Theme park fans who enjoy getting wet n’ wild are celebrating this week as Holiday World in Indiana unveiled plans to open the world’s longest water slide.

The £6m ‘Mammoth’ is due to open in May 2012 and will be 1,700 feet long, 69 feet tall and will cover an area of over three acres.

In the meantime, thrill-seekers have plenty of other options before tackling Mammoth next year, as international travel search site Skyscanner discovered on an adrenalin-fuelled trip round the world’s best theme park rides.

Kingda Ka, New Jersey
The undisputed tallest roller coaster in the world, 456-foot high monster Kingda Ka in Jackson, New Jersey goes from 0 to 128mph in 3.5 seconds, also making it the world’s second fastest roller coaster. Hold on to your hats.

Formula Rossa, Abu Dhabi
Stealing Kingda Ka’s crown as the world’s fastest roller coaster is the 150-mph Formula Rossa at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. The red-hot ride is the centrepiece of the new Ferrari theme park and goes so fast that participants sitting at the front of the ride are made to wear special protective glasses normally used for skydiving.

Collusus, Surrey
For something a little different, why not try the world’s first 10 looping roller coaster at Thorpe Park. The ride spins passengers through the inversions at incredible speeds, before thrusting through a quadruple corkscrew to finish. This one is not recommended after a big meal.

Space Mountain, Orlando
In many ways the classic white-knuckle theme park ride, Space Mountain at Walt Disney resort in Orlando has been thrilling people of all ages for over 30 years. A refurbished version of the ride opened in 2009, and boasts incredible space-themed visuals alongside terrifying drops into pitch black zones.

X2, California
The world’s first 4-D roller coaster ride, the X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain features 360-degree rotating seats and jaw-dropping face first drops. Riders can enjoy an unexpected series of twists and turns along the 3,600 foot steel structure.

With a promise of snow and entertainment it was too hard to resist, plus my 7 year old daughter is a comeplete Thomas addict.

As a land themed around the popular childrens books written by Rev W Awdry Thomas Land is a superb addition to Drayton Manor with all the rides and the area (known as Island of Sodor in the books) themed around the adventures of the 6 wheeled train and his friends.

For Christmas the staff at Drayon Manor have really raided the piggy bank as the Christmas theming is superb with a great mixture of decorations and entertainment.

As we entered Thomas Land we were greated with the controller and entertainers singing and masses of snow coming out of two machines next to them.

The controller.

Thomas heading for the turntable.

Snow everywhere, my kids in the center of the photograph with the entertainers singing in the background.

Entrance to Thomasland.

Percy leaving the station.

A very festive looking station, wait until you see the inside.

Thomas in the station, ready to come out, turnaround and take the next train full of passengers.

The controller singing away.

Inside the station.

Station at night.

Percy heading back out with a train full of passengers.

Overhead look at the station from the footbridge crossing the track.

Inside the station, queue area.

Platform 1.

The Christmas Show.

As part of the admission all children under 9 get a free present as part of the Christmas show.

The show lasts about 30 minutes and our session was 4pm. Our trip was prebooked via telephone and we were allocated a 4pm slot. I wont go into detail about the show and spoil it for anyone, but its obviously aimed at children.

As this was a Thomas Land event the rest of Drayton Manor was closed only Thomas Land and the Carousel are open for these weekends.

Heres the rest of the photographs taken during this visit.

If you are thinking about visiting Thomas Land at Drayton Manor then I would really recomend it especially if you have young children. Please dont steal any photographs if you want copies of anything please get in touch via the contact form.

Thanks for reading

The Incredible Hulk was a coaster I was really looking forward to riding in Florida, located on the Marvel Super hero island themed area in Islands of adventure the hulk dominates the skyline, it can also be seen from most other areas of this superbly themed theme park.

Built by B&M in 1999 and with a top speed of 67mph the Hulk is still entertaining thousands of visitors daily.

Huge Cobra roll.

On our visit in February 2008 the park was quite busy so we decided to buy fast pass for all the big attraction to save queuing for most of the day. Our party was 2 adults and 2 children with only 1 adult and 1 child wanting to ride the coasters. The queue lines were showing upwards of 40 minutes for most rides so although costing another 140 dollars the fast pass worked out for us and it saved the good old arguements between the kids about how many rides each of them had.

Like everything at Universal the hulk is brilliantly themed some of it over water and in the evenings Universal take advantage of this and light up the coaster.

For anyone who hasn’t ridden the Hulk its a launched coaster so you don’t have any of the click, click when going up the first hill. The hulk is propelled by tyres up to its max height of 110ft the launch is in a tunnel so you have the feeling of not knowing what is coming next and before you realize it your at the top of the launch hill and daylight is coming fast. One of the great elements of the hulk is at the top of the launch rather unlike a traditional coaster of going down the hulk flips you 360 degrees so your right into the action which continues over the full 3700ft of track.

My daughter who is 11 complained about the ride quality of the hulk and she suffered some quite bad ear bashing to both sides of her head, it was completely opposite for me but i am taller and her ears were right in between the restraints. Its worth bearing this in mind if you havent ridden it before It could put some children off, my daughter is a hardened rider and although she didnt want to ride the hulk again it didnt put her off wanting to try the other coasters.

Heres the pictures.

from a distance.

Bottom of the launch hill.

Another shot of the cobra roll.

And some general shots and a video.

Video i found on youtube. Theres loads of on ride videos but this seem to have the best quality.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want to use any photographs on this blog please get in touch paul@ridemad.com im quite happy to share and have high resolution copies of everything used, to see the complete gallery visit the Ridemad Gallery

Thanks for Reading.