Play-and-Stay Blog

A permanent fixture at all theme and amusement parks is the haunted house. From the largest of multi zone theme parks to the smallest of travelling fairs each is bound to have a haunted house, or some kind of paranormal theme ride. There seems to be something about the extraordinary and unexplained that is intrinsically scary, and its only when we can see that light at the end of the tunnel that that terror becomes an afterthought. Ghosts and the paranormal seem to have a particular influence over people in the UK and the USA. A quick look at Google trends shows the UK leading the way in search volume for the term ‘ghosts’.

Theme parks cashing in on this obsession is quite obvious in the UK, I don’t think you’ll need much of a helping hand to think of any. Vampire at Chessington, X at Thorpe, and the regular Halloween events at Alton Towers are all good examples. While the reason that these rides are popular as ’scare’ rides is obvious what intrigues me is the people that seem to start to really believe in the paranormal and claim to have had strange experiences while at theme parks. I dug around in Google and YouTube for a bit and found some fairly interesting material. Soldier on if you dare…

So while looking through YouTube I stumbled across a TV program filmed at Alton Towers a while back, ‘Most Haunted - Alton Towers’. The program is part of a series that travels to supposedly haunted locations around the UK and attempts to prove or disprove the claims. The focus of this program is on the Towers themselves at Alton Towers. There have been several claims of ghost sightings and photographs at the Towers over the years and the aim of the program was to try and find out if there was anything behind these rumours. They set about the task in typical fashion, playing up rumours and trying to build the suspense. The program ends with the team spending the night in the Towers. Of course, the footage is all blurred and filmed in near pitch black with night vision. With night vision on everyone just looks wide eyed and terrified the whole time. Personally I didn’t see anything paranormal at all in the program. One of the presenters was allegedly injured during filming but as you couldn’t see anything happen at all I remain extremely skeptical. The program is well put together but really is just the equivalent of a film for providing proof of paranormal activity. What interests me really are the people that really believe this stuff. And of course the best place to find them is online.

A quick Google search found me this gem - Alton Towers Ghost

This photo interests me as the guy claims;

“I noticed something near the steps, so I zoomed in and immediately saw what appears to be a little boy and i was completely taken aback. Then after looking at the picture more closely, I noticed a very tall man standing next to the little boy.”

I don’t know if its just me but I really can’t see anything in that photo that even closely resembles a person. Just seem to be a rather blotchy photo to me. In typical ghost photo fashion he later says in his blurb;

“Granted, the quality of the picture is very poor as it was taken on my camera phone, and the lighting inside the castle is very poor…”

This almost seems to disqualify the photo before you’ve even seen it, as if to say ‘if you can’t see it it’s just because the quality was bad on the day. It’s there, honest, just a bad photo!” This kind of disclaimer statement seems almost unanimously apparent on all ghost photos that I found. To me it seems that any sighting of a ghost is more in the beholder’s mind that anything. It’s like the people that claim to see the face of Christ in a piece of toast. They want to see it so badly that they make it appear to themselves, despite the lack of real evidence.

Another article I read was about an abandoned theme park at Lake Shawnee in Topeka, Kansas in the USA. The page begins with ridiculous and irrelevant claims of strange things happening, such as;
“Carrillion bells playing, an owl standing in the roadway in broad daylight which took off over my head, the smell of smoke with no fires around, rustlings in the brush behind me as I walked along and a feeling of being watched.”

Quite how any of these things is evidence of the paranormal is beyond me. The rest of the thread seems to be populated by people either making claims to have seen ghosts, or local people rubbishing the idea. You can read it for yourself here.
Apologies for this week’s post turning into a bit of a rant, but I think I have a fairly interesting topic for discussion. I have admittedly gone into looking for paranormal evidence with a distinctly skeptical viewpoint but really what other viewpoint is there to have? Unless these people come back with some real evidence I for one will continue to disbelieve all of it. Perhaps some of you have had a paranormal experience and want to share it? We’re always open for debate here at Play and Stay so let us know!

Take a look at our special offers bursting out from the Play and Stay treasure chest this Spring. First of all there’s the brilliant Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures double offer - get park entrance tickets to both parks and hotel stay from just £199 for a family of four! If that wasn’t enough then we’re also giving vouchers for kids to eat free at Chessington. You can get a voucher redeemable for 2 child’s meals up to the value of £2.49 per child with every adult meal purchased.

Then there’s our spectacular savings to be had at LEGOLAND® Windsor, where kids can go free! You can now get a LEGOLAND Windsor break from just £94 for a family of four if you book before the 31st May. This fantastic special offer includes 2 day theme park entrance, an overnight hotel stay and breakfast - all from just £94 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children. Compared to normal gate prices kids do go completely free!

Also be sure to check out our Spring sale of Tussaud’s theme parks. In May we’ll be cutting our prices even further by offering £10 savings for families of four at Alton Towers, Chessington and Thorpe Park. Head to Play and Stay for more details and incredible savings!

This guy can’t believe how good our offers are!

It might seem like a slightly unfair contest, with Disneyland® Resort Paris competing against around 30 UK theme parks, but the question is - do any of them come close?

Disneyland Resort Paris is one of Europe’s top tourist destinations, with many of people on the internet touting it as ‘the number one’ (although how you arrive at such a conclusion is quite mind boggling to me - I don’t think it can really be compared to Ancient ruins in Athens or Rome for example). It consistently has over 12 million visitors a year, from many European countries, and its close proximity to Britain means British people make up a decent proportion of these. Meanwhile, if you think that Britain’s top theme park, Alton Towers , handles 2.5 million visitors per year, it is clear that Disneyland Resort Paris is quite a behemoth, and one that is very close to home. It’s not difficult to see how Disneyland Resort Paris can attract so many British people if we consider the travel options: the resort is only a 3 hour train journey from London, and it can often take a similar amount of time to reach British theme parks. For me, it would take around 5 hours by train to reach Alton Towers!

Disneyland Magic

Marketing, and worldwide fame, obviously account for much of Disneyland Resort Paris’ popularity. The opportunity for families to take their children to a theme park where they can meet some of the world’s most famous cartoon characters, and visit scenes from their favourite films, puts the magic in the Disneyland experience. The scenery is truly fantastic, and an obvious reason why the park was given an initial budget of $2.6 billion. Creating a whole ‘mountain’ for the course of one ride, in the case of Big thunder Mountain , or building a huge Cinderella’s Castle as a centre piece for the park (which actually doesn’t have all that much in it), is the clear evidence of the immensity of the Disney project, and something to which few British theme parks can compete.

Disneyland and Thrill Rides

It has often been noted that Disneyland Resort Paris has little for thrill seekers. This was true at its opening back in 1992 (when I was fortunate to be amongst the park’s first guests at seven years old), and Big thunder Mountain was subject to massive queues. Now though there are two further roller coasters at the Disneyland Park with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril and Space Mountain: Mission 2. Both of these feature inversions, although the verdict seems to be out on them on most internet forums. Other than these two there has also been the addition of the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at Walt Disney Studios Park, bringing the resort’s repertoire of thrilling roller coasters up to four - not bad, especially as the number of roller coasters with inversions matches ‘Britain’s most thrilling park’, Thorpe Park.

Other than that collection of roller coasters, however, Disneyland Resort Paris has little else in the way of thrills. Star Tours is a fun and family orientated flight simulator, again with brilliant theming. But what else is there to satisfy adrenalin junkies? Not a lot, as I’m sure you’ll discover if you go.

The British Competition

Alton Towers, Thorpe park and Drayton Manor all have a repertoire of intense thrill rides that easily surpass Disneyland Resort Paris. Not only that, but some of them are also placed within excellent scenery. Nemesis has to be one of the most impressive looking roller coasters in the world, with the track running around an alien creature that has come from underground, surrounded by rivers of blood. Even the sparse settings of Oblivion, fitting in with other ‘futuristic’ rides within the X-Sector area, seem to feel right.

Chessington World of Adventures has often won fans through the fine surroundings of the Vampire or the ancient buildings within the Forbidden Kingdom, and such an approach is very favourable with younger visitors, as Disneyland Resort Paris so well knows. However, it is difficult for all British theme parks to follow this route. Restrictions of budget and space make it difficult for anything but flagship rides to be placed in a fitting setting that is very good on the eye. Disney, in this respect is the magnum opus of European, and indeed worldwide, theme parks.

Conclusion

What are the conclusion to this blog then? Simply, Disneyland Resort Paris has a great diversity of rides, with decent roller coasters and family rides, but its theming is an incredibly important factor of the rides. For a young child, the imagination really can run free at this massive theme park, and this explains why it is such a popular family small break destination. Certain British theme parks do have good ride theming, but it can’t really been compared to Disneyland; have a look at Pirates of the Caribbean, for instance, then see which British rides come close (Valhalla at Pleasure Beach is pretty good, but it doesn’t feature animatronics). Disneyland does falter when it comes up against the best thrill rides in the the UK, and it has nothing like a Rameses Revenge or a Samurai. I’m not saying you should choose one theme park over the other, because they all have their benefits, and budget and traveling distance are two of the most important factors in selecting a theme park break. But if you ever want to make the trip onto the continent to Disneyland Resort Paris then don’t go specifically for thrills (you’ll find much better at home) but go for the reason that children will truly be amazed by the scenery and that it’s an almost perfect place for family magic.