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| Trip Report |
| After waiting 5 days after the official opening I was finally privileged enough to ride Odyssey, after doing a web site all about the Odyssey ride for 2 years and with absolutely no help from Fantasy Island whatsoever, I wasn�t even as much invited down to ride Odyssey but people from the local Chip Shop and people who couldn�t care less about the ride were invited to the opening. Well anyway the ride does not live up to the expectations originally thought 2 years ago, I really like the sound of the stats announced and the fact that the ride was supposed to be completely different, I think that the ride was supposed to be different from what I saw on the video published by Fi in 2000. I think that they somewhat changed the plans and scaled down the attraction by at least half, the height had dropped form 280ft to 180ft and the trains were supposed to be 4 seater trains but ended up as 2 seaters. The ride itself looks very cheap and doesn�t have any form of theming which doesn�t always matter but they could of at least built a proper station, the station is basically a basic steel shell with a plywood roof and floor, there is no attempt to make it look half decent which would of cost hardly anything. The ride starts of with a very loud clank sound followed by a jerk after waiting 20 minutes in the station, the ride out of the station is probably the fastest part of the ride and the noisiest, the chain lift Is really loud and can be heard from the beach over 500 meters away, It could have been a lot quieter as the no other Vekoma ride is as loud as this. When ascending the lift hill the ride appears to be higher than it actually is; it is also very steep and fast, the view from the top is very good and is probably the scariest part of the ride as there is nothing between your feet and the ground, the steepness of the drop is quite amazing and the ride looks somewhat scarier from above as it does from below. Th actual drop itself is over very quickly and it pulls some very high g�s at the bottom, the loop is very good and has got to be the best loop in the country but it is also the slowest at the top as it virtually stops everytime, if you are in the front seat it lunges you forward and you nearly fall out until it slowly picks up pace again. The other elements that follow are exactly the same with the speed good at first and the it slows right down as the back catches up, the drop could of done with being about 30ft higher which would of made the elements much aster and would of made the ride rideable in strong winds, if you are in the front seat it almost stops but at the back it seems to be a bit faster. It doesn�t matter how full the train is or whether it is windy or not it still goes really slow over the inversions, the horseshoe turn is the slowest part of the ride as it slows down to around 5 mph on a less windy day with the train full and almost stops. The rumours going round about the roughness of the ride are quite true as if you sit at the front when it is running slow it can be quite painful indeed, the back is even worse as it is a bit faster but on a calm day when it runs that bit faster it seems not be rough at all, it definitely isn�t rough through the whole ride but there are certain elements that are which I have also found on Nemesis. The ride is a very good addition to the parks collection and is worth a ride when your passing but I wouldn�t encourage anyone to go down especially, for what they paid and what they originally planned it seems the ride is somewhat disappointing from the publics point of view, if it had of been any other park then I�m sure that they would of used the money more resourcefully and built a way better ride than this. The TraumaTizer at Southport is for me much better and still offers one of the best thrills on an SLC, the drop is fast and the loops are much faster making it quite intense, it also looks quite impressive with the groundwork and the station layout. This ride only cost 5 million that�s almost a 6th of what Odyssey cost and for me it is that bit better, if they had built the ride to the same specs as TraumaTizer but made it twice the height then it would of been fantastic. My dad rode it with me on my first ride and he immediately said its ok but not very thrilling, he said it will do for a new coaster but its nothing special and is not really for hardened thrill seekers, this coming from a 65 year old. I was hoping I could give a better report as I have followed this ride for over 2 years now but I really am disappointed at what I thought was going to be the best coaster, the stats changed so many times and the ride just seemed to be totally different from the planned ride, all the original records slowly disappeared and it ended up just being a bog standard rollercoaster. Darren Hosker |
| 29/5/02 |