In part 3 of this report, I told of adventures at Blackpool, Southport, and Gulliver's world leading up to about 5pm. Well, we arrived back in Blackpool (after our 4th and final bus trip of the day) around 6pm.
Now we had received our Blackpool "Welcome Packs" earlier in the day, filled with goodies including a very generous amount of ride tickets! Blackpool is one of those parks where NO "Pay-one-price" exists -- every ride costs either money or tickets. At Blackpool the rides are divided into four categories (A, B, C, D) costing (for individual ride tickets) #2.00, #1.60, #1.20, and #0.80 So most coasters, being 'A' rides, cost $3.00 to ride. The Pepsi Max Big One, however, is a double-A ride, meaning that you'd have to fork over $6.00 to ride! Ouch! Blackpool also has discount ride sheets. The White Knuckle sheet costs 17 pounds ($25) and has 9 'A' tickets and 3 'B' tickets, so you get about a 25% discount by buying the pack.
Anyway, we had received a whole mess of A and B tickets in our welcome pack, plus I had bought another sheet at a discount, PLUS I bought 1/2 of a "Family Pack" ride sheet to get some 'C' and 'D' tix. So I started the three-day riding session with *56* ride tickets!!!! That's a lot of riding, considering that we'd have four ERT sessions during the days as well. So, I set out to try to use up some of these tickets.
Big Dipper: This famous coaster has some fun parts with extreme airtime and some boring "connector" parts. On the return leg almost EVERY dip has some other ride above you. One unique thing about the ride is that there is a short chain lift that lifts maybe 5-6 feet, allowing the gentle run to the main lift hill. However, it's the same chain providing both lifts! Quite a neat design.
Space Invaders: This is an enclosed Jet-Star-like coaster. On our first attempt to ride it it broke down just as we get seated. We were informed that it would be about 10 minutes to reset, and were asked to go to the ticket window to get our tickets back. Well, we were greeted there by a company official who apologised and gave us TWO tickets each [Great, like I needed more tickets!]. I can't imagine many US parks which would do such a thing for only a 10-minute delay. Good customer relations at Blackpool! Anyway, we got to ride a bit later and I found it a bit of a disappointment after Alton Towers' "Black Hole".
Revolution: A Standard Arrow shuttle-loop, which means great fun. I love the 'airtime' you get when launched and the track drops from under you. Another neat thing about this ride is the cantilevered structure.
Zipper Dipper: A neat, wooden junior coaster. Fun for the kiddies.
Grand National: I've heard many good things about this coaster, and the RCCGB have adopted it as their 'pet' coaster. However, I rode it once and found it rough, but with severely good airtime. It certainly is a good coaster, but I can't personally rave about it.
Wild Mouse: Now *THIS* is a coaster I can rave about! While some people were of the "once is enough" with the Wild Mouse, I certainly enjoyed it enough for a couple of return trips. This mouse really moves! It has pretty large dips, the 'standard' but scary S-curve section, and enough changes in direction at rapid pace to really throw you around. But it's "smooth" whenever you are actually seated in the car. Personally, a 'don't miss'. However, I hear it's quite painful if you have to ride with someone, so ride it alone if possible.
Avalanche: My first Mack Bobsled ride. I really enjoyed it, since it is so much faster and "free" compared to the Intamin bobsleds I have ridden ('Sarajevo Bobsled', 'Disaster Transport'), and it is free of brakes on the way down. Word has it that this one is faster but slightly shorter than the only US Mack bobsled in Kings Dominion, VA.
I rode the Derby Racer, one of only three left in the world. The other two are at Cedar Point, and Rye Playland (Rye, NY). The one at Blackpool runs pretty slowly, so it's almost a kiddie ride. Compare that to the one at Rye Playland where it runs so fast your muscles get exhausted trying to keep yourself on the ride!
Blackpool also has some *excellent* bumper cars, curiously themed as the "Superbowl". The great thing about these cars is that you can spin out pretty easily, which means that if you just 'tap' someone sideways near the rear of their car, you will cause them to do a 360! Not too shabby.
Lastly, I went on the "Gold Mine" dark ride. This ride is very well done, with good theming and with a short bit through a restaurant. I've really noticed that, with some exceptions, the dark rides in the UK have been pretty good.
I left the park at about 10:15pm, having used 11 of my own tickets (plus the 1 freebie).
Blackpool has a public tram system which runs alongside the ocean with this amazingly cute double-decker vintage tram cars. None of the conductors I asked knew when they were built. They are a bit slow, though, taking about 1/2 hour for the 5-mile trip to the Norbreck "Castle" Hotel.
My notes for Thurday are unusally brief. I pretty much just wrote "Rides, rides, and more rides".
We had a morning (9am) ERT session on the Grand National. This was a bit more fun than the previous day since we were doing all the usual hand-slapping between the two racing trains. The coaster wasn't any less rough, however, but somehow ERT enhances the ride experience.
And what is it with England and these severely cramped turnstiles? Both on the entrances and exits of most of these rides are these butt-contoured turnstiles that must have been designed by evil midgets in the 1920's. They take a *lot* of finesse to maneouver through and *ahem* it seems like a lot of ACErs are quite overweight, adding to the logjams which occurred.
We had a catered lunch at the "Horseshoe" room, easily the worst catered lunch of the four that we had -- the chicken was sandpaper-dry.
I went on the "world's longest Log Flume" and got quite soaked. Went on the Waltzer (to spin dry?) but it was not too thrilling -- no human spinners on the Blackpool waltzer.
An evening ERT on the Big Dipper was also fun, and then we prepared for our complementary show, the "Mystique Illusion Show" set in the Las-Vegas-style Horseshoe room.
OK, I'll be honest with you. I thought that the show was pretty poor and, at times, torture to sit through. On the other side, there were quite a number of people who enjoyed it thoroughly. I guess tastes differ.
The show was a combination of "illusion", choreographed musical numbers Las-Vegas style, and some vocal numbers. I would say that the only part that I found interesting is the variety of the costumes, some of them quite imaginative.
The opening act was
The "illusion" part of the show was not nearly the best I've seen. Really,
there were only two illusions that they repeated 4 or 5 times each using
different props:
The Fabio-lookalike illusionist almost had me laughing out loud several
times during 'serious' illusions.
In any case, I don't mean to trash the show too much more, since the point
of this trip was roller coasters & other rides.
We caught the 12:01AM tram (the last one) back to the hotel.
Having been at Blackpool PB for two days straight, it was time for
a (small) change. We headed for Frontierland, in the seaside town
of Morecambe. This was a pleasant, rather small park, set in an
"American West" theme. We got off the buses and headed for our
first and only *Two Hour* ERT on the Texas Tornado and Runaway Mine Train.
The Texas Tornado is a mid-sized woodie, formerly known as "Le Cyclone".
Like Southport's Cyclone, the first car of one of the trains was turned
backwards. It had rained in the morning, and the seats of the coaster
were pretty wet!
The Texas Tornado gave a pretty pleasant ride, with some nice spots of
airtime. An added touch is that it goes through a treed section of the
park, with some wet branches close to the track giving an extra "rain"
sensation to the first few trainloads of riders.
The Runaway Mine Train was a medium Wild Mouse, not nearly as good or
as fast as the one in Blackpool. They also started running the Wildcat,
however they only had two cars running, a very slow throughput. I hit
that fairly quickly to check it off my list.
Frontierland was hospitable, providing coffee and cookies during the
morning ERT session.
After ERT, we hit the two kiddie coasters and then went to find the
fun house. Like the fun-house at Southport, this one also contained
some unique thrills.
At first, the fun house was reluctant to let the adults go on any of
the attraction, since there were also children present. However, as
the number of ACErs in the building (watching and wanting to play very,
very much) increased, they finally relented and let the adults on the
rides, though not if any children were present (a decent policy in my
opinion).
The fun house also had a turntable similar to the one at Southport,
though it was plastic rather than wood. I didn't try that one.
They had a more interesting (to me) spinner: The Mixer.
"The Mixer" was a cross between the spinning turntable and a Rotor.
There was a plastic dome in the center (perhaps 3 feet in diameter and
1 foot tall, then a wooden floor that curved into a vertical wall on
the outside of the cylinder. This whole contraption spins very vast,
giving Rotor-like forces and making people stick to the wall. One
person at a time is allowed to crawl to the center (the operator slows
the rotation down somewhat) and then fling him/herself out to the wall
again. I was able to do my old Rotor trick of standing "floating" in
mid-air, my body at about a 45-degree angle from vertical with my
feet against the back wall.
Frontierland broke the spell of good dark rides. They had two really
bad dark rides, with mediocre or non-functioning scares and a very
short ride.
They have nicely-spinning teacups on a slow-moving platform, and a
very slow "Flying Scooters" ride. It was a shame, since the sails
on the flying scooters (controllable by the rider) had a full 180-degree
range. But without wind nor ride speed, the ride is kind of pointless.
Their bumper cars were OK, but not great.
We got back to Blackpool PB in time for our ERT on "Roller Coaster", a
mild coaster with NO restraints in the cars (you won't need them). It's
a pleasant ride, but not terribly thrilling.
And then....to use up the tickets! We did about 6 or 7 "death match"
rides on the Superbowl Bumper Cars, enough for even the ride operator
to ask "haven't you had ENOUGH already?". Several rides on the
Avalanche, the Steeplechase, and many other rides. The ride called
"Tagada" was open, having been closed for the previous two days. I'd
seen this ride only once before, in Vienna. It is a ring (with continuous
bench-style hard plastic seating about 20-25 feet in diameter. The
ride spins up to speed and then the operator can "Bump/tilt" the whole
platform very rapidly with compressed air. So, you get "airtime" as
well as a sore butt.
When the park finally shut down around 10pm, I had used all
but 7 of my original 56 tickets! That's a lot of riding.
So, this was the end of day 8, only one more day left of the
vacation, and thus the subject for part 5 tomorrow...
DAY 8 - FRIDAY, 12 JULY
Frontierland (Morecambe) and more time at BlackpoolBack to Blackpool
On to part 5, the last
Back to part 1,
part 2,
part 3,
part 4
[back to Dave's coaster page]
