Saturday 11 August 2007

A Day At Gulliver's



Had a fantastic day at Gulliver's today. We started off by the four of us going on few rides together then after lunch we split up so that I could take Josh on the bigger rides and Peej could take Ellie on some more little ones.


We started off gently with Josh having a go on the diggers then we went through the Ghost House together just to give our tummies chance to settle, but then it was time to hit the roller coasters - starting with "The Antelope Wooden Roller Coaster". What a rickety old thing that is but loads of fun. I was a little bit worried as on our last visit to Gulliver's, Josh and I had tried to go on this ride, we queued up but, just before it was our turn to get on all the seats were filled and we had to wait for the next one. It set off and was gone for ages. The guy in charge eventually began to get a bit worried and started to look for them. It turned out they were stuck on the highest bit of the roller coaster. Those poor people were stuck there for ages and eventually staff had to go up to help all the riders get out and had to walk with them down the roller coaster track to safety. I just kept thinking "that was nearly us" I dread to think how Josh have coped with it if it had been!!! So you can understand why on the run up to this one I was actually more worried about it stopping than I was about the roller coaster itself. But I didn't need to worry, we made it round in one go and as we got off Josh said "That was totally wicked!" Which it was!


After that we made our way to the "Wild Mine Ride". Boy that's vicious. I don't know if I'm just too skinny and therefore don't have enough padding for this ride or what, but I come off feeling like I've just gone 5 rounds with Mike Tyson! It's the corners that are the worst and there's loads of them. On every corner I bashed my hip against the side of the car, now there's very little (or to be really honest no padding) on my hip bone and there is certainly no padding anywhere on the inside of the car to cushion the blow so I can't begin to tell you how painful this ride was. If I tried to brace myself to stop my hips from bashing then I jarred my back instead. Now I love roller coasters but I don't like being beaten up by one!! Josh however loved it (speed demon that he is) and wanted to go straight back on again. I had to say we'd be doing a switch soon and he could take his dad on it instead!

We then decided we'd have a go on the log flume as Josh has been dying to go on one for ages. I'm not keen on getting wet unless it's a very hot day and I know I'm going to dry out quickly. As today we have been blessed with beautiful weather I thought "Oh what the hay, let's do it" So off we went. The photos of Josh on his own were taken just before we went on, as I was going to do some before and after shots but he didn't actually get that wet so I just took a photo of Josh and Ellie together instead.


We met up with Peej and Ellie after the log flume and we all had a pit stop to refuel. Peej then took JJ off to do some big rides and I got to do some more gentle ones with Ellie. We tried to go on a tractor ride but it broke down before we could go on it so we went to The Lost World to do the "Incubation Unit" ride instead. It's quite a funky ride as you sit inside a big dinosaur egg and then it kind of goes round on two interconnecting circles in a figure of eight so it looks like you're going to crash into one of the other eggs as you cross over. Ellie thought it was great. That was all we really got to go on as Ellie then decided she didn't want to go on anything else she just wanted to find Daddy and Josh. We have these great walkie talkies that we use when we go to theme parks - saves a fortune on text messages or phone calls. So I called Peej on the walkie talkie and found out were he and Josh were and we set off to meet them. They were in the "Moonbuggies" bit but just before we got there Peej called me back to say that Josh had just had a nasty crash and hurt his back and was now wanting to go, so how far off were we? I replied "We can see you!" and waved frantically.


We decided that Peej and Josh would go on one more ride and then we'd go home. As Josh had a big scrape on his back we thought another go on the Wild Mine Ride probably wasn't a good idea. Josh was just about to get upset when Patrick suggested The Flight of the Pteranodon as you ride on your stomach for that one. Josh thought this was a great idea, so while the two of them queued up for that one Ellie and I found a good spot to watch them. Ellie chomped her way through two bananas and took a wonderful shot of some strangers feet on my camera?! Then it was Josh and Peej's turn. I managed to snap a couple of shots with them in but it's not the easiest ride to get photos on!


However a good day was had by all which is always a bonus!

3 comments:

Classroomfree said...

Sounds like a great day apart from the painful bits! :o)

Randy said...

I love, love, love old wooden roller-coasters. It was a sad day when they closed down the Texas Cyclone, along with all of Astroworld. The line for that ride was such that you would walk underneath it and watch it sway this way and that, and also notice that more than a few bolts had come loose. I had to persuade my wife to ride it with me, then the bolt on our seat wouldn't come open at the end. "Well, I guess we'll just have to go again," got me hit with an umbrella.

My oldest boy would be terrified of going anywhere near a roller coaster; my youngest probably would enjoy it too much.

Fe-Fe said...

Josh loves roller coasters too much too Randy. He started with "Big Thunder Mountain" at Disneyland Paris and now he's just a speed demon. He's done "Space Mountain Mission 2," "The Rock and Roller Coaster" and even made me go at the front for that one, several times!! He's dying to go on the Indianna Jones ride but it the moment he's still not quite tall enough.

Trouble is, although I love roller coasters, I get travel sick so we have keep swapping who takes Josh on them or pesuade him to go on something more gentle inbetween. He just gets so bored on tame rides now since he's experienced the extremes!