This theme park has been on my bucket list for a while and certainly lived up to the hype.
The location was fantastic, like many UK theme park’s Paultons Park is situated in the middle of nowhere (apart from a small town and a pub outside the entrance). It was super easy to get there and even my satnav decided to work properly and take a decent route. The journey was stress free (apart from my kids constantly talking throughout the journey) and took around 2 hours from Gloucestershire.
Parking was easy with staff directing people to their spaces. I like this touch. As much as I like picking a place to park, it really shows the great organisation and keeps the car park tidy. Parking is also FREE which is a huge bonus. We didn’t get on site until around midday and expected it to be a pain in the arse to get parked but luckily we weren’t too far from the entrance.
The entrance is clean and modern with a huge Paultons Park statue sign and a weirdly beautiful tree based water fountain to greet you. Turnstile staff were very friendly and it was quick and easy getting in with minimal queues. The first building you enter features a restaurant and a huge toy shop so if you have kids, I suggest giving that a miss until you go home.
The first area you come to is a beautiful garden. It’s incredible how much attention to detail is put into this area with perfectly sculpted hedges, bushes, flowers and trees giving you a relaxed atmosphere and a perfect place for a picnic or explore.
The first ride of the day was the Raging River Ride which is a bright coloured log flume situated outside Lost Kingdom. This is the first log flume I’ve been on in a long time and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The yellow and blue colour really doesn’t suit the ride but the actual experience was great. It’s a two drop special and the second big drop is definitely a soaker, perfect during hot weather.
We headed to Lost Kingdom which is the dinosaur themed area and I can easily say that it’s the best themed area in the country. Paultons really took care and attention to detail creating this stunning area. It’s filled with animatronic dinosaurs, rock work and a fantastic ambient soundtrack to create a fantastic family atmosphere. The two main rides in the area are Flight of the Pterosaur which is a Vekoma suspended family coaster and Velociraptor which is a Vekoma family boomerang coaster. Both of these are very good coasters and though neither are big, they offer a fantastic family thrill. Flight of the Pterosaur is easily my favourite ride in the park and is in my personal top 5 coasters. It’s incredibly smooth, the theming is fantastic and has a pretty forceful helix at the end. Velociraptor really took me by surprise. It’s the same model as Accelerator at Drayton Manor but ‘Raptors layout is so much better. I won’t bore you with the layout but feel free to look it up. It’s actually quite intense after the drop and had a smidgen of airtime over the station.
After these, my wife and step daughter decided to ride Temple Heights. It’s essentially a Miami fun fair ride but much slower and is actually themed. It’s a great ride for younger guests and looked pretty relaxed.
Dinosaur Tour Co is a tracked jeep safari ride which has onboard audio, dinosaur animatronics and gorgeous design. It is a great little ride for all ages but unfortunately for us, the audio wasn’t in sync at all but was still great regardless.
Finally in Lost Kingdom was Dino Chase which is a Zierer kiddie coaster. This is a great little coaster and my 22 month old son’s first credit. It’s only a short layout but it’s quite nippy and my son was giggling throughout the 3 laps.
Okay, I have one bad thing to say about the park. The WiFi is shockingly bad. I wouldn’t normally be bothered but there is no 4g signal at all for me so WiFi is needed incase I need to contact my wife or I want to check queue times via the app (there’s only 1 queue time board in the park). This isn’t a huge deal but I only got WiFi once on park and needed to find my wife through the crowds of people.
Quick toilet break then a trip to Peppa Pig World. It was every kids dream and every parents nightmare. They should rename it “Peppa’s Buggy World”. It was rammed with parents and small children (as expected). The theming and audio was on point throughout the area. We had a ride on Grandpa Pig’s train and the Queens flying coach and they were both great rides for young kids. My family went on Peppa’s balloon ride and they gave it positive reviews. Literally every other ride had a 30+ minute wait which is fine but my son wouldn’t want to wait that long so we headed to Critter Creek. This was a nice small area but not as nicely themed as Peppa or Lost Kingdom. We only went on one ride here as it was approaching the end of the day. This was the Cat-O-Pillar coaster. This was pretty much a large version of Dino Chase (with a better layout and a great first drop). The ride theming was quite good, with alice in wonderland inspired statues dotted through the coaster.
After this excellent day we decided to have a quick look in the main shop at the exit. It was great for kids but offered no Paultons Park merchandise apart from the usual pens, pencils, rubbers and notebooks. It’s okay though because I purchased a photo pass which gives you 4 ride photos/Keyrings. I only used 3 photos but you can use the pass until next year. This pass was £25 (single photos are £10 each) so I still saved £5.
Overall, it’s a brilliant park with a bright future. I can’t wait to see Tornado Springs next year and I know if they carry on expanding as rapidly as they are, it will be one of the biggest/best theme parks in the UK in the next 10 years.
Thanks for reading.
Luke
Unreliable Coaster Blog UK 