NuttySquirrel
TS Member
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- Batman: Gotham City Escape
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The Misery Trip 2021
Poisson
TS Member
After finding out Matt has been badgered by a rabid fan (someone who desperately needs to get a better taste in trip reports quite clearly) this has Lee'd me to writing the next instalment. There's probably been a bigger gap in updates than the entire time it took to plan this hairbrained mess of a trip.
Day 5: Paultons Park, Clarence Pier, Southsea Pier, Funland Hayling Island, West Sands Funfair, Harbour Park and Brighton Pier.
Day 5, The Saturday we planned to drop at least one park due to time constraints and many had said was impossible dawned a bit gloomy and damp. First port of call was Andover station, followed by Romsey station, stations which required at least 5 different diversions and some 'creative' interpreting of road signs to even get close to. Roadworks
On to the parks then. First up
Time to see if D'wervelwind disappointment was to be resolved. I found it decidedly average on my 2015 visit to Toverland and we headed to Storm Chaser with an open mind. I was really curious if there was a good Mack Spinner to be found. In through the cattle pen (seriously, every ride at Paultons has a cattle pen. Makes Merlin look like genius queue designers) and on we boarded and it was.....okay. We hadn't been stacking it against say Spinball but more towards a family coaster level and it was very mediocre. On with the show and no other new creds for me at Paultons since my last visit. Sadly I wasn't paid to visit this time unlike my last visit.
We headed for Flight of the Pterosaur which is enjoyable but short, our second boomerang on the trip in the form of Velociraptor along with more wonderful Tivoli fun on Dino Chase before proceeding to Cobra. Naturally our luck was running too well and it broke whilst we were queuing. The ride restarted and we boarded and then managed to get evac'd from before the offload as the ride failed again whilst we were on it. We have a habit as has been noticed that we turn up, be fat and break rides before running away before we get shouted at/they fetch the boys.
After some more Tivoli fun on Cat-o-Pillar despite it only running at 1/3rd capacity due to the wet weather we headed back to the car and found we had made light work of the park quickly. Next up was Clarence Pier
Upon arrival we found out Tidal Wave was closed so we token'd up and headed for an SBF Visa built Pinfari designed thing on the end of a pier. Naturally we are awful at photos because past me wants present me to suffer and make everyone stare at a wall of text. He's awful. Anyway after riding MD Mouse we saw Tidal Wave was testing and after 10 mins it showed signs of opening and after the Op announced it was open, more tokens were found and on we went to the SBF none figure of 8 spinner. It had more of a Wacky Worm style layout but spinning coaster. Weird.
After being showered in stones by the hovercraft heading to IoW, we were on the move to Southsea Pier and a Happy Caterpillar
And a finest lunch that definitely wasn't a Tesco meal deal. Definitely not eaten in a car park. No sit down meal with a knife and fork here. Off to Hayling Island and Funland awaited.
An interesting parking situation for an interesting coaster. Token time
This meant double rides for all on the only cred here with some very familiar theming for some
The coaster itself is an L&T that used to be at Gulliver's. Only the second L&T I've done too. I'd love to say it was good due to the two laps that were mandated but it reduced my knees to dust. Upon leaving we had a nosey at the narrow gauge railway next door. Heading off Hayling Island we saw the traffic was chaos and huge queues heading in due to a police incident, very lucky to have avoided that to get the +1.
The next 2 parks were on the trip were placed on with the intention to drop if time was poor. We were running ahead at this point so off we went to West Sands Fun Fair at Bunn Leisure. In typical us fashion we rocked up, had no idea where to park not being visitors to the leisure park so dumped the car in a corner of a car park and headed in.
We did not partake. Mainly as Oreos are overrated rubbish. Battered Mars bars are beautiful though.
We found an op and did the +1 and headed to Harbour Park afterwards
Ah yes, who needs EP when you can have this identical entrance
Actually nicely "themed" for a fair, all beach and ocean themed rather than the usual IP fakery.
Final port of call on this trip was Brighton. I hadn't been in 18 years and Matt had never been. Its a dump. We parked and paid a King's Ransom and headed down to the pier, the owners of which have just bought LWV, and headed to one of the target coasters of the trip: Turbo.
In true Pinfari style, it managed to injure me in new and creative ways, this time the restraints tried to break my jaw. Following a bone shaking, face breaking ride we headed for the final coaster of the day, Crazy Mouse. Managed to break down whilst we were in the queue. The parking eventually expired as we were boarding the ride but thanks to the cost of parking in Brighton, we let it run out as there wasn't much difference in cost.
After all this we were done. 7 parks in a day. This called for a celebration in true TST style: MEAT
I introduced Matt to the joy of the House Grog. Apparently its a bit strong?
We then split, Matt heading for the station and a train to Southwick whilst I fetched the car. After nearly scoring a double with silly pedestrians, I turned up to the station to a worried looking Matt. Apparently the area was very perwiggle without even anybody about. A fitting way to end our time in Brighton.
With a final stop at Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell line we retreated to the hotel. +9 for me, +14 for Matt
Day 5: Paultons Park, Clarence Pier, Southsea Pier, Funland Hayling Island, West Sands Funfair, Harbour Park and Brighton Pier.
Day 5, The Saturday we planned to drop at least one park due to time constraints and many had said was impossible dawned a bit gloomy and damp. First port of call was Andover station, followed by Romsey station, stations which required at least 5 different diversions and some 'creative' interpreting of road signs to even get close to. Roadworks
On to the parks then. First up
Time to see if D'wervelwind disappointment was to be resolved. I found it decidedly average on my 2015 visit to Toverland and we headed to Storm Chaser with an open mind. I was really curious if there was a good Mack Spinner to be found. In through the cattle pen (seriously, every ride at Paultons has a cattle pen. Makes Merlin look like genius queue designers) and on we boarded and it was.....okay. We hadn't been stacking it against say Spinball but more towards a family coaster level and it was very mediocre. On with the show and no other new creds for me at Paultons since my last visit. Sadly I wasn't paid to visit this time unlike my last visit.
We headed for Flight of the Pterosaur which is enjoyable but short, our second boomerang on the trip in the form of Velociraptor along with more wonderful Tivoli fun on Dino Chase before proceeding to Cobra. Naturally our luck was running too well and it broke whilst we were queuing. The ride restarted and we boarded and then managed to get evac'd from before the offload as the ride failed again whilst we were on it. We have a habit as has been noticed that we turn up, be fat and break rides before running away before we get shouted at/they fetch the boys.
After some more Tivoli fun on Cat-o-Pillar despite it only running at 1/3rd capacity due to the wet weather we headed back to the car and found we had made light work of the park quickly. Next up was Clarence Pier
Upon arrival we found out Tidal Wave was closed so we token'd up and headed for an SBF Visa built Pinfari designed thing on the end of a pier. Naturally we are awful at photos because past me wants present me to suffer and make everyone stare at a wall of text. He's awful. Anyway after riding MD Mouse we saw Tidal Wave was testing and after 10 mins it showed signs of opening and after the Op announced it was open, more tokens were found and on we went to the SBF none figure of 8 spinner. It had more of a Wacky Worm style layout but spinning coaster. Weird.
After being showered in stones by the hovercraft heading to IoW, we were on the move to Southsea Pier and a Happy Caterpillar
And a finest lunch that definitely wasn't a Tesco meal deal. Definitely not eaten in a car park. No sit down meal with a knife and fork here. Off to Hayling Island and Funland awaited.
An interesting parking situation for an interesting coaster. Token time
This meant double rides for all on the only cred here with some very familiar theming for some
The coaster itself is an L&T that used to be at Gulliver's. Only the second L&T I've done too. I'd love to say it was good due to the two laps that were mandated but it reduced my knees to dust. Upon leaving we had a nosey at the narrow gauge railway next door. Heading off Hayling Island we saw the traffic was chaos and huge queues heading in due to a police incident, very lucky to have avoided that to get the +1.
The next 2 parks were on the trip were placed on with the intention to drop if time was poor. We were running ahead at this point so off we went to West Sands Fun Fair at Bunn Leisure. In typical us fashion we rocked up, had no idea where to park not being visitors to the leisure park so dumped the car in a corner of a car park and headed in.
We did not partake. Mainly as Oreos are overrated rubbish. Battered Mars bars are beautiful though.
We found an op and did the +1 and headed to Harbour Park afterwards
Ah yes, who needs EP when you can have this identical entrance
Actually nicely "themed" for a fair, all beach and ocean themed rather than the usual IP fakery.
Final port of call on this trip was Brighton. I hadn't been in 18 years and Matt had never been. Its a dump. We parked and paid a King's Ransom and headed down to the pier, the owners of which have just bought LWV, and headed to one of the target coasters of the trip: Turbo.
In true Pinfari style, it managed to injure me in new and creative ways, this time the restraints tried to break my jaw. Following a bone shaking, face breaking ride we headed for the final coaster of the day, Crazy Mouse. Managed to break down whilst we were in the queue. The parking eventually expired as we were boarding the ride but thanks to the cost of parking in Brighton, we let it run out as there wasn't much difference in cost.
After all this we were done. 7 parks in a day. This called for a celebration in true TST style: MEAT
I introduced Matt to the joy of the House Grog. Apparently its a bit strong?
We then split, Matt heading for the station and a train to Southwick whilst I fetched the car. After nearly scoring a double with silly pedestrians, I turned up to the station to a worried looking Matt. Apparently the area was very perwiggle without even anybody about. A fitting way to end our time in Brighton.
With a final stop at Sheffield Park station on the Bluebell line we retreated to the hotel. +9 for me, +14 for Matt
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Poisson
TS Member
Day 6: Clacton Pier and Adventure Island
The Sunday arrived and plans were severely edited to watch the Euros final. Hastings Pier and Flamingo Park received the chop and we headed to Clacton and a Spoons for brekkie.
You can see the horrendous state my car was getting in, utterly filthy and lowering the tone significantly. Following the food we headed for the pier
Sadly the Pinfari looper that collapsed part of the pier was still under construction but we had expected it, still no opening date set
We also found the Go Gator had gone gator'd somewhere else. Down to 1 cred, we hit the DPV beauty and left to the Pavilion with a SBF Visa kids coaster next door. Sadly they were wristbands only and we didn't fancy forking out a large amount for an SBF figure of eight. Moving on we headed to Southend.
After dumping the car and ticket faff we headed to Rage at Adventure Island.
This is where we found out the park had RAGE inducing operations, so much faff. We then went on Green Scream and thanks to the large train and op training, it was getting towards 5 mins a dispatch. Staff walked all the way up the train to make sure bags were on the platform, then back to the panel, lock restraints then check, then scream if you want to go etc etc. After some more Tivoli fun on Barnstormer we headed to my 150th cred, Mighty Mini Mega. Yeah I hit that milestone on a surprisingly smooth Pinfari. Weird.
We followed with Kiddi Koasta to round out the creds, then headed to Axis which was fun
Continuing on we came across a ride that looked similar to the excellent Thunderbolt at Flambards. Dragon's Claw. After insane amount of faff including having to visibly check pockets, wiggle feet to prove shoes wouldn't fall off and so on, it began. Agony. Sheer agony. Nothing like Thunderbolt, probably closer to being inside an industrial compactor. Awful thing. We followed this with Vortex and then some re-rides on Rage and Green Scream and left to the pier. Because trains.
Neither of us had been on the train on the pier so it was a must whilst we were there. After a nosey at the far end of the pier, we headed back and were shown around the DSO cab, which was nice.
Perwiggle!
With this complete we headed for Bedford to pick up @Mike , Maccies and booze before heading to watch the final. Settled in we waited until half time to fetch the bags and I came out to this
Joy. After this and so close yet so far for England, dropped Mike off and inflated the tyre as I hadn't found the screw yet (photo is next day) and wanted to observe how fast it was going down. A messy end to a bit of a messy day. +6 each.
The Sunday arrived and plans were severely edited to watch the Euros final. Hastings Pier and Flamingo Park received the chop and we headed to Clacton and a Spoons for brekkie.
You can see the horrendous state my car was getting in, utterly filthy and lowering the tone significantly. Following the food we headed for the pier
Sadly the Pinfari looper that collapsed part of the pier was still under construction but we had expected it, still no opening date set
We also found the Go Gator had gone gator'd somewhere else. Down to 1 cred, we hit the DPV beauty and left to the Pavilion with a SBF Visa kids coaster next door. Sadly they were wristbands only and we didn't fancy forking out a large amount for an SBF figure of eight. Moving on we headed to Southend.
After dumping the car and ticket faff we headed to Rage at Adventure Island.
This is where we found out the park had RAGE inducing operations, so much faff. We then went on Green Scream and thanks to the large train and op training, it was getting towards 5 mins a dispatch. Staff walked all the way up the train to make sure bags were on the platform, then back to the panel, lock restraints then check, then scream if you want to go etc etc. After some more Tivoli fun on Barnstormer we headed to my 150th cred, Mighty Mini Mega. Yeah I hit that milestone on a surprisingly smooth Pinfari. Weird.
We followed with Kiddi Koasta to round out the creds, then headed to Axis which was fun
Continuing on we came across a ride that looked similar to the excellent Thunderbolt at Flambards. Dragon's Claw. After insane amount of faff including having to visibly check pockets, wiggle feet to prove shoes wouldn't fall off and so on, it began. Agony. Sheer agony. Nothing like Thunderbolt, probably closer to being inside an industrial compactor. Awful thing. We followed this with Vortex and then some re-rides on Rage and Green Scream and left to the pier. Because trains.
Neither of us had been on the train on the pier so it was a must whilst we were there. After a nosey at the far end of the pier, we headed back and were shown around the DSO cab, which was nice.
Perwiggle!
With this complete we headed for Bedford to pick up @Mike , Maccies and booze before heading to watch the final. Settled in we waited until half time to fetch the bags and I came out to this
Joy. After this and so close yet so far for England, dropped Mike off and inflated the tyre as I hadn't found the screw yet (photo is next day) and wanted to observe how fast it was going down. A messy end to a bit of a messy day. +6 each.
pluk
TS Member
If you didn't go on Time Machine you are going to have to go back and get the unique cred. Sorry, that's the rules.
NuttySquirrel
TS Member
That's pretty ironic for a ride that's called Time Machine...
pluk
TS Member
This is really odd. Southend and Adventure Island have plenty of shortcomings, but staff and operations aren't usually one of them. They're usually pretty slick.
Poisson
TS Member
They've flipped it then. Honestly without the shocking ops it was a decent park.
pluk
TS Member
To be fair, long hair is an often overlooked risk on rides. People have been scalped with their hair caught in mechanisms, happened at Thorpe once a long time ago.
Poisson
TS Member
Day 7: Rainbow Park and Stevens Fun Fair
The original plan for day 7 was to complete all the stations on the Anglia+ day pass with @Mike and drop off @MattyH enroute. As you can guess by my wording, that absolutely didn't happen. No holiday leave for Mike and we fancied a bit more coasterage for the trip. A new plan was formed, for us to get 50 coasters ridden on this trip. We were on 48 so some planning was required.
First stop was for me to wander outside bleary eyed and change the tyre on my car, it had partly deflated again and said screw was eventually found in it. This made me immensely cheerful as you can imagine, especially with the England loss the night before and the plans going up in smoke. As I happily* wandered back into the hotel and we gathered our stuff to leave, I remembered a cred I had missed in the tractor lands in Hunstanton. This, combined with some gen on a fair in Corby in mind, we plotted a trip to both before dropping Matt at Peteboghorror for his train homeward. First things first, food needed to be planned so we found a Spoons at the mid point in Downham Market.
Downham international transport interchange looking resplendent. I may joke but the railway station was another matter. Immaculate and having all the signage, even the modern ones, in Network SouthEast colouring.
After transport faff and Spooning (this time not in the hotel) we headed along the flat flat flat tractor lands to Hunstanton and the gem of Rainbow Park. I hadn't known at the time and it was probably shut due to Covid but I had been not far away and had never seen the fair.
Mine was the Metro, now deaded
Worth the trip, clearly. My car looking a bit daft with the spare on I must admit. After this fine piece of engineering and been asked are we sure want to ride as it is for children, we exited the scene rapidly and then had much time until the fair opened, so a detour to the Nene Valley Railway was on the cards. But before that, our mental ages of 4 saw somewhere we had to stop and see.
Anyway on to Wansford on the NVR
After much geekery we headed to the fair and to try and find the elusive 50th coaster. We arrived in some shady dump that was apparently Corby. After parking the car and praying that it was still there and not stolen/broken into/torched when we got back we headed to find food. After some food which was awful, we completed a circuit of the centre of Corby and we crowned it easily the worst place on the trip, even worse than Barry Island. After walking through a tunnel (PERWIGGLE, especially as someone started tailing us around then) and waiting at the station until they had vanished, we headed to the fair.
This looked like it was going from bad to worse. When we had a nosey around the fair waiting for the coaster to open (opened slightly late) we saw one of the local dealers doing some trade just outside said coaster. I can't use the words to describe Corby on here as the filter would pick them up and I'd have an angry Craig or even scarier, an angry Saz, kicking my door down.
With large amounts of poo in pants, we boarded the death express and they rigged the speakers out and Matt noticed what looked like an abandoned smoke machine whilst I saw something else. The train then shot backwards out the station before rolling forward and shooting off with a fair lick of speed that was unexpected. That's when the chaos began. Lights, smoke, music, bubbles and foam filled the station for the next 4 or 5 laps we did. Brilliant. Amazing. 10/10 unexpected and a laugh.
After leaving the fair we hit another problem. I needed to find a toilet and what followed was something harrowing from the combined hell of Corby and eating terrible food at random intervals for 9 days in a row. RIP Corby station toilet. We then thought it wise to leave before my car wasn't available as transport or the locals lynched me for destroying their only flushing toilet.
I then dropped Matt back at Peteboghorror and shot home for some well deserved rest. +2 each.
And hereth be the end of the trip. A big thanks to @MattyH for being co-pilot, Spoons finder and DJ. A big shout to Lee for providing gen on Paignton and Corby, a thanks to @Mike for being the McDonalds and booze finder, thanks to @Jonathan for helping curate the playlist for the trip and a sorry to the car for dragging it so far for such a stupid reason.
+42 for me, +46 for Matt. 1903 miles covered, 25 park/fair visits, doing rides in 22 of them. Ridecount of 73 each on the trip.
Thanks for reading and please direct any complaints about this mess of a TR to the friendly staff on here, they're lovely and probably as unhappy as you are at seeing this mess clogging the place up
The original plan for day 7 was to complete all the stations on the Anglia+ day pass with @Mike and drop off @MattyH enroute. As you can guess by my wording, that absolutely didn't happen. No holiday leave for Mike and we fancied a bit more coasterage for the trip. A new plan was formed, for us to get 50 coasters ridden on this trip. We were on 48 so some planning was required.
First stop was for me to wander outside bleary eyed and change the tyre on my car, it had partly deflated again and said screw was eventually found in it. This made me immensely cheerful as you can imagine, especially with the England loss the night before and the plans going up in smoke. As I happily* wandered back into the hotel and we gathered our stuff to leave, I remembered a cred I had missed in the tractor lands in Hunstanton. This, combined with some gen on a fair in Corby in mind, we plotted a trip to both before dropping Matt at Peteboghorror for his train homeward. First things first, food needed to be planned so we found a Spoons at the mid point in Downham Market.
Downham international transport interchange looking resplendent. I may joke but the railway station was another matter. Immaculate and having all the signage, even the modern ones, in Network SouthEast colouring.
After transport faff and Spooning (this time not in the hotel) we headed along the flat flat flat tractor lands to Hunstanton and the gem of Rainbow Park. I hadn't known at the time and it was probably shut due to Covid but I had been not far away and had never seen the fair.
Mine was the Metro, now deaded
Worth the trip, clearly. My car looking a bit daft with the spare on I must admit. After this fine piece of engineering and been asked are we sure want to ride as it is for children, we exited the scene rapidly and then had much time until the fair opened, so a detour to the Nene Valley Railway was on the cards. But before that, our mental ages of 4 saw somewhere we had to stop and see.
Anyway on to Wansford on the NVR
After much geekery we headed to the fair and to try and find the elusive 50th coaster. We arrived in some shady dump that was apparently Corby. After parking the car and praying that it was still there and not stolen/broken into/torched when we got back we headed to find food. After some food which was awful, we completed a circuit of the centre of Corby and we crowned it easily the worst place on the trip, even worse than Barry Island. After walking through a tunnel (PERWIGGLE, especially as someone started tailing us around then) and waiting at the station until they had vanished, we headed to the fair.
This looked like it was going from bad to worse. When we had a nosey around the fair waiting for the coaster to open (opened slightly late) we saw one of the local dealers doing some trade just outside said coaster. I can't use the words to describe Corby on here as the filter would pick them up and I'd have an angry Craig or even scarier, an angry Saz, kicking my door down.
With large amounts of poo in pants, we boarded the death express and they rigged the speakers out and Matt noticed what looked like an abandoned smoke machine whilst I saw something else. The train then shot backwards out the station before rolling forward and shooting off with a fair lick of speed that was unexpected. That's when the chaos began. Lights, smoke, music, bubbles and foam filled the station for the next 4 or 5 laps we did. Brilliant. Amazing. 10/10 unexpected and a laugh.
After leaving the fair we hit another problem. I needed to find a toilet and what followed was something harrowing from the combined hell of Corby and eating terrible food at random intervals for 9 days in a row. RIP Corby station toilet. We then thought it wise to leave before my car wasn't available as transport or the locals lynched me for destroying their only flushing toilet.
I then dropped Matt back at Peteboghorror and shot home for some well deserved rest. +2 each.
And hereth be the end of the trip. A big thanks to @MattyH for being co-pilot, Spoons finder and DJ. A big shout to Lee for providing gen on Paignton and Corby, a thanks to @Mike for being the McDonalds and booze finder, thanks to @Jonathan for helping curate the playlist for the trip and a sorry to the car for dragging it so far for such a stupid reason.
+42 for me, +46 for Matt. 1903 miles covered, 25 park/fair visits, doing rides in 22 of them. Ridecount of 73 each on the trip.
Thanks for reading and please direct any complaints about this mess of a TR to the friendly staff on here, they're lovely and probably as unhappy as you are at seeing this mess clogging the place up
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NuttySquirrel
TS Member
Thanks for finishing the write-up @Poisson, this has certainly been a trip report with a difference! Really enjoyed reading these, possibly more so than actually visiting the parks (?). Can't say I've really been inspired to follow in your footsteps, although I am now kind of curious to scout out the likes of Barry Island and Brean Leisure Park just to see for myself if they're as terrible as they sound... Anyway I hope you enjoyed the trip and are glad to be home in (mostly) one piece despite all the perwiggle!
Poisson
TS Member
I'm glad somebody enjoyed reading through this drivel. Seriously, most of the parks were a laugh. Obviously if you go in super serious or expecting Phantasialand from every park, you'll be miserable but Corby, Paignton, Barry Island and Drayton Manor aside, there was no misery. Genuinely had a lot of laughs be it at terrible coasters or surprise at unexpectedly good coasters.
Regarding Barry, I'd seriously try and find someway to contact them and ask about the creds or the park being open in general. For Brean, get there for opening and it's alright. Won't take you more than a couple of hours even if you rode everything mind you.
Regarding Barry, I'd seriously try and find someway to contact them and ask about the creds or the park being open in general. For Brean, get there for opening and it's alright. Won't take you more than a couple of hours even if you rode everything mind you.