What’s happened to Oakwood?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. One of the smaller theme parks within the UK is Oakwood, known for the famous wooden coaster Megafobia and the UK’s tallest Euro-Fighter Speed. However, I’ve noticed a real change in tone regarding reviews of the park recently, and most people talk about it being deserted in their trip reports. This is a drastic change in tone from even 2019, when things seemed to be looking up for Oakwood, what with the opening of Dizzy Disk and the reopening of Bounce.

So my question is; is everything OK with Oakwood at the moment? Has something drastic happened? I haven’t heard much from there, but I’ve heard a fair few very negative sentiments from people who’ve visited the park as of late, which is a shame.

I had a really nice day there in 2019; I thought it was a gem of a park, with a solid ride collection, a lovely forest location and nice theming in places, and a lot of it looked well-maintained, and like it had been well looked after. However, it seems to be struggling a bit at the moment, and the reviews of those visiting are not good.

Apparently Megafobia has somehow aged drastically in 2 years, as Scott from PBE recently went back and said that the coaster is riding notably worse in 2021 than it did in 2019, for unknown reasons. The back row is now being likened to Grand National for the level of roughness (I remember the back being pretty brutal in 2019, but not a GN level of brutal, so it must have aged drastically for that to be the case now), and PBE’s Scott compared the way the coaster is currently running to Stampida at PortAventura.

A lot of things are also said to be closed at the moment, such as Drenched, Bounce and Creepy Crawler, or on reduced capacities. The park is also said to be deserted in practically every trip report I’ve read, and this was the case even pre-COVID. Anecdotally, my visit to Oakwood in 2019 was perhaps one of the quietest theme park days I’ve ever had. One experience that sticks out in my head is when me and my mum walked into Speed’s area and were debating whether it was even open, because there was no one else in the plaza besides us, no noise coming from the ride and no one in the queue. My mum was convinced that it was closed, and even as we were walking down the open queue, it was so quiet she said to me “I think it’s shut. We’re probably not supposed to be up here; we should turn back”. However, the ride was open, and the ride op looked quite surprised to see us; I think we may have been the first riders of the day, in spite of the park having been open for an hour or so. We then rode on a car that was empty besides us, and I’m not even sure if any additional crowds had turned up by the time we got off. The plaza was still a ghost town by the time we exited; that whole experience has to go down as one of the most perturbing theme park experiences I’ve ever had.

Here are links to some of the reviews I’m citing:

https://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/somehow-even-worse-than-expected-oakwood-05-08-2021.44833/

I know you cannot judge off of two reviews, but I’m hearing a lot of negative sentiment about Oakwood lately. Has something happened? Have they really been hit hard by COVID?

 

[Pokemaniac]

The impression I got was that Oakwood never had the best of financial margins to begin with. When something disruptive like Covid happens, the status of "barely scraping by" can quickly change into "losing money hand over fist". In that case it's not totally unexpected that the operations are scaled back.

Then again, Oakwood has kind of struck me as the Welsh version of Lightwater Valley for a while. Stuck in a negative spiral of lacking investments - lacking customers - lacking money - lacking investments for years, to the point of being right on the edge even pre-covid. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if the pandemic finally pushed it over.

 

[Matt N]

Out of interest, is it widely known how many guests Oakwood gets in a typical year these days? I remember hearing 500,000 somewhere, but that seems a bit high based on the reports of the park being mostly deserted that commonly existed even pre-COVID.

For some idea, the park is open for 158 days in 2021, and assuming an average of 1,000 guests visiting each day (at a guess; could be higher or lower. I purposely went quite low given how deserted the place often is), I calculated that their guest figures per season would be around 158,000.

Has the park ever released any official stats?

 

[Matt N]

On the visitor figures front; I’ve just had a Google, and while visitor numbers were said to be around 400,000-500,000 during the 2000s, they did not make the top 10 most visited paid-for visitor attractions in Wales in 2018: https://gov.wales/sites/default/fil...sits-to-tourist-attractions-in-wales-2018.pdf

For reference, 10th place here was the Great Orme Tramway, with 191,613 visitors. That would imply that Oakwood currently gets less than 191,613 visitors, and that their visitor figures have fallen pretty drastically (by at least 50%) since the 2000s. Surely the Drenched incident in 2004 can’t be all of what caused this drastic fall, or does the stigma still linger 17 years on?
P.S. Sorry for double posting.

 

[CrashCoaster]

As I side note I honestly don't find Stampida that rough, it's just that the ****ty KumbaK trains are uncomfortable as hell. Honestly whenever I get the opportunity to roast KumbaK I'm gonna take it. Grand National is brutal but it's worth a ride for that great ejector in the back imo. I would like to get out to ride Megafobia at some point.

 

[Pokemaniac]

On the visitor figures front; I’ve just had a Google, and while visitor numbers were said to be around 400,000-500,000 during the 2000s, they did not make the top 10 most visited paid-for visitor attractions in Wales in 2018: https://gov.wales/sites/default/fil...sits-to-tourist-attractions-in-wales-2018.pdf

For reference, 10th place here was the Great Orme Tramway, with 191,613 visitors. That would imply that Oakwood currently gets less than 191,613 visitors, and that their visitor figures have fallen pretty drastically (by at least 50%) since the 2000s. Surely the Drenched incident in 2004 can’t be all of what caused this drastic fall, or does the stigma still linger 17 years on?
P.S. Sorry for double posting.

In this context, the biggest question is not so much "what happened to Oakwood?", but rather "How is this place still open?"

 

[Matt N]

As I side note I honestly don't find Stampida that rough, it's just that the ****ty KumbaK trains are uncomfortable as hell. Honestly whenever I get the opportunity to roast KumbaK in gonna take it. Grand National is brutal but it's worth that great ejector in the back imo. I would like to get out to ride Megafobia at some point.

If you like Grand National in spite of its brutality, then I’d say you’d probably love Megafobia! If you don’t mind a rougher ride, the back has some very strong pops of ejector; the drop on the back is probably a stronger, more sustained airtime moment than any of Grand National’s! If you’ve never done it and don’t mind a rougher woodie, then I’d certainly recommend a visit!

I personally found the back too brutal for my liking, considerably preferring the ride in the front. However, I’d say that even in the front where it was a fair bit smoother, the ride was a bit too “rickety” to be one of my favourites on the whole; I’m not really a hardcore wooden coaster fan in the way that a lot of enthusiasts are, in spite of having 2 woodies in my top 10. Both of those are newer, smoother woodies, which I guess gives you some indication of my wooden coaster preferences. However, I did find the front row good fun, with some really nice floater airtime moments and faster sections, although I wouldn’t say that it’s consistently paced throughout in the way that a newer woodie like Wicker Man or Mine Blower is; Megafobia has some notable dead spots.

In this context, the biggest question is not so much "what happened to Oakwood?", but rather "How is this place still open?"

It’s worth remembering that Oakwood is owned by Aspro Parks, a large multinational corporation owning a fair number of parks. Oakwood is only a small part of their portfolio, so they probably have the money to prop Oakwood up, to a degree.

 

[SilverArrow]

For the recoed they were hitting (limited) capacity earlier in the season this year which was pleasing to see so it hasn't been completely dead all the way through.