I’m going to go in controversial today and say that I think that while undeniably doing very well for a park of its calibre, Paultons Park is somewhat overhyped.
I should preface this by saying that I’m not saying it’s a bad park by any stretch. It’s undeniably doing very good things for a regional park of its calibre, it has a very nice atmosphere and is a very low-stress experience with frequently limited crowds. However, there’s a lot of superlatives thrown around about it currently along the lines of “best park in the UK”, “one of the best parks in Europe” and all that jazz, and I’m not sure I agree. It’s very nice for a small, regional park, but I feel that it fundamentally is a small, regional park and people often gloss over this, act as though as it’s a major player, and look past some of its shortcomings. For me, it absolutely isn’t my favourite UK park, and there are a few reasons why.
The first thing I would say is that I think the park still doesn’t do particularly ambitious things in terms of ride hardware. And I don’t even mean from a thrill standpoint; I know very well that Paultons will likely never be a huge thrill park, and it would be unfair to assess them from this standpoint. I mean from the standpoint of custom rides that do interesting and unique things. Most of Paultons’ current coasters are clones or stock models, and even Drakon, while technically custom, looks like a pretty conservative example of a pretty conservative ride type that there are other, arguably more objectively impressive (I’ll phrase this carefully, as I’m reserving full judgement without having ridden) examples of within a relatively close radius. I think other UK parks do more ambitious ride hardware, even in the family thrill space that Paultons aims for at the higher end. For example, Merlin are building a Minecraft land at Chessington with a highly unique Intamin coaster at its centre, which I would argue shows more ambition than Valgard/Drakon, and a ride like Wicker Man is a considerably more impressive family thrill coaster than anything Paultons have produced, in my view. Even outside of Merlin, I would argue that Gold Rush at Drayton Manor is a more ambitious and unique family thrill coaster from a hardware standpoint than anything Paultons have yet produced. The rides are Paultons are fun and provide good, modern family coaster experiences, don’t get me wrong, but I think they perhaps lack that real standout attraction, and while I reserve full judgement on Drakon until Saturday, I’m not sure I see it changing that at present.
The second thing I would say is that while the park does do lovely, well-detailed themed lands that are very well-rounded, I think they maybe haven’t quite mastered theatre and pizzazz like Merlin at their best or some of the parks in Europe and the USA. As an example, I’d cite a land like the new-look Forbidden Valley at Alton Towers. There are some brilliant bits of theatre in the land like the giant eye and the station with the dispatch sequence, and there’s so much in the land that moves, makes noise, emits smoke or otherwise has some sort of effect. While admittedly rougher around the edges in some ways, it’s wonderfully dynamic in a way that I don’t think Paultons has quite achieved yet. I’d also cite Alton Manor; it’s a huge dark ride with custom scenes, effects, soundtrack and such, and other dark rides built by Merlin are similar. Ghostly Manor is fun, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think it’s in the same ballpark as Alton Manor, Ninjago, Sky Lion or other things Merlin have produced. That’s not to do down Paultons’ efforts at all, as their investments are detailed and well-rounded, but I think that theatre and spectacle is something that they don’t do quite as well as Merlin and some parks abroad.
For full clarity, that is not to say that I even vaguely dislike Paultons or think they are a bad park. They are doing a lot of things well, they have a very good product, they are undeniably investing well and I always enjoy a visit there; it’s definitely one of the better non-Merlin regional parks in the country for me, and they have an exciting future without a doubt. I just don’t think it’s the second coming of Christ like many seem to and I would not rate it as a top UK park for me personally.
I also think the “Paultons good, Merlin bad” sentiments often espoused lack nuance and I do think that while some of the criticisms levelled at Merlin are entirely fair, other issues are quite strongly exaggerated, but that’s probably a controversial opinion for its own post…
). i ride stealth and i'm like... yeah okay that was fine. i don't really care for the tophat-only layouts. then i ride formula rossa and think "wow, ka and dragster's launches must've been great too, and this ride has an actual layout afterwards! even better!"
