I hate this place. But I also love it.
Got there early doors, and already the car park was filling nicely. There was already a big queue for the monorail (monorail, That’s right monorail – I hear those things are awfully load – no, it glides as softly as a cloud…) so we walked the walk into the park – which I am not sure I have done before, but it was easy to find as we just followed the other 20,000 people. Luckily the entrance was quiet and we walked straight in.
So, Smiler was the big attraction, so the plan was to queue on that, then get some fast tracks for the other big ones, and be leaving the park at 12:00 (well, the last bit was my plan, the others were not signed up to that) we saw the queue for smiler, then were told that the end of the queue was actually arouhnd the corner and out of sight. But we stood and prepared for the wait. It took ages until the ride actually took passengers, then the queue started moving quite well, and after 1.5 hrs we were about 30 mins away from the most inverted ride in the world (thats *IN*verted). But then, there was a massive clunk, and (according to newspaper reports – which were boll0x) a massive piece of the track fell off. We waitewd and waited and waited and then after 15 minutes we gave up. We saw that the contestants in the carriages (which were back at the station) were going to be rescued so we left – the ride was closed all day, and it still is i think days later.
We had a look at other ride times and decided to try Rita with a half hour queue. After 45 minutes we were nearing the end and that bloody well broke down. We were promised fast track tickets for it, but we couldn’t find where we would get them from so at 12:00 we had queued since 9:30 and not been on anything. I was not in the best of moods.
Food time, and a quite reasonable seven quid later I had a burger, chips and coke aand we started queuing for air. Now that was 25 min queue and it really was, I had only just finished my nosh when we borded. Probably not the best idea. Kate had a little panic when she was waiting for the ride to start, but here she was, on the first big coaster of her life, and it was ready to swing her around to face the floor, and possible death.
Air is good, but scares me more than any other ride. I don’t like the fact that if the harness opened you would have to try to hang on – actually the ride that scares me the most is the cable cars. After Air we went onto the Nemisis – which was only about a 20 min wait was well, and then we made our way back to Oblivion.
Earlier in the day there were 40 minute queues for this, so a little apprehensively we climbed the route to the top, and there was nothing – no queue what so ever – we went straight on, I could not believe it. Oblivion is fab. It takes you up to the top of a big drop and then holds you at the top for a second or so before dropping you done and into a hole int he ground. It really truly takes your breath away. On this first attempt I honestly could not breath – its immense.
Kate loved it, so we went on again.
We went back on Rita which I don’t like too much and then on Th1rteen – which is unusual and quite enjoyable and after finding the log flume was shut it was time to pay for parking – the cheeky monkeys, and queue for the monorail back.
After a couple of hours in the car we were safely back home. Was a shame we didn’t do Smiler, but at least Kate experienced some pretty cool rides on here first day of being tall enough…