Ocean Beach Amusement Park, Rhyl, UK

To sum up Ocean Beach in one word, it would be quiet. Certainly when I visited it there was almost no-one there. The park is a standard seaside funfair but with a surprising amounts of coasters. The park is tidy although visitors numbers could have affected that. Most of the ride are fairly old and look like they are just being run to the end of their life. New investment is going to be needed unless the rumoured sale of the land to a supermarket is true.

Payment is in the form of tokens at £1 a token, with three tokens per ride being the maximum you’re charged. Tokens are available from kiosks throughout the park. Also scattered throughout the park are food stalls, although I didn’t purchase anything from them and as such can’t comment on the food.

Height restrictions vary as normal with a minimum of 1.4 for big rides like Loop, to 1m accompanied for Nessi. There are also several penny machines/grabbers scattered through the park for your use.

Ocean Beach is unthemed so it is difficult to split it into areas. Rather I’m going to look at what’s available for each age group.

There are several attractions aimed at children such as, Helter-Skelter, Ferris-Wheel, Truck Convoy and the Nessi rollercoaster. This is a Cavassa Diego Super Nessi coaster, that allow children three trips in a row round the track for just one token.

For families, Ocean Beach offers several attractions such as the dodgems, Go Karts, Runaway Train powered rollercoaster and the Log Chute ride. This is technically a rollercoaster, even though it is more of a flume ride. This is an old ride that feels quite tame by today's standards. The splash is also not that good, being visually impressive but not actually getting you wet.

The thrill rides at Ocean Beach are generally on the low end of the thrill spectrum. These rides consist of The Terminator spinning ride, and Loop and Jetstream rollercoasters. Loop is a standard Pinfari ZL42. While not as rough as some I've ridden the restraints could really do with some padding, the bare metal over-the-shoulder restaints are quite uncomfortable. Jetstream is a rollercoaster that starts off well with two good drops, but quickly tails off, wasting a lot of it's momentum on two dull helixes and the return to the station. Of the Pinfari model's I think the Z40 is my favourite, the bigger models don't seem to make good use of the extra room.

Leonardofury, Last modified 01/07/07