Play-and-Stay Blog

When thinking about theme parks, you may be forgiven for not instantly thinking of either The Middle East or Japan. The most obvious ones would be places such as Disneyland and Alton Towers. I won’t be concentrating on them though, after all there’s so much info out there already. I’m going to be writing about parks you might not be so familiar with.

Have you ever thought of visiting a country without leaving the one you’re in? Well now you can. Several of the largest amusement parks in Japan are designed with the sole purpose of imitating life in other countries, it’s life but not as we know it. For a start, everyone’s got good manners, the streets are clean and nothing goes wrong, so you can effectivly experience Italy without the bad driving and see a bull fight without the blood. The parks take you back to a time before our modern age and show you life in all its idyllic gentleness. The massive cost of building such parks was only made possible due to the so called “Bubble Economy.” Since the end of The Second World War, the Japanese government encouraged its people to save. This cautious attitude towards money, meant that by the mid to late 80s lots of cash was flowing into the Japanese economy, particularly in over seas investment. Japanese businesses now had more money and much of it went into the development of the entertainment industry, including theme parks.

Japanese theme parks contain all the elements essential to their counterparts in the USA and Europe. Great roller coasters can be found in parks like Yomiuriland and Expoland, which contains one of the world’s longest coasters. Unusually in today’s world of tubular steel, many of the Japanese coasters are wooden. This does not mean they are any less safer than the steel ones because the chances are they will have been made using prefabricated wooden tracks, it’s just a different type of ride. Also, Japan can boast a Universal Studios park and a Tokyo Disneyland, so if you go, it won’t be totally foreign. There’s much more to Japanese entertainment than just rides though. Parks such as Parque Espana replicate other countries. These parks are a bit like Disneyland in the way they create their environments but some of the Japanese parks do this on a larger scale, with many of the building materials actually transported from the intended country. The Japanese enjoyment of travel is well known. Figures suggest that more than 1 in 10 Japanese will travel abroad this year, but at a time when people can’t find the time or the money, these parks provide a perfect alternative. One of the most popular of these destinations is modeled on a Dutch village, with everything from Dutch speaking attendence to over three miles of canals. Other parks model themselves on Russia, Turkey and New Zealand. With over 11,000,000 visiters per year, the parks are certainly a success.

Japan is not alone in creating innovative amusement parks. There is work being carried out on creating a huge theme park complex in Dubai, called Dubai World. Located in the desert, it will be larger than Disney World which has been (until now) the largest park in existence. In fact, it is believed that the finished complex will cover an area of just over 3,000,000,000 square feet. It’s almost impossible to imagine that much space so think of it as being larger than the city of Orlando. The location will be split into more than 20 projects, including a LEGOLAND park, Thomas the Tank Engine and Universal Studios. Dubai World will also feature the first Six Flags park to be built outside the US. If this wasn’t enough, Dubai is also attempting to immitate the 7 wonders of the world, but with a difference. The project is called Falcon City of Wonders. The city is to be set out in the shape of a Falcon, with the wonders themselves forming the shape. A life size Egyption pyramid is to contain blocks of flats and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon will be comprised of Restaurants and apartments.

If you want a place to ski chances are you’ll think of somewhere naturally cold; Germany? Switzerland? How about Dubai? Dubai World will contain the world’s largest snowdome. This isn’t your ordinary indoor ski slope though. The dome will also hold a ski training area, the world’s third largest ski slope and the opportunity to take a virtual tour of the Arctic. The idea is that you’ll never have to leave the dome because it will contain everything you need, from hotels to shops. All the buildings around the dome will be built to a winter theme, with the hotels taking the shape of icebergs. Dubai have created the Wild Wadi Water Park. This water based theme park has over 20 massive rides, is spread over 12 acres and contains water slides, pools and surf machines.

Wild Wadi is only one of many examples of how amusement parks are growing both in popularity and scale in Dubai and the Middle East in general. In the next three years between 5 and 10 percent of all available retail space in the Middle East will be devoted to the development of bigger and better theme parks.

Published by Harry Luckhurst on behalf of Play and Stay

I had such fun with last week’s tenuous LEGO^® blog of the week that I decided to make it a regular part of blog.play-and-stay.co.uk. The world of LEGO has so many exciting possibilities! I intend to make it my personal mission to write about something new, exciting AND made of LEGO as often as possible (I’m aiming at once a week).
Last week I brought you the joys of LEGO films and hamsters riding little LEGO lifts. Submitted for your approval this week, LEGO food.
I’m justifying this because there is a great deal of LEGO at LEGOLAND and also some food. So logically if LEGO food exists (which it does because I’m blogging about it) I should tell you about it….that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Look at that! Congratulations are in order to “Big Daddy” Nelson who created this masterpiece of LEGO and combined two of my great loves - toys and sushi.
Having been to LEGOLAND recently I can assure you that the food there is made of delicious carbs and proteins rather than LEGO. Which although fun, makes for poor eating.

If any readers of this wonderful blog just so happen to stumble across some LEGO news, or are LEGO artists themselves then please do send pictures of your finest creations to us and you might just see them here.

With the USA dominating most aspects of our modern lives, you may be forgiven in assuming that the first roller coasters were created in America. The name itself is believed to have originated in the US. Some sources tell us that rollers were fitted to a ramp down which a sled could coast. This article will outline the history and development of the roller coaster from primitive slides to what we know today and beyond.

Far from starting out in the USA, the first prototype coaster was developed in Russia in the sixteenth century. Well maybe developed is too strong a word, as they were little more than large ice slides. Such slides were sometimes known as “Russian Mountains.” Around a century later, Russians must have become tired of sliding down lumps of ice, because in the 17th century a coaster on wheels was constructed near St Petersburg. America jumped on the bandwagon in the 1840s by converting an old mining cart to take people at top speads of six miles an hour down a track, for a price of course. The world had to wait another 20 years before the first coaster to incorporate a looping track was unveiled in France. This ride was less than successful when it became clear that it was causing passengers neck and back injuries. Another example of an early French Coaster is the Russian Mountain. Named after the Russian ice slides, this ride carryed people down a track in small wagons. It was not unusual for these wagons to fall off the track before the ride ended. Despite the danger, or maybe because of it, the ride was very popular.

The coasters development continued throughout the early 1900s, but was put on hold by the outbreak of war in 1914. Coasters continued to be built and people don’t appear to have been put off by their poor safety records. Coasters would often colide, or their sharp turns caused serious injury. No significant steps forward were made until 1955, when Disneyland was opened in California. The instant popularity of Disneyland meant that more effort was placed on building newer, bigger and better coasters. Yet again Disney were the people to achieve the next real breakthrough, by constructing a coaster made of tubular steel in 1959. The vast majority of previous coasters were made using wood. The inflexibility of wood placed great limitations on the way coasters and their tracks could be designed. Tubular steel was very flexible so its introduction meant that rides could be built bigger and better than ever before. They continued to grow in height, speed and complexity until we now have coasters such as the 12 storey high Boomerang. The introduction of tubular steel certainly effected the more traditional wooden coasters. This is down to a number of factors. Apart from the difficulties of building wooden track, there is also the fact that wooden coasters are not as tall or as fast as their steel rivals. This does not mean the end for the wooden roller coaster. In 2006, two huge wood coasters were built. The fact that wood could be used at all is largely due to the introduction of prefabricated track. Prefabricated track is manufactured in a factory as opposed to being made at the theme park. The process takes many thin layers of wood and glues them together to form the track. There is very little difference between a coaster running on prefabricated track or on a steel one. Strangely, some fans of wooden coasters don’t like the prefab tracks as this limits the sideways movement of the coaster and in their opinion ruins the ride.

After considering all these facts, it is difficult to see the future of the wooden coaster as anything but bleak. Steel coasters are faster and bigger. For some people one of the best things about previous wooden coasters is that they used to be unstable, causing them to rock from side to side. The introduction of prefab tracks stops this but by doing so alienates some fans. Maybe the future of the wooden coaster lies in its past. It could become a nostalgic reminder of the past as steel takes over. Wood will always be inferior to steel, the prefab track is just an attempt to imitate what already exists. Many coasters now reach seventy miles an hour or more, and some subject their passengers to the kind of G forces experienced by astronauts. It is easy to imagine that designers have reached the end of the line. With coasters so tall and fast can more be done?

The answer to that is a definite yes. The Disney Quest indoor theme park is only one example of the direction in which roller coasters and other rides are heading. The really great thing about the Disney Quest park is that it has all the features of a classic park, roller coasters and themed rides, but this time they’re all in your head! Disney Quest is a virtual reality world, where by means of a headset you will be able to experience the thrill of white water rapids and become a super hero. The wood Vs steel question won’t matter in Disney Quest as you will be able to design and ride your own virtual reality coaster. Simulators are used so you can experience the adrenaline rush of the coaster without the constraints of reality. Then there’s the Buzz Ball. Like Disney Quest, you can still design your own ride, but unlike the Quest, the Buzz Ball is totally real. The Ball isn’t a conventional coaster. For a start it doesn’t run on tracks. All you need is the ball and some space. The ball is powered by two engines and can pretty much do what you want it to. The ball can spin in one direction while the seat you’re on goes the other way.

Virtual reality is all very well, but there are people who believe technology is not always acting as a force for the good in the theme park. Many people have serious concerns about the possible introduction of radio frequency identification tags into theme parks. RFI tags were originally designed in order to track products as they move from factory to their end destination. Their use in supermarkets has caused concern as some shoppers believe the taggs could be used to watch their movements once they’ve left the shop. Talk about RFI being used for security in theme parks has sparked similar worries. Supporters of the scheme claim that RFI tags could be used to locate a lost child in the park. They also say the tags will improve security. At a time when Britain is the highest user of CCTV in the world and ID cards for everyone are a real possibility, many people won’t welcome RFI if it’s used in such a way.

Published by Harry Luckhurst on behalf of Play and Stay.

Oh joy, oh rapture, oh happiest of happy days! Today is a great day for humanity. Forget the credit crunch. Don’t worry about negative equity. Stop caring about the fact petrol costs so much you die a little bit inside every time you pull into your local BP. Everything is going to be okay, you know why? BECAUSE SEGA ARE BUILDING A THEME PARK!

I may have got slightly carried away there, chances are Sega’s theme park is not going to fix all of Britain’s woes. Mainly because it’s in Dubai. But still, good to know huh? The park is going to be named Sega Republic, 76,000 square feet of unadulterated Sega goodness including games, thrill rides and other such lovely shiny distracting things. Which reminds me, who remembers Segaworld in the Trocadero? That place was awesome but alas, it is now closed. Upside though, I now aspire to explore the deserted Segaworld in a Scooby-Doo costume, just to see if I can find a masked villain to thwart. Cartoons have taught me villians generally live in abandoned theme parks.

I digress, apparently its not just Sega that want to get in on Dubai’s rapid expansion. Busch Gardens, Marvel Comics, Six Flags, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Universal studios are all clamouring to stake some territory in what is shaping up to be the worlds number one leisure destination. Recently Dubai has added/begun construction of the following, increasing its impressive array of tourist bait:

*Burj Al Arab - The tallest hotel in the world at 1,053 feet
*Mall of the Emirates - 6.5 million square feet of shopping pleasure with a 14 screen cinema, theatre and the Middle East’s first indoor ski slope.
*The World - A man-made archipelago in the shape of a world map, the project cost around £7 billion.
*Dubailand -  3 billion square feet of leisure facilities. The project consists of 45 separate “mega-projects” such as LEGOLAND^® Dubai, an IMAX, and a Dreamworks theme park. Completion is due 2015.
*Dubai Autodrome - 5.40 km motorsports circuit.
*Burj Dubai - Projections suggest that upon completion in 2009  Burj Dubai will be the tallest man-man made structure in the world. Standing at 2,684 ft with 162 habitable floors.
*Hydropolis - Currently still in planning stages Hydropolis will be a ten star, £300 million, fully underwater hotel.

Impressed? I am. To Dubai!

Vegemite, the car radio, Speedos^® and the inflatable escape slide. Australia has offered a mixed bag of inventions to the international community, the latest Ozzie innovation may well be the strangest of all.

The owners of new Crocosaurus Cove theme park in Darwin have developed what may well be a unique visitor attraction, the “Cage of Death” (Catchy name huh?)
The creatively named attraction consists of a ten foot tall, four centimetre thick acrylic box. Nothing scary there right? Wrong! Once inside the box, lucky tourists will be plunged into the lair of “Choppa” - a 17 foot saltwater crocodile who has apparently lost booth front arms/paws/claws-of-croccy-doom in fights with other crocodiles. Thrill-seeking tourists or other people keen on getting within nibbling distance of a creature, so well suited to its environment that it has hardly evolved since the times of the dinosaur, will enjoy 15 full minute’s in Choppa’s charming company.

I’m no crocodile expert, but I’m pretty sure if you dangle a tourist into the home of a handicapped prehistoric killing machine several times a day its going to get pretty mad. We’ve all seen Jurassic Park, we all know what happens - a good percentage of people present get eaten, some while on the toilet, bad times. Considering the park will home 100 crocodiles 76 snakes and lizards and 40 turtles (of the non-teenage mutant variety) I sincerely hope that Choppa and his reptilian chums don’t take offence to the gawking tourist in their pond.

Here at Play and Stay HQ in sunny Kent, we work hard to bring you all the latest news and events happening at top UK theme parks. Well, I say we work hard but there’s probably a lot more play than stay here.

Our bosses and the lovely chaps in the People Team have decided that we need time to chill out in between our hectic workload of writing news feeds and blogs. So they spent hundreds of pounds on playtime toys.

Foos, or table football as it more commonly known, takes pride of place as the top toy in the office. This claim to the top spot was reinforced last month when the People Team bought us a second foos table. The queues for the old table were getting ridiculously big and fights were beginning to break out between different departments.

So now we have two tables: New School and Old School.

New School is ok, but it takes some getting used to. It’s faster and smoother than Old School and has a glass lid which stops the ball leaving the field of play every 5 minutes. But this glass lid comes at a hefty price: glare. In certain lights, it is almost impossible to see one end of the table meaning that if you are in goal, the ball has probably already gone in before you can react to it.

Old School, on the other hand, is a legend. It has a raw open-topped design which puts the player closer to the action. The old, stiff and rusty handles mean you have to work if you want to win. The ball seems to stick to the surface in a very uncanny manner. There’s no beauty in this table, just pure, unadulterated foos.

Old School has character that new school can only dream of achieving. “Headless”, for example is the first red mid-fielder in from the right hand side. I have no idea how he lost his head, it was probably a drunken Christmas party shenanigan of some sort. Every other player is called “Rooney”. Don’t ask why, because I really don’t know.

So at 11 o’clock everyday, we go out for a game of doubles. There are two rounds, the first to score ten goals wins the round. Half time comes and you swap sides. Genius. If we are lucky, we might get to pop out in the afternoon as well, but that’s only if the boss isn’t looking.

Next up, and a relatively recent addition is Table Tennis. I haven’t got the hang of this yet, but then I don’t care for tennis too much so I can’t see myself as a budding Tom Hanks any time soon.

Moving on swiftly, and we have Swing Ball. Swing Ball is the sweatiest of all the toys we have. Last summer someone tried to invent some rules for Swing Ball. They didn’t take off to well. The only rule you need is hit the ball back, right?

At lunchtimes, we occasionally get a football out. This ultimately leads to yet another sweat-fest and makes for a rather smelly and uncomfortable afternoon in the office. We have goals erected in the lower field where we like to play a game of either “headers and volleys” or “hit the crossbar”. Needless to say we are all rubbish at the latter - most of us spend too much tome at a computer screen to be any good with a ball at our feet.

So if the news if sometimes late reaching you, or the web page you are looking at seems a little out of place, it’s probably because we are outside playing with our toys.

I have been lucky enough to get in my first theme park visit of the summer but I don’t think I’m going to be able to squeeze another one out of the company just yet. Not only that, but the wife is set to pop soon, with only a number of weeks left until the arrival of baby Gore Lane. Methinks a theme park isn’t the best way of keeping baby safe and snug inside mummy.

Anyway, in the mean time I have found another way of keeping myself entertained: Wonder World Amusement Park on the Nintendo Wii. Well, tell a lie, it’s not actually out yet, but when it comes out, I will be all over it.

Wonder World is (as the name suggests) a theme park game with “family fun” written all over it. There are five fantastic zones, more than 30 interactive games and many, many hours of fun to be had.

Mini games are a proven winner with the likes of Wario Ware and Mario Party storming to the top of the games charts when they were released. Wonder World is set to follow this trend; it’s great fun for all the family and everyone young and old will love playing the latest instalment to the Wii collection.

Of course, it’s as good as going to a real theme park, but lets face it; we can’t live at LEGOLAND or Alton Towers all our lives, that would just be silly. No, what I am suggesting is buy this game and enjoy playing in between trips to your favourite theme park.

I have enclosed a video for your enjoyment. The game is out soon and will cost about £30-£40.

So they say that LEGOLAND is aimed at children aged between three and 12 years old. I am 26 years old and quite clearly out of the targeted age range but I still loved it. But then I feel that I should let you in on a little secret: Roller coasters terrify me. One of my earliest memories was climbing out of a carriage after being on Disney World’s most extreme ride at the time, Space Mountain in floods of tears. The hysteric kind. That’s right, I absolutely hated it and I was damned if I was ever going on another one.

Fast forward ten years and here I am on a school business studies trip to Disneyland Paris. And here is Space Mountain, staring at me and my friends, egging us on and mocking my terror. Of course, at the age of 15, you have to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing. If not, you face complete mockery and possible disowning from your piers. So I embarked, and soon realised as we began ascending the first lift hill, that I still wasn’t cured of my fear of rides. Needless to say, I chose the constant ripping that I got from my colleagues instead of going back on Space Mountain.

A little more history: In 2007, I started as a copywriter for Holiday Extras and one of their sister companies, Play and Stay. This means I have to have a certain amount of knowledge about what I am writing about and inevitably, after six months my first educational came up. It was only Thorpe Park, the home of the UK’s most extreme roller coasters… “Oh great,” I thought (Well, it’s not exactly what I thought, but I shouldn’t really be swearing whilst writing for work).

Luckily, my companion on the trip was a lovely man, who never once poked fun at me for being scared and was ever so understanding when I told him I didn’t want to go on the Slammer…. pause… NOT! (Have any of you ever met James Carson? He’s the man that was on Graham Norton’s show with the “McBeautiful” chat-up line. His ambition is to go on Channel 4’s Shipwrecked and he is obsessed with munging.) He completely destroyed me and practically forced me to go on every single ride that was likely to leave a brown stain in my underpants. Starting with Stealth, then Colossus, then Rush… Tidal Wave, Slammer, colossus again, X: No Way Out, Nemesis and finally back on Stealth one last time. I have to admit though, as much as I disliked the man for doing this to me, he did cure me of my fears, and enabled me to make the trip to LEGOLAND for my stepson’s fourth birthday. (Oh and did I forget to mention the look on his face after getting off of Nemesis? “That one made me feel a little sick” he quietly whispered in my ear. What a picture.)

But anyway, history lesson over, this blog is about my trip to LEGOLAND Windsor, not about my good friend, Carson. We have a replacement now, anyway. We call him Carson 2.0 and he is much more jovial and forgiving. And he likes Poetry.

So we left home at 8 o’ clock in the morning, hoping to beat the rush hour traffic and get to the park for its opening time of 10 o’ clock. For his birthday, Stan got a Sportacus outfit (The main guy from Lazy Town) complete with hugely annoying sound effects which he insisted on pressing all the way out of town and along the first part of the M20. After a brief stop at our local services to fill up and buy some travel sweets, we continued to make our way along the M20 with the music turned up a little louder than Sportacus in the back.

In between bouts of Lazy Town sound effects, we managed to squeeze in a game of ‘I Spy’ which involved Stanley giving the answer away every time (”I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with car”). We arrived at the park five minutes before it opened and the weather wasn’t looking great for the day. We had already been through a few showers on the way up (”I Spy with my little eye, something beginning with rain”) so we loaded the buggy up with jackets, cagouls and spare shoes just in case. Of course, it turns out that the weather was glorious all day and I actually ended up getting burnt in places.

Joanna is six months pregnant and as a result, was unable to go on many of the rides. This didn’t dampen her day though, she had a great time snapping us on the rides and making various films on her phone. I think the longest we had to queue was half an hour to get on Pirate Falls, so she wasn’t left alone for too long.

One of the best things about many of the rides is the entertainment along the way. There are work stations with literally hundreds of blocks of DUPLO to play with. We had great fun making the world’s longest skateboard ramp while waiting in line for Boating School and The Dragon is decorated with LEGO models of witches and wizards set in the heart of a medieval castle backdrop. These activities and pieces of eye candy are essential when aiming your theme park at the younger audience.

Queues are long and boring places to be, and to be completely honest, you spend way more time waiting to go on the ride than you actually spend riding the damn thing. Two things I did notice whilst queuing was 1) how well behaved our little boy was, and b) how grumpy parents get when they are forced to stand in an orderly queue for more than five minutes. So many times, I caught poor kids being threatened with “we’re never coming back” and/or “we’ll be leaving in a minute if you keep that up!” Maybe the creators of LEGOLAND should take note, and provide the adults with something to do while they queue - this way, there would be a lot less arguments and bad tempers.

The rides themselves were absolutely fantastic, if a little too light heart hearted for the more experienced theme park go-er. The Dragon was great fun; the first part (where you slowly navigate through the castle’s tunnels) was a little bit scary for Stan with its flashing lights and loud sound effects but as soon as we got outside and the ride began in earnest, he absolutely loved it. His description to Joanna straight afterwards went something along the lines of “mummy, mummy, we went on a ride up a big hill then down a big hill and round a corner and it went vrrrrooommmmmmm!!!” before looking round at me and saying “can we do it again?” Haha, it was quality, and to be honest, a relief that he enjoyed it so much.

After a bite to eat and a tasty ice cream, we decided to tackle The Dragon’s sidekick, Dragon’s Apprentice. This one went round the short track twice and the little man proudly pronounced that he was “going to scream REALLY LOUD” on this ride. We then navigated round to LEGO City and took part in the Digger Challenge, Boating School, and the fairly tame Orient Expedition. Boating School was great fun. We let him take control of the steering as we happily smashed, crashed and splashed our way around the short track. (Apologies to anyone who we bumped on our way round).

Joanna took him on the slower rides, the carousel and the Digger Challenge. I had, after all, played the proud father figure all day and thought that maybe she was missing out on the fun. So the two of them happily played on the smaller rides while I took the time to check out some shops and grab a ridiculously expensive drink or two.

It’s at this point that I feel Ishould pipe up about the price of the place. We did get our tickets for free (I have just written the copy for the LEGOLAND Holidays redesign) but the cost of food and drink once inside is ludicrous. I definitely recommend packing a picnic and taking advantage of the many grassy areas. We must have paid out more than £40 on drinks and snacks and we didn’t even sit down in a restaurant to eat.

One of the last rides we went on that day was the Dino Dipper. The gentleman who operated this ride (Mike, I think it said on his name tag) was the most cheerful chappy I had met all day and did a fantastic job of getting the crowd going. Was this because it was nearly home time and he knew he was nearly at the end of his shift? No - I genuinely believe this guy loves his job. Shouts of “Do you wanna go faster?” and “have you had enough yet?” came echoing out of the small arena and literally pulled the crowds in. If you are going down to LEGOLAND any time soon, check him out, he really did make the ride that much better.

So the park closed at six, and hoards of people headed towards the park exit. Luckily, the cafe and shops were still open long enough to grab a bite to eat and get a couple of souvenirs from the day’s events. We ended up leaving the park at gone seven and we headed back home to the not-so-sunny Folkestone and the pikey seagulls that live on the roof opposite our house. After obtaining his driving license at Learner Drivers, Stanley proudly declared that he was driving us home and that I was to spend the journey in the boot. If only. He was actually asleep within 5 minutes of leaving the park allowing Mummy and Papa a peaceful journey home with no Sportacus sound effects. Job done.

Would I go again? Definitely. Would I recommend it to friends? Oh yes. Even if I didn’t do this for a job? Even more so. LEGOLAND was great fun and there was so much to see and do there. We didn’t even make it to Land of the Vikings, and we briskly walked through Miniland without stopping to show Stan what Amsterdam looked like. I would definitely recommend getting a two day pass and staying overnight and maybe even hiring a Q-Bot. I think it would take two days just get around and enjoy the full majesty of the park. Everything, and I mean everything is superbly sculpted in the LEGO style and offers something for all ages. My wife and I may be 26 years old, but we got just as much out of LEGOLAND as our four year old boy.

Next up I’m on the hunt for some free Alton Towers tickets, although I will settle for Drayton Manor and Thomas Land. Watch this space…

France has offered many great things to Britain over the years, good bread, top notch plonk, the beret and many many ladies with lovely accents. In a roundabout way it is fair to say that France is, at least in part, also responsible for the evolution of the UK theme park.
In the dark days of the 1980s - early 1990s the choice of theme parks in Britain was relatively limited. School children dreamed of the day their parents saved enough money to finance a depressingly expensive family trip to Florida, so they could ride the “proper” American rollercoasters. This is not to say thrill rides did not exist in dear old Blighty, we had a few. They were just not up to the standard of the white knuckle, spare set of pants scary offerings from across the pond. This all changed in 1992 when the ever pervasive Disney corporation opened an all new theme park in Paris, now known as Disneyland Resort Paris, then called Euro Disney Resort.

With the presence of a full blown, all singing all dancing theme resort only a short trip across the channel away, UK theme park owners were forced to sit up and take notice. The competition of a well established and publicly trusted franchise was the proverbial kick up the backside park owners needed. Massive improvements began to be made to the likes of Chessington World of Adventures, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Drayton Manor.
Drayton Manor was the first park to respond to the threat. In 1994, the park opened Shockwave, a stand-up rollercoaster which reaches speeds of 53 mph and incorporates an 80 ft drop, two corkscrews, a zero G roll, a 120 ft hill lift and delivers up to 4 G’s. These were great times, the 80s were not long over, perms were finally out of fashion, Zig and Zag were still on the Big Breakfast and now Britain had the kind of thrill rides you previously only found overseas . In 1995 Chessington World of Adventures launched Rameses Revenge, a Top Spin ride impressive enough to make it the park’s main advertising focus for the year, and for me to pester my parents non-stop for a good 8 months until they took me. On a school day. I win! . In 1996, Thorpe Park opened X:/ No Way Out, the worlds first in the dark, backwards rollercoaster, it is probably still the only ride in the world to incorporate a forward slash in the name as well.

These initial thrill rides were only the beginning of what amounts to a revolution in the British theme park industry. A wonderful revolution, that allowed the brave to test their metal against very clever pieces of engineering, and the less brave to practice the vitally important life-skills of taking pictures of terrified friends & relatives and holding handbags.
Over the next few years more and more white-knuckle rides rivalling those in America began to spring up in parks across the UK, designs became more elaborate and attendance to the parks improved. Great success.

The evolution of British theme parks did not end with the rapid development of thrill rides in the 1990s. Drawing inspiration from the American style theme park resorts but still keeping a close eye on Disneyland Paris, British theme parks began to specialise and blossom into full blown resorts. Alton Towers led the way, opening the Alton Towers hotel in 1996. This was followed by the opening of a water park, large crazy golf course and a second hotel. Firmly cementing Alton Towers’ position as one of the UK’s first and leading family theme park resorts.

The parks who were not building stunning, themed hotels were busy specialising. While Alton Towers was putting the finishing touches on its amazing first hotel LEGOLAND^® Windsor opened its doors to the public. LEGOLAND shunned the white knuckle rides that other parks focussed heavily on and set itself up as a theme park designed for the under 12s. By specialising in the younger market, while other parks were focussing on building bigger and better rollercoasters, LEGOLAND carved itself a comfortable niche and enjoyed astounding success, attracting 1.4 million visitors in its first season. Thorpe park also began specialisation: Although it does contain a number of child-friendly rides, the park became one of the UK’s leading thrill parks gaining several records. Colossus was the world’s first rollercoaster to feature ten inversions, Stealth was the fastest rollercoaster in Europe until 2007, Loggers Leap is the tallest log flume in the UK and Tidal Wave was the tallest water ride in Europe until 2002.

Chessington World of Adventures improved its already impressive zoo and added a sea-life centre creating a park that is perfect for families, thrill seekers and amateur Attenboroughs. It would seem the result of the Parisian threat of Disneyland drove the British theme parks into stronger competition than ever before, which in turn led to each park creating a unique niche and offering the British public an unprecedented variety, never before seen. LEGOLAND created a safe, familiar environment for young families, Thorpe Park became a haven for adrenaline junkies without forgetting the family-friendly roots of the theme park. Alton Towers offered a genuine alternative to Disneyland Paris, closer, cheaper and without the slightly scary people in giant costumes. Chessington World of Adventures expanded on its already impressive zoological side, and created a family orientated hybrid of theme park and zoo, somewhere where families with teenagers or toddlers could be entertained with ease. All in all it must be said that the evolution of the British theme park is quite possibly the best thing to happen to this country since the the NHS, no wait…..since Home and Away was cancelled.