New Rides and Attractions for 2008
This season has been a relatively quiet one when it comes to the UK’s top parks adding new thrill rides, but changes have taken place across them all, some big, some small. Let’s take a look at what the top 5 parks have created this year.
Alton Towers
Goodbye Merrie England, hello Mutiny Bay. New to Alton this season is a whole new pirate themed area, featuring three new rides.
The area’s signature ride is Battle Galleons, a Splash Battle ride where visitors board their own galleons and attack other visitors around the ride using onboard water cannons. It isn’t just a one sided battle though, as people not on the ride itself can fire back at the boats using cannons dotted around the ride area. The ride theming is fantastic, with no expense spared and is definately worth a ride, even in the coldest of weathers.
Another not so new addition to the area is Marauders Mayhem. The old Tea Cups have been renovated to fit in with the area but you wouldn’t know it was the same ride. You now spin around in barrels rather than tea cups and the experience is improved with music and lighting effects. The whole ride looks completely different, with a much darker theme.
The final new ride to hit Alton Towers this year is Heave Ho, a pirate ship style ride that also slowly spins around. This one is more of a family ride than a thrill ride, but is still suitable for all ages.
Mutiny Bay itself is full of highly detailed theming and in my opinion has been a huge success.
Thorpe Park
We have become accustomed to seeing thrill rides added at Thorpe in recent years, but this season is the calm before the storm.
Pirates 4D has gone and has been replaced by Time Voyagers. Still a 4D film, it takes you on a journey through time and different worlds as you search for lost archeologists.
As I said, this is just the calm before the storm as Thorpe are preparing for next season, when they will add one of their darkest, most exciting rides yet. More to come on that one later.
Pleasure Beach Blackpool
Last season, Infusion made it’s way to the shores of the Pleasure Beach. They advertised it as a brand new ride and one of the best coasters in the UK, even though it was an old ride, transported down the road from the now defunct old Pleasureland. The Pleasure Beach are known to twist the truth a little, so it comes as no surprise that they are still advertising last season’s new addition as a new ride.
They have however, opened a new attraction. Not inside the park but on the old Flagstaff Gardens, just outside the main entrance. This is a new adventure golf attraction which replaces the old, very dull crazy golf that was there previously.
Flamingo Land
You might already know about Flamingo Land’s new attraction if you have been reading Theme Park Life for a while, and the mistakes they have made with it. For those who don’t know, the new ride is called Flip Flop and is a Fabbri Top Swing, new to the Splosh area. The ride is a fantastic thrill ride, if you are both over and under the height restrictions. More about that in our earlier post.
The park have also added a couple of smaller, children’s rides. One is the Jungle Carousel, which is self explanatory. The other is another Fabbri ride, called Helitower, where the young ones can board and control ther own helicopter.
Drayton Manor
It has been quite a busy closed season for Drayton, as they transformed the old Robinson’s Land into Thomas Land, a whole area themed around Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.
The main ride is the new Troublesome Trucks Runaway Coaster. It’s only a small family coaster as the whole area is targeted towards the younger visitors and is backed up by a total of eleven other childrens rides. The new area will hopefully prove to be a good move for the park.
Summary
As you can see, 2008 hasn’t been brilliant for massive, thrilling rides but does the lack of additions mean we can expect much bigger things for 2009? Tell us what you think to this years new additions.
