2004
Coaster Trips: 2004: Bottons Pleasure Beach, Dunes Leisure, Fantasy Island, Pleasure Island
Tuesday June 1st
Travelling
I have participated in many mad coaster trips over the last few years, but this has to be one of the craziest days out I have tried to date. The premise was fairly simple; to fly to the UK, visit four parks, and return to Ireland the same day. One of the perks of living in Europe is having ridiculously cheap flights from Ryanair, which means a flight to the UK for the day is actually cheaper than return train ticket to the other side of Ireland.
In order to get a day trip like this in, an early start is a prerequisite. I have always worked on the premise that it is better to leave a substantial margin for error so as to not miss flights, so to that end, I was awake by 4:15am. I got to Dublin Airport shortly before 6:00am, easily in time for my 7:10 flight to East Midlands Airport. Although the plane itself was mostly full, I was evidently one of the first to check in, as my boarding card had a sequence number of 2. Ryanair has free seating, so I took up station in the front row of the aircraft for optimal leg room. I was joined by an elderly couple from New Zealand who were beginning their journey home after a month touring Europe. Technical difficulties with a new Air Traffic Control system recently installed in Dublin meant our flight took off twenty minutes late, but as the journey to East Midlands is only about 35 minutes we still arrived on time at 8:10am. George was waiting for me in the arrivals area and we quickly made our exit on the road towards Cleethorpes.
Pleasure Island Cleethorpes
We arrived in Pleasure Island just after 10:00am to be welcomed by a large sign welcoming us to Thorpe Park. Until today I was under the impression that Thorpe Park was a medium sized Amusement Park on the outskirts of London; perhaps a relocation is planned. Admission to the park was £12, the only pay-one-price option of the day.
The first impression I got from Pleasure Island was that the park must own shares in Huss Rides. They have a substantial portion of the Huss catalogue, including a Top Spin, a Frisbee (the older model with a tyre drive), a Fly-Away, a Condor, and a Pirate Ship.
Anyway, our first ride of the day was on the Hyperblaster, a standard 90ft S&S Double Shot tower. Unfortunately it is let down somewhat by the fact that the ride operators were in no hurry at all. Between every cycle the operators waited for exiting riders to leave the ride area, then spent about a minute and a half having a conversation before opening the gate to let oncoming riders in. While the park was quiet today, with queues relatively short, there was still an unnecessary ten minute wait for this which could easily have been halved if the operators would do their job properly. Once you finally board, though, the ride performs well; this is one of the better S&S Towers again. There is an amusing ten second countdown recording that is totally out of sync with the ride, with our launch occurring about seven seconds after the countdown stopped. Not that this matters though; part of the fun of these rides is the suspense before they start.
The Mini Mine Train (#254) is a Vekoma Junior Coaster positioned over water. Thanks to an enthusiastic ride operator, we got four circuits in one go. This is not a bad ride, though it was bouncing around on the rails a little; perhaps a little more maintenance work wouldn't hurt. This was in sharp contrast to the Boomerang (#255), which we rode - once! - in the back seat. The term square wheels springs to mind; original Vekoma Boomerangs are not known for their comfort, and while this was not the roughest of the genre I've been on, it was certainly not the smoothest either.
We took a trip up the Nauta-Bussink built Para-Tower, on which just one of six ride units was in operation. I have never been up one of these before and it was an interesting ride, though I think George may have damaged his camera when the tower started descending rather abruptly.
It was at this point that I noticed that what I had assumed was a Huss Enterprise was in fact a Huss Fly-Away by the name of Alakazam. The ride motion is the same as the Enterprise, but the seating is different, with cages you lay down in. I had to give this a go. While this was an interesting experience, and one I'm glad I've tried, the restraints are not overly comfortable, so I don't have any desire to ride one of these again.
We had a quick look through the amusement arcade in the hope of finding a DDR machine, but there was none to be found. I did, however, come across an original Atari Hard Drivin', which I haven't seen in many years. I decided to forego playing a game however, as the screen was quite badly out of focus.
We took one more ride on the Hyperblaster before leaving the park just after Noon.
Dunes Leisure Park
Dunes Leisure is a small park in Mablethorpe that we only stopped at briefly because it happened to be on our route towards Skegness. It is home to a single powered coaster called the Runaway Train. We took a single circuit on this, for the princely sum of £1. There were no other major rides at the park; just the usual complement of small rides seen at travelling fairs, such as a Waltzer and a Fun House. Before leaving Mablethorpe though, I did have a game of the first DDR of the day, a Euromix machine. I picked up an ice cream for myself and a gift for my brother on the way back to the car.
Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island at Skegness is always an amusing experience. The Official Web Site has many items of fantasy on it, for example the Jubilee Odyssey page, which claims a maximum speed of up to 100 MPH. This is simply not possible; the physics involved means that a roller coaster reaching 100 MPH would need to be approximately 340ft tall at minimum. Anyway, the first bit of fantasy was the sign in the overflow car park we parked in, which said that Fantasy Island was three minutes walk away. Now, those who know me will be aware that I walk very quickly, often faster than others around me would like to walk. And it took me the better part of ten minutes to walk over to the park, arriving just after 2pm.
Anyway, the first coaster for us here was Jubilee Odyssey (#256). The last time I was at Fantasy Island, in 2002, the ride was down due to high winds, so I was looking forward to trying it out. To start with the positive, the ride has a fun layout and a very steep first twisting first drop that I really liked. Unfortunately it suffers from the same problem every other Vekoma built inverter does; it is a violently rough ride. Some severe head banging spoilt what otherwise would have been very good fun, and one circuit was most definitely enough.
Fantasy Island has recently installed a S&S Absolutely Insane, a ride with three towers holding up a gondola via bungee cords. This gondola is launched to the heights, approximately 300 ft up, and the seats tilt forward to add to the ride experience. (In the photo further down the page you can see the top section of the Millennium Coaster, which is itself 150 ft tall). I'd decided before arriving here that I wanted to try this out, so we made our way over to ride only to be told the ride was closed for about half an hour. Incidentally, at the time of writing, the ride name is spelt wrong on the official web page.
To pass the time, we took a circuit on the Millennium Coaster, which was just as good as I remember. At £4 per circuit, however, this is a once-a-day ride despite being such good fun. It's a pity; if this ride was a little cheaper I would have gone back for repeat circuits. I also spotted a DDR Extreme machine, the first one of these I've seen in Europe and the first I've seen since I started playing DDR regularly, so of course I had to play a game on that too.
The Fantasy Mouse closed for half an hour just as we approached it, so we went on the Rhombus Rocket powered coaster next. This was followed by a ride on the Volcanic Impact, a standard S&S Space Shot which was refitted this year with new tilting seats, the first of the genre to get this upgrade. And upgrade it is; on many Space Shots you don't realise how high up you are, so when the seats tilt forward at the top you have no choice but to look down at the ground 180 ft below. Both of us liked this ride, though I was disappointed that we only got one full height launch, especially since there was nobody else queueing at the time. In case anyone from Fantasy Island is reading this, the Space Shot at Prater Park in Austria gives you four (yes, four) full launch programmes per ride ticket assuming there's not much of a queue.
At this point, George and I went back across to the Absolutely Insane, which was now operating. To say that I enjoyed this ride is an understatement. Absolutely Insane was, for me, worth the trip alone. It is a fantastic rush to be shot so high while leaning forward the whole time. While George liked it too, one trip was enough for him. I managed to get in two more rides on it during the rest of the day, which just confirmed my initial impression that this is my new favourite non-coaster ride. It is fantastic fun, and something I hope catches on in other parks. Well done to S&S, and thank you to George for taking photos for me on my second and third goes.
Anyway, after the Absolutely Insane, we went back over to the Fantasy Mouse which was running again. These rides can be hit and miss sometimes, though this one was running well. I did notice something I've never noticed before though; the car harnesses are released at the end of the ride with what looks like a standard IEC plug, often seen on electrical appliances. Anyone know more about this?
We finished up our time at Fantasy Island with a trip on the Eye-On-The-Coast Ferris Wheel for some photographs, and I managed to sneak in another game of DDR on a Euromix machine. The dance pads on this machine badly needed a clean, however, so my score this time was very disappointing. We departed Fantasy Island just after 4:20pm.
Bottons Pleasure Beach
Bottons Pleasure Beach, our final park for the day, is a small affair on the sea front. I had visited here back in 2002, missing the new Queen Bee roller coaster by a few days, so I was looking forward to trying it today. I was therefore glad to see it running as we approached. However, by the time we had bought our wrist bands (£7), the ride had been closed, much to my consternation.
Although the weather forecast for the whole day was for rain, we had been lucky up until this point. However, it was as we were boarding our first coaster at this park, coincidentally named The Storm, that the weather finally let go. The Storm was a far more bumpy ride than I remember; another ride which might as well have been built with square wheels.
George wanted to ride the Big Apple coaster. Although I was able to ride this on my previous trip in 2002, we were told that it was Only for kids!.
Instead, therefore, we made our way across to the Runaway Train. This was running, but only loading five people per train. Although the rain had stopped at this point, the tracks were wet, and the ride operator was unable to stop the train if there were any more people on board (The Runaway Train operates with a manually operated brake in the station). I also noticed a somewhat unusual tire drive system on the lift hill. Most tire drive coasters have separate motors powering each tire, however in this case there was a rubber belt running between all the sets of tires, with the drive mechanism at the bottom of the hill. I've never seen this before, and I'm surprised it is efficient, as you would need a single motor capable of moving the train instead of multiple smaller ones to get things going.
A wander around the park brought me to my final DDR machine of the day, a 3rd Mix machine with a defective screen (the image appeared dark blue) and a very dodgy pad. I've never come across one like this before, where you can't play on difficult until your final round. Playing on the easy level gets boring quickly, so it's not surprising that the more recent machines have the option to play each round on whatever level you like.
A trip around the big wheel provided some more good photo opportunities.
Just as we were getting ready to leave, I spotted that the Queen Bee (#257) was operational again, so we took two circuits, one at the back at one at the front. This is one of just two Pinfari Queen Bee rides that have been built, the other of which is in Argentina, and like The Storm it is located on the top of a building, adding height to what would otherwise appear to be a very small coaster. Though a family coaster, I did enjoy this and hope that more of them start to appear. The whole ride is themed beautifully, other than a hive full of mud and litter on the way up the lift hill. I discovered later that the Queen Bee was in fact my 200th steel coaster.
More travelling
We left bottons at 6:20pm for the drive back to East Midlands Airport, arriving at about 8:30pm. Checking in at the airport was slightly surreal; the place was absolutely empty. There was nobody to be seen in the check in area at all apart from the single person at the Ryanair desk at one end. After I checked in for my flight home, George and I enjoyed a cup of coffee and discussed possible future day trips. We said goodbye at 9:15pm when I made my way through to the departures lounge and he drove the short distance home.
The final experience for the day was going through airport security, where there were no less than seven staff on duty and one person - me - trying to clear it. The gate area had no more than half a dozen people in it until a few minutes before the flight, when a few more people appeared. In the end the aircraft was less than half full, so the flight crew closed off the first five rows of seats. I settled for an exit row seat half way down the plane, and spent the flight jotting notes which have just been turned into this trip report. I cleared the airport very quickly on landing and made it home just before 11:30pm, just over nineteen hours after waking up.
I would like to thank George for joining me on a trip like this. Visiting parks is always more fun when you have someone to share the day with, and there's no way I could ever manage something like this in a day if I had to throw car rental into the mix. My next park trip is in about three weeks, but I don't think it'll be half as insane as this one!