I was fortunate enough to have been sent a VIP invitation to Pleasurewood Hills for the 30th Birthday celebrations. The invitation included details of all the events during the day, so we planned to arrive first thing and spend an entire day at the park.
Sadly, our timing was slightly off and we arrived at the gate at 10:01 (literally) and just missed Joe Larter cutting the ribbon to open the park. Annoyed at myself, I studied the times for the day and made sure we were in the right place at the right time for all the other special events.
Woody was due to parachute into the park at 11am so we had a good amount of time for a few early rides. First up, the Go Karts. No queue, friendly staff and speedy karts, no problems here! I was surprised at the price of £4 per kart, not sure if this is a recent increase or if I just haven’t been on them for a while?
Next up was Kite Flyer. More for my Wife’s little brother than myself. He loved it. I felt a little bit sick. Always seems to have that effect on me.
We moved on to Wavebreaker next but were asked to come back later as they were prepping for Woody’s arrival nearby. With a few minutes to spare before Woody’s appearance, I heard Ben on the mic doing his best X-Factor style voiceover to get people’s attention. I introduced myself and had a quick chat before he had to run.
A few minutes later, a good crowd gathered as the helicopter came over and a specially adapted Woody – with a larger than usual face-hole - began his descent. He landed smoothly and gave the crowd a wave before disappearing into Wavebreaker’s on ride photo shed. With almost split second precision, the usual Woody Bear emerged from the other door of the shed and greeted the guests in person. All very well organised and timed.
The crowd were then asked to move over to Wizzy Dizzy, where the special mascot show was due to commence shortly. Once again, Ben was on the mic and made the announcement that Ronnie and Clarence were back. Then Clarence, Ronnie and Woody all emerged from the Palladium. For the first time ever, the characters were given voices and they sang a song about the history of the park and had a bit of banter. Woody had an American accent, Clarence had an air of sophistication and Ronnie was cute and playful.
Once the show had finished, I attended a talk in the Palladium. Before this began, a number of videos were played showing PWH over the years. There were a couple of TV spots and some specially made videos from the 90’s put together by the late Steve Ace. Ben and Alexis both talked about the history of the park, plans for the future and presented a cut-down version of the Hobs Pit press event.
Joe Larter was then invited to speak and was endearingly self-deprecating. He explained that to begin with he had very little understanding of the theme park market and that many had expressed concern that “50% of the target market are in the North Sea”. He continued by telling an anecdote of how they originally gauged the customers reactions with questionnaires given out at the end of the day. Joe said that one guest wrote: “If I have just had my “Biggest Day out-ever”, I really don’t have much to look forward to for the rest of my life”. He went on to say that in the early days “we had to beg, borrow and steal just to give people enough things to do”.
After this, I rejoined my group. We went to the Merry Mariner next for dinner. They were very busy and you could see the staff were under a bit of pressure, but the young girl who served me was very friendly and helpful. I had a steak burger and was very impressed with the quality and price. All of the food seemed to be of a far higher quality than in the past. While we ate, Keith Lemon came round and gave us a laugh.
We then went out and did as many rides as possible. We went on Jolly Roger twice in a row and were caught off-guard with the timing of the drop on the second go. We were held for about 20 seconds on the first go and about 2 seconds on the second. Added to the fun!
Wipeout was great, I didn’t notice it looking in too bad condition. However, I’m glad that we know the plan for Enigma as this is looking really rough round the edges with lots of paint missing from the track and fences. On the plus side, the train itself looks immaculate! Fireball next, and although not swinging at full height, it still delivered a decent thrill for us. However, I did think that the Pirate Ship was disappointingly tame. A few more rides followed but nothing particular to note.
We stopped for donuts left and had our only real disappointment of the day here. We ordered 6 donuts and were shocked at how small they were. Tasted fine, but we did feel a little short-changed.
Finally, after convincing one of my group to come on with me, and with just 45 minutes left of the day, I joined the queue for Hobs Pit. The queue was still coming out of the door when I joined so I knew I was in for a long wait. Reece and his friend joined the queue behind so that helped to make the time go by. As did the team within the Hobs Pit shop who were great fun. Having walked past the attraction earlier in the day, we knew there were girls dressed in rags wandering around trying to spook people inside the shop and at the entrance. While we queued up, one of the girls put her attention on us. With an angry girl staring directly at me, I couldn’t resist trying to out-stare her. I failed miserably, after a good 30 seconds of silent staring I couldn’t help but laugh. She didn’t break character for a second and simply moved on to someone else!
As we edged closer to the front of the queue, an angry miner gave us a few evil stares before we were ushered though the gate and into the pit. What followed was 10 minutes of yelping and screaming – mostly from me! – before we emerged into the shop in one piece. I knew what the response would be, but decided to complement the team on their acting anyway and was told to “go away, GET OUT NOW!”. Absolutely the right response, if you ask me!
Then it was home time, I popped in to reception for a quick chat with Ben and the team who all seemed happy with the turn-out for the day.
We all had a fantastic day, the atmosphere was great, there were crowds of people around and the park felt so much more full thanks to things like Moby Dick and the childrens section.
Nice review Matt. What I loved about the day was the atmosphere was excellent. So different to when I visited last season which was the polar opposite. I know it was a special occasion so there was more to make that atmosphere but I would hope that could continue to normal park days. One thing my parents said was that when we used to visit when I was younger there was street entertainers adding that kind of atmosphere.
My parents were disappointed with the disused restaurant train which they said see to serve great quality American style food. On the subject we also enjoyed the food in the MM. I had the jerk chicken which I thoroughly enjoyed whilst the others had a sausage roll and chips which they also said was nice and good value.
I was put off riding Enigma as the queue was almost up to the entrance when I went down there and with one train operation I decided against that. JR though was walk on and I have to say that never fails to terrify me but it is soooo thrilling; I love it. The operator let me take my camcorder up so got some nice aerial shots of the park unfortunately ruined by me shouting the eff word as I descended!
I will make a little video montage soon to show you guys. I got some nice footage of Woody parachuting in.
