Big fun: Brits cut loose at new Charles Dickens theme park
posted at 5:24 pm on May 26, 2007 by Allahpundit
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Can you handle the adventure?
Workers slaved round-the-clock this week so a £62 million theme park about the life of Charles Dickens was ready for its grand opening on Friday…
Dickens World will include the largest themed dark boat ride in Europe and the first 4D animatronics show in Britain…
The theme park had been due to open to the public last month but was called off just days before the ‘grand opening’ when life-sized robotic models of the author’s characters, including the Ghost of Christmas Future, had not been shipped in from the US…
Its attractions are set in Victorian Britain – the best and worst of times of the British Empire, when this country ruled much of the globe but many of its population lived in extreme poverty.
Its dark water ride, called Great Expectations, takes people on a 12-minute long ride across the rooftops of Victorian London before plummeting down in the only knuckle-ride of the park into the Thames estuary then on down to Chatham.
Some of the staff will be dressed as rat catchers. The Beeb has photos.
Update: Meanwhile, in Roswell, New Mexico…
Businesses here have been cashing in on the UFO craze for years — paintings and replicas of UFOs and space aliens adorn downtown buildings, and even the McDonald’s and Wal-Mart are UFO- and space-themed.
Now city officials want to take it to another level with a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction.
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All cool if built with all private money and people are willing to pay admission. What private people do with their money is their biz as long as they don’t try to mess up the ‘hood.
StuLongIsland on May 26, 2007 at 5:29 PM
Do they sell cider at this park?
James on May 26, 2007 at 5:33 PM
I can’t wait to go on the Paupers of the Victorian ride! (Soon to be made into a bunch of major motion pictures.)
Jim Treacher on May 26, 2007 at 5:33 PM
Now city officials want to take it to another level with a UFO-themed amusement park,
“Mommy, Mommy! I wanna ride on the Anal Probe!!”
harrison on May 26, 2007 at 5:40 PM
Talk about “Great Expectations”!
I’ll be here all week, try the veal.
Krydor on May 26, 2007 at 5:42 PM
I’ll take a tot of gin, please!
Obviously, creating a park celebrating Charles Dickens is racist and sexist, and should be shut down immediately.
/sarcasm off
jaleach on May 26, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Obviously, Michael Jackson had the shipment diverted to the Nevada desert to provide components for his giant robotic laser-eyed wandering self.
James on May 26, 2007 at 5:52 PM
The writing is on the wall for the forlorn tilt-a-whirl.
Buck Turgidson on May 26, 2007 at 6:04 PM
This is just weird. Why on earth would any Brit want to go there? The real places are practically just around the corner.
I’ve been to England once, for the whole of May in 1976, and for an Anglophile like me, it was wonderful. I’m sure things have changed there since then, but sometimes England did seem like one gigantic theme park itself – Englandland, as the March 1975 National Lampoon called it, IIRC in a parody of a theme park poster.
JimC on May 26, 2007 at 6:16 PM
P.T.Barnum once quoted.
There’s a “WHAT?” born every minute.
abinitioadinfinitum on May 26, 2007 at 6:18 PM
Park ok, roller costers ok, umm I think I’ll skip the tour with the probes though.
- The Cat
MirCat on May 26, 2007 at 6:35 PM
I sure do hope Rhode Island takes the hint: I can’t wait to visit H. P. Lovecraftland!
You have to admit, “The Call of Cthulu” is a rollercoaster simply demanding to be built.
Blacklake on May 26, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Yea, the Rats in the Walls attraction should be pretty cool.
eeyore on May 26, 2007 at 7:09 PM
Nobody leaves the ride alive?
Nonfactor on May 26, 2007 at 7:10 PM
Alive, maybe. Sane, never.
Blacklake on May 26, 2007 at 7:45 PM
The UFO park rollercoaster will have specially made seats to simulate probing. It will be a bumpy ride.
hadsil on May 26, 2007 at 8:20 PM
I’m sure the Muslims that now infest UK will have a good time at the Ghost of Christmas Past fun house.
Hening on May 26, 2007 at 9:16 PM
A Muslim Brit waiting to get rogered by a Christmas ghost with a jolly old blood puddin’
Hening on May 26, 2007 at 9:20 PM
Makes about as much sense as Dollywood.
RightOFLeft on May 26, 2007 at 9:37 PM
Makes about as much sense as Dollywood.
… or AutoWorld in Flint.
freebird on May 26, 2007 at 9:46 PM
A Dickens themepark?
Memo to self: avoid the cafeteria.
Slublog on May 26, 2007 at 9:57 PM
Gee…..can’t wait to see the ride where Oliver asks for ‘more please’.
Limerick on May 26, 2007 at 11:14 PM
(You beat me to it.) Actually that ride uses Pink Floyd’s “Brick In The Wall” song as background music.
Mojave Mark on May 27, 2007 at 12:39 AM
(1) I’m not getting it. I love Dickens. Wait, is this because the park is classy, like a clam-shaped bath is classy? Because it’s posh, like a fur-covered convertible is posh?
(2) Not steppin’ foot in Lovecraft Land. I can’t afford the medication it would take to live a normal life afterward.
And (3)
Not fair! You totally robbed me of my opportunity to make my own probing joke!
Axe on May 27, 2007 at 2:01 AM
I’m just not sophistocated enough, ’cause I’m there. I mean, if I’m ever there, I’m there. Unless I’m missing some major point. Can I get a T-shirt? I hope they have some sort of confectionary that involves Marley’s chains …
Axe on May 27, 2007 at 2:12 AM
I don’t think anyone ever told them that the fourth dimension is time. What, are animatronic puppets based on people from your past and future going to jump out at you and sing the chimmneysweeper song from Mary Poppins?
Anyway, that UFO theme park actually sounds cool. I’d go, if I ever found myself out in Arizona.
Wolfman on May 27, 2007 at 2:58 AM
Oh, you can have some. You just can’t have some more.
And if NH even thinks of a LovecraftLand, then there needs to be a theme park for Poe. The only question being it’s location; Boston, where he was born, Richmond, where he was raised (and where The Raven was composed), or New York where he did the bulk of his writing.
Freelancer on May 27, 2007 at 5:31 AM
You’d miss it by several hundred miles, it being in Roswell, NM. Just do yourself a favor, don’t go in the Spring or early Summer, the winds through eastern NM are incessant and unpleasant.
Freelancer on May 27, 2007 at 5:34 AM
I wonder what they’d have in a Dickens haunted house attraction. The Big Book Of British Smiles?
Coronagold on May 27, 2007 at 11:31 AM
I can finally go and see “Estella” ?? Although, I think her name is now Clinton.
gary on May 27, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Wow…even The London Dungeon is 17pound 50. That is pretty much the same thing as what they’re describing.
Sounds like London Dungeon’s gonna have to lower it’s rates.
tickleddragon on May 27, 2007 at 2:34 PM
ya Know?
Roswell’s a HOOT!
ANd while yer there go 200 miles south to Carlsbad Caverns!
Make it a weekend!
(No wasteland Man is not affiliated with the New Mexico Tourist trade in any way.)
-Wasteland Man.
WastelandMan on May 27, 2007 at 6:01 PM
Agreed, I have family in Roswell, and it’s a very pleasant visit. Ruidoso to the west for quarter horse racing, Carslbad Caverns to the south, and the best steaks available anywhere at the Cattle Baron on south Main. The Sunday brunch at the Sally Port Inn (Best Western) is a dream buffet.
The two UFO museums are both rathouse tourist traps, for suckers only. Lots of tinfoil, shiny plastic, and ‘little green men’ dolls.
Freelancer on May 27, 2007 at 8:09 PM
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