buffalo Coaster. The ride itself isn’t that spectacular, but it’s quite satisfying, because the ride is not as slow as it looks on video. But the track is very unconventional and can show some bizarre peculiarities.

Drayton Manor Zoo

The zoo area in Drayton Manor Theme Park is quite large and is located away from the park’s rides. Here, one can discover not only game animals, as one often finds in theme parks with animal enclosures, but also more exotic animals. Remarkable is, besides the large number of owls, the enclosure of the meerkats and the lemurs. Both animal species were quite astonished about what the other animals were doing in their environment. The zoo itself is well comparable with the zoological gardens from the Tier- und Freizeitpark Thüle, but also with the one from Chessington – World of Adventures.

In the back part of the zoo you can find a Thomas Museum, which is basically just a bigger model railway, as well as some attractions that fit the theme, but also Drayton Manor’s version of Cedar Fair’s Dinosaur Alive can be admired here. Although the animatronics idea has been left out from the beginning and there is no upcharge fee, the little tour with all its presentations is worth the time and is even more impressive than Nigloland’s Dinosaurs Aventure, which can score with animatronics.

Pictures Drayton Manor Theme Park

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Conclusion Drayton Manor Theme Park

Drayton Manor Theme Park itself is a good theme park with, at least in Europe, quite unique attractions. The smoothness of all attractions is comparatively high, and with minor exceptions, every ride is a sight to behold. It would be nice to see how the park will develop in the next few years, because there is clearly still a lot of potential. So I will definitely come back someday!

 

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Drayton Manor Theme Park