Bringing us up to the present day, 2012 sees the opening of the parks spanking new four star hotel and water park;
Tiki Lodge and Luau Lagoon!
Why spend thousands of pounds flying half way round the world, when you can have your dream Hawaiian holiday right here, at Blithering Lodge?
The park's entrance plaza has been remodelled to add a monorail shuttle to the hotel.
The view from the ride may not be as exciting as other parks' but it the route was chosen for speed and efficiency. The track takes you round the perimeter of the park, behind
Filbert's Fun factory, and past the coach park, staff car park, and maintenance workshop. (Note: these are not new, they were always there, but off the game map
)
At the other end of the line, the station is themed to match the hotel.
The hotel features a grand lobby, decorated to feel like it is outside, with a central water feature.
It has 136 family rooms, each sleeping four guests, as well as 3 luxury suites. On the top floor, the Hula Bar has terraces at the front of the building, and on the other side, looks down over the water park.
The hotel appears massive from within the park, because unlike most hotels, all the rooms are in one straight wing. The means that the majority of rooms get a view over the theme park, while the few that don't face the outside area of the water park.
There is a small side gate that connects the hotel directly to The Lawns area of the park, passing under
The Quest.
The water park itself is mostly under cover. It has 11 body flumes (3 of which plus a bowl flume are outside), an Aqua Blaster called Hula Blaster, A large lagoon pool, several smaller pools, a huge lazy river, several hot tubs and a giant tipping bucket!
The lazy river is the largest in the UK, and includes both indoor and outdoor sections.
The outdoor area of Luau Lagoon has a relaxing pool, a lot of lazy river, a hot tub for colder days, a large splash pool for the three outdoor flumes, and a smaller splash pool for the bowl flume.
So now we truly are up to date. While I may make a few minor tweaks here and there for the sake of POVs, that's about it for Blithering Lodge.
But do not despair! For there are still many videos to come. Though it's only fair to warn you that they may take a while. I'm off to Tilburg Kermis and Phantasialand tomorrow, then when I get back I'm working 23 straight 11 hour days on the trot, with no time off!
But hopefully this will keep you ticking over till I can start on the next video.
For one final time, here's that now-classic wideshot of the whole park:
(The park is now so big that zooming out far enough to fit it all in means some scenery starts to vanish!)