The YMCA Post

 So last Saturday, the 19th of March, I headed to the opening day of Alton Towers to get back on some of my favourite rides as well as trying out a couple that I haven't done. The park was advertised as a sell out so large queues were expected but the weather was nice and the enthusiast community was excited to get back to a special park.  We arrived about half an hour before park opened and got straight in and went to Nemesis to start the day, even if it will be shut for a year for the retrack, it still rides incredibly well. We then ticked off the Runaway Mine Train where the ride op was throwing the iconic 'Choo Choo' out left, right and centre. With the rapids not open yet we headed to X-Sector. The Smiler had a large queue but luckily the single rider line was available so it took us just over half an hour to get on and gave us just enough time to look down on Oblivion. At this point I had a meetup with my fellow finalists of the  KA Coaster Quiz  where the trop...

 Welcome back to this series, going through my ideal park that I am pretending to create. The main aim is to make an immersive, well themed, fun and exciting park and ultimately tailored to what I like to see in theme parks across the globe and drawing plenty of inspiration from these places. In this second part, we will be looking at the first 2 of 5 large themed area- these will be a Space and Jungle theme, situated on the immediate left of the entrance via a path through some trees will be the Space themed area and then travelling through a path to past the Space theme to the Jungle themed land.  Space Land To cover this, as I appreciate this s a relatively vague theme. This is set in 50 years time where society has set up a city on the moon. I know it's not too original but it seems pretty neat to me and think done right, will be the signature area of the park, aiming to be Phantasialand level theming across the park but this one just being pushed that bit further to stun ...

 So a bit of something different but I thought it'd be fun if I designed my own theme park, and by design I mean just give a vague theme and what rides would be there. It will be split other 4 parts and try to explain in as much detail as I can what I would do and why and how it would work. I essentially picked rides I'd like to try and then picked out a few themes that I think would be cool to see. This is basically Planet Coaster sandbox mode without actually being able to play the game or have any exact visuals. This is aimed to be just a bit of fun and as a student I still have some optimism left for stuff like this.  So in the first part, I wanted to explain the layout of the park, the entrance and the kids area. Not the most fun parts but good to set a picture and tick a few things off. Layout Right, so the main feature of the park is a large man made lake in the middle and the rest of the areas go around it, kinda like a circle. This lake will be hugs, with a fountain a...

 If there is one thing I love to do as an enthusiast when I can't go to parks, its plan what parks I would like to do and when. This started during the lockdown in October 2020 and I keep refining and updating the plan to keep it as accurate as possible. Firstly there's a list of park in the UK to expand my cred list beyond 100 that are aimed to be done in 2022.  UK Credit Plans Starting with a few places large and small, near and far with a total of 23 credits to gain in the next 12 months. Chessington is high on the priority list after not being able to fit in last year along with Southport Pleasureland. Then with the aim of mopping up the credits not too far away before I finish uni, I will hunt down West Midland Safari Park, Cannon Hill park, St Nicholas Park as well as Buffalo coaster at Drayton Manor. Then up near Manchester there are 2 coasters at New Brighton to tick off the list. Finally with the major trip of the year for this country in terms of new parks- Adventure...

 Everyone knows this place, home to some extreme coasters, insane rides and one huge reputation. The coasters alone boast such a reputation with the first hyper (Magnum XL 200), the first giga (Millennium Force) and the first strata (Top Thrill Dragster) as well as rides such as Gatekeeper and Rougarou along with what is considered the best coaster in the world- Steel Vengeance. This park is the holy grail for many enthusiasts and I am one of those people so I thought I'd break it down and look at why I am so desperate to get to Sandusky, Ohio. History Of course the history undergraduate had to go straight to this but this park seems to have its history brushed to one side as its a park that constantly adapts, yet it is older then our old friend Pleasure Beach by 26 years and of their 16 operating coasters, only 6 opened this century. It's a park that keeps moving forward, always at the forefront of the amusement industry and breaking records. This is evident by the closure of ...

 So opening weekend has been and gone and my life is miserable now it’s over. I just wanted to get all my thoughts of an amazing weekend out there as a way to keep the memories made somewhere.  So after arriving in Manchester on Friday evening and having a couple of drinks and going to sleep way too late we woke up at 6am Saturday morning with the plan of getting to the park pretty early. Unfortunately trains ruined are lives however it wasn’t too bad and we were towards the front of the queue.  Starting on icon, as we do, it was running so well and it was so good to be back on it. We then proceeded to hit out some more rides and managed to cram in a good ride count before 1. We then went to the PBE log flume takeover. I was not sure if we would go on but we hopped on and it wasn’t too much of a soaker so we went again and that got us bad. After food the rain started coming down heavier and we ticked off a few more rides before calling it early to get ready for spoons....