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Hyde Park Winter Wonderland: General Discussion

Matt N

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
It would appear that Hyde Park Winter Wonderland is returning for the first time since 2019, from 19th November 2021 to 3rd January 2022:

Entry must be booked in advance; pre-bookings open from 3rd August.

Exciting stuff, don’t you think? I wonder what the ride lineup will be?
 
Tickets are out for those signed up to the emails.

Tickets will come in three options...

1. Off peak - free - tends to be mornings of weekdays Mon to Thurs outside of school holidays.

2. Standard - £5 - afternoons and mornings of weekends, weekdays of school holidays as well as all day Friday.

3. Peak - £7.50 - afternoon/evenings of saturdays and Sundays.

Interested to see how they'll manage this as there's no set timed sessions apart from the entry. Once in you can stay as long as you like.
 
Interested to see how they'll manage this as there's no set timed sessions apart from the entry. Once in you can stay as long as you like.
Realistically how many people are going to arrive before noon and stay all day?
Also if you arrive before lunch for free, you will almost certainly buy food, so they kind of still get the £5.
 
Realistically how many people are going to arrive before noon and stay all day?
You'd have to be a billionaire ... !

I typically only visit when working down the road, I am not sure if this makes me less likely to visit, pre-booking has become part of life after all, but it does feel like they're introducing something that will act as a barrier to people 'popping in', using a system a lot of people are pretty sick of.
 
Every year I say I'm going to go and I never bother.

Realistically it costs me £80 train fare (if i'm lucky), a hotel for the night and about £100-200 for rides and food.

I can fly to a proper theme park abroad for not much different. It's a total rip off for what it is.
 
Lived in London (until last year, now just outside) If I go to WW then its often been to meet a friend for a few beers, in which case it isn't always that much more expensive than many other London pubs. Or I might go for one or two rides and a wander, a few years back I went and just did Olympia Looping.
Can't imagine treating it like a theme park for multiple rides.
 
I can fly to a proper theme park abroad for not much different. It's a total rip off for what it is.
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

We're both over two hours away, we're certainly not the target audience for the event. It's in a city with a population approaching 9 million people. Judging by the heinous crowds, they're not struggling to find people who want to go.

I've been a few times, but only because I've been in the area for work. In fact, the last two or three times I've been, I don't think I even rode anything. A supplier took us on a do, it was actually pretty good - but I'm glad I wasn't picking up the tab.

If you want a Christmassy event with food, beer and rides your options are not extensive. Plus, I think there are a lot of people who go there and don't spend a fortune, there's lots to see - some people are there just to 'be' there.

If you go there and take full advantage it can be a very costly endeavour, there's no doubt about that and I certainly don't doubt you could do a trip to a European park or city for not entirely dissimilar amount if you chose to.

If you are one of the 15m people that live within pretty easy reach of the Tube network, the value proposition is different than for those of us that make up the Northern contingent.
 
and if the rides aren't as important there are a lot of similar northern/midlands events.
Birmingham has done the Frankfurt Christmas market for at least 20 years.
Manchester also has a big Christmas market.
They don't have as large a beer hall areas, but there is still plenty of places to get it. The only major different thing at WW is the rides.
 
Agree @jon81uk the Manchester event takes place outside our office there and it's fine ... although can be pretty miserable at peak crowd levels or when it's raining.

At Winter Wonderland you can maybe just about convince yourself that you're at Oktoberfest or something very similar, but the other events are largely poor imitations.
 
I think the other difference is the markets are mainly markets with a couple of bars. Whereas Winter Wonderland has one whole area just dedicated to beer and bratwurst.
 
So I've been considering a trip to Hyde Park Winter wonderland for a while but I'm not really sure it's worth it for me this year.
  • I live far enough away that if I wanted to experience it at night time (which I would like to) then I would have to have a hotel. Which will no doubt cost a good chunk for the cash I'd use.
  • I'm not sure still with COVID how I'd feel with how crowded it would be.
  • I'd like to ride olympia Looping and it is 100% on the bucket list but I'm not sure there's much else I'd be interested in.
  • I've heard the rides are very expensive. Apparently near enough £10 for Olympia Looping and I'd want to ride it at least twice.
  • To me it all sounds to expensive and with COVID I just don't think I'll bother this year but maybe I'm wrong about what I've said.
 
If the hotel is cost prohibitive, do shop around. There is a hotel in London for every budget. Consider looking further out on Piccadilly or Central lines and you won't be that far away.

Last year we stayed in Acton and headed in on the tube, worked well and the hotel had parking.

Olympia is a great ride, definitely worth a ride. I suspect there are various things that might mean it's harder to bring it next year than this year ... but who knows, really.
 
I don't think you need to worry about staying the night, you're only about 90 mins away from London by train and since dusk is usually around 5pm you should have plenty of time to enjoy night rides.
 
I think @Rick and @Thameslink Rail you are both right. If I did want to do it with a hotel I could probably find one and if I didn't I could probably do it by train. I think with COVID though I'll probably wait for next year. If Olympia doesn't come next year then maybe I'll regret it but I have always wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Germany so I'll probably get it somewhere else.
 
I’d certainly recommend a visit to HPWW if you’ve never been; I went for myself during the 2019 event (well, January 2020, but it was still technically the 2019 event), and I had a great evening!

In terms of hotels; I don’t know where abouts you live, but based on my experience, you could get some night riding in without necessarily needing a hotel. When I went, we only spent around 3 hours there, arriving at about 2:30pm and leaving at about 5:30pm, and my photo library from the evening suggests that it was pretty dark by about 4-4:30pm on the day I went (2nd January 2020); I certainly took a fair few of my rides at either sunset or nighttime! If you were looking at hotels, though, we stayed in the Premier Inn Kensington Earls Court hotel, and I will just warn you that that one is not as close as you’d expect; from memory, I’d say the walk was close to an hour, possibly 45 minutes at a push. According to Google Maps, Premier Inn London Victoria is a fair bit closer, at roughly a 27 minute walk away.

In terms of my ride count in the 3 hours; I did Olympia twice, the 4 other coasters once, and I also did HangOver, the big drop tower, once. If you were looking to cost save, it might be worth me telling you that in the year I went, 2 of the 5 coasters were bog standard Reverchon spinning mouse coasters (Ice Mountain and Christmas Coaster). Unless you’re into credit counting like I am (a non-kiddie +1 was never something I was going to pass up on, even though it was the same ride type as I’d just ridden!), or you really like Reverchon spinning mice, then maybe you could get away with only riding one of the two? (I’d personally recommend Ice Mountain if you’re picking between the two, as it has some rather nice theming and lighting for a travelling coaster!)

I’d really recommend HangOver, the drop tower, if you’re even remotely into drop towers. It’s absolutely fantastic, with great forces on the drop; it was by far my favourite ride at HPWW, personally, and certainly worth the money!

All I can really say other than that is that I hope you have a really nice time if you do go! I’d say it’s worth visiting at least once, if only to ride Olympia (and HangOver, if you’re into drop towers), and I did have a nice evening there!
 
I think @Rick and @Thameslink Rail you are both right. If I did want to do it with a hotel I could probably find one and if I didn't I could probably do it by train. I think with COVID though I'll probably wait for next year. If Olympia doesn't come next year then maybe I'll regret it but I have always wanted to go to Oktoberfest in Germany so I'll probably get it somewhere else.
YHA youth hostels are very good and quite cheap.
https://www.yha.org.uk/

So new for 2021 appears to be Airborne to replace danter's air which is apparently under refurbishment .

Airborne looks a beast !!!
Ah that's interesting. I've always wanted to visit but it's far away and so expensive. Plus Air is on my bucket list so not really worth going anyway. (The four rides I'd most like to do at WW are Munich Looping, Wilde Maus XXL, Hangover Tower and Air).
 
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Ah that's interesting. I've always wanted to visit bit it's far away and so expensive. Plus Air is on my bucket list so not really worth going anyway. (The four rides I'd most like to do at WW are Munich Looping, Wilde Maus XXL, Hangover Tower and Air).
Its not cheap at all, we usually set a ride budget of around £50. Didnt particularly rate wilde maus yet its ok.
 
The Smashing Jump that was Mixtape at Alton Towers is now onsite at HPWW;

image0.jpg
 
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