I got a boner riding the log flume at Alton Towers whilst sat behind a girl I liked.
She didn’t notice.
It was at that point I realised I was maybe not as well endowed as I thought.
(Not exactly terrible, but I’ll tell this little story anyway.) Years ago we went to a theme park somewhere in Wales where the ghost train included a long corridor of (completely stationary/non-animatronic) mannequins, with every single one in glam rock outfits. While certainly faintly horrifying, I felt the creators had missed the point somewhat.
I seem to recall from an early Clarkson, Hammond and May era Top Gear (may even be from Clarkson, Hammond and Dawe era) that Billing Aquadrome was actually a caravan site… So that’s got to be worst right? Even if not home to the worst singular experience
Thorpe park post fire. Was full of basically fun fair rides and a terrible in the dark rollercoaster that jarred you in different directions and gave you whiplash
Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Our GENIUS friend decided we should do the wet soaker log flume ride right off the bat. “you don’t get wet i swear!” Yeah RIGHT, as we stepped into a water logged ride! We were soaked all day on opening weekend in April. Not to mention the Big One was closed. Anyway, i still have fun.
Alton towers on fright night. Previous day had a power cut so they gave free tickets to those folks for the next day, the day we had booked. Miserable experience, unless you like 3-4 hour queues.
Devon Theme Park erasure in full effect
gnomeworld. It was closed.
That void there off the west of Scotland.
Not all listed but it had to be:
– Flamingo land – I’m certain I received a concussion on the rollercoaster, as the padding has fallen off the restraints.
– Frontierland in Morecambe, it was on it’s last legs when we went as kids in the late 90’s (98/99), half of the place was shut.and we got food poisoning from baked potatoes that were bought at a food stand in the park.
– Storybook Glen (now Den in the Glen) – collection of grim, poorly painted concrete facsimiles of various Disney, Pixar characters, and hundreds of midges as the entire place is in a forest.
Also, we were never allowed to go to M&D’s at Strathclyde park, due to the inordinate number of stabbings that our mum would hear about…
Why is the London Dungeons on that map?
Shat myself at lego land
Where is Sea Parks? Or did it burn down
Remember pissing myself on the way to lego land many years ago.
I got traumatised by being put on a rollercoaster at Legoland when I was 6. I absolutely didn’t want to get on, but got forced into it because the rest of my class wanted to and there weren’t any teachers I could wait with either (the ones nearby were all on it too). Never been on one in the 24 years since and have absolutely no desire to change that.
Went to Alton Towers loads as a teen, and once decided to queue the extra for a front row Nemesis ride. Fly met eye, and I returned to the station with tears streaming everywhere.
Also, not in the UK but I’m gonna tell it anyway. I went to Phantasialand, the park I’d most looked forward to anywhere in Europe. Got a bit too excited about the hotel cocktail bar, was quite ill, and spent the day at my most anticipated theme park with a steaming hangover
Really sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Pleasure Island in Cleethorpes closed down in 2016 which makes me immensely sad as I spent many a happy day out there as a young Grimsby boy.
Why is Milky Way in Cornwall?
Chessington. School trip for 11 year olds. One of my friends was absolutely tiny, and sat on the end of the row of the pirate ship, which only had a pull down barrier that went over everyone’s knees. She fell out and landed next to it. It wasn’t that high, plus it was the 80’s so everyone told her not to worry about it. And not to tell her mum…
Lightwater Valley has dropped off hard in the past few years.
Most of the thrill rides are gone and it’s now focused on younger kids. The Ultimate (RIP) was rough as fuck and left me covered in bruises
As a kid I went to Brean leisure park for a friends birthday. One of the kids wasn’t really feeling like going on many rides so just hung out in the sun drinking fruit shoots all day. When he eventually decided to come on the teacup kinda thing (but more exciting with change in elevation but idk the name) with us. Let’s just say he couldn’t keep those fruit shoots down and we ended up having to sit waiting for the ride to end while the orange flavoured gastric sludge swang side to side covering our legs and splashing up at us when we changed direction. I havnt been able to drink a fruit shoots since. One whiff and I’m sent back to that fretful day
I feel like there’s loads missing from that image but also the quality is so bad I can’t even tell half the ones that *are* there.
Was in the queue for a ride at flamingo land with my older brother. 2 girls behind us pinched my older brother’s bum. He turned around and blatantly knew it was them, but decided to accuse me of doing it saying “wtf are you grabbing my arse for!” Everyone was just staring and laughing, awkward as hell.
Drayton Manor.
I went a few years back and we had a great time. Went again last summer and it was awful. They were incredibly understaffed. Rides would take 5-10 minutes between stopping, unloading, loading, checking & starting again because there would be one member of staff doing every job. They were trying hard but clearly management saved on staff costs massively
Diggerland. Was the worst but also the best place I have been too. We got kicked out for jousting the mini tractor things.
It was either Dobwalls or Flambards in Cornwall, I can’t remember which… they had a guy dressed as robocop wandering around in character, taking pictures with people and that kind of thing. I was maybe eight years old and terrified of robots and naturally assumed he was there to kill everyone. Cue an absolute screaming fit of panic while my parents tried to convince me that my death was not actually imminent.
Same trip; I saw an image of Hitler wearing a gas mask in a WW2 exhibit and assumed the mask was his actual face. Again, terrified. Like, vomiting from crying so hard terrified. How my parents coped with me when I was a child, I will never know.
American Adventure in the late 90s. The Vekoma boomerang coaster (Missile) was fun as well as the live show, though.
Not the worst, but:
C. 20 years ago, when “Air” (now “Galactica” – you “fly” so are going face down) was pretty new, I went to Alton Towers with my Uni housemates.
Air was great, until we got back to the ?depot? and the seats wouldn’t drop down. The harnesses became seriously painful on the boobs, and we were told to bend our necks back (up) so the blood didn’t rush to our heads, so neck-ache too.
After 45 minutes we were released, and offered fistfuls of priority tickets to Air to skip the whole queue.
“Hahahaha, that’s funny, no way we want to go on that again!” said my friend
And that’s how my friend got some ticket thingys to skip the queue for Nemesis and the rest!
Actually apart from the boobie-bruising it turned out OK, this happened late morning and we skipped the queues for the rest of the day.
Diggerland supremacy
Oakwood 😂 going to bluestone next door is so much better than a field
Does Brighton Pier count as a theme park?
Went to Chesington for a single major ride to be open with a 3.5 hour queue. We complained and ended up with free tickets to Thorpe park which was a much much better experience
Pleasure Island.
Working there on the Falls of Fear, Mini-Clown Slide, Mini-Dodgems or Tinkaboo Town.
I was hanging out of my arse on the day I got trained on the Clown Slide and Go-Karts. That was not a nice day lol
Camelot in the 90s, as a 13 year old. Went on Excalibur, a ride where you sat in a carriage at the end of a sword that span round and round. I got the chunders just as we went up the first loop. I must have looked like a Catherine Wheel of vom.
Went on a trip to Alton Towers and lost my glasses en route because I was mucking about. Bit difficult to enjoy the place when you can’t fucking see.
Pleasurewood hills. The ride operator left the ride running way longer than the time it was meant to run for. It was one of those swinging chair rides (waveswinger?) We were yelling at him to let us off but he pretended he couldn’t hear us. I’ve never felt so sick.
Also. Just pleasurewood hills in general.
Flambards during the covid pandemic 2021 paid a fair bit of money to get in, and it might as well have been closed. Place was also a complete shit hole.
I didn’t plan to go there, but my gf had memories from a kid and loved it, so she wanted to visit….we left within an hour, I think, and she also hated it lol. Nostalgia is a bitch sometimes
My dad got off a ride at Thorpe Park and puked on me, then passed out on the tube the next day because it really fucked with his inner ear.
Haven’t been back since
Got stuck on the “air” ride at Alton Towers it was years ago. My little brother was crying, people were screaming ect ect it was about 15 mins we were stuck.
No one hurt just people throwing up, dizzy from being upside down. we got a refund and left 😂
Gulliver’s Kingdom in the district. It was equal parts naff, disappointing and genuinely disquieting.
After a couple of hours, our daughter (6 at the time) asked if we could do home so she could do her homework. That says it all.
There’s more than one Diggerland??
It’s a travesty of the highest order if Great Yarmouth’d waxworks isn’t on the list.
The only people not saying M&D’s are the ones that have never been – its fking grim
[removed]
Camelot or Frontierland. Both long gone but we’re limping on for years beyond their prime.
My glasses flew off on a ride at M&Ds and they had to shut it down for 45 minutes while they looked for them 👍
Can’t wait for the new Universal Studios park that should be opening around 2030
48 comments
I got a boner riding the log flume at Alton Towers whilst sat behind a girl I liked.
She didn’t notice.
It was at that point I realised I was maybe not as well endowed as I thought.
(Not exactly terrible, but I’ll tell this little story anyway.) Years ago we went to a theme park somewhere in Wales where the ghost train included a long corridor of (completely stationary/non-animatronic) mannequins, with every single one in glam rock outfits. While certainly faintly horrifying, I felt the creators had missed the point somewhat.
I seem to recall from an early Clarkson, Hammond and May era Top Gear (may even be from Clarkson, Hammond and Dawe era) that Billing Aquadrome was actually a caravan site… So that’s got to be worst right? Even if not home to the worst singular experience
Thorpe park post fire. Was full of basically fun fair rides and a terrible in the dark rollercoaster that jarred you in different directions and gave you whiplash
Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Our GENIUS friend decided we should do the wet soaker log flume ride right off the bat. “you don’t get wet i swear!” Yeah RIGHT, as we stepped into a water logged ride! We were soaked all day on opening weekend in April. Not to mention the Big One was closed. Anyway, i still have fun.
Alton towers on fright night. Previous day had a power cut so they gave free tickets to those folks for the next day, the day we had booked. Miserable experience, unless you like 3-4 hour queues.
Devon Theme Park erasure in full effect
gnomeworld. It was closed.
That void there off the west of Scotland.
Not all listed but it had to be:
– Flamingo land – I’m certain I received a concussion on the rollercoaster, as the padding has fallen off the restraints.
– Frontierland in Morecambe, it was on it’s last legs when we went as kids in the late 90’s (98/99), half of the place was shut.and we got food poisoning from baked potatoes that were bought at a food stand in the park.
– Storybook Glen (now Den in the Glen) – collection of grim, poorly painted concrete facsimiles of various Disney, Pixar characters, and hundreds of midges as the entire place is in a forest.
Also, we were never allowed to go to M&D’s at Strathclyde park, due to the inordinate number of stabbings that our mum would hear about…
Why is the London Dungeons on that map?
Shat myself at lego land
Where is Sea Parks? Or did it burn down
Remember pissing myself on the way to lego land many years ago.
I got traumatised by being put on a rollercoaster at Legoland when I was 6. I absolutely didn’t want to get on, but got forced into it because the rest of my class wanted to and there weren’t any teachers I could wait with either (the ones nearby were all on it too). Never been on one in the 24 years since and have absolutely no desire to change that.
Went to Alton Towers loads as a teen, and once decided to queue the extra for a front row Nemesis ride. Fly met eye, and I returned to the station with tears streaming everywhere.
Also, not in the UK but I’m gonna tell it anyway. I went to Phantasialand, the park I’d most looked forward to anywhere in Europe. Got a bit too excited about the hotel cocktail bar, was quite ill, and spent the day at my most anticipated theme park with a steaming hangover
Really sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Pleasure Island in Cleethorpes closed down in 2016 which makes me immensely sad as I spent many a happy day out there as a young Grimsby boy.
Why is Milky Way in Cornwall?
Chessington. School trip for 11 year olds. One of my friends was absolutely tiny, and sat on the end of the row of the pirate ship, which only had a pull down barrier that went over everyone’s knees. She fell out and landed next to it. It wasn’t that high, plus it was the 80’s so everyone told her not to worry about it. And not to tell her mum…
Lightwater Valley has dropped off hard in the past few years.
Most of the thrill rides are gone and it’s now focused on younger kids. The Ultimate (RIP) was rough as fuck and left me covered in bruises
As a kid I went to Brean leisure park for a friends birthday. One of the kids wasn’t really feeling like going on many rides so just hung out in the sun drinking fruit shoots all day. When he eventually decided to come on the teacup kinda thing (but more exciting with change in elevation but idk the name) with us. Let’s just say he couldn’t keep those fruit shoots down and we ended up having to sit waiting for the ride to end while the orange flavoured gastric sludge swang side to side covering our legs and splashing up at us when we changed direction. I havnt been able to drink a fruit shoots since. One whiff and I’m sent back to that fretful day
I feel like there’s loads missing from that image but also the quality is so bad I can’t even tell half the ones that *are* there.
Was in the queue for a ride at flamingo land with my older brother. 2 girls behind us pinched my older brother’s bum. He turned around and blatantly knew it was them, but decided to accuse me of doing it saying “wtf are you grabbing my arse for!” Everyone was just staring and laughing, awkward as hell.
Drayton Manor.
I went a few years back and we had a great time. Went again last summer and it was awful. They were incredibly understaffed. Rides would take 5-10 minutes between stopping, unloading, loading, checking & starting again because there would be one member of staff doing every job. They were trying hard but clearly management saved on staff costs massively
Diggerland. Was the worst but also the best place I have been too. We got kicked out for jousting the mini tractor things.
It was either Dobwalls or Flambards in Cornwall, I can’t remember which… they had a guy dressed as robocop wandering around in character, taking pictures with people and that kind of thing. I was maybe eight years old and terrified of robots and naturally assumed he was there to kill everyone. Cue an absolute screaming fit of panic while my parents tried to convince me that my death was not actually imminent.
Same trip; I saw an image of Hitler wearing a gas mask in a WW2 exhibit and assumed the mask was his actual face. Again, terrified. Like, vomiting from crying so hard terrified. How my parents coped with me when I was a child, I will never know.
American Adventure in the late 90s. The Vekoma boomerang coaster (Missile) was fun as well as the live show, though.
Not the worst, but:
C. 20 years ago, when “Air” (now “Galactica” – you “fly” so are going face down) was pretty new, I went to Alton Towers with my Uni housemates.
Air was great, until we got back to the ?depot? and the seats wouldn’t drop down. The harnesses became seriously painful on the boobs, and we were told to bend our necks back (up) so the blood didn’t rush to our heads, so neck-ache too.
After 45 minutes we were released, and offered fistfuls of priority tickets to Air to skip the whole queue.
“Hahahaha, that’s funny, no way we want to go on that again!” said my friend
And that’s how my friend got some ticket thingys to skip the queue for Nemesis and the rest!
Actually apart from the boobie-bruising it turned out OK, this happened late morning and we skipped the queues for the rest of the day.
Diggerland supremacy
Oakwood 😂 going to bluestone next door is so much better than a field
Does Brighton Pier count as a theme park?
Went to Chesington for a single major ride to be open with a 3.5 hour queue. We complained and ended up with free tickets to Thorpe park which was a much much better experience
Pleasure Island.
Working there on the Falls of Fear, Mini-Clown Slide, Mini-Dodgems or Tinkaboo Town.
I was hanging out of my arse on the day I got trained on the Clown Slide and Go-Karts. That was not a nice day lol
Camelot in the 90s, as a 13 year old. Went on Excalibur, a ride where you sat in a carriage at the end of a sword that span round and round. I got the chunders just as we went up the first loop. I must have looked like a Catherine Wheel of vom.
Went on a trip to Alton Towers and lost my glasses en route because I was mucking about. Bit difficult to enjoy the place when you can’t fucking see.
Pleasurewood hills. The ride operator left the ride running way longer than the time it was meant to run for. It was one of those swinging chair rides (waveswinger?) We were yelling at him to let us off but he pretended he couldn’t hear us. I’ve never felt so sick.
Also. Just pleasurewood hills in general.
Flambards during the covid pandemic 2021 paid a fair bit of money to get in, and it might as well have been closed. Place was also a complete shit hole.
I didn’t plan to go there, but my gf had memories from a kid and loved it, so she wanted to visit….we left within an hour, I think, and she also hated it lol. Nostalgia is a bitch sometimes
My dad got off a ride at Thorpe Park and puked on me, then passed out on the tube the next day because it really fucked with his inner ear.
Haven’t been back since
Got stuck on the “air” ride at Alton Towers it was years ago. My little brother was crying, people were screaming ect ect it was about 15 mins we were stuck.
No one hurt just people throwing up, dizzy from being upside down. we got a refund and left 😂
Gulliver’s Kingdom in the district. It was equal parts naff, disappointing and genuinely disquieting.
After a couple of hours, our daughter (6 at the time) asked if we could do home so she could do her homework. That says it all.
There’s more than one Diggerland??
It’s a travesty of the highest order if Great Yarmouth’d waxworks isn’t on the list.
The only people not saying M&D’s are the ones that have never been – its fking grim
[removed]
Camelot or Frontierland. Both long gone but we’re limping on for years beyond their prime.
My glasses flew off on a ride at M&Ds and they had to shut it down for 45 minutes while they looked for them 👍
Can’t wait for the new Universal Studios park that should be opening around 2030
gullivers world – where the magic never starts