Lightwater Valley Pre-Opening Day 2024

[@ThemeParksFunfairs]

Good video. Nice to see improvements being made around the park with the addition of Jeep Safari & The Rocket roller coaster. Shame the area where The Ultimate once was hasn’t been fenced off looks abit of a mess to be honest.

[@timsharp]

Thanks. The Rocket Roller Coaster is now almost complete, so it should be open soon. The area round the Ultimate looks like it has trampolines to go in - it's on the map but hadn't been constructed for the test day. These were near to the dodgems last year, on the site they are building the Rocket Roller Coaster. Pity they can't think of a way to use and commemorate the Ultimate, perhaps having one of the trains outside as a museum piece. The big Ultimate building is being used as the Hall of Mirrors, but wouldn't the upper part make a great restaurant space?

[@marksmith334]

Not sure where you got the idea that was the original park entrance.

[@timsharp]

I think you are right to question that. As far as I remember, you used to be able to enter freely into the area where the pizza restaurant and shops are now, to get to the outlet shops, so the entrance to the park itself was through this building. You would buy your tickets inside it and show them at the entrance through a short tunnel. However, that may have been later when they opened the outlet shops, not right at the start. Perhaps I should have said this used to be the park entrance, rather than 'original'. Thanks for actually reading the commentary!

[@marksmith334]

@@timsharp I worked in the offices which were above during the time the Ultimate was built. Some of the comments from people about what they think went on during that time are laughable.

[@timsharp]

Just checked one of my videos from July 1991 and where the entrance is now was just an open area with a big horseshoe to walk under. I'd be interested to know what laughable comments people have made about the park, unless of course you are referring to mine :-) By the way, I've blurred out that comment on the video because I should have phrased it differently. I must get round to putting my park footage together as a video, we've been lots of times over the years. From our house, you could see the Ultimate lift hills until they were demolished. You could see that planet sphere ride thing they had as well - we live about 4 miles away.

[@stevensnooks3152]

So they got rid of the ultimate ride and raptor ride and no replacement oh but the new rocket ride is horrendous. Kids got bored very quick. Shame really

[@timsharp]

They took the conscious decision to make the park for families with small kids. Unfortunately the big rides were getting to the end of their safe life and would have cost too much to replace. Lightwater is not really a park for teenage thrill rides now

[@stevensnooks3152]

But the park needs to understand that families have a variety of age groups. And if they aim at young kids only then what are the other family members going to do as they have paid the fee just to walk around and go on nothing