2004
Coaster Trips: 2004: Legoland Windsor, Adventure Island
Friday April 30th
Travel
My first major coaster trip this year began much the way the last one ended; with several hours to wait at an airport. In this case things were made rather unpleasant by the fact that I had to get out of bed at 3:45am in order to make sure everything was done in time for a Taxi to the airport at 4:45am. Somehow I managed everything, though I've discovered at this point that I left the cable for my digital camera behind so I will need to borrow a card reader during the trip (or, for preference, take fewer pictures).
This isn't actually my first set of coaster rides this year. I was lucky enough to visit the Foire du Trone and Disneyland Paris in April, and made the most of those. Highlights for me from the Foire were the Booster, Shot'n'Drop, and of course King, and from Disneyland I particularly enjoyed Space Mountain. But I digress.
You know you're at the airport early when the shops on the other side of security are all still closed. But I took advantage of the free wireless Internet access to catch up on the latest technology news for the morning. About ten minutes before boarding my flight, I managed to buy a copy of The Irish Times.
In the end I had actually finished the paper before take off. But sitting beside me on the plane was Mairead, who I used to work with. She was going to London for the day to pick up a visa needed for a (work) trip to Jakarta. I need a job that takes me to Indonesia on business!
The flight took off over half an hour late, and we sat in a holding pattern over London Heathrow for nearly fourty minutes. To add insult to Injury, an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to London, which was supposed to take off twenty minutes after we did, had actually landed and had baggage unloaded before my flight (on BMI, for the record).
Legoland Windsor
I had arranged to meet George at Heathrow in order to get to two parks today before the trip begins properly tomorrow. Weather was not in our favour, unfortunately, but we decided to stick with it anyway and made our way to Legoland Windsor, arriving shortly before 10:00am. I had never been to a Legoland park before and therefore had no idea what to expect. It is, obviously, aimed at a much younger audience than me, but the three coasters were what we were there for, so we headed off towards the Jungle coaster, the new-for-this-year Mack Wild Mouse. Unfortunately, however, it was to be down all day due to technical difficulties. D'oh.
The area containing the other two coasters, the Dragon (#227) and the Dragon's Apprentice (#226), was not due to open until 11:00am, so we passed the time by taking the Hill Train up to the Lego Rocket Racers. This is basically a computer game in the mould of Mario Kart, but was let down badly by a very imprecise steering wheel.
Beside this was the Creation Centre Hall of Fame. Now this really was fascinating; some remarkable models and portraits made entirely out of Lego. This was worth the park entrance for me, though I'm sure I'll see more of the same at Legoland Billund next week.
At this point it was approaching 11:00am, so we took the Hill Train in the other direction and wandered over to the Dragon's Apprentice. This is one of a very small number of coasters built by WGH Transportation, and as such is a unique ride. While a kiddie coaster without doubt, it was still good fun for its size.
There was no wait for the Dragon, so we took two circuits. This is a very unusual ride as it starts out with a "Dark Ride" section, with animated figures that blow mist, heat, and air at you, before moving on to a tire driven lift hill. Unfortunately there is really only one drop after this hill; the ride goes round in a helix and immediately hits a second lift hill, which is followed by a drop into a tunnel, another helix, and brakes. Very short and let down by about ten seconds of roller coaster in between lift hills; this ride could have been much more if the train had had enough momentum to take the whole course without a second hill. Having said that, I have to remember that Legoland is fundamentally a park aimed at children, and with that in mind it succeeds admirably.
Adventure Island
Having done what we came to do, we left Legoland to drive to Adventure Island in Southend, where we had arranged to meet Martin. Traffic, though busy, was moving smoothly, and we ended up arriving at around 1:30pm.
The Green Scream (#228) (which, for the record, has brown track) was a little disappointing. This is one of a relatively small number of coasters that have extremely long trains, and as there was nobody else on board we had to ride in the front cars to avoid problems with the train getting stuck. While the back of this ride might well be good, the front is nothing to write home about.
The Barnstormer (#229) was a better coaster. Still nothing spectacular, but noticably more forceful than the previous one. Both this and the Green Scream were giving two full ride circuits for every train. I don't know whether this is normal policy of it is just the fact that the park was fairly quiet when we were present.
The newest coaster in the park is the Pinfari built Mighty Mini Mega (#230). Provided you ignore the awful name (what were they thinking?) this is easily the best coaster in the park. Despite its size, I found it very good fun, and due to the design there is a startling burst of speed mid way through if you're in the front. The ride operator gave me permission to film with my camera at my own risk (note to the wise - always ask permission to use a camera on a ride), so I've made a low resolution video, filmed from the front seat, available for download.
With the coasters out of the way, it was time to look into some of the flat rides. Adventure Island is home to what I think is the first park installation of a Zamperla Disk-O, which was introduced at IAAPA last November. I'd been itching to try one of these since I saw the pictures, and the incarnation here (called "Ramba Zamba") is great fun. For those who haven't seen one, I think a picture is the easiest way to describe it.
It was approaching 2:30pm at this point, and since none of us had eaten since breakfast we elected to cross the road to go into a Fish & Chips restaurant.
Coming back into the park on a full stomach, we felt it better to avoid the more intense rides, so we went on what we thought was a plain dark ride, the Gold Mine. We didn't realise until too late that the cars spun quite a bit!
Rather than try and ride something else after this, we went across the road to an amusement arcade so I could play a game of DDR. This was my first encounter with a Euromix machine; the only ones I have played before were Euromix 2 and 8th Mix. I managed okay, even though the pads were a bit dirty.
We all crossed back over at this point and went on the Beelzee Bob's Trail dark ride. To say this was good would be doing a major disservice; this ride was superb and easily one of the better dark rides I have encountered in my travels.
George wanted to take some pictures of Ramba Zamba but did NOT want to ride again, so Martin and I obliged by taking another circuit. This was followed in short order by four more circuits on the Mighty Mini Mega and a second go on the Barnstormer.
At this point I noticed that the two tower rides were both up and running. Neither had been operating earlier in the day. Sky Drop is a really good fun junior tower. I don't know how tall it is off hand but I would call it 40 or 50 feet. It uses compressed air tanks to shoot the gondola up and down running a varied programme. After a spin on this, we decided to try the (really) junior drop tower, the Drop'n'Smile. This ride, at around ten feet tall, presented something of a challenge for us to fit in the seats, though we managed okay in the end. Unusual, though I think in future I'll stick to slightly larger rides.
We finished the day with a final ride on the Green Scream and the Sky Drop, followed by a go on the Raging River log flume that we had been staring at all day and a quick walk through of the Crooked House.
Despite a fairly substantial unintentional detour on the way back to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow, we managed to arrive a little before 8pm. Dinner was in the hotel's in house chinese, which was rather good and very satisfying when accompanied by a pint of Strongbow.