First off, thanks to Ian for all the organisation. Thanks to Tayto for the discount and the ERT and above all, thanks for making such a brilliant little park!
My alarm went off at 3 in the morning after 4 hours sleep and I crawled out of bed thinking 'this had better be worth it'. I needn't have worried - it was a CF trip after all! But the coaster gods were against me that morning. Flying from Stansted never puts one in a good mood, but when your flight is delayed and you know you're going to miss ERT, you start to get a little tense. The reason for our delay was some maintenance to our plane. We were travelling with Ryan Air but our plane had World Explorer written along it and it looked like it had explored too much tbh. A man fiddled beneath it with spanners for a while and when we finally boarded, we noted, nervously, some leaking fuel and several large welding jobs to the hull. Wonderful. Still, Peter, Rach, Daniel and I made it in one piece. Once landed in Dublin we rushed through to get our hire car and it was all very speedy. Peter kindly drove us all the 20 mins to the park. I jealously watched the CF periscope video of everyone having fun on the zip wires. They looked fab!
Driving in, the first thing we noticed was that we were parking in the 'cheese and onion' car park! Having recovered from that, we walked in past the 'crisp collection point'. Then the very nice lady at reception apologised on behalf of the whole of Ireland for Ryan Air being awful!! She was lovely and this park was already amazing!!
But of course, the real reason we were here was Cú Chulainn. We'd already passed it by excitedly in the car park (Nic's got it spot on with it looking like an American theme park entrance - cred in the car park). But as the others had just gorged themselves on the cred during ERT, we would have a long and anxious wait before getting to experience it for ourselves.
First up, Ian cam to greet us and then we all joined the others at Rotator. I didn't really fancy this first off and opted to have a good catch up instead with the rest of the blousers. Some of us had the first of many excited conversations about our upcoming Japan trip (sorry to bore everyone else). People came up to personally complain about my Vegas/SFMM trip report - apparently it had given everyone serious sympathy stress - sorry! It was here that we invented Vegas Casino Charades to pass the time. Haha.
The air race was heaving. As was the rest of the park! Normally, I'd hate it but it was great to see the park thriving. And it was our own fault for turning up on the Saturday of an August bank holiday! So we went off to look round the zoo instead. It was probably one of the better UK zoo theme parks I'd been to in terms of cage size, but it's still a zoo, so I was happy when lunch was called. We walked through this strange bottleneck area and through some bushes and a tunnel and came out into a hunting lodge/restaurant. The building was gorgeous and the lunch selection was spot on. Most people had carvery but I opted for a delicious hot quiche (sorry, cus) with three types of salad, one of which was watermelon, feta and mint - now you don't get that at Thorpe Park! And it was scrummy. We also tried to see how many different types of potatoes we could eat! Here's a picture of everyone having a 'posh meal'. I even acted as Lord Morton's butler for a while to make him feel more at home. Also a shout out of respect to Dubai for wearing a Pleasure Island T-shirt all day!
Feeling full, we went to investigate the crisp factory. Apparently there's a lot more to see during the week when the factory is in full operation, but I still really enjoyed seeing in and watching all the robot arms working and the crisp packets flying around. It was fab and educational. I think there's plenty of room for them to put in a dark ride though, with some animatronic Mr Tayto models.
Outside we did the 'crisp vortex' 1 and 2. WTF? They were amazing for being so turd and out of place and for the fact that there were two identical ones side-by-side! CF emerging from the 'crisp vortex':
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPghRO3aOE[/youtube]
We mooched around the dinosaur area. Disappointing that the dinos weren't moving - they really need to get that sorted ASAP. It's not enough to built good stuff Tayto - you have to MAINTAIN it! The palaeontology sandpit at the end was fab and NHS and I had a little play alongside the toddlers. West Midlands Safari Park still have the best one of these dino exhibitions IMO though.
Finally, I think it was time to ride the cred. Cú Chulainn was outstanding - even better than I'd hoped. The park really have a world class ride on their hands with some serious airtime and relentless speed. Watching the thing twist and turn from the queue is a delight and when you actually get on it it's just fun all the way round. The only let downs were the dodgy overbanked turn and the very sharp breaking getting back into the station. How could they have got that corner so wrong? - from the front row (which I was lucky enough to nab this ride) the car almost slows to a halt and moves back and forward into the train behind. But this is a small complaint when the rest of the ride is so good and wonderfully smooth and crisp. It's maybe not top ten for me, but it's a coaster Tayto should be very proud of. I'll definitely be making the return trip in the winter when it's running in the wet (and when there are less people around).
I was rather hoping for a re-ride then, but someone burdenous called 5D cinema. I almost sat it out as these things are always beyond awful, but I didn't in the interests of being sociable. The queue took ages and involved two rooms of absolute NOTHING. Put some bloody music in there or a TV showing cartoons, or something! CF occupied themselves by cable-tying JayJay to things and generally being stupid. Love you guys! Think I prefer pegs though - more temporary. Who the hell brings pegs and cable ties to a theme park anyway?!0 The film itself was ok 3Dwise but was another one of those mine train, totally unrealistic, faux coaster nonsense affairs. Not my thing sorry. Plus this one came with extra water in the face. Seriously, who **** enjoys that?!
The air race was still qhuge so we faffed for a while walking right up to the kiddy area for the porn ponies, but that queue was huge too. So we walked back to the other side of the park again and, after queuing for some ice cream, decided to suck it up and join the air race queue. I quite like an air race and I think it's a great addition to Tayto. They look intimidating but are very re-rideable so they bridge that gap between little ones and older kids. Fab.
Then I think we went for re-rides on Cú Chulainn. Yay!! The lovely, lovely ride-ops let the four of us who hadn't had ERT to have first dibs on front and back row. I opted for back this time. Ahh it's brilliant. So , so much speed pulling you over the hills. The dodgy banked corner was nowhere near as bad in the back, although still detracts from what is otherwise a glorious ride! Also managed to get in a third ride about three rows from the back. I must be getting old because I actually really liked this slightly less intense seat - it was floaty and gorgeous and just great, great fun.
With a big smile on my face it was time to leave. We queued up to get our free crisps. And managed to keep our ticket stubs that had 'theme park enthusiast' printed on them. I think I'm going to get mine framed! One of the highlights of the trip was NHS getting there late and asking where he could get his free crisps from. About 20 people shouted in chorus 'from the crisp collection point!'
We said goodbye to those going back to Belfast and the rest of us waited for Paul's minibus, kindly arranged by the park. As if 12 CFers in a minibus wasn't already crazy enough, Dubai noticed a laser lurking in the corner and asked Paul if we could put it on. Instant party bus!! We raved our way into central Dublin and met up, of course, at TGIs!
We retreated to a bar next door as the inevitable Irish drizzle finally caught up with us. Luckily it had stayed off all day at the park. A few pubs, and a few pale ales later for me, later and we were thinking about food. Thom and I went off on a marathon to find cash (and I may have taken him on a small detour for a cache as well - thanks for putting up with me Thom!) We came back to the pub only to find everyone had moved on to the fab Mongolian restaurant but soon found the others again. The restaurant was odd - like an all you can eat, make it yourself stirfry - all cooked on one big hot plate thing. It was quite tasty - wish I hadn't put three large spoonful of chile on though - phew! And that was my bloody tofu Ben!
Things were getting quite merry by now. I had stupidly decided that the night before a CF live getting pissed in Dublin was the correct time to give blood and was feeling a bit worse for wear. Dubai Dave learnt what a back of the neck love bite meant and lots of other fun and hijinx was had. We had a little bar crawl around the heavingly-packed Dublin. It was bank holiday and apparently, Ireland had just won the rugby so everyone was out drinking and singing along with the fiddle-versions of well known songs. It was cheesy and fab, just like CF.
Finally it was time to go. Most people went off to their hotels. I stupidly went to the airport and got a flight home cos I'm hardcore /a cheapskate.
Thanks all for an absolutely brilliant day. My belly hurts still from laughing, as always. x
As for Tayto - I'll be back again soon. Cannot wait to see how the park grows and the news of a new steel coaster is just delightful - please be Mack, please be Mack... I didn't realise they had a log flume coming either - that's great as I think they could do with some water rides. Thanks crazy people...
...and yay for potatoes!
I didn't make any photos sadly.
