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coastergraham · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject: Flamingoland 15th March TR

Who went

Me
Caroline
My Mum

We arrived at Flamingoland at 9:45 and were very impressed with what we saw, about 6 cars in the car park.

Seriously though we had an absolutely amazing day out today at mingo, it was the complete opposite to the horrible day we had last September that nearly put us off the place for good. This time the staff were doing a really good job and a lot of them were very friendly and had smiles on there faces. So credit to Flamingoland management for sorting out what was a problem last year. Another plus was the food, last year we needed a chainsaw for our jacket spuds, today they were actually quite nice.

The park itself looks really modern and tidy and the Zoo area looks a whole world away from what it looked like a couple of years ago. It now looks like a modern well run zoo with thought given to the animals needs.

Ride count

Velocity - 13 (that's the limit as things start to hurt after 10 )
Cliffhanger - 5 (such a great ride on combo)
Kumali - 23
Navigator - 1
Sky Flyer - 1 (the ride op is an evil man, such an amazing ride given for us )
Wild mouse - 2

Total rides = 45

Highlights

- Great ride staff
- 0 min queues all day long
- Amazing ride count for a Saturday
- Food being ok
- Park looking great
- Zoo taking a stunning look, still some work to do but they are doing it
- No rain, the forecast was wrong

Lowlights

- The usual motley collection of chavs and scruff that mingo attracts, such a shame for a nice park.
- It was freezing, that wind had a real bite to it.
- Corkscrew, we did not ride it due to it having those horrible head pads on the whole train now.

So after last years horrors this has been a really refreshing day out that by far exceeded our expectations. The park seems to have taken another leap towards the big stage and with the addition of more rides it will be knocking on the door of the big boys in this country, which will be a good thing imo as it will keep them on there toes.

If anyone from Flamingoland reads this then well done and please get a woodie for your next major ride

simon08 · Kiddie Poster Joined: 20 Dec 2007 Posts: 26

its about time the staff had a smile on their faces, our trip last year they looked so fed up, but how long will it last, sorry to hear that the chav element is still about, doesnt make for a very good trip. We saw some feeding the gibbons bannas last year, didnt say anything to them, 2 people against 10 wouldnt turn into a good outcome. I was that disappointed with flamingoland last year that I wont be visitng for a while.

coastergraham · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 10:15 pm Post subject:

Simon if you can get the park on a quiet day like today then the chavs dont get to you the same as there is not enough of them and you are not stuck in a queueline with them.

Such a shame for mingo though that it does get a high percentage of chavs going Sad

Auntie Murial · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:08 pm Post subject:

I agree that having nice smiling well mannered staff really do help to have a nice day.

I work for Waitrose, and as such expect the same level of customer service that we deliver wherever i go and there are only a few places that i can say that it matches my expectations.

Flamingoland usually does not fall into this category so it really is pleasing to hear that they are doing something about it Graham.

As far as Theme Parks go i usually see that there are a percentyage of excellent staff and a percentage of poor staff aswell. This usually goes for the likes of Chessie, Thorpe, Drayton and Alton.

Blackpool and Oakwood hardly ever disapoint bar the odd few.

The rest are usually average.

Glad you had a much better trip this time round Graham. Very Happy

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