Took our first trip of the season on Sunday to celebrate my daughters 7th Birthday. It was misty and a little damp but we had a great time. It was fairly busy, but no queues.
Some of the refurbishments I noticed were new canopys for the chair lift chairs, some freshly painted fences, new toilet decoration in all the ones we visited. The little train is now blue, I'm not sure if it was the same one as the orange one from last year. The log flume was painted and the kids zone had new music. It's quite Disney, in fact one of the tracks was from Splash Mountain at Disney World. The jungle music from the safari was gone, replaced with the new music. I liked the new music very much.
Our first ride was Rootin Tootin. The car that pulled up didn't have working guns, so they had to let it go off on its own. The next one was good, but we had to be pulled back to the start by staff on the home stretch. Perhaps that's normal, I'm not sure.
We tried the new pizza buffet and it was very good. They didn't have any prices posted anywhere that we could see, so I expect they are trying out to see what they can get away with before getting the signs made. We got 20% off with our gold card.
My biggest horror was the end of chicken strips for one. It seems the only option now, is three strips in a roll. I don't tollerate white bread very well, so I was disappointed. Last season, I lived on the chicken strips and chips. I guess I could ask for no roll, but then I'm paying for a roll I can't eat.
My daughter doesn't eat chicken, so she also missed the pizza wrap option which was available last year. As a family, the menu is a little more limited for us this year. We won't be able to afford the pizza buffet very often. Note that the placemats have a £5 coupon for use next time, so that's a good saving. The fast food outlets didn't seem to have any offering for kids meals which seemed odd. Another new item was a fish finger sandwich, which does sound nice.
The pirate ship was still very lumpy and one panel of the lovely wave swinger woody decoration had been torn off revealing in big letters "WINGER" I expect the chairs must have been crashing about in all that wind we had over the winter.
The staff were great, and very jolly. Lots of new faces.
All in all a good day. Let's hope they do well this season. It's clear they have made an effort over the winter. They really need a new ride though. A kiddy coaster would boost attendance. My daughter needs a smaller one to help her gain confidence.
If I were king for a day, I would; 1: Get rid of the rattlesnake tracks. It just premotes negativity when people see it rusting away. 2: I would get a new ride fast..... The 2018 flyer says new ride, but there isn't one. A play area isn't a ride. 3: The show is probably good, but should be included in admission.
Things like that with a bit of savvy are such a quick fix though, just a bit of ply sprayed black would have done instead of it being left broken god things like that annoy me haha
Cheers for the report! Good to hear some good stuff going on. As for the broken guns on RTTT I hope that gets fixed the throughput is bad enough as it is!
