For the second year running, Paultons Park brought together Theme Park enthusiasts from all over the country to experience their fantastic ‘Theme Park Super Fans Day’ on May 17th, 2025. The park was kind enough to invite us down to check out the opening of a new attraction, go behind the scenes on some of their major rides, along with getting to experience exciting announcements regarding the future of the park – so join us in rounding up what was a memorable day.
With the 2024 Super Fan event being held to commemorate the opening of the Splash Lagoon log flume in the Lost Kingdom area of the park, the return of the event in 2025 would also bring with it a new attraction, Ghostly Manor, giving its first public rides alongside the park opening for the day. This attraction is located near the entrance of the park, making a stark first impression with its spooky-themed queue and facade coming together to bring new life to an area that previously felt quite empty.
The theming is a definite strength of this attraction, with plenty of high-quality set pieces being dotted around once you enter the queue line – from haunted swings, talking paintings, and floating chairs to lush greenery, it truly feels like no stone was left unturned regarding the presentation of Ghostly Manor, which was lovely to see. Paired with a thrilling soundtrack to set the tone, it’s certainly atmospheric and enchanting. Guests then enter the interior queue line through a facade depicting the imposing, worn-down manor to be greeted by the main character of our story: Dr Kinley.
The interior queue line takes a more sci-fi approach, with plenty of chemicals and neon green toxic tubes being locked away in cabinets to further the immersion. Brave souls who daringly enter Dr. Kinley’s haunted house soon learn the reason for their summoning via screens in the second room, where we are informed of the manor’s supernatural tendencies involving mysterious artefacts coming to life and eerie apparitions lurking around. Being an interactive dark ride, the aim of the game here is to work as a team to explore Dr Kinley’s mansion and contain the spirits using his ‘Phantom Phasers’, gaining points as you do so.
Following a third and final room, which features a screen displaying boarding instructions and a dimly lit office, guests board a first for the UK ride system. Ghostly Manor utilises the Mack Rides Gameplay Theatre system, which is an impressive use of limited space within the building that used to house their 4D cinema becoming a surprisingly long dark ride attraction. Guests rotate around the full turntable twice, however, the individual cars you are sitting in can also spin around, meaning there are scenes throughout on both sides of the ride to double its length. Throughout these scenes, a mix of screens and physical sets tell the story, whilst also providing the opportunity for guests to shoot at the different spirits to increase their score count. The theming during the physical sets encapsulates are of a high standard, with a highlight being the animatronic plant head that comes out to snap at guests. It would be nice to see some more theming around the screens to cover the edges, along with some additional work to the transitions between scenes to make it more immersive.
Ending your journey through the manor, guests can find their scores displayed on a screen both on the ride and just outside the exit corridor, which adds a competitive nature. Overall, Ghostly Manor is a unique attraction fitting well into the park it’s located in by striking a good balance with the target audience. It also offers something completely different, with a dark ride being a great step towards expanding the variety of attractions. It’s not the best dark ride in the world, but that doesn’t dispute the fact that it is a fun experience and a positive step for Paultons Park.
Moving on from Ghostly Manor, we were able to experience a complimentary day at the park. Whilst Paultons is undoubtedly known for its Peppa Pig World area, there’s plenty else on offer for the whole family, with a range of over 70 rides and attractions across five themed worlds. Paultons Park evidently has a lot of love and care put into it, resulting in pristine presentation park-wide. Combined with great ride reliability, guest experience being placed at the forefront of your day, and good operations, it’s therefore a very pleasant place to spend your time. Naturally, this meant we took full advantage of our day to do many of the attractions (with the Cat-O-Pillar Coaster in the back row being the obvious standout), enjoy the delicious food offerings, explore the themed areas, see some animals, and also chill out in the park’s many different green spaces.
The end of the park’s standard operational day saw us make our way over to what is currently the newest themed area, Tornado Springs, to check in for the evening portion of the event at the Route 83 Diner. Once checked in with our Theme Park Super Fan stickers, the park hosted four different behind-the-scenes opportunities on Storm Chaser, including watching a train being taken off the circuit on the unique elevator-style transfer track in the station, and also Flight of the Pterosaur and Cobra, which provided the chance to explore the ride areas. We were also allowed to take a sneak peek behind the construction walls of their upcoming 2026 development, giving us a rare chance to see the groundwork of the project with further details being revealed shortly.
Once the tours had come to an end, the park reopened Storm Chaser and the rest of the attractions located in Tornado Springs for 90 minutes of exclusive ride time on some of the park’s best offerings, with Ghostly Manor of course joining as the star of the show for the day. Getting to ride Ghostly Manor multiple times as well as enjoying Storm Chaser, one of the best family coasters in the UK, without leaving our seats was one of the many highlights of the evening, and Tornado Springs is simply a gorgeous area in itself, which we were able to appreciate even more with a complimentary buffet dinner provided by the park in the Route 83 Diner.
Following the exclusive ride time, we were ushered over to a stage adjacent to Tornado Springs for a presentation from Lawrence and James Mancey, who play a significant role in the operation of the park, given their family’s ownership. A recap of the projects announced at the previous event in 2024 kicked things off, including the construction process for Ghostly Manor, the park’s stride towards sustainability via the installation of solar panels covering a section of the car park to contribute to powering Tornado Springs, their plans for lodge-style accommodation (though with no proposed opening date given), and also the installation of a 5G phone mast – all exciting stuff, of course, but the main event would be the official announcement of their upcoming 2026 area themed to Vikings.
Valgard: Realm of the Vikings was announced to be awakening at Paultons Park in 2026, being its largest area to date. This will open adjacent to the existing Lost Kingdom area of the park, debuting with a Gerstlauer Eurofighter coaster known as Drakon, the park’s most thrilling coaster to date, alongside a 12m tall ART Engineering Wild Swing aptly named Vild Swing, a first for the UK and also providing a family option in the area with its tamer ride cycle and 90cm height restriction. The park will be saying goodbye to Magma, their SBF Visa family drop tower as part of this project; however, they did tease that it will be remaining in the UK elsewhere. Rides aren’t the only thing for guests to enjoy within Valgard; accompanying this will be a Viking-themed playground and a brand-new Nordik-themed dining hall, allowing guests to feast like true warriors.
Drakon is the headlining attraction, which will aim to broaden the audience at the park. Its 23m / 75.5-foot tall vertical lift hill and beyond-vertical drop will appeal to parents, older children, and teens, whereas the rest of the park is currently more suitable for the whole family. Drakon marks the first custom layout for the park, and, being a Gerstlauer, it will intertwine with the other Gerstlauer coaster in the park, Cobra, which is receiving a reimagining of its own into Raven to be incorporated into Valgard and therefore fit its surroundings. Following the beyond-vertical plunge on Drakon, you will rise into a twisted airtime hill through the centre of Raven’s first drop and helix elements, before traversing further hills, twists, and two inversions – another first for the park. Whilst capacity is expected to be on the lower side with smaller trains, Paultons Park’s queues are fast-moving due to efficient operations and the lack of a fast pass system, meaning this is unlikely to cause them issues.
Concept imagery was also presented during the speech to give a vision of Valgard, giving us an idea of what to expect. In classic Paultons Park fashion, Valgard will continue the park’s streak of high-quality presentation, as seen with their newer investments like Tornado Springs and Lost Kingdom. Paultons has claimed that they will be putting their twist on the Vikings’ theme, which is quite a common one for theme parks to have, and this is also apparent in the concept, providing some details that can be gleaned. The wooden buildings look to be grand, which will play a large role in immersing you in the realm, alongside stunning landscaping, paving, and appropriately detailed theming elements such as spire-style wooden fencing, a wooden water wheel and a campfire, giving us a lot to look forward to. We can also determine the colour schemes of the new rides – Cobra will be repainted green as it becomes Raven, and Drakon will transform the skyline with its striking red paint.
Whilst appearing intimidating, the Zero-G stall and downwards roll inversions will aim to introduce a younger audience to the sensation of being upside-down, with Drakon also boasting a 1.25m height restriction. This indicates a promising future for the park, especially as they move forward into becoming a family resort, and is a great step for them to be taking at this stage in their expansion. The prospect of more thrilling additions also opens the door to speculation about other thrilling coasters they might opt to invest in down the line, for example, following the Valgard announcement, the park played a further teaser video for what we might expect for 2027. This video, which includes plenty of references to water and waves, combined with the observation of Mack Rides ground pins on the site of the former Go Karts area, could suggest we might be seeing something along the lines of a Mack Rides water coaster in this location, which would be another good fit for the park given this new direction.
To bring the speech to a close, Lawrence and James undertook a Q&A session, answering some questions to give us some more insight into the park. Details were given about the new area and coaster, such as the use of over-the-shoulder restraints on Drakon to be more encouraging to smaller riders, similar to that of Defiance at Glenwood Caverns. As the crowds dissipated following the finishing charity raffle, in which the park gave away coaster parts, artwork, park tickets, and park memorabilia, the event continued late into the evening as the park treated us to a silent disco party, which was a great way to bring one of the most memorable park days of the year to a close.
A park will rarely involve enthusiasts in their process in this way, but when they do, it’s absolutely brilliant! A huge thank you to Paultons Park for being so welcoming and accommodating to everyone who attended, gifting us with some incredibly unique memories that we won’t forget. We hope this is something that can continue for many years to come as it’s a real highlight of the theme park season. See you next year for the opening of Valgard…
Did you have a good day at Paultons Park if you attended? Are you looking forward to Valgard and Drakon? Let us know via the Attraction Source social media channels!
