Big Wheel, Looping Star, Mary Rose and Enterprise???

[manic637]

Why are they missing out four out of the five biggest rides in the park's history? Ask anyone in the South East born in the last 40 years what they remember about Dreamland and these are the rides they will mention, along with the Scenic Railway. The big wheel could be seen from miles away and was the biggest ferris wheel in Europe at the time. As far as I am concerned, without these rides, this is a missed opportunity. Discuss?

Jay, Margate born and raised, but now in London.

[Nick]

The main reason is that these are modern rides of the type that are still common in other amusement parks. The Mary Rose and Enterprise from Dreamland still operate at Henk Bembom's Loudoun Castle Theme Park. The Looping Star still operates overseas (and a similar model operates at Loudoun Castle), and I believe the Big Wheel does too.

We want Dreamland to offer something that can't be found elsewhere. We are trying to create a unique attraction which recreates the Dreamland of the mid-Twentieth Century with attractions that you would have seen at the main seaside amusement parks during that period. This is from the days when seaside parks offered big, bespoke rides.

As an aside, I would recommend a visit to Loudoun Castle. It has many of the rides that were at Dreamland in the 1980s and 1990s, including the Mary Rose, Enterprise, the second Looping Star, Wild Mouse, Pirate Ship, Apollo 14 and Regatta. Even the Stowaway ride from inside the Dreamland Cinema building in the late 1990s now operates at the park. The park comes highly recommended and its setting is truly stunning. http://www.loudouncastle-online.co.uk/

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

The last I heard, the Big Wheel was in storage in Mexico and hadn't been erected there. Does anyone know if this is still the case or if it is up and running now?

I remember it took much longer to dismantle than was planned for so I wonder if it had structural problems?

[dave771]

The last I heard was they had problems putting the ride up and it was left at that. As far as the other rides go mentioned above is the cost. We have no funds at the moment and have nowhere near the hundreds of thousands that these rides would cost to have at the park.

[faro]

i congratulate everyone involved in this venture,it looks as if something may finally get up and running.
obviously some people are going to be dissapointed with the rides on offer,i would have loved to see the sky wheels and an upright paratrooper,which they used to have in dreamland.but space and finance will always be another consideration.
i also wondered if anyone here knows what happened to the monster from bpb.that ride always looked amazing!!

[kevinashe]

unfortunately nobody seems to know where the monster is now,i emailed nick with a comment i had heard that it was stored somewhere on the pleasureland southport site when the park closed but a thorough search by nick proved fruitless.I will put pictures of the classic dreamland rides that are now at loudoun castle the next time i get a chance to spend the day there.ps parkware own 2 huss enterprise rides but none of them are at loudoun castle so its possible that dreamland could buy or rent one.

[Xtremecoasters]

I was at Loudoun for the opening this weekend. I have uploaded a new vid of the park onto Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSSxh67asqs

Dont know how long it will remian as Youtube have already sent me warnings about the audio, so it will probably be removed soon The vid is however in the process of being uploaded onto the Xtremecoasters website, so if its gone from Youtube, it should be available to download from the site soon.

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSSxh67asqs

[Paul281]

Just finished watching The Jolly Boy's Outing episode of OFAH on G.O.L.D tonight.

The Big Wheel looked massive, the centre towered over the buildings in front of it.

They showed a clip of the Mary Rose as well. They used to have one of those at Pleasurewood Hills about 15 years ago. I remember my wife said she felt unsafe because there wasn't shoulder bars.

You were held in place by a padded bar that held you in by the stomach, and held on tight!

[Xtremecoasters]

Yeah, its still the same now. I read somewhere on here before that they had installed secondary seatbelts into the boat now. But there wern't any when I rode this weekend, so they must have been removed. There is no way your going to fall out. I was not holding on, and was perfectly held in place

[dreamland]

in 1993 at dreamland i went on the mary rose and the cushion thats sopposed to go all the way down and squash your hips did not , when it was going upside down i was litrally falling out of the seat and was very scary as i was only 13 at the time , i was yelling to get the ride operators attention before the ride even started but they were to busy talking to other people !!

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

When the Scenic Railway opened, and for decades afterwards, there were no seat restraints at all- even the lapbars did not appear until the 1960's and the seat belts were not fitted until the early 1980's, when a six-year-old Canadian girl died in a freak accident when she fell from the rear of a train.

As far as I am aware, this was the first fatality at Dreamland since circa 1935, when a swinging ship broke loose from its moorings and five people died.

[dreamland]

well hopfully there wont be any more deaths at dreamland in the future

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Well, theme parks in general are incredibly safe places- we're going to Thorpe Park next week and we're probably a thousand times more likely to be involved in a mishap on the way there or back on the M25 than we are at the park.

[dreamland]

the only theme park in the uk that ive been to is dreamland/bemboms and im quite happy about that as then i cant compare dreamland with any other park in the uk

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

I would definitely recommend a visit to Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures or Adventure Island at Southend, just to see what Dreamland could be like in the right hands.

I am sure Dreamland will become a theme park again, now that the property price madness is well and truly over.