So as Unfriended goes on bitches and backstabbers are revealed, true colours are made apparent, friendships are torn apart and of course, reputations are shattered as each damning piece of evidence as to who these characters really are is posted on their Facebook walls for everyone they know to see. And this is where my only gripe with the film is. The ending. For a horror praised as innovative and creative, the ended was groan-worthily predictable and left a bad taste in my mouth after what had been a deliciously nasty little tale. Surely the ultimate pay-off of a movie that plays with your peers’ perceptions of you is having them find out what an evil little prick you are, and having to deal with the consequences of that? Death, to me, seems like an easy way out whereas survival and endurance of everyone knowing is where the true horror comes.

I enjoyed Unfriended, it really tapped into that sense of unease we surely all feel when living our lives out online the way we do, and I relished the way director Leo Gabriadze twisted the knife into that unease and spattered its guts all over this wicked flick. Too close to the likes of The Blair Witch Project to be truly revolutionary in its filmmaking style and too drenched in 2015 zeitgeist to become a classic for me, but definitely worth a watch for something a little bit different.

Whenever people ask me about my travels the same questions pops up time and time again. How do you do it? People are always shocked at how often I go away, and how I can seemingly afford to do it so all the time, so I thought I would share a few of my holiday booking rituals with you all to spell out just how easy it is to be able to travel the world!

Let's start off with the basics. Where do you want to go? If you are a coaster enthusiast like me my first port of call for where I want to go is Coast2Coaster.com. This is a website that has every rollercoaster in the world plotted on a map, and so is a great way to gauge out certain areas that have little 'pockets' of theme parks that would be visitable in one go. I use this as a base to find out which coasters are at substantial parks (ie, parks worth spending time in/money on) and which are just +1s that can possibly be picked up along the way.

All the rollercoasters in the UK!

Then I head to Google Maps and plot everything, and play about with my routes until I have the most desired one. Google Maps is a great tool because not only can you get a good idea of how far away all of your parks are from each other it also puts your trip into a wider geographical context, meaning you can now see if there are any non-park points of interest that you would like to incorporate. For example maybe there's a beautiful city nearby where you could have dinner after park operation hours. The way I do coaster trips is parks first, culture second, but I do always try and include a good mix of both to ensure I make the most of my trip.

Lastly, now that everything is plotted on a map and you know what attractions you'll be visiting, you can begin to arrange hotels by looking at larger towns/cities along the way and deciding which would be the most convenient to stay at. For longer drives like my trips to America I usually try to find a hotel half way along the route. For example if there is a 3 hour drive between parks I'll try and find somewhere to stay that is 1.5 hours away from both, making the drives more manageable.

Where possible, I like to stay in resort hotels. I usually find the best approach to getting a good deal on a resort hotel is to ring them directly and talking to an actual agent, as in my experience they are much more likely to work something fun out for you/let you know about any extras available. Also, I have found that when larger groups are involved bigger discounts can be had.

Hotel Colosseo at Europa Park is where I'll be staying on my next Europa Park trip!

But of course resort hotels aren't always available and so I turn to trusty old Booking.com. If the park is well known enough sometimes you can just put the park name straight in and Booking will give you a list of hotels nearby. If not, just type in the name of the town/city you want to stay in and choose which hotel meets your requirements. I usually make sure mine have the following: parking, breakfast, wifi and a rating of at least 7.0/10. And ALWAYS READ THE REVIEWS. I've had some very near misses with almost booking terrible hotels because I almost forgot to read the reviews. They can tell you more about the hotel in one sentence than any information Booking can give you!

How are you getting to your destination and what is the best mode of transport? Obviously places like France and Belgium and to a further extent Holland and Germany are really easily reachable by simply driving over. Yes this may involve some undesirable ferry crossing times but in my experience it's never as bad as you think it's going to be, and with a ferry crossing from Dover-Calais being a standard £60 return that can be as cheap as £15 per person, which is stupidly good value.

Alternatively, and usually more often, I'll fly. The good thing about having plotted your route on a map already is that the lesser known airports near to your destinations suddenly make themselves known, and I have found that these places are usually the ones Ryanair and EasyJet sell off for peanuts. I recently got return flights to Copenhagen for £1 each way by keeping an eye on the Ryanair sales. It's just a case of checking regularly and pouncing when something good is announced. Even when the sales aren't on, travelling in Spring (April/May time when the parks begin to open) and late August/September usually provides really cheap flight options. So not only will the parks be really quiet but you'll also have paid next to nothing to be there, winner!

Ryanair's Fare Finder is a great way of seeing when the cheapest flights are available

Getting around during my trip I will always opt for a car. Not only is it the most faff-free and direct option it also provides a place for bags to be dumped during the day. I usually use AutoEurope or HolidayAutos to get the best deal on a car (for some reason these two are always substantially cheaper than other car hire sites).

Annual Passes are your friend. Whether you're doing a big US trip or a mini-trip in Europe, the power of the Annual Pass is one that resonates. In my big trips to the US I've benefitted from both Six Flags and Cedar Fair passes, but it is always a good idea to look into other parks that may be affiliated with each other to (eg Dollywood and Silver Dollar City) as often these parks bundle in with other attractions, such as local shows, in order to provide some kind of deal that may be worth your while.

In Europe lots of parks work with each other to provide amazing discounts. For example the Plopsa Pass that I recently purchased not only provides access to all Plopsa parks but also up to 40% off of big European parks like Phantasialand and Efteling, and was only about £50! Alternatively, the Europa Park pass also offers entry to Efteling, Phantasialand and Liseberg for free, a pass at Movie Park Germany would also allow you entry to Parque Warner Madrid, Tusenfryd and Bobbejaanland and a pass from Efteling gets you free access to Phantasialand, Europa Park, Port Aventura and Liseberg, among many more. It can be a bit of a headache trying to work out which pass is best for you for the year, especially if you don't know what trips you are doing yet but it's definitely worth trying to gauge some kind of plan considering the savings you can make! Also, always good to keep in mind that most annual passes will also give you some sort of discount on park food/merchandise!

I hope I made that clear and simple! So no, I'm not some sort of millionaire with endless amounts of cash available to jet off whenever I like, I simply keep an eye out for the best deal and arrange my trips to make the least amount of impact on my pocket. Please feel free to ask me any questions if you're planning a theme park based holiday, I'll be more than glad to help!

Thanks for reading,

Although we technically rode 3....things that could dubiously be classified as coasters, only one of these was actually on my list of legitimate coasters I needed to tick off of my list. Firstly we headed to a gorgeous little town called Alresford that we had been informed has something similar to Telepherique at Parc Saint Paul, a ride that appears time and time again in coaster enthusiasts 'cred-or-not?' discussions. So we thought we'd go and check it out.


We spent the rest of the day wandering around the very English town of Winchester. It was previously the capital city of England and as such is filled with lots of gorgeous architecture from churches and cathedrals to Tudor houses. Considering I lived in Southampton for three years I never actually visited this town which is so weird because it is so up my street.








So after a most unwelcome visit to Adventure Wonderland we hit the road west towards our final destination of Weymouth. We started off with a visit to the FAB SeaLife. It's the best SeaLife because it's more like an actual park as opposed to a warehouse filled with various fish. The areas are pleasant and dotted around are loads of little sheds each with a different sealife exhibit, interactive rock pools, children's play parks and water play areas, a small 'funfair' area and A LOG FLUME THAT GOES THROUGH A CROCODILE ENCLOSURE! This is just the best thing ever! And the boats are little crocodiles <3 And the flume is actually pretty good, you get a good soaking for sure. I don't know why SeaLife haven't tried to replicate this model in more locations because it is clearly the superior version.
















Luckily, as the weather had been threatening downpours all weekend, the first drop fell as we got back into our car at Cerne Abbas and the skies opened as we made our way home. So that was my May Bank Holiday weekend, I managed to tick another coaster off of my list and tick a few more boxes on Coaster-Count as well as having some good old-fashioned seaside touristy fun.

As always, thanks for reading! Annoyingly a few more new coasters are opening in the UK this summer, so I think I'm down to around 8 left to ride, but I do have plans to visit all of them so fingers crossed.

It's a bit late this month but I've had lots going on, so better late than never I guess, here's some things I got up to in April!


1.I ticked something off of my bucket list. OK it's nothing major like visiting the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls, but I went to go and see the Turtle and Tiger Magic Mountain, otherwise know as the 'walking rollercoaster'. It's very weird in that the shape of it from afar gives the illusion of speed then when you get closer and see steps it really creates this awesome juxtaposition in your head. Shame the views from the top aren't that great, but it's fun to have finally seen it.


2. I revisited my favourite theme park. Now this changes with the wind but my most recent visit to Phantasialand confirmed that it probably is my favourite. And with Kulgheim just around the corner it looks like I'm due a couple of revisits next year too! And speaking of Klugheim...

3. The trailer for something awesome dropped for Phantasialand and I couldn't be more excited! OK, so after the excellence that is Helix part of me is wishing this was Mack and not Intamin, but still mega <3<3 for this. We saw a bit of construction on our most recent visit and it is HUGE. Plus it's going to have a dark ride section and I have every faith in Phantasialand to pull it off!

4. I took the new car abroad for the first time. I know we only went to Plopsaland which isn't like properly abroad as it is only one road from Calais, but it's given me a bit of a confidence boost to do a few more trips just by driving, something I never would have attempted with the Ka. And now we're set up with our EU car kit, did you know you need to have self-breathalyser kits in your car? So weird!

5. I recorded a podcast with Nick's ERT at Season Pass Podcast which can be heard here. Always great to have a geeky chat with somebody who doesn't look at you strangely and make excuses to leave!


6. We got a new bunny. Her name is Princess Fairy Fluffbutt because she's mega cute but also kind of bratty and naughty so thought the name matched her personality. Currently going through the task of bonding her with Priscilla which is a bit of a nightmare but I'm sure eventually they'll be best friends. Look at her cute little squishy face!

Alongside everything else I blogged about, that was my April! As always I'm mega busy in May already with lots of exciting things planned, which is weird because it'll be the first month of 2015 that I haven't hopped on a plane somewhere! Oh well, maybe something will pop up...Thanks for reading!