I'm generally going to do highlights and low lights, can't be bothered with big paragraphs. I didn't get many photos, and the poor highlights will be in here too
For me, the trip had to do something. After failing to find a new number 1 (2 or 3) coaster in Sweden or Norway, I needed to know that out there, beyond the UK borders, there were exceptional coasters. So while I wasn't pressuring myself (or PA) to do it, I did have hopes.
The group was a nice number. Eleven of us most of the time (the odd one doesn't matter). No major personality clashes in the group, and we were in good spirits Saturday. Well, Ian wasn't doing so well, but he was later
I was fine after evacuating the Paella from the night before
Highlights.
- Yelling
KHAN - every time we saw it. As we got closer, the excitement built. It built a lot as it was so far away :lol:
- Saying "Still... It's better than Baco" every time anyone complained about anything.
- Festive Vulture. They had this animatronic Vulture in a cage wearing a Christmas hat. Every fifteen minutes it started singing various Christmas songs!
- Broken crustacean ride! Sea Odyssey - submarine simulator thing. Was good, then conveniently broke so I could go and have a coffee with a...
- Chocolate spoon. The coffee came with a chocolate spoon in a pack! Lovely rich, dark chocolate. Really good with the coffee (which was also good - UK theme parks learn). Marc and Mark had one each too, but Marc thought it was a plastic stirrer and left it on the counter. Mark was less than impressed :lol:
- KHAN! The ride this time. More later.
- Condor! Love the ride. Really enjoyed the drop, which considering I hate tower rides says a lot!
- The love/hate of Stampida. I gooned it and went on my own to race against everyone else (everyone yelling goon at me in the queue and up the lift hill
). It hurts so much, but I did red and couldn't quite understand why everyone else seemed in lots and LOTS of pain. I found out later when I rode blue as well.
-not laughing at the award ceremony where we handed the award for Baco being the best new ride 2007...
Lowlights
- Furious Baco
Very bizzare and slightly scary hay-bail man thing. What does it have to with Christmas?
Will has fallen in love with me and seems to think we're a couple. This is bad, him fondling my nipple was the last straw! :lol:
Mark - because he'll hate it
The antlers came free with something. Will used them to look even more like a moose than usual!
Apart from the rapids, the water rides were shut. No idea what is wrong with this one
Big John and Tanya
KHAN!
KHAN!!!!!!!
Sorry Tanya, but you're going on the lift hill coaster!
Whoa! What's that?
Don't know, but THAT looks foul (must be Baco).
Marc attempts to break as many rules, as blatantly as he can...
John finds some fun from Baco... It was tough...
Erm, Jerry wants opinions on rides then. So I shall give.
Tami-Tami
Vekoma kiddie coaster - same as Rhino coaster at West Midlands. Fun enough, but nothing to really write home about.
El Diablo
Odd Arrow mine train. The section out of the station was ace, as was the random ride op coming to us saying "you have no children? You come with me now to front of queue". So we all skipped a twenty minute queue as we had no kids with us :lol:.
The ride was dreadful though, with the pumping lift hills (three of them) and nothing between. Probably the one coaster which really needed to be superbly themed, but it wasn't. Probably the best themed coaster, but still too poor to pull it of as a good ride.
Tomahawk
Great little kiddie woody. Bit rough and shunting, but again, good enough for what it was.
Condor
Loved it. Great free fall feeling, and not as scary as Apocalypse
Stampida
Seriously, seriously harsh ride. So painful, so very very painful. Had a great pace though, and the layout was superb. Odd for a woody in that it had pretty much nothing in the way of airtime, uphill double bumps and stuff, really odd.
Loved the interaction, especially with Tomahawk when you got all three trains racing each other. Hated the pain, loved the speed and the idea.
Furious Baco
First go, I was middle-ish, left hand side, outside. Launch was meh, drop was meh, corner was meh, dead track in the middle was meh, inline was too slow for me (I know it has to be for the trains, so it fails anyway), last corner was alright actually :lol:
Next two goes were both on the outside right hand side.
Back row... Launch is much better. Dip out of the launch is much better. Then the pain started. The vibrations were just exceptional. Really, painfully, uncomfortably horrid. There is no way a coaster of that age should rattle that much.
Next go front row. Again, launch is better, dip is better. Vibrations even worse, and at this point I got such a horrendous pain in my skull. I've never had a coaster cause so much pain in life. I was in agony. So, I tried, it failed.
Even without the pain, the ride has so little to it, it's just not impressive at all. Lacklustre launch and poor layout. Pants.
Dragon Khan
Well, I was looknig for a world class coaster on this trip, and Khan succeeded in every way that Baco failed.
Superb ride. Just fun, exciting, forceful, lovely, wonderful, please move it to the UK!
Every ride was so different, but still great. How a coaster can change so much each ride is amazing. It did though, but never in a bad way. This run I'll hammer you with constant high-G's; this time I'll through in some zero-g in the middle of elements for no real reason.
Brilliant ride (shut up Ian
).
Erm, the end... For now...
That's taken me all afternoon to write :lol:
I miss Khan. But at least it sounds like I didn't miss out too much on Baco.