Family and I were at Ocean Beach yesterday (13/4/06) in the most north easternly part of England that I have travelled for some time.
For me Ocean Beach is a park that provides the perfect antidote to the safe, sterile, thrill seeking imagineering days that, for me, make up the majority of the park experiences today.
Get this..If Disney and Aventura are the cappuccino and lattes of the amusement world then Ocean Beach is the double espresso!
Disney, Adventura etc are good for you but every now and again, in my humble opinion, a short sharp injection of Ocean Beach is good for the enthusiast too!
For those of you out there old enough to remember the park thrills of the seventies and early eighties that came in the form of excitement, edge, butterflies in the stomach, a splash of seediness and a whole load of fun..well..Ocean Beach is a must.
I felt that I was in a mirror image of Southport circa 1981 with a dash of the 2000s thrown in..The park screamed into yer face "I dare you not to enjoy.."
I dared not.
It had everything I once loved as a kid delivered to you in a way I genuinely miss..and didn't realise how much I actually did miss until yesterday.
Everything was open....YOUR choice what to ride and when to ride it..Old rides sitting alongside new rides..a definite edge and scariness and hesitance walking onto the rides..My feelings as a young kid back then in in the parks of the late sixties and early seventies and my feelings yesterday as an aged forty something at Ocean Beach!!
A crazy Cottage, a slam door ghost train, a Tagada, a Mississippi Showboat funhouse, cheap tickets (that are called tokens), two helter skelters, a Waltzer with walkers..a brilliant Scrambler..a Miami..etc etc etc
Photos and TR somewhere soon.
These parks must not die!
Yours with a bottle of Newcastle Brown at my side.
Gary