DiogoJ42
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Metropolitan Line
Hilary's best friend, her husband and child emigrated to Canada a few years ago. We've been meaning to pay them a visit for ages. Unfortunately they live in a town called Regina, in Saskatchewan. You cannot fly directly there from the UK, you have to change in either Calgary, Edmonton, or Toronto. So we figured we may as well fly out via Edmonton to hit West Edmonton Mall's Galaxyland, and back via Toronto to visit Canada's Wonderland. It would be daft not to, eh?
We got up to plenty of stuff in the 12 days we were in the land of moose and maple, so this TR is going to include some non coaster related things. As usual with me, expect much waffle and diatribe, although for once I did actually take a few pictures (photo credits are a mixture of mine and Hilary's).
**********
Day one: Flight number one, London > Edmonton, eh?
Nine hours on a 767. Urg.
NOTE: the following was written as I was hitting the nicotine withdrawel wall...
I loath Heathrow with all my soul. I have avoided flying via the place at all costs for the last 20 years, but sadly this time we had no choice. I don't care how shiney the new terminal 2 is, it's still an airport, and thus my definition of hell.
For the second trip in a row I "randomly" set off the metal detector, dispite having no metal on me. The resulting frisk was downright obscene. Hand down my boxers in front of everyone. Junk was touched.
We finally got on the plane, only to have a 40 minute delay leaving the gate for reasons never disclosed.
Airline food is still as dire as it always has been. And why the hell are they waking me up to give me a tub of bloody ice cream? Do I look twelve to you? I swear one day I'm going to print a sign and stick it on my face when flying, "If you wake me up, we'd better be either crashing, or you are going to ask me to join the mile high club. I have no interest in the second rate slop you call food."
Currently gone over 8 hours without a fag and frankly, I'm just about ready to kill. 3 hours until we land.
Now I remember why I haven't flown long distance for 20 years.
**********
We arrived in Edmonton eventually, to be greeted by a very Illuminati looking poster at passport control.
Then there was the ice hockey themed baggage carousel:
Followed by this on the side of a bus outside. Should we tell them?
After one of the best fags I have ever smoked, we jumped in a cab to take us to the Fantasyland Hotel, in West Edmonton Mall. We had booked one of the Hollywood themed suites on the top floor.
The entrance is a bit underwhelming...
But this was what greeted us as we exited the lifts:
The whole floor was lit with nothing but pink neon and UV tubes. It felt more like Amsterdam than canada!
We had a king size bed, bigger than most UK cars. The room was full of colour changing LEDs as well.
And a dancing pole in the corner (you can't really see because of the flash, but the pole is clear plastic with pink neon inside it).
There was also a hot tub in the corner of the bedroom. Through the glass you can see the shower in the bathroom. This is definitely a couple's room!
**********
After checking in and freshening up, we went in search of dinner. There are many places to choose from in the world's biggest shopping mall, but we ended up having a huge pizza and a pint of something Canadian... at what to our body clocks was about half past four in the morning. It had more cheese on it than I thought possible, and I like a lot of cheese.
I quickly realised that the locals had trouble understanding my London twang, despite us supposedly speaking the same language. I made an effort from then on to talk slowly and clearly, which seemed to help.
We retired to our suite to make much needed use of the hot tub before crashing out on the huge bed.
Day two: Galaxyland, eh?
Ride count:
Autosled x 2
Galaxy Orbiter x 5
Mindbender x 9
Sonic Twister x 1
Cosmic Spinner x 1
Haunted Castle x 1
Fun House x 1
Cosmic Revolution x 1
Quirks In The Works x 2
Galaxy Quest x 1
We had a nice lie in this day. Galaxyland is small, and was open from 10:00 - 21:00, so there was no rush. The bed was too comfy to want to leave!
This was the view that greeted us upon opening our curtains:
The large glass roof in front of us is the water park, the smaller glass roof is over the ice rink, and off in the distance on the left, the sloped roof with curved sides fits snugly around Mindbender.
We wandered through the mall, in search of breakfast, and quickly decided to try out Tim Hortons. If you haven't heard of it, it's a Canadian coffee chain. The coffee itself is "acceptable", but the real draw is the donuts. *drools* We sat overlooking the ice rink in the middle of the mall...
...Only in Canada. Onwards to Galaxyland!
It's not a big park, being indoors. But they have some good rides, and two amazing ones.
Upon arrival, naturally we had to take a Mindbender selfie.
The theme is loosely space based, in bright shades of blue, yellow and pink.
The park has very limited staff, so they operate rides on rotation. Thankfully, it was a quiet day, and no ride was closed for more than half an hour. It's quite a nice little place. Staff were all very friendly and chatty. While this had an effect on throughput, it was quiet enough that it didn't affect our day.
There was some token Halloween theming scattered about...
Sadly, Dragon Wagon, their very kiddy coaster, had a maximum height limit that was roughly at nipple level for an adult, so we couldn't get that cred. The same goes for the narrow gauge railway that winds through the park, and includes a dark ride section.
TBC...
We got up to plenty of stuff in the 12 days we were in the land of moose and maple, so this TR is going to include some non coaster related things. As usual with me, expect much waffle and diatribe, although for once I did actually take a few pictures (photo credits are a mixture of mine and Hilary's).
**********
Day one: Flight number one, London > Edmonton, eh?
Nine hours on a 767. Urg.
NOTE: the following was written as I was hitting the nicotine withdrawel wall...
I loath Heathrow with all my soul. I have avoided flying via the place at all costs for the last 20 years, but sadly this time we had no choice. I don't care how shiney the new terminal 2 is, it's still an airport, and thus my definition of hell.
For the second trip in a row I "randomly" set off the metal detector, dispite having no metal on me. The resulting frisk was downright obscene. Hand down my boxers in front of everyone. Junk was touched.
We finally got on the plane, only to have a 40 minute delay leaving the gate for reasons never disclosed.
Airline food is still as dire as it always has been. And why the hell are they waking me up to give me a tub of bloody ice cream? Do I look twelve to you? I swear one day I'm going to print a sign and stick it on my face when flying, "If you wake me up, we'd better be either crashing, or you are going to ask me to join the mile high club. I have no interest in the second rate slop you call food."
Currently gone over 8 hours without a fag and frankly, I'm just about ready to kill. 3 hours until we land.
Now I remember why I haven't flown long distance for 20 years.
**********
We arrived in Edmonton eventually, to be greeted by a very Illuminati looking poster at passport control.

Then there was the ice hockey themed baggage carousel:

Followed by this on the side of a bus outside. Should we tell them?

After one of the best fags I have ever smoked, we jumped in a cab to take us to the Fantasyland Hotel, in West Edmonton Mall. We had booked one of the Hollywood themed suites on the top floor.
The entrance is a bit underwhelming...

But this was what greeted us as we exited the lifts:

The whole floor was lit with nothing but pink neon and UV tubes. It felt more like Amsterdam than canada!
We had a king size bed, bigger than most UK cars. The room was full of colour changing LEDs as well.

And a dancing pole in the corner (you can't really see because of the flash, but the pole is clear plastic with pink neon inside it).

There was also a hot tub in the corner of the bedroom. Through the glass you can see the shower in the bathroom. This is definitely a couple's room!

**********
After checking in and freshening up, we went in search of dinner. There are many places to choose from in the world's biggest shopping mall, but we ended up having a huge pizza and a pint of something Canadian... at what to our body clocks was about half past four in the morning. It had more cheese on it than I thought possible, and I like a lot of cheese.
I quickly realised that the locals had trouble understanding my London twang, despite us supposedly speaking the same language. I made an effort from then on to talk slowly and clearly, which seemed to help.
We retired to our suite to make much needed use of the hot tub before crashing out on the huge bed.
Day two: Galaxyland, eh?
Ride count:
Autosled x 2
Galaxy Orbiter x 5
Mindbender x 9
Sonic Twister x 1
Cosmic Spinner x 1
Haunted Castle x 1
Fun House x 1
Cosmic Revolution x 1
Quirks In The Works x 2
Galaxy Quest x 1
We had a nice lie in this day. Galaxyland is small, and was open from 10:00 - 21:00, so there was no rush. The bed was too comfy to want to leave!
This was the view that greeted us upon opening our curtains:

The large glass roof in front of us is the water park, the smaller glass roof is over the ice rink, and off in the distance on the left, the sloped roof with curved sides fits snugly around Mindbender.
We wandered through the mall, in search of breakfast, and quickly decided to try out Tim Hortons. If you haven't heard of it, it's a Canadian coffee chain. The coffee itself is "acceptable", but the real draw is the donuts. *drools* We sat overlooking the ice rink in the middle of the mall...

...Only in Canada. Onwards to Galaxyland!
It's not a big park, being indoors. But they have some good rides, and two amazing ones.
Upon arrival, naturally we had to take a Mindbender selfie.

The theme is loosely space based, in bright shades of blue, yellow and pink.
The park has very limited staff, so they operate rides on rotation. Thankfully, it was a quiet day, and no ride was closed for more than half an hour. It's quite a nice little place. Staff were all very friendly and chatty. While this had an effect on throughput, it was quiet enough that it didn't affect our day.
There was some token Halloween theming scattered about...



Sadly, Dragon Wagon, their very kiddy coaster, had a maximum height limit that was roughly at nipple level for an adult, so we couldn't get that cred. The same goes for the narrow gauge railway that winds through the park, and includes a dark ride section.
TBC...