Confessions Of A Cred Addict

I won't lie, I've been wanting to write this post for a while now, but have always been slightly too ashamed to even bring myself to do it. So here goes nothing. Hi, my name is Jordan Middleton and I'm a cred addict. But what is that, I hear you cry? Well, you might actually be suffering from symptoms of this terrible affliction without even realising it. Essentially, a cred addict is somebody who is willing to go to extreme lengths to get a coaster credit. Whether it be doing something terribly embarrassing, crossing over to the other side of the world, paying a child to ride with you or any other such madness in between, a cred addict essentially is somebody who has absolutely no shame when it comes to grabbing as many sweet, sweet coaster credits as possible.

Now, I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be. That's partly due to the fact that I've nabbed almost all of the more shameful UK creds so it's not something I find myself doing as much now. But I have been known to do some entirely outrageous things in the past to get that coveted +1, and I thought I'd share some of my most embarrassing stories of my cred-whoring days with you today. Brace yourselves, this ain't gunna be pretty!

In 2016 I headed away to the Netherlands/Germany with CoasterForce for their annual Halloween trip Ghosterforce. The line-up of the trip was fab as always: Walibi Holland for FRIGHT NIGHTS, Phantasialand, Toverland and Efteling. Fab as it was, I couldn't help but notice through my endless hours scouring through Coast2Coaster that there were a ton of creds all around Holland just ripe for the picking. So of course, like any other same person, I hatched a plan to lock myself in eight extra creds by taking an extra holiday day and taking on the task of visiting a cluster of five parks in the east of the Netherlands to tick them off.

The parks included:
Slagharen
Hellendoorn
De Waarbeek
Julianatoren
Plopsa Indoor Coevorden

I'm very pleased to report that we managed to nab every available cred with zero spite. Well, if you ignore the £200 speeding fine we racked up from racing from park to park, but that's besides the point. We also timed our visits to each park and concluded that our shortest visit of this ridiculous day was to Plopsa Indoor Coevorden, a park which we spent a maximum of seven minutes. Yep.

Urgh, this is probably the most mortified I've ever been getting a cred. Which, when I think about it, is actually really vile from a customer service point of view because I was essentially shamed by the ogre of a ride operator. Let me set the scene - it's 2011, I'm living in Southampton whilst at uni and my housemates and I find ourselves with a free day, so we decide to pop to Portsmouth to have some fun on Clarence Pier. All the time of course I had the ulterior motive of nabbing the two coaster creds that awaited me there, but I did my best to cover the fact that this was the true reason behind wanting to visit.

We arrived, and immediately headed to the Skyways coaster, a Galaxi Zyklon affair which, whilst not exactly a white knuckle thrill ride, was easily a generally acceptable ride for adults to be riding, no questions asked. I had bought enough tokens for a ride on this and a ride on the entirely more shameful Speedy Coaster which sat in the Zyklon's shadow - a proper kiddie coaster through and through but not exactly the worst thing I'd ever ridden.

Anyway, my housemates knew about my weird hobby so they hung back whilst I joined the queue of excited seven year olds, chatting away to distract from the fact that what I was doing was obviously a bit weird but not the worst thing ever, when all of a sudden the ride op slams the gate in my face.

"THIS ONE'S FOR KIDS ONLY"

Now, knowing other people in the community had ridden this cred no questions asked, I wasn't having it. I argued back that I wanted to ride it, he insisted I ride the Zyklon instead, I told him I'd already done that one and now I wanted to go on this one. All the while the train of growingly impatient children and their bewildered parents waiting off ride stared at the 21 year old emo girl arguing with the beast of a ride op about why she shouldn't be allowed to ride the kiddie coaster.

But that wasn't the end of it. Oh no.

I walked away, and the ride op seemed smugly satisfied with himself. But I wasn't about to give up that easily, what kind of cred addict do you take me for? Can you guess what I did next?

Yep. I asked to speak to the manager.

I explained the situation to him, that I was an enthusiast, counted coasters, wanted to ride etc. He asked if I wanted my money back and I replied no, I just want the cred! He then personally escorted me back to the ride and told the ogre, exasperatedly as if he couldn't believe he was having to do this, to just let me ride. And on board I climbed, past the ride op who told me he "couldn't believe" I'd just done that, and proceeded to send me round, on my own, for three laps of shame. Worth it.

In a similar vein to the about cred swipe, in 2015 Conor and I decided upon a little Easter jaunt to Germany to pop in to Phantasialand and Movie Park Germany. Seeing as we had some bank holidays to take advantage of and noticing a few choice clusters of creds hanging around nearby it was settled - the day before joining the rest of our group we'd take a drive across Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, sweeping up all the creds we could find along with way!

We started off with a pop into Plopsa Indoor Hasselt in Belgium, hopped over the border into the Netherlands for De Valkenier, Kinderstaad Heerlen (yes that IS a children's play park - DON'T JUDGE ME) and Mondo Verde before finishing off at Rocolinos Kinderwelt in Germany. Not only were these parks spread across three different countries, there was not a proper coaster among them and mostly consisted of hideously shameful kiddie creds. We also peppered the road trip with a few alpine coasters along the way to take the edge off of the shame slightly!

And breathe. Damn, feels good to get that all off my chest. And now you all know how insane I truly am.

Talk later xoxo,

4 comments

  1. When on holiday in Budapest I made a trip involving over an hour on a bus, then almost another hour hiking up a huge hill to get to an adventure center to ride the bobsleigh coaster there. A long way for one credit, but I did get to explore two beautiful towns on the journey I wouldn't have otherwise seen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a great plus to this mad hobby - chasing creds takes you to some weird and wonderful places!

      Delete
  2. Driving from Seattle to Silverwood I saw two 'credits'. One at Remlinger Farm, Carnation and one at Country Mercantile, Pasco. Both were kiddie type coasters. I rang beforehand to ensure they were running.

    I did Remlinger Farm OK and before leaving rang County Mercantile to check it was open. Yes, they told me. I drove down there and found the coaster and their fun fair rides closed. Arggh!!

    I went into the shop but couldn't find anyone to talk to so I rang their number and told them I had rang earlier and was told their coaster was open and had driven down to ride it. They said that was wrong but they said to go to the coaster and they would run the ride. I headed over to their kiddie coaster and the operator said 'where your child?' When I said it was for me he was flabbergasted. However, he switched on the power, did a test run and then allowed me to ride. I was beaming all the rest of that day.

    Just 31 riders on Coaster Count and only two other Brits.
    What a strange hobby where riding an oscure kiddie coaster in the middle of nowhere gives you as much satisfaction as the latest blockbuster ride.

    ReplyDelete