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Oakwood Discussion

I think that Hydro was installed at a time when Oakwood were trying to be different. They had success with Megafobia as the UKā€™s only modern woodie, and their following installations were pretty much all UK firsts. We had the only Huss tower, Plane Crazy, the UKā€™s first Eurofighter, and Hydro.

Their approach seemed to be that, due to their location, they figured Oakwood could best attract people by installing something that couldnā€™t be found elsewhere in the UK. Thatā€™s what I assume was the strategy anyway. Hydro was the wrong decision though, and a bit too unique.

I donā€™t think they should have built Hydro, but I do see the logic of why they (probably) did.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Their approach seemed to be that, due to their location, they figured Oakwood could best attract people by installing something that couldnā€™t be found elsewhere in the UK. Thatā€™s what I assume was the strategy anyway. Hydro was the wrong decision though, and a bit too unique.

I donā€™t think they should have built Hydro, but I do see the logic of why they (probably) did.
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Tidal Wave at Thorpe opened two years before Hydro though. So wasn't that unique really (I know technically different manufacturers but it is visually the exact same ride).
I get what you mean though and yes Speed being the first Eurofighter should have been a big deal but Oblivion did the vertical drop thing better and the ride never looked "finished" even Rage at Southend seemed better presented!
 
jon81uk said:
Tidal Wave at Thorpe opened two years before Hydro though. So wasn't that unique really (I know technically different manufacturers but it is visually the exact same ride).
I get what you mean though and yes Speed being the first Eurofighter should have been a big deal but Oblivion did the vertical drop thing better and the ride never looked "finished" even Rage at Southend seemed better presented!
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If you look at Hydro, it does actually look pretty different to Tidal Wave. It had a very steep, intimating looking drop, setting it aside from any other UK water rides. This will be what Paddy was going for, and why he didnā€™t purchase an Intamin Spillwater, even though in reality this would have been a better option.

I rode Hydro/ Drenched many times and can honestly say that the vertical drop didnā€™t add anything to the ride at all. Tidal Wave is actually a more fun drop because itā€™s not over in seconds.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I think that Hydro was installed at a time when Oakwood were trying to be different. They had success with Megafobia as the UKā€™s only modern woodie, and their following installations were pretty much all UK firsts. We had the only Huss tower, Plane Crazy, the UKā€™s first Eurofighter, and Hydro.

Their approach seemed to be that, due to their location, they figured Oakwood could best attract people by installing something that couldnā€™t be found elsewhere in the UK. Thatā€™s what I assume was the strategy anyway. Hydro was the wrong decision though, and a bit too unique.

I donā€™t think they should have built Hydro, but I do see the logic of why they (probably) did.
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I would say it's much like what Drayton Manor did before Thomas Land in a way šŸ¤”
 
owenstreet7 said:
I would say it's much like what Drayton Manor did before Thomas Land in a way šŸ¤”
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Yep, so that sort of backs up what I was saying. In the 90s and early 00s, the trend was far more in favour of theme parks installing thrill rides. This changed around the mid-00s, especially since park operators saw the success of Thomas Land and Peppa Pig World. I also think now that the height and speed records canā€™t really be broken that easily, the public are less wowed by thrill rides than they used to be.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
If you look at Hydro, it does actually look pretty different to Tidal Wave. It had a very steep, intimating looking drop, setting it aside from any other UK water rides. This will be what Paddy was going for, and why he didnā€™t purchase an Intamin Spillwater, even though in reality this would have been a better option.

I rode Hydro/ Drenched many times and can honestly say that the vertical drop didnā€™t add anything to the ride at all. Tidal Wave is actually a more fun drop because itā€™s not over in seconds.
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Hydro opened at the back end of the water ride craze in the UK. Parks were going after the wettest water ride title, so in that aspect it was not unique in the slightest.

We had Storm Force 10 in 1999, Tidal Wave and Valhalla in 2000 and then finally Hydro in 2002. All going after the title of the wettest water ride in the UK. Given that, I would argue that it was not unique in the sense it was chasing a title 3 other parks had all very recently gone after.

It could be argued that in persue of that title, we ended up with the least exciting and blandest water ride in the UK. Sure, it was the tallest, but had zero theming or storyline, something the other three leaned into quite heavily.
 
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Fun fact: Hydro's water supply was fed from a local fresh spring. The same source as the park's drinking water. (Though I would assume there was some kind of filtration & recirculation system like any other pool?)
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Fun fact: Hydro's water supply was fed from a local fresh spring. The same source as the park's drinking water. (Though I would assume there was some kind of filtration & recirculation system like any other pool?)
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I would have thought so yeah. I think legislation changed after 1999 mandating rides needed to have clean water if guests were getting soaked by it, in order to combat getting sick from waterbourne diseases.

Drayton got in there just before with Storm Force 10, thus were and are allowed to operate their rides with water that has a colour of military grade dark green and brown.
 
DistortAMG said:
Hydro opened at the back end of the water ride crazy in the UK. Parks were going after the wettest water ride title, so in that aspect it was not unique in the slightest.

We had Storm Force 10 in 1999, Tidal Wave and Valhalla in 2000 and then finally Hydro in 2002. All going after the title of the wettest water ride in the UK. Given that, I would argue that it was not unique in the sense it was chasing a title 3 other parks had all very recently gone after.

It could be argued that in persue of that title, we ended up with the least exciting and blandest water ride in the UK. Sure, it was the tallest, but had zero theming or storyline, something the other three leaned into quite heavily.
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You could add The Lost River in 2004.
 
I really don't see Speed as a blunder. It was added when the park was in a period of expansion, broadened their appeal by adding something new yet relatively accessible due to the height restriction. At the same time it would have been far better value than most other major coasters they could have chosen.

Hydro/Drenched on the other hand was always a questionable decision - the park already had the water slides so didn't urgently need another wet attraction. A ride that didn't really suit the demographics whilst only being an appealing concept for a few weeks each year (at best) was always a strange choice
 
I always wonder what percentage of visitors rode Speed compared to what percentage rode Megafobia. My gut feeling was always that the park was too remote to have true extreme rides like Speed (and Hydro didn't appeal to me either). It's true they needed a big ride other than Megafobia, but I always thought another huge family or family-thrill coaster would have been better. I remember there was a sort of "campaign" (perhaps that's too strong a word) for them to get a 2nd woodie. It could have been the UK's Knoebels.
 
Oakwood should have built up slowly another problem Oakwood had was the fact it had little competition so had little reason to improve itself. A lot of our UK parks so spread out they don't compete
 
East Coast Mariner said:
I always wonder what percentage of visitors rode Speed compared to what percentage rode Megafobia. My gut feeling was always that the park was too remote to have true extreme rides like Speed (and Hydro didn't appeal to me either). It's true they needed a big ride other than Megafobia, but I always thought another huge family or family-thrill coaster would have been better. I remember there was a sort of "campaign" (perhaps that's too strong a word) for them to get a 2nd woodie. It could have been the UK's Knoebels.
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Imagine if this was like Mount Olympus and had multiple woodies with a terrain one, one with an inversion, an out and back one and a family one.

I think it could have a lot of potential although I don't think it would've been realistic.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I think that Hydro was installed at a time when Oakwood were trying to be different. They had success with Megafobia as the UKā€™s only modern woodie, and their following installations were pretty much all UK firsts. We had the only Huss tower, Plane Crazy, the UKā€™s first Eurofighter, and Hydro.

Their approach seemed to be that, due to their location, they figured Oakwood could best attract people by installing something that couldnā€™t be found elsewhere in the UK. Thatā€™s what I assume was the strategy anyway. Hydro was the wrong decision though, and a bit too unique.

I donā€™t think they should have built Hydro, but I do see the logic of why they (probably) did.
Click to expand...
I don't buy the idea that buying Hydro was a poor decision; during my visits pre-Aspro it was always very popular and I remember queueing hours for it (granted the poor throughput didn't help). Its popularity only reduced when the overall park's visitation lowered, as far as I can see.

It had an unfortunate history, and was prone to downtime/many technical issues, but Oakwood wouldn't know that those things would plague the ride at the time of purchasing it.

I found it much more thrilling than Tidal Wave, the drop was mental!
 
Coaster said:
I don't buy the idea that buying Hydro was a poor decision; during my visits pre-Aspro it was always very popular and I remember queueing hours for it (granted the poor throughput didn't help). Its popularity only reduced when the overall park's visitation lowered, as far as I can see.

It had an unfortunate history, and was prone to downtime/many technical issues, but Oakwood wouldn't know that those things would plague the ride at the time of purchasing it.

I found it much more thrilling than Tidal Wave, the drop was mental!
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Youā€™ve already alluded to the very poor throughput. I think on a good day, it barely even achieved 200pph, not that anyone was counting (Oakwood never did that)

But also letā€™s not forget that, since 2005, it opened at 2pm daily, thereby giving people a smaller window of time to ride it, resulting in long queues that gave off the impression of a ride more popular than it really was.

Yes, I agree that Hydro did have some level of popularity, but think about it this way, was Hydro a better investment than a decent log flume or family rapids ride would have been? I would say that a log flume or rapids may not have had the immediate wow factor that Hydro had, but they would have been far more accessible and would have stood the test of time far longer than Hydro/ Drenched did.
 
SuperMuscleMan said:
Because it used to be run well and did make a profit. Hastings has 3 Aspro attractions 2 of which have never had any updates since the 90s. They have next to no budget to improve (I've done some marketing for 1 of them) and the marketing pictures are from the 90's too. The aquarium is a cast off from sea life that's had a paint job and and that's about it.

So my point is they didn't invest and im sure it could have worked if it was not milled dry.
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I'm with you on this. As previously mentioned, the park actually grew in both revenue and net profit just one year after the Hydro incident (check Companies' House), everything started to go downhill after the sale to Aspro. My best bet as to why the original family sold the park was simply because they wanted to focus more on Bluestone, and this sale would free up some much needed capital to get the ball rolling.

Bluestone had actually been in the pipeline for Oakwood since that family owned both plots of land, they simply sold the Oakwood side to Aspro and kept the other half for Bluestone. It had nothing to do with Oakwood not making money (because it was).

I also don't buy the "it's difficult to get to and out of the way for most people" line. Just doesn't make any sense. Far too much passing trade for that to be true. Although Oakwood does not have the benefit of being close to a major metropolitan area (as places like Thorpe Park and Alton Towers do), the number of cars on the road and number of drivers has only steadily increased since the 90s, not decreased. If anything, that would increase trade to the park.

And it did! The returns on Companies' House add up with the growing number of cars on the road. Aspro killed the park and nothing else. They brag that they had "invested" ~Ā£25m since taking over. Once you factor out things like Neverland and buying an old Pinfari, that's just shy of Ā£1m a year to run the entire park. Not invest, but run the park AND invest. It's chicken feed in the grand scheme of things, and that lack of investment translated in to old annual pass holders (such as myself) cancelling, guests not returning, and this compounded over time.

The site is perfectly viable. Just needs a solid owner to take over and invest. Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but the whole situation just irritates me enormously!
 
Ffinian said:
My best bet as to why the original family sold the park was simply because they wanted to focus more on Bluestone, and this sale would free up some much needed capital to get the ball rolling.
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Paddy McNamara was the sole owner of Oakwood from 2003 onwards, and had nothing to do with Bluestone. Bluestone was set up by his brother William, who sold his share in Oakwood to Paddy, to allow him to fund/ focus on the Bluestone project.

The reason that Paddy sold Oakwood to Aspro in 2008 had nothing at all to do with Bluestone. I do remember reading at the time though, that Oakwood was in Ā£7 million debt.
 
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