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Hyde Park Winter Wonderland 2018

We are, we have some friends who alternate, one year they go for the rides, the next for the food/entertainment and don't go on any rides at all.

I was like WTF? Normal people are weird, they said I was mad to spend £36 on OL for me and my son to go on it twice, just before spending £70 on food, nutters.

Does anybody know how these oyster style cards are going to work? Can I buy one and then use it to pay for two people to go on a ride etc.?

@speedy preview night is £65 entry for unlimited rides, so that would be your ballpark figure for an unlimited rides wristband. I would buy that if it was on offer.
 
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Yeah that's what I hoped, but I think I might give it a pass, last year we went during the day so crowds were not too mental, actually spent longer sitting in my seat on OL waiting for them to fill up the seats than I did queue for buying the tokens and I'm tight fisted and don't like the idea of loosing any unused credit.
 
Then the easier way is to use your contactless bank card (although part of me is wondering if you’ve “disabled” nfc :D)

On OL and a few of the others the contactless entrance was actually a fastrack entrance as well and no it didn’t cost any extra!

We only went in the evenings but had bought an attraction ticket as well so got instant access to the the park instead of waiting. Didn’t find the queues that bad it was more of the people moving around the place that caused bottlenecks
 
They could sell wristbands at a hundred quid a pop and it would STILL be good value for money with the insane prices they charge.

I've lost interest in WW in recent years. It's too crowded, too expensive, and too Orwellian with the security. Not to mention the ride cycles are very tame compared to the same flats at Hull fair, never mind a proper kermis!

But the real killer for me was when they stopped serving beer by the stein.
 
speedy said:
£9 for Olympia Looping!
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Probably the best £9 I spent (twice) last December!

Aside from Olympia Looping there's only really Wilde Maus XXL and Ice Mountain worth paying that kind of money for.

Ice Mountain has previously been the Mellors/Fantasy Island/Dreamland Margate mouse turned into a dark ride with waterfall etc. I think that's been sold now though so may be different this year.

There are some amazing flat rides though and some pretty impressive fun houses to spend your money on.

And, let's be honest, everything seems ten times better when you've been on the mulled wine and whisky hot chocolate doesn't it!
 
DiogoJ42 said:
They could sell wristbands at a hundred quid a pop and it would STILL be good value for money with the insane prices they charge
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Sorry I meant the normal ride prices in general, I should've made that clearer. The charity night ofcourse is better value than usual. At least maus xxl gives you the funky queueline too, for 7 quid
 
Stuie said:
Probably the best £9 I spent (twice) last December!

Aside from Olympia Looping there's only really Wilde Maus XXL and Ice Mountain worth paying that kind of money for.

Ice Mountain has previously been the Mellors/Fantasy Island/Dreamland Margate mouse turned into a dark ride with waterfall etc. I think that's been sold now though so may be different this year.

There are some amazing flat rides though and some pretty impressive fun houses to spend your money on.

And, let's be honest, everything seems ten times better when you've been on the mulled wine and whisky hot chocolate doesn't it!
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I should take up drinking, I'd probably enjoy it more. :p To be fair, it's still a great experience!

Yeah can't really complain, I think £9 for about three minutes of thrill ride is probably the quickest possible way to spend money, but a couple times a year is acceptable :) I guess I will be back next time there's a new credit.

As for the charity night, how are the queues? Sounds good depending on how many rides you get on.
 
Stuie said:
Aside from Olympia Looping there's only really Wilde Maus XXL and Ice Mountain worth paying that kind of money for.
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Funny they were the exact three rides we went on last year.

We wouldn't go to the Charity Night, see we've got a wimp in the family who squeals like a little girl on a swing in the park so it would be a waste of £65, far better for us to go up on a weekday and get OL done then.
 
New for this year is a "coaster pass", basically it's a pre-paid card and you get a 5 pound bonus for 30 spent. I'm not sure what advantage this has over the contactless payment system they had last year. Also the roller coasters are now confirmed, I think there's a spinning coaster missing compared to last year but I'm not sure.

Also the coaster pass covers Dr Archibald which looks cool, but doesn't look like a roller coaster.
https://hydeparkwinterwonderland.com/attraction/coaster-pass/

EDIT: please excuse this plug of my own website...

I made up a table of the roller coasters from past years here, someone who's more familiar with the event can confirm, but I think the coaster missing is Buwalda's spinning coaster?
 
How much does Hyde Park Winter Wonderland cost, out of interest? Is there any sort of wristband system you can get a la Blackpool, or is it pay per ride only?

Not planning on going any time soon, was just wondering. It looks like a great event, though; I'd love to experience it some day! Olympia Munich Looping looks amazing, and the whole event just looks like wonderful festive fun to me! I'll have to wait until I've left home to visit, though, as my parents have given me a very blunt no whenever I've requested a visit!
 
Matt N said:
How much does Hyde Park Winter Wonderland cost, out of interest? Is there any sort of wristband system you can get a la Blackpool, or is it pay per ride only?

Not planning on going any time soon, was just wondering. It looks like a great event, though; I'd love to experience it some day! Olympia Munich Looping looks amazing, and the whole event just looks like wonderful festive fun to me! I'll have to wait until I've left home to visit, though, as my parents have given me a very blunt no whenever I've requested a visit!
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Haha I'm awful, I managed to convince my reluctant parents to make a holiday out of it! Looking back, they caved in to my awkward hobby far too much. Then last year I told my mum I was going down on the train myself and she ended up coming with me

Anyway It's pay per ride only unless you go on the charity night, which I think is a 65 wristband? Olympia Looping is 9, Wilde Maus is 6ish, the spinning mouse was 5 I think. The flat rides cost anything from 3 to 8 if I remember correctly. I remember getting all nine credits cost 50 pounds. It's expensive, but it's nothing short of spectacular!

I'm sure you could go a bit sooner than that! I went down from Aberdeenshire to London, evening at V&A Museum then Winter Wonderland, morning in Margate, Dreamland Margate, and back up on the train in two days, one night. Depending on where you are in England you could make it a day trip :)
 
speedy said:
Haha I'm awful, I managed to convince my reluctant parents to make a holiday out of it! Looking back, they caved in to my awkward hobby far too much. Then last year I told my mum I was going down on the train myself and she ended up coming with me

Anyway It's pay per ride only unless you go on the charity night, which I think is a 65 wristband? Olympia Looping is 9, Wilde Maus is 6ish, the spinning mouse was 5 I think. The flat rides cost anything from 3 to 8 if I remember correctly. I remember getting all nine credits cost 50 pounds. It's expensive, but it's nothing short of spectacular!

I'm sure you could go a bit sooner than that! I went down from Aberdeenshire to London, evening at V&A Museum then Winter Wonderland, morning in Margate, Dreamland Margate, and back up on the train in two days, one night. Depending on where you are in England you could make it a day trip :)
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Thanks very much for the info @speedy!

I'm from the South West of England, near Bristol; so roughly a 2 hour trip away from London! When I talked to my dad about Winter Wonderland, his response was "Sounds like something to fleece foreign tourists out of lots of money to me! I'm afraid you're going there on your own!". I personally think the event looks brilliant, but my parents beg to differ...

One of the main draws of the event for me would probably be Munich Looping and the other coasters, as all the stuff like ice skating doesn't appeal to me that much currently and I don't want to drink alcohol when I'm older, so the rides would probably be the main draw for me!
 
Matt N said:
Thanks very much for the info @speedy!

I'm from the South West of England, near Bristol; so roughly a 2 hour trip away from London! When I talked to my dad about Winter Wonderland, his response was "Sounds like something to fleece foreign tourists out of lots of money to me! I'm afraid you're going there on your own!". I personally think the event looks brilliant, but my parents beg to differ...

One of the main draws of the event for me would probably be Munich Looping and the other coasters, as all the stuff like ice skating doesn't appeal to me that much currently and I don't want to drink alcohol when I'm older, so the rides would probably be the main draw for me!
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To be fair, I think your dad's description is accurate. For me, I budgeted it out before I went, then forget the cost and have a good time :)

Apart from the somewhat uncomfortable restraints, Olympia Looping is awesome, especially at night! I don't drink either, but for me it was worth it for the rides (plus I like trains as well, don't judge). I heard somewhere Olympia Looping is a three year deal, so it might not be here next year.

Combining the trip with Dreamland worked well. I would offer to meet you there, but for obvious reasons I can't. Maybe another time!

EDIT: Also, the fuel to move/run the rides, workers, security, use of the park etc etc must add up. When I think about it, it's an amazing feat of engineering and organisation
 
Yeah we did a planned ride day last year, it was our plan to do four of the coasters and nothing else, so we looked up the prices, shoved the cost into a fannypack and went, we didn't spend anymore than we intended and intentionally didn't take any credit cards, I think the entire trip cost us just shy of £60, including travel, which when compared to a FrightNight type day at Thorpe, wasn't what we considered poor value when we did a similar number of coasters in the same time, but some friend who didn't plan went and ended up spending almost £400 between them on rides, food and drink.

They must make an absolute bomb at Winter Wonderland.
 
So I watched a video on YouTube of five train, five car operation. The average dispatch interval was 37.7 seconds (the operations are amazing). That averages out at 95 dispatches per hour. 20 seats per train. Take away a couple empty seats per cycle. 18 guests/train, 1,710 per hour. 1,710*9. So unless I've got something wrong, an hour of peak operation brings in 15 thousand pound.
 
Matt N said:
Thanks very much for the info @speedy!
I'm from the South West of England, near Bristol; so roughly a 2 hour trip away from London! When I talked to my dad about Winter Wonderland, his response was "Sounds like something to fleece foreign tourists out of lots of money to me! I'm afraid you're going there on your own!". I personally think the event looks brilliant, but my parents beg to differ...
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Matt, your parents have quickly become two of my favourite contributors to this forum.
 
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