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Mythica- Legoland Windsor: A first look

It’s safe to say that 2021 is a huge year for the UK theme park industry. There have been new additions across the UK such as The World of David Walliams, Croc Drop and of course Tornado Springs (read our article here). However, one of the most exciting additions will open this Saturday (29th May) at Legoland Windsor Resort. We were so lucky to be able to explore LEGO Mythica before it opened to the public and would love to share a first look with you. Warning: this article contains spoilers!

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Spanish Theme Park History – Part 7: Parque Warner

Today we’ll continue our series about the Spanish Theme Park History with the seventh article. Every two weeks we’re publishing one of eight articles about the history of thirteen Spanish amusement and theme parks. Some of them no longer exist, but some others are still operating and receiving guests nowadays. In this series, we travel in time through 168 years in theme park history, starting in 1853, to our days in 2021. In this article we’ll focus on Parque Warner, the second-largest Spanish theme park.

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Pennsylvania Weekend: Part 2 Hersheypark

For us enthusiasts living in areas affected by seasons the spring is always an exciting time to look forward to. This year I launched the coaster season with a whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania to check out some of the worlds best coasters. Accompanied by my patient boyfriend Andrew and our friend Pete we embarked on a two day, one night trip from Columbus, Ohio to Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania and Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Make sure to check out part 1 of my trip report which looked at Knoebels.

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Pennsylvania Weekend: Part 1 – Knoebels

For us enthusiasts living in areas affected by seasons, the spring is always an exciting time to look forward to. This year I launched the coaster season with a whirlwind trip to Pennsylvania to check out some of the world’s best coasters. Accompanied by my patient boyfriend Andrew and our friend Pete, we embarked on a two day, one night trip from Columbus, Ohio to Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania and Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

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Paultons Park, UK – Park Visit April 2021

This week we got the chance to visit what is my childhood theme park, where my love of all things thrilling began, Paultons Park. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited we were to be back at the park after nearly 15 years and to experience Tornado Springs. In this update I will take an in depth look at this latest expansion and what else you can get up to throughout the park. 

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Spanish Theme Park History – Part 6: Isla Mágica & Terra Mítica

Today we’ll continue our series about the Spanish Theme Park History with the sixth article. Every two weeks we’re publishing one of eight articles about the history of thirteen Spanish amusement and theme parks. Some of them no longer exist, but some others are still operating and receiving guests nowadays. In this series, we travel in time through 168 years in theme park history, starting in 1853, to our days in 2021. In this article we’ll focus on Isla Mágica and Terra Mítica.

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How To – U.S.A. Parks

In this series of articles the Coaster Kings teams look to share some advice that will help our readers plan their travel. This week Ian outlines the steps to prepare for a trip to a theme park in the United States. This article is specifically geared towards American theme parks in general. Look for articles on the Disney and Universal resorts in the future!

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Spanish Theme Park History – Part 5: PortAventura

After a little break, today we’ll continue our series about the Spanish Theme Park History with the fifth article. Every two weeks we’re publishing one of eight articles about the history of thirteen Spanish amusement and theme parks. Some of them no longer exist, but some others are still operating and receiving guests nowadays. In this series, we travel in time through 168 years in theme park history, starting in 1853, to our days in 2021. In this article we’ll focus on PortAventura, the very first theme park of Spain and the only Universal park that has ever existed in Europe.

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Our Favourite European Theme Park Food – Part Two

Welcome back to part two of our culinary journey across Europe. We really hoped you enjoyed part one and are ready to find our some more of our favourite places! Myself (Emma) and James have been busy writing this article over the last month as there really is so much to chose from. Having to whittle places down means we could not mention them all, but if we’ve missed your favourite place or you want to let us know about a highlight, please leave a comment or find us on social media!

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Lost Coasters of California – Part 10: Déjà Vu

In Part 9 of this series I briefly mentioned Six Flags ambitious expansion throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.  A growing American economy made the expansion of the theme park market seem unstoppable.  A series of park acquisitions and the acquisition of Six Flags by Premier Parks that was finalized in 1998 expanded the company’s portfolio to include European parks, movie themed parks, and animal parks.  At the park level Six Flags unveiled park expansions and additions at a dizzying rate.  From the years 1997-2003 Six Flags Magic Mountain received a brand new coaster every year.  It is worth noting that with the exception of 1999 each one of these additions was a major, and in many cases record breaking coaster: 1997 saw the addition of the record breaking 400 ft tall Superman: The Escape.  1998’s Riddler’s Revenge remains the largest Stand-Up coaster in the world. 2000’s Goliath opened as the world’s tallest continuous circuit coaster. 2002’s X introduced the world to the 4th dimension coaster.  And 2003’s B&M floorless Scream was built to be a reliable addition after X‘s problems. X was originally set to open in 2001 but was delayed significantly.  Six Flags chose to open another major thrill machine from Vekoma. Unfortunately, this coaster would have its own set of problems. In August of 2001 Six Flags and Vekoma unveiled the world’s first “Giant Inverted Boomerang”, Deja Vu.

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Our Favourite European Theme Park Food – Part One

Hello and welcome to part one of our 2 part article on our favourite European theme park foods. Today myself (Emma) and James will be talking all about our favourite foods, snacks and restaurants. We want to dive into the best food in Europe and share with you, and find some more theme park gems along the way. We sadly haven’t visited all the theme parks in Europe (wouldn’t that be a dream) so these are our favorites that we have personally experienced.

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Lost Coasters of California – Part 9: Stealth

Paramount Park’s 13 year foray into the theme park business resulted in a significant number of successes and industry oddities.  The application of Paramount theming in existing regional parks gave us two significant B&M Top Gun inverts and the world’s first major linear induction motor launch coaster, Flight of Fear.  However their tendency to experiment and take additions in different directions also resulted in a string of failures and disappointments.  Kings Dominion opened the late Volcano, The Blast Coaster in 1998, a prototype Intamin inverted catapult coaster that never seemed to run reliably throughout its 20 years at the park, and the ill-fated prototype air launch coaster Hypersonic XLC in 2001.  Carowinds opened a Setpoint suspended water coaster in 2000 called Flying Super Saturator which lasted less than 10 years.  Canada’s Wonderland still has an odd collection of mid-size coasters for the world’s most popular regional park including 1995’s SLC Top Gun and 2004’s Zamperla flyer Tomb Raider, The Ride.  The chain’s flagship, Kings Island, received one of the most notorious failures of them all, 2000’s wooden hyper coaster, Son of Beast.  That same year the chain would add a unique prototype to Great America, the world’s first major flying coaster, Stealth.  

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Spanish Theme Park History – Part 4: Parque de Atracciones de Madrid

Today we’ll continue our series about the Spanish Theme Park History with the fourth article. Every two weeks we’re publishing one of eight articles about the history of thirteen Spanish amusement and theme parks. Some of them no longer exist, but some others are still operating and receiving guests nowadays. In this series, we travel in time through 168 years in theme park history, starting in 1853, to our days in 2021. In this article we’ll focus on Parque de Atracciones de Madrid, a park with lots of history, an interesting variety of rides and attractions, that is constantly evolving to offer the best experiences to its guests.

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How To – China

In this new series of articles I want to take our experiences and share them with our readers to better prepare them to conquer the (theme park) world. I sat down and started with day-by-day reliving of trips around the world and things we learned along the way that would have been useful to have known beforehand. I think the perfect destination to discuss first is the People’s Republic of China. Whether you’re there just to hit theme parks, or plan on spending time visiting major sites, the tips in this article may really help!

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