Blackpool Pleasure Beach - Your Guide to the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Theme Park
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The most ride intensive park in the world ! Over 125 rides and attractions including the Pepsi Max Big One, the second tallest rollercoaster in Europe, Infusion, the world's first suspended looping coaster built entirely over water. Beaver Creek for the children. Sensational award winning shows: Hot Ice, spectacular dancing on ice and Forbidden a breathtaking stage production. Blackpool Pleasure Beach open for Thrill Weekends mid February to Easter, open Easter until early November (closed some Mon/Tues early season), north park open for Winter Weekends November.
The park has a mixture of traditional wooden rides, modern steel roller-coasters, small family rides, highly-advanced thrill rides and generations-old rides still in original working order.
The Pleasure Beach has in recent years been undergoing a major refurbishment - with the park's rebranding to simply "Pleasure Beach" and the loss of the famous trade-mark 'Happy Sun' logo which accompanied the park bilboards and advertisement campiagns for many of the past years. Both the Big Dipper and Grand National roller coasters have received a new coat of paint and the second of the wooden coasters received new trains, and most of the walkways have been resurfaced. |
The refurbishments continued in 2007 with many of the signs in the park replaced. Also 2007 saw the opening of "Infusion" - a Suspended Looping Coaster, relocated from Pleasure Beach's now-defunct sister park, Pleasureland, in nearby Southport.
In September 2007, the Pleasure Beach was judged joint fifth best amusement park in the world (with Disneyland in California, United States) in the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards – the self-proclaimed Oscars of the amusement industry. Pleasure Beach was the only British park to feature in any category. Pleasure Beach was also the highest ranked European park in the awards. Also, Pleasure Beach was voted second best seaside park in the world. It is currently voted as the 'UK's number one tourist attraction' by the British Tourist Board after numbers soar to nearly 6 million visitors a year, with this record un-beaten by any other tourist spot or amusement/theme park in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales. The Grand National roller coaster made the universal list of Top 50 Wooden Roller Coasters at number 28 and the Pepsi Max Big One was in the Top 50 Steel section at 44 and came in at 9 in the Top Ten Coasters poll shown on Sky Travel.
The Pepsi Max Big One
The Pepsi Max Big One is a steel roller coaster located at Pleasure Beach Blackpool in the United Kingdom. The ride was originally manufactured by Arrow Dynamics, a now defunct steel coaster manufacturer. The ride cost a high budgeted price of £12,000,000 to build. The Pepsi Max Big One can be seen from Barrow-in-Furness across Morecambe Bay - 21 miles (35 km) away.
When it opened on May 28, 1994, the Pepsi Max Big One roller coaster claimed to be the tallest, fastest and steepest roller coaster in the world. The ride lost its height and speed records to Fujiyama in 1996, though it remained the fastest roller coaster in Europe until 2001, when Colossos opened at Heide Park in Germany, and the tallest until 2002, when Silver Star opened at Europa-Park in Germany. The ride still remains the tallest roller coaster in the United Kingdom, but is no longer the fastest (the UK record going to Stealth at Thorpe Park). |