Coaster Kingdom
http://www.ukrollercoasters.co.uk/dragon_main.htm
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Dragon (Legoland Windsor)
Over
sun baked earth, and sea by sail, brave men speak the Dragon’s tale.
Fire red wing and sharpened claw, razor fang in gnashing jaw, with scaly skin
and horn spiked neck, his every breath is certain death.
Though gold and jewels adorn his lair, be advised: GO YE NOT THERE
For the brave alone venture to his den... few ever return through this door
again
With
the popularity of Universal’s Mummy coasters, it is easy to think that
blurring the line of distinction between coaster and dark ride is a new thing.
It does in fact date back as far as the late 1800’s with the popularity of the
Scenic Railway.
On
such rides, dioramas would be built around the circuit of a figure-eight roller
coaster, where a train – the speed of which was controlled by an on-board
brakeman – would pass through these scenes giving the impression that people
were travelling through rich and exotic lands.
As
coasters became more exciting, the need for extra scenery to excite riders
became somewhat redundant, and so this genre split with ghost trains and dark
rides becoming ever-more popular, whilst roller coasters made use of new
technology such as upstop wheels to create their own brand of excitement.
Coasters
have since flirted with the idea of incorporating scenery into rides, but not
ever to the level of the Scenic Railways. Rides like Space Mountain (Disneyland
Paris) use sporadic set pieces, but have always remained more coaster than dark
ride.
Revenge
of the Mummy (Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood) have
perhaps tipped the balance back in favour of the dark ride, using the coaster as
your conveyance, but let’s not forget Legoland’s Dragon Coaster, half dark
ride and half coaster.
Despite
Legoland’s apparent original insistence to the contrary, Legoland needed a
coaster, and Windor’s version followed two years after opening, and a year on
from the similar, but far from identical model in the home of Lego, Billund
(Denmark).
Denmark’s
version, like Windsor’s, was half dark ride and half coaster, but unlike Legoland
Windosor’s used a Mack Blauer Enzian ride system, a completely powered
‘coaster’ much like Alton Towers’ Runaway Mine Train. Legoland instead
employed the British company WGH to supply a more traditional gravity coaster
using tyre drives for the dark ride section.
By
1999, Dragon was joined by his younger sibling, Dragon’s Apprentice, again
from WGH offering a ride not dissimilar to a pint-sized Vekoma Roller Skater
(such as Tami Tami at Universal’s Port Aventura), which completed Castle Land,
one of Legoland’s largest and most spectacular areas.
Unsurprisingly,
Castleland gleams its name from the castle the land is built around. The theming
here is simply beyond the capabilities of what any British themer can conger up
with a full sized castle complete with octagonal turrets and drawbridge set
behind a tranquil moat in front, from which a Lego dragon rears his head.
Not
even the most unrelenting nitpicker* can find a tin warehouse underneath this
castle with every rampart and every battlement intricately detailed down to the
smallest touch.
[*
Yes, that’s me. Guilty as charged]
Beyond
the confounds of the port cullice, the detail continues. Sculpted from Lego, a
statue of a fair maiden clasps a vase from which water cascades down into the
fountain below, whilst two sleepy guards (also sculpted from the King’s
plaything of choice, Lego) guard the door to The Dragon, a small archway
underneath one of the main turrets on the rear wall of the courtyard.
With
Legoland’s not-particularly-surprising bias towards modelling anything they
can out of Lego, it is probably easier to highlight what these are in the review
by putting a + next to the description. There are only so many ways
you can say a model has been made out of Lego before sounding like a stuck rec...
stuck rec... stuck record.
The
queue starts off by passing an open book+, bookmarked at a page
asking “What secrets lie within?”. Little touches like this will abound the
long and winding queue line which first takes you up stairs inside one of the
castle’s turrets before wrapping around the courtyard on the castle ramparts.
As
you pass through the turrets surrounding the castle entrance, you climb yet more
steps up onto the highest stockades of the castle. Legoland’s typical
attention to detail abounds and keeps even the most fidgety kid engrossed with
wizard’s cloaks and hats+ hung out of reach and plucky knights+
above taking aim with their crossbows.
The
station is a vault deep within the castle. The flaking ceiling is held aloft
with timber joists, archways set within the walls with flickering lanterns
lighting the room. From an archway to your left, a 28-seater fibreglass dragon
will climb a slaloming brake run and enter the station.
The
seven-car train is fashioned after a Lego dragon, with an angular rearing head
at the front, red wings flanking the side of each of the bottle-green cars and a
tail on the rear end of this plastic beast.
This
dragon’s belly has more than enough room to accommodate 28 people, with each
row of two secured by a single lap bar. After a brief check of bars, the dragon
slowly leaves the station through an archway, flashing and sparkling as if some
timegate into another world.
You
first enter the castle’s cellar. With barrels set into the stone archways in
the deepest recesses of the castle, you pass two mischievous monks+
stood around a barrel of beer. As one swigs at his tankard of beer, the other
spits out ‘beer’ as a fine vapour all over the riders.
With
a rich smell of food in the air, you continue your passage through this majestic
castle. You slalom through the banqueting hall where the royal family+
are sat around a table feasting on a banquet. As molten wax from the candelabras+
drip onto the table below, the red-haired king+ takes a swig from a
raised goblet+ as he talks to the queen+ opposite.
We
pass more tableaux such as a wizard+ in his laboratory clutching a
beaker of brightly coloured potion before our curiosity continues as we venture
further into the castle, however, the festivities of the previous rooms are a
distant memory as an enormous dragon+ has burst through the wall of
the castle’s basement and is standing guard over the king’s nest-egg of
gold, jewellery and crown jewels+.
As
the treasure glistens in the dim light, the plucky reptile breathes smoke,
growls and generally looks displeased by our presence. Noting this, we continue
past this agitated Lego lizard into a corridor, past the back end of the dragon
and it’s flailing tail towards a knight+ which fades into view from
behind a wall as you abruptly turn a corner, through an archway outside.
Our
passage of escape takes us skywards up a tyre-driven lifthill before the front
of our fibreglass stead pulls you into a spiralling helix towards the rugged
grassland below.
Skimming
through the long grass, the train buries itself into a trench, digging itself
below terra firma sweeping through into another helix.
As
our dragon gets out of breath, he is given a little push up a second brisk
tyre-driven lift hill. As the ride prepares for it’s final throws, you plunge
down a long, straight drop squeezing under overhead track before plunging
beneath a courtyard into a dark tunnel.
After
a brief sub-terrainain foray, bowing first to the right and then to the left,
our plastic-fantastic dragon gets drawn into yet another ground-level helix
spiralling anti-clockwise before ducking under the entering track, passing
behind a large oak tree, climbing up to the right into a comically warped
‘brake run’ using booster tyres to slow the train down for it’s final
climb back into the castle.
Whilst
peoples’ accounts of encounters with dragons are not well documented,
historically dragons are not renowned for their good company and don’t seem to
have built up a good rapport with humans. But against the odds, this dragon is
popular with young and old.
And
fear not; this isn’t a case of contenting the youngsters during the dark ride
section and bowing to the demands of the thrillseeker throughout the coaster
section – both halves of the ride strike a balance, with the dark ride section
courting children’s attention with bright colours and pure eye candy, whilst
not forgetting adults inscribing the unmistakable Legoland signature in the form
of their unmistakable sense of humour and attention to detail.
Considering
WGH haven’t chalked up a huge tally of coasters, Dragon is a fantastically
smooth and often exciting coaster, which are hallmarks of an excellent all-round
family coaster.
With
two such distinct halves to the ride, it would be easy to end up with half of
the ride wasted thanks to one half eclipsing the other. Fortunately, Dragon
avoids such burden with each half of the ride confidently supporting the other
– the dark ride is no inconvenient preamble, nor is the coaster cumbersome
journey back to the station.
Independently,
neither the coaster or dark ride are amazing, but together they are ingredients
in a pretty tasty family ride.
That
isn’t to say it is without fault, though. The dark ride section is let down by
the lack of music and dialogue throughout. In fact, your soundtrack will consist
only of sound effects from the various tableaux and the squeaking of wheels
underneath your train.
The
characters really set out this attraction from many others; not only do they
appeal to children thanks to their buoyant capers and cheeky grins, but to
adults, too, thanks to the accomplishment of building detailed, full sized
animatronic figures out of, yes, you guessed it, Lego.
The
coaster section never really leaves the ground enough to be scary, nor does it
have the impact of more established coasters, but never the less it provides an
enjoyable ride.
Being
a fairly sprawling ride for it’s size, there isn’t much to look at on the
coaster, nor is there the fun and interactivity of pathways, fields or buildings
playing with your line of flight, other than the notable dive underneath the
pathway off of the second lift.
Also,
probably owing to the elevated station, there isn’t much of a finale, with the
explosive drop off the second lift never really being equalled as the train
simply runs out of speed on it’s final approach to the station.
Independently,
each half of the ride is good, not great, but together the whole attraction is a
fun and exciting attraction for kids, and certainly inoffensive to parents and
any teenagers. Both halves of the ride exhibit a certain amount of unrealised
potential, however, which would have made the difference between a good ride and
a great ride. But nevertheless kids tucked under the wing of this dragon will
come off laughing.
4/5 Marcus Sheen