10 am and we met outside the gates. it was a very sunny and loverly day (yes i have sunburn now). we had all brought tickets online to went into the collection office to get our tickets. upon entering the park the first thing you see is the chairswings. just a standered one but all the rides had a fairly long ride time so made a good ride (and for me a terrorfying one. i hate things on chains that spin). we also hit up the dodgems but they needed to be a little quicker but still a good ride.
time to head up the hill towards the first coaster of the day, the ultimate. not shure what to expect we entered the station. the station was pretty big and very long and like the rest of the park very very clean an tidey. its a very wierd coaster indeed. while waiting for the train to get back to the station (yes 1 train operation all day
![Sad :(](https://www.coastercrazy.com/forums/images/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif)
next we hit raptor attack. wow i have to say by far the best Schwarzkopf mini coaster i have ever been on. the entrance tunnel was well themed to a mine and built up the tention very well. the animated rapors through the ride were very well placed, could not be seen untill you passed them very closely and looked very very very cool. on the way out theres lots of screaming, flashing lights and loud noises to which you come out into a very well themed shop with lots of blood splats and claw scratchs everywhere. in total a very very well exicuted ride and a very good retheme of an old ride to give it a complete new ride experiece.
twister was a simple spinning wild mouse coaster you see everywhere but offered us a great ride with plenty of spinning. nothing more to say than just a good ride
thats it for the coasters there with the exception of the lady bird and the big apple coaster but you all know about them anyway
the new addition for this year is skellington cove. the area had alot of new rides for the park and really well themed area but at the same time a very simple area aswell. pretty much your basic names and theme for a pirate area but this now makes it a proper theme park. no park is complete withough a pirate themed area. the black pearl we didnt go on because it didnt look that much fun but we did go on the powerkegs, a small break dance type ride, it was fun for the breif period it lasted.
that pretty much completes the good part of the trip report now for the bad
the staff werent friendly in pretty much any case, none of them really wanted to be there and really didnt have a clue what they were doing. we had 3 breakdowns and all 3 of them were due to staff error and saftey. the 1st was on the powderkegs which they loaded people, got it running then i seen her hit the E-stop. oviously there was already somthing wrong as the mechanics were there. the 2nd was on the wild river rapids where they overloaded our boat and we stoped on the lift. first off they still despached the boats and didnt even notice the ride had stoped. they we seen one get out a MANUAL!!! to the ride and call the mechanics, then the mechanics asked us to disembark on the lift hill and as i stood up the ride started again and i nearly fell off. i then cmpleted the circuit on my own. so not only did they intiually make a mistake but they didnt even stop the ride from operating durein the disembark procedure. i have since E-mailed lightwater vally about this incident and expect a message back from them. im going back to yorkshire in 2 weeks time and if i havent had a reply from them by then i will be going there in person. the 3rd again was overloading raptor with the 4 of us which we overshot the final break run because there was 4 adults in the car. this just shows the staff respect for health and saftey is very very poor.
overall the day was a good day to experience some new things but i wont be going back in a hurry, its worth a revisit but not for a long while or if i want to get some cash from claims and composation from them.
anyway heres the video to entertain you all
[youtube]WNAGQ98PZik[/youtube]