Whirlwind,
Camelot
What
can you do to create a coaster that grabs visitors' attention? A dozen
inversions? 300ft drops? Maybe, but these things don't come cheap, and
not every park has that sort of money hidden under the mattress. No, a
lot of parks need to find a cheaper way of turning heads.
One
such park is Camelot. Sitting in Lancashire, the park has always
suffered from the fact that it sits only a half hour drive away from one
of the world's greatest amusement parks, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, not
to mention BPB's sister park, Southport Pleasureland. It takes a lot to
impress a public already au fait with The Big One, Grand National, or
Cyclone, and Camelot has never really had anything in the same league.
When
it opened, Camelot was owned by Granada, and consisted of a very limited
array of kiddie rides. The only ride of any note was "Dragon
Flyer", a bizarre and surprisingly peppy powered coaster circling
almost the entire park. After a few years, the park expanded, opening
some real thrill rides in "Land of the Brave", a new area
behind the original park. This was quite a masterstroke, as any large
rides placed here are clearly visible from the M6 motorway and act as
giant billboards for the park.
For
years, this area played host to the park's star attraction, "Tower
of Terror". Not a drop tower as you might think, but a Shwarzkopf
Silver Arrow coaster, with its loop cleverly concealed inside an
impressive three dimensional castle facade. Only the most observant
riders ever realised the ride went upside down until it was too late to
back down. Although not Earth-shattering, it was a very enjoyable ride.
Unfortunately,
both the Tower of Terror and the nearby Excalibur spin ride were only
there on hire, and eventually the owners wanted them back, leaving
Camelot and its new owners, Prime Resorts, without a ride of any real
significance. As such, visitors in 2001 and 2002 were offered no rides
capable of really grabbing their attention. Other than Dragon Flyer, the
only large ride was "The Gauntlet", a Pinfari coaster of the
same infamous design as Drayton Manor's "Klondike Mine" or
Brighton Pier's "Turbo". Obviously, this was far from ideal!
Meanwhile
in Germany, Maurer Sohne, were enjoying considerable success on the
German fair scene with their "Spinning Coaster 2000" rides.
Fitting the footprint of the firm's highly successful Wild Mouse, the
ride included steeply banked drops and helices, and was designed to make
use of the firm's new 4-seat spinning cars, originally offered as an
add-on for their Wild Mouse rides. A disagreement with a showman,
however, had seen the company repossess one of the earlier models of the
ride.
So,
Camelot had a space left by a reclaimed ride, while Maurer had a
reclaimed ride looking for a home. It doesn't take a genius to work out
what happened next. The ride opened in 2003, and was a real fluke for
the park, as they came out of the deal with a ride that had earned a
very good reputation in Germany, and could be claimed as a genuine first
for a UK park. As if to highlight the brilliance of the park's timing,
Tussaud's were already talking to Maurer about similar rides for 2004 at
Chessington and Alton Towers, yet Camelot had come from nowhere and
found themselves in a very enviable position, a real triumph of
opportunism.
When
you visit Camelot, there is a distinct sense that the place had been
intended as a "real" theme park, and has gradually abandoned
the idea. From the entrance, you pass through the courtyard, past an
attractive mini-castle and the Go-Karts(!), then down into the original
park and over a bridge into the newer section. As you arrive in Land of
the Brave, nothing really hints at the idea of mediaeval theming other
than the ride names and backflashes. The rides themselves all appear
exactly as they would on the fairgrounds - not a bad thing in itself,
but very out of place in what is supposed to be a "proper"
theme park.
Whirlwind
sits neatly on a little plateau that was originally home to Excalibur (a
Weber Dreamboat). This makes the ride look very impressive, and much
taller than it actually is. The ride is placed side-on from the
pathways, meaning that the station is at the side of the ride, rather
than the front, and the lift hill is at the back. The entrance is
through a small archway (left over from the Excalibur entrance), which
leads around to the left of the ride.
Until
now, you would be forgiven for not realising that the ride had come from
the fair circuit. When you near the station, however, it becomes
comically obvious. Camelot's attempts to tailor the ride to the site
amount to nothing more than a new name sign at the top of the lift hill,
and the addition of the park's logo to the side of each car. The ride
even uses the same queue system as on the fairs, a metal floored cattle
pen, zig-zagging in front of a station that has very obviously been
unfolded from a truck - you can even see the truck's wheels and luggage
compartments.
OK,
it's forgivable for an ex-travelling coaster to have a temporary look,
but Whirlwind actually seems to go out of its way to contradict the
park's mediaeval theme. For example, Lara Croft-style artwork hanging
from the station fences might look good at a fair or unthemed park, but
looks totally out of place here, as does the Maurer plaque giving
details of the ride in German (or is it Chaucerian English?). With such
a blatant disregard for the Camelot theme, it's actually surprising not
to see a fairground paybox at the ride entrance, telling people in
German that the ride still costs 4 Euros per person.
Still,
there is one real advantage of buying an ex-fair ride, and that's
capacity. If you've ever seen the kind of crowds that German fairs can
attract, you'll understand why the rides need to get through the queues
like lightning. To that end, Whirlwind is capable of running with seven
four-seater cars at once. Sadly, few theme parks ever bother to run
rides to capacity, and so my visit saw a mere four cars on-track. Not
only that, the staff insisted that only two people could ride in each
car, turning a queue of about 100 people into a very slow and irritating
long wait. It's one thing to know that a park is doing its best with a
low-capacity ride, but it's another to see a coaster operate with less
than a third of its seats available for use.
Worse
still, as you shuffle along this slow moving queue, there is very little
of the ride visible - or any the park's other rides for that matter. It
is a shame that the ride should look so good from a distance, yet
nothing has been done to make the ride particularly easy-on-the-eye when
you get near it. Spectators can only view the ride from one side, and
even then high fences make the ride seem quite uninviting.
Again
lacking any sort of Camelot theming, the cars appear exactly as they
would on the fair circuit. Fortunately, they look very stylish, albeit
totally out-of-sync with the park's mediaeval theme. Recalling the
ride's Wild Mouse heritage, many of the cars have cleverly designed
smiley mouse-faces painted on them, their eyes formed by the oval
grab-rails attached to the lap-bars. This subtle and slightly odd humour
is very characteristic of German fair rides, and is a welcome sight on
these shores.
The
cars are slightly awkward to board, but very comfortable once you are
in. The back-to-back seating arrangement certainly offers a far more
exposed feel than Reverchon's Waltzer-style cars. The lap bars are
unobtrusive, and the lack of arm-space means that holding the grab-rail
is definitely the most comfortable way to ride. Before long, you head
out of the station and head straight for the express-speed lift hill.
As
with the Reverchon spinning coasters, the cars are locked in position
for the early part of the ride. If you think this will detract from the
ride, worry not, the early part of the ride is good fun whichever
direction you're facing. Facing forward, riders hit the Wild Mouse-like
turns in a truly manic fashion, while backward riding gives the twisted
first drop a real out-of-control feel.
Climbing
out of the drop, we hit a very high-speed turn and pass the release
mechanism that sets the car spinning. The car then hurtles straight into
the ride's highlight, and one of the most disorientating pieces of
coaster track around. With the car already spinning at a good speed, the
track drops and rises into a truly insane 180-degree turn, banked almost
vertically. Before you have time to gather your bearings, the car swoops
back and up a sharp twisted climb into a block brake beneath the lift
hill. There aren't many coasters where a block brake can be considered a
highlight, but the sudden sense of calm sends the car spinning like
crazy ready for the next section of the ride.
From
here, the ride ties itself into a neat tangle of track, with a good
mixture of straight sections, banked drops and helices. Given that
riders are not given much chance to see the track ahead, the ride uses
the very clever ploy of
giving misleading introductions to each element. If you think you're
heading into a helix, for example, you get a straight. Expect a
straight, and you get a drop. Expect a drop, and there'll be another
block brake to set the car spinning again.
If
I have one main criticism of the ride, it is Maurer's attempt to fit too
many elements into the ride. Other good spinning coasters like Magic
Mountain/Star World feature no real drops as such, but concentrate on
turns and helices to compliment the spinning. Towards the end of
Whirlwind, there's a distinct sense of Maurer trying to cram in as many
drops as possible, and sacrificing the ride quality. The ride's finale,
for example, consists of two sharp drops squeezed around the back of the
ride, when it seems fairly obvious that one gentle swooping drop or long
turn would suit the spinning cars far better.
Possibly
as a result of trying to pack in too much into the ride, Whirlwind is
not exactly the smoothest coaster around. It should be remembered that
when the ride debuted on the fairs, it was one of the first two versions
to appear, with later versions (including Oscar Bruch's "Spinning
Racer") being refined to make them smoother. Although not rough to
an uncomfortable extent, it can certainly feel like something of an
ordeal at times, especially if you find yourself facing the wrong way at
the wrong time, unable to see that you're approaching one of the sharper
sections and brace yourself accordingly.
With
Whirlwind, Camelot may well have found the ideal short-term solution for
its problems. Although not the UK's first spinning coaster by a long
way, it certainly trounces the nation's infestation of lacklustre Crazy
Mouse coasters. On the down
side, a ride like this cannot possibly hold the position of star
attraction for long. Even on the fairs, the ride would often have played
second fiddle to giant coasters like EuroStar and Olympia Looping, and
it seems unlikely that visitors would keep opening their wallets and
returning to Camelot year after year on the strength of Whirlwind alone,
especially given that there are other parks nearby offering so much
more.
Teamed
up with rides like a Pinfari looper, Fabbri Evolution and Huss Flipper,
the park has the feel of a series of support rides without a star
attraction. Worse still, the very temporary feel of many of Camelot's
rides (Whirlwind included) gives visitors the distinct impression that
they could well return and find that rides have disappeared, as happened
with Tower of Terror.
Whirlwind
is a great short-term solution to the park's lack of major rides, and
should hopefully bring an upturn in the park's fortunes, but needs to be
followed by a more grandiose statement of intent. With major parks
installing custom-designed Maurer spinning coasters, Whirlwind will not
maintain its prestige for long unless it is given a decent companion.
Camelot, like most UK parks, has great difficulty gaining planning
permission for large rides - proposals for a standard Vekoma inverted
boomerang were given the thumbs down, for example - but other parks have
shown that such problems can be vanquished with a little creativity.
So,
am I recommending Whirlwind? Yes, it's certainly well worth riding. It's
not a white-knuckle scream machine, but is a good fun ride, and a worthy
successor to Maurer's enjoyable Wild Mouse rides. Whether it is as
worthy a successor to Tower of Terror is, however, debatable. Had
Whirlwind been installed in addition to that fine Schwarzkopf ride,
rather than as a replacement, I'd be recommending you visit Camelot
ASAP. As it is, I'm not sure.
The
main problem with Whirlwind is that it isn't the kind of ride to keep
you occupied all day long, and the rest of the park simply does not have
enough attractions to adequately fill the rest of your time. Also, it is
worth remembering that Whirlwind is an absolutely bog-standard
installation of an off-the-shelf coaster. If you have already ridden
another version elsewhere, then Whirlwind will have absolutely nothing
new to offer you, and therefore I could only recommend that you give it
a miss.
Whirlwind
is an admirable stop-gap solution to the loss of Camelot's signature
ride, Tower of Terror. Whether it is enough to single-handedly boost
Camelot higher up the UK parks pecking order is another matter. It has
certainly got the park's rejuvenation off to a good start, but let's
just keep our fingers crossed that that is what it is - a start.
Only
the most disciplined of readers will have failed to notice at this point
that I have awarded Whirlwind 3 stars. That may seem mean, as Maurer
have really come up with a great little ride here. It may not offer
near-blackout G-forces or huge drops, but it is one of those rare rides
that offer laugh-out-loud fun, a quality that can often be lost in the
race for the latest record-breaker or world-first.
No,
the reason for my star-stinginess is that this is a review specifically
of Whirlwind, not the general "Spinning Coaster 2000" range.
Whirlwind’s problem is that, while Maurer have done a great job in
coming up with a very good little ride, Camelot is charging visitors to
enter a park without a really major attraction. Whirlwind would be an
excellent support ride, but Camelot are asking us to treat it as a
star-attraction, and it simply cannot live up to that kind of billing.
If
it had been built at Drayton Manor or Pleasureland, Whirlwind would
instantly earn itself another star, as it would fit beautifully into
these parks' array of good mid-size rides. If it were at Blackpool
Pleasure Beach, I might even award it a fifth star, as it would be a
fantastic way to spend a few minutes before heading off to one of the
bigger rides. At Camelot, however, it is expected to take the role of
star attraction. As good as the ride is, it was never really designed
for such a role, and doesn't really inspire me to make a point of
returning to the park too often.
JP Undated
Good points:
▪ Far superior to the Reverchon
spinning mouse
▪ Ferocious, but not uncomfortably rough
▪ Original layout
Bad points:
▪ Chaotic finale
▪ Poor presentation of the ride
▪ Not up to the role of the parks' star roller coaster
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