Coaster
TS Member
PARK OPEN: 10am - 5pm
RIDES CLOSED ALL DAY: The Tide Traveller
(Enigma opened in the afternoon due to a technical issue).
Overall, we really enjoyed Pleasurewood Hills. It helped that the park wasn't very busy, meaning that re-rides were plentiful. It's a nice place overall, the countryside setting gives the park a similar feel to Oakwood, however it's not on a massive hill which we were thankful for when walking around!
Atmosphere is the biggest improvement needed IMO, as there is no music played beyond the main entrance (apart from themed music on a few attractions). I think that the music playlist at the entrance should be played around the park as well, as there wasn't any atmosphere which was a shame.
I was really glad that there was no fastpass system at this park, it's probably one of the only theme parks left in the UK that hasn't gone down that horrible route.
Seeing as it was my first visit, and for the benefit of people who haven't visited, I'll review some of the rides;
Enigma is a really fun coaster, don't expect anything amazing but it throws you about a bit (which is good), has a surprising amount of force for such a small ride and is just generally good fun. It also wins the award for the most brutal brake run in the history of roller coasters from my point of view!
Wipeout, fantastic coaster and I would have loved to re-ride this a lot more (considering that it had no queue all day) but unfortunately I was quite ill all weekend, and therefore only managed five goes as I was suffering from severe headaches - still, nothing stops theme park trips!
The coaster is really quite forceful in places which surprised me, although I do still marginally prefer Revolution at BPB due to the airtime.
Hobs Pit is an amazing attraction. POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
It's a really well done ghost train with a walkthrough and pre-show before the ride, and exit corridor which has "Hob" talking in a menacing way and sometimes an actor.
The ride uses lots of clever effects such as holograms, projected pits, bodies coming through the wall, as well as rotting flesh smell effects, lots of gory scenery and sound effects of "Hob" talking throughout. The walkthrough section also has projected bugs on the floor (accompanied by leg ticklers), a claustrophobia tunnel complete with skeleton and the pre-show features a miner getting stabbed in the eye... lovely! For a relatively small budget (£500,000) this dark ride is brilliantly themed, and whilst there are some dead spots and some of the effects could be executed better, I was really impressed with this and would consider it to be in my top 5 dark rides. It just goes to show that you don't need a massive budget to create a good dark ride, just creativity. Purely for point of comparison, I would put this well above Nemesis Sub Terra at Alton Towers or Saw Alive at Thorpe Park.
Actors are also used well in the walkthrough parts and at the end of the ride as well, quite convincing even if they did seem disappointed that "we didn't die!"
Marble Madness is a standard travelling mouse coaster which came from Flamingoland, but it's a fun coaster and runs three cars fairly efficiently in comparison to the other coasters.
Wave Breaker is much better than Depth Charge at Thorpe, I'm sure the dingy actually left the slide for a second!
Hyper Drive is a strange concept, it would have been much better without the bit in the middle, and if they were using more than six cars!
Fireball is a KMG afterburner. I'd heard that it didn't go all the way up, this wasn't the case on our go as it did, but juddered in an alarming fashion causing us to get thrown upwards, which I haven't experienced on any other examples of this ride. Was still fun though!
Jolly Rodger drop tower is good and quite forceful, think Detonator at Thorpe but slightly better (IMO).
We really enjoyed the day, but I do have to question how they would cope on a busier day as operations were not great - I'll list a few examples.
- Enigma only has one train, which seats 8 people. This wasn't too much of a problem on our visit, however I hate to think about the queues it gets on busy days considering that it also has an offload station, which takes more time (it was clearly designed to run more than one train).
- Only six Dodgems in operation on Hyper Drive and five on the Mini Dodgems, meaning that these attractions built up queues even on quiet days.
- Hobs Pit only has three cars. Again not a problem today.
- Wave Breaker was only operating one side out of two, leading to long queues despite the park being quiet. Luckily we managed to catch it without a queue.
RIDECOUNT:
Enigma x7
Wipeout x5
Jolly Roger (Drop Tower) x5
Hobs Pit x4
Rattlesnake x3 (Clone of Treetops at Oakwood, but runs better and slightly better themed. Stayed on as there was no queue).
Marble Madness x2
Kite Flyer (aka horrible flying toast rack) x2
Timber Falls Log Flume x1
Wave Breaker Dingy Slide x1
Fireball x1
Hyper Drive (New Dodgems) x1
Mini Dodgems x1
Chairlift x1
Mini Train x1
Tales of the Coast x1
TOTAL: 36
Photos!
Note that most of these were taken after 5pm, hence why the park looks so quiet.
Wipeout, a fantastic Vekoma Boomerang;
Enigma, a surprisingly fun coaster;
Hobs Pit is brilliant, so good for a smaller park;
Marble Madness;
Timber Falls;
Hyper Drive, this was a bizarre addition to the park considering that they already have Dodgems;
Jolly Roger Drop Tower;
Thanks for reading.
RIDES CLOSED ALL DAY: The Tide Traveller
(Enigma opened in the afternoon due to a technical issue).
Overall, we really enjoyed Pleasurewood Hills. It helped that the park wasn't very busy, meaning that re-rides were plentiful. It's a nice place overall, the countryside setting gives the park a similar feel to Oakwood, however it's not on a massive hill which we were thankful for when walking around!
Atmosphere is the biggest improvement needed IMO, as there is no music played beyond the main entrance (apart from themed music on a few attractions). I think that the music playlist at the entrance should be played around the park as well, as there wasn't any atmosphere which was a shame.
I was really glad that there was no fastpass system at this park, it's probably one of the only theme parks left in the UK that hasn't gone down that horrible route.
Seeing as it was my first visit, and for the benefit of people who haven't visited, I'll review some of the rides;
Enigma is a really fun coaster, don't expect anything amazing but it throws you about a bit (which is good), has a surprising amount of force for such a small ride and is just generally good fun. It also wins the award for the most brutal brake run in the history of roller coasters from my point of view!
Wipeout, fantastic coaster and I would have loved to re-ride this a lot more (considering that it had no queue all day) but unfortunately I was quite ill all weekend, and therefore only managed five goes as I was suffering from severe headaches - still, nothing stops theme park trips!
The coaster is really quite forceful in places which surprised me, although I do still marginally prefer Revolution at BPB due to the airtime.
Hobs Pit is an amazing attraction. POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
It's a really well done ghost train with a walkthrough and pre-show before the ride, and exit corridor which has "Hob" talking in a menacing way and sometimes an actor.
The ride uses lots of clever effects such as holograms, projected pits, bodies coming through the wall, as well as rotting flesh smell effects, lots of gory scenery and sound effects of "Hob" talking throughout. The walkthrough section also has projected bugs on the floor (accompanied by leg ticklers), a claustrophobia tunnel complete with skeleton and the pre-show features a miner getting stabbed in the eye... lovely! For a relatively small budget (£500,000) this dark ride is brilliantly themed, and whilst there are some dead spots and some of the effects could be executed better, I was really impressed with this and would consider it to be in my top 5 dark rides. It just goes to show that you don't need a massive budget to create a good dark ride, just creativity. Purely for point of comparison, I would put this well above Nemesis Sub Terra at Alton Towers or Saw Alive at Thorpe Park.
Actors are also used well in the walkthrough parts and at the end of the ride as well, quite convincing even if they did seem disappointed that "we didn't die!"
Marble Madness is a standard travelling mouse coaster which came from Flamingoland, but it's a fun coaster and runs three cars fairly efficiently in comparison to the other coasters.
Wave Breaker is much better than Depth Charge at Thorpe, I'm sure the dingy actually left the slide for a second!
Hyper Drive is a strange concept, it would have been much better without the bit in the middle, and if they were using more than six cars!
Fireball is a KMG afterburner. I'd heard that it didn't go all the way up, this wasn't the case on our go as it did, but juddered in an alarming fashion causing us to get thrown upwards, which I haven't experienced on any other examples of this ride. Was still fun though!
Jolly Rodger drop tower is good and quite forceful, think Detonator at Thorpe but slightly better (IMO).
We really enjoyed the day, but I do have to question how they would cope on a busier day as operations were not great - I'll list a few examples.
- Enigma only has one train, which seats 8 people. This wasn't too much of a problem on our visit, however I hate to think about the queues it gets on busy days considering that it also has an offload station, which takes more time (it was clearly designed to run more than one train).
- Only six Dodgems in operation on Hyper Drive and five on the Mini Dodgems, meaning that these attractions built up queues even on quiet days.
- Hobs Pit only has three cars. Again not a problem today.
- Wave Breaker was only operating one side out of two, leading to long queues despite the park being quiet. Luckily we managed to catch it without a queue.
RIDECOUNT:
Enigma x7
Wipeout x5
Jolly Roger (Drop Tower) x5
Hobs Pit x4
Rattlesnake x3 (Clone of Treetops at Oakwood, but runs better and slightly better themed. Stayed on as there was no queue).
Marble Madness x2
Kite Flyer (aka horrible flying toast rack) x2
Timber Falls Log Flume x1
Wave Breaker Dingy Slide x1
Fireball x1
Hyper Drive (New Dodgems) x1
Mini Dodgems x1
Chairlift x1
Mini Train x1
Tales of the Coast x1
TOTAL: 36
Photos!
Note that most of these were taken after 5pm, hence why the park looks so quiet.
Wipeout, a fantastic Vekoma Boomerang;
Enigma, a surprisingly fun coaster;
Hobs Pit is brilliant, so good for a smaller park;
Marble Madness;
Timber Falls;
Hyper Drive, this was a bizarre addition to the park considering that they already have Dodgems;
Jolly Roger Drop Tower;
Thanks for reading.