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Oakwood Discussion

Oakwood have revealed their plans for the half term period running until the 4th June.

Clear signs of investment as Megafobia is still closed to finish commissioning and testing following the retracking. The pirate ship is closed as they are installing a new control system and Drenched is closed until the summer as they are putting in new restrains.

Most interestingly the mini golf near the bobsled no longer appears on the park map and instead they've got an area marked as Future Development Plans, which looks like it covers the area of the mini golf and the area between Drenched and Vertigo. That's a big space, definitely large enough for a moderate sized coaster.

I won't be visiting any time soon but would be interesting to see if they've got any hoardings up and the area covered by them.
 
Decent sized area that, you'd hope they put a reasonable investment in there.

Appreciate the park not coming off great in that video but, the ride closures were all well advertised beforehand and with a £1.8m investment in Megafobia, some new restraints on Drenched, a new control system on the pirate ship and some refurbishment of Speed there is some effort going in there. They've also upped their events game this year across the season.
 
Any further updates on Megafobia? I'm down in Tenby next week and would pop in if there's a chance of it being open.
 
It is annoying. Pretty much drove past Oakwood last week and doubt I'll be down that way again for a long while.
 
That certainly looks encouraging. I'd love to go back and give it a go, but it's a pain in the back side to get there and the park is a bit crap.
 
I'm sure I used to have an account here... anyway registered afresh to discuss Megafobia. I went today and can confirm the ride is in very good shape. Just the right balance of not being too rough but having the chaotic woodie feeling, some great airtime, feels fast and exciting. It's a really good job.

Sadly the operations were absolutely abysmal, it wasn't particularly busy at Oakwood, largely school trips, and I waited 1hr 20m to get on. I got bored enough to start timing, they were averaging a dispatch every 4m 45s on one train, with a row out of service. That's 13 trains an hour x 22 riders = 286 passengers per hour. Most trains had 4 riders from the fastpass/RAP queues. I get they only have 1 train right now, but that means maximum effort needed from the operators to make every second count, which was not happening.

The park does feel a bit sad in general, lots of people getting lost because they don't give out park maps and don't display very many around the place, no wayfinding signage, lots of closed off pathways. Speed desperately needs a lick of paint. Lot's of little things to solve at Oakwood, but at least the Megafobia refurb has got a positive outcome.
 
Honestly, restricting fastpass to just 4 per train is an improvement on previous years when it was (up to) full trains, every 2nd train. Definitely needs a 2nd train at this time of year though
 
John said:
Honestly, restricting fastpass to just 4 per train is an improvement on previous years when it was (up to) full trains, every 2nd train. Definitely needs a 2nd train at this time of year though
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I agree. I remember when I went to Oakwood on a school trip in July 2016, and the park policy was to fill at least every other train with Fastrack riders on both Megafobia and Speed. At times, multiple trains in a row were filled with only Fastrack riders.

The main queues moved very slowly as a result, so I'm glad to see that Oakwood has reduced Fastrack allocation on rides since then.

I'm glad to hear such encouraging reception to the newly refurbished Megafobia, though! I'm hearing very good things; if Oakwood wasn't so hard to get to as a non-driver, I'd be very tempted to try and make a trip down there over summer!
 
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